Imported actresses will be known to many of you simply because these last two terms you know how to pursue positive change.
Your courage will progress.
He was a serving officer in the Royal Air Force who has just taken up a new job you'll need somebody with to group in precise time for him.
I'm headquarters to group chief. Chief Air Engineer effort to for training and evaluation.
It's great. It's off the tongue. It tells you everything you need to know.
[INAUDIBLE] get better of sight.
And that's why all the questions are going to be clear about what you speak about today is what he was working on over the last few terms,
which is going to be published in our studies.
And the title, as you can see, is The Deception of Victory.
Our war is won or Lost in the Mind of the Observer.
Thanks to you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
As you said, what I'm going to talk about today is the perception of victory, how war is won or lost in the mind of the observer.
The more astute of you may have noticed that it's a slightly different subtitle than that advertised on the poster,
but be assured that I will be going on to Israel's recent experiences of winning and losing the narrative, and we'll come to that in my scope.
So I'm going to start with a quotation from Winston Churchill,
which he made on the 13th of May 1940, and this was from his blood, toil, tears and sweat speech.
You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word.
It is victory. And what Churchill did in a very eloquent turn of phrase was try and distil an unfathomably complex series of events,
the Second World War, into a binary outcome of victory or defeat.
And this is a very human trait. This is something that we like to do, no matter how ambiguous the outcome of war.
We like to assure ourselves of who has won and who has lost.
Who is the victor and who is the vanquished? And the Second World War is an example of a relatively decisive outcome.
But what about those conflicts where the outcome isn't quite as decisive?
And how do we measure victory? After all, war is not sport.
There is no scoreboard. There is no referee. There are frequently no rules.
And quite often the antagonists claim for very different spoils.
So how do we determine cognitively which side has been victorious?
Now we're going to the present day. Many of our leaders would have us believe that victory is anachronistic, that it's a relic of a bygone age.
And actually it's more important now to focus on tangible outcomes rather than something as outmoded as victory.
And recently, David Cameron has been accused of trying to redefine what victory means in order to
ameliorate what has been described to some as a complete and utter disaster in Afghanistan.
Now, despite what our leaders today would want us to think, victory resonates.
The idea of victory is important to people, and it is a very powerful way for people to make sense of the complex situation.
So it's still important. People will continue to use terms such as victory and defeat.
But how is it determined? How do people decide how two groups of observers decide which side has won and lost in war?
And how does one group's perception become the dominant perception?
We're not helped in the theory of war and warfare wasn't very vague terminology.
So we often read words such as victory, success to win, and conversely, defeat to lose and failure or vanquished.
Now, many writers will use these words interchangeably without defining what they mean by any of them.
Other writers will use them to me, something different things, but again will not define what they mean by their use of the terminology.
Also, even when writers define what they mean by victory,
they actually often find something which doesn't according to the popular perception of the outcome.
So a writer will argue that such and such as won in someone say war,
but actually that is meaningless because the popular perception is the converse outcome.
What is clear is after every conflict, a dominant perception tends to ensue.
And even when it Reuters a revisionist and they argue against perception,
they often do so in the knowledge and stating that they are arguing against the dominant perception.
And in so doing, they actually reinforce the dominant perception.
So for the purposes of this talk, I'm going to refer to the dominant perception of the outcome of war as the perceived outcome.
What's also clear is I hope to demonstrate in my seminar is that this perceived outcome is important in matters,
is not just public opinion because it actually has the power to influence downstream events.
And I'm hoping to demonstrate that the perceived outcome has the power to influence tangible reality,
perhaps as much, if not more so than objective reality.
So the scope of this talk is in two parts. The first part is in terms of what does it mean to win in war?
And I'm going to use the four levels of war, which I'll describe.
You know, trying to send whether objective success, any one of those four levels generally engendered this perception of victory.
So whether we can win or whether we can identify causality between objective success and the ensuing perception,
I'll then talk you through my proposed model to try and rationalise the outcome of war,
to try and rationalise the linkage, if you like, between a perceived outcome and the objective outcome.
And then I'll move on to part two with my comparative case study. And this is where I'm going to talk about the Second Lebanon War and the Gaza War.
And the reason I've chosen those two wars is because they're relatively contemporary.
They both occurred within the last ten years. They both involved Israel as the one, the main antagonists, and they both involve similar antagonists.
They both involve non-state actors, Hamas and Hezbollah.
