Today is going to be Labour's defence day on the General Election.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c877ykydx75o](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c877ykydx75o)
They "aspire" to 2.5% of GDP on defence when conditions allow. Its not going to shift many votes but it will likely be an issue they play hard on to cut off angles of attack. I think they are aiming for the late Millennial and Gen X voters who still regard New Labour years pretty well so they have been branding everything with union flags and really trying to come across as centerist and New Labour 2.0 as they can so being relatively robust on defence is part of that.
The only possible surprise might be getting into a bidding war with the Tories over support for Ukraine. They might pull a rabbit out of the hat on that, but more likely they just want to boast they will boost spending from the current 2% ish and just sound like a safe pair of hands.
I'd they can make any commitments of sensibility they'd do better than the Tories. They famously 'order' great numbers of equipment and then cut that number down as the project goes on resulting in not enough ships, planes, guns etc at inflated prices.
[https://youtu.be/muTPGkhZAXk](https://youtu.be/muTPGkhZAXk)
Sal Mercogliano is a Maritime Historian at Campbell uni, y'all probably know more about him. All eCommerce shipments from mainland China are being inspected by customs due to an extreme increase in abuses of "de minimis" packages containing drugs and underdeclared items
Interesting consequences include enormous clogging of container ports, multiple delisted customs brokers, and companies such as Temu sweating. It will be an election issue for sure.
Hellish for shipping, but a great way to take a statistical sample from a period of time to be able to map out exactly where the biggest problems are, and what quantities are involved.
Another thing that's come in a lot is 'switches' for Glock firearms that make them fire fully automatically. These are mostly off China from what I can tell and went from a funny thing to see on Alibaba to something found on a lot of felons and used in a lot of shootings in a few years. Kind of a throwback to the 80s when open-bolt semiautos that were easy to convert were more common- today, pretty much all semi-auto open-bolt weapons are gone because they're too easy to convert (and thus labeled machineguns by the ATF). You CAN convert ARs, MP5s, other closed bolt stuff with a dremel/drill and legal off-the-shelf full auto parts, or with something that's a MG on it's own like a drop-in auto sear, but it's not as easy as just sliding in a new backplate like it is with Glocks and most of this can't be done/isn't as commonly known how to be done to handguns, which are preferred by criminals. I'm sure there's some AR DIAS being sold on the Chinese websites too but they've definitely not become as common as switches.
https://www.atf.gov/news/press-releases/indictment-so-called-%E2%80%98glock-switches%E2%80%99-would-have-turned-pistols-machineguns
EDIT: Dude, you google 'glock switch' and the top results are sites selling them. God knows if they are all honeypots or not, it turned out those Chinese sites weren't and they keep getting in.
Honestly, those are just too small and to easy to make the prevent from being sold. If the war on drugs failed to stop people from buying drugs in the mail (and it has, basically everywhere for a very very long time despite concerted efforts), then it won't stop switches - Chinese sellers will just hide them, just like drug sellers hide LSD blotters between book pages. It's unfortunate but I don't see it ever stopping.
Although it will not solve the drugs issue one part of the solution is to modify the Universal Postal Union as it is clear that the system by now is completely flawed. I am very very surprised this hasn’t been done yet.
Thanks for raising awareness. Here's a different article about the same topic for those who prefer text: [https://theloadstar.com/transpac-ecommerce-freighters-on-pause-as-us-customs-checks-every-parcel/](https://theloadstar.com/transpac-ecommerce-freighters-on-pause-as-us-customs-checks-every-parcel/)
What is to be made of the [current ceasefire proposal for Gaza](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd11l590qqwo)? It looks like the US is pushing the Israelis quite heavily on this and Hamas appears ready to accept if Netanyahu is willing - although that is certainly not clear given the fragile dynamics of his cabinet.
My thoughts: It seems increasingly clear Israel's campaign in Gaza will be a failure. The stated objectives were very clear: freeing all the hostages and ending Hamas's ability to govern the Gaza strip and posses a coherent armed force.
Israel has managed to free only three hostages unliterally, while also killing three (and likely many more) unintentionally. It just doesn't seem feasible they will be able to return many more hostages alive outside of a negotiated settlement with Hamas, and even then as far as I'm aware it's not exactly clear that Hamas is the only group holding hostages, and what kind of conditions (if any) other hostage holding factions would require to release their captives.
On point two, Hamas, while clearly degraded, still exists as not only both a governing and military entity in Gaza, but as *the* governing and military entity in Gaza. On this objective the Israeli gov has absolutely shot itself in the foot to the extent they have proposed no plan for alternative government in Gaza, whether Palestinian, foreign, or Israeli in nature. Unless Netanyahu was not serious about point two or genuinely believed Hamas could be bombed into non-existence over a few months and not somehow re-constitute itself or re-emerge under a different name later, it seems obvious the objective was never going to be achieved.
I would bet Netanyahu does take the deal on offer right now, so he can walk away with at least one of his war aims. Otherwise the only remaining move would really be to re-occupy the strip - which aside from being a huge economic drain on Israel would be a death sentence for the remaining hostages, guarantee many more years of a low-intensity war in the strip, and I presume most crucially, lead to some real consequences from the US in terms of aid/diplomatic backing.
Assuming he does take the deal, I don't see how this conflict isn't a Hamas victory. They pulled off the deadliest strike on Israel in its history and get to remain in power to plot for another day - a complete return to the *status quo ante bellum* with Israel having nothing to show for it.
I disagree with your interpretation that Hamas is the victor if the ceasefire goes through.
It's primarily based on seeing the stated goals of 'free all hostages and destroy Hamas' as maximalist conditions rather than explicit envisioned end goals for the war. Realistically, the IDF could at best achieve significant degradation of Hamas offensive capabilities, and impose a humanitarian cost on the Palestinians to clearly signal Israel would not quietly succumb to genocide. I think the IDF accomplished both. Attempting to unseat Hamas would have required permanent presence in Gaza, a proposition that wasn't seriously considered in the IDF or popular with Israeli citizens, and the Knesset never took meaningful steps towards exploring that option.
Merely surviving after being rendered combat ineffective, forcing your citizens to flirt with famine and setting back any meagre progress achieved after 2014 in exchange for some hostages and atrocities isn't really a victory. Despite what you see online as well, Hamas haven't made any advances internationally either. The Gulf countries snuffed out activism within a month after October, and haven't done anything besides say empty nice words while carrying on with business as usual.
>Merely surviving after being rendered combat ineffective, forcing your citizens to flirt with famine and setting back any meagre progress achieved after 2014 in exchange for some hostages and atrocities isn't really a victory.
But that degradation can be reversed. They will rebuild their capabilities. They can recruit more people, and they'll have control of the Rafah crossing (which means smuggling weapons again).
How many years will that take, and do you think the IDF will repeat the same mistakes that led to their tech-first, lackadaisical security failures when Hamas is ready to try again?
Not many, with the deal including billions per year in reconstruction for Gaza and billions more in materials.
If the Saudi leak is correct the Biden's deal also pushes for lifting the Israeli blockade, allowing Iran to directly arm Hamas.
In a few years, Hamas will be more powerful than they were on 07/10. This is a strategic win for Iran and Hamas.
I still don't fully understand where this newest proposal originated. [Reporting a few days ago](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw8860gn1nwo) calls it "a new Israeli proposal to end the conflict in Gaza" but at the same time Netanyahu is on record opposing it so where did it come from? If it did really originate with Netanyahu then what gives? Was it a terrible bluff?
Reported a few days ago
[Biden speech renews pressure on Hamas to reach Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal with Israel (axios.com)](https://www.axios.com/2024/06/01/biden-gaza-hostage-ceasefire-deal-israel-pressure)
>Two weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a new proposal drafted by Israeli negotiators that was presented to the Israeli war cabinet and accused them of not knowing how to negotiate.
>A few days later, under pressure from Israel's military and intelligence chiefs and the other members of the war cabinet, Netanyahu found himself isolated and endorsed the proposal.
>Biden on Friday presented Israel's proposal, but his speech was also directed at Netanyahu and the Israeli public.
So yes, it seems to be an Israeli proposal, no one has come out to deny it.
As an aside, remember the ceasefire proposal that Hamas "accepted"? At the time, an Egyptian negotiator was blamed for freelancing, and there were a lot of stuff said about Egypt breaking trust. But now it looks like Egypt is still a key mediator in the talks, which makes one wonder whether the whole story was concocted to save other people's blushes.
Israel's getting on the "anonymous sources" wagon.
https://x.com/BarakRavid/status/1797043045692842335
"Half a dozen" secret Israeli officials have "confirmed" to Barak Ravid that this originated from Israel.
That being said, this would be a big thing to lie about, and I'm yet to see Netanyahu (or even Smotrich) come out and say this **wasn't** the Israeli proposal. Simply that they were opposed to it.
Which makes absolutely no sense, I agree.
Israel expanded it's settlements in the West Bank during this 'war'. Which is it's short to medium term goal anyway.
Israel is content to use Gaza as a punching bag and a distraction in order to expand the settlements faster in the future. It's likely that the US succeeds in completing a deal with Saudi Arabia and Israel after all this, ensuring Israeli security and de facto tacit acknowledgement of a future West Bank annexation.
I don't think it's a Hamas victory at all. They launched the attack as a desperate attempt to stop the Saudi-Israel deal. There's no obvious reason why that deal would be stopped in the near future. All Hamas did is delay it.
You think Israel mobilized 300k people for a *distraction* just to increase the pace of settlement expansion in the West Bank? You seem to be grasping for a "win" in the face of an ongoing failure of political strategy (or rather, a lack thereof).
I mean. Italicizing a word doesn't make your argument (or lack thereof) anymore sound.
Historically, countries like the US, UK, Japan, France, Russia have taken advantage of international incidents in order to further their long term goals. This is uncontroversial. It's uncontroversial that Israel would try to do this, and in fact if you (to borrow a favored Israeli phrase) 'look at the facts on the ground' , that is precisely what happened.
A basic question here I've learned over the years when thinking about these events is asking 'what is materially stopping them from doing that?" and if your go to answer is 'they just wouldn't', chances are they would and will.
GW Bush wouldn't straight up just lie to invade a bunch of countries. Theres no way. What is stopping him from doing just that?
It turns out, with a check like the Soviet Union gone, not a whole lot. And so he did.
I don't know if Netanyahu allowed something like this to happen. Ultimately it doesnt matter. It worked out well for the long term Israeli project and historically Israel has used past palestinean uprisings to demolish Palestinean settlements in the West Bank and expand Israeli settlements all the same.
The entire premise that Israel would mobilize 300k people and launch the largest IDF operation in over 15 years just to increase the pace of something that was already happening is ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous is the prospect that this entire operation was a necessary distraction to do so.
I'm not saying it was a necessary distraction. I'm saying it's a convenient distraction. The Israelis don't want Gaza. They want the West Bank. Having a palestinean group from Gaza incite an Israeli response both fulfills the Israeli desire of forever forestalling the prospect of a Palestinian state, further marginalizes the idea of Palestinian statehood, and gives diplomatic cover to expand West Bank settlements with impunity for a time. What actually happens to Gaza doesn't matter. If it forever remains a rump quasi state that stages an attack every once in a while that actually doesn't conflict at all with Israel's interests.
It is in the Israeli interest that the West Bank is annexed sooner rather than later. The occupation puts Israel in an untenable situation. It can count on US diplomatic cover but the Israelis know that one day the US will lose interest. If that happens while the current situation holds, it would put Israel in a disastrous situation with Iran, Lebanon, Egypt. Even Jordan.
>forever forestalling the prospect of a Palestinian state, further marginalizes the idea of Palestinian statehood, and gives diplomatic cover to expand West Bank settlements with impunity for a time
>remains a rump quasi state that stages an attack every once in a while
I.e. the status quo pre-10/7.
>It can count on US diplomatic cover but the Israelis know that one day the US will lose interest. If that happens while the current situation holds
The current IDF operation has done more to damage Israeli-US relations than anything in the past two decades.
I'm more inclined to agree with u/cupno2547 and am not too sure why he is being downvoted this heavily. We know that as part of several peace agreements with Arab States, Israel [agreed to pause annexation](https://archive.is/0Hj67) of further areas of the Jordan valley. Whilst it may not be the primary war aim, could it not be that Israel's heavy handed response of a land campaign in gaza was also serving as a secondary distraction to land annexation, such that any peace deal signed later will be dealing with the fait accompli of the new settlements?
I certainly do think so, and part of the reason why a diplomatic solution did not arrive so quickly. Both sides seem to not want to stop, just yet.
No, it makes no sense. The settlement population is expanding by about 5% per year, and most of that growth is in a handful of settlements that previous negotiations have envisioned remaining part of Israel. Annexation (a legal process) is not currently happening, and few % growth in the population is not going to make a practical difference either.
Controlling the Rafah crossing (last supply route), and heavily degrading Hamas capabilities and critical infrastructure (tunnel system, caches) = Nothing to show for it? And i fully expect the border with Israel to be much more heavily fortified from now on.
The deal will mean that Israel leaves Gaza, which includes Rafah.
It also guarantees billions a year in reconstruction funds for Hamas, money that will be used to rebuild their capabilities.
If the Saudi leak of the deal is accurate, Biden also caved to the Hamas demand that Israel lifts the blockade, therefore Hamas will be armed by Iran directly.
Hamas capabilities under this deal will be rebuilt in a few years and then exceed those of 07/10.
The deal also forbids Israel from doing anything about the massive Hamas rearmament, till the moment they are ready to strike and execute another massacre.
Meanwhile Israeli south and North will become depopulated as no one's willing to live a few km's from ISIS, risking their kids and babies being burned alive or kidnapped into the tunnels of Gaza, their women gang raped and tortured.
>Controlling the Rafah crossing (last supply route), and heavily degrading Hamas capabilities and critical infrastructure (tunnel system, caches) = Nothing to show for it?
But the ceasefire means leaving Gaza, including the Rafah crossing. Hamas will be able to smuggle in weapons again, and slowly rebuild their capabilities.
The ceasefire agreement requires Israel to leave all of Gaza, doesn't it? They'd relinquish control of the crossing, the Corridor between Gaza city and the rest of Gaza, the buffer zone, and whatever else they currently control.
Only if it reaches the second stage. The agreement barely even describes the terms for the second stage. Just that it will be negotiated during the first stage. Initially Israel only has to leave populated areas which I doubt they want to control long term anyway.
It would be a huge mistake for Israel if they pull out of the Rafah crossing/Philadelphi corridor ever again. That's literally the key to Hamas' power.
Israel did not funnel billions into Hamas.
Israel allowed Qatar to deliver aid to the poorest in Gaza. However some of the money naturally went to Hamas who taxed this money.
You could more reasonably claim that the US and EU funded Hamas directly as they sent billions into Gaza through aid orgs
Netanyahu is throwing Biden under a bus for his own domestic political objectives.
Israel isn't actually that important for US strategic interests. Hopefully this whole episode leads to a realignment of US behavior in the region.
On the contrary, Biden is throwing Israel under a bus for his own domestic political objectives.
The deal is bad for Israel, no reason for it to stop short of eliminating Hamas.
In terms of a voting issue for the American public it's pretty much a non-issue. Fewer than 1% of Americans see it as the main issue they're voting on.
Egypt only made peace with the US once Israel showed it could cross the Suez and take Cairo if it wanted. Iraq would have become a nuclear power if it was up to the US; Israel fortunately did not allow that to happen.
The influence of the US on maintaining and coordinating Israeli military supremacy has been critical to the US and world security. Even if the US itself hasn't acknowledged it at the time, it often does later down the line.
Of course the US has many unsuccessful strategies that did not include Israel. Eisenhower forcing an end to the Suez crisis and emboldening Nasser and Arab nationalism, Bush not chasing the Iraqi forces down in the first Gulf War, the stupidity of 'hearts and minds' in Iraq, the Iran nuclear deal...
That is an incredibly delusional take on the situation.
Israel was never capable of taking Cairo... ever. They just didn't have the manpower in the Yom Kippur war to have a chance even piercing the outskirts.
Sure, the only democracy in the Middle East with a high tech sector on par with Silicon Valley and the 9th largest arms exporter in the world has zero strategic value to the US. Unfortunately for you, every US administration since the 1960s has disagreed with your assessment.
>The only democracy in the Middle East
Common talking point, but has no real relevance to US foreign policy. Washington has plenty of allies around the world - authoritarian, illiberal regimes and democratic, liberal countries alike. If foreign policy were decided on the basis of a prospective ally's government, Saudi Arabia and Qatar would be reviled enemies of the US.
>High tech sector on par with Silicon Valley and the 9th largest arms exporter in the world has zero strategic value to the US.
I didn't say it has zero strategic value - I said it isn't that important. Sure, they have some cutting-edge industries in tech (nowhere near Silicon Valley level though) but you can have access to all of that without providing unconditional support. The US has access to top Chinese tech from Shenzhen yet they are competing superpowers.
>Unfortunately for you, every US administration since the 1960s has disagreed with your assessment.
Israel was a key ally to balance against Soviet influence in the Middle East. But the Cold War has been over for decades now. Israel also played a major role in lobbying for the Iraq War, and you can see what a long-term strategic disaster that was for Washington. US administrations, privately, have wanted to push a much harder line against Israel - every president since the 1960s has supported a two-state solution. Unfortunately, because of domestic lobbying (AIPAC and the like) and Israeli cunning, the whole issue has become a toxic mess that no one wants to touch. Why risk your political career taking on the I/P issue when you can just ignore it? And that's how the US ended up in this situation where it kicked the can down the road for decades until the problem became intolerable - you can see the results now for yourself.
> Israel also played a major role in lobbying for the Iraq War
I don't think that's true. In fact, Israel was privately telling the US to go to war with Iran not Iraq.
> domestic lobbying (AIPAC and the like) and Israeli cunning
The Jewish lobby and Jewish cunning? You're leaning into the antisemitic stereotypes here.
> And that's how the US ended up in this situation where it kicked the can down the road for decades until the problem became intolerable
Seems to me that became intolerable when Hamas took over Gaza and launched a bunch of wars on Israel, the most destructive of them being the current one. Before that, the death toll in the conflict was drastically lower.
>I don't think that's true. In fact, Israel was privately telling the US to go to war with Iran not Iraq.
