US Navy destroyer shoots down an ICBM in milestone test
defensenews.com
defensenews.com
So this demonstration looks likely a response to that, not specifically about WMD threats this time
Probably both these tests were under ideal conditions, as usual, but they're about sending a message as much as anything practical
[0] https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2020/02/sm-3-block-iia-...
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37662/chinese-long-ran...
How often would a carrier get shot on the deck? Would the carriers be farther back than other ships?
To your actual question, if you look at the Battle of Midway at least the Akagi was fatally struck on the deck — carriers today are significantly more advanced in both technology as well as doctrine than those, though.
Along with the Soryu, Hiryu and Kaga!
Afaik the “carrier debate” is the argument among navy nerds. I certainly don’t know enough to comment one way or the other. But my take is that if we’re in a real war with someone who can credibly sink a carrier group, a much more important concern is going to be how to restore civilization from the ashes.
The Japanese (3 of them) were caught with fuel and bombs being loaded onto planes in the hangar deck on top of already poor damage control.
The Yorktown on the other hand, had better construction and excellent damage control.
Commonly enough for people to plan for it before dive bombers became a thing. After the gunnery advancements of the early 20th century, engagement ranges could be long enough for plunging fire. Battleship shells coming down at 40° off vertical aren't that different than an AP bomb.
That's not to say that these defences were sufficient. Battleships were designed with an "immunity zone" - a range where incoming fire of the designed caliber (generally the same caliber as the main battery) would be at a high enough angle and low enough velocity to fail to penetrate your belt armor, and shallow enough angle to not defeat the relevant deck armor. 2000lb AP bombs at terminal velocity were very much not within the design specifications.
> carriers today are significantly more advanced in both technology as well as doctrine than those, though.
For that matter, even other carriers in that same battle show that damage control by a carrier against bomb hits was possible - the Yorktown survived several bomb and aerial torpedo hits before eventually being sunk by a submarine. She was able to make sufficient repairs to launch fighters again after the first set of bomb hits, too.
Modern carriers are probably better represented by the Yorktown than the Akagi, but no one will really know for sure until the shooting starts.
Did you accidentally switch belt and deck armor? Isn't deck the one protecting from high angle and low velocity, and belt armor protecting from shallow angles?
Which means that the belt armor is most effective at max range (though also the least likely to be hit) - shells coming in at 45° will bounce right off. And deck armor is best up close - 5° down angle is going to come up against quite a few feet of metal before managing to penetrate the handful of inches of thickness you could fit in a deck.
The trick to an immunity zone is to find the balance between the two.
If modern carriers have the same quality of damage control as previous ones, they should be able to survive some hits; we can see from WWII how carriers were able to survive hits by kamikaze aircraft carrying a lot more explosives than one of the Exocet missiles used in the Falklands war
Aircraft carriers are great if you need to project force into a territory occupied by groups over which you have superiority. Against an enemy with state of the art anti-ship missiles deployed along the coast, modern radar and satellite capabilities, all bets are foo.
Some people think in such a conflict, aircraft carriers are overpriced targets that can be disabled or even sunk in the first hours of a conflict for the cost of a few missiles and a few light ships to launch them. IIRC a red team managed to disable most of the US Navy in that fashion in an exercise a few years ago.
There are countermeasures deployed, several layers of them, and missiles have counter-counter measures. Only very few are actually deployed and really tested on the field.
We know in good conditions, they work, on some missiles. In a real conflict, how many will they stop? 100%? 99%? 50%? 20%? How well can missile decoys fool countermeasures? What hidden tricks have different sides kept in their sleeves in preparation?
We will learn it on a very fateful day that could either see the record on tonnage sunk on a single day or a very fast conflict deescalation from the attacking side (assuming US would be the defending one, credible in the case of China)
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25904/china-wants-u-s-...
Very regular modern antiship missiles have very good chance overwhelming the carrier formation defences.
Like you said - maybe anti-missile countermeasures can deter a missile. Or two. Or a dozen. But what if you have flotilla of cheap corvettes and frigates slinging swarms of hypersonic missiles at your valuable CBG?
The Kalibr and Oniks missiles are already available for sale if I'm not mistaken, and there is intention to sell the hypersonic Zirkon too.
But the most likely wars are not ones of nuclear powers marching onto another's capital, but instead wars over bordering countries. Neither Russia nor the US would escalate an invasion of the Baltic's, Neither China nor the US would escalate an invasion of Taiwan.
Both of these hypothetical wars are potential conflicts because a victory for Russia and China in those conflicts would be extremely advantageous and desirable to the point that even a very low risk of nuclear esculation would be worth it to them.
I highly doubt it. Baltic states are part of NATO, assuming Russia blitzkriegs them (it's a really HUGE assumption since they have relatively little geopolitical or economical value for Russia, the Suwalki corridor would be nice to have, but not considering the associated risks), leaving occupation unanswered will mean that US leadership position in the world (together with NATO) will be effectively dead. So further escalation will be practically imminent.
I think China's invasion of Taiwan will not be left unanswered as well, in addition to the huge reputation hit similar to the scenario with Baltic states, Taiwan has a big geopolitical (cornerstone of the first island chain) and economical value (not only TSMC) for the US. Further escalation is highly probable as well. A contained clash could've happened in the South China sea, but since China got entrenched there, the US Navy got quite careful to not overstep itself in this region. And this balance will continue to tilt only further to China's favor.
A limited conflict could in theory happen with a limited invasion of Russia, since its current nuclear doctrine is quite defensive (esp. compared to the US'), but the "threatens the existence of the state" condition is a bit vague, so assuming that Russia will use all its available military to defend itself, it will either drive invading forces out using conventional means (which would include counter-attacks on "decision centers"), or in the end will use nuclear weapons.
But Putin's plan appears to be to destabilise the EU from within by promoting extremist far-right governments with more or less obvious Russian influence and anti-EU sentiments.
See also Brexit, Poland, Hungary, and the Ukraine, and the - so far - less effective far right movements being promoted in France, Italy, Portugal, and so on.
This is much cheaper and more effective than sending in the tanks. You can promote regime change with a few social media troll factories and by buying or otherwise persuading local politicians.
It's not a coincidence that the threat of a hypothetical EU army was one of the main pro-Brexit talking points sold to British racists, or that significant funding for Brexit came from Russia.
As for goals - for Russia it's partly about revenge, and partly about the destruction of Western liberal values. Putin has said as much in public on a number of occasions.
The almighty Russian meddling can only tip public opinion a bit in the desired direction, but can not create it from nothing.
To not repeat myself, I will simply link my old comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23743786
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_involvement_in_the_Syr...
He will seek a different opening. Passing birdies keep telling me that's Balkans.
Balkans also have a little of value for Russia in the current state. A more interesting target would be to take control over Georgia or Azerbaijan (not necessary using military means), to establish a better control over oil and gas routes from the Middle Asia.
But a more realistic, much more valuable and easier target is the south-east Ukraine. If degradation of the Ukrainian state institutions continues with the current speed and the ongoing cold civil war will not be cooled down by a more sensible cultural and language policies, I will not be surprised to see in 5-15 years a full collapse of the state, significant social and economic instability, with breakaway regions following the Yugoslavia scenario, some of which will fall under the Russian "protectorate" for gradual later integration. We already can see early signs of it in the results of municipal polls, weak central government, and totally unprofessional behavior of the "elites" (who in the *#!? right mind spends most of money from the COVID fund on road construction and other non-medical goals?! who launches a full-blown constitutional crisis using clearly unconstitutional means instead of slightly tweaking the law in question or trying to engineer a constitutional reform to restart the corrupted constitutional court? who pays a ton of money to "anti-corruption" departments which after working several years haven't return a dime to the budget? who effectively strangles small businesses when they are already hit by the pandemic? etc. and etc.).
When it comes to a shooting war though, the US Navy has an entirely separate war-time sub fleet. The carrier fleets would back off to a safe distance and provide logistic support until the subs and bombers decapitated enemy weapon and radar systems, and air superiority could be established. Then the carriers could move in to provide close air support missions and targeted air strikes.
The US Military is ultimately reliant on naval domination for its logistics, and it's naval domination requires carriers and large surface vessels as submarines can't do area denial. If the US military loses that ability, it can't secure its supply chain, and it will be crippled.
The unopposed aircraft carrier caused an anomaly where the US was able to have supply chains of infinite sizes without any issues. If the current threat materializes, then the US Military Doctrine for force projection crumbles.
So far it's maybe remotely plausible in the second American Civil War, because no foreign enemy yet posses this capacity. No stealth bombers, and no hypersonic cruise missiles.
Otherwise yes a lot of hypothetical tech that can disable carrier fleet. Photon torpedoes, Yuri's mind control, genetically modified Krakens..
Bottom line is that carrier groups are already sitting targets and unlikely to last long in a superpower conflict.
Is a goon-swarm free-for-all really the future ruler of the seas?
This is not a viable technique in 2020.
Also, the Russian 3M22 Hypersonic Cruise missile is in testing as of today, so they definitely do have one. China is also working on it.
It seems to me that you're seriously overestimating the technological lead of the US.
10 000km is a very long distance.
And of course, air bases closer to the theater will be bombarded using missiles, and thus the US would be deprived of air support.
The US Navy has...10? nuclear supercarriers in service (IIRC there is a Ford becoming active soon and another in construction, but a Nimitz or two scheduled for retirement).
Plus the gator navy has more non-nuclear amphibious assault ships that are arguably carriers in all but name (and also arguably at close to if not equal to other nations' dedicated carriers)
Are so many carriers needed?
All this revolves around the fact that launching and relaunching aircraft takes a lot of real estate, whether on land or on a floating metal island. Until there's a replacement everything that combat aircraft can do, maybe autonomous missile swarms that you can fire at a region and forget because they're intelligent enough to pick targets without someone in a plane handing them targeting info, then carriers will continue to be necessary.
Also, radar and wireless equipment powerful and sophisticated enough to detect and flag targets while bombarded with ECM is much more expensive than the missiles and we currently can't make enough of them to send on one way missions.
And while the US Navy is effectively like...the third? largest "air force" in the world, the very few other countries that even have fixed wing carrier naval aviation assets to begin with would be lucky to have a few dozen fighters at most.
I see most carrier projects as a prestige item at this point. They aren't completely useless (yet), but I don't think their return on value during an active shooting war against a peer state is worth it.
If South Korea was serious about using their proposed carriers in the manner you mention, they'd be replacing their remaining F-35A order with F-35Bs.
China is also in a position where it can use carriers like how the US uses them - as a big stick to punish third world countries that can't fight back. Most other countries aren't in that position.
Don't get me wrong, carriers absolutely have their downsides. They are very expensive, and if they are hit it will take them out of action (but not necessarily sink them, carriers can take a lot more punishment than you would think). A proper airbase on the other hand is cheaper, and can be repaired fairly easily and quickly if struck. It's also a much easier target since its location is known in advance and it isn't mobile. A good balance would be a series of small ad-hoc bases distributed around, like the Swedish Bas90 system or the USMC expeditionary advanced base concept, though both have their drawbacks.
In short, I don't think there's a decent replacement for the carrier if you need to carry out offensive operations. And I'd note that China, while developing some very advanced long-range anti-ship missiles, is also working very hard to develop their own carrier fleet, so the PLAN doesn't seem to think the idea is outdated yet.
Some interesting reads on the ideas of the future of carrier warfare: https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/CVW_Report_Web_1.pd... and https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/...