And obviously, they occurred in a similar geopolitical environment.
So I'm using those to compare because they are very similar in terms of many of the the underlying metrics.
What's also very important about these conflicts is they have very different perceived outcomes.
The Second Lebanon War was perceived or has been perceived as someone argue, a catastrophic fate for Israel.
But there are different views. And the Gaza war generally is perceived by commentators as being a great success or a victory for Israel.
And I'm going to show it despite those perceived outcomes.
Objective reality indicates that the strategic reality after those two conflicts was largely comparable.
You could actually argue that it was more favourable after the Second Lebanon War.
So there's a dichotomy there. And I'll go on to talk about Israel's varying approaches during those two wars.
And I'm hoping to describe to you how Israel engendered a perception of victory following the Gaza war
and how their approach conspired to engender a perception of failure after the Second Lebanon War.
So firstly, what does it mean to win in war?
Well, I'm going to go back to our foremost theorist of war and warfare, Kabul conflict.
And he said quite unambiguously that victory was the preservation of one's own fighting force and the destruction of the enemies.
That's very clear. It's unambiguous. Now, you know, the discussion needed.
And obviously, if he was right, that would be the end of my seminar.
But I don't think it is right now because actually the chances in the wars of today and tomorrow of an antagonist being destroyed are very low.
Israel could destroy Hamas. They couldn't destroy Hezbollah.
The coalition forces today cannot destroy al-Qaida because these groups are
based on an idea that power derives from an idea which cannot be destroyed.
And so we have to look for some other definition of victory.
Also in the wars of today and tomorrow are antagonists are very unlikely to acquiesce to their own fate.
Hamas and Hezbollah, they didn't surrender either.
Will not surrender. The Taliban will not surrender. These organisations wish to claim their own victory no matter what the objective outcome is,
because it's important for them to have to for their supporters to view them as being successful.
So we can't rely on a Nanga antagonist surrendering in many of the wars of today.
Also, no transnational body is able willing to arbitrate.
We have bodies such as the UN. However, they do not arbitrate between who is won or lost in war.
So as we can see, victory in the conflicts of today and tomorrow is the immutable, divisive and very subjective.
So how do groups of observers decide which side in war has been victorious?
We can't rely on transactional bodies to tell us. We can't rely on antagonists themselves to tell us.
Then we have to make our own minds up. And this is exactly what observers do.
They make their own minds up based on what they see, what they hear, and what they read.
So surely you would think that the perceived outcome, people's perceptions of who wins and loses in war, are based on some form of objective success.
Clearly, you would think that if an antagonist views being successful objectively, ergo they will be viewed as the victor.
However, history is replete with examples where this is not the case.
So I'm going to look at four levels of war, which is the structure that we usually use to evaluate war.
And I'm going to see I'm going to demonstrate that actually you can achieve success objectively at any one
of these levels of war and yet still be perceived as having lost or having been defeated or having failed.
So I'm going to start with a tactical level of war. This is really the lowest level of war.
This is war on the ground. I'm going to use the definition which has been supplied by British Defence Doctrine
and British Defence Doctrine defines the tactical level of war as where formations,
units and individuals confront an opponent or situation with in the joint operational area.
So this is very much about the physicality of fighting. This is where troops, airmen and maritime components fight physically.
And this is very closely related to the operational level of war, which I'm going to look at at the same time.
And that's defined as the level at which campaigns are planned, conducted and sustained.
So, again, is the the military contribution.
Now, you would think that the secret fighting force, the chiefs, the most favourable outcome would be deemed as having been victorious in war.
However, Colin Grey in his book Another Bloody Century, exhorts us to remember Indochina, recall Vietnam and do not forget Algeria,
where in all three cases the United States and France were very clearly successful at the tactical
and operational levels of war and yet have very clearly been deemed as having been defeated.
These have all been perceived as defeats, despite the United States winning almost every engagement from an objective point of view in Vietnam.
So clearly, success lies somewhere else within the four levels of war.
Clearly, in order to be viewed as the victim, in order to be viewed as being successful, we have to look for objective success elsewhere.
So let's move up and let's have a look at the military strategic level of war.
Now, British Defence Doctrine defines this as the military contribution,
as part of an integrated approach to the achievement of national policy goals.
So this is looking at all levels of government power, and it's looking at the military contribution to those levers.
So surely if our military were an antagonist, were to achieve objective success at military strategic level war and achieve their military ends.