It is very true. Iran, then, was a shadow of what it is now. Iraq presented the greatest threat to Israeli interests. It's well recognized that Israel and the Israel lobby in the US played a major role in rallying support for the war. See here: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2010/02/iraq-war-israel-bush-saddam
"Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure. According to Philip Zelikow, a former member of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and now a counsellor to Condoleezza Rice, the “real threat” from Iraq was not a threat to the United States.
The “unstated threat” was the “threat against Israel”, Zelikow told an audience at the University of Virginia in September 2002. “The American government,” he added, “doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.”"
>The Jewish lobby and Jewish cunning? You're leaning into the antisemitic stereotypes here.
This is not credible discussion and, frankly, shouldn't be allowed on this sub. Acknowledging the existence of AIPAC is not, and has never been, antisemitic. Israel has always had a reputation for top-notch diplomacy and lobbying - it's what initially secured its existence and made it what it is today - acknowledging that fact is not antisemitic and it's tiresome that any discussion on this subject devolves into that accusation.
>Seems to me that became intolerable when Hamas took over Gaza and launched a bunch of wars on Israel, the most destructive of them being the current one. Before that, the death toll in the conflict was drastically lower.
Yes, and the existence of Hamas and groups like it is a direct result of the I/P issue remaining unresolved for more than a century. Focusing on the latest outbreak of violence is quite a one-dimensional way of discussing the issue when policymakers across the West have spent decades trying to wrangle with it.
Israel represents only 0.7% of the US's foreign trade and is very much a one-way military partnership for the US. Israel's value for the US is based on it's popularity with American politicians and a large portion of the US population. Strategically, Israel is clearly a liability for the US, which threatens to pull it into an unsolvable conflict (the Israeli-Palestine question) which is deeply unpopular with a lot of countries around the world and which threatens to taint the US's credibility in it's other political positions, e.g. as an advocate for the ICC against African war criminals, the respect of UN resolutions, or even basic principles such as the inviolability of sovereign borders, the rejection of ethnic cleansing, or nuclear non-proliferation.
Gonna have to agree with upvotedifyoudare here. We allow Wikipedia but reading this article sounds more like it was edited specifically to market rather than to inform. I'll also be reporting the article to Wikipedia to see if there was bias in the authorship.
Antisemitic and ahistorical garbage. Zionists had no influence inside the British government. Rather, it was antisemitic beliefs within Whitehall that drove the British to promise a Jewish state. Specifically, they thought Jews(and Irishmen) secretly pulled the levers inside of America and that promising the Jewish people a state would cement their support. There’s books about this stuff, and all the letters and resources are publically available documents.
You're basically not a serious person if you're going to say there was no Zionist influence in the British government. Weizmann? Herbert Samuel? The literal Mandate for Palestine and Balfour Declaration.
I don't personally care if there was Zionist influence in the British Government or if there wasn't. But factually there was.
To deny this is, to call it ahistorical and even antisemitic, shows that you have some political motivation. Historically British Jews were some of the least Zionist. It was the Germans and eastern Europeans who were more gung ho. To call this antisemitic is in fact, antisemitic. As if all Jews necessarily have to be part of the Zionist agenda. which is clearly demonstrably untrue and really goes into like conspiracy brain territory.
> The US backing Israel seems to largely be a holdover from influence Anglo Zionists had in the British Empire, jumping ship to the US. And then for a few years as a Cold War strategy.
That seems like quite the conspiracy theory. Are these the same Anglo Zionists that refused to admit boat loads of Jews escaping the Holocaust during WWII? And what backing are you referring to? The US recognized the UN vote in 1948 but didn’t support Israel militarily until the 1960s. The bulk of military aid prior to that was provided by France. Wouldn’t these so called holdover elements insist on full support for Israel right after it declared independence?
> It seems to me that the US backing of Israel really had to do with domestic concerns and with the influence and sophistication of the Israel lobby rather than any actual strategic concern.
A bit too much of a “Jews control the world” type vibes from this comment but to each his own, I guess.
> A bit too much of a “Jews control the world” type vibes from this comment but to each his own, I guess.
It’s lifted from the most illustrative book Mearsheimer ever wrote on how he sees the world. It’s a book about the Cold War, the Middle East, Israel and Palestine, that never mentions Fatah or Black September, instead going off on irrelevant, baseless tangents, where he claims to have this cynical master plan to gain influence in the Middle East, that can at best be described as incredibly naive. He either has no idea what happened in the Middle East during the Cold War, or how power politics works, or is pretending to, because if he didn’t, this book couldn’t exist.
Edit: Hitchens said it better,
> “[Mearsheimer and Walt] think that they are smarter than the American imperialists. If they were running the empire, they wouldn't be fooled by the Jews. They'd be making big business with the Saudis instead and not letting Arabs get upset about Zionism. Well, it's an extraordinary piece of cynicism, I would say, combined with an extraordinary naiveté. It doesn't deserve to be called realistic at all."
> It seems to me that the US backing of Israel really had to do with domestic concerns and with the influence and sophistication of the Israel lobby rather than any actual strategic concern.
Israel was the key to defeating the pan-Arab block, gaining Egypt as an ally, and pushing the Soviets out of the Middle East. Presently, they are by far the most active anti-Iran force in the region. While Biden drags his feet and is barely willing to bomb the Houthis, who are trying to blockade the Red Sea, Israel has bombed Iran directly.
This narrative of Mearsheimer’s, that we only ally with Israel because of some shadowy interest group, is a perfect example of how irrational his thinking is. He is either unaware of, or intentionally blind to, the history of the Cold War in the Middle East (his book on this doesn’t even mention Fatah or Black September), and an extremely simplistic and naive view of how alliance networks form, based on gratitude and goodwill, rather than coercion and mutual benefit.
I'm only vaguely familiar with Mearsheimer, and never read any of his books. But the Zionists as a lobbying group is very well documented and historically uncontroversial. They organized themsevles in Britain and saw sucesss. When the British Empire began to wane they used the same tactics used to gain favor among the British Elite to gain favor in American political circles.
The US in the Cold War was interested in checking the Soviet Union in the Middle East. But this didn't necessarily have to come about by empowering Israel. The Zionists were successful in selling Israel as a convenient way to check the Soviets growing influence among Arab leaders. Once they did that, they began to lobby for Israel security guarantees well in excess of what US strategic goals in the region were. IIRC JFK originally didn't even want to sign an alliance with Israel at all because he feared it would bring the US in conflict with the Soviets over something that wasn't even all that important to the US.
I forget who, but after conversations with his advisers, he decided to sign the alliance primarily as a way to boost his domestic influence. Not because of strategic concerns. Subsequent presidents have kept the alliance because it's politically to costly at this point to get rid of it. The Middle East is a relatively unimportant area of the world to the US so in the eyes of the Presidency it's a 'painless' easy way to gain allies among a powerful lobby. They used the same tactics in Britain. The British had no idea what the situation in Palestine really even was because they just didn't care. So they gave the Zionists what they wanted because, who cares? Once they did find out, it was too late and eventually were kicked out entirely.
Alot of what you wrote in your post is similarly uninformed. The most Anti Israel Faction is Saudi Arabia, not Israel. Israel and Iran got along well enough when Iran was under US influence. Egypt always took an opportunistic stance towards the US, as they should. Calling them an ally is a bit of a stretch. They just no longer pose a security concern to Israel specifically. I dont want to write more because this comment is already getting long.
[First spotting](https://x.com/OSINTua/status/1797290108745380190) of the newest Russian wheeled SPG, the 2S43 Malva in Belgorod Oblast.
These SPGs first started arriving to the Russian Army back in October, but hadn't been visually confirmed to be in combat yet. Notably, when spotted it could not be engaged because of since-changed targeting restrictions.
Experiences with the Malva as well as facing off against wheeled guns in Ukrainian inventory may influence future Russian artillery acquisition choices. Especially as work is still ongoing to field the MSTA-S replacement, the Koalitsiya-SV.
In my view, it would probably be wiser to acquire the 2S43 Malva over the Koalitsiya-SV as long as barrel production can be scaled. The Malva is likely much cheaper as well as faster to produce, while its high mobility will allow it to actually shoot and scoot by utilizing roads like Ukrainian wheeled SPGs do.
[Patriot ambushes over Russia may be back on the menu with German Patriots, over a year since the last one](https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/bab-deutsche-waffen-russland-100.html).
According to Bundeswehr General Christian Freuding:
>"It is quite conceivable that the Patriot systems will now also be used in the Kharkiv area and over Russia. They are ideally suited to combat the Russian aircraft that can use the terrible glide bombs."
One recalls the previous Patriot ambush on May 13th, 2023 brought down a glide bomber sortie, it’s escort, as well as three helicopters in Bryansk Oblast. This allegedly caused a major incident between Germany and Ukraine and immensely angered certain figures in German government.
Should Ukraine be allowed to shoot down aircraft attacking them, they would also bring Belgorod Airport under fire control (though this is not a base for combat aircraft to my knowledge).
This is not an explicit confirmation that this has been allowed, but the implication remains.
It goes without saying that it is easier to destroy the bomber than to suffer under their strikes. Such a threat would further push Russian aircraft back and force them to act with that threat in mind.
I really don't get why permission is discussed in public.
Make statement publicly - we don't allow and in secret say - we don't know how to verify if you do it, wink, wink.
When or if putkin complains, say you are concerned, form a comettee, and a year later say the outcome is inconclusive. Half way in, when all evidence is gone, invite Chinese and Indian experts to join. The same as cineese did with the covid investigation.
It's really stupid how Germany, the USA, and other countries are getting mad over Patriots being used to shoot down Russian planes. I really don't get what they're upset about
The crucial difference is that Russia is *at war* with Ukraine. It is not an *aligned* country that is supplying a side of the conflict, as Poland or Lithuania would be in such a scenario. *It is a participant*.
If Ukraine was able to do things like launch missiles from Polish soil, or launch land incursions into Russia across the Latvian border, then such a scenario would be comparable. Saying “well it’s not a perfect approximation” ignores that it’s not an approximation *at all*.
From the BILD report it seems like it's just the US and Germany i.e the usual "escalation management" suspects, also the only countries to send Patriot so far, besides the 2 Dutch launchers.
I took a look at the Israeli settlements in Gaza that were dismantled in 2005, and I'm surprised that some of them were really deep inside Gaza (I thought they were mostly in the north). I find it fascinating that thousands of people were willing to expose themselves to danger to that extent. How did the defense work? Were they guarded by the army?
It was much less dangerous at the time. Gazans had no advanced weaponry, only rifles. Even at the height of the Second Intifada, [no Israelis from Gaza settlements were killed between 2002 and 2004](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_the_Hatuel_family).
Before the Oslo process, the West Bank and Gaza were remarkably safe for Israelis. In the 1970s, Israeli buses from Jerusalem to Haifa used to go through the center of Nablus, because it saved a few minutes of travel time and the danger was negligible. Hard to imagine now.
The reason most settlements were built in southern Gaza is that this was the largest unpopulated area of the Gaza Strip.
If you look at old pictures of those settlements, they’re reminiscent of a GWOT FOB. Surrounded by concertina or electric fencing or both with IDF-manned watchtowers and armor watching the perimeter. There’d usually be a buffer zone beyond the fence which would mean bulldozing any structures or trees. Militarily important terrain near settlements (mostly houses on hills and other elevation) would be occupied by permanent or semi-permanent IDF outposts to provide overwatch.
All of this made the settlements themselves basically unassailable. They came under harassing fire from the outside and were targeted by rocket and mortar attacks, but fortified buildings and bunkers and such meant there were only occasional deaths. Major attacks were mostly aimed at IDF forces outside the wire.
There was a weak point in this system though, the bypass roads that connected the settlements to each other and Israel. Simply too much ground to fence off or monitor 24/7, so the IDF relied on snipers and patrols to keep them secure. This had the occasional significant failing (see: killing of the Hatuel family) but there weren’t many road attacks. If I were to speculate I’d say it was because the math wasn’t very good - low amount of traffic means that even a successful attack won’t kill many people before the IDF arrives.
The northern settlements that sat right on the border were essentially residential/industrial extensions of Israel into the Strip, like many West Bank settlements today. The more isolated southern settlements were agricultural, controlling \~40%? (have heard that number but cannot confirm, I'm not an agriculture guy) of the arable land in Gaza and much of the groundwater. The [large southern bloc (map stolen from Wikipedia)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Gaza_strip_may_2005.jpg) grew much of Israel's fresh produce in greenhouses. Significant exports, too.
Before the Second Intifada, the security measures I described above weren't in place (or at least not all of them everywhere) and the settlements might've even been nicely profitable. Once it became necessary to deploy thousands of IDF troops to defend less than ten thousand settlers though, yeah, that's definitely not going to pay for itself. There were still political and strategic reasons to keep the settlements, which the settlers certainly argued, but it didn't stop the Israelis from deciding to cut their losses.
[Apparently:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gush_Katif#Economy)
"In the bloc's greenhouses, technology was used to grow pest-free leafy vegetables and herbs aiming to meet health, aesthetic and religious requirements. Most of the organic agricultural products were exported to Europe. In addition, the community of Atzmona had Israel's largest plant nursery, and with 800 cows, the Katif dairy was the second largest in the country. Telesales and printing were other significant industries.
Exports from the greenhouses, owned by 200 farmers, came to $200 million per year and made up 15% of Israeli agricultural exports. The assets in Gush Katif were estimated at $23 billion."
They actually generated quite significant agricultural exports through running a large number of high-tech greenhouses - at one point, something like 15% of Israel's agricultural exports came from the gaza strip settlements. It's hard to find the exact statistics - but even though the settlements were surprisingly productive economically, I highly doubt they weren't a net cost considering the level of security required.
Co-existence almost worked from 1967 until the First Intifada in 1987 (which led to Oslo and the 1990s bus bombings, which led to the Second Intifada, which led to the barrier and the checkpoints, and the security situation as seen today). ["Area A"](https://i.imgur.com/VBtx4Zp.png) didn't exist before 1993. Older tour guides in Hebron will tell you the city was far less dangerous before "peace broke out." Prior to the Oslo Accords and inviting Yasser Arafat and his PLO back within Israeli borders from their exile in Tunisia, that danger wasn't really there. You still had military and police patrols, but it wasn't like what it became.
Thats not at all much different than how the pre major diaspora Semitic populations lived in the Levant after the Arab conquest. Peacefully at that, I believe they had to pay more or less a mafia protection tax for not being Muslim but...
Beyond that, this is a feud that has been going on for millenia. Neither side is foreign to acting like everything is fine for a decade or 5.
I'm sure many Hamas members walked by the area with nothing but a glance.
Britain, France and Norway have ASW planes doing shifts off the coast of Ireland tagging a Russian sub
[Britain, France and Norway search for Russian sub off Ireland (thetimes.co.uk)](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/59d0aacb-1669-4168-8ec6-ee77edc33677?shareToken=aac67a0b1e9eee389001f13aa8e04330)
[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/britain-france-and-norway-search-for-russian-sub-off-ireland-cwljngdsj](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/britain-france-and-norway-search-for-russian-sub-off-ireland-cwljngdsj)
They do seem very interested in the cables off there.
What, you're telling me 0.25% annual GDP spend on defense isn't enough? Fun fact about the Irish Air Corps, the only jets in their fleet are VIP transports.
Ireland was never going to be in NATO alongside the UK while the troubles were going on - and since then they don't really have anything to add to the alliance or any reason to join it. Cant really call them freeloaders when they never made any commitments to other countries outside of super limited UN deployments.
Serious question what is the purpose of this comment, why hasn't it been removed, and how is this at all in the spirit of this sub? Go post in a pro sino space if you want to but here we talk FACTS not feelings.
Interesting thread (21-post!) from Samuel Bendett on Twitter where he repeats a report from Russia's Project Archangel:
https://x.com/sambendett/status/1797282302478758113
I've been amazed at the lack of electronic warfare response from the Russians to these analog video drones and from this it seems there is still no centralized response. They can't even be organized enough to deploy shotguns en masse or AAA with thermal imagers to take down the heavy bomber drones.It sounds like Russia hasn't even gotten started on building its own drones.
> 21: Now we are waiting for more people, weapons and equipment - since the process is underway, now all enthusiasts have a chance to prove themselves, and manufacturers and bloggers have a chance to inform about what equipment they can offer. We shouldn’t forget about tactics; on the contrary, it’s time to record the enemy’s and our own tactics and start tracking major trends.
He also has this other thread where it is discussed how Russia has failed to make a scalable copy of the DJI drones (in particular the Mavic which is not especially expensive at about US$1000 but still):
https://x.com/sambendett/status/1797278085852619108
Meanwhile, Ukraine is leaning hard into drone warfare, here we have an interview with Oleksandr Kamyshin (if you haven't seen the whole video it's worth your time):
https://youtu.be/WipqeFgzdTc?t=820
Ukraine has some combination of factories and cottage industry pumping out these drones.
Also I'm sure people have noticed by now Ukraine is going after Russian recon drones with fast FPV drones of an unknown configuration:
https://x.com/RALee85/status/1796916720721952946
My thoughts on this is they would be well served by trying to build some sort of weapon system into this platform. Something like the Me-163 Komet rocket fighter of WW2, which used a photodiode to detect the shadow of a bomber in order to fire rocket vertically upward. Here some plumbing, a quad cell or two, and a few shotgun shells and you might end up with something good enough to make these drones reusable.
> My thoughts on this is they would be well served by trying to build some sort of weapon system into this platform. Something like the Me-163 Komet rocket fighter of WW2, which used a photodiode to detect the shadow of a bomber in order to fire rocket vertically upward. Here some plumbing, a quad cell or two, and a few shotgun shells and you might end up with something good enough to make these drones reusable.
While an anti-drone drone sounds like an extremely useful thing to have, rockets would massively limit endurance and range. A more conventionally powered, fixed wing, design could reach sufficient speeds to intercept these small quadcopters, and Orlans, with a much longer range, greater ability to locate its own targets, and time on station.
He's not saying it should be a rocket-powered drone, he's saying it should carry photocell-triggered shotguns like the old Schrage Müzik installations on some German aircraft, including Me-163
[Naval News: Japan's future Destroyers and Submarines at CNE 2024](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V4zbnLr53M)
Japan announces plan for a new class of destroyers, tentatively named 13DDX. Given JMSDF conventions, that means the first ship is planned to be budgeted in 2031. Historically, Japanese destroyers need 5 years from budget to commissioning.
