Is Israel Prepared for this Ground War?

Nov 14 2023
Experts on urban and underground warfare explain why an aerial campaign alone can’t defeat Hamas, what the shortcomings are of the Israeli Defense Force, and how long, complicated, and tragic this war will be.

Trump’s ridiculous terrorism claim, CNN.com

Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America, a professor of practice at Arizona State University, and the host of the Audible podcast “In the Room” also on Apple and Spotify. He is the author of several books about terrorism, including most recently, “The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World.”

CNN
—
On the campaign trail on Saturday, Donald Trump asserted that there was no terrorism in the US when he was the president, a claim that is false in myriad ways.

It’s not the first time he has made the claim, which is also linked to Trump’s plans, should he become president again, to bring back a “Muslim ban” that blocked or made it very difficult to travel to the US from several Muslim-majority countries.

Despite Trump’s much-vaunted travel ban, there was plenty of terrorism on his watch as the 45th president of the United States.

On October 31, 2017, Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbek resident of the US who was inspired by ISIS, plowed a truck into a group of pedestrians in Manhattan, killing eight and wounding 11.

Two years later, a member of the Saudi military shot and killed three American sailors and wounded eight others at the US Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida.

During Trump’s presidency, there were also multiple lethal attacks by far-right terrorists, most notably on August 3, 2019, when a white nationalist went on a shooting rampage at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 23 people who he believed were Hispanic immigrants, according to the US Department of Justice.

Also, the most lethal antisemitic attack ever in the United States took place on October 27, 2018, when a terrorist killed eleven people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

It seems, at least in Trump’s mind, that lethal acts of terrorism carried out by far-right terrorists don’t count as terrorism.

Trump, of course, also helped to instigate one of the most spectacular acts of domestic terrorism in American history when he egged on a mob of thousands of his supporters to march on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, which triggered a riot that injured 114 Capitol Police officers, according to a bipartisan US Senate investigation. The riot also led to the deaths of five people.

As for Trump’s remedy to the terrorism problem, his plans to resurrect his so-called Muslim ban go beyond a simple repeat, as he said during a campaign stop in Iowa in July: “When I return to the office, the travel ban is coming back even bigger than before and much stronger than before. We don’t want people blowing up our shopping centers.”

When Trump was in office, the travel ban faced various legal challenges but was eventually upheld by the US Supreme Court and included visitors to the US from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen as well as North Korea and Venezuela.

The ban, of course, did nothing to impede the Uzbek terrorist who killed eight people in Manhattan or the Saudi terrorist who killed three sailors in Pensacola. Nor did it do anything to stop the domestic terrorists that are already here in the US.

Terrorism did not disappear with Trump, and his proposed “solution,” were he to become president again – amping up the Muslim travel ban – likely won’t accomplish much of anything.

If he were really serious about trying to reduce the number of victims of terrorism in the US, an excellent place to start would be restricting the ability to purchase the kinds of semi-automatic rifles that were used in the atrocities at the Walmart in El Paso, and the synagogue in Pittsburgh.

The likelihood that Trump would do much of anything on gun control is, of course, remote. In April, speaking at the National Rifle Association annual meeting, Trump boasted, “I was proud to be the most pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment president you’ve ever had in the White House,” adding, “This is not a gun problem, this is a mental health problem, this is a social problem, this is a cultural problem, this is a spiritual problem.”

As for Trump having any kind of second thoughts about the mayhem he helped unleash during the January 6 riot, forget it. When he was asked at a CNN town hall last year, if he would pardon the rioters who were convicted of federal offenses, he said he was “inclined to pardon many of them.”

At the same CNN town hall, Trump referred to January 6 as a “beautiful day.” Trump has made a lot of bizarro claims over the years, but this must surely rank among his wackiest. My wife and I live in Washington, DC, and we were so unnerved by the violence unfolding at the Capitol that we picked up our kids early from school. This was not a beautiful day, but one of the grimmest the Republic has seen in a long time.

As Trump spends more time on the campaign trail, we will surely be seeing more factually challenged statements of this type.

Fact-checking those statements will likely have zero impact on the MAGA faithful, but it may provide some small solace for those who labor in the fact-based world.

Turning Bad News into a Great Read

By: Peter L. Bergen

Nov 7 2023
Length: 43 mins
Podcast

Summary
How do two of America’s leading nonfiction writers turn some of the biggest issues affecting us into juicy narratives that change hearts and minds — and maybe even policies? Patrick Radden Keefe on how he rendered the opioid crisis as a dramatic tale of money, power, and human suffering in his book Empire of Pain, and Elizabeth Kolbert on how she illuminates what we are losing as global temperatures rise, as in her most recent book, Under a White Sky.

