Israel-Iran-Proxies Conflict

[glenn239]

5 hours ago, Josh said:

Shahed is the new siebel; he made an argument they could be used to threaten the USN despite having a top speed half of that of a WWII torpedo bomber with a much lower flight ceiling. IE, the perfect envelope for 5” DP proxy fuse fire that made torpedo bombers obsolescent before the war was over.

WRT to Siebel ferries, the argument made is that had Germany not invaded the USSR, but instead had commissioned purpose-built amphibious landing craft, that the Channel was narrow enough and things like Siebel ferries were fast enough and beach-capable, and could be built in such large numbers, that the RN would have much greater difficulty dealing with an invasion than was the case with unpowered barges towed by tug boats.  

WRT Shahed drones, the argument was not that this type of system poses a direct threat of attack to the USN, rather, that with respect to naval warfare that large numbers of such drones searching for naval assets would increase the threat posed by enemy submarines, aircraft, and land based anti-ship ballistic missile complexes.

 

Edited September 28, 2024 by glenn239

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

US, France, UK, Germany. The top western economies. Now all appeasers of dictators.

Europe has to pretend to care, MZ.  If they get too far into Israel's camp, they might wind up with a full on Arab oil embargo, and Europe has no other options given their current policy towards Russia.

[Josh]

6 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

By the way about "why now"  -it worth reminding here that for demographic reasons this domestic political importance of Israel will unavoidably go down, as share of Jewish voters (and even "white" voters in general) is going down.

This assumes Jewish American voters are the primary enablers, which is not remotely the case.

[Josh]

6 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

By the way about "why now"  -it worth reminding here that for demographic reasons this domestic political importance of Israel will unavoidably go down, as share of Jewish voters (and even "white" voters in general) is going down.

Also I would point out “why now” is also a great reason for Russia having its war: you are runout of Russians.

[Josh]

6 hours ago, glenn239 said:

You stated that Iran has no other options than to use its own ballistic missiles.  But when I asked how many Shahed drones the Iranians have yet supplied to Hezbollah, you indicated you do not know.  You write,

Glenn thinks Shahed is the solution to all military problems the world over rather than the niche weapon for spread out soft targets that it is.

You, not I, made the assertion that Iran had no other options but direct attack.  Yet, if it were the case the Iranians have not supplied Hezbollah large quantities of long range drones, on what basis would you state that the Iranians had no other means available to support their proxy?  
 

I don’t think Hezbollah is getting new toys and I don’t think they are in any position to use them if they did. I know you want UAVs to master every military problem, but I think even you can acknowledge Hez is having its ass handed to it.

 

 

6 hours ago, glenn239 said:

It's not yet clear what Hezbollah or Iran is going to do.  Nor is it clear what level of long term damage has been done to Hezbollah.

The Israelis can degrade, but never prevent, Iranian supply of Hezbollah.  This is not Gaza, the enemy has an open border to the north the Israelis cannot police.

Iran either goes full ballistic, in the literal sense, or watches Hez die. There is no middle ground, no matter how many Shaheds you masterbate to.

Edited September 29, 2024 by Josh

[Markus Becker]

15 hours ago, glenn239 said:

How many Shahed drones does Hezbollah operate? 

How many rifle caliber machine guns does the IDF have? 

 

[Markus Becker]

 

[Mighty_Zuk]

7 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The Israelis can degrade, but never prevent, Iranian supply of Hezbollah.  This is not Gaza, the enemy has an open border to the north the Israelis cannot police.

Lebanon's borders are a huge natural barrier. Crossings are very few and narrow. It's very easy to keep a tight grip on them from the air alone. Pre-emptive action like cratering the roads can delay transfers quite drastically, even if you resort to the cheapest option of cratering each road just once per day.

7 hours ago, glenn239 said:

We'd discussed a while back the idea of whether Hezbollah would try a pre-emptive strike or would try to ride out the initial Israeli attacks.  I believed at the time they would try to ride out an Israeli strike, and that is the course they have chosen

I wrote extensively about Hezbollah's force structure. When analyzing unknown parties it's easy to mistake them as somewhat capable of dishing out and taking some. But that's a superficial analysis.

I know from deeper analysis and personal experience that while Hezbollah is capable of taking damage - its strategy relies tremendously on its ability to conduct the first strike, and whether or not it succeeds in it is a huge factor in its overall calculus on whether to go all in or back down.

