Destruction instruction: Western armies learn from Gaza

Primary Topic

This episode discusses how Western military leaders are drawing tactical lessons from the Israeli Defense Forces' operations in Gaza, particularly concerning urban warfare.

Episode Summary

In "Destruction Instruction: Western Armies Learn from Gaza," The Economist delves into the significant impact of the Gaza conflict on global military strategies. Hosts Jason Palmer and Rosie Blore explore the reasons why military leaders worldwide are keenly observing the tactics employed by the Israeli Defense Forces. Despite the severe humanitarian issues, the episode highlights how the IDF's tactics in urban warfare are being studied for their technological and strategic applications. Defense editor Shashank Joshi provides insights into how these lessons could influence NATO's defense strategies in Europe and the U.S.'s approach to defending allies like Taiwan. The discussion covers the use of drones, tanks, electronic warfare, and the challenges posed by extensive tunnel networks used by Hamas.

Main Takeaways

  1. Urban warfare is evolving, and Western armies are preparing for these changes by studying recent conflicts.
  2. The use of drones and electronic warfare has become pivotal in modern conflict scenarios.
  3. Tanks, despite being considered potentially obsolete, are still crucial when equipped with modern defensive systems.
  4. The complexity of tunnel warfare poses significant tactical challenges that require new approaches.
  5. Military strategists emphasize learning from every conflict, regardless of the political or moral implications.

Episode Chapters

1: Introduction to the Gaza Conflict

Overview of the ongoing military actions in Gaza and their broader implications. The chapter sets the stage by discussing the scale of destruction and the political situation.

  • Shashank Joshi: "Gaza is the biggest urban conflict in years, and it's drawing wide international attention for its military tactics."

2: Tactical Lessons from Gaza

Discussion on specific military tactics observed in Gaza, including the roles of tanks and drones, and the handling of civilian casualties.

  • Shashank Joshi: "The IDF's tactics, while controversial, are being studied for their effectiveness in urban and asymmetric warfare."

3: The Future of Warfare

Exploration of how the lessons from Gaza could reshape future military strategies and equipment development, especially in urban settings.

  • Shashank Joshi: "Western armies are considering how technologies proven in Gaza could be integrated into their own strategies."

Actionable Advice

  1. Stay informed about global military developments to understand potential changes in national security policies.
  2. Consider the implications of military technology advancements in personal privacy and security.
  3. Support humanitarian efforts in conflict zones to mitigate the impact of warfare on civilian populations.
  4. Engage in discussions about the ethical dimensions of military strategies, especially concerning civilian protection.
  5. Encourage transparency and accountability in military operations to ensure adherence to international laws and norms.

About This Episode

From tunnels to tanks to drones, Gaza’s horrors provide object lessons in urban warfare. We ask what Western forces will be learning about their own future conflicts. Silicon Valley types may relish the prospect of J. D. Vance, a former tech investor, becoming America’s vice-president—but it should in fact worry them (10:15). And the superstitious forces affecting Hong Kong’s property sector (18:57).

People

Shashank Joshi, Jason Palmer, Rosie Blore

Companies

Royal United Services Institute

Content Warnings:

None

Transcript

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Jason Palmer
The Economist hello, and welcome to the intelligence from the Economist. I'm Jason Palmer. And I'm Rosie Blore. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the event shaping your world.

JD Vance, Donald Trump's running mate, was once a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley that has lots of techie types salivating to think that one of their own may soon be in the White House. But Mister Vance's backstory should give them plenty of pause. And would you want to live in a house that's said to be haunted? Well, you aren't alone in Hong Kong. People really do not want to live with ghosts, and that is playing havoc with the property market.

Rosie Blore
But first this week, the israeli military ordered a further evacuation in Gaza in an area that had previously been designated a humanitarian zone.

On Monday, an airstrike there killed an estimated 70 people. Over 39,000 Palestinians have died in the exclave since fighting began in October. Israel's government claims that it's rooting out. Hamas fighters Takfa Yom Beaza, the Matarala. Sakelet Mohammed deaf it recently said it had killed Mohammed Daf, the Hamas leader believed to have masterminded the October 7 attacks.