What’s Iran’s real plan in its proxy battle against Israel? CNN.com

Opinion by Peter Bergen, CNN
4 minute read
Published 4:31 AM EST, Mon November 6, 2023

Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America, a professor of practice at Arizona State University, and the host of the Audible podcast “In the Room With Peter Bergen,” also on Apple and Spotify. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

CNN
—
Henry Kissinger once observed that Iranian leaders must decide if Iran is a cause or a nation.

Iran seems to have decided that it’s both, exporting its militant Shia ideology to countries across the Middle East from Lebanon in the north, arming the Houthis 1,500 miles to the south in Yemen, supporting Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, propping up the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Hamas receives funding for weapons from Iran, but Hezbollah is more like an arm of the Iranian government and has a much greater military capacity than Hamas. It has 150,000 rockets and is more militarily capable than the Lebanese army.

But neither Iran nor Hezbollah seems to have had a plan for what to do following Hamas’s massacres last month in Israel. It’s possible they had an inkling that Hamas was planning something without knowing the scale and ferocity of what the world saw on October 7.

Smoke rises after Israeli airstrikes as the attacks continue on the 29th day in Gaza City, Gaza on November 03, 2023.
Opinion: Israel-Hamas war’s endgame
Indeed, US intelligence sources say that senior Iranian officials appeared surprised by Hamas’s attacks.

On Friday, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, spoke publicly for the first time about the war in Gaza. Nasrallah was at pains to say that Hamas’ October 7 attacks in Israel were “100 percent” a Palestinian operation, publicly discounting that Hezbollah and Iran had anything to with the operation, as some reports have suggested.

Nasrallah also said that “All options are on the table” when it came to Hezbollah’s possible military response against Israel — the kind of threat that may not mean very much at all.

Nasrallah became a “new icon” across the Arab world during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war after Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers, which triggered a 34-day war that ended in something of a stalemate. The conflict killed more than 1,100 Lebanese and 158 Israelis.

Hezbollah is a potent military force, but it is also a political movement. Following last year’s election in Lebanon, 58 out of 128 seats in the Lebanese parliament are in the pro-Hezbollah bloc, so Hezbollah must be somewhat responsive to Lebanese popular opinion. Given Lebanon’s ruined economy, the Lebanese people are unlikely to be eager for a repeat of the 2006 war, which caused billions of dollars of damage to their country.

The Lebanese people are unlikely to be eager for a repeat of the 2006 war, which caused billions of dollars of damage to their country.

Also, any decision by Hezbollah to widen the war would likely have to be cleared by Tehran, and right now, Tehran and its proxy forces in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen seem to want to keep up pressure on Israel and US forces in the region with harassing attacks, but not to instigate a wider war.

Iran itself appears to be doing nothing visible to foment further conflict, while letting its proxies do the work for it. The Houthis, who control much of Yemen and are supported and supplied by Iran, have fired missiles, which were intercepted, at Israeli targets in recent days. For the moment, both Hezbollah and Israel are exchanging tit-for-tat fire along Israel’s northern border that falls short of anything close to a full-blown war.

Meanwhile, in Iraq and Syria, US military bases have come under fire from rockets and drones 24 times in the past month. Iranian proxies almost certainly launched those attacks. Twenty one US servicemembers were treated for “minor injuries” according to the Pentagon.

Iran’s ayatollahs may, at least rhetorically, seek the destruction of the state of Israel because the third holiest site in Islam, the Al Aqsa Mosque compound is in Jerusalem — which is also the holiest site in Judaism known as the Temple Mount. They also know that Israel is their most powerful military foe in the region.

But Iran is unlikely to instigate a full-scale regional war with Israel, which might well also draw in the United States, which has recently moved two aircraft carrier groups to the Middle East.

Also, the leaders of Iran’s theocratic regime have faced a significant domestic protest movement over the past year largely led by women fed up with regulations requiring wearing the hijab in public, while they also have an economy that is hamstrung by significant sanctions imposed by the US and its allies. The Iranian riyal has halved in value against the dollar since the protest movement began a little over a year ago, while the Iranian inflation rate is around 40 %.

The Iranians, in short, have enough problems of their own not to start a shooting war with Israel backed by its American ally. They prefer to act through their proxies in the region, keeping up some heat on Israel and the United States, but certainly not by dialing that heat up to 11.

A General and a Military Historian Say Israel-Hamas War is Most Challenging Conflict Since 1945

Narrated by: Peter L. Bergen
Oct 31 2023
Length: 31 mins
Podcast

Summary
General David Petraeus and historian Andrew Roberts, co-authors of the new book “Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine,” discuss how they believe this war will evolve, how it compares to other conflicts of the last seven and a half decades, and what we can learn from the mistakes made during those wars.

Can the Next Mass Shooting Be Prevented?

