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#1
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by The Minsky Moment - Today at 10:22:14 AMOn the one hand - If Trump's people wanted to preserve the option of sending in teams to secure and transport highly enriched uranium from three different sites located in the heart of the country - maybe they shouldn't have first bombed the exterior of the sites to generate massive amounts of rubble?
On the other hand - it's a bit of a ray of light that perhaps one Trumpian act of stupidity may forestall an even bigger one. Perhaps God really does protect the terminally stupid, by having one idiotic act cancel out another? Is it too much to hope?
On the other hand - it's a bit of a ray of light that perhaps one Trumpian act of stupidity may forestall an even bigger one. Perhaps God really does protect the terminally stupid, by having one idiotic act cancel out another? Is it too much to hope?
#2
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by OttoVonBismarck - Today at 10:10:42 AMThis quote from the daily ISW update is interesting for a few reasons:
For one, my response would be: good fucking luck with that. Special forces raids in Iran? Sure, that's possible. But moving a stockpile of uranium? That would take a pretty big logistical presence.
The end of that note reveals IMO a core weakness in Trump's mindset--this is an option "he would only consider if there's no risk to U.S. troops."
Now, I'm of a mind this entire war is foolish and misguided, but the reality is whatever the wisdom of a war, one can assess if there's the right mindset to win. I can assure you Iran isn't making decisions out of fear of troop losses, the fact Trump truly believes he can impose his will on Iran without any significant risk to U.S. troops is both arrogant and also reveals Trump doesn't nearly have the will that IMO would be required for a victory of any sort in a strategic sense. (I'm not opposed to the idea Trump's current strategy could result in a "mutual loss" in which everyone loses, but that isn't the kind of thing Trump has been trying to sell people on.)
QuoteThe combined force is reportedly considering deploying special forces at a later time in the war to move Iran's highly enriched uranium (HEU) stockpile out of the country. Four sources with knowledge of the matter told Axios on March 8 that the US administration has discussed a potential future operation to move Iran's HEU out of Iran or dilute it in Iran.[53] The sources added that the combined force would only conduct such an operation if Iran could no longer seriously threaten US or Israeli troops.[54] US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during a congressional briefing on March 3 that "people are going to have to go and get it" in response to a question about whether Iran's HEU would be secured.[55] Iran's HEU is buried underneath rubble at the Esfahan, Fordow, and Natanz nuclear sites, which the United States and Israel struck during the 12-day war.[56] US and Israeli officials told Axios that most of Iran's HEU stockpile is located in the underground tunnels of the nuclear facility in Esfahan, while the rest is split between Fordow and Natanz.[57] An Israeli analyst, citing March 2 satellite imagery, reported that the combined force struck Natanz and severely damaged at least three buildings.[58]
For one, my response would be: good fucking luck with that. Special forces raids in Iran? Sure, that's possible. But moving a stockpile of uranium? That would take a pretty big logistical presence.
The end of that note reveals IMO a core weakness in Trump's mindset--this is an option "he would only consider if there's no risk to U.S. troops."
Now, I'm of a mind this entire war is foolish and misguided, but the reality is whatever the wisdom of a war, one can assess if there's the right mindset to win. I can assure you Iran isn't making decisions out of fear of troop losses, the fact Trump truly believes he can impose his will on Iran without any significant risk to U.S. troops is both arrogant and also reveals Trump doesn't nearly have the will that IMO would be required for a victory of any sort in a strategic sense. (I'm not opposed to the idea Trump's current strategy could result in a "mutual loss" in which everyone loses, but that isn't the kind of thing Trump has been trying to sell people on.)
#3
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 09:23:31 AMAlthough I think it's also wider than America - or American politics is the local expression of a global phenomenon. It wasn't just government contracts but a general cultural and economic shift to "leaner" industry, combating inefficiencies (including stock, process and labour costs), increasing competitiveness in a global marketplace (and leaning on that global marketplace to deliver efficiency) etc. (And obviously in the context of the 70s with Vietnam, the oil shock, stagflation - the criticism/crises that drove that swing were real.)