"After the war game was restarted, its participants were forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. Among other rules imposed by this script, Red Force was ordered to turn on their anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be destroyed, and was not allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
So yeah lots of the big ships might not be that useful in a present-day conflict if they can get destroyed by suicide-attack boats. Of course that puts the whole need for the amount of military funding/pork into question and that makes the military-industrial-congressional complex very nervous.
- It was 18 years ago. Deployments, new technologies, RCA's and congressional studies have impacted the current military force in substantial ways. A lot has happened since then.
- US FoF exercises are largely augmented during runtime to simulate "unforseen" battlefield conditions. The purpose of these rules/scripts/interjections is to artificially insert some degree of randomness into the scenario that demonstrates the individual/leadership's ability to react.
- A large component of US FoF exercises, plans, and results and analysis are classified. Though admirable, the Wikipedia article pulls its sources from secondary sources at best.
Nukes are so taboo, that so long as you don’t push too hard, you can get away with a lot.
I do think that drone carriers will be the future. A single command fighter alongside dozens of drones that do most of the fighting.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200303183928/https://www.usni....
Since then, it seems like his warning fell on deaf ears. His most recent article indicates they're still proceeding with building even more aircraft carriers.
Any fixed base has little to no chance surviving modern war. As demonstrated by Iran in the Saudi oil field attack, even a country which has been economically isolated for decades can develop accurate cruise missiles which can devastate a known coordinate.
At least a carrier can move 50 km/h, meaning that you need a sophisticated kill chain in order to hit it. Where as a fixed coordinate could have been pre-targeted years ago, and just waiting to be destroyed.
US wargaming had repeatedly found that escalation to nuclear exchanges is all but a given if serious attempts are made by either side to destroy naval and air base capability, and it's safe to assume their PLA counterparts reached similar conclusions.
As an example, in a Chinese move against Taiwan or Japan, anything that crossed into attack range would get destroyed, but there would be no counter-attacks against Chinese facilities and bases. Does that play out in reality? Let's hope we don't find out.
I think this is the key asymmetry in a US-China war, and whether US aircraft carriers can be sunk or not is irrelevant. At the end of the day, a carrier is a floating air base, and both China and the US need aircraft to provide targeting data for their munitions. In a sense Chinese airstrips are even more vulnerable to missile strikes as they can't move or hide, yet they can't be attacked because that could invite nuclear escalation. If sinking a US aircraft carrier posed the same risk of nuclear escalation would we even be worrying about their vulnerability to missile strikes?
This seems more like a strategic problem than a tactical problem regarding carrier defense. If China is more committed and willing to escalate than the US, then sooner or later there'll be a line where China's willing to cross but the US won't.
China or whomever attacking a carrier to destroy it with anything other than 1945 style surface warfare tactics leads to nuclear war, even if it's not the final decision point. The response to such an attack leads to nuclear war in enough projections.
In the same way, the US should keep strikes on Chinese military facilities on the table. But escalation is much likelier because those facilities are located in civilian areas and near nuclear missile sites. That's a perfect analogue of the strategic asymmetry. China and it's civilian population actually lives in the area. The US is just visiting with military assets, and losing a civilian is a tragedy but losing a member of the military is the job they signed up for.
Seems wasteful, better to have root access (like via X-37b) to them now ahead of time and reroute attacks en route in real time if/when the time comes. Using enemy infrastructure to take out their own seems most efficient.
The whole "Hack A Satellite"[0] partnered with USAF and DDS seems like its leaning operationally in that direction more and more for at least recruitment.
2.) All reconnaissance satellites are in much lower orbits. GEO is 35,786km. Huanjing, PRC's military radar sats, are at 650km. USA-234 is at 1,107km.
It's a pretty hard problem to hit a carrier in the middle of the ocean.
1. It's difficult to locate a carrier group in the vast ocean, even with the help of satellites. The earth's curvature make surface level radars ineffective.
2. A carrier is not a sitting target. The carrier battle group is armed to the teeth to neutralize any threat from air, sea, and underwater within its defense perimeter. Its AWACS can detect objects upto several hundreds miles away.
3. Ships getting close need to overcome the barrage of fire power from the CBG's fighters, missiles, destroyers, and submarines.
4. Aircrafts getting close need to overcome the CBG's air defense - fighters and destroyer's AEGIS system.
5. Submarines are a realistic threat, but USN has lots of experience countering that.
6. Long range cruise missiles fired from outside of the defense perimeter could be a threat, but cruise missiles are slow and can be shot down. Also see 1 for guiding the cruise missiles thousands miles away toward a moving carrier.
7. Hyper sonic cruise missiles are a bigger threat but they have much shorter range. Their firing platforms would be destroyed trying to get close.
8. Ballistic missiles are the new threat but they have their own problems. Target location (see 1). Their terminal radar has a very short time window to locate and lock on the carrier after exiting the descent EM blackout. It takes time to fly to the general area. A 5000 miles/hour missile would take half hour to travel 2500 miles. Meanwhile the carrier is moving away, could be up to dozens of miles away.
U.S. have ballistic missile launching detection mechanism (radars and satellites) that can detect the missile at the moment of the launch.
The SM-3 test adds a new arsenal of defense against the ballistic missiles. It's certain that the laser based defense system probably is being tested or may be have already been deployed.
Edit: realistically drones will be a bigger problem for a CBG going forward.
- You don't need to sink an aircraft carrier to mission kill it. Even one hit to the deck will probably neutralize it's ability to launch/recover aircraft.
- Submarines and satellites are/will be enough to locate surface naval fleets.
- Once you've located your target, you can simply overwhelm it's defenses with massive missile barrage. Whether the missiles are ballistic, hypersonic, or traditional sea skimming AShm doesn't matter. The economics are in the attackers favor. Defenders must target each incoming with multiple anti missiles, and can only carry so many. The enemy will simply win by sheer numbers as they have no practical carrying capacity.
It seems pretty clear that carriers would need to be far, far away from any near peer adversary in a shooting war. At least until enemy subs and satellites are out of the picture. Even then you risk ballistic missile attack from the Chinese interior if your location is somehow discovered.
Satellites are very good at focusing at narrow strips of area. Searching over a wide angle of field of vision still is a hard problem.
You have to get close to the CBG to start the overwhelming campaign. The delivery platforms are likely to be destroyed long before they get close enough.
The CBG itself has a massive arsenal. It can deliver its own overwhelming firing. Besides carrying planes the carrier is a huge missile firing platform.
Not anymore, see ballistic anti ship missiles (range ~ 1800 miles), long range bombers equipped with long range missiles, and long range hypersonic missiles likely spotted on their long range bombers:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37662/chinese-long-ran...
https://twitter.com/tshugart3/status/991832711013728256/phot...
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37465/new-images-of-ch...
> The CBG itself has a massive arsenal. It can deliver its own overwhelming firing. Besides carrying planes the carrier is a huge missile firing platform.
You can fit more missiles on the continent than you can on ships. That's really the end of the argument.
Moreover, the Chinese test was an intermediate range missile, not an ICBM. The scenario tested here is more like NK taking a single shot at the west coast.
EDIT: I'm not saying the US should ever go to war with North Korea, only that there is no possible outcome where North Korea goes to war with the US that does not result in the total decapitation of military capacity of North Korea. It would be like when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor to "demoralize the American people". It just doesn't work that way.
Easy to claim what "a sane person" would do from the arrogant POV of a western average citizen, but reality looks very different.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/06/19/the-general-an...
I've even had people on HN arguing with me that such a war was the "rational" thing to do - which I found rather disturbing, to say the least.
War was desired by all parties - at least in the beginning. People celebrated when war started - look up archive photos and movies. Everybody thought that they'll have a nice fight, down a beer at the pub afterwards and be home by Christmas - effectively rehashing the last Prussian war 30 years before.
What nobody perceived at that time is technology changed enough to make the war catastrophic, and it took 2 world wars for that perception to sink in.
Humans don't reason, they rationalize.
The US had already effectively declared war on the US at that point from the point of view of Japan. They'd demanded an unconditional withdrawal from China.
There's some alternate history where Russia never sold Alaska and Japan military bases there. What do you think if the US had done in 1941 if Japan demanded it withdraw from the "occupied" territory West of the Mississippi and return it to native control, while amassing a fleet in Russian/Japanese Alaska?
Furthermore, maybe Japan just wanted the US withdrawn from New Mexico & Nevada[2] (post 1937 occupied territories), but left the demand delibirately ambiguous so as to suggest everything west of the Mississippi (Manchuria)[2] (search for "was later deleted").
I'm not suggesting those are morally equivalent, but merely that Japan at the time pretty much saw it that way. Manchuria was around half of the empire's territory.
So suggesting that Perl Harbor wasn't reasonable is a pretty big stretch. Unless one of your options is to effectively become a vassal state of the US (unconditionally abandon >50% of your territory) war was inevitable.
At that point they could either take the initiative at Perl Harbor, or wait until the US attacked them at its leisure.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Diploma...
There's no way to paint the conflict in the region as justified. The Japanese were clearly seeking to expand their empire, after having tasted victory defeating Imperial Russia. Just because countries stood in their way doesn't justify their actions, and simplifying it down to fighting Mike Tyson isn't very critical thinking.
I'm not suggesting anything about Japan's moral right to engage in those campaigns.
I'm replying to fatbird's upthread comment to the effect that a general in the Empire of Japan could realistically decide on either of "how about we let them attack first?" or "how about we just do what they're suggesting for nothing in return, and stop being such dicks to everyone?".
Which is essentially what the suggestion that the attack on Perl Harbor wasn't "rational" from the Japanese perspective amounts to.
The whole problem of how they ended up in the situation that culminated with their defeat in WWII is pretty much that no one person could steer them off the course of inevitable destruction.
So a general deciding to attack Perl Harbor is making the best and most rational decision he can make and has power to make, within a framework of decision making that amounts to steering the country into the iceberg.
I do take back that they would have become a "vassal state of the US". Vassal states get something tangible in return, the US wasn't offering anything except implied war and destruction in return for unconditional demands. I think "puppet state" or "satellite state" is a more apt description in that context.
The Japanese military establishment in the 1930's was hellbent on expanding their influence. They had defeated Imperial Russia, and felt like it was their time in the sun. They had complete dominance over the government, and chose, yes chose to undertake a path of aggression towards their neighbors. First they started with Manchuria, and installed a puppet government. Then they moved on China.
Unsurprisingly, this provoked concern amongst other countries that had interests in the region. The Dutch (Indonesia), the British (Singapore and Malaysia), and the US (Philippines) realized the threat posed by the expanding Japanese empire. At the time the US was still in the midst of the Great Depression and was in no state to challenge Japan militarily, so they used an oil embargo to try and persuade the Japanese to adhere to international agreements.
It wasn't until 1941 that the US cut off oil to Japan. At this point, Japan had already invaded and controlled Manchuria, invaded and controlled a majority of China. When Japan seized control of Indochina, the US and allies attempted to influence Japan to leave Indochina by seizing US held assets, and embargoing oil. Japan had anticipated this and began a regional war attacking both the US, Dutch and UK territories.
You seem to imply that these things just "happen" and that no one is in control or making decisions. While history often seems to have an impetus of its own, it's the result of choices leaders and people make. Tojo and his warmongers sought out conflict in the region, dismissed counsel from wiser heads, and set Japan on a course to ruin.
