Five Lessons That Russia Can Learn From The Latest Israeli-Lebanese War
Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

These lessons are: 1) prioritizing military goals over political ones; 2) the importance of superior intelligence; 3) insensitivity to public opinion; 4) the need for one’s “deep state” to be fully convinced of the ongoing conflict’s existential nature; and 5) practicing “radical decisiveness”.
The latest Israeli-Lebanese War and the Ukrainian conflict are so different from one another as to be practically incomparable, but Russia can still learn some general lessons from Israel if it has the will. The first is that prioritizing military goals increases the chances of achieving political ones. Russia’s special operation continues to be characterized by self-restraint, which is influenced by Putin’s magnum opus “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, unlike Israel’s conduct in its war with Lebanon.
The expectation was that the lightning-fast on-the-ground advances during the opening stage of the conflict would coerce Zelensky into agreeing to the military demands that were made of him. The only miniscule collateral damage that would have occurred could have then facilitated the process of Russian-Ukrainian reconciliation. This plan was predicated on Zelensky’s capitulation, which didn’t happen. Instead, he was convinced by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to keep fighting.