Having said that I think France is an interesting counter-example on your last point because I think the very things that are now helping France were, for the last 40 years, great examples in the Anglo-media (but I also think elsewhere) of a form of soft corruption. The French state stepping in to protect uncompetitive national champions, the closeness/incestuousness of French political and business elites (also cited as an important part of France's response to covid).
Having said that I think France is an interesting counter-example on your last point because I think the very things that are now helping France were, for the last 40 years, great examples in the Anglo-media (but I also think elsewhere) of a form of soft corruption. The French state stepping in to protect uncompetitive national champions, the closeness/incestuousness of French political and business elites (also cited as an important part of France's response to covid).
#4
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by OttoVonBismarck - Today at 09:18:47 AMAlso the Gulf States perhaps waiting for Trump to decide the war isn't a good idea, and take the pressure off of them--probably are misreading the level of stupidity inside Trump's mind.
#5
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by OttoVonBismarck - Today at 09:15:06 AMMy suspicion is more talk will shift to the drones (than is already there) in the coming days--ISW reports Iran has lost about 75% of its missile launchers. Most likely in the coming days Iran will be close to having none left--I imagine they will keep some hidden to avoid losing any / all launch capacity, but will probably not use them for daily launches (which exposes them obviously), but rather save them for a more strategic or performative use a little down the road.
I think the story more and more will be the drone warfare's effects on the Gulf nations, which continue to get hit.
I also wonder how long the Gulf nations can maintain their own legitimacy by refusing to fight back. It's one thing to ignore attempts on U.S. bases, but we're seeing oil production and refining assets, civilian residential assets etc being hit, I don't know that the Gulf states can just indefinitely act like this isn't their war.
I'm not sure the significance of any of them fighting back--none are as capable as the U.S. or Israel, KSA and UAE have decently sized air forces for the region though.
I think the story more and more will be the drone warfare's effects on the Gulf nations, which continue to get hit.
I also wonder how long the Gulf nations can maintain their own legitimacy by refusing to fight back. It's one thing to ignore attempts on U.S. bases, but we're seeing oil production and refining assets, civilian residential assets etc being hit, I don't know that the Gulf states can just indefinitely act like this isn't their war.
I'm not sure the significance of any of them fighting back--none are as capable as the U.S. or Israel, KSA and UAE have decently sized air forces for the region though.
#6
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by The Minsky Moment - Today at 09:10:42 AMQuote from: OttoVonBismarck on Today at 07:37:38 AMIndustrial Production - So anyone paying attention has known this is a problem since the Ukraine war started. Even back when we had a President willing to meaningfully help Ukraine, we had supply chain issues.
The simple reality is the U.S. defense industrial base is working under the same lean manufacturing principles the regular U.S. industrial base uses, and we have eschewed anything like industrial policy as a "dirty word" in this country for ages.
Democrats don't push it because they don't want to spend lots of money building seemingly redundant stockpiles instead of social spending. Republicans don't push it because they are always raiding the budget to cut the upper tax rate. The Pentagon doesn't push it because they want to steer the money to the newest and the shiniest toys, not build more of the same to just put in the warehouse. Trump just wants to build battleships because he thinks it's 1897 and he needs to send a Great White Fleet to impose tariffs and seize the world's vital coal supplies.
In the old days the defense industrial base was sustained by old fashioned pork barrel, back scratching politics - Congress backed it because every state and district got a piece and the Soviet bogeyman provided a handy justification. It wasn't always the most efficient, but it got the job done. Then the USSR collapsed, Gingrich took a contract out on America, chummy gold ol boyism in Congress was replaced by hyper-partisanship, states split into warring Reds and Blues a la Byzantium. No more domestic consensus. 2022 should have been the wake-up call but we all know what happened there..
#7
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by mongers - Today at 08:22:38 AMQuoteInterestingly UK and Ukraine jointly developed a drone interceptor in part to get around wasting expensive anti-air systems on drones. From my understanding it's drone-to-drone interception which I think properly entered production the autumn. I wonder if that could get licensed as a solution too?
Although I wonder if that would even work as I think part of that system basically needs space - so Ukraine is big and can use its territory to thin out attacks which maybe works better for an interception system (could work for Saudi, say). But you need something different for dense territories like Israel or the Gulf States.