Hirohito made a choice to continue to allow the militarist factions in the Japanese government to hold sway. But to point to the day the go ahead was given to Isoroku Yamamoto as the crux of the issue is to miss the point; he holds responsibility, as did the other military leaders and the Emperor. They knew the risks when they invaded Indochina; they knew the latent power of the US, but they underestimated their foes, and overestimated their own ability to wage war.
Attacking Pearl Harbor was irrational, both in hindsight, but also in terms of what the Japanese knew at the time. It was less than a year before the IJN began to experience catastrophic losses, and after Guadalcanal, there IJN was on its back foot for the rest of the war.
What could Japan have done differently? They could have restrained themselves from invading Indochina and prompting the expect oil embargo. If that wasn't feasible, they could have relinquished control of Indochina, though that would have caused a tremendous loss of face. They could have attacked and invaded the Dutch East Indies to gain oil, and odds are the US wouldn't have gotten involved. Great Britain was pretty busy with fighting Germany at the time and wouldn't have been able to help the Dutch much. If they did, the Japanese would easily defeat them in Singapore, as they did on Dec 8th.
The isolationist sentiment in the US at the time wouldn't have allowed the US to intervene. We weren't intervening in the European war, despite Lend-Lease, and sure wouldn't have intervened in Asia unless directly attacked.
Uh, no, I did not imply that in the least.
I think you're just on some rant against a strawman view that the Empire of Japan wasn't militaristic or an aggressor nation in Manchuria or Pearl Harbor / WWII.
I didn't suggest anything of the sort, I was merely replying to the narrow question of whether an admiral on Isoroku Yamamoto's staff could be considered irrational for going along with the Pearl Harbor attack.
I don't think that's the case for exactly the reasons you seem to agree with and are arguing for.
What options do you think an admiral who's not in a senior role has in the Empire of Japan at the time when, as you've noted, his boss's-boss's and boss's-boss's-boss's etc. are clearly in favor of that general strategy?
The idea that the Hull note was perceived as a casus belli isn't some fringe conspiracy theory. If you e.g. read the Wikipedia articles involved such as [1] and [2] they cite scholars who agree (and others who disagree) with that view.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_note#Interpretations
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_o...
<demanded unconditional withdrawal from China.>
This is factually incorrect. The goal of the oil embargo was to get Japan out of Indochina, not China or Manchuria. Japan could have finessed this by installing a puppet regime (ala Manchuko), but their arrogance wouldn't allow that.
Now you move from
<a general deciding to attack Perl(sic) Harbor is making the best and most rational decision>
to
<an admiral who's not in a senior role has in the Empire of Japan>
Yamato is the architect of both the tactical plan of attacking Pearl Harbor, as well as the strategy of reducing American seapower (by attacking PH) and then defeating them in a decisive battle (Midway). He's not some lower ranking officer, he's the intellectual and martial spirit of the IJN.
This also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the power and influence of Yamamoto. Yamamoto was the most powerful officer in the IJN, and also had tremendous influence with the Imperial Family. Yamamoto could have used this influence earlier, to moderate Tojo's ambitions, and to avoid conflict with the US. He knew that Japan could never defeat the US over time, but still acted irrationally in a way that failed Japan.
You're also confused about the timing of the oil embargo, and the Hull note. The oil embargo (along with other trade restrictions and confiscation of Japanese assets) began immediately in July 41 after the Japanese began to make obvious preparations to attack either the British in Malaya, or the Dutch in the East Indies.
The Hull note was a last ditch attempt in late November to forestall war. At this point, war was inevitable; the attack on Pearl Harbor had been planned since Spring of 41, and the Kido Butai had already departed before the Hull note was sent.
Where did I mention anything about the oil embargo? You're the one who brought that up, and now you're arguing with yourself.
The historians who are of the opinion that the Hull note amounts to a declaration of war aren't talking about the aspect of it that relates to oil.
Nobody thinks a refusal to trade goods amounts to a declaration of war, rather the part where the US implicitly threatens "or else" if Japan doesn't sign on to some version of a wide ranging policy agreement it didn't find palatable.
> Yamamoto was the most powerful officer in the IJN, and also had tremendous influence with the Imperial Family.
It sounds like you're in agreement with my point then.
This whole thread is about the supposed irrationality of Japanese admirals subservient to Yamamoto. Not about what Yamamoto could have done.
I invite you to re-read fatbird's upthreads comment while you're looking for some place where I directly or indirectly mentioned anything about oil (I didn't), I.e.:
> "The Japanese generals and admirals agreed to the attack on Pearl Harbour despite the admiral leading it[...]"
You lost me here.
The broad framework of Communist states at the time was establishing world dominance through force and persuasion, although they couldn't agree on the exact pace and methods. NK was in this respect not an outlier, the Kim v1 likely seeing his role in the new world order less marginal than ruling half a peninsula. In particular, anti-Japan sentiment was and still is cultivated throughout society. In 2020 it can not be ascribed to realistic self-preservation interest.
And in either case, the very fact they do have ideology means a lot. Certain decisions are going to be made not due to strategic and personal interest but to an abstract rulebook not necessarily in sync with reality. Therein lies a huge danger not covered by assumptions of rational actor model.
Without anything motivating themselves besides just trying to survive, the motivation of everyone to fight is very low. That doesn’t make for a good dedicated army. Most NK soldiers would surrender as soon as they could.
On the other hand, it does feel threatened, and having a dangerous weapon and acting reckless keeps possible attackers at bay.
But if an all-out war between NK and the US started, it would be started by the only ones who can possibly think of winning it, that is the US.
This is, after all, what American presidents have been doing for the past few decades.
1. NK is not expansionary.
2. NK has nukes. US does not want anyone to use nukes, even a little one.
3. Any attack on NK means many deaths in SK.
4. Bad press.
I"m pretty sure though that a determined effort to overthrow NK by sneakier means would move the needle a lot.
E.g. making small scale incursions, or military maneuvers that 'mistakenly'cross the border by about 10 km, but now we refuse to budge.
oops we landed on this small shoreline here, but we'd like to stay.
What, You're all starving? We sent a massive peace mission backed by unarmed troops, and lots of food - win hearts and minds.
Basically play a constant game of chicken with them, call their bluff and needle the regime whilst taking chunks of territory at the same time.
It might soften the border enough and cause so much stress to the regime that it collapses by itself.
Yes, winning at politics requires some skill and intellect, but it doesn't mean that the winning actor is intellectual or rational.
MAD works because everyone knows that starting or joining a nuclear firefight is literally suicide. What would compel them to fire if they're clearly not being targeted?
The book The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel describes such a scenario.
Chilling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light_(novel)
And, of course, for cases of a war starting because of a false belief that they were about to be attacked there is the real life case of Able Archer 83:
A thinking that they can win: Tojikistan, Karabag, Transnistria, Georgia, Donbas, Crimea, Syria, Libya — all set a very damning precedent of the West conceding to use of force.
Also everyone knows that the US is both highly militaristic and highly jingoistic.
Also ++ for the use of jingoistic. :)
That was certainly true up through the early 2000s, but this stereotype is by now out of date. On the left, America is self-loathing, and on the right it's become quite isolationist.
It depends on the specifics, of course. If a specific country directly attacked the US, of course I'd expect (and even demand) a military response. But these days, I wouldn't expect a non-state's terrorist attack to lead to the sort of misguided, ill-informed adventurism that ultimately led us to invade Iraq.
Terrorist attacks like 9/11 leave doubt about who to go after and at what scale to retaliate but a clear attack on a city by a foreign state as an act of war is a different thing. Gloves would come off and the complete full force of every resource ( military, political, economic, etc ) would be brought to bear.
See also: Korean War, where Chinese intervened to stop the US-allied South from winning against the North.
You remember Kim's brother VXed in Malaysia? He was China's bid on NK throne. China was trying to launch a coup in NK.
China been trying to seize power in NK for decades.
NK-China relations are complicated ones. China wants NK, but is afraid of losing NK if their machinations flop, and push the NK towards the West.
If China decides to shoot back, all bets are off. It would be exactly the error the Japanese made when they attacked Pearl Harbor and thought they can get away with it. That would directly affect the West and our leaders could not say anymore "will be fine, we're taking the high road here" unless they want to be lynched by a mob.
>A thinking that they can win
The only way to talk about war is to be prepared to understand 'the other side' of your argument. In this case, you're setting yourself up to have to answer the question: in the 21st century, which nation state has started the most wars, committed violent hostilities, and murdered innocent citizens at massive scales, the most?
That's unlikely to be the scenario. The big problem for China is that they're responsible for the current North Korea regime existing. China has been directly, intentionally propping up and protecting North Korea from day one. The American people will not find it acceptable to exchange Pyongyang for Los Angeles or New York, much less trade several of North Korea's cities for several major US cities.
The American public would demand a nuclear strike against China in retaliation, a more equitable outcome - Shanghai for Los Angeles, Beijing for New York - for those ultimately responsible for what North Korea is today.
That's where hundreds of millions of people could die from a North Korean strike. It's why China should have never enabled and tolerated the Kim regime in the first place, and now it's too late to fix that historic blunder. Any nuclear strike from North Korea will likely result in a nuclear strike against China.
This is equivalent to the Israeli Samson option (which is why you don't want Iran getting nukes).
If the US goes down - eg loses its top 30 cities - why shouldn't it take every Chinese and Russian city with it? Try convincing the American public to not want revenge against anyone that has ever assisted North Korea.
It's also notable that the USA has also tolerated the Kim regime, because it gives them an excuse to be present in force in South Korea. It's not like the CIA couldn't have the Kims removed if they put some effort into it. PRC would have to pretend to be angry about it, but it would also get them out of the awkward situation.
Unfortunately, the stable genius in the WH does.
Which part of this is the President "trying" and the Iranians "declining"?
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/21/734683701/trump-reportedly-or...
He's probably the only Commander-in-Chief I've had so far to say "I don't think it's proportionate to bomb a bunch of people because we lost a drone."
Iran responded with a carefully-targeted retaliation - a small missile strike against an unused/unmaintained US military installation in Iraq. There were no casualties.
Iran chose a target with low strategic value and no personnel present. Just enough of a strike that they could sell it as retaliation, but not enough of a strike to escalate into a full war.
I won't pretend to know if the assassination was warranted or necessary. But it's easily something that Iran could have used to justify a war.
This... doesn't seem likely.
> If the US goes down - eg loses its top 30 cities - why shouldn't it take every Chinese and Russian city with it? Try convincing the American public to not want revenge against anyone that has ever assisted North Korea.
Okay, I see where you're coming from, but this was not the scenario being discussed. The scenario presented was "NK lobs a single nuke at Los Angeles." The expected response is closer to "US decapitates NK before they can fire any more, everybody shits their pants, but no additional nukes are fired."
Decapitating NK in one fell swoop might be possible... decapitating China is highly unlikely. The US should therefore not initiate firing nukes at China unless a substantial number of US cities have already been hit, because doing so would all but guarantee that those cities would be hit by China in the next volley.
A ballistic launch towards NK looks an awful lot like a ballistic launch towards China, is the problem there. Will China "wait and see" where it lands?
In this case, the context would be:
"Holy shit guys, NK just launched a rocket that looks like it's headed for LA!"
[3 minutes later]
"And now the US just launched 14 rockets, and they might be headed for us, but they're probably headed for NK."
