%0 Journal Article
%T Israel's Second Lebanon War Reconsidered
%A Benjamin S. Lambeth
%J Military and Strategic Affairs
%D 2012
%I Institute for National Security Studies
%X Operation Change of Direction, the code name given to Israel¡¯s war against Hizbollah in Lebanon in 2006 by the Operations Directorate of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was the most inconclusive performance by far in the IDF¡¯s many trials by  re since 1948, in that it represented the  rst time that a major regional confrontation ended without a clear cut victory on Israel¡¯s part. The campaign¡¯s uneven course and outcome did not emanate from any particular single point failure but rather, in the words of two informed commentators, from ¡°an overall accumulation of circumstances.¡± More speci cally, it did not re ect any failure of Israel¡¯s well endowed air arm to perform to the fullest extent of its considerable but not unlimited capabilities, as many were quick to complain. Rather, it resulted from a more overarching de ciency in strategy choice, whose most  awed elements were inconsistency between avowed goals and the available means and will to pursue them, and the Israeli government¡¯s initial placement of friendly casualty avoidance above mission accomplishment in its ranking of campaign priorities.
%K Hizbollah
%K Hassan Nasrallah
%K IDF
%K Lebanon
%K rockets
%K IAF
%K Beirut
%K Second Lebanon War
%K Operation Change of Direction
%K Iran
%K Israel
%K failure
%K achievements
%K Hamas
%K Operation Cast Lead
%K Gaza
%K Iron Dome
%K Operation Pillar of Defense
%U http://www.inss.org.il.cdn.reblaze.com/upload/(FILE)1362308945.pdf