Surely then they would be perceived as having succeeded or having been victorious in war.
But again, this is simply not the case. And history gives us plenty of examples where this is so.
Most recently in war in Afghanistan,
we can see that the military contribution from a military strategic point of view was actually phenomenally successful.
The military objective initially was to topple the Taliban so that Afghanistan would be no safe haven for al Qaeda.
And this was achieved in short order.
In fact, by November 2001, the Taliban, having fought their last stand, if you like, in Kandahar, were toppled from power.
They constituted no authority within Afghanistan.
And shortly thereafter, in December, al Qaeda fought its last main battle within Tora Bora, back at Tora Bora.
So by the end of 2001, the Taliban and al Qaeda effectively either been disrupted or removed from Afghanistan.
And it was only after that point, after an interim administration had been set up and effectively coalition
forces were supporting another constituted authority that an insurgency began.
And ever since late 2001, after which Taliban and al Qaeda were suppressed in 2003, the insurgency began.
And it's really 2003 onwards way for the insurgency rather than war in the classical sense.
So actually, from a military strategic point of view, it's been very successful in Afghanistan,
certainly in achieving the initial military objectives.
But despite that, the war in Afghanistan is likely to be perceived, I would argue, as a failure for the coalition forces.
Now, we can see here from recent texts on the subject which certainly reinforce that view.
So we've got losing small wars.
The British military failure in Iraq and Afghanistan and war against the Taliban, which holds the subtitle Why it All Went Wrong in Afghanistan.
Not Did it go wrong in Afghanistan? Why it went wrong, obviously insinuating that we all agree that it has indeed gone wrong.
So we can see the success of the military strategic level of war again, does not necessarily engender a perception of victory.
So let's look a little higher. Let's look at the highest level of war.
Let's look at the grand strategic level of war. And it certainly makes sense that if you were to achieve your political ends,
your political goals, then surely you would be deemed as having achieved success in war.
And British Defence Doctrine defines this at the level at which national resources are allocated to achieve government policy goals.
And of course,
conflicts have said who himself said the war is a continuation of policy by the means we never go to war simply to destroy our opponents.
We go towards achieve something political. And surely you would argue that were we to achieve those political ends,
we would be perceived as having been successful no matter what the military, the tactical, the operational outcomes were.
But again, history provides us with examples whereby success at the grand strategic level of war still does not engender a perception of victory.
And a good example is the Russo-Japanese War of 1980 495.
Here, Japan fought a modern European army and navy in the form of.
Imperial Russia and Japan have only recently modernised among European lines and were very much considered to be the underdog.
However, European powers were surprised and somewhat horrified when Japan was successful.
From an objective point of view. Both the tactical level and the operational level of level of war,
and also from a military strategic point of view and indeed from a grand strategic point of view, Japan actually achieved its war aims.
It exceeded what it originally hoped in many ways to extract from it here.
Russia. Russia withdrew from Manchuria.
They ceded Port Stanley to Japan, and also Russia recognised that Korea lay within the Japanese sphere of influence.
Now, this, you would argue, is a great outcome for Japan.
However, it wasn't to be the case in Japan itself, and in fact, all levels of Japanese society were extremely discontent, contented with this outcome.
So much so that there was rioting in many major cities in Japan, including Tokyo.
And there was even a march on the Imperial Palace itself.
The reason for this malcontent was that it was perceived by Japanese society that the cost paid by Japan during the war was
so great that it wasn't properly recompensed by Russia in terms of financial reparations and territorial acquisitions.
So in effect, in Japan, Japanese people felt it had been shortchanged.
They felt as though they'd been condemned to victory. And it was it felt like a defeat for many Japanese people.
In fact, in Yokohama, it was said that only two people celebrated victory and they were both Frenchmen.
Well, this is about the French. I'm not sure.
So here we can see, even at the grand strategic level of war, even when you achieve what you set out to achieve,
you don't necessarily engender a perception of victory amongst some groups of observers.
So where does that leave us? We've been through every level of war,
and we can see from historical examples that success at any one of those levels of war does not necessarily result in a perception of having won,
at least by some groups of observers. And we can see, certainly in the case of the recent Japanese war,
but that perception is hugely important because that perception in that case resulted in civil breakdown.
So what then does engender perception of victory?
And this is what I'm hoping to answer now. So clearly we've seen from our historical examples that there is a military outcome.
