- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 110
Phoning in the war
The mobile phone finds a place in modern warfare with its use in Lebanon
Colby Cosh - September 11, 2006
It's a rule of military history that most wars end up being remembered for one or two major technological innovations that defined their conduct and pointed to the future. The side that underestimates its enemy's capabilities--whether it's the French letting mass troops get chewed up by Prussian artillery barrages in 1870, or the Americans in modern Somalia failing to consider the rocket-powered grenade a ground-to-air weapon--is usually in for humiliation. You can bet military experts are looking closely at the just completed battle between Israel and Hezbollah, and noticing a new variable in the battle calculus: the mobile phone.
Until now, it has been rare for two countries with a heavy installed mobile-phone base to go to war. But Lebanon is not some economically struggling sand-dune republic; it's a sophisticated modern place where at least a quarter of the populace has a cell. In Israel, which has more engineers per capita than any other country and is responsible for much of the technical development of mobile telephony, the figure is more like 75 per cent. The mobile phone, with its new and expanding capacities for picture-taking and wireless text messaging, became almost a distinct battlefront.
Early in the conflict it became known that the Israeli Defence Forces were phoning individual Lebanese citizens in Hezbollah-controlled areas and warning them to flee imminent bombardments. Some on the anti-Israel left regarded this as adding insult to injury, but the value of the gesture became obvious once reporters documented Hezbollah's operational use of human shields, civilian neighbourhoods and (in one case) a hospital. Less altruistic was the IDF's use of Lebanese cellphones as a medium for propaganda. The Daily Star of Beirut interviewed a Christian cab driver who reported, "They call me every night and say this war is not against you, it's against the terrorists--what do you think of the terror Hezbollah is causing you and your country?"
Anecdotes like these suggest the Israeli defence establishment may have its own call centre, like Dell computers or AT&T.
Meanwhile, European countries trying to evacuate citizens from Lebanon (notably Sweden and France) used SMS text messages to track their people, inform them, and give them directions to the rescue planes and ships. But it was perhaps the camera phone that really came into its own on the Lebanese side. They were used by Lebanese to identify casualties, exchange messages of support, and to disperse photos of bombed-out buildings and injured children around the Arab world. On Flickr, the popular Canadian-based photo-sharing website, anyone with an Internet connection can search for the "Lebanon" tag and submerge themselves in the war of images; Lebanese pictures of shattered bridges and collapsed storefronts compete there with Israeli photos of handsome, weary young IDF soldiers. It seems we are entering an extraordinary new age, one in which wartime propaganda will not only be intended for mass consumption, but actually mass-produced.
The mobile phone finds a place in modern warfare with its use in Lebanon
Colby Cosh - September 11, 2006
It's a rule of military history that most wars end up being remembered for one or two major technological innovations that defined their conduct and pointed to the future. The side that underestimates its enemy's capabilities--whether it's the French letting mass troops get chewed up by Prussian artillery barrages in 1870, or the Americans in modern Somalia failing to consider the rocket-powered grenade a ground-to-air weapon--is usually in for humiliation. You can bet military experts are looking closely at the just completed battle between Israel and Hezbollah, and noticing a new variable in the battle calculus: the mobile phone.
Until now, it has been rare for two countries with a heavy installed mobile-phone base to go to war. But Lebanon is not some economically struggling sand-dune republic; it's a sophisticated modern place where at least a quarter of the populace has a cell. In Israel, which has more engineers per capita than any other country and is responsible for much of the technical development of mobile telephony, the figure is more like 75 per cent. The mobile phone, with its new and expanding capacities for picture-taking and wireless text messaging, became almost a distinct battlefront.
Early in the conflict it became known that the Israeli Defence Forces were phoning individual Lebanese citizens in Hezbollah-controlled areas and warning them to flee imminent bombardments. Some on the anti-Israel left regarded this as adding insult to injury, but the value of the gesture became obvious once reporters documented Hezbollah's operational use of human shields, civilian neighbourhoods and (in one case) a hospital. Less altruistic was the IDF's use of Lebanese cellphones as a medium for propaganda. The Daily Star of Beirut interviewed a Christian cab driver who reported, "They call me every night and say this war is not against you, it's against the terrorists--what do you think of the terror Hezbollah is causing you and your country?"
Anecdotes like these suggest the Israeli defence establishment may have its own call centre, like Dell computers or AT&T.
Meanwhile, European countries trying to evacuate citizens from Lebanon (notably Sweden and France) used SMS text messages to track their people, inform them, and give them directions to the rescue planes and ships. But it was perhaps the camera phone that really came into its own on the Lebanese side. They were used by Lebanese to identify casualties, exchange messages of support, and to disperse photos of bombed-out buildings and injured children around the Arab world. On Flickr, the popular Canadian-based photo-sharing website, anyone with an Internet connection can search for the "Lebanon" tag and submerge themselves in the war of images; Lebanese pictures of shattered bridges and collapsed storefronts compete there with Israeli photos of handsome, weary young IDF soldiers. It seems we are entering an extraordinary new age, one in which wartime propaganda will not only be intended for mass consumption, but actually mass-produced.
