two-front war

File:Roman conquest of Italy.PNG from 500 BC to 218 BC through the Latin War (light red), Samnite Wars (pink/orange), Pyrrhic War (beige), and First and Second Punic War (yellow and green). Cisalpine Gaul (238-146 BC) and Alpine valleys (16-7 BC) were later added. The Roman Republic in 500 BC is marked with dark red. As it ascended to supremacy in Italy, Roman Republic routinely fought on multiple fronts.]]

During the 5th-century BCE First Peloponnesian War the Greek polis of Athens had been embroiled in a drawn out struggle with the poleis of Aegina and Corinth among others and its primary enemy Sparta. Aware of the dangers of a battle with the superior Spartans, Athens concentrated on the conquest of Boeotia and thus avoid a prolonged two-front war.{{Cite book |last=Victor Davis Hanson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cZSgrIkkj_kC&pg=PA125 |title=A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War |date=30 November 2011 |publisher=Random House Publishing Group |isbn=978-1-58836-490-6 |pages=125–}}

On several occasions during the third century BCE, the Roman Republic engaged in two-front conflicts while clashing with the Gauls and Etruscans to the north and also campaigning in Magna Graecia (the coastal areas of Southern Italy). When Rome was enmeshed in the Second Punic War against Carthage, Hannibal, formal ally of the Sicilian city of Syracuse, intrigued with Philip V of Macedon in 215 BCE, who promptly declared war on Rome.{{Cite book |last1=Salmon, Julie Andrew |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=boT6HtW5TCQC&pg=PA281 |title=Samnium and the Samnites |last2=E. T. Salmon |date=2 September 1967 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-06185-8 |pages=281–}}{{Cite book |last=Brian Todd Carey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M0JTAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA74 |title=Hannibal's Last Battle: Zama and the Fall of Carthage |date=18 October 2007 |publisher=Pen and Sword |isbn=978-1-84415-635-1 |pages=74–}} After the establishment of the Roman Empire and the consolidation of its frontiers under Augustus, the Roman legions regularly battled multiple enemies, most notably Germanic tribes on the Rhine and the lower Danube and the Parthian Empire in Syria and Mesopotamia.{{Cite web |title=Don't Do As the Romans Did… |url=https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/09/obama-two-front-war-rome-110779 |last=Michael Auslin |date=September 9, 2014 |publisher=POLITICO LLC |access-date=May 1, 2020}} Various emperors, such as Septimius Severus and Aurelian forcibly led large armies to the opposite ends of the empire in order to deal with the various threats. Beginning in the third century the Roman - and its eastern successor the Byzantine Empire, trying to preserve its territories in Italy, struggled with the Sassanid Empire to the east for a period of more than 400 years. Large-scale incursions of Germanic tribes, such as the Goths and Hunnic raids in the west began during the fourth century and lasted for more than a hundred years.{{Cite book |last=Peter Heather |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wCOJfTB7HtgC |title=The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians |date=28 October 2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |isbn=978-0-19-515954-7}}{{Cite web |title=Transoxiana 04: Sasanians in Africa |url=http://www.transoxiana.com.ar/0104/sasanians.html |publisher=Transoxiana.com.ar |access-date=May 1, 2020}}

Political methods are also used in multi-pronged warfare. These methods include weakening the power of the target country, infiltration, internal sabotage, espionage, sabotage and terrorist activities, behind-the-scenes manipulation, manipulation using influential figures, blatant interference, worsening instability, and shaping the situation. In addition, political pressure is exerted by using the media to support terrorist organizations that oppose the state government, and by spreading fabricated news, misinformation, and fake news.