China's best option is to wait and see, because if they decide to fire, and were wrong about China being targeted, they'll see another round of launches three minutes after that one, and those will be headed for China.
They've played this all out. MAD really does work.
China doesn't want to enter WWIII any more than the US does. And the US response to an NK attack is very predictable.
Any strike on NK has to decapitate it instantly, or the conventional artillery along the border will pound Seoul into rubble in the meantime. Ballpark figures are 10,000 pieces, some dug in, some mobile, each capable of firing 10kg high explosive and keeping it coming until their ammunition runs out. It's a hard problem for any military planner.
If the SK capital was on their south coast and it was only farmland within artillery range of the border than NK would be an easy problem to solve (obviously if that were the case NK would have developed other weapons to compensate). Notwithstanding China of course.
You would also need to somehow move your DMZ-overrunning force into position without that manoeuvre itself triggering the artillery bombardment.
A prospect of USA trying to win a land war in China is mind boggling, and equally so for China launching a land operation in the USA.
It’s my understanding that they have designed and produced only fission weapons. I’ve never heard a single piece of information ever that suggests that they can, could, or would produce a fusion bomb.
“possible, even likely” in the context of a DPRK fusion bomb, given what I have seen and read thus far, seems like complete fantasy to me. Do you know something I don’t?
The first ever (and presumably smallest?) one the US ever did ("Ivy Mike") was two orders of magnitude larger than that (~10MT).
There is no question that the DPRK has fission weapons, but ojbyrne asserted a thermonuclear attack, which I have never seen any indication is within the present or predictable future capabilities of the DPRK.
Oh, hang on. It would appear the DPRK has actually made this claim, according to WP, but it seems to be disputed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon#North_Kor...
Yes, and in fact most thermonuclear devices nowadays are in that range as its more efficient than a smaller number of megaton range bombs. Eg the most common US warhead (fitted to Trident) is the 100 kiloton W76 and each Trident missile can carry 14 of them, each independently targeted.
That doesn't seem smart at all. I think that a nuclear explosion on the ocean, right in front of a major city (NY, LA) but at safe distance, would be a better start. It provides the same amount of threat with no victims and no pressing need for blind retaliation.
What NK needs is to make clear that the cost of attacking it can be unsustainably high, while provoking the least possible response.
NK doesn't need to fire anywhere close to the US in order to do this. We're already watching them, and for the most part, they've already made it clear that attacking them might cost us a city or two.
Putting on a nuclear waterworks in front of Los Angeles would be psychotically risky, because the US would need to decide whether or not to return fire before the US target is known. "Vaguely near Los Angeles" might as well be Los Angeles because of measurement uncertainties, late-stage course corrections, and MIRVs.
As usual, the winning move is not to fire anything that might be construed as a nuke towards any of your enemies, unless you are prepared to die.
The most realistic, and highest success chance scenario is that North Korea will coordinate attack with China.
In all conceivable scenarios, NATO will have more resources even after 100% one sided nuclear attack on it (3000-4000 warheads,) and be able to subdue both China, and NK with conventional forces, and standing armies alone.
Not to say, China's neighbours will not stand still too.
Even a whatever pyrrhic victory will likely be the end of political regimes in both NK, and China.
If they will attack, they will weight in that price first.
If China does support NK in such a situation, that support would be limited to things which are entirely deniable- material and perhaps some light cyberwarfare. Certainly no extra ICBMs, and nothing that would stop the U.S. from rolling over NK in short order (for all that it certainly increase the cost for the U.S.)
It would be extremely disruptive to the region which would result in opportunities to use the Chinese army to make gains on disputed territories while the world was occupied with the big war elsewhere. I did not say this was likely.
In all scenarios I see, it will work the other way around. I doubt that NK military would move a centimetre without Beijing's explicit authorisation.
In any big war, China will use NK as a cannon fodder.
Chauschesku was bas a bastard, bit it was their bastard, unlike Enver Hoxha.
To all outside observers, this looks like North Korea did it. But Beijing is now turned to glass, and the Chinese command is transferred to the military division in Chengdu. The world is tense, as it awaits China’s retaliation.
However, China doesn’t fall for the bait. They begin their investigations in earnest, and discover the true mastermind behind the nuclear attack: The United States.
World War 3 begins. China launches 1000 ICBM missiles at the United States. Thus ending all known life as we know it on American soil. The American military counterattacks and launches all their nukes at China. Both sides are turned to glass.
The world gasps at what just happened. Russia now proceeds to take over the world. Well played.
The most realistic scenario is that the nukes are not used to initiate an attack. They are there for defense, not to start a war.
You don't need to defend your ballistic missiles if you already fired them.
Ballistic missiles are an inherently offensive weapon.
By making the chance that someone would even be willing to attack you a lot lower. MAD is a defensive strategy, not offensive.
South Korea would obviously wants support from the US and the rest of the world, but I'm pretty sure they can flatten North Korea right back if they're fired upon.
As crazy as North Korea is, if they fire first, South Korea isn't just a sitting duck.
North Korea would probably be obliterated just from South Korea hitting back, let alone if anyone else allied to South Korea jumps in.
Micro scale MAD. North Korea is just grandstanding for food, it doesn't really mean that they will follow through. I mean, they're a dictatorship, so who knows.
If China will say "jump" to Kim, he will, for as long as the physical security of Kim's family is provided (which is pretty much the one, and only carrot China been using with them)
There's no doubt the US and allies will be victorious, barring massive strategic blunders, but there's also no way to prevent horrific levels of destruction.
To say nothing of China stepping in and kicking off WWIII.
No-one is going to start an actual war.
It's naïve to say "we were just trying to make the point X, we didn't think it would escalate" when the actors involved have the resources and incentive to react with interest.
If anything North Korea developing its own nuclear arsenal took war off the table. That was the point, although full-scale war was probably already off the table, but a more limited action to topple the regime probably wasn't.
It's borderline madness to suggest otherwise.
so far, MAD has kept that from happening again. But it's not borderline madness to observe something that definitely actually happened.
A war on the Korean peninsula already happened in the past and it went quite badly for all involved.
Now it is 2020, with very interconnected economies between all involved and with the US, China, Russia, and North Korea having nuclear arsenals. Therefore it is indeed borderline madness to suggest that anyone might decide to start a full out war on the Korean peninsula, it is even more ridiculous to suggest that this might happen "by accident" (like it is ridiculous to suggest that WWI started by accident).
In the real world of today one might look at Chinese-Indian relations. Probably 10s of soldiers on both sides died recently. Are the nukes flying yet? Of course not, no-one is suicidal and both sides won't attempt anything beyond their skirmishes in one or 2 remote valleys.
It's only sensationalist news channels that peddle the risk of war with North Korea.
Hardly. NK nukes don't really change SK's MAD vulnerability calculus; it's more of a factor for the US. I worked with a guy who was present in 2010 during that year's Key Resolve....when the "exercise" suddenly became very real due to the sinking of the Cheonan.[1] He was dialed into the video teleconferences that were held by the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said the ROK military leadership was absolutely furious and was legitimately ready to basically re-start the war, and that it was the USFK Commander (the US military 4-star who would command the fight) who had to talk the ROK generals down from the ledge.
It came up in conversation I think during 2016's Ulchi Freedom Guardian because the NKs were launching ballistic missiles during the exercise and we all experienced a "pucker factor" for a moment because we weren't sure if they were escalating the conflict or not. Then the missile trajectories indicated they'd land in the ocean and we could breathe again. Fun times.
I have no idea how you could read what I wrote and conclude "see nobody was serious". Seems like the worst case of normalcy bias I've ever witnessed on HN.
This is not normalcy bias. This is keeping lucid and realising, as said and repeated, that war in Korea is not a realistic prospect, instead of going all Dr Strangelove after watching to many movies.
Again, the Korean War was painful for all involved at the time. Today war is simply not possible anymore by any assessment of the situation.
The worst thing that could realistically happen in Korea is a collapse of North Korean regime. This could trigger a limited civil war but everyone would have an interest in limiting the fallout, and this is why people tend to be very cautious about any suggestion of effecting "regime change" in the North.
With the caveat that I wasn't the one there, so this is second-hand: Yes, that's how it was communicated to me. The Korean 4-stars were advising restarting the war, and the sole American 4-star to have any say in the matter was the only voice of sanity. I dunno how much of that conversation made it to the South Korean President, so I don't know if he fired anyone afterwards. I'm not sure what the formal process is for the ROK-JCS, USFK, CFC, etc... to make a recommendation to the Korean President, as well as the US President, as well as the United Nations Command. All I know is that if left to their own devices in 2010, the ROK JCS would have invaded the North, knowing full-well what the consequences would be.
Things coming down to only one, single, yet influential person saying "that's a bad idea" should highlight that maybe we don't have sufficiently robust institutional controls in place to avoid a bloody conflict indefinitely.
>>>The worst thing that could realistically happen in Korea is a collapse of North Korean regime.
I'll absolutely agree with this though. There is a very poor understanding of the morale and motivations of most of the NK flag officers. We don't know which ones will outright surrender. We don't know which ones will say "Fuck it, attack the Imperialists!" We do have a reasonable understanding of the Kim regime's priorities: regime survival. So the status quo is preferable to the almost-guaranteed chaos that will ensue should the NK commanders suddenly find themselves in a power vacuum, especially if caused by a hostile foreign actor.
It’s not clear the regime is prioritizing this aspect of their military beyond paper tiger levels.
People actually have to keep loading and firing those guns. And not run out of ammo. And the guns have to not break down.
Then, maybe North Korea can get to millions of casualties.
That, combined with how quickly and effectively the US and South Korea can start firing counterbattery missions and establish air superiority to attack the Northern batteries from the air.
The idea is to deploy, fire a few shots and the GTFO as quickly as possible, as the other side has detected your projectiles via counter battery radar and likely sent their own, all possibly within seconds of your first round being fired & often in an automatic manner.
Its reportedly even crazier for mortars - mortars shells move much more slowly than artillery shells, yet you can platform the origin of their trajectory just as well.
This can theoretically result in the mortar being destroyed by a counter battery artilery shell before the first mortars shell it fired even impacts.
So no wonder fixed artilery emplacements might be considered less viable when cutting edge artillery tech is considered.
NK has enough completely conventional artillery in range of Seoul to deliver a Hiroshima level attack. Their WMD programme is about deterring outsiders.
This can definitely be done in both directions.
There are, of course, other considerations, but Seoul would be very difficult to defend from 'simple' weapons like artillery. The US is very proud of it's ability to fire artillery 40 miles (64km), but Pyongyang is much further than that.
Everything I've read suggests the Seoul is a casualty of any conflict. Regardless of the eventual 'winner'.
Once someone on either side has been killed in war, both sides permanently lose. There are no take-backs, only damaged soldiers on both sides and casualties.
Both Seoul and Pyongyang are within range of their adversaries' weapons.
The point oblio is maintaining upthread is that because SK and her allies have much more advanced weaponry NK doesn't have a chance of standing against them in a conventional conflict. That's true, but misses the point.
Before NK had nuclear weapons one of their main deterrents was that they'd had years/decades to fortify conventional artillery at the border pointed at Seul. So even if their military couldn't stand a chance in a conventional war they could plausibly threaten MAD by holding Seul hostage.
That's the context in which the border proximity is brought up. Replying to that by saying that Pyongyang is 150 km from the border or whatever is irrelevant.
Yes of course the US could win an all-out conventional war with an enemy 50, 150 or 1500 km from its border. That was never in question.
