In 1415 the retreating English army, led by Henry V, defeated a much larger French army at the Battle of Agincourt by using the longbow against their charging enemy. The English inflicted enormous losses in the thousands while themselves losing only a few hundred men.
This English “band of brothers,” as later immortalized by Shakespeare, were not the first to use the new weapon that had probably been invented by the Welsh a century before. But the longbow had never been used so dramatically and effectively as it was on that medieval Gallic field.
For as long as there has been warfare, warriors have sought victory through innovations in weaponry. Early on, advances in simple weapons like knives, bows and arrows, spears, and the sling shot (introduced by the pre-IDF biblical David) tilted ancient battles. Later, swords, chariots, catapults, small boats and early ships dominated the fight. Those weapons eventually gave way to crossbows, armor and chain mail, then gunpowder and bullets, guns, cannons and artillery. In more recent history, single-shot muskets evolved into repeating rifles, machine guns, armored tanks, airplanes, poison gas and chemical warfare, rockets and missiles, flamethrowers, and jets. In just the last decade or so, drones and lasers have emerged as new battlefield technologies.
Along with new weaponry, an entirely new front in warfare has emerged – cyberspace.
And now, the Israeli army has thrilled their friends, stunned their critics and demoralized their enemies with an astonishing and devastating military operation that on successive days blew up by remote control the pagers, walkie talkies, and other communication devices used by the Hezbollah terrorist army while killing and wounding large numbers of its officer corps. This was not the first use of this technological strategy, but never before had it been used on such a large scale and with such precision overcoming seemingly unsurmountable obstacles.
Similar to Agincourt, Israel’s attack inflicted tremendous damage to the enemy at apparently minimal cost to its own troops. By sabotaging undetected a variety of simple devices, it has provoked ongoing anxiety and fear among Israel’s military opponents as they struggle to regain their basic command communications.
Israel is bringing to a close their primary operations against the Hamas terrorists who had so brutally invaded Israeli border settlements almost a year ago and savagely murdered more than a thousand Israelis including civilian women and children. Now, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are shifting their efforts to another front, its northern border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah, another terrorist proxy of Iran (the country behind the various contemporary assaults on Israel) has been firing rockets and drones into the northern regions of Israel.
Tens of thousands of Israelis were forced to leave their homes when Hezbollah began these cross-border attacks, and the Israelis understandably feel it is now time to stop the assault from across the Lebanese border.
Limited tit-for-tat warfare had been taking place during the past year, with Israelis blowing up rocket storage and launchers and military supply convoys from Iran and eliminating Hezbollah commanders and other leaders in response to the chronic Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel. Israel increased the level of its response as a signal to Iran and Hezbollah, but the terrorists seemed to be ignoring the hint.
Therefore, the Israeli leadership, with widespread Israeli public support, has shifted its priorities to the Lebanese border. Most observers seem to think the pager explosion operation is only the opening salvo in a larger operation to end the violence on the Lebanese border. In fact, the IDF followed up the first day of pager explosions and a second day of walkie-talkie explosions with a massive targeted bombing campaign. This campaign eliminated about 20 of the top Hezbollah commanders and strategists in a single strike.
Hezbollah has a much larger force and many more rockets than Hamas. It had seemed ready to expand its efforts in the north. Not waiting for its enemy to strike, the IDF preemptively acted to cripple temporarily Hezbollah’s command and communications structures. Having done so, it not likely this is the end of the story in Lebanon.
But whatever happens next, Israel has dramatically and impressively brought a major innovation to warfare, another innovation which echoes what took place on the fields of Agincourt more than 500 years ago and which repeats the process of military invention that is thousands of years old.
Herald Boas is an AMAC Newsline contributor.
Israel demonstrated the kind of innovative thinking and long-term planning that our own military and intelligence agencies should be capable of, but clearly under current leadership are not. Israel is surrounded on multiple fronts by Iranian proxies, who have no interest in peaceful co-existence with either Israel or any of the other Arab nations in the region that are not aligned with Iran. Iran is able to finance its proxies through the foolish actions of the last two Democrat (Obama and Biden) administrations in the United States, who thought continuous appeasement of Iran and handing over billions upon billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Mullahs in Tehran would somehow buy peace in the region. Of course, appeasement never works, as it only ends up making the enemy stronger and emboldens them over time. Therefore, Israel needs to play the game on a different level. They opted for a very innovative strategy to pinpoint weaknesses in their enemy’s communication infrastructure to target them and also minimize civilian damage.