Seven Years' War

File:Indians ambush British at Battle of the Monongahela.jpg]]

The French and Indian War was a local conflict in North America, that occurred in the context of the trans-continental Seven Years' War. In 1755 armed forces of Great Britain under the command of General Edward Braddock invaded the territories of New France (eastern part of modern Canada, Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys and much of the upper Midwest of the modern United States) and attacked Fort Duquesne. Although numerically superior to the local French militia and their Indian allies, the British army became ensnared in a two-front conflict and was routed.{{Cite book |last=Anderson |first=Fred |url=https://archive.org/details/crucibleofwarsev00ande_0/page/15 |title=Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |year=2000 |isbn=0375406425 |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/crucibleofwarsev00ande_0/page/15]}}{{Cite web |title=The Battle of the Monongahela |url=https://www.wdl.org/en/item/9580/ |publisher=WDL |access-date=May 1, 2020}}

Prussia had to fight against France, Austria, and Russia during the Third Silesian War, and also against Sweden during the Pomeranian War.

{{Main|Napoleonic Wars}}

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Grande Armée of France regularly maintained multiple fronts. In the seven year long Peninsular War (1807–1814) imperial French contingents and Spanish and Anglo-Portuguese armies wrestled for control of the Iberian Peninsula in numerous battles. Nonetheless, in 1812 as French military presence in Iberia had begun to decline, emperor Napoleon Bonaparte personally lead an army of more than 600.000 troops to the east into Russia, seeking to decisively defeat the Russian Empire and force Tsar Alexander I to comply with the Continental System.{{Cite book |last=Victoria Tin-bor Hui |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M5Wvw2i84DAC&pg=PA135 |title=War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe |date=4 July 2005 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-44356-2 |pages=135–}} Great Britain was also present on multiple fronts of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe and the Canadian, the Chesapeake Bay and Louisiana theaters of the War of 1812 in North America.{{Cite book |last=Carl Benn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aG2ICwAAQBAJ |title=The War of 1812 |date=6 June 2014 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4728-1009-0}}{{cite journal |url=https://www.academia.edu/21654582 |title= Wellington's Two-Front War: The Peninsular Campaigns, at Home and Abroad, 1808-1814 | publisher= Academia | author=Jeremy Black |journal= Historian |date= January 2012 | access-date= May 13, 2020 }}

{{Main|World War I}}

{{Further|History of Germany during World War I|}}File:Map Europe alliances 1914-en.svg frontlines to the East and West.]]

During World War I, Germany fought a two-front war against France, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium and later also American forces on the Western Front and Russia and later Romania on the Eastern Front. Russian participation in the war ended with the 1917 Bolshevik October Coup and the peace treaty with Germany and Austria-Hungary was signed in March 1918.

Its central location in Europe and (currently) borders with nine neighboring nations fundamentally define Germany's politics and strategy. Bismarck successfully integrated Germany in his elaborate system of alliance of the European powers from 1871 until he was dismissed in 1890 by the new Emperor Wilhelm II.{{cite web |url=https://www.academia.edu/13477075 |title= The Bismarck Plan: German Unification and the Balance of Power | publisher= Academia | author=John A Smoot | access-date= May 13, 2020 }} Wilhelm embarked on an imperialist great power political course, neglected the alliances and his irrational expansion of the Imperial Navy triggered an arms race and seriously damaged the relations with France and Great Britain. By 1907, France had established an alliance with Great Britain and Russia. The German Empire found itself encircled and isolated.{{Cite book |last=Neugebauer |first=Wolfgang |title=Die Hohenzollern. Band 2 – Dynastie im säkularen Wandel |date=2003 |publisher=Kohlhammer Verlag |isbn=978-3-17-012097-6 |location=Stuttgart |pages=174–175 |language=de}}On the Kaiser's "histrionic personality disorder", see Tipton (2003), pp. 243–245{{Cite journal |last=Röhl |first=J. C. G. |date=Sep 1966 |title=Friedrich von Holstein |journal=Historical Journal |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=379–388 |doi=10.1017/s0018246x00026716|s2cid=163767674 }}{{Cite book |last=Herwig |first=Holger |title=Luxury Fleet: The Imperial German Navy 1888–1918 |year=1980}}

