Michael Young: Lebanon simply cannot afford to watch its two main pillars of stability to crumble/مايكل يونج: بساطة لا يستطيع لبنان أن يراقب ركيزتيه للاستقرار الرئيسيتين تنهاران/Aram Nerguizian: Salvation Army/أرام ناركوزيان: جيش لبنان المخلص
Salvation Army?/Aram Nerguizian/Carnegie MEC/May 05/2020 أرام ناركوزيان: جيش لبنان المخلص
Lebanon simply cannot afford to watch its two main pillars of stability to crumble Michael Young/The National/May 05/2020 مايكل يونج: بساطة لا يستطيع لبنان أن يراقب ركيزتيه للاستقرار الرئيسيتين تنهاران
With the banking sector on the verge of breakdown and the military under immense pressure, ordinary Lebanese fear a return of the civil war years.
As Lebanon continues to suffer from the pain of an economic collapse, events last week raised the prospect of a worrisome scenario in the country, which the country’s political leadership cannot afford to ignore. If they do, what could ensue is a situation ominously reminiscent of the civil war years.
Even before the end of confinement imposed by coronavirus, violent protests had resumed in Lebanon against economic conditions, particularly in the northern city of Tripoli. The Lebanese army was deployed to contain the demonstrators, many of whom had escalated their actions by setting fire to banks. A young protester was killed in one of the melees, while dozens of soldiers were injured.
Two of the main pillars of Lebanon’s stability are the banking system and the military. What happened last week underlined that the first is on the verge of a breakdown, threatening Lebanon’s finances, while the second is under mounting pressure. Unless there is a rapid injection of dollar liquidity into the banking sector, it will not survive. And unless relief is given to an increasingly impoverished Lebanese society, the army cannot forever be relied upon to curb the protests.
That is not to say that the military will stage a coup. Rather, as the Lebanese pound loses its value – which has already dramatically eroded the salaries of state employees, including soldiers – the willingness of officers and troops to back the politicians against the people will decline. It is conceivable that if the situation deteriorates further, the military will quietly begin to resist repressing social unrest, insisting that this is the job of the security forces.
If that were to happen, two things could ensue. Protesters, sensing that the tide is turning in their favour, could become even more brazen in their attacks against leading politicians and their interests; and, in response, the politicians could resort to playing on sectarian sensibilities to portray any attack against them as an attack against their religious community. That could push them to resort to autonomous security means to protect their interests, and themselves.
Autonomous security is a polite way of saying that sectarian militias could emerge to do what the army is unwilling to do, namely control the streets. With the financial system no longer functioning and the army increasingly failing to protect state officials, the very notion of a state would lose whatever meaning it still has as security institutions are replaced by sectarian armed gangs.
Some politicians would prefer to resist such a development on the grounds that they need the state as a facade for the corrupt oligarchy they have put in place; and to avoid a slide into civil war that would devastate the lucrative edifice they have exploited since the end of the war in 1990. The reality is that while many politicians became prominent during the war years, they are not keen to take Lebanon back to that time, seeing little to gain from it.
Moreover, Hezbollah, Lebanon’s most powerful party, would regard a new civil war as a threatening sideshow to its main task of advancing Iranian interests regionally. That is why some of the party’s foes abroad fantasise about a new civil war in Lebanon, believing it would sink Hezbollah in a debilitating conflict, just as the war in 1975 did to the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
With this in mind, Hezbollah and the rest of the political class have accepted a step that they previously would have preferred to avoid. They have asked for assistance from the International Monetary Fund. While their intentions are certainly mercenary, once they are locked into a bailout programme, the politicians’ ability to ignore IMF conditions would be relatively limited.
That even Hezbollah has accepted the necessity of an IMF bailout, if the fund itself agrees to one, is a testament to the desire of Lebanon’s politicians and parties to salvage what remains of the state. That is why the political class will try to do two things in the weeks and months ahead: save the banking sector, even if it means they have to put their hands on bank deposits; and ensure that the army is spared the worst consequences of widening protests.
In this context, Hezbollah may be in control of the political system, but it is also a system that is rapidly disintegrating. Prime Minister Hassan Diab has made mistakes, is increasingly vulnerable as he has lately alienated influential Maronite and Greek Orthodox representatives, and continues to be challenged by the main Sunni representative, Saad Hariri.
This suggests that Hezbollah may in the future be tempted to replace Mr Diab’s government with a so-called national unity government, which alone would be able to reach a broad political consensus on an economic plan to address the dire financial situation.
Hezbollah is militarily strong, but today that is hardly enough. The party does not want a new civil war, it seeks an economic revival to assuage an angry population, which only the IMF can provide, and it is willing to make concessions to secure its long-term security. All this will force Hezbollah into making difficult choices in the coming weeks. The party’s domestic rivals will be looking for ways to exploit this to narrow its margin of manoeuvre, while increasing their own.
*Michael Young is editor of Diwan, the blog of the Carnegie Middle East programme, in Beirut
Salvation Army?/Aram Nerguizian/Carnegie MEC/May 05/2020 أرام ناركوزيان: جيش لبنان المخلص
The Lebanese armed forces’ Covid-19 response has been a success, but potential problems remain.