We can aggregate objectively the military success or failure into an objective understanding of what military outcome is.
And it's logical to view that in terms of success or failure because it is objective.
So we know that there is a military outcome, but we know that this on its own doesn't engender a perception of success.
We know also that there is a strategic outcome. There is achievement of national policy goals.
And again, this can be achieved without necessarily achieving a positive military outcome or vice versa.
So that, again, is a separate outcome. And it's logical to imagine that in terms of failure or success,
because it can be measured both on the objective in terms of national policy goals and their achievement.
However, we can see from historical examples that there is another element of that is perceived outcome.
And whilst it's clear that this perceived outcome will be based upon the military outcome and the strategic outcome,
we can see that there's something else. It's a function of something else, and we're not sure exactly what that is.
What is clear also is that actually it's not those three outcomes that matter so much as the benefits or perhaps the disadvantages, but they engender.
So we've seen in some historical examples that you can achieve a positive military outcome,
you can achieve a positive strategic outcome by actually in terms of the overall benefits.
They have been trumped in the case of the Russo-Japanese War by the perceived outcome.
So we need to view the outcomes in terms of the benefits that they provide.
But what is this question mark? What is this other factor that informs the perceived outcome?
And I'm going to argue that the perceived outcome is not just a function of what is achieved,
but perhaps more importantly, how is it how it is achieved.
The actual approach taken by the military force, which is engaged in war.
And as my examples, I'm going to use the Second Lebanon War and the Gaza War.
So in 2006, the Lebanon War was a 34 day conflict between Israel and Hezbollah,
which is characterised by certainly the United States and Israel as a terrorist organisation.
And it was precipitated by the kidnap of two IDF soldiers.
This was a cross-border raid by Hezbollah forces and it also resulted in the death of three
Israeli personnel and a further five deaths when a botched rescue operation was was attempted.
Now, this war has been considered to be in some ways a national catastrophe.
In fact, the leaders of Shin Bet and Mossad described it as such, and they described it as a national catastrophe.
And but Israel suffered a critical defeat.
Furthermore, there was a palpable loss of confidence and pride within Israel after this conflict.
And this resulted in the Winograd Commission,
which was set up in order to understand the mistakes that have been made by the Israeli Defence Forces during that conflict.
Conversely, Hezbollah were lauded as a prototype of a modern hybrid challenger,
and they were elevated to an almost mythical level of military competence by many commentators.
And the secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, was popularly ordained as the most popular leader since Arab leaders since Nasser.
Just a year and a half later, in 2000, 8th December 2008, Israel again went to war, this time with Hamas,
also characterised by the United States and Israel and Israel as a terrorist organisation, also non-state actor like Hezbollah.
They did have representation within national government,
but this time things were even more difficult for Israel insomuch as whereas Lebanon is sparsely populated in the south undulating rock,
the Gaza Strip is densely populated with the most densely populated urban areas in the world.
And this conflict would take place largely in urbanised areas, extremely complicated, complicated operating environment.
And it was described by Ron Terror, who wrote shortly after the conflict as one big minefield IED traps and tunnels in almost every block.
And based upon Israel's recent experience in Lebanon, and due to this even more complicated operating environment,
many commentators were expecting this to be yet another costly military misadventure for Israel.
Many were expecting failure. But after the 23 day conflict, actually the reverse happened.
And Israel were perceived as being the victors by many and certainly many commentators after the conflict
have referred to Israel and IDF in particular as a paragon of institutional learning and urban warfare.
And many lessons have been attempted to be learned from Israel and the IDF in this conflict.
So we can see the Second Lebanon war has clearly been perceived by many as a failure for Israel and the IDF,
whereas the guys in Gaza will have been perceived as a tremendous success.
But if we look at the objective outcomes, again, there's a question because objective reality does not seem to agree with these perceived outcomes.
So in Lebanon, following the second Lebanese war, the rocket attacks, which preceded the Second Lebanon war, almost entirely cease.
And the northern border of Israel remains relatively quiet to this day.
Furthermore, UN Resolution 1701 was enacted,
which resulted in up to 15,000 UNIFIL personnel being deployed in southern Lebanon up to the tiny river, along with a further 15,000 Lebanese.
Lebanese armed forces personnel in order ostensibly to remove Hezbollah from the area.
Now it could be argued that Hezbollah is still present and still active within southern Lebanon and they haven't been disarmed.