German military strategists had to adapt to the new strategic situation and developed the Schlieffen Plan. A series of military operations, that were to counteract being surrounded and, if exacted ruthlessly, will lead to victory.{{Cite book |last=Hans Ehlert, Michael Epkenhans, Gerhard P. Gross, David T. Zabecki |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IVjCBAAAQBAJ |title=The Schlieffen Plan: International Perspectives on the German Strategy for World War I |date=14 October 2014 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-4747-5}} Under the Schlieffen Plan, German forces would invade France via Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands (the idea to go through the Netherlands was abandoned because of its neutrality), quickly capturing Paris and forcing France to sue for peace. The Germans would then turn their attention to the East before the Russian army could mobilize its massive forces. The Germans failed to achieve the plan's objectives.{{Cite web |title=Germany Could Have Won World War I. Here's How. |url=https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/germany-could-have-won-world-war-i-heres-how-35882 |last=Michael Peck |date=November 11, 2018 |publisher=Center for the National Interest |access-date=May 19, 2019}}{{Cite book |last=Andrew Roberts |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZC-IBqQitdsC&pg=PR173 |title=The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War |date=6 August 2009 |publisher=Penguin Books Limited |isbn=978-0-14-193886-8 |pages=173–}}{{Cite book |last=Terence Zuber |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yuDVsT6JvtsC |title=Inventing the Schlieffen Plan: German War Planning 1871-1914 |date=31 October 2002 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-164771-0}}

{{Further|Austria-Hungary during World War I}}

In 1866 the Austro-Hungarian Army was left with no other option but to divide its armed forces and disperse them on two fronts during the Austro-Prussian War against Prussia to the North and the Kingdom of Italy to the South in the Third Italian War of Independence. The Prusso-Italian alliance was agreed upon an initiative of the Prussian Minister President Otto von Bismarck.{{cite book|author=Geoffrey Wawro|title=The Austro-Prussian War: Austria's War with Prussia and Italy in 1866|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AimQzlVVlQoC|date=13 September 1997|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-62951-5}}

In 1914 Austria-Hungary commenced the First World War by attacking Serbia at the Balkan front. After just a few weeks Austria-Hungarian troops clashed with the numerically far superior Russian imperial army in the Battle of Galicia at the Eastern front.{{cite book|author1=Richard Frederick Hamilton|author2=Richard F. Hamilton|author3=Holger H. Herwig|title=The Origins of World War I|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2EyJY8uE4WYC&pg=PA20|date=24 February 2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-81735-6|pages=20–}} When Italy joined the conflict in May 1915 on the Allied side and deployed in strength at the Alpine front to the south, Austria-Hungary was already critically undermanned and faced serious recruitment shortfalls, which diminished the chances to exact an early defeat on any of the opponents, instead be confined to struggle in a two-front war at the periphery of its own territory. Consequently, the Austro-Hungarian Army lacked the initiative and the contributions at the Macedonian front (Salonikifront) were marginal. Nonetheless, when Romania entered the war on the Allied side in August 1916 at the southern tip of the Eastern front, Austria-Hungary acted promptly and concluded this stage in late 1916 and occupied large areas of Romania. The greater two-front war only ended after the separate peace with Russia in March 1918, which, after all, did not forestall the collapse of the imperial army in the course of summer and autumn.{{cite web |url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/crisis-in-austria-hungary |title= Crisis mounts in Austria-Hungary amid hunger and discontent | publisher= HISTORY com | date=November 16, 2009 | access-date= May 2, 2020 }}

{{Further|World War II|Military history of the United States during World War II|Military history of Germany during World War II}}File:1944-12-15GerWW2BattlefrontAtlas.jpg

A two-front war scenario, almost identical to the first World War would eventually aggregate in the European theatre during World War II, when Nazi Germany confronted allied France, Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and later the United States in the west and the Soviet Union to the east.{{Cite book |last=Richard W. Harrison |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C17uxAfGKdIC&pg=PA216 |title=Architect of Soviet Victory in World War II: The Life and Theories of G.S. Isserson |date=13 April 2010 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-5667-3 |pages=216–}}

Adolf Hitler initially attempted to avoid a two-front war as he engaged and crushed his opponents successively. In 1940, however, he failed to beat Great Britain in the air battle and in 1941 attacked the Soviet Union. Great Britain in relative safety on its island remained unbeaten and managed to maintain the western front.