I will briefly repeat:

1. Hezbollah's main arsenal is its indirect fires. From short range rockets to MRBMs, and various drones and anti-ship missiles in between.
2. To inflict maximum pain on Israel, from which it draws its deterrent value, it must maximize the number of projectiles it launches on Israel.
3. The bulk of Hezbollah's projectiles are its short range rockets.
4. The largest threats to Hezbollah's fires output are:
   1. Israeli ground invasion to dismantle short range rocket sites.
   2. Israeli Air Force activity.
5. To deal with the former, it has the Radwan Force that would occupy Israeli towns along the northern border, so the IDF would have to deal with them rather than invading Lebanon. It can't really do both, evident in October 7th.
6. To deal with the latter, it planned to fire massive numbers of SRBMs and MRBMs at Israeli AFBs to shut down runways and hopefully hit aircraft on the ground.

An Israeli first strike nullifies all of Hezbollah's force multipliers. Hezbollah built a lot of its infrastructure in a way that can persist in a shooting war, but it doesn't mean it's capable of conducting warfare in the way that it planned if it doesn't strike first. 

Edited September 29, 2024 by Mighty_Zuk

[Mighty_Zuk]

7 hours ago, glenn239 said:

Europe has to pretend to care, MZ.  If they get too far into Israel's camp, they might wind up with a full on Arab oil embargo, and Europe has no other options given their current policy towards Russia.

It's as if we're in the 60's again. Glenn, the world has moved on. When half the Arab world has already normalized ties and runs regular trade with Israel, they won't be imposing oil embargo on anyone. The anti-Israel rhetoric is just for show. 

Even without normalization, Saudi oil goes through Israel.

 

[Mighty_Zuk]

Interesting post from Kushner. I find it highly agreeable.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

10 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

US, France, UK, Germany. The top western economies. Now all appeasers of dictators.

What Mrs Bareback doesn't understand here is statements like this only end up hurting Germany's credibility.

Or maybe its a simple case that, whilst you are applauding yourself over the tactics, everyone else is asking where the strategy is.

1967 was just like this. You defeated 2 enemies, congratulated youselves that was it, and it just reinforced their determination and radicalisation of their successors.

 

[Markus Becker]

9 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Or maybe its a simple case that, whilst you are applauding yourself over the tactics, everyone else is asking where the strategy is.

1967 was just like this. You defeated 2 enemies, congratulated youselves that was it, and it just reinforced their determination and radicalisation of their successors.

 

Or it's 1973. We'll see. 

[Mighty_Zuk]

36 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Or maybe its a simple case that, whilst you are applauding yourself over the tactics, everyone else is asking where the strategy is.

1967 was just like this. You defeated 2 enemies, congratulated youselves that was it, and it just reinforced their determination and radicalisation of their successors.

 

Well then everyone can propose a strategy. It's been almost a whole year and every proposed western strategy is a ceasefire. This clearly didn't work, but they never changed the tune.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Ceasefire got half the hostages back, a hell of a lot more than the IDF ever has. And frankly, that is the ONLY objective here im seeing worth achieving.

 

[seahawk]

12 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

US, France, UK, Germany. The top western economies. Now all appeasers of dictators.

What Mrs Bareback doesn't understand here is statements like this only end up hurting Germany's credibility.

Who cares? But yes, she is right for once. 

[Mighty_Zuk]

6 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Ceasefire got half the hostages back, a hell of a lot more than the IDF ever has. And frankly, that is the ONLY objective here im seeing worth achieving.

She's talking about a ceasefire with Hezbollah, not Hamas. Two different things. 

It's arguable that Israel does not have the manpower to enforce both a siege in northern Gaza and conduct a limited ground incursion in Lebanon at the same time.

You don't do ceasefires in the middle of a war when the other side keeps firing at you. The only thing it does is get more people killed.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Its not, because seemingly the idea, that divorcing Hamas from Hezbollah, is going to lead to Hamas giving concessions. That certainly is one argument ive heard, and its nonsense.

 

[Mighty_Zuk]

2 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Its not, because seemingly the idea, that divorcing Hamas from Hezbollah, is going to lead to Hamas giving concessions. That certainly is one argument ive heard, and its nonsense.

