Hezbollah's Broken Windows

I ripped this fairly dispassionate analysis off from elsewhere in the blogosphere:

"And since Israel's actions strike many Lebanese and others in the Middle East as excessive, the current attacks are an excellent recruitment tactic for Hezbollah. Thus Israel's chosen path is unlikely to produce long-term security for Israeli citizens."

While it may not produce long-term security (and I am not sure what will) that does not mean that its 'excessive' force is a bad strategy. In a very basic sense it is pretty good strategy based on a truism that you hear over and over again in corporate boilerplate - the nature of almost any organization is based on the quality of its people. Losing trained people hurts. If Israel kills 1000 trained and seasoned Hezbollah militants and Hezbollah instantly recruits 1000 new militants, Hezbollah is weaker (unless it has access to already developed human capital, which makes me wonder if there is like a 7-11 somewhere in Lebanon where displaced terrorists have "Will Kill Jews for Food" signs...hmm). Same with destroying Hezbollah's war materiel. Sure they can just get more rockets from Iran and Syria, but Bastiat's Broken Window Fallacy tells us that those replacement rockets mean resources cannot be used elsewhere for other purposes. And Hezbollah may reconstitute somewhere else if you scatter them. Same applies, they need to interweave themselves among a new populace, rebuild and modify infrastructure to suit their operations, and redraw plans based on a new operating base. All of this takes time and effort, again resources that could have been directed elsewhere for other projects or aims.

Short of neutralizing the animating hatred, or other motivation, of one's enemies or of eradicating them altogether, wiping out their assets and setting them back years in terms of human capital and organizational effectiveness is a fine strategy.