However, the fact is that the northern border of Israel has remained quiet to this day.
Gaza, on the other hand, is very different.
Post-Conflict rocket attacks ceased almost immediately and within three years had increased to pre conflict levels,
and this resulted in a reprisal operation by Israel in terms of Operation Defence.
Moreover, the Gaza war culminated with a unilateral ceasefire and withdrawal of the IDF from the Gaza Strip.
So objectively, the strategic outcomes for Israel and two conflicts appear to favour the Second Lebanon War over the Gaza war.
Why then has the perception been contrary to this?
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to look at again the four levels of war.
I'm going to look at Israel's approach,
the IDF approach during the two conflicts to try and understand how they approach may have engendered a perception of victory in
Gaza war and how their approach in the Second Lebanon War may have conspired against them to engender a perception of failure.
So first, in order to understand the grand strategic level of war,
we need to understand what the goals were, what the strategic objectives were for Israel in both conflicts.
So in Lebanon, the key goal, as stated by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, was the return of the hostages.
That was that was key.
Further to that, there was a complete cease fire, expulsion of Hezbollah from the area and a deployment of Lebanese army in all of southern Lebanon.
So extremely, extremely hard to enact objectives.
Conversely, in Gaza, the goals were to strike a direct and hard blow against Hamas,
to increase the deterrent strength of the IDF and to enable an improved and more
stable security situation for residents of southern Israel in the long term.
So we can see the difference in the two goals is very marked,
although they describe similar outcomes in the current of the Lebanon goals were measurable,
they were difficult to achieve, whereas those strategic goals in Gaza were relatively vague and modest.
And what Israel did, perhaps unknowingly,
is set the voiceover bar so high for success in the Second Lebanon War that they were bound to fall far short of that.
And indeed, the Prime Minister had actually set an objective which was impossible to achieve because the two hostages were likely to be already dead.
And if they weren't already dead at that point, they certainly were soon after.
Conversely, with Gaza, the goals have set very modestly.
They were set such that they could be exceeded relatively easily.
So it didn't really matter what the outcomes were. The two wars when measured against each other.
It mattered how they were measured against the stated objectives at the outset of the conflict.
So as we can see in Lebanon, the goals were unrealistic and they sowed the seeds of defeat right from the outset because they were unrealistic,
because they were unobtainable. The Israeli Defence Forces, they chose a vacillating strategic policy.
Vainly chasing these objectives. And indeed, they experienced diminishing returns as the war ground on.
And mounting casualties. Also, their ongoing lack of fulfilment precluded the IDF from ending the war on its own terms.
And resulted in accusations of being bogged down in Lebanon, just as the IDF had been bogged down in Lebanon in the first Lebanese war.
Whereas in Gaza, the objectives were modest and easily exceeded.
And what's more, their early fulfilment enabled a cessation of hostilities at a time of Israel's own choosing.
You lost the boat. It's on your screen, isn't it?
It's on here. Okay, so I'll go on without it.
So the unilateral cease fire fostered the view that victory had already been achieved rather than having to wait for a UN intervention.
And of course, the IDF could not be accused of being bogged down in Gaza as they had been accused of in Lebanon.
So that set the scene. So let's look at the military strategic level of war.
Well, Lebanon being saddled with these improbable aims, chose this vacillating military strategy.
They had to keep changing their approach during the war and as the war went on, in order to chase these unattainable goals.
And this was exacerbated by a poor choice of operational Monaco in the Second Lebanon War.
The operation was entitled Change of Direction.
And what's more, this operation, change of Direction was succeeded by operation change of direction two, three, three, four, five, 4 to 11.
So it was the intent, I believe, of the Operations Directorate to give an operational name,
which conveyed the notion that Israel would change the direction of the politics in the region for its own benefit.
However, the opposite was true.
Actually, what happened was it conveyed the notion that the IDF, their strategy was changing direction and indeed to change direction 11 times.
What's more, because the IDF were chasing these improbable aims, they had to improvise.
An improvisation introduced risk, and the risk increased casualties.
And the result ultimately was the IDF appeared to be shambolic and incoherent.
And that's certainly the view that's been taken by many, many military commentators in Gaza.
However, being unencumbered by these unobtainable objectives, the IDF was able to enact a set piece operation,
a well rehearsed operation which reduced the requirement for improvisation,
thus reducing the requirement or the the existence of risk, thus reducing the number of casualties.