The question was whether a relatively weaker enemy could present an outsized threat due to some strategic geographic position.
That's been the case with NK precisely because mid-century artillery technology can be dug-in close enough to the border to matter.
Whereas if the border happened to be 150 km away those assets could be taken out by missiles once they tried to move in position to shoot on a major target like Seul.
Whether the NK artillery actually poses a strategic threat is another matter. I wouldn't be surprised if it's all mapped out be the US/SK and would be taken out in the first 5 minutes of a conflict by targeted missile attacks.
But it's not just a strategic question, but whether e.g. NK can make threats that are taken seriously by the SK population for it to pressure its government to make some concessions to NK.
Sadly no. There are so many UGFs (underground facilities) on the JIPTL (Joint Integrated Prioritized Target List) and we don't have anywhere near enough ordnance of the right types staged to hit them all before Seoul is a smoking crater. I've participated in 5 or 6 of the big Korean Theater exercises[1][2], working at a Corps-level HQ. The entire country is a reinforced underground fortress. Remember how we shelled Iwo Jima for several days and still barely scratched the defences on Mt Suribachi? NK is like that, but worse. They've had 60 years to dig in, and instead of a small island a few miles wide, the fortress is the size of Indiana.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Resolve [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulchi-Freedom_Guardian
This is not 1945.
Thats why diplomacy is the way forward. Our species cant go through a global war with countries outdoing each other to kill civilians.
I think we are in agreement here.
You are right that they might not use the same weapons, but long-range precision guided artillery is expensive. Because the shells are expensive, not all countries have enough to use them without limit as was the case in WW2 - where in the last few months of the Western Front the allies preferred to expend munitions rather than their own soldiers' lives.
- NK has a LOT of artillery, but the majority of this artillery doesn't actually have the range to target Seoul from within NK.
- To significantly damage Seoul, NK would have to concentrate most of the necessary artillery into a rather small area. That would make the artillery easy for the south to target, and difficult for the north to mobilise away quickly (say if they needed to retreate for whatever reason). It would also leave this force more vulnerable to something like an encirclement.
- Assuming hostilities are unavoidable, there would be little military benefit to NK doing this. It would leave military assets in the south free to retaliate in any way they see fit rather than having to recoup from damage a bombardment would bring. It would also further jeapordise any attempts for a peace settlement, or international aid (which NK would surely need due to its military inferiority when compared with the south).
- It is likely that the north would be unable to hold the border for that long, and would be pushed back, so any potential artillery barrage wouldn't last for long.
- NK has a very weak airforce compared to the south, so the amount of functional artillery it could field would drop quite quickly due to airstrikes.
That said, Seoul being targeted is a terrifying prospect, and it would likely happen in a conflict, but I think you are slightly overstating this scenario.
Also, any attack on Seoul would also hurt the economy of SK yes, but a war with the north probably wouldn't last long enough for that to be a factor (although admittedly this is hard to predict with any certainty). And even if the souths economy contracted, say, 50%, it is still larger than the north by an order of magnitude).
If we assume Seoul is largely destroyed, the economic damage I'm thinking of comes from a few different places, not from the war going on but from the aftermath. Many people could die, causing both a loss of expertise and simple manpower. Housing would be destroyed, such that those that did survive would need emergency housing. The massive destruction of property would burn up trillions of dollars in real estate investment. And lastly, specialized commercial and industrial properties would be destroyed. I don't know to what degree Seoul is an industrial capital, but there's likely some of this at least.
A deterrent is not very effective if the thing it's intended to deter actually happens.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/mapping-t...
In North Korea, on the other hand, the endgame is clear: the downfall of the Kim regime, mostly likely followed by integration into South Korea (if China allows, and that's a mighty big if). You're not going to have ordinary North Koreans head for the hills and turn into partisan guerrillas fighting for Juche.
Famous last words preceding every single failed US military intervention. In fact, preceding most other military interventions in other countries. Probably what Hitler thought as he was invading the USSR. Or what the USSR thought when invading Afghanistan (where, by the way, one of my uncles served, and got his right arm blown off).
Truly, those who have not studied history are doomed to repeat it.
Maybe, but they might be willing to fight invaders. The Korean War that killed 2-3 million civilians doesn't make the US seem like the good guy. The US will be seen as imperialist invaders by the ordinary citizen of the DPRK.
The fall of East Germany is instructive: while that imploded internally instead of being triggered from the outside, there was absolutely zero violent resistance to West Germany coming in and essentially taking over. North Korea isn't going to be same level of cakewalk, but it's closer to this end of the spectrum than Afghanistan or Iraq.
You can't win a guerrilla war against a motivated foe (which is what the situation in Afghanistan is), without a long-term total occupation and cultural cleansing.
The US could take out the Taliban - it would require a 300,000 to 500,000 occupying force and total cultural change to what Afghanistan is, which would require brutal, horrific crimes against humanity, to strip Afghanistan of many of its current beliefs and culture. The US hasn't primarily been trying to destroy the Taliban (the US can't do it without that mass force and it knows that), it has been primarily trying to hold the Taliban at bay while trying to build up the central government of Afghanistan. This is sort of a replay of the same failed strategy in Vietnam (when the US left Vietnam the south held the extreme majority of territory and population; the south folded rapidly regardless, which is exactly what is going to happen to the government of Afghanistan, unfortunately).
That's one way to look at it. Another (and IMO more correct) way to look at it is that the US lost there once (hence the second invasion), and will lose again in 10-20 years as the Iraqi elites wait it out and things revert to the mean. Oh, and we lost in Syria as well, although not funding and not arming ISIS did help to alleviate some of the problems in the last few years. Assad is still right where he was, and he will remain there for decades to come.
This is much like Napoleon "winning" the war against Russia in 1812. Captured Moscow. Pissed on the floor in the Kremlin. And then he got chased back all the way to Paris and exiled.
Except in the Middle East it's even worse than that. The US tends to forget that those folks represent much older civilizations and they live on a different time scale. They can literally sit it out for 20-30 years while we sink trillions of taxpayer dollars there and while our soldiers are torn apart with an occasional IED. They also culturally don't give a flying fuck about "democracy" or whatever. There's really not a hell of a lot that can be done about that, and there's no way to "win" under such circumstances.
If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.
That's why there won't be a permanent "victory" there, in any sense of the word.
Your history is badly mixed up. There wasn't a first invasion, so your premise is wrong from the start. The first Iraq war wasn't meant to topple Saddam at all, which is why George HW Bush wisely didn't attempt to invade Iraq with an occupation force. The first Iraq war was to push Iraq out of Kuwait and smash the Iraqi military to reduce them as a regional threat (eg to Saudi Arabia). It was a huge concerted success (the US was joined by a very strong, diverse coalition). Saddam's once vaunted military was left in shambles, their hardware and capabilities were dramatically reduced. And then aggressive sactions prevented Saddam from rebuilding the military effectively.
> Oh, and we lost in Syria as well
The US didn't lose in Syria. From the position of the warmongers in DC, it was a stellar victory. On the cheap Syria was reduced to rubble and is a non-actor now, they've been almost completely destroyed. Russia is still the dominant big political-military ally of Syria, so nothing changed about that. At worst the US neither gained nor lost, at best - again, from the perspective of the hawks in the Pentagon - Syria is crippled as a regional power. Israel and several other regional powers are also thrilled with Syria's situation, to say the least. It'll take decades for Syria to just get back to where they were before. As a player in the Middle East, they got almost entirely neutralized.
That's like saying we "won" in Afghanistan just because the Taliban temporarily moved elsewhere. As long you don't have permanent control of the country, you haven't really "won" anything there. And I don't think you will argue that we have any kind of permanent control there, then or now, or can realistically get it in the future.
At least the Gulf War achieved something worthwhile. Later Iraqi and Afghan wars achieved nothing whatsoever.
Kabul in the 1970s was a groovy, swinging place with women in miniskirts and men wearing tie-dye (as was Tehran). It's the Taliban who imposed the present culture after ejecting the Soviets (with US help). Western strategy should have been to revert it to that, but instead it was to somehow replace the Taliban with a regime that was equally religiously hardline but just happened to be US friendly, and that was obviously never going to work...
The Northern Alliance was able to very rapidly smash the Taliban with the help of the US (the Taliban can't easily hold Afghanistan as a military force, so chaos and civil war is guaranteed in the near future). The challenge now and in the future is how to make any positive progress stick. The various powerful groups there, and their perma foreign sponsors (eg Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, etc), are not going to stop trying to topple eachother. The only thing giving Iraq a shot at being an independent, functional nation is their oil resource providing considerable funding to support a central government; Afghanistan of course lacks anything comparable. I don't know where the economy is going to come from to fund a potent central government in Afghanistan (while the Taliban operates on the cheap in comparison). It obviously takes a very long time to build up an economy from scratch in a location like Afghanistan.
The Afghans have a saying, "you have watches, but we have time". No American or Western electorate was or is willing to commit to a permanent presence. So here we are!
Imagine thinking you have a coherent picture of what the culture in Afghanistan and Iran was like in the 1970s just because you saw those half-dozen photos people post over and over on reddit.
Imagine thinking you have something to contribute to this discussion, if you’re not going to enlighten us...?
You seem to think that a small number of photographs showing young people in popular western attire from a largely rural country's capitol in 1970s implies that the country at large had something approaching a liberal western mindset on culture and religion at the time. You also seem to be incorrectly conflating the Afghan Mujahideen, the Taliban, and the Northern Alliance.
I'm not going to write a dissertation on the topic on HN, but I'll just say that it's very clear that you don't know as much about it as you think you do, and I implore you and anyone reading the thread to go and read on this 40-year conflict in some detail if they want to gain a meaningful understanding of it.
Thanks for your valuable insights.
Afghanistan is only about 25% urban. The Cold War era led to a couple of decades of countries trying to figure out their alignment and less internal strife, but by the 70s the internal rumblings were becoming clear.
We could keep Cairo, Tehran and Kabul groovy as long as we're comfy keeping the boot on the majorities necks.
2. I don't have numbers, but say NK starts 40 ICMBs, the US shoots down 95% then 2 ICBMs would reach the US, at least California and NYC wouldn't be livable for decades.
3. I don't think this balances out "decapitation of military capacity"
I have no detail knowledge of the fallout radius or radioactive decay, I would assume an ICBM hit would render the valley and Manhattan unliveable, but I haven't been in both places for more than five years so I might be wrong.
The times make the people.
Whenever I see someone do this, I generally stop talking immediately, but I am sticking up for GP on this one.
The comment you are replying to in no way made a statement about what is or isn't awful. Simply a comment about the size of various things.
Don’t get me wrong, I certainly hope the USA strategic and tactical defences are capable of facing even the worst case estimates; but, as a civilian, NK nukes and ICBMs never put me off visiting the USA and played no part in my ultimate decision to not bother trying to move to the Bay for work.
There are few circumstances where this refrain, so often repeated, would be so stupidly ignored by any of USA's enemies.
Presumably, a feeble opening shot such as this would be a precursor for a counter-, counter-attack, for which USA is not prepared. Because, after all, the USA is sure it will obliterate its enemies - and thus, the 'eye for eye' response would have to be something USA is really, really not prepared for.
Such proclamations as are allowed here, lend me to the thought: I wonder what that is?