Despite the bloodshed, ceasefire talks continue. There are signs that Hamas could agree to a temporary truce and a swap of hostages and prisoners without first demanding a permanent israeli withdrawal. The humanitarian and political ramifications of this war are immense, but military leaders around the world are also keeping an eye on the conflict for another reason. The fact that Gaza is the biggest urban conflict in so many years means that western armies, who haven't fought a war of this intensity for quite a while, are studying it very closely for tactical lessons. Shashank Joshi is the economist defense editor.

Shashank Joshi
They know that urban warfare is changing, and they want to make sure that they're ready for some of those changes. I had thought that there was a lot of urban warfare in Ukraine. Why are western leaders particularly looking to this conflict in Gaza for lessons? There is a lot of urban warfare in Ukraine. But I think that there's particular lessons here because the Israel defense forces, the IDF, are viewed as a particularly tactically proficient force.

And I do want to say one thing up front, which is, of course, there are people deeply concerned in western armies and in western countries about the very high levels of civilian casualties in Gaza over what they see as the IDF's very aggressive rules of engagement. They say that there hasn't been enough attention paid to civilian harm. But when you look at western armies thinking, for example, about how they in NATO might defend baltic cities like Tallinn from a russian attack or how America might help Taiwan defend Taipei, they want to draw the latest technological lessons. And there's a new report out by the Royal United Services Institute. It's a think tank in London on the tactical lessons from fighting, particularly in Gaza City.

And that includes everything from the role of tanks, the role of drones, electronic warfare and jamming. And you can argue, yes, the european armies may not have as much to learn from the IDF. The IDF is actually very big, and that fighting Russia or fighting China would be very different to fighting Hamas. What I thought was very, very interesting was in their report, the authors suggest a curious analogy, which they say for the british army, they might think of themselves as being in Hamas position. You're defending urban areas with a coastline to your rear.

If you think about the baltic states against a numerically superior enemy, that's Russia operating at divisional scale, you know, big, big units. And I think the lessons that we see are absolutely relevant to those armies in those defending urban positions. What might some of those tactical lessons be? If you think about what I've been writing about warfare over the last couple of years, Rosie, it's the idea that pervasive surveillance, particularly from drones, but also from satellites and other things, means that it's very difficult to hide on the modern battlefield. The interesting lesson that many armies are taking is that you can use that to your advantage.

You can hide in cities from enemy surveillance. So maybe that's like a big picture lesson. But then there are a bunch of smaller lessons. So take the example of drones. The IDF has always used drones.

They were one of the pioneers of drones in the 1970s, so that's not new. But if you look at the small strike drones, the so called first person view, or FPV drones that I've talked about on this show before, these are small, explosives laden, often quadcopter type drones used in Ukraine very frequently. The IDF didn't really have these. What it has discovered since the war began is that these are incredibly effective. You can monitor way more urban terrain.

You can conduct these precision strikes against Hamas much faster than you could if you were calling in airstrikes or calling in artillery strikes. But it was basically impossible to track everyone's drones. On the IDF side, there was a very high degree of what we call fratricide. In other words, shooting down your own drones. And if you look at the northern border of Israel with Lebanon and the effort to jam Hezbollah drones, the jamming was so heavy on the israeli side that actually the IDF couldn't use their digital maps in some cases, and they had to resort to printed maps.

And I ask myself, do european or american armies have enough printed maps in their units for that kind of thing? I'm not sure they all do. I have to be slightly comforted by the idea of old school methods here. And talking of old school, what about tanks? What part do they play?

Well, the war in Ukraine, as you probably know, has sparked this interesting debate over the future of the tank. We've seen such a high pace of drone surveillance, also strikes by what we call loitering munitions. They've done a lot of damage to russian tanks, as has artillery, ass has mines, to the point where in some ways, both sides have kind of held their tanks back. Right. And the conclusion people have taken is, oh, the tank is obsolete.

Well, not so fast. Right? Look at Israel. The israeli tanks have something called active protection systems. These are like little explosive panels you put on the outside of a tank.

They explode outward, counteracting the incoming projectile. And what we've seen is that these have been really effective, even from short range. And, in fact, what the Israelis found is if you put two of these tanks next to each other, their active protection systems overlap, giving you this kind of protective bubble. The downside is that you can't have troops very nearby because they would be vulnerable to that explosion. But this is all a learning experience for western armies, which will be saying, actually, the lesson here is not that tanks are obsolete.