 

Applying military pressure on Iran and its other proxies is a good way to get Iran to pressure Hamas to concede, if Israel delivers that message, and Hamas has some interest in listening to Iran. But it's not a matter of absolutes. Iran's influence on Hamas is little, especially now.

Hamas still have the interest of having Iran be one option for a safety net.

The option is valid but it's massively inflated, and any idea that pressure now on Hezbollah is related to Hamas is false. Hezbollah is indeed a separate issue because Israel pays a heavy price for having about 100,000 of its citizens live like refugees.

 

Anyway, another one bites the dust.

Reportedly head of Hezbollah's security unit 900.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

And how do you remove Iran from the board?

[Daan]

The sheer fatalism of European received wisdom is again astonishing. This attitude is what dooms our continent. Yes chap, not only turn the other cheek, but bend over and spread those cheeks as well.

What is the 'strategy' they ask? Is that so hard to grasp? Of course Israel cannot take Iran out, but in the process of managing this threat, it can degrade the capabilities of Iranian assets on its border and that is just what it did. Just like gardeners removing weeds and fighting the caterpillars eyeing their flower beds. Despite the bile that is always poured over every move Israel makes by the morally virtuous, the country has been rather successful the last decades with (armed) peace treaties with the reasonable, a normalization of relations with more distant, former foes and an intractable enemy on its NE border that has self-imploded. Then within the space of a year, it did not destroy, but significantly reduced the potency of two jihadist entities. The price? The usual ritual chanting in the Arab street, as well as outrage among the adherents of a dying liberal world order, terminally stuck in their 90s 'End of History' fantasy and electorally increasing on the way out because of the domestic chaos and decay resulting from their policies.  

Allegedly one of the impact crates of a GBU-31 (V) 3/B on Hezbollah's HQ:

[Stuart Galbraith]

17 minutes ago, Daan said:

The sheer fatalism of European received wisdom is again astonishing. This attitude is what dooms our continent. Yes chap, not only turn the other cheek, but bend over and spread those cheeks as well.

What is the 'strategy' they ask? Is that so hard to grasp? Of course Israel cannot take Iran out, but in the process of managing this threat, it can degrade the capabilities of Iranian assets on its border and that is just what it did. Just like gardeners removing weeds and fighting the caterpillars eyeing their flower beds. Despite the bile that is always poured over every move Israel makes by the morally virtuous, the country has been rather successful the last decades with (armed) peace treaties with the reasonable, a normalization of relations with more distant, former foes and an intractable enemy on its NE border that has self-imploded. Then within the space of a year, it did not destroy, but significantly reduced the potency of two jihadist entities. The price? The usual ritual chanting in the Arab street, as well as outrage among the adherents of a dying liberal world order, terminally stuck in their 90s 'End of History' fantasy and electorally increasing on the way out because of the domestic chaos and decay resulting from their policies.  

Allegedly one of the impact crates of a GBU-31 (V) 3/B on Hezbollah's HQ:

And there you go, and THAT is the problem. You embark on a strategy to isolate Hamas, except you cant isolate it because you cant destroy all its friends.

A couple of years back I read a book on the 1967 war, written by Guy Laron. He is an Israeli Historian, and he did his homework, even going through Soviet and Eastern European archives. The narrative was that the Arab nations were about to attack. I wont bore you with the details, but what really happened was a military clique headed by Moshe Dayan that was determined to attack the Arab countries first. The narrative was that if they did that, Israel would achieve peace through strategic depth. The West bank and Gaza would be under Israeli control. At long last Israeli would have peace.

So the operation, ostensibly due to Arab plans to attack Israel that didnt exist, got US approval. They believed it too. And it was tactically successful. Every objective Israel wanted came true. Sinai was taken, Golan was taken, Jerusalem was taken. And when it was all over, it turned out they had several hundred miles of the West Bank and Gaza strip they had to patrol for evermore, far more than they did when it started. And rather than setting the scene for the peace they imagined the arabs would have to accept, all the arab neighbours plotted to reverse what happened. In short, the brilliant plan to achieve peace through military means took them even further away from the security they imagined would be forthcoming. Great tactics, but they assumed tactics are a compensation for a poor or non existent strategy, and they arent.