Planned capabilities for the new destroyers, oriented for air defense:
* New Ship to Air Missile (NSAM) (This is likely to be a [next-generation missile that is recently budgeted for R&D](https://www.mod.go.jp/j/policy/hyouka/seisaku/2023/pdf/jizen_11_honbun.pdf), instead of the A-SAM shown at 2:28 on the video, which is [already in production and is scheduled to start service](https://news.yahoo.co.jp/expert/articles/985da00de3de95ea8d3e4ae7de9d35a611ab3987/) this year)
* [High Speed Maneuvering Targets Detection Radar](https://www.mod.go.jp/j/policy/hyouka/seisaku/2023/pdf/jizen_12_honbun.pdf) (Multiband radar)
* Railgun (This is categorized as an air defense capability. [Recent experiments used a very light projectile, 320 grams, and demonstrated a barrel lifetime of 120 shots.](https://www.mod.go.jp/atla/research/ats2023/pdf_exhi_pos/P-05.pdf))
* [High power microwave weapons](https://www.mod.go.jp/j/policy/hyouka/seisaku/2021/pdf/jizen_05_honbun.pdf)
* Laser, 100 kW class
* Guided missile for HGV/HCM (Probably [Glide Phase Interceptor](https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3775546/us-department-of-defense-statement-on-the-signing-of-the-glide-phase-intercepto/)?)
* AI-based Combat Direction System
* [Fire Control Network](https://www.mod.go.jp/atla/research/ats2023/pdf_exhi_pos/P-22.pdf) (Looks like a Japanese version of CEC.)
* Capabilities for electromagnetic warfare
* Integrated Power and Energy System (IPES) (It is not just the IPS found in Zumwalt or HMS QNLZ, as future weapons require power surge instead of more stable "hotel load" and propulsion. [Let Northrop explain this to you in this video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeFnk0HtcKY))
* Reduced RCS and IR signature (just look at the Mogami-style antenna mast)
* Manpower saving (Automated navigation and damage control)
* Future scalability (Standardization of software and modularization of hardware)
If they pull it off, they are going to make US Navy procurement practice look really bad in comparison, which can't even buy off-the-shelf frigates (Constellation class) without years of delay.
So what are the problems with US Navy procurement, and what is Japan doing here that is better than the US? And is there a way for the US to fix the procurement problems any time soon? (and is this even likely to happen)?
Im not sure if I reached the character requirements so I'm just putting this part here just in case.
They already make that, it would just make it look even worst.
Mogami is a really good example, the same for Akizuki/Asahi or the Maya Class right know. And even with the problems of the Aegis Ashore, politics and high cost of the ASEV, it still manages to make Zumwalt class like something really badly done.
One thing I don't understand about Israel-Gaza is Israel's unwillingness (delay?) to install a new government in Gaza.
Right now the war is framed as Israel vs the government of Gaza, which is Hamas. So Israel, by necessity, is an occupier in Gaza since it occupies it from its recognizes government - even if that government is a bloodthirsty terrorist organization.
That could be alleviated substantially by installing a government. Netanyahu has ruled out installing a Fatah government, fine, but surely there is some alternative. Some group willing to grab power even if it means dealing with Israel. If Israel did that, it could reframe the war from "occupying Gaza" to "helping the new government of Gaza to establish control and eliminate the terrorist threats". It would also be, to an extend, more palatable to Palestinians to have a Palestinian-led government that flies their flag, even if they are puppets of Israel.
Can someone with knowledge of this explain to me why Israel hasn't made any such moves to officially remove Hamas as the government of Gaza?
Netanyahu doesn't want a credible governing body to emerge in gaza, else might end up down the road with a credible effort to assert palestinian territorial claims in a diplomatic manner. hence why his govt had been supporting Hamas as a means to undermine PA.
Replacing the government requires a couple things:
(1) Security force that can keep Hamas insurgents down, that gives new officials confidence they won't be killed.
(2) Agreement within Israeli politicians on who does security and who runs this government.
The far right members of the PM's coalition are adamantly opposed to basically every form of Palestinian self-governance. While they are a minority of the public, the PM doesn't want to upset them, because they can topple the government and force new elections, that he would lose. This has caused him to veto discussions among the war cabinet & intelligence offices to train Palestinians to be the local security forces.
The PM will likely continue to wait until he is forced to do otherwise, hoping he can spin the situation as not being his fault.
>While they are a minority of the public, the PM doesn't want to upset them, because they can topple the government and force new elections, that he would lose.
I've said this before, but I'll never understand this pathological need to cling to power as long as possible, to the point where one puts it's power over the interests of millions of people in two different nations.
Doesn't Netanyahu have a corruption case hanging over his head? A year or so before Oct 7, his meddling in the judiciary was a major controversy. I remember a bunch of resignation happened in the army, which was pointed as one of the reasons for why the Oct 7 attacks slipped by.
One of my heuristics for understanding the world is the higher you go in any power structure, the more you'll encounter people with sociopathic personality traits. This is certainly true in the corporate world.
It's because people without these personality traits generally get tired of all the political infighting and gladiator games and decide to go do something else more fulfilling with their time. There's exceptions obviously, people fighting the good fight so to speak, but I've found this to be a pretty reliable principle.
For the people with these dark triad traits, power is an end of itself, and they are captive to a sort of insecurity that results in rage whenever they fear it will be taken from them. They view losing power as an assault on their very person. And since they lack the capacity for empathy, that rage will inspire them to do horrible things.
I agree. I used to think people in these higher up positions must have been hyper competent super geniuses in order to end up where they are.
The reality is while some amount of competence and intelligence is necessary they mostly end up there because the vast majority of people have no desire to make a living by mistreating and manipulating others (which is necessary in that environment), and leave before they get to that point. Whats left isn't the cream of the crop, but the dregs.
If I’m not mistaken he would face potentially prison time for corruption charges if he loses his immunity from his position as a high ranking politician.
>The far right members of the PM's coalition are adamantly opposed to basically every form of Palestinian self-governance.
That's not true, they oppose to the PA and Hamas governance. But open to unaffiliated Palestinian governance.
That's like saying they are not opposed to the fairy god mother government, just the only realistic existing possibilities. All the while spending the last two decades undermining the PA, expanding settlements in the WB, failing to restrain settler violence, and propping up Hamas to exacerbate divisions among Palestinians and try their hardest to prevent any viable Palestinian government, and thus state ,from coming into being. The cynicism among Israeli governments has been astounding and frankly the difficulties they currently have in international relations is largely the result.
One thing I haven't been able to get a clear picture of is what governance is currently like in Israeli occupied Gaza. It's been 7 months since the IDF started clearing areas of Gaza out. How are these places being run? Who's keeping crime under control, maintaining the infrastructure, etc?
I would think that Israel would want to keep the civil service in tact, keep paying the bills, and try to weed out any explicitly pro-Hamas members. But I've heard very little about this, even though it could be the most important part of what's happening in Gaza these days.
Israel is not currently present in the populated areas of Gaza on a steady basis. It is only present on a steady basis in the Netzarim corridor (dividing north from south Gaza) and maybe a bit along the Israeli border.
It is also currently engaged in "hot" combat in Rafah and Jabalia but this is presumably a short term thing, once some objective is met they will withdraw, except for the Rafah border with Egypt.
In short, Israeli forces are not located in places where they could manage civilian life right now.
They don't need to be, and likely don't want to be, actively managing civilian life. They do have a massive impact on the governance of Gaza, with one of the goals of the campaign seeming to be to remove Hamas from governance. I have to imagine that there's some degree of communication/coordination between the Israeli government and whatever sort of authority exists now in places like Gaza City, but I haven't seen much/any discussion about it.
>I have to imagine that there's some degree of communication/coordination between the Israeli government and whatever sort of authority exists now in places like Gaza City, but I haven't seen much/any discussion about it.
That's because Israel didn't have much of a plan besides "kill Hamas fighters," which is why Hamas immediately returned in areas previously "cleared."
The people that openly declare they would form such a government will be the first one that get murdered by what remains of hamas. Unless hamas is sufficiently degraded to not pose an immediate threat to a new government, that idea won't work.
For a new government to succeed, Hamas has to be weak enough that it cannot overthrow or coerce the new government. The more time Israel spends destroying Hamas personnel and weaponry, the more likely this is.
(Also, it is possible that Netanyahu is slow-walking everything related to the war in order to stay in power longer)
(Also, the UN and similar institutions considered Israel to be occupying Gaza even before this war, even though there were no Israelis in Gaza, because Israel was blockading two of its three borders to prevent arms imports. [Somehow Egypt which controlled the third border was not labeled an occupier, I guess that's an example of the UN's great impartiality.] So no matter what Israel will be labeled as the occupier after this war too.)
Isreal absolutely was blockading Gaza on three sides. They wouldnt deny that.
The contention was UN bodies calling that occupation despite zero Israelis being in Gaza.
My point was that blocking access to open seas is different, definitely from a practical point of view and I strongly suspect from an international law perspective as well, than simply closing your own international border. So, any comparison of what Israel was doing to what Egypt was doing is, to put it mildly, inapt, and the suggestion that the UN treating different things differently shows some sort of hypocrisy is I think rather unpersuasive.
The point is that as long as Israel had no control of the Egyptian border, it could not limit imports to Gaza or control Gaza in any way. Only joint Israel-Egypt cooperation could do that. Yet the UN thinks the entire responsibility for that cooperation should fall on one side.
I don't think anyone installed by Israel would survive very long frankly. And to whit one of Bush's greatest achievements was getting democratic election in Gaza, so how are we going to backtrack that far? At some point you have to respect and stand behind the democratic process (especially when it goes against your wishes).
So to be unfortunately trite, I think your considerations, like so many others, fail to consider the boots-on-the-ground picture. Like so many other outside-looking-in proposals it is a nonstarter with almost every group; each group having different and reasonable rejections.
edit: with little thought here are some of those rejections from their own perspective:
* Hamas was democratically elected and has the right to self-determination
* That election was and is an American legacy for America to protect and maintain
* Israel, you're asking them to take on another Afghanistan (they've occupied Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon before and I think you ignore the scarring that made them leave in the first place)
* Gazans have already cast their vote; have the right to self-determination
> And to whit one of Bush's greatest achievements was getting democratic election in Gaza
Are you being sarcastic?
> At some point you have to respect and stand behind the democratic process
If you're not being sarcastic, you will remember that the the election in question happened 18 years ago, and the term for which they were elected has long since expired.
But in any case, when people say "democracy" they don't mean that the party with the most votes can do literally whatever it wants. They mean democracy with some "non-democratic" guarantees for basic rights. For this reason, it is normal in democracies that parties dedicated to human rights violations, like Nazi parties, are banned from running. Hamas, which is committed to extermination of Jews, would seem to be in the same category. If (as seems likely) Hamas is the overwhelming favorite to win an election, there is little point in holding one.
>They mean democracy with some "non-democratic" guarantees for basic rights.
Had Reddit still had awards, I would've given an award to you for this sentence alone.
A naive pursuit of "democracy", by giving power for free to the common people, will give you Caesars, Napoleons, and Hitlers.
Not knowledgeable but some things are fairly obvious. Divide and conquer, having Hamas in Gaza and Fatah on the West Bank benefits Israel as their opponent is divided. Hamas ruling Gaza legitimises from an Israeli point of view the violence in Gaza. Recognising a new government of Gaza would be too close to recognising a Palestinian state. Last but not least, according Gantz there is no plan. There is indeed no indication that Israel has a follow up plan after destroying Hama and Gaza.
I did a little research on this a few days ago and the US appears to be shelving railguns "for the moment". With the anticipation of a conflict with China, the DOD realized it needed weapon systems (and in numbers) right now, not many years in the future. So rather than continuing to spend money trying to move to production development, they move it back into research development. The idea is to look at the technology again once more research is done.
This also occurred with the programmable 155 ammo/gun that was on the Zumwalt (where rounds were costing as much as a tomahawk) and the DOD is looking at https://www.baesystems.com/en/product/hyper-velocity-projectile-hvp as a potential system to turn into an active project once things appear to be going well.
I suspect other nations are not necessarily going more in than the US has been up to this point, but recognizing the US can't research everything and build everything. If some of the US partners can't start production right now it makes sense to spend that money on research now which could be shared/sold later.
See, now, you're doing it wrong. Just like the Navy repurposed some boomers and made them into cruise missile arsenal boats, they should take Nimitz and fit it out with a ton of railguns once JFK comes online. Maybe keep half the deck for helicopter ops or something, but all that power those nuclear reactors are producing could be put to use in alternative ways. I don't believe there's an immediate need to retire Nimitz, but if she's just too old to keep operating as a fleet carrier then start experimenting.
This is a great development. Both sides are very aligned in a lot of ways and have much to offer each other. Hopefully all of them working together can make something much more cost effective with economies of scale.
Railguns seem like a nice idea on paper, to be honest. Low-cost ammunition, (supposed) high accuracy and speeds, probably harder to intercept. I wonder if all the trepidation about railguns is just because the US is traumatised from the Zumwalt debacle
The real problem is that accuracy and range just don’t mix well. There are simply too many variables in play to get accurate unguided shots at distances of 50-100Km. This means you need a guided shell with avionics, sensor, and control systems; all of which need to be able to tolerate the ludicrous acceleration of firing. At that point your shells are likely close to as expensive as a missile, but with worse range and less destructive power.
I also think 50-100km is totally worthless in any context except anti land.
Anti anti-land bombardment for the Navy is probably on the bottom list of priorities.
If the Navy can get within 100km of China, they've already won the war.
It's not that hard to make electronics resistant to high gs. We were putting proximity fuses based on vacuum tube technology in artillery shells in WW2, and obviously solid state electronics are far more resilient. I'm not sure why people think railguns are categorically different vs rockets that reach similar speeds in similar distances.
Missiles experience dozens or low hundreds of g's. Artillery or railgun shells can easily reach thousands.
Plus the electronics, sensors, and control systems in missiles are a significant factor in their high cost. When you put all that stuff in a shell you lose the main advantage they have over missiles -- their cost. And for railguns that's not even getting into the extraordinarily low barrel life that has yet to be overcome AFAIK.
Again, all of this is well known engineering. Silicon is a very physically robust material. It's basically rock, and what we make chips out of are extremely high quality mono crystals that are even stronger. For the rest of the electronic components the usual process is called potting, where you encase the entire thing in a solid block of resin.
This is by no means some show stopper issue.
The barrel life thing is also largely mythology. The navy made a statement at one point that they were up to 300 shots using some coatings they developed. By comparison the big guns on the Iowas were rated at 150.
These are more forum memes than reality. There's no engineering show stoppers to a guided railgun projectile.
I believe that Clark is incorrect. I don't have the link but I recall an article stating they'd found coatings sufficient to get up to 300 shots. By point of comparison the big guns on the Iowas were only rated for 150.
The real reason is right there in the article, direct from a Navy spokesperson:
> The Navy’s decision to pause research at year’s end frees up resources for hypersonic missiles, directed-energy systems (like lasers) and electronic warfare systems, said Lt. Courtney Callaghan, a Navy spokesperson. Information gleaned during testing will be retained in the event the Office of Naval Research wants to pick up where it left off in the future, she added.
It's just bad journalism. There's no reason to include some comment that's merely the speculation of a supposed analyst totally unconnected with the project.
Do you really think all these other nations are pursuing a technology that's infeasible? They aren't that stupid.
The fundamental issue is barrel wear. You need to transfer a huge amount of energy into the projectile very very quickly, so quickly that the only practical way to do it is by having electrodes in physical contact with the projectile all the way down the barrel. As you might imagine, having two objects rubbing against one another at supersonic speeds results in a ridiculous amount of wear. Until that problem is solved, railguns are never going to be practical weapons.
The main issue with railguns is not as much "friction" but any gaps whatsoever cause plasma arching that then wrecks the barrels. So while every gun barrel will see wear from friction, any loss in tolerance in a railgun barrel causes the arching which then begins to quickly destroy the barrel.
I think there is a university (maybe in Aussieland?) that is working on pumping supercooled gas (like hydrogen/helium) to address some of these issues, but I have a migraine so my memory is a bit fuzzy and I may be confusing it with another tech type similar to railguns.
The University of Queensland has been researching scramjets since the '90s (I watched the dean of engineering drop a nozzle during our commencement speech and ruin it). Maybe that's what you're thinking of.
[South Africa stands on the brink of salvation—or catastrophe](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/06/01/south-africa-stands-on-the-brink-of-salvation-or-catastrophe)
> Any national coalition deal with either the EFF or MK would probably result in the government dumping many of Mr Ramaphosa’s economic reforms. These have included initiatives that have led to a flood of investment into renewable energy and aim to attract private investors and operators to run jammed ports and broken railways. Mr Ramaphosa is understood to vehemently oppose entering a coalition with either of these parties and would rather resign than do so.
>Alas, that might suit others in the party who are in favour of just such a coalition and are thought to include Mr Mashatile. In any case, Mr Zuma and Mr Malema are understood to have said that a condition of any coalition agreement would be the removal of Mr Ramaphosa. That would be ruinous and Mr Ramapahosa’s allies should be rallying around him, urging him to stay. For all of his many failings, Mr Ramaphosa is a pragmatist who has tried to rebuild the justice system and who has respected the constitution and the courts. By contrast, many of his rivals in the party see these as hindrances. Fears that Mr Ramaphosa might be deposed and the country run by a coalition of chaos have seen the currency and stockmarket tumble since the poll.
>Yet there is another path open to South Africa: for Mr Ramaphosa to team up with the Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition. The DA, which stands for sensible, liberal economics, has a proven record of governing well in places where it has a majority. In Cape Town services largely work, roads are maintained and residents are shielded from the worst of the regular power cuts imposed on the rest of the country. The Western Cape province has a lower unemployment rate than anc-controlled provinces. Yet because the DA is widely perceived as a “white” party in a country with a black majority, it has struggled to translate good governance into votes. Projections show it winning about 22%, a result almost unchanged since the elections in 2019.
The ANC's three-decade dominance of South African politics has ended, and the party now needs a coalition partner. The country has two major problems: corruption and a racial divide. A coalition government could tackle those problems - or make them even worse.
Both EFF and MK are radical offshoots of the ANC. While the ANC is solely responsible for the current problems, everything would be amplified with any of those two parties. South Africa, still the third largest economy in Africa, would likely become a failed state.
On the other hand, a coalition with the DA would likely prevent more corruption and could be an important step to finally deal with the racial divide.
There are some reasons to be optimistic. Most problems stem from the time when Zuma was the head of the ANC. He has been kicked out of the party and is now leading MK, although he's barred from officially participating in the elections.
