Hostility caused by fundamental misunderstanding

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I ask you to read this (shockingly, already 15 years old!) blog post first:

/2010/09/do-opponents-misunderstand-each-other.html

So, Iran is sponsoring terrorism abroad, right?

graphic taken from U.S. Congress

 

Well, look at the following map and search for "coincidences":

regarding copyright: see lower bound of image

The so-called proxies turn out to be Shia / Shi'ite groups outside of Iran.

 

This opens the possibility that the Western public (not terribly literate on such issues) misunderstands Iran's policy regarding support for outside groups. It might actually be about

• support for religious fellows who are (or feel) oppressed by sunni-dominated governments
• an effort to overcome the solitude as only Shia country by having at least some friends abroad 

Again (I wrote so previously), maybe the best approach to overcome the war in Yemen including the Red Sea crisis and missile launches on Israel is to split Yemen into a Shia state and a Sunni state. The unification of both Yemens was an obvious mistake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemen_Arab_Republic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Yemen

We should have a peace conference with incentives to both Houthis and their main opponents to agree to a partition (preferably with better-drawn borders, but a decent seaport for the Houthis) rather than focusing on shooting down Houthi munitions and bombing them targets in Houthi-controlled territory.

 

Lebanon's issues could be addressed by replacing the Shia sponsor Iran with a more secular, more international order-focused sponsorship.

 

 

Last but not least another thought; even a democratic Iran would still be majority Shia and might still behave very similarly, feeling solidarity with Shias abroad, supporting their cause in some way, including arming them!

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Issues with "self defence"

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Countries are entitled to defend themselves against aggression, that's universally accepted international law and almost everyone (exceptions include some particularly dumb Germans who apparently like to give BJs to Putin) gets and respects that.

The application in practice isn't without issues, though. Those issues go beyond 'false flag' actions and lying about who started the shooting.

Suppose there's a country A and a country B. They've been at each others' throats for decades. Maybe four decades, maybe eight. Maybe it's possible to tell who did start it originally, maybe not. Maybe the conflict escalated through non-warfare hostilities such as sponsoring terrorism and sabotage/assassination campaigns, maybe not.

Is there still a right to self-defence in such a permaconflict? And if yes - who has it if the origin is unclear?

Even more troublesome: What if the originator of the conflict is known, but the origin has been many decades ago and both sides were actively hostile to each other (albeit not waging open warfare) for a long time? Suppose we agree that if country A was the original culprit then country B has the right to self-defence. When does this right end? Does it ever end? Can A be blamed for not quitting the permaconflict even if it gets harrassed by below-warfare level hostilities of B? It's human nature to NOT show the other cheek for decades. Suppose we say B loses the right to self-defence in response to below warfare level hostilities if A shows the other cheek. For how long does A have to show the other cheek, or how much punishment does it have to endure while showing the other cheek until B loses the right to kill citizens of country A and destroy things in it (or possibly maintain a naval blockade)?

 

Personally, I believe there are seemingly perpetual conflicts in which I stop caring about who started it. I transition to looking who does much more damage and then am convinced it's appropriate to demand an end to lopsided killing and damage as a step towards getting out of the vicious circle of violence. That demand is easier to meet than a demand for showing the other cheek for a long time.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Minimum army weapons set, revisited

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I like to cut things down to essentials, so I wrote in 2023 about a minimum weapons sset for an army. To have very few different weapons helps coping with the difficulties in procurement.

/2023/01/a-minimum-army-weapons-set-for.html

So, almost two and a half years more developments in the Russo-Ukrainian War, does the blog post hold up well (IMO)?

 

#1 hand grenade, a timeless classic

#2 rifle, a timeless classic

#3 (light) machinegun, infantry will go on strike if it only gets rifles

#4 HEDP rifle grenade, infantry will insist on having something to shoot into a window 50 m away and this is the simplest means unless you insist on firing many shots.

#5 short range anti-MBT weapon They're worthwhile, but don't deserve a "minimum" list entry according to my opinion as of today. Fibreoptic FPVs can fly so well around obstacles that they can engage well in areas with very short lines of sight, so we don't need weapons that excel in such places any more.

