Postmodernizam, jezična politika i ratovanje na BliskomE istoku: odraz neoteričnoga eksperimentiranja u vojnoj terminologiji na ishod Drugoga libanonskog rata
Postmodernism, Language Policy, and Warfare in the Middle East: The Impact of Neoteric Experimenting in Military Terminology on the Outcome of the Second Lebanon War

Summary/Abstract: Fifteen years after the Second Lebanon War – fought in July 2006 between the State of Israel and Hezbollah, a militant Shiite organization in Lebanon – analysts are largely unanimous in assessing that Israel, at the very least, experienced military failure in that war. Today, with years gone by, assessments of the outcome of the war are no longer so categorical and absolute. Some of the factors influencing the failure of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have however proved relevant, and their repercussions are recognizable in current Israeli military thought. Therefore, in this paper, the research interest is focused on a thus far insufficiently studied aspect of the Second Lebanon War – the language. More specifically, the terminology used by Israeli military forces in war operations against Hezbollah is discussed. According to a report by an Israeli commission established after the end of the war, the terminology introduced into military doctrines just prior to the conflict is explicitly emphasized in several places as one of the determinants of Israeli military failure. The research of primary sources and the review of recent re-evaluations of the impact and outcomes of the war shed light on the extent of the consequences of the frivolous approach to the formation of military language policy. The research elaborates on the scholarly weight that terminology carries in the language of every profession, and especially in the defense sciences.

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