It depends,but some of the gulf states have plenty of room, the UAE has plenty of desert with a handful of urban concentrations, admittedly costal megacities.
And on option would be to have adhoc shipborn AA platforms moored in the gulf to starting thinning down the drone before they hit urban landscape clutter, as you suggest.
Also what would be wrong with dedicated killzone for the drones, where advanced training jets, like the BAE Hawks et al, are armed with 30mm cannons and the less skilled pilots are given free reign to shot the drones down within those defined areas?
#8
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 08:09:56 AMInterestingly UK and Ukraine jointly developed a drone interceptor in part to get around wasting expensive anti-air systems on drones. From my understanding it's drone-to-drone interception which I think properly entered production the autumn. I wonder if that could get licensed as a solution too?
Although I wonder if that would even work as I think part of that system basically needs space - so Ukraine is big and can use its territory to thin out attacks which maybe works better for an interception system (could work for Saudi, say). But you need something different for dense territories like Israel or the Gulf States.
Although I wonder if that would even work as I think part of that system basically needs space - so Ukraine is big and can use its territory to thin out attacks which maybe works better for an interception system (could work for Saudi, say). But you need something different for dense territories like Israel or the Gulf States.
#9
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by DGuller - Today at 07:56:40 AMJust a complete layman here, but I wonder if the countering the drone swarm is a matter of going back to WW2-era AA systems, with updated computers. In modern warfare AA has evolved to shoot down fast high-flying missiles, but it seems like with drones we're back to saturating by quantity strategy. I wonder if with modern technology you can even get high hit rates with non-exploding AA ammo, just by calculating where to aim.
#10
Off the Record / Re: Iran War?
Last post by OttoVonBismarck - Today at 07:37:38 AMA few things:
Drone Swarming - This is actually likely to not be a long-term intractable problem. It won't be solved during this war, but drones are very slow moving. This actually means systems could be developed that fire very cheap munitions (think approaching as cheap as small arms ammunition) to effectively destroy drones in flight.
Ukraine has basically cobbled together systems like this on the cheap that have about an 80% interception rate--I have little doubt a country not dealing with the pressures and constraints of Ukraine, and able to casually work on it back in R&D labs, can improve on that %.
The issue the U.S. and regional allies have is we just have no such systems. We have a bunch of systems designed to intercept very fast moving ballistic missiles. Those systems require very advanced and expensive radars, targeting systems, and munitions. Anytime they are used against a drone it's basically a "win" for Iran.
The big takeaway is the actual science and physics behind intercepting a drone are massively easier than intercepting a ballistic missile, but we've worked a ton on the latter, and haven't built much out for the former. The closest things I can immediately think of are some Navy close-in weapon systems for ship defense.
Industrial Production - So anyone paying attention has known this is a problem since the Ukraine war started. Even back when we had a President willing to meaningfully help Ukraine, we had supply chain issues.
The simple reality is the U.S. defense industrial base is working under the same lean manufacturing principles the regular U.S. industrial base uses, and we have eschewed anything like industrial policy as a "dirty word" in this country for ages. There's no easy fix here--if we even came to the political conclusion that a fix would needed, this is the kind of thing that takes a generation to fix. The fix would likely be more or less a complete rejection of lean manufacturing in the defense world and consequently "uneconomic" excess capacity. This btw, was bog standard the way defense manufacturing worked in the first half of the 20th century up through probably the 1970s. This isn't some arcane wizardry, it's just something we rejected due to a number of now-questionable opinions that were viewed as orthodox at the time.
We also should have learned from the Ukraine war we need to stand up more "dumb" manufacturing, meaning deeper manufacturing capacity of low technology defense items like artillery rounds, again, something that we did well in the past at huge scale and simply concluded "didn't matter" anymore.
Politics Trump's approval rating still sits in the 41-44% range, with disapproval in the 52-55% range. This is basically the story of Trump all the way back to his first term. He manages to be the most popular one election day--the day it matters most, both times he was able to get enough low propensity, independent and swing voters to tilt his way to win narrow but convincing victories.