#6 Well, this was close to the fibreoptic FPV quadcopter, albeit I mentioned a rocket-propelled missile as representative (there were no fibreoptic FPV quadcopters yet). The increased agility, the hover ability and the ambush ability of fibreoptic FPV quadcopters are huges advantages, worth more than the speed loss compared to the missile. So I say the #6 entry would not be represented by a rather fast fibreoptic FPV quadcopter (with thermal channel)

#7 LMM is still quite expensive (~30k €) compared to some targets, so one should rather look at an even cheaper solution now. I don't happen to know a truly satisfactory one, though. Mayb one could trust #6+#10 and scratch #7?

#8 C-UAS RCWS,  absolutely, still a great take!

#9 wheeled 155 mm SPG This one is increasingly dubious until we learn to manage the drone threat at least at 20 km depth. Some reports indicate that towed guns dug in (even 105 mm) are better, it's almost safe to say that spending the same money on towed 155 mm L/52 with auxiliary propulsion rather than on 155 mm SPGs is better. Please note; I am a proponent of using PGM missile artillery, which was not included in the lsit because a "minimum" list has to assume air support.

#10 Tamir, still a great take (to deal with Shaheed, cruise missiles, GUMLRS-ish munitions, not as the Israelis do against ordinary Grad and homebuilt rockets). Don't buy Israeli, though. Build an analog.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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Rackets

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So according to the news, the German minister of defence comes with news from NATO; according to NATO directives or whatever Germany is supposed to add formations to its armed forces.

Meanwhile, some American dipshit in office blathered something about seeing NATO countries moving towards 5% GDP military spending.

 

This truly is the idiocracy timeline !

 

The German constitutions says 

Article 87a
[Armed Forces]

(1) The Federation shall establish Armed Forces for purposes of defence. Their numerical strength and general organisational structure must be shown in the budget.

Translated to commoner language, this means it's the legislative branch that defines the general organisational structure in Germany, NOT the minister of defence. I understand it's done differently in practice, but the German minister of defence has jack shit authority to define the general organisational structure of the German armed forces (except in his capacity of also being a member of parliament and having one of hundreds of votes in there).

That's exactly as much (=jack shit) authority as NATO does have in the matter.

This is a well-established racket. It's something similar to the appeal to authority fallacy.  

 

Regarding the 5%: Dipshit's own country won't spend that, there's no reason to bother paying attention to the word salat puke of the lying moron. There's no 5% GDP military spending agreement, no 5% GDP military spending obligation - there's none for 2% GDP, either.

Our #1 defence policy issue is the efficiency of spending followed by keeping China out of Europe. The military spending budgets are plentiful, regardless of the fact that claiming the opposite is fashionable.

 

related:

/2017/02/stephen-m-walt-on-2-debate.html

/2018/04/patterns-of-propaganda-for-higher.html

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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In-war deterrence by nukes

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It's about time to spell out something painfully obvious, because I don't see anyone else doing it:

Russia would have lost this war decisively long ago if it was no nuclear power.

The frontline combat is at a stalemate, the naval blockade crumbled long ago and Russia cannot win by strategic air war because Ukraine gets enough outside support to cope with the damage done to its infrastructure and economy.

Ukraine, on the other hand, could have won long ago by a strategic air war effort:

It could have destroyed the oil refineries, which a Russia under sanctions could not have coped with.

It could have destroyed enough transformer stations to collapse the Russian rail traffic in European Russia, which Russia could not have repaired due to sanctions alone (tiny chance that China could have helped out enough). 

Both would have collapsed the Russian economy as much as the railway grid bombing collapsed the German economy in I/1945. 

Why didn't Ukraine do it? My best guess is that its Western supporters gave support under the condition that no such extreme (=decisive) measures would be taken. Why would they have done that? Nukes.

So nuclear munitions are not just a deterrent in peacetime that so far helped to avoid direct war between nuclear powers. Nuclear power status has consequences during wartime that go beyond making force concentrations and single breakthrough points impractical. They also exert political influence. In the case of Russia, nukes protect Russia against strategic knockout blows.

 

Ukraine really has to work toward collapsing Russian ground forces' morale in order to reconquer the occupied areas. That is, unless a Western nuclear power grows some balls and knocks out Russian oil refineries by itself. The British could do that with cruise missiles.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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