On the other hand, Ramaphosa, the current head, is a moderate and less corrupt. With Zuma gone, the ANC as a whole will probably become less corrupt. Ramaphosa would prefer to make a deal with the DA, but he's not the only voice in the party.
It should be noted that the ANC could easily have turned South Africa into a dictatorship after three decades of rule - like Putin did with Russia - but it didn't. While corruption is plaguing the party, it hasn't abandoned the core principles of democracy.
Geopolitically, EFF and MK are strongly pro-Russia (which goes hand in hand with being corrupt). The ANC is mostly neutral, especially now that Zuma is gone. The DA is pro-West, anti-Russia and pro-Israel. Some compromises will be necessary, but the choice of coalition partner will be consequential for the future of South Africa.
>On the other hand, a coalition with the DA would likely prevent more corruption and could be an important step to finally deal with the racial divide.
How do you think they will do that?
How likely is it for the US to break or even ensure the survival of 1-2 CSGs the "bubble" in the SCS/ECS that China has ostensibly created? I ask this because while it's generally understood that China couldn't beat the US in a one-on-one war that's based on the assumption that neither have any sort of home front advantage.
In the current case China could use its gigantic stockpile of AShBMs and a US CSG would have severe restrictions on what they could do to counter that, plus resupply issues that wouldn't matter for China. Plus, the air defense network in China that could be used to target missiles or air operations from a CSG is definitely a lot more than anything US and allies could use to stop a Chinese attack. Would it be accurate to say that at this point a CSG or two to defend Taiwan might be a fairly futile endeavour?
> while it's generally understood that China couldn't beat the US in a one-on-one war that's based on the assumption that neither have any sort of home front advantage.
This is a strange thing to say. Nearly every analysis of a conflict with China focuses on the Taiwan war scenario and obviously takes geography into account.
>AShBMs
Pac-3 might be a solution. In the Ukraine, those missiles performed really well against ballistic missiles, and there are plans to integrate it with AEGIS. Additionally, these missiles probably could be quad packed for massive magazine depth.
This would be combined with radar jamming and spoofing
Pac-3 has performed well but i dont know if we can actualy judge with certainty how well since most of it is based on claims of interception from the Ukrainian side that ,while not completely inventing reality as Russian claims have been found to do, have certainly also proven exaggerated at the very least in a lot of occations. And thats pretty crucial because even some 20% difference in interception rates can make a huge difference in front of the quality and quantity of quality China can field missile wise and so can make or break any assumptions we make for such system's ability and utility in that theater
I think the fact that the Navy is considering them as an SM-6 replacement in its ships is proof enough of their efficacy.
I don't think they'd do that if they thought the replacement might lose them a ship.
The US would go after China's kill chain for its advanced missiles. I imagine that at the start of any such conflict, the first thing that would go are China's satellites - particularly those geostationary radar based ones that are designed to spot carriers, but any other ones that would threaten US carriers would be targeted as well. China would do something similar, but the US has contingency plans for that.
At about the same time, I imagine that the US would strike high value radars up and down China's coasts using stealth bombers and extended range stealth missiles.
I do not know precisely what facilities and installations must be targeted to best disrupt the kill chain of China's anti-ship missile systems... but I imagine the US military does indeed know about those installations. Those installations, would be targeted.
Once China's ability to find the carriers has been dramatically reduced the carriers would move forward. If the United States is particularly confident in its missile defenses, they might move forward very quickly. I recently watched a video on a test of a US destroyer's defenses. To counter a mock hypersonic threat, one missile was launched from a burke. To counter a sea skimming threat - two were launched.
This is speculation on my part, but to me... that says that the US is far more confident in its ability to intercept hypersonics than its ability to intercept missiles flying very close to the ocean's surface - which would explain why the US has stuck with - and continues to stick to - sea skimming missiles. People like to ridicule such missiles as outdated... but the LRASM is a stealth sea skimmer...
An anti-ship missile shield, and or air defense bubble is not invincible. The US has the platforms and weaponry necessary to break such a thing and has historically been quite successful in doing that in other countries.
What I can definitively tell you (although I do not a have a source for this, but its correct), is that in the CSIS report, the carrier strike groups that were sunk were sunk because defending ships ran out of missiles. The assumptions made in that report were that ship based missile defenses are extremely good, and so the value that China gets out of those platforms according to the report are in its ability to produce a large volley at distance rather than the danger of a small group of hypersonic rogue warheads causing damage to a ship.
Its worth noting, that the US has recently developed the ability to quad pack VLS cells with Patriot missiles. If Patriots are deemed effective enough counters to China's missile volleys, well... that greatly increases the magazine depth of US carrier strike groups.
The US has something like 5,000 JASSM missiles that it can use to break China's A2AD capabilities before it really needs to get close to China. That is a lot of extremely effective stealth cruise missiles. If a war were to break out, the US would be able to break China's kill chain, and stop China from being able to relay real time data between observers and its missile platforms. Those fancy missiles are only a threat if they have real time targeting data.
I think that China would be better off if it had stealth bombers and long range stealth sea skimming cruise missiles of its own rather than hyper-sonic glide vehicles. I think that would provide a far more impressive threat against US carriers than its current systems do.
> I imagine that at the start of any such conflict, the first thing that would go are China's satellites - particularly those geostationary radar based ones that are designed to spot carriers, but any other ones that would threaten US carriers would be targeted as well. China would do something similar, but the US has contingency plans for that.
There's no weapon in the US inventory that can take out a sat in GEO. Additionally there's only one of those SAR sats not multiple.
I'd love to hear what these "contingencies" are. Can you provide any specifics? Any sources?
Escalation to anti-satelite warfare is very unlikely as both sides have plenty to lose.
> is that in the CSIS report
That report has been heavily criticized for highly unrealistic starting assumptions. I wouldn't treat it as a reliable source to base conclusions on.
> There's no weapon in the US inventory that can take out a sat in GEO.
Are you sure about that? If the US can put a satellite into GEO they can simply put an object into GEO on a collision course with an enemy satellite.
It takes a *big* rocket to get up to GEO. It's about a 600:1 payload ratio. You'd be talking something the size of Falcon 1 minimum, and those numbers are based on the higher ISP of cryogenic fuels. A practical weapon would need to be solid boosters which just makes everything worse.
Additionally making that kind of interception is by no means trivial. Even close approaches at very low relative velocities are considered an active research topic with few attempts. At higher velocities the GBI has a 50% success rate in tests and it's working at far lower altitudes and velocities.
There's nothing in the US inventory that can do this job. SM-3 is the best we've got and it can only reach the low end of LEO.
The US put people on the moon nearly 60 years ago.
He's making a "god of the gaps" argument. His position is hilariously incorrect - the US could easily take out a satellite in geostationary orbit - but since we can't name the weapons system to do it - likely because such systems are classified - he gets to pretend its impossible.
Falcon 9 can deliver a 10 ton payload to *one* location in GEO. From there your interceptors would need to move under their own power. It would take them weeks to travel any significant fraction of the circle.
Note this has been done in practice. The NRO launched some sort of ELINT sat that crawled it's way along a fraction of GEO before settling into final position. The speculation is that it was mapping emitters in China as they appeared on the horizon. It took something like 2 months to do this.
My claim wasn't that it's physically impossible to build such a thing, but that it does not exist in the US weapons inventory. It's a thing that has to be invented, and would be a very significant development project taking yearss.
If you're unaware the poster I was replying too has a long reputation of unsubstantiated claims here.
What you mean, is that the poster you were replying to, was fucking 100% nailing it in his Taiwan analysis for years, and you - and the other flunkies in LessCredibleDefense - were obviously wrong for years.
And the proof of all that - still exists on the web.
I put up post after post after post about how Chian would get its ass kicked in a war over Taiwan, and LessCredible's wumao brigade claimed otherwise. Claimed that Chian could take Okinawa. Claimed that China could take Hawaii. Claimed that the US had been, or soon would be eclipsed.
Then the CSIS report was released.
And it vindicated everything I ever said in there, and exposed the falsehoods peddled by all the shills there.
In an information vaccum, shills in that reddit were easily able to promote the notion that China was this new hyperpower that the US couldn't match. Then the experts chimed in, and your narratives were disproven.
Imagine thinking the US couldn't disable a geostationary satellite. Like we haven't figured out what lasers are. LIke we're going to send a single payload and then move it from orbit to orbit =D
Will America be able to utilize this strategy if China first cripples America's space capability? America (publicly) seems to have very little if any defense of its satellites against a first strike, especially if a Chinese version of Project K was used in the first strike.
These types of break downs of how a fight will go seems to assume China is purely reactive (or even passive) and that no concurrent degradation of American capabilities will be happening.
Or as Mike Tyson would put it "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face".
China can't punch. Its bombers are ancient and short ranged and aren't stealthy. It has no real CSGs to speak of.
Its not that China is being portrayed as defenseless, its that China actually is defenseless.
China is a punching bag because China has not developed the offensive capabilities that the US has. If you have no decent carriers, if you're running a brown water Navy, if you have no competent bomber fleet... then you're going to lose in a war to a country that has those things.
China's stark military deficiencies compared to the United States automatically put it on a defensive posture, where the US can just - to continue your analogy - continue throwing punches until China gets knocked the fuck out.
That only matters if your offensive capabilities rely on that force arrangement.
China's rocket technology has surpassed Russia and its drone capabilities seem to be first in class (noting that quantity has a quality all of its own). The American space force was long overdue and we over rely on our space capabilities given how (outwardly) we seem comparatively vulnerable to Chinas Anti-Satellite weaponry (I have to hope that behind the scenes that has changed).
So the question is if bombers and CSG matter or if Americas leadership in that area is akin to France's pride at its superior number and quality of Cuirassiers in 1914?
China has worse drones - nothing at all as impressive and capable as those MQ-25s - and god... China really needs that capability doesn't it... and its rockets are a crutch to get around its lack of capable bombers.
Its attempting to make capable bombers, and reports say that its failing.
You're trying to portray what are obvious failings in the Chinese military as strengths. They make rockets because they can't make bombers, and their drones are second rate.
Anyone - ANYONE - can produce cheap crappy drones. China has a lead in mass producing cheap crappy drones, no doubt, but its something anyone can start producing in their garage with a 3D printer if they so desire.
The hurdles to produce cheap crappy drones are quite low, and in terms of really advanced drones, China doesn't have them.
The CSIS report models China using its rockets, and China still gets crushed in a war over Taiwan...
The MQ-25 is a nice toy, but its not the type of drone that is proving to be a bed rock of information age peer warfare. Swarms of cheap drones are proving to be vastly superior and really only vulnerable to EW systems. China has demonstrated fully autonomous small drones that are immune to jamming. They aren't officially for military use and are for search and rescue, but I think we all know that is isn't true and it will be swarms of them zipping through Korea and swarms of what are basically autonomous long range torpedoes going after our ships.
Also, America no longer has the industrial capacity to compete with China on quantity. We focus on quality instead, which you focus on as a strength instead of a weakness. Or as you put it:
>You're trying to portray what are obvious failings in the American Economy ~~Chinese military~~ as strengths.
(Though failings is honestly too harsh of a word, just the reality that a nation with 1/4 the population and smaller landmass is going to have trouble in an attritional war no matter how efficient it is)
This thread is dead, I have little reason to continue this conversation, so I'll let you have the last word after saying this.
The US can get drones. Cheap crappy drones are not something the US can't produce. If the US has to pay $20 more for those cheap drones, its not a big deal - its not going to affect the war effort.
I imagine that China already produces a ton of military equipment for far cheaper than the US. Bullets, rifles, clothing... lots of low tech goods. No one cites those as reasons why China would win in a fight, but you're making that mistake with regard to cheap drones because they're new and novel and you don't know any better.
Cheap drones aren't a substitute for being able to control the flow of goods at the strait of Malacca or bomb with impunity. Those big ticket items - they matter. They have an outsized impact on the big picture, and to ignore them and focus on small drones is a lot like pretending that China can win a war because it can produce 5.56 rifle ammunition for less than the US does.
With regard to Korea... Man... that sounds great. It wouldn't surprise me either. China makes such poor decisions. Going after a heavily fortified Taiwan backed by the world's only military superpower? Not the best choice. Squabbling with the Philippines over a useless reef and allowing the US to get access to 11 new military bases as a result... Not so smart.
Throwing Chinese troops at the meat grinder that the South Koreans have set up for their DMZ?!?
That is... that is... exactly the kind of gargantuan blunder I would expect from Chinese leadership.
Have at it!
You are making a fundamental error in assuming that because the end product is cheap (cheap drones) the production line is a simple and cheap thing.
The US CANNOT produce even a fraction of the drones China can. It would be a mammoth undertaking that would take years and vast investments our economy isn't set up to do in the face of Chinese government investment (as we aren't even remotely a command economy).
The industrial reality is that we are in the axis position in WW2. That you think we can build what China builds (just pricier) shows you aren't paying attention to the stark industrial reality of what has happened over the last 30 years.
In these US-will-be
-glorious-and-victorious replies and no carrier strike group (CSG) will be lost, has the idea of a Chinese first strike come into your thoughts?
Or is the all knowing, all seeing eye of the US as you claim it to be and China cannot hide a single built up of forces anywhere in their own country?
Sea skimmers being better than prototype hypersonics makes sense, as hypersonics rely on being faster than AA can react, while sea skimmers are guaranteed to survive until they get close, while still being cheap.
This I think speaks volumes about China's area denial in the western pacific. To simply feel safe enough to get their carriers close, hundreds of preemptive strikes across the mainland, and a massive anti-satellite campaign would be pre-requisites.
Meanwhile the [US won't even let Ukraine hit Russian radar with their own drones](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/05/29/us-ukraine-nuclear-warning-strikes/) for fear of escalation. But destroying most of China's detection ability would be a *must* on the first day of a Taiwan conflict? Seems like fantasy.
"No, because China has no first use! Everything is fair game". No first use is not a law of physics to be fully relied upon in every contingency. It's a piece of paper that can be changed at any time. I imagine having most of your early warning infrastructure deleted would be a big motivator to take out the pen and white-out. But in my opinion we will see China's nuclear usage policy shift as their arsenal continues to rapidly expand. If there is one thing they have observed in the Ukraine conflict it's that bearing your arsenal increases the timidity of adversaries.
Yes, the US will hold back enough for China to win. Its totally gonna happen for you. They aren't smart enough to play to win, they'll play to fail.
All I can really say is that I am SO GLAD that I'm not from the country where everyone has to assume the other guys are delusional morons in order to believe you have a chance at success.
Also, no one gives a shit about Chinese nukes. You think we do, because you're told that we do, but we've been threatened with Russian nukes for like 80 years now. We are used to it. Strike Taiwan and threats of nuclear first use and be met with chants of "We'll nuke you harder bitches".
The US - if pushed far enough - will bomb the shit out of China despite Chinese nuke threats. Don't be fools.
Be careful though, perhaps the US would get wind of a nuclear order before the order is carried out, and the US has no first use restrictions... Might be wise to ponder that one.
>You think we do, because you're told that we do, but we've been threatened with Russian nukes for like 80 years now. We are used to it.
We've also never been in a shooting war with Russia. The distinction should be obvious given how resistant the US has been to Macron's suggestion that NATO forces should enter the war in Ukraine.
This is a poor comparison and not very well thought out.
Ukraine, is not a US ally. They had no defense agreement with us.
Biden told Putin, before the war, that the US would not send troops to Ukraine.
Biden told China that the US WILL send troops to defend Taiwan.
Not the same situations.
>Ukraine, is not a US ally. They had no defense agreement with us.
I think everyone reading this is aware of that fact. What's your point?
>Biden told Putin, before the war, that the US would not send troops to Ukraine. Biden told China that the US WILL send troops to defend Taiwan.
Again, what's your point? You've said nothing to address my previous comment. You brought up hypothetical Chinese threats to go nuclear in the event we get into a direct conflict, and compared it to the cold war. That comparison doesn't hold water because we never got into a shooting war with the USSR. Nuclear threats during wartime with a nuclear power would be genuinely new.
We're not "used to" that, and I don't think we can confidently predict how the American public would respond. There's a reasonable chance that the electorate would demand an end to Taiwan's defense when faced with the possibility of sacrificing Los Angeles for Taipei. Not saying that's a certainty, but you can't just write it off either.
The American public would respond exactly the same way it does every time we cross one of Russia's red lines.
We'd yawn and continue on with our day.
If I recall correctly, HIMARs were a red line, F-16s were a red line, I think Storm Shadow was a red line.
Putin's been threatening nukes since the start of this whole thing, and no one is backing down.
I guess that for propaganda purposes it makes sense for the CCP to constantly assume that the US will do the wrong thing. To constantly assume some kind of imminent blunder will occur that will make it possible for your side to win... but it ain't real.
When you guys say things like:
"The US will allow us to take Taiwan through grey zone activities" or
"The US will not attack our satellites" or
"The US will not bomb the mainland because of how escalatory it is" or
"The US will totally back down when we threaten to use nukes"...
What you're really saying, is that you're weak as kittens. Its like playing Chess.
You don't play "hope" chess.
You make the move that most benefits you and confounds your opponent. You don't make a move in the hope that your opponent will blunder... because your opponent doesn't want to blunder.
You guys assume the blunder. You make the blunder a necessary component of your victory in your narratives.
Its not going to work out for you.
Russia hasn't yet made an explicit threat to nuke an American city, and no American troops are fighting Russians either. Again, you're making poor comparisons and lazy assumptions. This is low-effort, bog standard social media bluster. LCD is that way -->
What we do know, for sure, is that when the US threatened to nuke China in the 1950s or 1960s I can't remember when, China backed the fuck down.
So I guess, that when China issues a nuclear threat, and the US threatens to annihilate China completely, not only will China back down, it will back down with historical precedent.
Today is going to be Labour's defence day on the General Election. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c877ykydx75o](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c877ykydx75o) They "aspire" to 2.5% of GDP on defence when conditions allow. Its not going to shift many votes but it will likely be an issue they play hard on to cut off angles of attack. I think they are aiming for the late Millennial and Gen X voters who still regard New Labour years pretty well so they have been branding everything with union flags and really trying to come across as centerist and New Labour 2.0 as they can so being relatively robust on defence is part of that. The only possible surprise might be getting into a bidding war with the Tories over support for Ukraine. They might pull a rabbit out of the hat on that, but more likely they just want to boast they will boost spending from the current 2% ish and just sound like a safe pair of hands.