Germany, that lacked the resources for a long war, failed to achieve a quick victory in the east and eventually collapsed under the pressure of a war of attrition on two fronts, accelerated by a surge of resistance and partisan groups in virtually all occupied countries. Reduced production output and dwindling replacements of casualties as a consequence of massive material warfare and Allied strategic bombing and shortages in fuel and raw materials increasingly prevented the continuation of German offensive - and Blitzkrieg tactics. In contrast, steadily improving Allied cooperative warfare, based on an exponentially growing war industry brought about the inevitable total military defeat for Germany.{{Cite book |last=Fern Chandonnet |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p01bFVagOJYC&pg=PA345 |title=Alaska at War, 1941-1945: The Forgotten War Remembered |date=15 September 2007 |publisher=University of Alaska Press |isbn=978-1-60223-135-1 |pages=345–}}{{Cite web |title=The Effects of the Two-Front War on Germany During WWII |url=https://classroom.synonym.com/effects-twofront-war-germany-during-wwii-22440.html |last=Jeffrey Billman |publisher=Leaf Group Ltd |access-date=May 19, 2019}}{{Cite web |title=Hitler And Russia: The Third Reich in a Two-Front War, 1937–1943 |url=https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/72/3/965/55216?redirectedFrom=fulltext |last=Higgins Trumbull |date=April 1, 1967 |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=May 19, 2019}}{{Cite book |last=Lee Baker |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fYraAAAAQBAJ&pg=PR34 |title=The Second World War on the Eastern Front |date=13 September 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-86504-9 |pages=34–}}

The United States, who had, since December 1941, primarily focused on the conflict with the Japanese Empire, eventually established an Atlantic front in order to support their European allies, beginning in November 1942 with an amphibious landing in North Africa, later to continue the campaign in Sicily and on the Italian peninsula and invade France on the beaches of Normandy in 1944.{{Cite web |title=The Decision To Invade North Africa (TORCH) |url=https://history.army.mil/books/70-7_07.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071213063125/http://www.history.army.mil/books/70-7_07.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=December 13, 2007 |last=Leo J. Meyer |publisher=U.S. Army Center of Military History |access-date=May 1, 2020}}{{Cite book |last=Alan Axelrod |url=https://archive.org/details/realhistoryofwor00axel |url-access=registration |title=The Real History of World War II: A New Look at the Past |publisher=Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-4027-4090-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/realhistoryofwor00axel/page/n196 179]–}} Their colossal military strength and favorable strategic position in between two oceans without territorial borders to any of the Axis powers allowed the US forces to safely wage an offensive two-front war by maintaining the initiative in the Pacific War, contain and defeat Japan and also increase American presence in Europe that ensures Allied victory over Nazi Germany.{{Cite book |last=Professor Louis Morton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pIBvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT42 |title=United States Army in WWII - the Pacific - Strategy and Command - Part three: Seizing the initiative |date=15 August 2014 |publisher=Verdun Press |isbn=978-1-78289-397-4}}{{Cite book |last=Maury Klein |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lolBMB5rXI8C |title=A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II ´The feasibility follies, p. 377 - |date=16 July 2013 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-60819-409-4}}

The Axis Powers had the opportunity to force the Soviet Union into a two-front war by means of a Japanese attack in the Soviet Far East, but Japan decided against it as it had been defeated in the Soviet–Japanese border conflicts. The Soviet Union and Japan refrained from mutual hostilities until the 9 August 1945, three months after the surrender of Germany. Thus, Japan fought a two-front war in China in the Second Sino-Japanese War and against the United States in the Pacific Theatre. The Soviet Union worsened the Japanese position by invading Manchuria.{{Cite book |last=Larry H. Addington |url=https://archive.org/details/patternsofwarsin00addi_0 |url-access=registration |title=The Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century |date=22 October 1994 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-11109-8 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/patternsofwarsin00addi_0/page/n326 303]–}}

Poland fought a two front war with Germany and Russia during WWII.

