From: andy.cain@comcast.net <andy.cain@comcast.net> Sent: Monday, April 27, 2026 3:30 PM Most people watching war footage don't understand what they are seeing. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Andrew Fox from Fox On War <mrandrewfox@substack.com <mailto:mrandrewfox@substack.com> > Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2026 at 16:31 Subject: Most people watching war footage don't understand what they are seeing To: <albiemfox@gmail.com <mailto:albiemfox@gmail.com> > <https://eotrx.substackcdn.com/o/01725fcd19b39c3a/p.gif?token=eyJtIjoiPDIwMjYwNDI3MTUzMDE2LjMuOGVhYTkzZmY0ZDZjMTZiNEBtZzEuc3Vic3RhY2suY29tPiIsInUiOjI0MDI2Mzk4OCwiciI6ImFsYmllbWZveEBnbWFpbC5jb20iLCJkIjoibWcxLnN1YnN0YWNrLmNvbSIsInAiOjE5NTYzNzY0OSwidCI6Im5ld3NsZXR0ZXIiLCJhIjoib25seV9wYWlkIiwicyI6MjY2MTU1NCwiYyI6InBvc3QiLCJmIjpmYWxzZSwicG9zaXRpb24iOiJ0b3AiLCJpYXQiOjE3NzczMDM5MTAsImV4cCI6MTc3OTg5NTkxMCwiaXNzIjoicHViLTAiLCJzdWIiOiJlbyJ9.CTFGnD13OBHrFohjo81oVJLAt0xqeOJ48-23HNyZw4Q> From Afghanistan to Gaza, why images of conflict reveal less than we think ͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­ View in browser This post is just for paid subscribers: the people who make it possible for me to go out on the ground, report, and come back with something more than hot takes. If you’d like to see more reporting like this, let me know in the comments – I prioritise paid readers’ questions and suggestions. _____ <https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=2661554&post_id=195637649&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=3z1ovo&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNDAyNjM5ODgsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE5NTYzNzY0OSwiaWF0IjoxNzc3MzAzOTEwLCJleHAiOjE3Nzk4OTU5MTAsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0yNjYxNTU0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.G2qBu5CsBFMleB-ODP_Rh5RXqBh5-vbJcbp7HkBVme0> Most people watching war footage don't understand what they are seeing From Afghanistan to Gaza, why images of conflict reveal less than we think <https://substack.com/@mrandrewfox> Andrew Fox Apr 27 ∙ Paid <https://substack.com/@mrandrewfox> <https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=2661554&post_id=195637649&utm_source=substack&isFreemail=false&submitLike=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNDAyNjM5ODgsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE5NTYzNzY0OSwicmVhY3Rpb24iOiLinaQiLCJpYXQiOjE3NzczMDM5MTAsImV4cCI6MTc3OTg5NTkxMCwiaXNzIjoicHViLTI2NjE1NTQiLCJzdWIiOiJyZWFjdGlvbiJ9.WxsG-dtRSjt1yDRUOnsCK14-w2c99nRYZa992fgloZM&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-reaction&r=3z1ovo> <https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=2661554&post_id=195637649&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&isFreemail=false&comments=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNDAyNjM5ODgsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE5NTYzNzY0OSwiaWF0IjoxNzc3MzAzOTEwLCJleHAiOjE3Nzk4OTU5MTAsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0yNjYxNTU0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.G2qBu5CsBFMleB-ODP_Rh5RXqBh5-vbJcbp7HkBVme0&r=3z1ovo&utm_campaign=email-half-magic-comments&action=post-comment&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> <https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=2661554&post_id=195637649&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&action=share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=false&r=3z1ovo&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNDAyNjM5ODgsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE5NTYzNzY0OSwiaWF0IjoxNzc3MzAzOTEwLCJleHAiOjE3Nzk4OTU5MTAsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0yNjYxNTU0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.G2qBu5CsBFMleB-ODP_Rh5RXqBh5-vbJcbp7HkBVme0> <https://open.substack.com/pub/mrandrewfox/p/most-people-watching-war-footage?utm_source=email&redirect=app-store&utm_campaign=email-read-in-app> READ IN APP I floated this idea in my paid subscriber chat. Thank you for the positive reception; here is the article you asked for. <https://open.substack.com/pub/mrandrewfox/chat?utm_source=chat_embed> <https://open.substack.com/pub/mrandrewfox/chat?utm_source=chat_embed> Join Andrew Fox’s subscriber chat <https://open.substack.com/pub/mrandrewfox/chat?utm_source=chat_embed> Available in the Substack app and on web Join chat I was on a plane recently watching Band of Brothers, and what struck me was the way the series captured the confusion of war. The noise, exhaustion, rumour, sudden violence, men trying to look calm when they plainly were