Clearly you can drag an analogy too far. My point remains, taking down Hezbollah has been brilliantly successful. I salute it, the pagers was a brilliant stunt, and im glad all these guys, whom were all terrorists were dead, long may they rot. And then the point remains, ok, so how do you stop Hezbollah standing back up?

You dont.

How do you stop them becoming even more militant, even perhaps planning an october 7th ground operation at a future point?

You dont.

How does any of this smoke and mirrors show, really achieve the central aim of getting the hostages back?

And it doesnt.

And at that point, despite my admiration for the way it was done, despite endorsing Israels right to do whatever it wants to pursue its own security, I have to ask, what the hell was it for? You havent taken Hezbollah out the war, Hamas are still not intimidated to negotiate, the hostages are still in custody, you still cant send all your northern residents home because there are still rockets. This is no better than the shock and awe campaign in Iraq. Yes, It did wonders for America's morale after 911, but did it get them any closer to getting Bin laden and destroying Al Qaeda? No. Because it was a made for TV spectacular, not a strategy.

I may be part of that liberal elite, but unlike them, Ill happily dance on the grave of every single terrorist you top. I fucking hate them. I frankly dont give a flying fark about the Gazans, whom after all voted for a war party. And again, if its not getting the hostages home, what good is this?

Please stop waving the flag for a moment, and just think about what the real objective of this war is. Its not about clearing all the threats out the middle east. its about getting the hostages home. Thats all. And unless every single military and poiltical step is to that end, you are treading water.

And im STILL glad Nasrallah is burning in hell. But ultimately, so what? Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss.

 

Edited September 29, 2024 by Stuart Galbraith

[Mighty_Zuk]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

And how do you remove Iran from the board?

Conduct a strike on its energy export infrastructure. It's centralized on Kharg island. Repeat every time it's repaired. The Hodeidah port still wasn't restored.

Another strike on key machinery in its MIC related to BMs, drones, air defenses, PGMs, precision-made components, propellants/warheads, etc.

Another strike on nuclear assets with the aim of reversing some progress and capabilities in the meantime.

And finally a strike on leadership targets, with 2 vertical levels at least, preferably.

All these together won't topple the regime and obtain some fantastic results but it will set Iran back and remind it what making Israel an enemy can get someone.

Israel has shown capability to strike deep in Iran on numerous occasions. It's no problem.

[Mighty_Zuk]

2 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Please stop waving the flag for a moment, and just think about what the real objective of this war is. Its not about clearing all the threats out the middle east. its about getting the hostages home. Thats all. And unless every single military and poiltical step is to that end, you are treading water.

Stuart are you completely oblivious to the fact there's a war going on in northern Israel for almost a year and about 100,000 can't go home because of that?

How is that related in any way to the hostages? It's like you're hearing stuff about Hezbollah these past 2 weeks but can't seem to understand it's Lebanon and not Gaza.

[seahawk]

2 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

And there you go, and THAT is the problem. You embark on a strategy to isolate Hamas, except you cant isolate it because you cant destroy all its friends.

A couple of years back I read a book on the 1967 war, written by Guy Laron. He is an Israeli Historian, and he did his homework, even going through Soviet and Eastern European archives. The narrative was that the Arab nations were about to attack. I wont bore you with the details, but what really happened was a military clique headed by Moshe Dayan that was determined to attack the Arab countries first. The narrative was that if they did that, Israel would achieve peace through strategic depth. The West bank and Gaza would be under Israeli control. At long last Israeli would have peace.

 

Hamas was largely isolated after the October attacks. Even Hezbollah did only launch a few dozen rockets in response to the operation of the IDF in Gaza and went back to drinking tea.

The current operation against Hezbollah shows how deeply Israel had penetrated their organisation. And we are bound to believe, that Hezbollah knew about what Hamas planed and was able to hide that from Israel. We are also to believe that Hamas was not equally infiltrated?

[Mighty_Zuk]

9 minutes ago, seahawk said:

The current operation against Hezbollah shows how deeply Israel had penetrated their organisation. And we are bound to believe, that Hezbollah knew about what Hamas planed and was able to hide that from Israel. We are also to believe that Hamas was not equally infiltrated?

You never listen to evidence. So why would we trust you to make a U-turn and believe evidence now?
Unless you're just shitposting in which case you're very convincing.