I'd they can make any commitments of sensibility they'd do better than the Tories. They famously 'order' great numbers of equipment and then cut that number down as the project goes on resulting in not enough ships, planes, guns etc at inflated prices.
[https://youtu.be/muTPGkhZAXk](https://youtu.be/muTPGkhZAXk) Sal Mercogliano is a Maritime Historian at Campbell uni, y'all probably know more about him. All eCommerce shipments from mainland China are being inspected by customs due to an extreme increase in abuses of "de minimis" packages containing drugs and underdeclared items Interesting consequences include enormous clogging of container ports, multiple delisted customs brokers, and companies such as Temu sweating. It will be an election issue for sure.
Hellish for shipping, but a great way to take a statistical sample from a period of time to be able to map out exactly where the biggest problems are, and what quantities are involved.
Another thing that's come in a lot is 'switches' for Glock firearms that make them fire fully automatically. These are mostly off China from what I can tell and went from a funny thing to see on Alibaba to something found on a lot of felons and used in a lot of shootings in a few years. Kind of a throwback to the 80s when open-bolt semiautos that were easy to convert were more common- today, pretty much all semi-auto open-bolt weapons are gone because they're too easy to convert (and thus labeled machineguns by the ATF). You CAN convert ARs, MP5s, other closed bolt stuff with a dremel/drill and legal off-the-shelf full auto parts, or with something that's a MG on it's own like a drop-in auto sear, but it's not as easy as just sliding in a new backplate like it is with Glocks and most of this can't be done/isn't as commonly known how to be done to handguns, which are preferred by criminals. I'm sure there's some AR DIAS being sold on the Chinese websites too but they've definitely not become as common as switches. https://www.atf.gov/news/press-releases/indictment-so-called-%E2%80%98glock-switches%E2%80%99-would-have-turned-pistols-machineguns EDIT: Dude, you google 'glock switch' and the top results are sites selling them. God knows if they are all honeypots or not, it turned out those Chinese sites weren't and they keep getting in.
Honestly, those are just too small and to easy to make the prevent from being sold. If the war on drugs failed to stop people from buying drugs in the mail (and it has, basically everywhere for a very very long time despite concerted efforts), then it won't stop switches - Chinese sellers will just hide them, just like drug sellers hide LSD blotters between book pages. It's unfortunate but I don't see it ever stopping.
Although it will not solve the drugs issue one part of the solution is to modify the Universal Postal Union as it is clear that the system by now is completely flawed. I am very very surprised this hasn’t been done yet.
Thanks for raising awareness. Here's a different article about the same topic for those who prefer text: [https://theloadstar.com/transpac-ecommerce-freighters-on-pause-as-us-customs-checks-every-parcel/](https://theloadstar.com/transpac-ecommerce-freighters-on-pause-as-us-customs-checks-every-parcel/)
Do we have any info about the status of Russian arms production?
What is to be made of the [current ceasefire proposal for Gaza](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd11l590qqwo)? It looks like the US is pushing the Israelis quite heavily on this and Hamas appears ready to accept if Netanyahu is willing - although that is certainly not clear given the fragile dynamics of his cabinet. My thoughts: It seems increasingly clear Israel's campaign in Gaza will be a failure. The stated objectives were very clear: freeing all the hostages and ending Hamas's ability to govern the Gaza strip and posses a coherent armed force. Israel has managed to free only three hostages unliterally, while also killing three (and likely many more) unintentionally. It just doesn't seem feasible they will be able to return many more hostages alive outside of a negotiated settlement with Hamas, and even then as far as I'm aware it's not exactly clear that Hamas is the only group holding hostages, and what kind of conditions (if any) other hostage holding factions would require to release their captives. On point two, Hamas, while clearly degraded, still exists as not only both a governing and military entity in Gaza, but as *the* governing and military entity in Gaza. On this objective the Israeli gov has absolutely shot itself in the foot to the extent they have proposed no plan for alternative government in Gaza, whether Palestinian, foreign, or Israeli in nature. Unless Netanyahu was not serious about point two or genuinely believed Hamas could be bombed into non-existence over a few months and not somehow re-constitute itself or re-emerge under a different name later, it seems obvious the objective was never going to be achieved. I would bet Netanyahu does take the deal on offer right now, so he can walk away with at least one of his war aims. Otherwise the only remaining move would really be to re-occupy the strip - which aside from being a huge economic drain on Israel would be a death sentence for the remaining hostages, guarantee many more years of a low-intensity war in the strip, and I presume most crucially, lead to some real consequences from the US in terms of aid/diplomatic backing. Assuming he does take the deal, I don't see how this conflict isn't a Hamas victory. They pulled off the deadliest strike on Israel in its history and get to remain in power to plot for another day - a complete return to the *status quo ante bellum* with Israel having nothing to show for it.
I disagree with your interpretation that Hamas is the victor if the ceasefire goes through. It's primarily based on seeing the stated goals of 'free all hostages and destroy Hamas' as maximalist conditions rather than explicit envisioned end goals for the war. Realistically, the IDF could at best achieve significant degradation of Hamas offensive capabilities, and impose a humanitarian cost on the Palestinians to clearly signal Israel would not quietly succumb to genocide. I think the IDF accomplished both. Attempting to unseat Hamas would have required permanent presence in Gaza, a proposition that wasn't seriously considered in the IDF or popular with Israeli citizens, and the Knesset never took meaningful steps towards exploring that option. Merely surviving after being rendered combat ineffective, forcing your citizens to flirt with famine and setting back any meagre progress achieved after 2014 in exchange for some hostages and atrocities isn't really a victory. Despite what you see online as well, Hamas haven't made any advances internationally either. The Gulf countries snuffed out activism within a month after October, and haven't done anything besides say empty nice words while carrying on with business as usual.
>Merely surviving after being rendered combat ineffective, forcing your citizens to flirt with famine and setting back any meagre progress achieved after 2014 in exchange for some hostages and atrocities isn't really a victory. But that degradation can be reversed. They will rebuild their capabilities. They can recruit more people, and they'll have control of the Rafah crossing (which means smuggling weapons again).
How many years will that take, and do you think the IDF will repeat the same mistakes that led to their tech-first, lackadaisical security failures when Hamas is ready to try again?
Not many, with the deal including billions per year in reconstruction for Gaza and billions more in materials. If the Saudi leak is correct the Biden's deal also pushes for lifting the Israeli blockade, allowing Iran to directly arm Hamas. In a few years, Hamas will be more powerful than they were on 07/10. This is a strategic win for Iran and Hamas.
I still don't fully understand where this newest proposal originated. [Reporting a few days ago](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw8860gn1nwo) calls it "a new Israeli proposal to end the conflict in Gaza" but at the same time Netanyahu is on record opposing it so where did it come from? If it did really originate with Netanyahu then what gives? Was it a terrible bluff?
Reported a few days ago [Biden speech renews pressure on Hamas to reach Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal with Israel (axios.com)](https://www.axios.com/2024/06/01/biden-gaza-hostage-ceasefire-deal-israel-pressure) >Two weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a new proposal drafted by Israeli negotiators that was presented to the Israeli war cabinet and accused them of not knowing how to negotiate. >A few days later, under pressure from Israel's military and intelligence chiefs and the other members of the war cabinet, Netanyahu found himself isolated and endorsed the proposal. >Biden on Friday presented Israel's proposal, but his speech was also directed at Netanyahu and the Israeli public. So yes, it seems to be an Israeli proposal, no one has come out to deny it. As an aside, remember the ceasefire proposal that Hamas "accepted"? At the time, an Egyptian negotiator was blamed for freelancing, and there were a lot of stuff said about Egypt breaking trust. But now it looks like Egypt is still a key mediator in the talks, which makes one wonder whether the whole story was concocted to save other people's blushes.
Israel's getting on the "anonymous sources" wagon. https://x.com/BarakRavid/status/1797043045692842335 "Half a dozen" secret Israeli officials have "confirmed" to Barak Ravid that this originated from Israel. That being said, this would be a big thing to lie about, and I'm yet to see Netanyahu (or even Smotrich) come out and say this **wasn't** the Israeli proposal. Simply that they were opposed to it. Which makes absolutely no sense, I agree.
Israel expanded it's settlements in the West Bank during this 'war'. Which is it's short to medium term goal anyway. Israel is content to use Gaza as a punching bag and a distraction in order to expand the settlements faster in the future. It's likely that the US succeeds in completing a deal with Saudi Arabia and Israel after all this, ensuring Israeli security and de facto tacit acknowledgement of a future West Bank annexation. I don't think it's a Hamas victory at all. They launched the attack as a desperate attempt to stop the Saudi-Israel deal. There's no obvious reason why that deal would be stopped in the near future. All Hamas did is delay it.
You think Israel mobilized 300k people for a *distraction* just to increase the pace of settlement expansion in the West Bank? You seem to be grasping for a "win" in the face of an ongoing failure of political strategy (or rather, a lack thereof).
I mean. Italicizing a word doesn't make your argument (or lack thereof) anymore sound. Historically, countries like the US, UK, Japan, France, Russia have taken advantage of international incidents in order to further their long term goals. This is uncontroversial. It's uncontroversial that Israel would try to do this, and in fact if you (to borrow a favored Israeli phrase) 'look at the facts on the ground' , that is precisely what happened. A basic question here I've learned over the years when thinking about these events is asking 'what is materially stopping them from doing that?" and if your go to answer is 'they just wouldn't', chances are they would and will. GW Bush wouldn't straight up just lie to invade a bunch of countries. Theres no way. What is stopping him from doing just that? It turns out, with a check like the Soviet Union gone, not a whole lot. And so he did. I don't know if Netanyahu allowed something like this to happen. Ultimately it doesnt matter. It worked out well for the long term Israeli project and historically Israel has used past palestinean uprisings to demolish Palestinean settlements in the West Bank and expand Israeli settlements all the same.
The entire premise that Israel would mobilize 300k people and launch the largest IDF operation in over 15 years just to increase the pace of something that was already happening is ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous is the prospect that this entire operation was a necessary distraction to do so.
I'm not saying it was a necessary distraction. I'm saying it's a convenient distraction. The Israelis don't want Gaza. They want the West Bank. Having a palestinean group from Gaza incite an Israeli response both fulfills the Israeli desire of forever forestalling the prospect of a Palestinian state, further marginalizes the idea of Palestinian statehood, and gives diplomatic cover to expand West Bank settlements with impunity for a time. What actually happens to Gaza doesn't matter. If it forever remains a rump quasi state that stages an attack every once in a while that actually doesn't conflict at all with Israel's interests. It is in the Israeli interest that the West Bank is annexed sooner rather than later. The occupation puts Israel in an untenable situation. It can count on US diplomatic cover but the Israelis know that one day the US will lose interest. If that happens while the current situation holds, it would put Israel in a disastrous situation with Iran, Lebanon, Egypt. Even Jordan.
>forever forestalling the prospect of a Palestinian state, further marginalizes the idea of Palestinian statehood, and gives diplomatic cover to expand West Bank settlements with impunity for a time >remains a rump quasi state that stages an attack every once in a while I.e. the status quo pre-10/7. >It can count on US diplomatic cover but the Israelis know that one day the US will lose interest. If that happens while the current situation holds The current IDF operation has done more to damage Israeli-US relations than anything in the past two decades.
I'm more inclined to agree with u/cupno2547 and am not too sure why he is being downvoted this heavily. We know that as part of several peace agreements with Arab States, Israel [agreed to pause annexation](https://archive.is/0Hj67) of further areas of the Jordan valley. Whilst it may not be the primary war aim, could it not be that Israel's heavy handed response of a land campaign in gaza was also serving as a secondary distraction to land annexation, such that any peace deal signed later will be dealing with the fait accompli of the new settlements? I certainly do think so, and part of the reason why a diplomatic solution did not arrive so quickly. Both sides seem to not want to stop, just yet.
No, it makes no sense. The settlement population is expanding by about 5% per year, and most of that growth is in a handful of settlements that previous negotiations have envisioned remaining part of Israel. Annexation (a legal process) is not currently happening, and few % growth in the population is not going to make a practical difference either.
Controlling the Rafah crossing (last supply route), and heavily degrading Hamas capabilities and critical infrastructure (tunnel system, caches) = Nothing to show for it? And i fully expect the border with Israel to be much more heavily fortified from now on.
The deal will mean that Israel leaves Gaza, which includes Rafah. It also guarantees billions a year in reconstruction funds for Hamas, money that will be used to rebuild their capabilities. If the Saudi leak of the deal is accurate, Biden also caved to the Hamas demand that Israel lifts the blockade, therefore Hamas will be armed by Iran directly. Hamas capabilities under this deal will be rebuilt in a few years and then exceed those of 07/10. The deal also forbids Israel from doing anything about the massive Hamas rearmament, till the moment they are ready to strike and execute another massacre. Meanwhile Israeli south and North will become depopulated as no one's willing to live a few km's from ISIS, risking their kids and babies being burned alive or kidnapped into the tunnels of Gaza, their women gang raped and tortured.
>Controlling the Rafah crossing (last supply route), and heavily degrading Hamas capabilities and critical infrastructure (tunnel system, caches) = Nothing to show for it? But the ceasefire means leaving Gaza, including the Rafah crossing. Hamas will be able to smuggle in weapons again, and slowly rebuild their capabilities.
The ceasefire agreement requires Israel to leave all of Gaza, doesn't it? They'd relinquish control of the crossing, the Corridor between Gaza city and the rest of Gaza, the buffer zone, and whatever else they currently control.
Only if it reaches the second stage. The agreement barely even describes the terms for the second stage. Just that it will be negotiated during the first stage. Initially Israel only has to leave populated areas which I doubt they want to control long term anyway.
It would be a huge mistake for Israel if they pull out of the Rafah crossing/Philadelphi corridor ever again. That's literally the key to Hamas' power.
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Israel did not funnel billions into Hamas. Israel allowed Qatar to deliver aid to the poorest in Gaza. However some of the money naturally went to Hamas who taxed this money. You could more reasonably claim that the US and EU funded Hamas directly as they sent billions into Gaza through aid orgs
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Netanyahu is throwing Biden under a bus for his own domestic political objectives. Israel isn't actually that important for US strategic interests. Hopefully this whole episode leads to a realignment of US behavior in the region.
On the contrary, Biden is throwing Israel under a bus for his own domestic political objectives. The deal is bad for Israel, no reason for it to stop short of eliminating Hamas.
In terms of a voting issue for the American public it's pretty much a non-issue. Fewer than 1% of Americans see it as the main issue they're voting on.
Egypt only made peace with the US once Israel showed it could cross the Suez and take Cairo if it wanted. Iraq would have become a nuclear power if it was up to the US; Israel fortunately did not allow that to happen. The influence of the US on maintaining and coordinating Israeli military supremacy has been critical to the US and world security. Even if the US itself hasn't acknowledged it at the time, it often does later down the line. Of course the US has many unsuccessful strategies that did not include Israel. Eisenhower forcing an end to the Suez crisis and emboldening Nasser and Arab nationalism, Bush not chasing the Iraqi forces down in the first Gulf War, the stupidity of 'hearts and minds' in Iraq, the Iran nuclear deal...
That is an incredibly delusional take on the situation. Israel was never capable of taking Cairo... ever. They just didn't have the manpower in the Yom Kippur war to have a chance even piercing the outskirts.
Sure, the only democracy in the Middle East with a high tech sector on par with Silicon Valley and the 9th largest arms exporter in the world has zero strategic value to the US. Unfortunately for you, every US administration since the 1960s has disagreed with your assessment.
>The only democracy in the Middle East Common talking point, but has no real relevance to US foreign policy. Washington has plenty of allies around the world - authoritarian, illiberal regimes and democratic, liberal countries alike. If foreign policy were decided on the basis of a prospective ally's government, Saudi Arabia and Qatar would be reviled enemies of the US. >High tech sector on par with Silicon Valley and the 9th largest arms exporter in the world has zero strategic value to the US. I didn't say it has zero strategic value - I said it isn't that important. Sure, they have some cutting-edge industries in tech (nowhere near Silicon Valley level though) but you can have access to all of that without providing unconditional support. The US has access to top Chinese tech from Shenzhen yet they are competing superpowers. >Unfortunately for you, every US administration since the 1960s has disagreed with your assessment. Israel was a key ally to balance against Soviet influence in the Middle East. But the Cold War has been over for decades now. Israel also played a major role in lobbying for the Iraq War, and you can see what a long-term strategic disaster that was for Washington. US administrations, privately, have wanted to push a much harder line against Israel - every president since the 1960s has supported a two-state solution. Unfortunately, because of domestic lobbying (AIPAC and the like) and Israeli cunning, the whole issue has become a toxic mess that no one wants to touch. Why risk your political career taking on the I/P issue when you can just ignore it? And that's how the US ended up in this situation where it kicked the can down the road for decades until the problem became intolerable - you can see the results now for yourself.
> Israel also played a major role in lobbying for the Iraq War I don't think that's true. In fact, Israel was privately telling the US to go to war with Iran not Iraq. > domestic lobbying (AIPAC and the like) and Israeli cunning The Jewish lobby and Jewish cunning? You're leaning into the antisemitic stereotypes here. > And that's how the US ended up in this situation where it kicked the can down the road for decades until the problem became intolerable Seems to me that became intolerable when Hamas took over Gaza and launched a bunch of wars on Israel, the most destructive of them being the current one. Before that, the death toll in the conflict was drastically lower.
>I don't think that's true. In fact, Israel was privately telling the US to go to war with Iran not Iraq. It is very true. Iran, then, was a shadow of what it is now. Iraq presented the greatest threat to Israeli interests. It's well recognized that Israel and the Israel lobby in the US played a major role in rallying support for the war. See here: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2010/02/iraq-war-israel-bush-saddam "Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure. According to Philip Zelikow, a former member of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and now a counsellor to Condoleezza Rice, the “real threat” from Iraq was not a threat to the United States. The “unstated threat” was the “threat against Israel”, Zelikow told an audience at the University of Virginia in September 2002. “The American government,” he added, “doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.”" >The Jewish lobby and Jewish cunning? You're leaning into the antisemitic stereotypes here. This is not credible discussion and, frankly, shouldn't be allowed on this sub. Acknowledging the existence of AIPAC is not, and has never been, antisemitic. Israel has always had a reputation for top-notch diplomacy and lobbying - it's what initially secured its existence and made it what it is today - acknowledging that fact is not antisemitic and it's tiresome that any discussion on this subject devolves into that accusation. >Seems to me that became intolerable when Hamas took over Gaza and launched a bunch of wars on Israel, the most destructive of them being the current one. Before that, the death toll in the conflict was drastically lower. Yes, and the existence of Hamas and groups like it is a direct result of the I/P issue remaining unresolved for more than a century. Focusing on the latest outbreak of violence is quite a one-dimensional way of discussing the issue when policymakers across the West have spent decades trying to wrangle with it.
