Lebanon: The history of a weak state

Earlier this week during an emergency session of the UN Security Council in New York, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati declared Israel was waging a "dirty war" against his country. He said Israel was responsible for an unprecedented escalation in Lebanonand for the deaths of hundreds of civilians in just a few days, "including young people, women and children." That is why he said he was counting on a joint communiqué by France and the US, which would garner international support and end the "war." Israel rejects calls for a cease-fire.

Mikati's speech showed that the Lebanese government is largely powerless to stop the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. It has no real influence on Israel's or Hezbollah's actions. Once again, the weakness of the Lebanese government and Lebanese state is becoming apparent.

The history of a weak state

This weakness has historical roots. "Lebanon was founded in the early 20th century as a state of Christian Maronites in alliance with the French as a protecting power," says Markus Schneider, who heads the Friedrich-Ebert foundation's regional project for peace and security in the Middle East in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

"The birth defect was that it included large areas of non-Maronite populations from the outset," Schneider told DW. "Confessionalism was a compromise in order to integrate other sections of the population. This however prevented the emergence of a strong nation state."

This confessional structure became further entrenched in the Lebanese civil war that erupted in 1975, pitting the country's three largest denominations — Shiites, Sunnis and Maronite Christians — against each other. After the end of the civil war in 1990, a system was established to better balance the interests of the individual confessional groups.

"However, this system led to these groups repeatedly trying to assert their own interests at the expense of the other groups," Schneider says. "This continues to weaken the state. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that the country has been unable to agree on a president since 2022." The rampant corruption which plagues Lebanon is also linked to these divisions. "If there isn't a strong state that can take action against the centrifugal forces in its own country and institutions, then an oligarchic system can easily emerge in which everyone serves themselves," Schneider said.

Hezbollah

Many observers also feel that Lebanon is harmed by the presence of Hezbollah, a Shiite group classified by the US, Germanyand several Sunni Arab states as a terrorist organization. Hezbollah was founded in 1982 during the Lebanese civil war, receiving substantial support — including and above all military aid — from Iran from the very outset. In 2022, the Washington-based Wilson Center described Hezbollah's armed wing as likely "the most formidable non-state military actor in the Middle East — and arguably in the world." It was Hezbollah that opened fired on Israel after the start of the Gaza war last fall — without ever taking into consideration the rest of the Lebanese population. "Hezbollah has basically taken Lebanese politics hostage," says Middle East expert Kelly Petillo of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

A weak Lebanese army

The weakness of the Lebanese state is also evident in the passivity of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which finds itself in a dilemma in the country's south, where it cooperates with United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNFIL) peacekeepers on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

Both forces are made up of 15,000 soldiers. Their presence is linked to the 2006 Lebanon war, when Israel occupied areas of southern Lebanon. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 holds that following an Israeli withdrawal, the LAF and UNFIL would work together to ensure that no armed Lebanese militias return to southern Lebanon. Only troops authorized by the Lebanese government may be present in the south. Hezbollah has so far, however, disregarded this agreement and remains active in the area.

The LAF is relatively powerless in military terms. It is ranked in 118th place out of a total of 145 in the Global Firepower Index, which compares the strength of national armies worldwide. It would not be able to put up any serious resistance to the Israeli army, which is ranked 17th in the Global Firepower Index, nor would it be able to contain Hezbollah. "This would drag Lebanon into a civil war," says Schneider.

The LAF's biggest problem, meanwhile, remains political. As it is not controlled by any confessional group in the country, the army is regarded as one of the few non-confessional institutions in Lebanon, says Schneider. "But of course the army is also weakened by the national and economic crisis in Lebanon," he explains. "That is why it receives financial support, for example with regard to paying salaries. The concern is that if the army collapses, the Lebanese state itself could collapse. But of course, the army cannot solve the state's political problems."

This article was translated from German