The lesson is we have to invest in these active protection systems, and we have to do it now. And what about the use of tunnels, which have been a defining part of this conflict? The scale of Hamas tunnels was known to be big, but it's been even more of a challenge than we thought. And if you want a sign of this, just look at the fact that of Hamas's top three military leaders, at least two of them, nine months into this conflict, are still alive. The third might or might not be.

That was a big strike against dief. About a week ago. So the IDF initially thought it would occupy territory on the ground, then it would search for tunnels below. What would happen is quite predictably, I guess, Hamas was mounting ambushes and then was retreating underground. And over time, the IDF realized that basically they couldn't bypass tunnels.

They had to fight on the ground and below the ground at the same time. One challenge is that the boundaries between one israeli unit and the other, and you need these boundaries to avoid friendly fire. Those don't map onto tunnels underground. So there's a coordination command problem, but there's also just a tactical problem, which is that the prospect of Hamas around every corner is very, very stressful for troops having to do this. The phrase that the Russi report uses is a staccato quality to the pressure on individuals that was corrosive of morale.

And you can imagine how that manifests for a force that has to clear tunnel after tunnel, day after day. It does sometimes feel rather awful to discuss lessons from a war, especially one which is still ongoing and so many people are dying. Why is it so important to ask these questions? If you think about armies through history, they don't view wars through a kind of moral framework of right and wrong. They think of them as learning experiences, no matter how much they like or dislike either side.

And I would point to the examples of how much european armies learned from prussian armed forces in the 19th century, from Japan in the battle of Tsushima in 1905 against Russia, a great naval battle from nazi armored forces rolling across the desert in North Africa who are viewed as exemplars of tank warfare. You can learn really vital lessons about how to fight, how to survive on a future battlefield without having to wrestle with the politics of these campaigns as well. Shashank, thank you so much. It's great to talk to you, as always. Thanks very much, Rosie.

Rosie Blore
To hear more about the conflict in Gaza, listen to the weekend intelligence. Gaza the day after tomorrow. What will happen when the war ends? Presented by Zanni Minton Beddowes, the economist's editor in chief.

E
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F
When JD Vance accepted his nomination as Donald Trump's vice president at the Republican National Convention. He spoke about his journey from poverty in small town Ohio through the Marines and onto Yale University. I left the Marines after four years and went to the Ohio State University.

JD Vance
After Ohio State, I went to Yale Law School where I met my beautiful wife. He then made a fleeting reference to his career before he was elected as a senator. And then I started businesses to create jobs in the kind of places that I grew up in. Before he became senator for Ohio, which was just 18 months ago, the 39 year old was a venture capitalist. He invested in America's tech sector.

F
So it's no wonder that a right wing cohort of tech billionaires are celebrating potentially having one of their own in the White House. Henry Trix writes Schumpeter our column on global business. However, Vance also has this deep rooted resentment of big business. We're done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall street. We'll commit to the working man.

So there are a lot of other CEO's, including the tech barons, who are concerned about a possible Vance vice presidency. Given how self serving the support for him is among a few venture capitalists, his nomination doesnt sound good for the economy overall. So Mister Vance has himself moved among the billionaires of Silicon Valley. Then what exactly did he do? Ok, lets not overdo it.

He was never a big hitter as a venture capitalist, but he was close to some very influential and renowned figures in the VC world. Amongst them is Peter Thiel. He's the contrarian investor who co founded PayPal, became an early investor in Facebook, which made him a billionaire, and has also backed other influential companies like Palantir and Thiel. And other billionaire venture capitalists funded Vance's candidacy for senator. So from the standpoint of ideology, there's a little bit that confuses me here in that I thought Peter Thiel in particular was kind of an outlier, being so squarely on America.

Jason Palmer
America is right. So it's not clear to me what Silicon Valley does or should expect from Vance vice presidency, should it come. The support for Vance is amongst a particular group of billionaires in Silicon Valley who perhaps have had pro right wing sympathies, but have kept them quite carefully in the closet. Take for example Elon Musk. And then there's Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.

