Reference no: EM133303745

Assignment: Hezbollah is looked at by Russia as an organization that fights terrorism, which is simply a ridiculous statement. Started in 1985 in Lebanon, Hezbollah has been an anti-West, anti-Israel, jihadist militant group since its inception. The group is also member of the Axis of Resistance, along with Iran, Palestine, and the Syrian government (The Times of Israel 2022). They act as a Shia Islam militant group, supporting pretty much everything Russia supports - most notably a complete removal of American and other western-based influences from the regions in which they operate. To Russia, this is a group that could aid their desired outcomes (Grajewski 2021).

To gain their support, Russia has developed an in-depth relationship with Hezbollah, albeit behind the scenes with little public connection. This is partly due to Hezbollah being labeled a terrorist organization by, essentially, the entire western world (State Department 2022). Hezbollah has updated their tactics and operational capability under Russian tutelage, and became a major factor in regional actions that benefitted Russian activities in the region. Russia's support to Hezbollah has generated a more effective force, translating into development in Hezbollah intelligence gathering capabilities, which undoubtedly flows to their Russian handlers (Corbeil 2016).

Russia has both overhead and terrestrial SIGINT capabilities to use for intelligence collection. Unfortunately for Russia, their overall ISR game has gone rapidly downhill since the end of the Cold War. However, over the last decade, they have ramped up the design and employment of many space-based and terrestrial SIGINT collectors for military use (Hendrickx 2021). Unfortunately for the US, we have been so involved in a counter-insurgency mindset for the last twenty years that we have begun to fall behind in traditional warfare capabilities (Patterson 2016). Hopefully, we were far enough ahead to where we don't lose the strategic advantage against our adversaries.

Corbeil, Alexander. 2016. Hezbollah is Learning Russian. February 26. Accessed November 23, 2022.

Grajewski, Nicole. 2021. The Evolution of Russian and Iranian Cooperation in Syria. November 17. Accessed November 24, 2022.

Hendrickx, Bart. 2021. The status of Russia's signals intelligence satellites. April 5. Accessed November 24, 2022.

Patterson, Caitlin. 2016. Russia's Surging Electronic Warfare Capabilities. April 19. Accessed November 24, 2022.

State Department. 2022. Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Accessed November 23, 2022.

The Times of Israel. 2022. Hamas, Syria revive ties as Iran seeks to bolster anti-Israel 'axis of resistance'. October 11. Accessed November 23, 2022. Respond to this POST following guidelines above:

Question: What is the role of Hezbollah in Russian intelligence?

Shi'i Muslims, historically Lebanon's least powerful religious minority, first gained prominence in the moderate and generally secular Amal movement. Hezbollah was founded by Shi'i clerics to push Israel out of Lebanon and create an Islamic republic there instead. Hezbollah was based in the Big Valley, southern Lebanon, and southern Beirut, which are primarily Shi'i neighborhoods. (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 2018) Now, that we kind of got the history of Hezbollah, I want to talk about a common talk that isn't exactly proven but Russia and Hezbollah are said to have a relationship of doing your common day let's say illegal trades, which falls under the intelligence world. The group is not very skillful in certain intelligence areas so they found working with Russia gained them more experience and more tools that advanced them as a terrorist or some would say a Nonterrorist organization. Russia and Hezbollah are a great working pair, that continues to strive off each other, Russia gains valuable information by utilizing Hezbollah for their gains by training them with SIGINT, Russia has the GRU's Sixth Directorate uses over 20 different types of aircraft, a fleet of 60 SIGINT collection vessels, satellites, and ground stations to collect SIGNT intelligence.