Filenews 6 September 2024 - by James Stavridis
A year after the start of Israel's war against Hamas, it has become clear that the military "center of gravity" – the most important element of the conflict – is not the missiles or manpower of the terrorist group. Instead, it is the more than 400 miles of tunnels that have been built under the Gaza Strip. From these tunnels, Hamas and its backer, Iran, were able to train, arm, organize and launch the horrific attacks of October 7.
The Israel Defense Forces have now released a manual produced by Hamas in 2019 that details how the group sought to maximize the lethality of capabilities it painstakingly created underground and covertly. Hamas trained forces to fight in the underground environment using darkness cover, night vision goggles, split-second timing, GPS locators, elaborate camouflage and protective doors. Hamas troops managed to create a completely different battlefield from traditional over-ground combat
It is easy to believe that Hamas has given rise to a new style of warfare. In fact, the use of tunnels in war has a long history.
The question today is how the advent of new technologies might play a role in this ancient style of combat, posing military leaders with new challenges around the world. Where are other deadly tunnel complexes located? What should the U.S. and its allies do to prepare?
The tunnels were constructed over the centuries by the ancient Greek and Roman armies. Ironically, recent excavations have found that Jewish rebels in Judea used hundreds of kilometers of tunnels connecting villages in their uprising against the Romans two millennia ago. Both the ancient Chinese and Ottoman Turks used tunnel complexes, mainly to undermine cities under siege.
Tunnels played an important role in World War I and II. In the first, for example, Allied troops laid powerful explosive mines under German lines. In World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army constructed dense tunnel complexes on many of the islands it was trying to hold on to invading American troops. The Japanese found that they could double the level of enemy casualties by defending through tunnels instead of trying to thwart attacks on beaches. At Iwo Jima, the use of tunnels resulted in 27,000 U.S. casualties, including nearly 7,000 deaths.
Today, the most complex tunnel system dedicated to war is probably located in North Korea. These are deeply buried, probably impervious to even the largest conventional bombs or missiles. U.S. and South Korean forces are conducting extensive training aimed at entering and ultimately destroying such complexes. North Korea's tunnels are much larger, better defended, and filled with weapons far more advanced than those in Gaza.
The US and NATO allies have their own tunnel complexes. The Cheyenne Mountain complex in Colorado, managed by the U.S. Space Corps, is a massive nuclear defenses shelter located at the heart of North American Aerospace Defense Command. When I was NATO's supreme allied commander, we had a smaller version of Cheyenne Mountain near my headquarters in Mons, Belgium.
These facilities are fundamentally different from the tunnel complexes of Hamas, North Korea, Iran and Tora Bora in Afghanistan, once the hideout of al-Qaeda and now controlled by the Taliban. Russia claims to have used tunnel systems to get behind Ukrainian lines for surprise attacks. Complexes run by rogue states and terrorist groups exist to allow them to operate secretly from Western intelligence and conventional military strikes.
So what lessons can war planners draw from the Israeli army's struggle to gain control of Hamas' underground labyrinth?
First, traditional intelligence systems need to put more emphasis on the tunnel systems of Iran (which hides its nuclear program), North Korea (which hides not only nuclear weapons but also launchers) and terrorist groups. Technical means – cell phone surveillance, cyber surveillance – and human information (through agents) must shed more light on what happens in the dark.
U.S. and Allied troops will need better preparation for combat operations underground: training to destroy tunnel networks of significant size; technical training with combat units that includes not only explosive means but, for example, filling tunnels with water; training with night vision devices in extremely confined spaces; and psychological preparation for the underground warfare that is so different from ground warfare Business.
Another key lesson of Gaza is that we need to apply new technologies. These include information systems that can detect and measure tunnel complexes from space or using long-range drones. (This could potentially include high-resolution imaging, to see the movement of the earth as tunnels expand.) Also needed are unmanned ground sensing capabilities – audible, infrared and photosensing – that can operate ahead of human troops to reduce casualties. It would be useful to find new ways to make life underground unpleasant: by reducing air and water for example, or by creating unpleasant fumes.
Obviously, the presence of dozens of Israeli hostages in Gaza makes it much more difficult to use all these means. Therefore, calculate that other adversaries will learn lessons from Hamas and start the clashes by kidnapping significant numbers of civilians or military personnel. Doing everything we can to be prepared for "kill and grab" operations is critical.
Tunnel warfare is daunting, and preparing for more such situations will unfortunately be a crucial element of the battlefield of the 21st century. Terrorists and terrorist states will increasingly think about how to do the same from beneath the earth's surface.
James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, retired U.S. Navy admiral, former supreme NATO allied commander, and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is also vice president of global affairs at the Carlyle Group. He serves on the boards of American Water Works, Fortinet, PreVeil, NFP, Ankura Consulting Group, Titan Holdings, Michael Baker and Neuberger Berman and has advised Shield Capital, a cybersecurity investor.
Performance – Editing: Stathis Ketitzian