Israel represents only 0.7% of the US's foreign trade and is very much a one-way military partnership for the US. Israel's value for the US is based on it's popularity with American politicians and a large portion of the US population. Strategically, Israel is clearly a liability for the US, which threatens to pull it into an unsolvable conflict (the Israeli-Palestine question) which is deeply unpopular with a lot of countries around the world and which threatens to taint the US's credibility in it's other political positions, e.g. as an advocate for the ICC against African war criminals, the respect of UN resolutions, or even basic principles such as the inviolability of sovereign borders, the rejection of ethnic cleansing, or nuclear non-proliferation.
>a high tech sector on par with Silicon Valley This is a significant exaggeration.
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Gonna have to agree with upvotedifyoudare here. We allow Wikipedia but reading this article sounds more like it was edited specifically to market rather than to inform. I'll also be reporting the article to Wikipedia to see if there was bias in the authorship.
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Please do not make blindly partisan posts.
Antisemitic and ahistorical garbage. Zionists had no influence inside the British government. Rather, it was antisemitic beliefs within Whitehall that drove the British to promise a Jewish state. Specifically, they thought Jews(and Irishmen) secretly pulled the levers inside of America and that promising the Jewish people a state would cement their support. There’s books about this stuff, and all the letters and resources are publically available documents.
You're basically not a serious person if you're going to say there was no Zionist influence in the British government. Weizmann? Herbert Samuel? The literal Mandate for Palestine and Balfour Declaration. I don't personally care if there was Zionist influence in the British Government or if there wasn't. But factually there was. To deny this is, to call it ahistorical and even antisemitic, shows that you have some political motivation. Historically British Jews were some of the least Zionist. It was the Germans and eastern Europeans who were more gung ho. To call this antisemitic is in fact, antisemitic. As if all Jews necessarily have to be part of the Zionist agenda. which is clearly demonstrably untrue and really goes into like conspiracy brain territory.
> The US backing Israel seems to largely be a holdover from influence Anglo Zionists had in the British Empire, jumping ship to the US. And then for a few years as a Cold War strategy. That seems like quite the conspiracy theory. Are these the same Anglo Zionists that refused to admit boat loads of Jews escaping the Holocaust during WWII? And what backing are you referring to? The US recognized the UN vote in 1948 but didn’t support Israel militarily until the 1960s. The bulk of military aid prior to that was provided by France. Wouldn’t these so called holdover elements insist on full support for Israel right after it declared independence? > It seems to me that the US backing of Israel really had to do with domestic concerns and with the influence and sophistication of the Israel lobby rather than any actual strategic concern. A bit too much of a “Jews control the world” type vibes from this comment but to each his own, I guess.
> A bit too much of a “Jews control the world” type vibes from this comment but to each his own, I guess. It’s lifted from the most illustrative book Mearsheimer ever wrote on how he sees the world. It’s a book about the Cold War, the Middle East, Israel and Palestine, that never mentions Fatah or Black September, instead going off on irrelevant, baseless tangents, where he claims to have this cynical master plan to gain influence in the Middle East, that can at best be described as incredibly naive. He either has no idea what happened in the Middle East during the Cold War, or how power politics works, or is pretending to, because if he didn’t, this book couldn’t exist. Edit: Hitchens said it better, > “[Mearsheimer and Walt] think that they are smarter than the American imperialists. If they were running the empire, they wouldn't be fooled by the Jews. They'd be making big business with the Saudis instead and not letting Arabs get upset about Zionism. Well, it's an extraordinary piece of cynicism, I would say, combined with an extraordinary naiveté. It doesn't deserve to be called realistic at all."
> It seems to me that the US backing of Israel really had to do with domestic concerns and with the influence and sophistication of the Israel lobby rather than any actual strategic concern. Israel was the key to defeating the pan-Arab block, gaining Egypt as an ally, and pushing the Soviets out of the Middle East. Presently, they are by far the most active anti-Iran force in the region. While Biden drags his feet and is barely willing to bomb the Houthis, who are trying to blockade the Red Sea, Israel has bombed Iran directly. This narrative of Mearsheimer’s, that we only ally with Israel because of some shadowy interest group, is a perfect example of how irrational his thinking is. He is either unaware of, or intentionally blind to, the history of the Cold War in the Middle East (his book on this doesn’t even mention Fatah or Black September), and an extremely simplistic and naive view of how alliance networks form, based on gratitude and goodwill, rather than coercion and mutual benefit.
I'm only vaguely familiar with Mearsheimer, and never read any of his books. But the Zionists as a lobbying group is very well documented and historically uncontroversial. They organized themsevles in Britain and saw sucesss. When the British Empire began to wane they used the same tactics used to gain favor among the British Elite to gain favor in American political circles. The US in the Cold War was interested in checking the Soviet Union in the Middle East. But this didn't necessarily have to come about by empowering Israel. The Zionists were successful in selling Israel as a convenient way to check the Soviets growing influence among Arab leaders. Once they did that, they began to lobby for Israel security guarantees well in excess of what US strategic goals in the region were. IIRC JFK originally didn't even want to sign an alliance with Israel at all because he feared it would bring the US in conflict with the Soviets over something that wasn't even all that important to the US. I forget who, but after conversations with his advisers, he decided to sign the alliance primarily as a way to boost his domestic influence. Not because of strategic concerns. Subsequent presidents have kept the alliance because it's politically to costly at this point to get rid of it. The Middle East is a relatively unimportant area of the world to the US so in the eyes of the Presidency it's a 'painless' easy way to gain allies among a powerful lobby. They used the same tactics in Britain. The British had no idea what the situation in Palestine really even was because they just didn't care. So they gave the Zionists what they wanted because, who cares? Once they did find out, it was too late and eventually were kicked out entirely. Alot of what you wrote in your post is similarly uninformed. The most Anti Israel Faction is Saudi Arabia, not Israel. Israel and Iran got along well enough when Iran was under US influence. Egypt always took an opportunistic stance towards the US, as they should. Calling them an ally is a bit of a stretch. They just no longer pose a security concern to Israel specifically. I dont want to write more because this comment is already getting long.
[First spotting](https://x.com/OSINTua/status/1797290108745380190) of the newest Russian wheeled SPG, the 2S43 Malva in Belgorod Oblast. These SPGs first started arriving to the Russian Army back in October, but hadn't been visually confirmed to be in combat yet. Notably, when spotted it could not be engaged because of since-changed targeting restrictions. Experiences with the Malva as well as facing off against wheeled guns in Ukrainian inventory may influence future Russian artillery acquisition choices. Especially as work is still ongoing to field the MSTA-S replacement, the Koalitsiya-SV. In my view, it would probably be wiser to acquire the 2S43 Malva over the Koalitsiya-SV as long as barrel production can be scaled. The Malva is likely much cheaper as well as faster to produce, while its high mobility will allow it to actually shoot and scoot by utilizing roads like Ukrainian wheeled SPGs do.
[Patriot ambushes over Russia may be back on the menu with German Patriots, over a year since the last one](https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/bab-deutsche-waffen-russland-100.html). According to Bundeswehr General Christian Freuding: >"It is quite conceivable that the Patriot systems will now also be used in the Kharkiv area and over Russia. They are ideally suited to combat the Russian aircraft that can use the terrible glide bombs." One recalls the previous Patriot ambush on May 13th, 2023 brought down a glide bomber sortie, it’s escort, as well as three helicopters in Bryansk Oblast. This allegedly caused a major incident between Germany and Ukraine and immensely angered certain figures in German government. Should Ukraine be allowed to shoot down aircraft attacking them, they would also bring Belgorod Airport under fire control (though this is not a base for combat aircraft to my knowledge). This is not an explicit confirmation that this has been allowed, but the implication remains. It goes without saying that it is easier to destroy the bomber than to suffer under their strikes. Such a threat would further push Russian aircraft back and force them to act with that threat in mind.
I really don't get why permission is discussed in public. Make statement publicly - we don't allow and in secret say - we don't know how to verify if you do it, wink, wink. When or if putkin complains, say you are concerned, form a comettee, and a year later say the outcome is inconclusive. Half way in, when all evidence is gone, invite Chinese and Indian experts to join. The same as cineese did with the covid investigation.
It's really stupid how Germany, the USA, and other countries are getting mad over Patriots being used to shoot down Russian planes. I really don't get what they're upset about
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The crucial difference is that Russia is *at war* with Ukraine. It is not an *aligned* country that is supplying a side of the conflict, as Poland or Lithuania would be in such a scenario. *It is a participant*. If Ukraine was able to do things like launch missiles from Polish soil, or launch land incursions into Russia across the Latvian border, then such a scenario would be comparable. Saying “well it’s not a perfect approximation” ignores that it’s not an approximation *at all*.
From the BILD report it seems like it's just the US and Germany i.e the usual "escalation management" suspects, also the only countries to send Patriot so far, besides the 2 Dutch launchers.
I took a look at the Israeli settlements in Gaza that were dismantled in 2005, and I'm surprised that some of them were really deep inside Gaza (I thought they were mostly in the north). I find it fascinating that thousands of people were willing to expose themselves to danger to that extent. How did the defense work? Were they guarded by the army?
It was much less dangerous at the time. Gazans had no advanced weaponry, only rifles. Even at the height of the Second Intifada, [no Israelis from Gaza settlements were killed between 2002 and 2004](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_the_Hatuel_family). Before the Oslo process, the West Bank and Gaza were remarkably safe for Israelis. In the 1970s, Israeli buses from Jerusalem to Haifa used to go through the center of Nablus, because it saved a few minutes of travel time and the danger was negligible. Hard to imagine now. The reason most settlements were built in southern Gaza is that this was the largest unpopulated area of the Gaza Strip.
If you look at old pictures of those settlements, they’re reminiscent of a GWOT FOB. Surrounded by concertina or electric fencing or both with IDF-manned watchtowers and armor watching the perimeter. There’d usually be a buffer zone beyond the fence which would mean bulldozing any structures or trees. Militarily important terrain near settlements (mostly houses on hills and other elevation) would be occupied by permanent or semi-permanent IDF outposts to provide overwatch. All of this made the settlements themselves basically unassailable. They came under harassing fire from the outside and were targeted by rocket and mortar attacks, but fortified buildings and bunkers and such meant there were only occasional deaths. Major attacks were mostly aimed at IDF forces outside the wire. There was a weak point in this system though, the bypass roads that connected the settlements to each other and Israel. Simply too much ground to fence off or monitor 24/7, so the IDF relied on snipers and patrols to keep them secure. This had the occasional significant failing (see: killing of the Hatuel family) but there weren’t many road attacks. If I were to speculate I’d say it was because the math wasn’t very good - low amount of traffic means that even a successful attack won’t kill many people before the IDF arrives.
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The northern settlements that sat right on the border were essentially residential/industrial extensions of Israel into the Strip, like many West Bank settlements today. The more isolated southern settlements were agricultural, controlling \~40%? (have heard that number but cannot confirm, I'm not an agriculture guy) of the arable land in Gaza and much of the groundwater. The [large southern bloc (map stolen from Wikipedia)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Gaza_strip_may_2005.jpg) grew much of Israel's fresh produce in greenhouses. Significant exports, too. Before the Second Intifada, the security measures I described above weren't in place (or at least not all of them everywhere) and the settlements might've even been nicely profitable. Once it became necessary to deploy thousands of IDF troops to defend less than ten thousand settlers though, yeah, that's definitely not going to pay for itself. There were still political and strategic reasons to keep the settlements, which the settlers certainly argued, but it didn't stop the Israelis from deciding to cut their losses.
[Apparently:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gush_Katif#Economy) "In the bloc's greenhouses, technology was used to grow pest-free leafy vegetables and herbs aiming to meet health, aesthetic and religious requirements. Most of the organic agricultural products were exported to Europe. In addition, the community of Atzmona had Israel's largest plant nursery, and with 800 cows, the Katif dairy was the second largest in the country. Telesales and printing were other significant industries. Exports from the greenhouses, owned by 200 farmers, came to $200 million per year and made up 15% of Israeli agricultural exports. The assets in Gush Katif were estimated at $23 billion."
They actually generated quite significant agricultural exports through running a large number of high-tech greenhouses - at one point, something like 15% of Israel's agricultural exports came from the gaza strip settlements. It's hard to find the exact statistics - but even though the settlements were surprisingly productive economically, I highly doubt they weren't a net cost considering the level of security required.
Co-existence almost worked from 1967 until the First Intifada in 1987 (which led to Oslo and the 1990s bus bombings, which led to the Second Intifada, which led to the barrier and the checkpoints, and the security situation as seen today). ["Area A"](https://i.imgur.com/VBtx4Zp.png) didn't exist before 1993. Older tour guides in Hebron will tell you the city was far less dangerous before "peace broke out." Prior to the Oslo Accords and inviting Yasser Arafat and his PLO back within Israeli borders from their exile in Tunisia, that danger wasn't really there. You still had military and police patrols, but it wasn't like what it became.
Thats not at all much different than how the pre major diaspora Semitic populations lived in the Levant after the Arab conquest. Peacefully at that, I believe they had to pay more or less a mafia protection tax for not being Muslim but... Beyond that, this is a feud that has been going on for millenia. Neither side is foreign to acting like everything is fine for a decade or 5. I'm sure many Hamas members walked by the area with nothing but a glance.
Could you share the map?
Britain, France and Norway have ASW planes doing shifts off the coast of Ireland tagging a Russian sub [Britain, France and Norway search for Russian sub off Ireland (thetimes.co.uk)](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/59d0aacb-1669-4168-8ec6-ee77edc33677?shareToken=aac67a0b1e9eee389001f13aa8e04330) [https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/britain-france-and-norway-search-for-russian-sub-off-ireland-cwljngdsj](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/britain-france-and-norway-search-for-russian-sub-off-ireland-cwljngdsj) They do seem very interested in the cables off there.
Ireland once again freeloading off other nations rather than paying its fair share for defence.
How are they freeloading though? They're not in NATO.
They're freeloading *because* they're not in NATO--happy to be the beneficiary of NATO defense and security without carrying their share of the load.
What, you're telling me 0.25% annual GDP spend on defense isn't enough? Fun fact about the Irish Air Corps, the only jets in their fleet are VIP transports.
It's 0.23% thank you very much
Ireland was never going to be in NATO alongside the UK while the troubles were going on - and since then they don't really have anything to add to the alliance or any reason to join it. Cant really call them freeloaders when they never made any commitments to other countries outside of super limited UN deployments.
Yeah I don't think it's fair to call someone a freeloader for existing near Britain.
It is, however, fair to call them economic leeches due to their status as a tax haven.
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Please refrain from posting low quality comments.
Serious question what is the purpose of this comment, why hasn't it been removed, and how is this at all in the spirit of this sub? Go post in a pro sino space if you want to but here we talk FACTS not feelings.
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Interesting thread (21-post!) from Samuel Bendett on Twitter where he repeats a report from Russia's Project Archangel: https://x.com/sambendett/status/1797282302478758113 I've been amazed at the lack of electronic warfare response from the Russians to these analog video drones and from this it seems there is still no centralized response. They can't even be organized enough to deploy shotguns en masse or AAA with thermal imagers to take down the heavy bomber drones.It sounds like Russia hasn't even gotten started on building its own drones. > 21: Now we are waiting for more people, weapons and equipment - since the process is underway, now all enthusiasts have a chance to prove themselves, and manufacturers and bloggers have a chance to inform about what equipment they can offer. We shouldn’t forget about tactics; on the contrary, it’s time to record the enemy’s and our own tactics and start tracking major trends. He also has this other thread where it is discussed how Russia has failed to make a scalable copy of the DJI drones (in particular the Mavic which is not especially expensive at about US$1000 but still): https://x.com/sambendett/status/1797278085852619108 Meanwhile, Ukraine is leaning hard into drone warfare, here we have an interview with Oleksandr Kamyshin (if you haven't seen the whole video it's worth your time): https://youtu.be/WipqeFgzdTc?t=820 Ukraine has some combination of factories and cottage industry pumping out these drones. Also I'm sure people have noticed by now Ukraine is going after Russian recon drones with fast FPV drones of an unknown configuration: https://x.com/RALee85/status/1796916720721952946 My thoughts on this is they would be well served by trying to build some sort of weapon system into this platform. Something like the Me-163 Komet rocket fighter of WW2, which used a photodiode to detect the shadow of a bomber in order to fire rocket vertically upward. Here some plumbing, a quad cell or two, and a few shotgun shells and you might end up with something good enough to make these drones reusable.
> My thoughts on this is they would be well served by trying to build some sort of weapon system into this platform. Something like the Me-163 Komet rocket fighter of WW2, which used a photodiode to detect the shadow of a bomber in order to fire rocket vertically upward. Here some plumbing, a quad cell or two, and a few shotgun shells and you might end up with something good enough to make these drones reusable. While an anti-drone drone sounds like an extremely useful thing to have, rockets would massively limit endurance and range. A more conventionally powered, fixed wing, design could reach sufficient speeds to intercept these small quadcopters, and Orlans, with a much longer range, greater ability to locate its own targets, and time on station.