not. The way orders arrive late, wrong, or not at all. The way courage and fear sit in the same body. The way men joke, because the alternative is admitting what is happening to them. It reminded me of Afghanistan, not in scale or brutality or historical significance, obviously. The Second World War was an industrial catastrophe beyond anything I saw, but the emotional register was familiar. The chaos, absurdity, tenderness, anger, deadening fatigue and brief moments of competence surrounded by vast uncertainty. That, I recognised. <https://substack.com/redirect/aef1e98b-836d-42a1-9b5c-0c6416e714b1?j=eyJ1IjoiM3oxb3ZvIn0.8F23ZsL0FrlN6ZHlVPR0s6DTjmoZwDql8W1ssgSTYow> It also struck me how few people in the modern West have any reference point for what they are seeing when they see images of war. That sounds arrogant, and I do not mean it that way; veterans do not possess some sacred wisdom. Combat experience gives you proximity, not omniscience, and veterans are just as capable of stupidity, ideology, sentimentality and selective memory as anybody else, and sometimes more so. However, proximity does change something. It gives you a feel for how little is visible from the image. That is the problem with the way the war in Gaza has been consumed by Western audiences. We were all watching fragments: drone clips, helmet cameras, apartment blocks collapsing, tanks firing down streets, men running across open ground, civilians pulled from rubble, a body in a stairwell, a child covered in dust, a plume of smoke. The image, the suffering and the dead are real, but the image is not the war. The image is a shard of the war, stripped of sequence, context, intent, alternatives and uncertainty. It can reveal a crime, incompetence, necessity, or nothing more than the fact that modern war is hideous. From the image alone, you cannot know which. That does not mean people should look away; democracies should be forced to look at what is done in their name, by their allies, by their enemies and by themselves, but there is a difference between horror and understanding. One is a moral reaction and the other is a discipline. Most people have the horror, but far fewer have the discipline. In Afghanistan, what I learned very quickly was that war is both more primitive and more bureaucratic than civilians imagine. There are radios, maps, drones, legal advisers, intelligence packets, rules of engagement, PowerPoint briefings and carefully worded orders. There is also dust, panic, bad visibility, faulty assumptions, tired men, frightened men, angry men, civilians where you were told there would be none, enemies where you were told there would be civilians, and commanders making decisions with less information than the public later assumes they had. The Western imagination still thinks of war as a controlled instrument: a commander sees the battlefield, identifies the threat, chooses the cleanest possible option and executes it with precision. Sometimes that happens, but far more often it does not. <https://substack.com/redirect/8731df13-24db-43d7-9eb3-2ac5d3d1b102?j=eyJ1IjoiM3oxb3ZvIn0.8F23ZsL0FrlN6ZHlVPR0s6DTjmoZwDql8W1ssgSTYow> Aftermath of a 500lb missile on a compound, Gereshk valley, 2007 Very often the reality is a section commander trying to work out whether movement in a compound is a fighter, a farmer, a child, a decoy, a spotter or nothing at all. It is a platoon pinned down by fire from a location nobody marked on the map. It is a vehicle commander trying to reverse down an alley while people scream on the radio net. It is an aircraft overhead with a partial picture. It is a lawyer asking the right questions at a speed war does not permit. It is a commander deciding whether to risk his own men, risk civilians, lose the initiative, call for fire, wait, push, withdraw or do nothing. Every option has a cost; the cost is just paid by different people. Civilians often imagine the choice is between violence and no violence. In reality, the choice is frequently between different distributions of violence, risk and failure. Gaza has exposed that gap brutally. The images are unbearable, and they should be. Civilian suffering should not be tidied up into strategic language. Children killed in war are not “collateral” to their parents. A family buried under concrete is not an abstraction. Any analysis that cannot hold that fact in view has already degraded itself, but the opposite error is also common: to look at the horror of urban war and assume that the horror alone proves pointlessness, criminality or avoidability. Urban warfare is particularly obscene because everything is