Besides that, please don't do the dumb US jingoism, it is just so tiring overall
Hold on, it didn't "almost work." The carriers being out of port made the attack much worse for Japan, but the operation was a fairly dramatic strategic failure. Japan knew that the US industrial capacity at the time could produce new ships quickly, so the main aim was to buy time to gain a larger foothold in Asia that could withstand a total US war (especially because US strategy clearly regarded Germany as the bigger threat).
The US Atlantic Fleet had four carriers at the time (Yorktown, Ranger, Wasp and Hornet); the Pacific Fleet had three (Enterprise, Lexington, Saratoga). Notice something about those names? Shortly after the US was attacked, the Yorktown and Hornet were transferred to the Pacific Fleet. After the Lexington was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Wasp was also transferred. At the same time, new carriers were entering service in the US at a fairly quick rate. The Essex was commissioned in December 1942, and then the Essex-class Wasp, Yorktown and Hornet were all commissioned in 1943 (after the aforementioned were sunk in battle).
Also, if you look at the tactical situation at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese bombers and torpedo aircraft were heavily biased in targeting lower-value battleships instead of the high-value cruisers and destroyers. Battleships had the prestige at the time, however, and pilots who knocked one out would receive greater glory than those who knocked out a more pedestrian destroyer or cruiser or even submarine.
Finally, one of the aims of Japan was to undermine US morale. It may not have been the main strategic aim, but it was an explicit goal. In fact, that's often an aim of "decapitation" operations: sow chaos and prevent your enemy from organizing.
So, no, it's not "US jingoism" to point out these fairly obvious facts. The US was simply better prepared for a conflict. It probably is today, too.
The one where a million Chinese soldiers turn up at high speed, just like last time, leaps to mind.
The Chinese Anti-ship ballistic missiles (AShBM) are veery different beasts. First of all, they have a different trajectory that is more difficult to intercept, so that they can maintain lower altitudes.
These lower altitudes allows the ballistic missile to maneuver. This makes their trajectory unpredictable, which makes missiles like the SM3 almost useless.
In combination with this, China also has hypersonic glide vehicles, which are not only harder to target, but also fly on non-ballistic, fully unpredictable trajectories at such altitudes that the horizon becomes a real issue.
To top it all off, China and Russia are both in the advanced stages of construction (Russia is farther ahead and should Comission them soon) hypersonic cruise missiles, with possible sea-skimming terminal modes.
All in all, the SM3 missile is pretty much useless against that threat.
The better explanation is that this is a test that congress asked for, and that if anything is more suitable to target North Korea, not that it's very likely it would be perfectly effective against North Korea as they have second-stroke capability and sure as hell won't send a single missile with a single warhead, more like 15 real missiles with a mix of decoys and nukes plus multiple dummy missiles with no real payload. But it's a start against a North Korea class threat.
Anyways, here's a lesson from modern warfare, never rely on countermeasures.
That's not to say they can't help you win, but even if it seems that they are perfectly effective history shows that they generally aren't.
But, yeah, when they do boost-back to the Cape, the analogy breaks down even more.
On the one hand you have many saying that the aircraft carrier might go the way if the battleship - more and more redundant in a world with landbase anti ship missile systems.
On the other hand there are some saying that ships will envolve to meet the threat.
That isn't really a replacement for a carrier, though, more of a supplement.
Along that same line of thought; What do you think about developing fighter sea planes and then have two or three fighters and a support boat at whole bunch of different/changing sea locations?
Another idea. For the expense of a carrier could we just keep planes in the air? Especially if they’re drones and don’t have to take care of pilots.
Re-arm and refuel as needed in the air.
For the drones, it's complicated. Airborne refueling has been a thing for decades, but off the top of my head there's never been airborne re-arming. But even if you had that you would still need to land for maintenance. But still you could probably keep these drones in the air for multiple days, maybe even a week at a time. But the logistics of managing so many tankers gets complicated fast. Check out the Black Buck raids for an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck . And that's just for a bombing raid, if you want to maintain a combat air patrol you'll need even more tankers running continuously, and a bunch more fighters since for every one on station there will be multiples coming to/from a base or a tanker. I think long-range drones will definitely be a part of future warfare, but I think you still want a carrier to base them. I think all you need to do is move the carrier further away from anti-ship missile platforms, and increase the striking range of the air wing to compensate. There's a very lengthy write up on this if you are interested: https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/CVW_Report_Web_1.pd...
The exact numbers would depend a lot on the type of missile attacking, the angles they are coming in at, whether there are external sensors in the area, weather, etc. But a destroyer escort is more than capable of intercepting an incoming missile. In perfect conditions, where you detect and are tracking the missiles at extreme range, a single destroyer could likely take out dozens of cruise missiles. Scoring a hit on a carrier would require some combination of: advanced missiles (fast, stealthy, maneuverable, etc), multiple missiles, element of surprise, attacking from multiple directions at once, and jamming or otherwise degrading sensors.
Does this apply to classified projects?
Effectively, a credible ballistic missile defense + an arms treaty that caps the number of interceptors leaves relative great power parity stable.
But it does eliminate the "rogue state" or "rogue silo" threat. And arguably, makes them less attractive to pursue in the first place, thereby furthering non-proliferation.
If you're Iran, are you going to suffer all the economic pain of breaking sanctions, in return for a non-credible threat?
The wars conducted by US are questionable at best and a poor example of how developed nations should behave. However, looking at the worst sides of a developed nation and comparing them to the best sides of a dictator state, isn't quite adding up.
Also, Iran has participated regularly in proxy wars including the one in Yemen with Saudi Arabia [1] so your thesis about aggression wars is a little misleading when they've participated in a proxy civil. Note that recently Israel claimed credit for killing an Al Qaeda leader who was living openly in Iran.
I think Iran is too often scapegoated in the Western world but I also want to be realistic about where Iran is really at fault.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_state
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_prox...
So something it stopped doing over a decade ago makes it a "rogue state?"
>Also, Iran has participated regularly in proxy wars including the one in Yemen with Saudi Arabia [1] so your thesis about aggression wars is a little misleading when they've participated in a proxy civil
Your source actually doesn't outline any concrete Iranian involvement in Yemen, just some Saudi accusations prior to their invasion. Even then, the US participation alone dwarfs the alleged Iranian involvement.
>I think Iran is too often scapegoated in the Western world but I also want to be realistic about where Iran is really at fault.
These are the two main issues they're scapegoated for, so this statement is a bit confusing.
It was doing it last year after the US unilaterally pulled out of the agreement [0]
> Your source actually doesn't outline any concrete Iranian involvement in Yemen, just some Saudi accusations prior to their invasion. Even then, the US participation alone dwarfs the alleged Iranian involvement.
Iran never out and out talks about who they support and how. Note that Qasem Soleimeini was killed in Iraq. The point being the Iran meddles in their neighbors affairs.
> These are the two main issues they're scapegoated for, so this statement is a bit confusing.
No, they're scapegoated as being terrorism funders/stronghold or attackers of "freedom" (whatever that means). When they're called out for actually doing something that the international community frowns upon that's not scapegoating.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/05/iran-announces...
And who are we should thank for it? Iran clearly sees the difference between North Korea and Libya, and it clearly does not want to be the latter. The US stupid move was just the last droplet. Hopefully with the new administration the situation can be salvaged.
>Note that Qasem Soleimeini was killed in Iraq. The point being the Iran meddles in their neighbors affairs.
Oh, wow. According to the Iraqi prime minister he was on a diplomatic mission to ease tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. He was unlawfully (under both US and international law) assassinated in a clear and blatant violation of the Iraq sovereignty.
And compare the Iran "meddling" with the US openly creating military bases in Syria without any authorization from the Syrian government (you think anything you like about it, but it's still an internationally recognized government) and open military support of rebel forces, often closely related to jihadists. Also we have the rejection of the Iraqi parliament′s call to withdraw US troops.
>Oh, wow. According to the Iraqi prime minister he was on a diplomatic mission to ease tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia...
He was on both the US and EU anti-terrorism list, and there was a Security Council resolution banning him from traveling outside Iran.
>And compare the Iran "meddling" with the US openly creating military bases in Syria without any authorization from the Syrian government
Iran has military bases and militias on Syria predating the US ones, these took direct part in the mass civilian deaths there.
>Also we have the rejection of the Iraqi parliament′s call to withdraw US troops.
Their call was non binding since the agreement was with the Iraqi government (imagine the GOP Senate calling for something ignoring President Biden's wishes). The US army does not wish to withdraw since ISIS still exists, we saw what happened last time Iraq tried to deal with them alone.
No, only the US designated him as a terrorist and IIRC on a really flimsy grounds (as in CIA operatives could be designated terrorists using similar criteria). EU only personally sanctioned him.
>there was a Security Council resolution banning him from traveling outside Iran
These restrictions were lifted in 2015 as part of the Iran nuclear deal framework. US unilateral withdrawal didn't change the fact that UN sanctions have been lifted.
>Their call was non binding since the agreement was with the Iraqi government
The call was aimed at the government, which due to the US pressure ignored will of the Iraqi people represented by the democratically elected parliament.
>since ISIS still exists
ISIS got chance to exist mostly due to the US chaotic meddling in the region. Not only it weakened Iraq by direct invasion, but it also fueled the Syrian civil war. Syria is perfectly able to not let ISIS reappearance with the Russian help and negotiated relationship with the Kurds, but I don't see the US leaving Syria any time soon.
Yet nobody did that. Maybe the criteria aren't so 'similar'.
>These restrictions were lifted in 2015 as part of the Iran nuclear deal framework. US unilateral withdrawal didn't change the fact that UN sanctions have been lifted.
These restrictions were not to be lifted immediately. That particular limit was due to expire only this October.
>ISIS got chance to exist mostly due to the US chaotic meddling in the region.
Maybe al-Qaeda + Assad and Iran's support for insurgents during the Iraq war played a huge part. They encouraged fanaticism which shockingly turned against everyone.
For the same reason no one designated GRU or Mossad operatives. The weight of the state behind them and absurdity of the act. But the US government has decided to stretch definition of terrorism (and frankly deflating its value even further in the process) to somehow limit actions of IRGC, which were clearly outplaying the US in the ME region, not in the last because of the Soleimeini's masterful leadership.
>These restrictions were not to be lifted immediately. That particular limit was due to expire only this October.
Sigh... Read the sources, ok?
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/122460/full-text-of-t...
>The UN Security Council resolution endorsing this JCPOA will terminate all provisions of previous UN Security Council resolutions on the Iranian nuclear issue -1696 (2006), 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008), 1835 (2008), 1929 (2010) and 2224 (2015) –simultaneously with the IAEA-verified implementation of agreed nuclear-related measures by Iran and will establish specific restrictions, as specified in Annex V.
In October expired the UN arms embargo, which is irrelevant to the 1747 resolution affecting Soleimeini. If you read news just a little at the time, you may recall that economic sanctions against Iran have been lifted long before this October.
>Maybe al-Qaeda + Assad and Iran's support for insurgents during the Iraq war played a huge part. They encouraged fanaticism which shockingly turned against everyone.
Wow. Are you even aware that Iran is a Shia state and mostly supports Shia militia groups in other countries, while ISIS was predominantly Sunni? And that Assad is from the Alawite minority, who is also Shia? If anyone has supported al-Qaeda in the Syrian civil war it's the US and Turkey. The former has acknowledged indirect "accidental" support of the al-Qaeda branch via "moderate" rebels.
To conclude: you demonstrate utter lack of knowledge in this area.