By: Peter L. Bergen

Oct 27 2023
Length: 46 mins

Another mass shooting is making headlines in the United States. With it comes the familiar feeling of powerlessness. But a rare peek inside the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit reveals that at least some shootings are being prevented, using techniques to identify people headed down the ‘pathway to violence.’ In the absence of gun reform, agents share what ordinary people can do to help. And a mother recounts the harrowing story of how she discovered her son’s plans to shoot up a school — and what happened next.

How Does the Russian Propaganda Machine Work?

When Ukrainian soldiers liberated the town of Bucha, Ukraine in March, 2022, news reports showed scenes of bodies lying in the streets. Human Rights Watch documented cases of summary executions. But on Russian state television, the news was presented as “fake,” a staged event. Objective reporting about the war in Ukraine is now against the law in Russia and journalists can’t even use the word “war” in their stories. But it wasn’t always like this. Two veteran Russian journalists who’ve experienced the changes firsthand, explain what has happened.

Narrated by: Peter L. Bergen
Oct 24 2023
Length: 41 mins
Podcast

You Should Worry About A.I., but Not for the Reason You Think

Episode 26: You Should Worry About A.I., but Not for the Reason You Think
Oct 17 2023
New tools like Chat GPT have sparked futuristic fears about intelligent machines wiping people out or, at the very least, taking all our jobs. But there’s a more immediate A.I. threat coming for us, as soon as the next election.

42 mins

International and Homegrown Threats Today, CELL, Denver, ONLINE

International and Homegrown Threats Today
International and Homegrown Threats Today
ft. PETER BERGEN
CNN National Security Analyst, Award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author
November 13th – 6 PM MST
Are you concerned about the rising threat of violent extremism and its impact on our nation’s security? Join us for a thought-provoking speaker series that aims to shed light on this pressing issue and explore effective strategies to counter extremism. This engaging event brings together experts, practitioners, and community members to foster meaningful dialogue and promote a united effort in safeguarding our nation.

Can’t make it? Don’t worry! Registrants will be sent a replay link following each event.

This project was supported by grant #22PIBV23CELL, issued by the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. The discounted $0.25 per-participant charge for this program has been graciously underwritten by the CELL’s underwriters.

‘Dark, terrifying, claustrophobic.’ What it’s like inside Hamas’ tunnels, CNN.com

Editor’s note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America, a professor of practice at Arizona State University and the host of the Audible podcast “In the Room With Peter Bergen,” also on Apple and Spotify. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.

CNN
—
The tunnels built by Hamas in Gaza are likely to be a key target of the Israeli offensive sparked by the October 7 terror attack on southern Israel. Hamas is believed to be housing underground a considerable number of fighters and weapons, along with an unspecified number of the estimated 239 hostages that the Israeli government says that Hamas has taken.

One expert on the tunnels is Dr. Daphné Richemond Barak, who wrote “Underground Warfare,” a book, that until three weeks ago, was of interest largely to students of military history.

A professor at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel, she founded the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare.

During the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong used tunnels extensively to hide in and to fight US troops, while during World War I, the British launched large-scale attacks from tunnels against the Germans, such as one at the Battle of Messines in Belgium in 1917 that killed some 10,00 German soldiers.

Richemond Barak began writing her book in 2013 when a sophisticated cross-border tunnel about a mile long and at a depth of up to 60 feet was dug by Hamas from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, where it was subsequently discovered.

In the decade since, she has done extensive research into Hamas’ tunnel system as well as the underground network built by Hezbollah.

The latter will be important to understand should the regular exchanges of fire this month between the Iran-backed militant group and Israel intensify into a full-blown war on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

Peter Bergen: What’s it like inside a Hamas tunnel? What does it feel like? What does it smell like?

Daphné Richemond Barak: You find yourself in this moist, dark, terrifying, claustrophobic environment where you never know what’s around the corner, literally.

Also, it can get very cold at night, and it’s suffocating. There’s not a lot of air. If you’re going to be there for a long time, you need oxygen, especially if you’re a soldier. And in some of the tunnels, you need to bend down because they’re not very high.

When you enter one of these tunnels very quickly, you lose your sense of direction completely — where you came from, where you’re going. It’s easy to get completely disoriented and confused quickly, and some people have major trouble with that.

In addition to the claustrophobia, you lose your sense of time, so you might feel like you’ve been there for two hours, but it’s only really been 20 minutes.

Bergen: How is Hamas communicating inside these tunnels? Because presumably, radio communication and that kind of thing doesn’t work.

Richemond Barak: So, cell phones, of course, are out of the question. It has implications for Hamas, which, to exploit this network of tunnels needs to figure out a way to be able to communicate among themselves, but it also has implications for the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). If they go down inside the tunnels, how do they maintain communication between the units underground but also with the forces above ground?

Bergen: The tunnel training facility that the Israelis have — tell us the history of that and how it works.