F
They released the video backing Trump, which was interesting because at least the way that they framed it, they were somewhat apologetic for little tech. We think Donald Trump is actually the right choice. Sorry mom, I know you're gonna be mad at me for this, but like we had to do it. Silicon Valley, by and large, remains very liberal, pretty pro Democrat. And so this group of support is not representative of Silicon Valley as a whole, but it is an influential group within Silicon Valley.

Jason Palmer
So is the support of Trump just simply a reflection of conservative values among this cohort? Because some of them have worked with Vance, they see him as a kindred spirit who they can influence, and they are encouraged by his antipathy, especially towards the tech giants. There's long been a sense that innovation is somewhat stifled in Silicon Valley because of the power of big tech. So you can see this in a new approach that Andreessen and Horowitz have put forward, which basically framed the Trump versus Biden, which is now presumably Trump versus Harris battle as one between little tech and big tech. And their prime example of little tech is crypto and the blockchain, which they say is being stifled by regulation.

F
And Vance agrees with them on that. They're also concerned about Biden's efforts to regulate AI, that this kind of regulation favours the tech incumbents because they can afford to pay the costs of regulation. Now, the most immediate concern of all of them with what Biden's administration has proposed is his latest budget proposal, which includes levying a 25% tax on unrealised capital gains for those with assets above $100 million. And the fear is that this could actually kill the VC industry. Stone dead.

Jason Palmer
I. But all this tech in the VC is not the whole economy. What do you make of his platform more generally, as regards business? Well, he was pretty clear in his convention speech that Wall street, which has long held a big sway over Washington, DC, will be less influential than perhaps Silicon Valley in a Trump Vance government. But more broadly, big business.

F
Though they like the tax cuts and the deregulation that Trump appears to be promising them, they also fear the protectionism and political chaos that they recall happened the last time he was president. Raising tariffs, risk inflaming trade wars, crackdown on immigration, raises the risk of labor shortages. And then there's the strange question of antitrust. JD Vance is actually a fan of Lena Khan, who is head of the Federal Trade Commission, and the antitrust actions that she's launched against many mergers and acquisitions, and particularly against some big tech companies. So it's sort of hard to parse here.

Jason Palmer
There are things about a Trump Vance government that might appeal to you if you're tech minded, if you're a vc, if you're a Silicon Valley bro. But at the same time, there's some very self defeating policies that may well be in the offing. I think your view on Vance depends on where you sit. If you are in Silicon Valley, you may like the idea of influencing policy in the White House, and you also may like the idea of rolling back some of these Biden administration policies. But if you are a tech giant or you sit on the board of a big company, then you are going to fear a crackdown.

F
Youll fear culture wars. Youll fear trade wars and geopolitics. Its already a pretty tough place. Being in the boardroom in the Biden administration, theres no shortage of anxiety. Some of these issues, and the worry, I guess, is that they could get worse under Trump and Vance.

Jason Palmer
And you hinted that some of this Silicon Valley boss sentiment is actually more anti Biden than it is pro Trump. Does that dynamic change now that the Democrats nominee won't be Mister Biden, will. Presumably be Kamala Harris because her background is in California. She knows tech and people in the tech world know her. And she has received some support from tech billionaires such as Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn.

F
But there is very little to suggest that her views on tech regulation, for example, will differ from Biden's. Henry, thanks very much for your time. Thank you, Jason. Always a pleasure.

Jason Palmer
If youre not yet a subscriber to Economist podcasts, plus, I have some great news for you. You can sign up for a one month free trial and enjoy all our weekly podcasts and our special series, including the newest one, Boom, about the generation that blew up american politics. Just search for Economist podcasts to sign up for our existing print and digital subscribers. Don't forget, you can listen to the whole writhing fire hose of our audio content ad free on the Economist app. Happy listening.

Emma Irving
Properties on the peak in Hong Kong are absolutely incredible. Emma Irving works on the Economist news desk in Hong Kong. They sit high above the rest of the city, and they are these enormous mansions, among the most expensive pieces of property in the world. And yet there's this one house called Dragon Lodge that is way up in the peak and actually only accessible by a small hiking trail. And it's been abandoned for years and years.