Most countries don't support terrorist (sorry, 'resistance') organizations and don't officially announce it on every corner. It turns out Iran not even bothering with cover makes designation very easy.
>Read the sources, ok?
You're mixing JCPOA (not a UN text) and several different types of sanctions.
>Are you even aware that Iran is a Shia state and mostly supports Shia militia groups in other countries, while ISIS was predominantly Sunni?
ISIS started from Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni group that Iran and Syria were happy to support so long as they bothered Americans more.
Yeap, and the US is not included into this list of the "most countries" as well. Simply instead of "resistance" they call them "pro-democratic rebels" and they have a long tradition in this area (e.g. search for a humble "freedom-fighter" Osama). So we got back to the starting point.
>You're mixing JCPOA and several different types of sanctions.
Again, I've linked the document, which clearly lists the 1747 resolution as to be terminated. AFAIK it is the only UN resolution affecting Soleimeini. So do please clarify what exactly I am "mixing"?
>ISIS started from Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni group that Iran and Syria were happy to support so long as they bothered Americans more.
LOL what? When ISIS has started making territorial claims Syria was already for two years in the midst of the hot civil war, Asad was losing territories to the Sunni rebels supported by the US, Iran at the time tried to help Assad by supporting Shia militia, but its supply lines got disrupted by ISIS, which motivated them to persuade Russians to help Assad.
If anything, it's American support of Sunni rebels in the hope that they will overthrow the Assad government resulted in the creation of ISIS as a quasi-state. One of the big American goals in Iraq is to prevent creation of so-called Shia Crescent and the Suni rebellion was a great way to achieve it. This is why you haven't seen much US action against it until they started to threaten Bagdad, and even after ISIS lost all its territories the US supported "moderates" which are close to the Syrian Al-Qaeda branch. Though in the end it spiraled out of control. As usual... Controlled chaos rarely stays controlled for long.
If your next message will be as ignorant as the last two, I no longer see the need to continue this discussion.
Which is mostly accurate (the rebels part, we have no idea what regime they would have set up). Iran officially supported Hamas and Hizbollah, the former even after it's been declared a terrorist org. When one does those things so openly, it's no wonder the designations follow.
>(e.g. search for a humble "freedom-fighter" Osama).
Al-Qaeda (or the Taliban) didn't even exist at the time.
>So do please clarify what exactly I am "mixing"?
Your original comment mixed JCPOA (a text at most binding members who signed it but does not override UN resolutions), nuclear sanctions (removed under UN 2231, not the JCPOA), economic sanctions (not all removed, since quite a bit is not nuclear), terror sanctions (e.g. Solemani), etc.
>LOL what? When ISIS has started making territorial claims...
ISIS existed before they made 'claims'. The organization is what Al-Qaeda in Iraq evolved into once they got radical beyond even what Bin Laden wanted (Bin Laden opposed targeting Shiites). Al-Qaeda in Iraq was supported by Assad and Iran. Just recently someone assassinated an Al-Qaeda head in Tehran.
>If anything, it's American support of Sunni rebels in the hope that they will overthrow the Assad government resulted in the creation of ISIS as a quasi-state.
Ah, yes, the US created ISIS conspiracy theory. Lets remember the US left Iraq and was happy to be out until ISIS called it back. ISIS then took over Mosul first, and only then became a quasi-state. The holding in Syria came later, and it was the US (with SDF) which threw them out.
You mean this "conspiracy theory" from the Independent[0] and the Guardian[1] and the New York Times[2]?
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-i...
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/camp-bu...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/opinion/how-america-helpe...
“[al-Baghdadi] was respected very much by the US army,” Abu Ahmed said. “If he wanted to visit people in another camp he could, but we couldn’t. And all the while, a new strategy, which he was leading, was rising under their noses, and that was to build the Islamic State. If there was no American prison in Iraq, there would be no IS now. Bucca was a factory. It made us all. It built our ideology.”
Now, if Assad and the Mullahs didn't support Al-Qaeda in Iraq in the first place, or if they got their Iraqi pawns to keep the lid after the US left, maybe the jihadists wouldn't have been strong enough to create ISIS later on.
"Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely for civil nuclear purposes." There has been no evidence that they've had a nuclear weapons program post 2009.
>Note that Qasem Soleimeini was killed in Iraq. The point being the Iran meddles in their neighbors affairs.
It's pretty rich to criticize Iran for foreign meddling when describing a US assassination taking place in a country on the other side of the globe.
Iran had a 2-3 month breakout period in 2013 [0]. Stockpiling enriched uranium after stating a desire to wipe a particular country "off the map" seems to imply that there was more going on than civilian nuclear weapons.
>It's pretty rich to criticize Iran for foreign meddling when describing a US assassination taking place in a country on the other side of the globe.
US, Russia, and to a lesser extent China meddle the most in foreign affairs across the world. Hell, the US quite literally caused the current Iranian regime to come into existence through foreign meddling. What's your point? This doesn't convince me Iran should be refining Uranium.
[0] https://www.armscontrol.org/issue-briefs/2020-08/limits-brea....
So still zero evidence that they've had a nuclear weapons program post 2009, just you think they must really want one because they keep getting attacked by a nearby nuclear power.
>What's your point?
That your reason for wanting Iran to be forbidden from refining uranium is basically a fear that someday they'll be able to treat the US (or other western ally) how we treat them. If you object to that treatment, stop treating other countries like that with labels like "rogue state."
If mass enriching of uranium isn't part of 'nuclear weapons program', well, it's a funny definition you have.
>just you think they must really want one because they keep getting attacked by a nearby nuclear power.
It's the Iranian government calling 'death to [far away nuclear powers]' not the other way around.
There is absolutely zero evidence that Iran is enriching uranium to weapons grade levels.
>t's the Iranian government calling 'death to [far away nuclear powers]' not the other way
Ignoring how the phrase "death to x" is an aggressive translation of "down with x," how is that worse than actually using weapons to attack Iran? Killing people is worse than saying they should die.
They're just collecting it since it looks shiny. Not because it's a shorter step to weapons grade from there.
>Ignoring how the phrase "death to x" is an aggressive translation of "down with x," how is that worse than actually using weapons to attack Iran? Killing people is worse than saying they should die.
A translation often used by the government itself. Which isn't shy about supporting 'resistance' killing people.
Or for the civil nuclear program.
>A translation often used by the government itself. Which isn't shy about supporting 'resistance' killing people
You haven't answered why saying it is worse than killing people.
That said, the Iranian government generally translates it to "down with x," and had further elaborated that they are calling for an end to policies that are imperialist and hostile towards Iran. Similar statements are common in US politics regarding Iran.
Sure, right.
Iran already receives nuclear fuel from Russia. It makes 'perfect' economic sense to risk massive sanctions to enrich 100x times the amount of 'fuel' Iran needs for a single 1000MW nuclear generation unit in Bushehr just so they could ditch their supplier. In a country with nearly free gas and oil. Which everyone accepts has done nuclear weaponization work.
>You haven't answered why saying it is worse than killing people.
I'm saying the Iranian regime kills people too, just with a slightly different cover.
>That said, the Iranian government generally translates it to "down with x,"
"Generally". Weasel wording doesn't impress.
>Generally". Weasel wording doesn't impress.
I can't say that every use of the term over fourty years has been translated as "down with," but that's hardly "weasel words." They've made very clear what they mean by the statement.
1) The country was far less sanctioned before the nuclear program.
2) Iran has a huge oil glut, no need to divert.
3) It's absurdly without economic sense even then. The expenses due to sanctions and diplomatic conflict are 1000x of any profit. If there's any profit compared to available imports from Russia.
4) It's a country with past weaponization program.
We know what it's really for.
>They've made very clear what they mean by the statement.
Yep, very clear. Just examine their attitude to Israel which gets the same statement.
>Just examine their attitude to Israel which gets the same statement
Disliking the imperialist policies of a state that regularly bombs you makes sense.
>four shows nothing
We have very different definitions to 'nuclear weapons program'. My definition includes creating massive stockpiles of enriched Uranium, especially for countries with acknowledge weaponization programs and no other reasonable motive.
According to your definition, if someone built an empty bomb, set it aside, and started working on creating some explosives that someone 'suspended the bomb program'. Perhaps the explosives are just for fireworks! Right.
>Two ignores Iran's status in OPEC
That only strengthens my point. OPEC gives a maximum export quota which most states are easily capable of exceeding. Might as well use it for internal purposes given the marginal price of extra production is zero.
>Disliking the imperialist policies of a state that regularly bombs you makes sense.
It's usually Iran which inefficiently does the 'regular bombing'. It's Iran that supplied EFPs to insurgents during Iraq war, and whose sellswords fire rockets at the Green Zone regularly. A rocket killed an Iraqi child just yesterday.
Something this thread seemed to agree restarted in 2019.
>OPEC gives a maximum export quota
Production quotas.
>It's usually Iran which inefficiently does the 'regular bombing
It is a fact that Israel regularly bombs Iran. What Iran does is a separate matter I am not defending, though if you blame them for weapons sales I hope you similarly blame the US and Israel for the results of their weapon sales.
Your argument was "Iran suspended their nuclear weapons program for a decade". That would put it in 2011 - exactly when Iran did mass enrichment, so I found it very odd.
>Production quotas.
You're right on the name. However, the intent is to control the market by controlling supply in the market, not to limit domestic use of oil. Nobody in OPEC cares about domestic use since it doesn't come at the expense of other member nations.
>It is a fact that Israel regularly bombs Iran
I suggest looking in a map. It's Iran that has troops and supports 'resistance' on Israeli border and not the other way around, and every once in a while these 'militants' fight with Israel.
Who sold you this lie? This is Iraq all over again.
Do you seriously believe this nonsense? The pull was clearly targeted against Russia, in the same way as pull from the INF was targeted mostly against China. Russia even has proposed to share radar data on its south borders with NATO systems, but to no avail.
There is a huge precedent of ICBM defense programs being canceled due to large costs and questionable benefits in the face of a full scale attack from Russia.
That is no longer the case, now North Korea has a handful of missiles, with no ballistic missile defense the US would be vulnerable to an attack from North Korea.
Sure, such an attack would result in a retaliation. But the duty of the government is not to avenge it's citizens but to protect them in the first place.
In a rational world we would not need a military except we are far from living in one. Worse we live in a world where we accept nations like North Korea and worse prop them up all because of the threat they project. This will simply encourage them further.
Iran is a threat to its neighbors and a lot of this is from purely factional religious differences. Reducing the world's oil usage could actually make things worse as we end up with a larger humanitarian issue, similar to Venezuela where the economy needs that money
I don't know much about this topic, but why would you want to cap the number of interceptors? Surely we would want everyone to have lots and lots of interceptors such that nuclear warheads are devalued (not worth stockpiling because their effectiveness is lower)? What's the worst outcome in an arms race on interceptors? Nations spend too much on interceptors?
And of course, there's the additional deterrent of a globalized economy. Most nuclear countries depend on the global economy and have a strong incentive not to devastate it by way of nuclear warfare. The odds of an isolationist country like NK owning all of the interceptors is pretty low IMO.
- Increased counterparty desire to build more ICBMs
- Increased belief in a successful first strike / acceptable response casualties
Both of these make the world a more dangerous place. Better to agree on what we're targeting (smaller nuclear states), and preserve the status quo.
I'm assuming a cap on ICBMs. If nations aren't going to obey these caps then why should they obey a cap on interceptors?