As to the United States, we don’t fight to win wars anymore and haven’t for a long, long time. Our military has been handcuffed and our intelligence agencies seem to have devolved into glorified paper pushers more intent on political gamesmanship inside the Washington beltway than outthinking any of the enemies we face. One would hope that the latest Israeli action would inspire some innovative thinking about how to be more creative in how we deal with our own adversaries in the 21st century. Sadly, that is NOT likely to be the case, if recent history is any guide. Instead, I expect all the 3 letter intelligence agencies will instead focus on writing voluminous assessment papers on the Israeli action, that will then be stamped Classified: Top Secret and simply filed away never to be read by anyone.
Israel is doing what they have to do to survive in a hostile environment that now surrounds them. Rest of the world just continues to condemn their actions despite the fact that they are in the right of defending their nation and people. Our nation used to be a strong supporter but have largely withdrawn that support.
And don’t get confused about Palestine. Check the history books, THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A NATION CALLED PALESTINE. The area of Gaza was under an invading force known as the Philistines during biblical times and a mighty enemy of Israel who eventually was defeated. During the last Jewish rebellion against the Roman empire in 132-135 AD, the Romans basically wiped out the Jewish nation, scattered the people and razed Jerusalem to the ground. Then changed the name of the area to Palestine in an effort to destroy all traces of the Jewish people.
Think about this: in dealing with the Hamas, this enemy came out of the land that was once occupied by the main thorn in the Israelis – the Philistines. Amazing how history comes around in a circle and repeats itself.
Israel has to get tough with their enemies. Don’t let civilian casualties deter you from taking out legitimate military targets.
The Palestinians did this to themselves. There was a ceasefire on October 6. Israel must do whatever is necessary to destroy the terrorists.
Golda Maier was right when she said there will not be peace until palestinians love for their children is greater than the hate for the Jews .
It takes brains to plan and execute effective, innovative strategy, and Israel is making good on their retaliation against those lowlifes.
Brilliant, Israel. Absolutely brilliant—in a scary I’m never getting another new cell phone kind of way.
I was amazed and impressed by IDF’s technological ingenuity as I watched videos of hezbollah members getting injured at their computer stations when the pagers or radios exploded. Sadly, I doubt that our woke military has the same capabilities. Milly’s “I need to explore my white rage” speech told our nation that military leaders are more about DEI than preparing for combat.
Always important to know about things that make the defense of freedom possible. Born in 1950 what happened during world war two had much influence on most things of significance then and the connection with why world conditions were what they were then – meaning the late 1950’s to mid 1960’s . The. circumstances that effect how various weapons develop reflects many things pertaining to how people defend themselves, defend their country. The way the defenders of freedom go about fighting for what is right and good and the need to stop evil forces, stop tyranny is important to keep in mind regarding what is done and why. Knowing about military law is important ,just as important as weapon development. It distinguishes the difference between those who fight for what is right and good and the evil doers . Innovation is needed now that could somehow stop the illegal alien invasion situation. It would not be a weapon actually, but a system that would detect certain procedures forming that are known to be contributing to the invasion of illegal aliens . Some form of ,some combination of law and technology and communication that would indicate the enemy forces are about to do act in a hostile way . Intelligence that can be effective in protecting the border from invasion would be a great innovation. As I mentioned it would be a combination of things that would signal changes in situations in order to defend the border. It is a possibility , it is also possible that having enough law abiding citizens thinking about improving systems for border defense that there will be an improvement through the ideas people have with this defense of freedom matter.
It was the early-morning rain and the mud that won Agincourt, not the longbow (the English archers ran out of arrows halfway into the battle). The French army was huge but consisted of armor-laden heavy cavalry and infantry. The mud caused them to get stuck when they advanced, and, immobile, many drowned in it. The English were far fewer but were able to swarm all over the helpless French like army ants. Sad, but true.
Good for Israel and the IDF.One of my ancestors was a longbowman at Agincourt.