And to the military observers. They appeared competent and unified.
And of course, that's exactly what they were, because they were working to a very well rehearsed plan.
So moving down to the operational level of war, what was the operational approach of the IDF during the Lebanon War?
Well, firstly, it started with a massive aerial bombardment, an initial air campaign.
Now, this air campaign was intended to be decisive because the chief of staff for the IDF was a man.
He was Lieutenant General Banuelos, the first airman to take the post at all, chief of general staff.
And it was his belief in air power and his belief in the fact space operations that he could end the war through the use of that power.
Now, it transpired that this wasn't the case and as the air campaign wound on rocket attacks
from Israel were maintained and in fact ultimately increased right throughout the world.
So clearly, that campaign wasn't working when it didn't work, when it didn't achieve decision.
The second phase was enacted and these were piecemeal operations by land to effectively capture strongholds of Hezbollah,
and they were largely aimed at being symbolic.
So rather than capturing ground, rather than maintaining a presence within southern Lebanon,
they enacted these very costly raids on Hezbollah strongholds.
Finally there was at the end of the Second Lebanon War, I pushed to the Litani River.
There was this acknowledgement by the chief of staff that the military strategy wasn't working.
Now, unfortunately, this push to the Litani was largely nugatory and in fact aborted because by that point,
the UN Resolution 1701 had already been agreed and it was yet to come into force.
But consequently, the push to the time in the final phase of the conflict was ultimately superfluous.
Furthermore, the reserves were called up a full nine days after the commencement of hostilities,
and the perception of this engendered was that things were going badly wrong, things were going so wrong that we needed to call up the reserves.
So if we look at what happened in the Gaza war, we can see that the approach taken was very different.
Firstly, there was an initial air campaign. It was extremely similar to the initial air campaign in the Second Lebanon War.
It was very successful in many ways, as was the initial air campaign in south Lebanon.
The difference was it was always framed as being the first phase in a phase operation.
It was never touted as being decisive, and because of this framing,
it was viewed as being successful because it set the scene for a joint operation thereafter.
So after this initial air campaign, which was deemed to be phase one of Operation Cast Lead, was deemed to be those deemed to be very successful.
And following that, there was a concerted push deep into territory in Gaza and the IDF.
They were holding territory. So rather than enacting these piecemeal operations to to make symbolic gestures, they actually held ground.
And then after the second phase, there was intended to be a third phase.
But the third phase, a push deep into Gaza City itself, was never enacted because by this point the very modest objectives had already been satisfied.
And the IDF could announce a unilateral ceasefire which conveyed the perception that victory had already been achieved.
And right throughout the Gaza war, some very clear communiques were released by Israel explaining where they were in the operation.
There was a phase one or is a phase two.
So it was always conveying it was always framing the idea where they were in the operation and also the operational name itself, Operation Cast Lead.
Very different to Operation Change of Direction. Cast Lead.
Cast in Lead. It conveyed the notion that the strategy itself, rather than being vacillating, was set.
And was immovable and rather than cast led one, two, three, four.
It was cast by phase one. Cast of phase two, conveying this impression that the plan was working, that there was no need to change it.
And also the reserves the reserves were called up at the commencement of hostilities.
So it would preclude any perception that things were going wrong.
It was always conveyed that it was part of the plan and that it would that should they be needed.
So we can see how this perception might be fermented in the minds of the observers.
This perception which fostered the view that the IDF were shambolic and come here in the Second Lebanon War but were competent,
incoherent in the Gaza War and moving down to the tactical approach.
Well, firstly, in Lebanon, it's been argued the IDF were poorly equipped, poorly trained and have become accustomed to counterinsurgency operations.
And furthermore, they're accused of using relatively conventional tactics, techniques and procedures.
And because of this, there was this perception they'd lost their fighting edge that they were being outthought, if you like, by Hezbollah.
And what's more, they were accused of using grossly disproportionate force.
In Gaza, however, this set piece operation I've described resulted in high levels of perceived competency and efficiency.
And what's more, IDF used a raft of novel equipment normal procedures, normal techniques.
And this fostered a view that they were at the cutting edge of fighting and they used equipment such as armoured bulldozers,
remote controlled on bulldozers in Fort Casper that demonised and blackened.
They used gimbal mounted cameras in spheres which could be thrown into buildings so that you could understand the layout inside the building.