> Increased belief in a successful first strike / acceptable response casualties
It doesn't follow that (num_interceptors > num_counterparty_ICBMs) will lead to a successful first strike (notably it doesn't follow that the counterparty doesn't have interceptors of their own).
Even a desire to build more ICBMs is harmful, as it makes a country less likely to voluntarily agree to ICBM limits in the future. But absolutely agree that ICBM and missile defense are intertwined, so only make sense to negotiate strategic arms control covering both.
I would say that it does follow that "sufficient" interceptors, relative to a counterparty's ICBMs, leads to a "successful" first strike.
Where "success" in this calculus means acceptable losses.
The lynchpin of MAD is that no one is insane enough to argue that the incineration of a major city is acceptable for a first strike.
Without ballistic missile defense, that destruction is effectively guaranteed, as long as the counterparty has available ICBMs and is able to launch them.
With ballistic missile defense, there's a chance that destruction could be averted. And that chance drastically balloons the risk of a first strike being launched.
To put it another way: you're the president, and you're at a meeting of the Joint Chiefs. Open conflict with Russia has broken out in Eastern Europe. Massive amounts of Russian reinforcements are transporting towards NATO lines.
No BMD: if we escalate to nuclear, and the Russians retaliate (as stated by their nuclear posture), American cities have a 100% chance of being vaporized.
BMD: ... American cities have a 75% chance of being vaporized.
That's a terrifyingly different decision, because it opens the possibility that someone decides to take a risk. Because there's a chance things will work out favorably.
If both nations have lots and lots of interceptors relative to the ICMB cap (assuming for the moment that both countries adhere to the ICMB cap), then the odds of any country initiating a successful strike (first or second) becomes relatively and equally low. At that point, it's more effective to pursue conventional (i.e. non-nuclear) warfare, and even if a country does initiate a desperate nuclear strike, it's less concerning because the odds of a catastrophic loss of life are significantly reduced.
Would you argue that we would be better off if we fought conventional wars without body armor of any kind? Or would you argue that this is somehow different than the interceptor question? If so, how is it different (degree vs kind and why)?
(By the way, I don't see a US president--barring perhaps the current one who doesn't seem concerned with his own best interest much less that of his country--accepting a 75% chance of the destruction of US cities in order to stop a Russian advance)
In that, if I am facing an adversary with sufficient ABM capability, I am inventivized to try technologies that moot that advantage. E.g. nuclear kamikaze UUVs/smart torpedos, stealth cruise missiles, short range/quick reaction strikes etc.
I think non-parity relationships are somewhat alien to us today, whereas the 50s and 60s were full of "someone could nuke someone else with impunity" periods.
And I guess I look at it as: MAD is preferable to a Pandora's Box future where sides are continually researching, developing, and deploying new weapons and reevaluating their relative advantage. Advantage in an arms race being especially troubling because it's use-it-or-lose-it -- e.g. the internal calls for the US to use nukes against China before they developed their own during the Korean War.
> Would you argue that we would be better off if we fought conventional wars without body armor of any kind?
It's absolutely a related question.
To some degree, yes. Or a corollary in whether it's just to fight wars in which one side uses drones/UVs and the other side uses people.
Modern wars end when one side's will to continue it ceases. And, for better or worse, casualties have driven that. What happens when one side doesn't take casualties (e.g. Yemen)?
Ill take nuclear deterrence any day over that hell.
In 2016, he told the BBC: "Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or 10,000 years.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43408961
The problem with deterrence is that it works until it doesn’t.
I'll bet on no one wanting their country obliterated by agitating another nuclear power.
As a sibling post to yours points out, effective anti-ballistic missile defense against a state such as Russia or China ruins the MAD strategy and might lead to interesting game play.
For a truly effective ballistic missile defense, you need a theater-level interceptor. The US is also actively working on this in the form of its Ground Based Mid-Course Defense (GMD). Nominally such a system can defend large sections of a continent and thus the cost of defense would be comparable to the cost of offense, but in practice mid-course intercept is much harder - you need a much more powerful missile and the adversary can use decoys and other counter measures. The current GMD program is only aimed at defeating rogue states like North Korea because their countermeasure capabilities are presumed to lag substantially behind the major powers. While it is not inconceivable that GMD's technical hurdles will one day be overcome, this system would not defend against hypersonic glide vehicles already under development by the major powers.
The history of warfare is a constant race between advancements in weapons and defenses. It is reasonably safe to assume that in the 40 some odd years it would take to develop an effective defense against any new delivery system, a further new delivery system can also be developed. Even if defense catches up for a bit, it will be momentary.
If you spend trillon to build the system, the enemy counters it using just hundred billion or so.
And unlike bombers and tactical missile launchers, there's no ethical issues, because this saves civilians.
There's also the risk that these systems fail. Even if they blocked half the ICBMs, it costs too much to let the others in. But it also costs too much to not invest in such a system.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-army-scraps-1b-iron-dome-pr...
Tell it to sanctions against Iran which blocked acquisition of the S-400 anti-aircraft system. Stronger defense capabilities can totally change balance of power. This is why Russia is very nervous (and rightfully so) about deployment of the US air-defense systems in Europe, since strengthening of defensive capabilities over a certain threshold can transform preemptive nuclear strike against it from incredible stupidity to just a difficult decision.
Also, humans are much more flexible than the robots we can currently create, which is pretty useful.
This doesn't get into virtual attrition. You may have previously targeted 1-2 nukes at different places. But now you don't know which ones will actually get intercepted. So you have to send enough warheads to make sure one gets through, or give up on the target.
e.g. Having just three raises your odds to 50/50. (1-((1-1/6)^3) = .51
That essentially halves your opponents nuclear strike capability (at least for that target).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...
Not to pick on Detroit, but a SS-25 would do something like this:
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=800&lat=42.3487&lng=...
It is worth doing R&D on these if an attack is likely.
If it is not, getting rid of MAD without having a replacement mechanism is scary, but in this crazy world and the current proliferation, MAD is becoming an increasingly dangerous bet.
2) If they're demonstrating this technology now, that indicates that they've had it for a long time.
The future of warfare is crazy. If war ever breaks out in the Pacific you’ll probably have the combatants launch all of their missiles at each other in the initial days of the fight and whoever has ships/planes/missiles remaining at the end “wins”.
I nearly dropped my coffee.
The number of potential human threats is nearly uncountable. And they are often irrational, unpredictable and invisible. The new threat.
I know where I'd put my money.
HN loves a good straw man argument.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Ill...
There have also been test firings from missile subs. But again, lots of notification, and done from a latitude/longitude that made it obvious it was a test.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kura_Missile_Test_Range
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...
Imo missile defense is the only thing that ranks higher than stuxnet in terms of badass/sexiest programs one can write.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Distant_Early_Warning_Line#Deactivation_and_clean-up
It would seem just isolating on the problems needing to be solved that this would be as intriguing as, say, Space X developing autonomously landing first stage rocket boosters and drone ships...but I'd imagine the development process and culture to be dramatically different.
Then, the United States launches one missile defense to knock out one ICBM, but only to discover that there was another hidden missile flying next to it.
Boom. Secondary missile hits its target. Mission Accomplished.
Also, most ICBM are MIRV. So this defense missile must hit the ICBM before it splits up into 10 different warheads.
Ask a friend: ICBM physicist
I recall the Soviets threatening to place pre-positioned bombs on US soil if Reagan ever deployed the "Star Wars" missile defense shield which make their response and a first strike option way more viable for an American leader.
MAD has worked well so for a very good reason.
To me this is the military’s Mac Pro: “look general public, we are awesome, here is something no one can afford, etc.”
Meanwhile leaders know the future of warfare is decentralized swarms of force units that converge when needed.
E.g. this technology is cheap using open cv and mass manufacturing: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=stHLrBs-_iE
I'm not saying it's not possible, but our surface navy is a bunch of sitting ducks to a semi-modern state military like China. Missile guidance can seemingly be adapted in so many ways to bypass point defenses, from raw speed, pop and drop, decoys, swarms, and other techniques.
Finally, I bet cruise missile tech can be adapted quickly to drop torpedo warheads for the "last mile" if the aerial point defense is that effective and a 40-50mph ship actually is that hard for guidance to target.
RE: swarms, I still remember the... was it the Millenium war exercise where a general used swarms to defeat the "good guys" and they basically stopped the exercise and forced them to restart and not use swarms?
/sarcasm
World is burning and hundreds of thousands are dying from a pandemic. Pretty sure those ressourses could easily be spent in a much more beneficial way.
It isn't going to alter the strategy of an all out attack by China. And it won't alter the outcome. It's nonsensical to consider this worth the money without protecting specific targets. It's not good enough to just randomly save a few cities.
If this is about DPRK, it's an announcement in advance that your diplomatic strategy has a decent chance of failing.
If this is about giving a president defensive options, it's not going to do that because they will just say "these are really bad odds" and go for a preventative/preemptive strike instead. They know that too so you've just invited your adversary into a surprise first attack scenario as possibly their best chance.
It's a nonsense program, and even more ridiculous to tweet about it.
The problem is that the triad has been left to rot. The ground-based ICBMs haven't been upgraded in decades and probably don't work well. The subs were supposed to be replaced but were not and there aren't that many of them at sea at any given time. And the bomber fleet is out-of-date as well and way overdue for an upgrade.
It's questionable whether or not it cannot be defeated with some kind of sneaky first strike. Which leaves room for an adversary to find (or think they found) an opening. This could end up being the biggest mistake in history.
A good option seems to be to pay SpaceX to create a fourth prong of floating platform ICBMs in the ocean, or whatever Musk & co can come up with. Of course the U.S. gov should have full command of it.
SpaceX could also work on a redundant anti-North Korea missile defense system. I don't think there's much reason to work on a missile defense system against the major powers, since a solid M.A.D. system makes an attack from them highly unlikely.
SpaceX should put the Assured back in Mutually Assured Destruction. And they can use the profits from these projects to make life multi-planetary, which would provide another level of insurance for humanity.
Please don't use this as a forum for nationalistic flamebait
And MAD would not work if the US would be "invulnerable" to an attack.
You're talking about global scale nuclear war. This is a given.
That's what nuclear subs are for. Being underwater provides some degree of cover making them harder to target than a floating platform.
1 - Subs are the ultimate trump card, the rest of the triad is almost irrelevant.
US subs are modern, numerous, and, like all half-decent subs, are basically untrackable. 24/7/365 dozens of them carry hundreds to thousand of nukes, ready to strike even if continental US dissapears. Its the same for other nuclear powers.
2 - Spacex has absolutely no competency in this area, and this personality cult is unhealthy.
1. The Ohio class subs are quite old and no one knows with any real certainty that they remain untrackable. It's entirely possible they are being tracked through some unknown mechanism like new classes of drones, sensors, info leaks, spies, etc.
And your response proves my point: everyone is banking on the Ohio class subs as the trump card. But if they're wrong, we're in a very precarious situation. Hence the need to revamp and expand the other legs of the triad.
2. SpaceX had "no competency" in creating rockets and spaceships until they did. And now they're objectively better than most governments at it. Creating a reentry vehicle that launches on one of their existing platforms doesn't seem implausible, at all. This is probably easier than most of their previous work.
Unlike the legacy U.S. defense companies, SpaceX delivers on a budget and time scale that makes choosing them the obvious option. But it probably makes sense to have another company also work on improving the nuclear response.