Tactical and Moral

However, analyzing the significance of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict and its aftermath within the narrow lense of the immediate effects on the combatants themselves misses the broader picture.

The world just watched a subnational group use guerilla and terrorist tactics to resist one of the world’s strongest militaries for nearly a month, and then force a humiliating ceasefire agreement. The world just watched the West sit, impotent, while a democracy came under unprovoked attack by an adversary dedicated to its destruction and unconcerned by the rules of war. The world still watches as the West bickers over which nations will contribute to the token peacekeeping force. The world learned, again, that the way to combat a powerful military is not with frontal attacks, but by targeting civilians and waging relentless information warfare. And the world does not forget such lessons.

The Israel-Hezbollah conflict is the equivalent of the Battle of Bunker Hill during the Revolutionary War. Technically, the colonists lost that battle when they were driven from their position on Breed’s Hill. However, British General William Howe lost 1,054 troops, nearly 40 percent of his command, during three assaults on the patriot’s earthworks that resulted in a total of 30 dead colonists. Following the battle, British General Henry Clinton wrote, “A few more such victories would have surely put an end to British dominion in America.”

The Battle of Bunker Hill was a tactical defeat for the fledgling American army, but it became a moral victory. The battle demonstrated that the world’s most powerful military force was not invincible; that the key to victory was a refusal to fight on its terms.

The enemies of Western Civilization just fought their Bunker Hill.

[via RedBlueChristian]