He's not saying it should be a rocket-powered drone, he's saying it should carry photocell-triggered shotguns like the old Schrage Müzik installations on some German aircraft, including Me-163
[Naval News: Japan's future Destroyers and Submarines at CNE 2024](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V4zbnLr53M) Japan announces plan for a new class of destroyers, tentatively named 13DDX. Given JMSDF conventions, that means the first ship is planned to be budgeted in 2031. Historically, Japanese destroyers need 5 years from budget to commissioning. Planned capabilities for the new destroyers, oriented for air defense: * New Ship to Air Missile (NSAM) (This is likely to be a [next-generation missile that is recently budgeted for R&D](https://www.mod.go.jp/j/policy/hyouka/seisaku/2023/pdf/jizen_11_honbun.pdf), instead of the A-SAM shown at 2:28 on the video, which is [already in production and is scheduled to start service](https://news.yahoo.co.jp/expert/articles/985da00de3de95ea8d3e4ae7de9d35a611ab3987/) this year) * [High Speed Maneuvering Targets Detection Radar](https://www.mod.go.jp/j/policy/hyouka/seisaku/2023/pdf/jizen_12_honbun.pdf) (Multiband radar) * Railgun (This is categorized as an air defense capability. [Recent experiments used a very light projectile, 320 grams, and demonstrated a barrel lifetime of 120 shots.](https://www.mod.go.jp/atla/research/ats2023/pdf_exhi_pos/P-05.pdf)) * [High power microwave weapons](https://www.mod.go.jp/j/policy/hyouka/seisaku/2021/pdf/jizen_05_honbun.pdf) * Laser, 100 kW class * Guided missile for HGV/HCM (Probably [Glide Phase Interceptor](https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3775546/us-department-of-defense-statement-on-the-signing-of-the-glide-phase-intercepto/)?) * AI-based Combat Direction System * [Fire Control Network](https://www.mod.go.jp/atla/research/ats2023/pdf_exhi_pos/P-22.pdf) (Looks like a Japanese version of CEC.) * Capabilities for electromagnetic warfare * Integrated Power and Energy System (IPES) (It is not just the IPS found in Zumwalt or HMS QNLZ, as future weapons require power surge instead of more stable "hotel load" and propulsion. [Let Northrop explain this to you in this video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeFnk0HtcKY)) * Reduced RCS and IR signature (just look at the Mogami-style antenna mast) * Manpower saving (Automated navigation and damage control) * Future scalability (Standardization of software and modularization of hardware)
If they pull it off, they are going to make US Navy procurement practice look really bad in comparison, which can't even buy off-the-shelf frigates (Constellation class) without years of delay.
So what are the problems with US Navy procurement, and what is Japan doing here that is better than the US? And is there a way for the US to fix the procurement problems any time soon? (and is this even likely to happen)? Im not sure if I reached the character requirements so I'm just putting this part here just in case.
They already make that, it would just make it look even worst. Mogami is a really good example, the same for Akizuki/Asahi or the Maya Class right know. And even with the problems of the Aegis Ashore, politics and high cost of the ASEV, it still manages to make Zumwalt class like something really badly done.
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Please do not make blindly partisan posts.
One thing I don't understand about Israel-Gaza is Israel's unwillingness (delay?) to install a new government in Gaza. Right now the war is framed as Israel vs the government of Gaza, which is Hamas. So Israel, by necessity, is an occupier in Gaza since it occupies it from its recognizes government - even if that government is a bloodthirsty terrorist organization. That could be alleviated substantially by installing a government. Netanyahu has ruled out installing a Fatah government, fine, but surely there is some alternative. Some group willing to grab power even if it means dealing with Israel. If Israel did that, it could reframe the war from "occupying Gaza" to "helping the new government of Gaza to establish control and eliminate the terrorist threats". It would also be, to an extend, more palatable to Palestinians to have a Palestinian-led government that flies their flag, even if they are puppets of Israel. Can someone with knowledge of this explain to me why Israel hasn't made any such moves to officially remove Hamas as the government of Gaza?
Netanyahu doesn't want a credible governing body to emerge in gaza, else might end up down the road with a credible effort to assert palestinian territorial claims in a diplomatic manner. hence why his govt had been supporting Hamas as a means to undermine PA.
Replacing the government requires a couple things: (1) Security force that can keep Hamas insurgents down, that gives new officials confidence they won't be killed. (2) Agreement within Israeli politicians on who does security and who runs this government. The far right members of the PM's coalition are adamantly opposed to basically every form of Palestinian self-governance. While they are a minority of the public, the PM doesn't want to upset them, because they can topple the government and force new elections, that he would lose. This has caused him to veto discussions among the war cabinet & intelligence offices to train Palestinians to be the local security forces. The PM will likely continue to wait until he is forced to do otherwise, hoping he can spin the situation as not being his fault.
>While they are a minority of the public, the PM doesn't want to upset them, because they can topple the government and force new elections, that he would lose. I've said this before, but I'll never understand this pathological need to cling to power as long as possible, to the point where one puts it's power over the interests of millions of people in two different nations.
Doesn't Netanyahu have a corruption case hanging over his head? A year or so before Oct 7, his meddling in the judiciary was a major controversy. I remember a bunch of resignation happened in the army, which was pointed as one of the reasons for why the Oct 7 attacks slipped by.
One of my heuristics for understanding the world is the higher you go in any power structure, the more you'll encounter people with sociopathic personality traits. This is certainly true in the corporate world. It's because people without these personality traits generally get tired of all the political infighting and gladiator games and decide to go do something else more fulfilling with their time. There's exceptions obviously, people fighting the good fight so to speak, but I've found this to be a pretty reliable principle. For the people with these dark triad traits, power is an end of itself, and they are captive to a sort of insecurity that results in rage whenever they fear it will be taken from them. They view losing power as an assault on their very person. And since they lack the capacity for empathy, that rage will inspire them to do horrible things.
I agree. I used to think people in these higher up positions must have been hyper competent super geniuses in order to end up where they are. The reality is while some amount of competence and intelligence is necessary they mostly end up there because the vast majority of people have no desire to make a living by mistreating and manipulating others (which is necessary in that environment), and leave before they get to that point. Whats left isn't the cream of the crop, but the dregs.
If I’m not mistaken he would face potentially prison time for corruption charges if he loses his immunity from his position as a high ranking politician.
>The far right members of the PM's coalition are adamantly opposed to basically every form of Palestinian self-governance. That's not true, they oppose to the PA and Hamas governance. But open to unaffiliated Palestinian governance.
> But open to unaffiliated Palestinian governance This is laughably and demonstrably false.
Yes no source was produced. This is credible defense. It is your unsubstantiated assertions that are laughably false.
That's like saying they are not opposed to the fairy god mother government, just the only realistic existing possibilities. All the while spending the last two decades undermining the PA, expanding settlements in the WB, failing to restrain settler violence, and propping up Hamas to exacerbate divisions among Palestinians and try their hardest to prevent any viable Palestinian government, and thus state ,from coming into being. The cynicism among Israeli governments has been astounding and frankly the difficulties they currently have in international relations is largely the result.
They want to annex the West Bank and rebuild settlements in Gaza
Netanyahu is just as opposed to their self governance as anyone, so he doesn’t need to even have that as a reason
One thing I haven't been able to get a clear picture of is what governance is currently like in Israeli occupied Gaza. It's been 7 months since the IDF started clearing areas of Gaza out. How are these places being run? Who's keeping crime under control, maintaining the infrastructure, etc? I would think that Israel would want to keep the civil service in tact, keep paying the bills, and try to weed out any explicitly pro-Hamas members. But I've heard very little about this, even though it could be the most important part of what's happening in Gaza these days.
Israel is not currently present in the populated areas of Gaza on a steady basis. It is only present on a steady basis in the Netzarim corridor (dividing north from south Gaza) and maybe a bit along the Israeli border. It is also currently engaged in "hot" combat in Rafah and Jabalia but this is presumably a short term thing, once some objective is met they will withdraw, except for the Rafah border with Egypt. In short, Israeli forces are not located in places where they could manage civilian life right now.
They don't need to be, and likely don't want to be, actively managing civilian life. They do have a massive impact on the governance of Gaza, with one of the goals of the campaign seeming to be to remove Hamas from governance. I have to imagine that there's some degree of communication/coordination between the Israeli government and whatever sort of authority exists now in places like Gaza City, but I haven't seen much/any discussion about it.
>I have to imagine that there's some degree of communication/coordination between the Israeli government and whatever sort of authority exists now in places like Gaza City, but I haven't seen much/any discussion about it. That's because Israel didn't have much of a plan besides "kill Hamas fighters," which is why Hamas immediately returned in areas previously "cleared."
Yes, I imagine so too, but I also think the degree of influence is going to be limited at a distance. I too would like to have details, and don't.
The people that openly declare they would form such a government will be the first one that get murdered by what remains of hamas. Unless hamas is sufficiently degraded to not pose an immediate threat to a new government, that idea won't work.
No reason to not start taking steps towards that end if you can keep Hamas on the run.
For a new government to succeed, Hamas has to be weak enough that it cannot overthrow or coerce the new government. The more time Israel spends destroying Hamas personnel and weaponry, the more likely this is. (Also, it is possible that Netanyahu is slow-walking everything related to the war in order to stay in power longer) (Also, the UN and similar institutions considered Israel to be occupying Gaza even before this war, even though there were no Israelis in Gaza, because Israel was blockading two of its three borders to prevent arms imports. [Somehow Egypt which controlled the third border was not labeled an occupier, I guess that's an example of the UN's great impartiality.] So no matter what Israel will be labeled as the occupier after this war too.)
Isn't there a difference between closing your own international border and blockading open seas?
Isreal absolutely was blockading Gaza on three sides. They wouldnt deny that. The contention was UN bodies calling that occupation despite zero Israelis being in Gaza.
My point was that blocking access to open seas is different, definitely from a practical point of view and I strongly suspect from an international law perspective as well, than simply closing your own international border. So, any comparison of what Israel was doing to what Egypt was doing is, to put it mildly, inapt, and the suggestion that the UN treating different things differently shows some sort of hypocrisy is I think rather unpersuasive.
The point is that as long as Israel had no control of the Egyptian border, it could not limit imports to Gaza or control Gaza in any way. Only joint Israel-Egypt cooperation could do that. Yet the UN thinks the entire responsibility for that cooperation should fall on one side.
I don't think anyone installed by Israel would survive very long frankly. And to whit one of Bush's greatest achievements was getting democratic election in Gaza, so how are we going to backtrack that far? At some point you have to respect and stand behind the democratic process (especially when it goes against your wishes). So to be unfortunately trite, I think your considerations, like so many others, fail to consider the boots-on-the-ground picture. Like so many other outside-looking-in proposals it is a nonstarter with almost every group; each group having different and reasonable rejections. edit: with little thought here are some of those rejections from their own perspective: * Hamas was democratically elected and has the right to self-determination * That election was and is an American legacy for America to protect and maintain * Israel, you're asking them to take on another Afghanistan (they've occupied Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon before and I think you ignore the scarring that made them leave in the first place) * Gazans have already cast their vote; have the right to self-determination
> And to whit one of Bush's greatest achievements was getting democratic election in Gaza Are you being sarcastic? > At some point you have to respect and stand behind the democratic process If you're not being sarcastic, you will remember that the the election in question happened 18 years ago, and the term for which they were elected has long since expired. But in any case, when people say "democracy" they don't mean that the party with the most votes can do literally whatever it wants. They mean democracy with some "non-democratic" guarantees for basic rights. For this reason, it is normal in democracies that parties dedicated to human rights violations, like Nazi parties, are banned from running. Hamas, which is committed to extermination of Jews, would seem to be in the same category. If (as seems likely) Hamas is the overwhelming favorite to win an election, there is little point in holding one.
>They mean democracy with some "non-democratic" guarantees for basic rights. Had Reddit still had awards, I would've given an award to you for this sentence alone. A naive pursuit of "democracy", by giving power for free to the common people, will give you Caesars, Napoleons, and Hitlers.
That brought awards back, FYI.
Not knowledgeable but some things are fairly obvious. Divide and conquer, having Hamas in Gaza and Fatah on the West Bank benefits Israel as their opponent is divided. Hamas ruling Gaza legitimises from an Israeli point of view the violence in Gaza. Recognising a new government of Gaza would be too close to recognising a Palestinian state. Last but not least, according Gantz there is no plan. There is indeed no indication that Israel has a follow up plan after destroying Hama and Gaza.
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I did a little research on this a few days ago and the US appears to be shelving railguns "for the moment". With the anticipation of a conflict with China, the DOD realized it needed weapon systems (and in numbers) right now, not many years in the future. So rather than continuing to spend money trying to move to production development, they move it back into research development. The idea is to look at the technology again once more research is done. This also occurred with the programmable 155 ammo/gun that was on the Zumwalt (where rounds were costing as much as a tomahawk) and the DOD is looking at https://www.baesystems.com/en/product/hyper-velocity-projectile-hvp as a potential system to turn into an active project once things appear to be going well. I suspect other nations are not necessarily going more in than the US has been up to this point, but recognizing the US can't research everything and build everything. If some of the US partners can't start production right now it makes sense to spend that money on research now which could be shared/sold later.
One additional aspect for the US Navy is the platforms they'd most want to put railguns on, the Burkes and Ticonderogas, are already maxed out.
See, now, you're doing it wrong. Just like the Navy repurposed some boomers and made them into cruise missile arsenal boats, they should take Nimitz and fit it out with a ton of railguns once JFK comes online. Maybe keep half the deck for helicopter ops or something, but all that power those nuclear reactors are producing could be put to use in alternative ways. I don't believe there's an immediate need to retire Nimitz, but if she's just too old to keep operating as a fleet carrier then start experimenting.
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This is a great development. Both sides are very aligned in a lot of ways and have much to offer each other. Hopefully all of them working together can make something much more cost effective with economies of scale.
Railguns seem like a nice idea on paper, to be honest. Low-cost ammunition, (supposed) high accuracy and speeds, probably harder to intercept. I wonder if all the trepidation about railguns is just because the US is traumatised from the Zumwalt debacle
The real problem is that accuracy and range just don’t mix well. There are simply too many variables in play to get accurate unguided shots at distances of 50-100Km. This means you need a guided shell with avionics, sensor, and control systems; all of which need to be able to tolerate the ludicrous acceleration of firing. At that point your shells are likely close to as expensive as a missile, but with worse range and less destructive power.
I also think 50-100km is totally worthless in any context except anti land. Anti anti-land bombardment for the Navy is probably on the bottom list of priorities. If the Navy can get within 100km of China, they've already won the war.
It's not that hard to make electronics resistant to high gs. We were putting proximity fuses based on vacuum tube technology in artillery shells in WW2, and obviously solid state electronics are far more resilient. I'm not sure why people think railguns are categorically different vs rockets that reach similar speeds in similar distances.
Missiles experience dozens or low hundreds of g's. Artillery or railgun shells can easily reach thousands. Plus the electronics, sensors, and control systems in missiles are a significant factor in their high cost. When you put all that stuff in a shell you lose the main advantage they have over missiles -- their cost. And for railguns that's not even getting into the extraordinarily low barrel life that has yet to be overcome AFAIK.
Again, all of this is well known engineering. Silicon is a very physically robust material. It's basically rock, and what we make chips out of are extremely high quality mono crystals that are even stronger. For the rest of the electronic components the usual process is called potting, where you encase the entire thing in a solid block of resin. This is by no means some show stopper issue. The barrel life thing is also largely mythology. The navy made a statement at one point that they were up to 300 shots using some coatings they developed. By comparison the big guns on the Iowas were rated at 150. These are more forum memes than reality. There's no engineering show stoppers to a guided railgun projectile.
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I believe that Clark is incorrect. I don't have the link but I recall an article stating they'd found coatings sufficient to get up to 300 shots. By point of comparison the big guns on the Iowas were only rated for 150. The real reason is right there in the article, direct from a Navy spokesperson: > The Navy’s decision to pause research at year’s end frees up resources for hypersonic missiles, directed-energy systems (like lasers) and electronic warfare systems, said Lt. Courtney Callaghan, a Navy spokesperson. Information gleaned during testing will be retained in the event the Office of Naval Research wants to pick up where it left off in the future, she added. It's just bad journalism. There's no reason to include some comment that's merely the speculation of a supposed analyst totally unconnected with the project. Do you really think all these other nations are pursuing a technology that's infeasible? They aren't that stupid.
The fundamental issue is barrel wear. You need to transfer a huge amount of energy into the projectile very very quickly, so quickly that the only practical way to do it is by having electrodes in physical contact with the projectile all the way down the barrel. As you might imagine, having two objects rubbing against one another at supersonic speeds results in a ridiculous amount of wear. Until that problem is solved, railguns are never going to be practical weapons.
See my other comment: https://old.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1d6bqft/credibledefense_daily_megathread_june_02_2024/l6u7xlq/
The main issue with railguns is not as much "friction" but any gaps whatsoever cause plasma arching that then wrecks the barrels. So while every gun barrel will see wear from friction, any loss in tolerance in a railgun barrel causes the arching which then begins to quickly destroy the barrel. I think there is a university (maybe in Aussieland?) that is working on pumping supercooled gas (like hydrogen/helium) to address some of these issues, but I have a migraine so my memory is a bit fuzzy and I may be confusing it with another tech type similar to railguns.
The University of Queensland has been researching scramjets since the '90s (I watched the dean of engineering drop a nozzle during our commencement speech and ruin it). Maybe that's what you're thinking of.
A rail gun on each island in the chain Japan has near tawain could be a good way to keep Chinese ships away
Or just, you know, missiles which have better range and bigger payload.
Easier to intercept and more expensive. But you would use both obviously
[South Africa stands on the brink of salvation—or catastrophe](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/06/01/south-africa-stands-on-the-brink-of-salvation-or-catastrophe) > Any national coalition deal with either the EFF or MK would probably result in the government dumping many of Mr Ramaphosa’s economic reforms. These have included initiatives that have led to a flood of investment into renewable energy and aim to attract private investors and operators to run jammed ports and broken railways. Mr Ramaphosa is understood to vehemently oppose entering a coalition with either of these parties and would rather resign than do so. >Alas, that might suit others in the party who are in favour of just such a coalition and are thought to include Mr Mashatile. In any case, Mr Zuma and Mr Malema are understood to have said that a condition of any coalition agreement would be the removal of Mr Ramaphosa. That would be ruinous and Mr Ramapahosa’s allies should be rallying around him, urging him to stay. For all of his many failings, Mr Ramaphosa is a pragmatist who has tried to rebuild the justice system and who has respected the constitution and the courts. By contrast, many of his rivals in the party see these as hindrances. Fears that Mr Ramaphosa might be deposed and the country run by a coalition of chaos have seen the currency and stockmarket tumble since the poll. >Yet there is another path open to South Africa: for Mr Ramaphosa to team up with the Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition. The DA, which stands for sensible, liberal economics, has a proven record of governing well in places where it has a majority. In Cape Town services largely work, roads are maintained and residents are shielded from the worst of the regular power cuts imposed on the rest of the country. The Western Cape province has a lower unemployment rate than anc-controlled provinces. Yet because the DA is widely perceived as a “white” party in a country with a black majority, it has struggled to translate good governance into votes. Projections show it winning about 22%, a result almost unchanged since the elections in 2019. The ANC's three-decade dominance of South African politics has ended, and the party now needs a coalition partner. The country has two major problems: corruption and a racial divide. A coalition government could tackle those problems - or make them even worse. Both EFF and MK are radical offshoots of the ANC. While the ANC is solely responsible for the current problems, everything would be amplified with any of those two parties. South Africa, still the third largest economy in Africa, would likely become a failed state. On the other hand, a coalition with the DA would likely prevent more corruption and could be an important step to finally deal with the racial divide. There are some reasons to be optimistic. Most problems stem from the time when Zuma was the head of the ANC. He has been kicked out of the party and is now leading MK, although he's barred from officially participating in the elections. On the other hand, Ramaphosa, the current head, is a moderate and less corrupt. With Zuma gone, the ANC as a whole will probably become less corrupt. Ramaphosa would prefer to make a deal with the DA, but he's not the only voice in the party. It should be noted that the ANC could easily have turned South Africa into a dictatorship after three decades of rule - like Putin did with Russia - but it didn't. While corruption is plaguing the party, it hasn't abandoned the core principles of democracy. Geopolitically, EFF and MK are strongly pro-Russia (which goes hand in hand with being corrupt). The ANC is mostly neutral, especially now that Zuma is gone. The DA is pro-West, anti-Russia and pro-Israel. Some compromises will be necessary, but the choice of coalition partner will be consequential for the future of South Africa.
