Potential subtitle: Israel captured a medieval fortress only to be reminded that war no longer obeys medieval rules.

Beaufort Castle is exactly the kind of place humans like to fight over.

Perched high above southern Lebanon on a rocky ridge overlooking the Litani River, it possesses all the qualities that have inspired military ambitions for nearly a thousand years. It is elevated. It is fortified. It dominates the surrounding landscape. It looks important in just about every sense of the word.

The Crusaders wanted it. The Mamluks wanted it. The Ottomans controlled it. The PLO turned it into a stronghold. Israel fought for it. Hezbollah fought around it.

For centuries, people have climbed that mountain believing some version of the same thing: that whoever controls the height controls the future.

This week, Israeli forces captured Beaufort Castle once again.

The photographs were striking. Ancient stone walls. Israeli flags fluttering against a dramatic Lebanese skyline. Soldiers standing atop a fortress that seems to belong as much to mythology as to military history.

The images felt familiar, even comforting.

There is something about a castle that we tend to romanticize.

Humans understand castles.

We understand walls. We understand hills. We understand the logic of the high ground. We instinctively grasp why a fortress overlooking a valley might matter.

What we do not understand nearly as well are drones.

Almost immediately after the capture of Beaufort,........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)