{{See also|Cold War}}

A major rationale for the American 600-ship Navy plan in the 1980s was to threaten the Soviet Union with a two-front war, in Europe and the Pacific Ocean, in the event of hostilities.{{Cite web |title=Ship Building 1981-89 - Reagan, Ronald |url=https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/scn-1981-reagan.htm |publisher=Global Security |access-date=May 1, 2020}}

{{Further|History of the Israel Defense Forces}}

In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Israelis fought the Egyptians to the south and the Jordanians and Syrians in the east and the north. Israel again fought two-front wars in the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973.{{Cite book |last=Frank Aker |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G38BBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT20 |title=October 1973 The Arab Israeli War |date=22 October 2014 |publisher=First Edition Design Pub. |isbn=978-1-62287-755-3 |pages=20–}}{{Cite book |last=Abraham Rabinovich |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n_9gIR6Fi3UC |title=The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East |date=18 December 2007 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-307-42965-0}}{{Cite book |last1=R. Harkavy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NeQYDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA95 |title=Warfare and the Third World |last2=S. Neuman |date=30 April 2016 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US |isbn=978-1-137-07926-8 |pages=95–}} In 2024, Israel is fighting another potential two front war, with Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the south-west and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon to the north.{{Cite news |last=Beaumont |first=Peter |date=2024-06-15 |title=Netanyahu is fighting a war on two fronts. No end is in sight for either one |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/15/netanyahu-war-two-fronts-israel-hamas-gaza-hezbollah-lebanon |access-date=2024-09-18 |work=The Observer |language=en-GB |issn=0029-7712}}

{{Further|Indo-Pakistani wars and conflicts|Sino-Indian border dispute}}

India's relations with Pakistan and China have for many decades been uneasy and, in fact, greatly disturbed by unsettled border feuds. The discord with Pakistan is by far the more complicated one, because both parties claim exclusive sovereignty over an entire historic region, the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir.{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Jammu-and-Kashmir |title= Jammu and Kashmir, union territory, India - History | publisher= Encyclopædia Britannica | access-date= May 2, 2020 }} Although matters were settled and signed in 1972, armed forces face each other, entrenched on both sides of the volatile border, the Line of Control. Attempts to directly or indirectly wrest territory from each other has hardly been successful and always caused fierce reactions.{{cite web |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/08/asia/kashmir-fast-facts |title= Kashmir Fast Facts | publisher= CNN | date=March 26, 2020 | access-date= May 2, 2020 }}{{cite book|author1=Edmund Jan·Osma鈔czyk|author2=Edmund Jan Osmańczyk|title=Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: G to M|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fSIMXHMdfkkC&pg=PA1191%7CYEAR%3D2003%7CPUBLISHER%3DTAYLOR|year=2003|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-415-93922-5|pages=1191–}}

India and China have, despite more than a dozen rounds of border talks and the uneasy Line of Actual Control, as yet failed to negotiate a conclusive agreement. For decades, the Indian press and media have pointed at political tensions and deteriorating relations with China, caused, among other things, by occasional Chinese military incursions into Indian-controlled territory.{{cn|date=September 2020}}

In 2013 the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a series of high-profile infrastructure development projects in Pakistan was established. Chinese-Pakistani cooperation proved to be a success and a modern infrastructure had emerged within six years and by 2019 focus has shifted to the next phase. CPEC has disclosed its programs for concrete economic development and employment creation.