Both times he immediately became much less popular with those groups mere weeks after entering office. (One should reflect the voters in this group are particularly stupid. Living out a live action version of Charlie Brown with the football.)
The reason Trump's approval rating has not, and probably will not, collapse is the people approving of him are die hard Republicans. The GOP has morphed into a party where absolute loyalty to Trump is a prerequisite to be in politics. Look at Dan Crenshaw--super orthodox conservative, voted with the GOP basically every meaningful vote in congress. But he said some unorthodox things, like he said that 2020 election denialism was something Trump knew was false and was just using to rile people up. That's all it took. He's now out of congress replaced by someone whose Trump loyalty is not conditional but absolute.
No one will rein Trump in from the GOP as long as Trump commands near absolute loyalty from a huge swathe of GOP voters. Anyone expecting some sort of Republican congressional pressure to materialize to stop the war--don't. Trump alone will be the one to stop the war and only if he can do so in an ego-sparing way.
Drone Swarming - This is actually likely to not be a long-term intractable problem. It won't be solved during this war, but drones are very slow moving. This actually means systems could be developed that fire very cheap munitions (think approaching as cheap as small arms ammunition) to effectively destroy drones in flight.
Ukraine has basically cobbled together systems like this on the cheap that have about an 80% interception rate--I have little doubt a country not dealing with the pressures and constraints of Ukraine, and able to casually work on it back in R&D labs, can improve on that %.
The issue the U.S. and regional allies have is we just have no such systems. We have a bunch of systems designed to intercept very fast moving ballistic missiles. Those systems require very advanced and expensive radars, targeting systems, and munitions. Anytime they are used against a drone it's basically a "win" for Iran.
The big takeaway is the actual science and physics behind intercepting a drone are massively easier than intercepting a ballistic missile, but we've worked a ton on the latter, and haven't built much out for the former. The closest things I can immediately think of are some Navy close-in weapon systems for ship defense.
Industrial Production - So anyone paying attention has known this is a problem since the Ukraine war started. Even back when we had a President willing to meaningfully help Ukraine, we had supply chain issues.
The simple reality is the U.S. defense industrial base is working under the same lean manufacturing principles the regular U.S. industrial base uses, and we have eschewed anything like industrial policy as a "dirty word" in this country for ages. There's no easy fix here--if we even came to the political conclusion that a fix would needed, this is the kind of thing that takes a generation to fix. The fix would likely be more or less a complete rejection of lean manufacturing in the defense world and consequently "uneconomic" excess capacity. This btw, was bog standard the way defense manufacturing worked in the first half of the 20th century up through probably the 1970s. This isn't some arcane wizardry, it's just something we rejected due to a number of now-questionable opinions that were viewed as orthodox at the time.
We also should have learned from the Ukraine war we need to stand up more "dumb" manufacturing, meaning deeper manufacturing capacity of low technology defense items like artillery rounds, again, something that we did well in the past at huge scale and simply concluded "didn't matter" anymore.
Politics Trump's approval rating still sits in the 41-44% range, with disapproval in the 52-55% range. This is basically the story of Trump all the way back to his first term. He manages to be the most popular one election day--the day it matters most, both times he was able to get enough low propensity, independent and swing voters to tilt his way to win narrow but convincing victories.
Both times he immediately became much less popular with those groups mere weeks after entering office. (One should reflect the voters in this group are particularly stupid. Living out a live action version of Charlie Brown with the football.)
The reason Trump's approval rating has not, and probably will not, collapse is the people approving of him are die hard Republicans. The GOP has morphed into a party where absolute loyalty to Trump is a prerequisite to be in politics. Look at Dan Crenshaw--super orthodox conservative, voted with the GOP basically every meaningful vote in congress. But he said some unorthodox things, like he said that 2020 election denialism was something Trump knew was false and was just using to rile people up. That's all it took. He's now out of congress replaced by someone whose Trump loyalty is not conditional but absolute.
No one will rein Trump in from the GOP as long as Trump commands near absolute loyalty from a huge swathe of GOP voters. Anyone expecting some sort of Republican congressional pressure to materialize to stop the war--don't. Trump alone will be the one to stop the war and only if he can do so in an ego-sparing way.