FINDING THE BALANCE TO COMBAT A HYBRID THREAT

In 2006, the Israelis faced an enemy they were unprepared for. Their training had fixated on the key tasks to be successful in peace enforcement operations, ignoring the broader scope of other forms of war. In contrast, the United States (U.S.) Army prior to 2001 focused training on conventional warfare with combined arms teams engaged with the opposing forces along the central corridor at the National Training. In both case studies, each large force lacked training and familiarity with the decisive form of combat with which the war would be fought. Both forces shared the experience of fighting non-state actors.
The Second Lebanon War and OEF demonstrated through an examination of the operational environment, training, and organization the relevant lessons learned that can be used to create a synthesis model to prepare the U.S. Army to combat a hybrid threat.