The Government of India has professed security concerns and repeatedly expressed its disapproval of the CPEC project, as a number of the projects come about on territory claimed by India.{{cite news|title=PM Modi told China, Pakistan economic corridor unacceptable: Sushma Swaraj|url=http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/pm-modi-told-china-pakistan-economic-corridor-unacceptable-sushma-swaraj_1605173.html |agency=Zee News|issue=31 May 2015|access-date=May 2, 2020}}{{cite news|url=http://tribune.com.pk/story/895611/china-pakistan-economic-corridor-unacceptable-modi-tells-china|title=China-Pakistan Economic Corridor 'unacceptable', Modi tells China|work=The Express Tribune|date=1 June 2015|access-date=May 2, 2020}}

According to an Indian army general in 2018, war on multiple fronts was "very much in the realm of reality", as the consequence of ideas of isolation and concerns about the clandestine strategic commitment of China and Pakistan, as the Congress in Beijing has provided assistance to Pakistan's nuclear weapon and missile programmes.{{cite web |url=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/two-front-war-is-a-real-scenario-says-general-bipin-rawat/articleshow/56324336.cms?from=mdr |title= Two-front war is a real scenario, says General Bipin Rawat | publisher= The Economic Times India | date=July 13, 2018 | author=Rajat Pandit | access-date= May 2, 2020 }}

During the Gaza war and Israel–Hezbollah conflict, the potential for Israel to invade Southern Lebanon raised the possibility of a two-front war, with some claiming the situation already is one.{{Cite web |last=Parmeter |first=Ian |date=2024-06-20 |title=Does Israel really want to open a two-front war by attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon? |url=https://theconversation.com/does-israel-really-want-to-open-a-two-front-war-by-attacking-hezbollah-in-lebanon-232900 |access-date=2024-09-18 |website=The Conversation |language=en-US}} Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Israel can fight a two-front war, saying "We can fight on several fronts. We are prepared for this."{{Cite web |last=Freedman |first=Lawrence |date=2024-07-04 |title=Israel's two-front war |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/world/middle-east/2024/07/israels-two-front-war-hezbollah-hamas |access-date=2024-09-18 |website=New Statesman |language=en-US}} As of September 2024, the IDF has not achieved Netanyahu's aims in Gaza, being to destroy Hamas and to liberate the hostages, and the war in Gaza is ongoing. Despite this, the invasion of Southern Lebanon looks increasingly more likely, with the Security Cabinet having approved an additional war aim of returning residents to the north of Israel,{{Cite web |title=Israel sets new war goal of returning residents to the north |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cglkkrj94ldo |access-date=2024-09-18 |website=www.bbc.com |language=en-GB}} and massive waves of explosions of various electronic devices occurring across Lebanon and some parts of Syria, targeting Hezbollah members. This is widely understood to be Israeli sabotage, with unnamed sources confirming this to Axios,{{Cite web |last=Ravid |first=Barak |date=2024-09-18 |title=Israel didn't tell U.S. in advance about Hezbollah pager attack, officials said |url=https://www.axios.com/2024/09/17/hezbollah-pager-explosion-israel-didnt-tell-biden-administration |website=Axios}} although Israel has not officially confirmed they are responsible.

These explosion waves have been theorized as being a decapitation strike, taking out Hezbollah members and leaders in preparation for an invasion, although it may also function as a "final warning" for Hezbollah to stop rocket strikes into Israel, or simply a psychological weapon to make Hezbollah feel unsafe wherever they are and of being fully infiltrated by Israeli intelligence services.{{Cite news |date=2024-09-17 |title=Hezbollah Pager Attack Looks Like a Decapitation Strike |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-09-17/was-pager-attack-on-hezbollah-in-lebanon-a-decapitation-strike |access-date=2024-09-18 |work=Bloomberg.com |language=en}}

Israel invaded Lebanon on 1 October 2024. A 60-day ceasefire agreement was agreed on 27 November 2024, although both sides have violated the terms of the ceasefire.

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Category:Military strategy

Category:Warfare by type

Category:Military science