close. Fighters, civilians, tunnels, hospitals, schools, apartment blocks, command posts, ambulances, hostages, aid routes, snipers, booby traps, artillery observers and frightened families can all exist in the same few hundred metres. A drone feed may show a building but it may not show what is under it, who is inside it, who has just fired from it, who has fled into it, who is being held there, or what happens if it is left alone. That absolves nobody. It does not answer the legal, strategic or moral questions. It describes the tactical environment, and without that people end up arguing against a fantasy version of war. A great deal of criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza has come from veterans, and some of it has been serious and necessary. Veterans are often better than civilians at spotting euphemism, bad soldiering, excessive force protection, weak command discipline and the self-serving language armies use when things go wrong. I listened to some of that criticism closely because it was often justified in Gaza, but a veteran’s authority has limits. Understanding combat does not mean understanding every war. Knowing what a firefight feels like does not mean knowing Gaza. In some cases, the criticism of Israel seemed to leap over the hardest question: what alternative would actually have worked? After 7 October, Israel set itself the objective of destroying Hamas as a military and governing force in Gaza. You can criticise that objective, and argue it was too expansive, too politically undefined, too indifferent to the day after, too costly, or ultimately impossible. Long-time readers will know that I became more critical of Israel’s political direction in Gaza as the war went on, particularly as the campaign appeared to drift from military necessity into strategic exhaustion, but I also understand that once the objective had been chosen, the military problem was obvious. Hamas was embedded in dense urban terrain. It had tunnels, weapons, command structures, fighters, local knowledge, prepared positions and a civilian population around it. There was no clean way to remove it, and certainly not through counterinsurgency as we tried in Northern Ireland, Iraq or Afghanistan to varying degrees of success and failure. People speak as though Israel chose combined arms manoeuvre in an urban setting because it was uniquely brutal, when in fact it was the only foreseeable method for the objective Israel had selected. Infantry, armour, engineers, artillery, air power, intelligence, surveillance, logistics and fires working together in a city is how armies try to take apart entrenched armed groups in urban terrain without simply feeding unsupported infantry into a grinder. The alternatives were all grim. Stand-off fires would likely have produced even more destruction and less control. Raids might have killed some fighters while leaving Hamas’s structure largely intact. Siege would have created its own humanitarian catastrophe. Negotiation might have recovered some hostages while leaving the perpetrators of 7 October in place. Counterinsurgency would have bogged down the IDF in an endless mire trying to win over a civilian population that hated them. Doing nothing meaningful was never likely after 7 October. Some of those options might have been wiser than the option Israel chose, but I have not yet seen a convincing case for any of them. This is where Mosul and Raqqa should haunt Western commentary more than they do. When the West fought ISIS in urban terrain, the result was devastating. We used local partners (and in doing so, outsourced the hardest part of the fighting to a partner force), special forces, air power, artillery, intelligence and advisers. We supported operations that shattered cities, accepted civilian casualties, and told ourselves, often correctly, that ISIS had made those battles necessary by embedding itself among civilians and ruling through terror. We were less eager to examine the full human cost of the methods used to defeat it. Gaza arrived differently simply because it was the first war in human history where the results of an airstrike could be broadcast to the world within seconds of impact: apartment blocks, hospitals, families, rubble and children. It was urban, intimate and politically saturated. The viewer brings decades of accumulated belief to the screen before the clip begins. People think they are reacting to the image, but often they are reacting to the politics the image has activated. The public sees the fragment and supplies the certainty. That is the social phenomenon I find hardest to observe. What