The rumour goes that the house is haunted, that it's got the ghosts of several nuns that were apparently beheaded during the japanese occupation during the second World War, that there's this child's ghost that wanders around freaking people out. I went to check out the house recently, so I've just walked down to the gate and there's a sign on the outside that says, warning, entering private property without permission will be liable for all consequences and will be reported to police. There's a kind of alarm system that has a flashing red light, clearly to try and deter trespassers or some ghost hunting hunters trying to come and see what they can see inside. And it's rather amazing. It has the most beautiful view out over Hong Kong and you can actually see the sunset, the sun just sort of dipping behind the mountains on the other side of the harbour.

But it certainly looks pretty gloomy inside the house. Dragon Lodge is what's known as a hongs or a calamity house in Cantonese. Somewhere there has been an untimely death, and in Hong Kong, that has a really big impact. Houses that are meant to be haunted lose about a fifth of their value on average, and if there's a murder, it drops by a third. And Hong Kong is one of the most expensive places to buy property in the world.

So you can imagine this actually has a really big impact.

Rosie Blore
It's fascinating to think that any kind of death can lead to a definite haunting. What does this mean for property dealers who are trying to sell houses in those areas? Well, it's taken very seriously. In 2004, there's a big property company here called Centreline Property, and they were fined $40,000 because they failed to tell a buyer that a property was supposedly haunted. There's a website called Spacious, which is a sort of equivalent to right move.

Emma Irving
And on that it has a list that's really detailed of all the different haunted properties in Hong Kong. And they actually even launched an app that was interactive and would let people see where haunted properties are as they walk around Hong Kong. So for estate agents, it's a really big thing, because they actually are bound to tell prospective buyers if a property is haunted. They don't have to say that if someone is renting a property, but if someone who's a prospective renter asks them, then they're duty bound to tell them if there has been an untimely death there. And actually, even for people who are looking at buying themselves, they will probably find that mortgages are harder to get and are more expensive because a property is haunted, because the idea is that then it will be less safe investment because it will be harder to sell on.

Rosie Blore
It's amazing stuff. In other countries, you might expect people to look for where there's planning permission or subsidence or anything like that. In Hong Kong, it's about ghosts. Maybe this is a very obvious question, but why are people so frightened of ghosts? I spoke to a really interesting academic called Andrew Kitnis who suggested that it is something to do with urbanization, and actually the fact that as people get further away from the notion of death, because bodies are removed very quickly in Hong Kong, if someone dies in a property, we sort of actually associate death more as something to be feared.

Emma Irving
Whereas if death is just part of everyday life, you don't have quite the same sense of alienation. And I think there's also a big thing in Hong Kong with the rapid turnover of tenants and with buildings themselves. And it means that there can be a slight sense that people aren't really sure what's come before them. You're often living in spaces that have been occupied, often by many other people. And I think that means there can be this lingering sense of the past and you discovering things that have been left over by others that can result in superstition in that regard, it's something.

Rosie Blore
You see in mainland China. I remember that people don't like phone numbers or number plates that have the number four in it, because it sounds like the word for death. And there were apparently fewer cars on the roads on Thursdays because it was the fourth day of the week. It seems particularly interesting in Hong Kong because it's a huge problem that in such an expensive property market, a lot of young people feel that they're never going to get on the property ladder. Is this something that the authorities are thinking about?

They're thinking about trying to get rid of the ghosts. I'm not sure that they'll manage, to be honest. I think that the superstition in Hong Kong is really pervasive. You know, the city hasn't undergone the kind of fierce campaigns against superstition that we've seen in the mainland, for example. And actually, another thing to note is that a lot of people in Hong Kong are quite old.

Emma Irving
It has the highest life expectancy in the world, and there aren't great elderly care services here, which means that quite a lot of elderly people are very isolated. Actually, there was a study last year that found that 41% of all people in Hong Kong are severely socially isolated. And that means you often get people who are older, who are living far away from their families, maybe not seeing very many friends, and potentially leading quite unhappy lives. And so I think that kind of sense in the city of people growing older and maybe being quite disconnected from the rest of society also breeds this sort of sense that there might be unhappy people who are dying and then maybe more likely to turn into ghosts. Emma, thank you so much for talking to me.

Thank you so much for having me.

Jason Palmer
That's all for this episode of the intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.