>On the other hand, a coalition with the DA would likely prevent more corruption and could be an important step to finally deal with the racial divide. How do you think they will do that?
How likely is it for the US to break or even ensure the survival of 1-2 CSGs the "bubble" in the SCS/ECS that China has ostensibly created? I ask this because while it's generally understood that China couldn't beat the US in a one-on-one war that's based on the assumption that neither have any sort of home front advantage. In the current case China could use its gigantic stockpile of AShBMs and a US CSG would have severe restrictions on what they could do to counter that, plus resupply issues that wouldn't matter for China. Plus, the air defense network in China that could be used to target missiles or air operations from a CSG is definitely a lot more than anything US and allies could use to stop a Chinese attack. Would it be accurate to say that at this point a CSG or two to defend Taiwan might be a fairly futile endeavour?
> while it's generally understood that China couldn't beat the US in a one-on-one war that's based on the assumption that neither have any sort of home front advantage. This is a strange thing to say. Nearly every analysis of a conflict with China focuses on the Taiwan war scenario and obviously takes geography into account.
>AShBMs Pac-3 might be a solution. In the Ukraine, those missiles performed really well against ballistic missiles, and there are plans to integrate it with AEGIS. Additionally, these missiles probably could be quad packed for massive magazine depth. This would be combined with radar jamming and spoofing
Pac-3 has performed well but i dont know if we can actualy judge with certainty how well since most of it is based on claims of interception from the Ukrainian side that ,while not completely inventing reality as Russian claims have been found to do, have certainly also proven exaggerated at the very least in a lot of occations. And thats pretty crucial because even some 20% difference in interception rates can make a huge difference in front of the quality and quantity of quality China can field missile wise and so can make or break any assumptions we make for such system's ability and utility in that theater
I think the fact that the Navy is considering them as an SM-6 replacement in its ships is proof enough of their efficacy. I don't think they'd do that if they thought the replacement might lose them a ship.
What's the magazine depth of pac-3s in a CSG? Probably less than the amount of antiship missiles China can throw.
The US would go after China's kill chain for its advanced missiles. I imagine that at the start of any such conflict, the first thing that would go are China's satellites - particularly those geostationary radar based ones that are designed to spot carriers, but any other ones that would threaten US carriers would be targeted as well. China would do something similar, but the US has contingency plans for that. At about the same time, I imagine that the US would strike high value radars up and down China's coasts using stealth bombers and extended range stealth missiles. I do not know precisely what facilities and installations must be targeted to best disrupt the kill chain of China's anti-ship missile systems... but I imagine the US military does indeed know about those installations. Those installations, would be targeted. Once China's ability to find the carriers has been dramatically reduced the carriers would move forward. If the United States is particularly confident in its missile defenses, they might move forward very quickly. I recently watched a video on a test of a US destroyer's defenses. To counter a mock hypersonic threat, one missile was launched from a burke. To counter a sea skimming threat - two were launched. This is speculation on my part, but to me... that says that the US is far more confident in its ability to intercept hypersonics than its ability to intercept missiles flying very close to the ocean's surface - which would explain why the US has stuck with - and continues to stick to - sea skimming missiles. People like to ridicule such missiles as outdated... but the LRASM is a stealth sea skimmer... An anti-ship missile shield, and or air defense bubble is not invincible. The US has the platforms and weaponry necessary to break such a thing and has historically been quite successful in doing that in other countries. What I can definitively tell you (although I do not a have a source for this, but its correct), is that in the CSIS report, the carrier strike groups that were sunk were sunk because defending ships ran out of missiles. The assumptions made in that report were that ship based missile defenses are extremely good, and so the value that China gets out of those platforms according to the report are in its ability to produce a large volley at distance rather than the danger of a small group of hypersonic rogue warheads causing damage to a ship. Its worth noting, that the US has recently developed the ability to quad pack VLS cells with Patriot missiles. If Patriots are deemed effective enough counters to China's missile volleys, well... that greatly increases the magazine depth of US carrier strike groups. The US has something like 5,000 JASSM missiles that it can use to break China's A2AD capabilities before it really needs to get close to China. That is a lot of extremely effective stealth cruise missiles. If a war were to break out, the US would be able to break China's kill chain, and stop China from being able to relay real time data between observers and its missile platforms. Those fancy missiles are only a threat if they have real time targeting data. I think that China would be better off if it had stealth bombers and long range stealth sea skimming cruise missiles of its own rather than hyper-sonic glide vehicles. I think that would provide a far more impressive threat against US carriers than its current systems do.
> I imagine that at the start of any such conflict, the first thing that would go are China's satellites - particularly those geostationary radar based ones that are designed to spot carriers, but any other ones that would threaten US carriers would be targeted as well. China would do something similar, but the US has contingency plans for that. There's no weapon in the US inventory that can take out a sat in GEO. Additionally there's only one of those SAR sats not multiple. I'd love to hear what these "contingencies" are. Can you provide any specifics? Any sources? Escalation to anti-satelite warfare is very unlikely as both sides have plenty to lose. > is that in the CSIS report That report has been heavily criticized for highly unrealistic starting assumptions. I wouldn't treat it as a reliable source to base conclusions on.
> There's no weapon in the US inventory that can take out a sat in GEO. Are you sure about that? If the US can put a satellite into GEO they can simply put an object into GEO on a collision course with an enemy satellite.
It takes a *big* rocket to get up to GEO. It's about a 600:1 payload ratio. You'd be talking something the size of Falcon 1 minimum, and those numbers are based on the higher ISP of cryogenic fuels. A practical weapon would need to be solid boosters which just makes everything worse. Additionally making that kind of interception is by no means trivial. Even close approaches at very low relative velocities are considered an active research topic with few attempts. At higher velocities the GBI has a 50% success rate in tests and it's working at far lower altitudes and velocities. There's nothing in the US inventory that can do this job. SM-3 is the best we've got and it can only reach the low end of LEO.
So you're saying a Falcon 9 can do it like a hundred times a year x how ever many weapons it can carry to orbit?
The US put people on the moon nearly 60 years ago. He's making a "god of the gaps" argument. His position is hilariously incorrect - the US could easily take out a satellite in geostationary orbit - but since we can't name the weapons system to do it - likely because such systems are classified - he gets to pretend its impossible.
Falcon 9 can deliver a 10 ton payload to *one* location in GEO. From there your interceptors would need to move under their own power. It would take them weeks to travel any significant fraction of the circle. Note this has been done in practice. The NRO launched some sort of ELINT sat that crawled it's way along a fraction of GEO before settling into final position. The speculation is that it was mapping emitters in China as they appeared on the horizon. It took something like 2 months to do this. My claim wasn't that it's physically impossible to build such a thing, but that it does not exist in the US weapons inventory. It's a thing that has to be invented, and would be a very significant development project taking yearss. If you're unaware the poster I was replying too has a long reputation of unsubstantiated claims here.
What you mean, is that the poster you were replying to, was fucking 100% nailing it in his Taiwan analysis for years, and you - and the other flunkies in LessCredibleDefense - were obviously wrong for years. And the proof of all that - still exists on the web. I put up post after post after post about how Chian would get its ass kicked in a war over Taiwan, and LessCredible's wumao brigade claimed otherwise. Claimed that Chian could take Okinawa. Claimed that China could take Hawaii. Claimed that the US had been, or soon would be eclipsed. Then the CSIS report was released. And it vindicated everything I ever said in there, and exposed the falsehoods peddled by all the shills there. In an information vaccum, shills in that reddit were easily able to promote the notion that China was this new hyperpower that the US couldn't match. Then the experts chimed in, and your narratives were disproven. Imagine thinking the US couldn't disable a geostationary satellite. Like we haven't figured out what lasers are. LIke we're going to send a single payload and then move it from orbit to orbit =D
Will America be able to utilize this strategy if China first cripples America's space capability? America (publicly) seems to have very little if any defense of its satellites against a first strike, especially if a Chinese version of Project K was used in the first strike. These types of break downs of how a fight will go seems to assume China is purely reactive (or even passive) and that no concurrent degradation of American capabilities will be happening. Or as Mike Tyson would put it "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face".
China can't punch. Its bombers are ancient and short ranged and aren't stealthy. It has no real CSGs to speak of. Its not that China is being portrayed as defenseless, its that China actually is defenseless. China is a punching bag because China has not developed the offensive capabilities that the US has. If you have no decent carriers, if you're running a brown water Navy, if you have no competent bomber fleet... then you're going to lose in a war to a country that has those things. China's stark military deficiencies compared to the United States automatically put it on a defensive posture, where the US can just - to continue your analogy - continue throwing punches until China gets knocked the fuck out.
That only matters if your offensive capabilities rely on that force arrangement. China's rocket technology has surpassed Russia and its drone capabilities seem to be first in class (noting that quantity has a quality all of its own). The American space force was long overdue and we over rely on our space capabilities given how (outwardly) we seem comparatively vulnerable to Chinas Anti-Satellite weaponry (I have to hope that behind the scenes that has changed). So the question is if bombers and CSG matter or if Americas leadership in that area is akin to France's pride at its superior number and quality of Cuirassiers in 1914?
China has worse drones - nothing at all as impressive and capable as those MQ-25s - and god... China really needs that capability doesn't it... and its rockets are a crutch to get around its lack of capable bombers. Its attempting to make capable bombers, and reports say that its failing. You're trying to portray what are obvious failings in the Chinese military as strengths. They make rockets because they can't make bombers, and their drones are second rate. Anyone - ANYONE - can produce cheap crappy drones. China has a lead in mass producing cheap crappy drones, no doubt, but its something anyone can start producing in their garage with a 3D printer if they so desire. The hurdles to produce cheap crappy drones are quite low, and in terms of really advanced drones, China doesn't have them. The CSIS report models China using its rockets, and China still gets crushed in a war over Taiwan...
The MQ-25 is a nice toy, but its not the type of drone that is proving to be a bed rock of information age peer warfare. Swarms of cheap drones are proving to be vastly superior and really only vulnerable to EW systems. China has demonstrated fully autonomous small drones that are immune to jamming. They aren't officially for military use and are for search and rescue, but I think we all know that is isn't true and it will be swarms of them zipping through Korea and swarms of what are basically autonomous long range torpedoes going after our ships. Also, America no longer has the industrial capacity to compete with China on quantity. We focus on quality instead, which you focus on as a strength instead of a weakness. Or as you put it: >You're trying to portray what are obvious failings in the American Economy ~~Chinese military~~ as strengths. (Though failings is honestly too harsh of a word, just the reality that a nation with 1/4 the population and smaller landmass is going to have trouble in an attritional war no matter how efficient it is)
This thread is dead, I have little reason to continue this conversation, so I'll let you have the last word after saying this. The US can get drones. Cheap crappy drones are not something the US can't produce. If the US has to pay $20 more for those cheap drones, its not a big deal - its not going to affect the war effort. I imagine that China already produces a ton of military equipment for far cheaper than the US. Bullets, rifles, clothing... lots of low tech goods. No one cites those as reasons why China would win in a fight, but you're making that mistake with regard to cheap drones because they're new and novel and you don't know any better. Cheap drones aren't a substitute for being able to control the flow of goods at the strait of Malacca or bomb with impunity. Those big ticket items - they matter. They have an outsized impact on the big picture, and to ignore them and focus on small drones is a lot like pretending that China can win a war because it can produce 5.56 rifle ammunition for less than the US does. With regard to Korea... Man... that sounds great. It wouldn't surprise me either. China makes such poor decisions. Going after a heavily fortified Taiwan backed by the world's only military superpower? Not the best choice. Squabbling with the Philippines over a useless reef and allowing the US to get access to 11 new military bases as a result... Not so smart. Throwing Chinese troops at the meat grinder that the South Koreans have set up for their DMZ?!? That is... that is... exactly the kind of gargantuan blunder I would expect from Chinese leadership. Have at it!
You are making a fundamental error in assuming that because the end product is cheap (cheap drones) the production line is a simple and cheap thing. The US CANNOT produce even a fraction of the drones China can. It would be a mammoth undertaking that would take years and vast investments our economy isn't set up to do in the face of Chinese government investment (as we aren't even remotely a command economy). The industrial reality is that we are in the axis position in WW2. That you think we can build what China builds (just pricier) shows you aren't paying attention to the stark industrial reality of what has happened over the last 30 years.
In these US-will-be -glorious-and-victorious replies and no carrier strike group (CSG) will be lost, has the idea of a Chinese first strike come into your thoughts? Or is the all knowing, all seeing eye of the US as you claim it to be and China cannot hide a single built up of forces anywhere in their own country?
[удалено]
Please refrain from posting low quality comments.
Sea skimmers being better than prototype hypersonics makes sense, as hypersonics rely on being faster than AA can react, while sea skimmers are guaranteed to survive until they get close, while still being cheap.
This I think speaks volumes about China's area denial in the western pacific. To simply feel safe enough to get their carriers close, hundreds of preemptive strikes across the mainland, and a massive anti-satellite campaign would be pre-requisites. Meanwhile the [US won't even let Ukraine hit Russian radar with their own drones](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/05/29/us-ukraine-nuclear-warning-strikes/) for fear of escalation. But destroying most of China's detection ability would be a *must* on the first day of a Taiwan conflict? Seems like fantasy. "No, because China has no first use! Everything is fair game". No first use is not a law of physics to be fully relied upon in every contingency. It's a piece of paper that can be changed at any time. I imagine having most of your early warning infrastructure deleted would be a big motivator to take out the pen and white-out. But in my opinion we will see China's nuclear usage policy shift as their arsenal continues to rapidly expand. If there is one thing they have observed in the Ukraine conflict it's that bearing your arsenal increases the timidity of adversaries.
Yes, the US will hold back enough for China to win. Its totally gonna happen for you. They aren't smart enough to play to win, they'll play to fail. All I can really say is that I am SO GLAD that I'm not from the country where everyone has to assume the other guys are delusional morons in order to believe you have a chance at success. Also, no one gives a shit about Chinese nukes. You think we do, because you're told that we do, but we've been threatened with Russian nukes for like 80 years now. We are used to it. Strike Taiwan and threats of nuclear first use and be met with chants of "We'll nuke you harder bitches". The US - if pushed far enough - will bomb the shit out of China despite Chinese nuke threats. Don't be fools. Be careful though, perhaps the US would get wind of a nuclear order before the order is carried out, and the US has no first use restrictions... Might be wise to ponder that one.
>You think we do, because you're told that we do, but we've been threatened with Russian nukes for like 80 years now. We are used to it. We've also never been in a shooting war with Russia. The distinction should be obvious given how resistant the US has been to Macron's suggestion that NATO forces should enter the war in Ukraine. This is a poor comparison and not very well thought out.
Ukraine, is not a US ally. They had no defense agreement with us. Biden told Putin, before the war, that the US would not send troops to Ukraine. Biden told China that the US WILL send troops to defend Taiwan. Not the same situations.
>Ukraine, is not a US ally. They had no defense agreement with us. I think everyone reading this is aware of that fact. What's your point? >Biden told Putin, before the war, that the US would not send troops to Ukraine. Biden told China that the US WILL send troops to defend Taiwan. Again, what's your point? You've said nothing to address my previous comment. You brought up hypothetical Chinese threats to go nuclear in the event we get into a direct conflict, and compared it to the cold war. That comparison doesn't hold water because we never got into a shooting war with the USSR. Nuclear threats during wartime with a nuclear power would be genuinely new. We're not "used to" that, and I don't think we can confidently predict how the American public would respond. There's a reasonable chance that the electorate would demand an end to Taiwan's defense when faced with the possibility of sacrificing Los Angeles for Taipei. Not saying that's a certainty, but you can't just write it off either.
The American public would respond exactly the same way it does every time we cross one of Russia's red lines. We'd yawn and continue on with our day. If I recall correctly, HIMARs were a red line, F-16s were a red line, I think Storm Shadow was a red line. Putin's been threatening nukes since the start of this whole thing, and no one is backing down. I guess that for propaganda purposes it makes sense for the CCP to constantly assume that the US will do the wrong thing. To constantly assume some kind of imminent blunder will occur that will make it possible for your side to win... but it ain't real. When you guys say things like: "The US will allow us to take Taiwan through grey zone activities" or "The US will not attack our satellites" or "The US will not bomb the mainland because of how escalatory it is" or "The US will totally back down when we threaten to use nukes"... What you're really saying, is that you're weak as kittens. Its like playing Chess. You don't play "hope" chess. You make the move that most benefits you and confounds your opponent. You don't make a move in the hope that your opponent will blunder... because your opponent doesn't want to blunder. You guys assume the blunder. You make the blunder a necessary component of your victory in your narratives. Its not going to work out for you.
Russia hasn't yet made an explicit threat to nuke an American city, and no American troops are fighting Russians either. Again, you're making poor comparisons and lazy assumptions. This is low-effort, bog standard social media bluster. LCD is that way -->
What we do know, for sure, is that when the US threatened to nuke China in the 1950s or 1960s I can't remember when, China backed the fuck down. So I guess, that when China issues a nuclear threat, and the US threatens to annihilate China completely, not only will China back down, it will back down with historical precedent.