troubles me is the absolute confidence with which people who have never had to make a wartime decision announce their certainty in what was obvious, simple, avoidable, or known to every soldier involved. In Afghanistan, very little was obvious. Even when the war itself became strategically indefensible, even when the policy failed, and even when the mission drifted into something nobody could explain honestly, the individual decisions inside it were often still hard. Bad wars contain necessary actions, just wars contain crimes, and tactical success can serve strategic failure. Legal conduct can still be politically disastrous and moral conduct can still end in dead civilians. War scrambles the categories people want to keep pure. That is why images of Gaza have been so widely misunderstood: not because the images are all false (although many are false or staged), or because the suffering is exaggerated, or because every Israeli action was justified. The misunderstanding lies in the assumption that seeing the horror means understanding the military, political and moral choices that produced it. A collapsed building tells you something, but it does not tell you what was in the building, what was under it, what intelligence existed, what warnings were given, what alternatives were available, what risk was being traded, what law was applied, what pressure commanders were under, or whether the strike served a coherent strategy. Those questions do not erase the dead; they are how serious people account for them. People have every right to judge war and in a democracy, they have a duty to judge it. Soldiers do not own the moral meaning of the wars they fight, but judgment should involve more than recoil. It should ask what the objective was, whether it was achievable, what alternatives existed, what those alternatives would have cost and who would have paid, whether civilians were protected as far as possible or merely described as unfortunate afterwards, whether tactical success produced strategic progress, and whether we are condemning brutality itself or only brutality committed by the wrong people. The deeper problem is that the West has become a society of spectators to war. We watch it constantly, but almost none of us are touched by it directly. War has become something that happens abroad, by choice, on screens, to professionals, foreigners and victims. It is emotionally available but physically remote. That distance creates strange habits. We aestheticise war, moralise it instantly, consume it in clips, and use it to confirm existing politics. We mistake visibility for comprehension and denounce things we might have accepted under a different flag and excuse things we should denounce when committed by our own side. <https://substack.com/redirect/4f47f6de-e99a-46ef-b815-c5aef571396a?j=eyJ1IjoiM3oxb3ZvIn0.8F23ZsL0FrlN6ZHlVPR0s6DTjmoZwDql8W1ssgSTYow> The author on operations in Afghanistan attached to US Army Special Forces, January 2010. That is what Afghanistan taught me: complexity is often where governments hide their failures, but simplicity is where spectators hide theirs. When the plane landed, I was still thinking about those men in Band of Brothers. We remember them now as part of a righteous story, and rightly so, but the thing that made the series powerful was the portrayal of men inside the machine, trying to survive events too large for them to hold in their heads. That is the part we should carry into how we watch wars now. Look at Gaza: the ruins and the dead. Do not look away, but do not confuse looking with understanding. The image can tell us that war is terrible. It cannot, by itself, tell us what should have been done. Most people watching war footage today are not seeing war. They are seeing proof of what they already believed. <https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=2661554&post_id=195637649&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&isFreemail=false&comments=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNDAyNjM5ODgsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE5NTYzNzY0OSwiaWF0IjoxNzc3MzAzOTEwLCJleHAiOjE3Nzk4OTU5MTAsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0yNjYxNTU0Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.G2qBu5CsBFMleB-ODP_Rh5RXqBh5-vbJcbp7HkBVme0&r=3z1ovo&utm_campaign=email-half-magic-comments&action=post-comment> Leave a comment Your support lets me spend less time arguing on X and more time doing research and fieldwork, talking to people on the ground and writing for you. I don’t take that lightly. 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