EU’s Lebanon Gambit: Can Police Reform Succeed Where Armies Have Failed?

The European Union’s proposal to strengthen Lebanon’s police forces while expecting its army to disarm Hezbollah reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the country’s delicate power balance.

A Fractured State’s Security Dilemma

Lebanon’s security architecture has long been a patchwork of competing authorities, with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) traditionally maintaining a careful neutrality to avoid fracturing along sectarian lines. The Internal Security Forces (ISF), meanwhile, have suffered from chronic underfunding, political interference, and a reputation for ineffectiveness that dates back to the civil war era. Now, the EU appears ready to bet on this weaker institution as a means of freeing up the army for the politically explosive task of confronting Hezbollah.

The timing of this initiative, with a fact-finding mission scheduled for early 2026, suggests a long-term European strategy that may be overtaken by events on the ground. Lebanon’s economic collapse has already hollowed out state institutions, with security forces experiencing massive brain drain as officers seek employment abroad. The Lebanese pound’s devaluation has reduced police salaries to mere dollars per month, creating a force more focused on survival than law enforcement.

The Hezbollah Question

The elephant in the room remains Hezbollah’s parallel state apparatus, which includes not just its military wing but extensive social services, healthcare networks, and economic enterprises. Asking the LAF to “focus on Hezbollah disarmament” fundamentally misreads both the army’s capabilities and its political constraints. The LAF has historically avoided direct confrontation with Hezbollah, understanding that such a move could split the military along sectarian lines and reignite civil conflict.

French proposals for “independent monitoring” of any disarmament process reflect Paris’s continued influence in Lebanese affairs but also its diplomatic distance from reality. Previous international monitoring missions in Lebanon, from UNIFIL in the south to the Special Tribunal investigating the Hariri assassination, have demonstrated the limits of external oversight in a system built on informal power-sharing and backroom deals.

Europe’s Strategic Miscalculation

The EU’s approach appears to rest on a technocratic assumption that strengthening one security institution can somehow resolve what is fundamentally a political crisis. This mirrors failed Western interventions across the Middle East, where capacity-building programs ignored underlying power dynamics. Lebanon’s problems are not primarily about police training or equipment but about a sectarian political system that incentivizes fragmentation over unity.

Moreover, the initiative risks creating new tensions between the ISF and LAF, potentially adding another layer of institutional rivalry to Lebanon’s already complex security landscape. Without addressing the root causes of state weakness—corruption, sectarianism, and economic collapse—EU support for the police may simply create a better-equipped force still unable to challenge entrenched interests.

As Europe prepares its fact-finding mission for 2026, one must ask: Is the EU genuinely seeking to help Lebanon build functioning institutions, or is this another attempt to outsource the West’s Hezbollah problem to a Lebanese state that lacks both the capacity and political will to solve it?