For more than a month, Lebanon’s national security institutions have been enforcing a March 21 government stay-at-home order to limit, contain, and reverse the spread of the novel coronavirus. On the day of the announcement, the government’s Disaster Risk Management Unit reported 206 confirmed cases in Lebanon. More than a month later, on May 4, Lebanon’s official cumulative number of cases was 740, including 205 recoveries and 25 deaths.
It would be easy to characterize the country’s reaction to the coronavirus and the military’s public order mission as relative successes. Official data show a tentative slowdown and flattening of the national Covid-19 caseload, while the Lebanese military and military families had recorded less than 30 cases by April 28.
Nonetheless, the mitigation challenges of Lebanon’s initial lockdown may pale by comparison to the real mix of risks and critical uncertainties with which the military may have to contend in the future. In the short to medium term, these include the uncertain effects of a breakdown in social and physical distancing and the need to prepare for the possible effects of a second wave of infections and associated public order missions. In the longer term, the challenge will shift to how the military will plan and resource for public health crises in 2021 and beyond, without compromising its preference to remain focused on traditional priorities tied to national defense.
The “general mobilization” directive to maintain public order was rolled out with minimal prior coordination with the armed forces. Senior officers described being issued an order from the government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab with little meaningful preplanning tied to Covid-19 risk mitigation and containment protocols. They were given only limited visibility on the availability of personal protection equipment for troops tasked with maintaining order.
The military needed to quickly pivot to dealing with the crisis. Given the importance of silo-breaking and cross-departmental cooperation, senior military decisionmakers were presented with several options to structure internal coordination. The military established a focused Covid-19 crisis response committee, composed of four officers from each of the military’s personnel, operations, military intelligence, and medical services branches.
Rather than opting for senior officers, the committee is composed of mid-level officers ranging from the ranks of major to colonel. They are empowered to deconflict as a team, coordinate quickly up the chain of command to the Office of the Commander, and communicate vertically within their discreet military lines of effort. The sourcing of medical supplies and donations is directed through the military’s medical services branch, not its logistics branch.
No less than 40,000 troops—half of Lebanon’s total national military manpower—took part in the public order mission. To mitigate community spread and preserve force readiness, a “fourteen days duty, fourteen days off duty” rotation system was adopted. Nonessential personnel at Lebanese military headquarters were scaled back, with 70 percent of officers and 50 percent of noncommissioned officers and enlisted personnel reporting for duty. A floor of the military hospital was reserved solely for Covid-19 cases and currently counts 20 intensive care unit beds.
To offset the limited supply of facemasks and other types of personal protection equipment, no less than two major units were tasked with producing masks at an initial rate of 200 to 250 units per day. By April 4, the armed forces’ senior officers felt more confident that the force possessed the basics of short-term protection for approximately 20,000 active duty personnel.
The net result of these measures, combined with a civilian stay-at-home compliance rate that the military estimated at 80 percent, was that as of May 3 the military reported no more than six Covid-19 cases within its active duty ranks and no more than 20 cases among military families and retired personnel. Meanwhile, some 700 members of the armed forces remain on fourteen days of mandatory leave to protect their units due to exposure to potentially at-risk communities, or because they appeared to be symptomatic.
Although these results seem encouraging, military planners and decisionmakers fear that the lockdown through the end of April might have been the easy part. The loss of economic activity during confinement, the continued decline of vital socioeconomic metrics, and the resumption of popular protests seem to herald the collapse of social distancing. In parallel, a noticeable number of personnel have shown increasing lapses in enforcing social distancing within the armed forces. As a result, military planners are asking themselves not if but when a second wave of infections might hit Lebanon.
In the short term the military will have to take two risk-mitigating actions. It will have to consolidate, strengthen, and properly integrate protocols and standard operating procedures to contain future infections from the level of small units up to headquarters. It will also have to build up a stockpile of protective medical equipment to deal with a possible second wave of infections. This will include coordinating donations and additional deliveries of equipment from Lebanon’s military partners, including the United States.
The Covid-19 pandemic also has longer-term implications. Like militaries in the West and NATO, past and current Lebanese military planning guidance under the 2013–2017 and the 2018–2022 Capabilities Development Plans has prioritized the continued development of highly specialized units to counter chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. However, it has not focused on an effort to maximize protection of the bulk of the Lebanese military under pandemic conditions, while enforcing a nationwide public order mission.
The military has shown significant agility in its Covid-19 response. However, it has not been relieved of its pre-pandemic national security missions. These include maintaining stability along the border with Syria, living up to international commitments in the south of the country tied to United Nations resolutions, and maintaining adequate force readiness to defend Lebanon’s territorial integrity. That the Lebanese government may also see the armed forces as an instrument to maintain public order at a time of social and economic unrest in the country is a poisoned chalice that could undermine a military that has fought hard to be taken seriously as Lebanon’s sole legitimate national security institution.