Richemond Barak: After the wake-up call of 2014 Operation Protective Edge in Gaza (Israel’s campaign against Hamas involving both airstrikes and ground raids that took 50 days), Israel started looking at the underground tunnel issue as a strategic issue.

Israeli soldiers went into Hamas’ tunnels during Operation Protective Edge, and they were not trained and not equipped, and there was combat in the tunnels.

As a result of Operation Protective Edge, Israel took a lot of measures not only for the detection techniques of tunnels but also to train in this subterranean environment.

They created elite units that are very well-versed in all aspects of underground warfare.

In addition, they started basic training in underground warfare for soldiers so they would know how to bypass a tunnel or neutralize a tunnel and then what equipment would be needed if they had to go down there. You need to be prepared for a different kind of environment but also a different kind of fight.

IDF also used simulators where you put these virtual reality goggles on, which would then take you inside the virtual tunnel. But it’s not the same as being in a tunnel. To experience it, you need to be inside an actual tunnel, and then one of the challenges you face there is decision-making: What do you do if you find a door? Do you breach the door? How do you breach the door?

Bergen: Why tunnels?

Richemond Barak: Why tunnels? The digging of tunnels is a very time-consuming and resource-intensive kind of work. It takes a long time to dig. You need to keep the location of the tunnels secret. So the point is, there’s a huge investment there. When you go inside the tunnel, this investment hits you in such a powerful way, especially in the Hezbollah tunnels, because they are near Israel’s northern border, where it’s hard rock that you must tunnel through — or more accurately in this case — excavate.

Tunnels neutralize the military capability of a more sophisticated enemy. It serves as a great equalizer between the two sides.

Bergen: Regarding Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was held hostage by Hamas between 2006 and 2011. Reading your book, I realize tunnels played an important role when he was taken. Can you explain how that happened?

Richemond Barak: What Hamas did was they used smuggling tunnels to bring Shalit into captivity, and it was a surprise because this was not what these tunnels had been used for until then. And Israel was surprised and suddenly realized, wait a second, maybe we should pay more attention to these tunnels because the kidnapping of an IDF soldier is considered a major strategic event. After all, Israel had to release some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners to get Shalit back.

Bergen: For the Israelis, one of their significant concerns now must surely be that these tunnels could be used to take additional soldiers as hostages.

Richemond Barak: Absolutely. Kidnappings of soldiers are always perceived in Israel as a strategic kind of event. So, additional kidnappings would be devastating at this stage.

Bergen: How big a role will the tunnels play in this war?

Richemond Barak: Israel understands that to eliminate or destroy Hamas’ military capabilities, this subterranean network of tunnels, where Hamas has its arsenal and command and control, needs to be eliminated. I won’t say entirely eliminated because I believe it’s impossible. But it needs to be a significant blow to this capability, much more severe than what was done during Operation Protective Edge.

It’s terrain that Hamas knows so well, in which it maneuvers with ease, and they don’t get lost inside their tunnels. It’s not that different from what ISIS did in Mosul, Iraq, or Raqqa in Syria; this was ISIS’ last-resort measure when it came to fighting the coalition fighting against ISIS. The fight moved to the underground.

But to achieve the strategic aim, which is to eliminate Hamas’ underground military infrastructure, the way to do that is not via an above-ground incursion.

Bergen: Is a dog force used by Israel inside tunnels?

Richemond Barak: Yes, dogs are trained to go into this environment.

Bergen: What about robots?

Richemond Barak: What you need for such a robot is the ability to walk in wet terrain because there’s water usually at the bottom of a tunnel. It’s moist. You need them to be able to go up ladders or staircases.

Bergen: What else might work?

Richemond Barak: High-pressure water would cause a collapse of the structures of the tunnels. It attacks the tunnel structure in a much more significant way than just flooding it with regular water. Remember that the ground can absorb some of the water.

Now, there could be civilians in the tunnels, and most likely, there could be hostages; you need to clear the tunnels first. If they’re inside the tunnel, then it’s obviously more difficult. And I wouldn’t use the high-pressure water.

Bergen: What about Hezbollah’s tunnels should the war widen?

Richemond Barak: To illustrate how difficult it is to detect tunnels, refer to Operation Northern Shield. This is the operation that Israel launched in 2018 to expose the cross-border tunnels that Hezbollah had dug.

This is after Israel had dramatically improved its detection techniques, but this is in a different kind of terrain because Hezbollah must tunnel through hard rock, whereas in Gaza, it is soft soil.

It took Israel — even though there were no hostilities — six weeks to detect six tunnels.

Even if you have intelligence, even if you’ve narrowed down the area where you suspect tunnels are located, even if you have the most sophisticated and available means of detecting tunnels, it will still take you a considerable amount of time to find the tunnels.