They used shoulder mounted wall breaching munitions and the list goes on and it's unclear how much objective effect this equipment had,
but it certainly had the effect of those who were observing the war,
believing the IDF were the superior fighting force, and in fact they were even likened to James Bond.
Such was the advancement of their equipment and this equipment.
It acted as a lightning rod of positive perceptions.
It gave those military observers something to hold on to, something to talk about and report on.
It was interesting. And also in the Gaza War, IDF appeared to be determined to engage the enemy.
Despite the despite a complex environment, they clearly demonstrated resolve.
And in Gaza, the IDF went to very visible efforts to minimise civilian casualties.
They dropped innumerable leaflets warning those people who lived in Gaza City itself that there was going to be impending military action.
They dropped low yield munitions on houses as a warning shot, if you like, before dropping high yield munitions.
And they even telephoned occupants of buildings to warn them that building was going to be potentially attacked.
They were still accused of using grossly disproportionate force.
However, but there were these visible efforts made in order to try and ameliorate that.
And then onto information operations. So we've been through the four levels of war, but also in the two conflicts,
there was a very different approach to information and the management of information and the narrative.
In the Lebanon war, there was what you could describe as information incontinence.
There was a new information environment. There were smartphones.
There was mobile phones. There was bloggers.
There was the Internet was YouTube. All of these things were were new and hadn't been considered.
And there was a dearth of policy on those aspects.
And because of that dearth of policy, there was a cascade of information coming out from IDF soldiers,
from civilians who lived in the area, from obviously the media itself.
And Israel was overwhelmed by the Hezbollah narrative.
Hezbollah being relatively adept at using these new forms of media.
And to make matters worse, Israel had an inconsistent message, the message being in Hebrew, Hezbollah, that hasbara was inconsistent.
So there was different information coming from different departments. The narrative was confused.
The rationale for war was, in some cases, ambiguous, and the aims were sometimes ambiguous.
And as can be expected, there was very critical press coverage.
Whereas in Gaza, the media and the IDF soldiers themselves were very tightly controlled.
Media was banned from Gaza largely. IDF personnel were banned from using mobile phones.
And the Directorate of National Information was created to purify the message, to provide a narrative that was unified and consistent.
And Israel were very become very adept at using new media.
They blocked they had YouTube channels.
That YouTube channel, in fact, became the most popular watched YouTube channel of the time.
And they bypassed traditional media going straight to those people who they were trying to convince of their aims, which was the public directly.
And because of this, our total domination over the information domain and really Hamas were on the back foot.
There was, however, still critical press coverage, possibly because the press had been removed from the area.
So what were the outcomes? Well, if we look at the three outcomes from a military point of view,
I would argue that Israel were more successful in Gaza than in Lebanon as they inflicted comparable
losses on enemy material capability personnel in a short time span and with fewer casualties.
However, from a strategic point of view, the outcome, I would argue, is that Israel were more successful in Lebanon than they were in Gaza,
as the political result following Lebanon was clearly more favourable objectively than that following Gaza.
But finally, the perceived outcome. Well, I would have to argue that Israel were, in fact, victorious.
If you want to use that word in the Gaza war and defeated in Lebanon,
precisely because this reflects the dominant perception and because the notions of victory and defeat are social constructs,
it can only be argued this way.
And of course, it's perverse to talk of military victory in a conflict if actually the dominant perception is the opposite to that.
So of those three outcomes in each war, which is the most beneficial, and I think it's only that can be answered by Israeli media themselves.
Is it more beneficial to achieve your strategic objectives but being viewed as having lost,
or is it more beneficial to have not achieved your strategic objectives but having been perceived a winner?
It's open for debate. So in summary, history will always seek a victim.
People will always want to know and understand who won in war.
It's not simply enough for people to weigh up the various outcomes and come to an informed conclusion.
They want that binary outcome. And also it's clear that the perceived outcome does influence downstream events.
It does affect reality perhaps as much even more so than the objective outcomes.
And as we've seen, the perceived outcome is not simply a function of the military and strategic outcome.
It's influenced by something else as well. And I would argue, based upon Israel's experiences in Lebanon and Gaza,
that its influence to a great degree by the approach taken rather than the tangible outcomes.
So how not just what you do, but how you do it?
And also hopefully I've demonstrated that certainly in the case of the Gaza war, the approach can actually trump the outcomes.
So thank you very much for your attention. And I'll now take.