Ballistic missiles hit Iraq's Kurdish capital, no casualties – officials | Hacker News Reader

Ballistic missiles hit Iraq's Kurdish capital, no casualties – officials

reuters.com

56 pointsawb71 comments

They appear to have been launched from Khasabad military base in Iran according to this thread:

https://twitter.com/no_itsmyturn/status/1502787804463607810

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/middle_east/2022-03-12/irbi...

Rumours are that this is retaliation from Iran for the American seizure of Iranian vessels a few days ago, as well as for Israel killing 2 Iranian servicemen in Syria (supposedly, Israel is operating on the Erbil base).

The more interesting thing however is that the US SAMs failed once again to intercept the SRBMs. If really US air defences can't intercept SRBMs reliably, the US Navy is in gigantic, perhaps even existential, trouble.

Is the suggestion that the USAF/Navy was previously better at intercepting SRBMs? What would have changed to make it worse - I would assume this sort of thing would be improving every few years.

No, it's newer weapons that cause this to be necessary while it wasn't needed previously.

Historically, ballistic missiles were not accurate enough to hit a moving a ship. Nowadays, they are.

It also used to be the case that SRBMs and MRBMs weren't able to acquire a target on their own - the plasma would interfere with radar, and optical sensors were completely unfeasible. However, it seems China and Russia managed to find a way to keep radar working.

That wasn't that big of a problem either, because a warship should be able to jam the radar, but last year the Chinese claimed to have managed to get optical guidance work on an MRBM (DF-21D).

It also used to be the case that finding large surface warship was unpractical, but modern satellites can spot them even from GEO while LEO SAR and optical satellites exploded in numbers, meaning that it's now possible to track large surface warships accurately around the clock.

If that is actually the case, and it seems likely, then unless the US Navy gets very good at intercepting ballistic missiles, the entire fleet, and perhaps even the entire concept of large surface warships, may become untractable.

I don’t know anything but my understanding is that large surface warships have become mostly obsolete because it’s far cheaper and easier to destroy them today than it is to build, use, and defend them. I’m not well versed in this stuff, but I’ve read several compelling pieces which argue this point.

That has been argued since the Jeune École doctrine emerged in the 19th century, with first small and fast torpedo boats, and then submarines. It hasn't been proven right, with all big conflicts including sea faring nations since then having big surface ships playing a part at least blockading ( Russo-Japanese war, the World Wars, Korean war, Vietnam war, Gulf wars).

I don't think that changes the equation that drastically. I mean sure, it's practical to be able to destroy all the enemy's ships from MRBM range rather than cruise missile range, but considering the amount of submarines carrying "aircraft carrier killer" cruise missiles with already decent range it's not such a game changer.

The difference is that cruise missiles in a naval envieonment are much easier to shoot down.

You’re making speculative leaps of logic based on jack shit as evidence.

How so?

Are you totally sure the same systems that defend US naval vessels are present in Erbil, Iraq?

They definitely aren't. Supposedly there is Patriot and C-RAM, whereas warships use AEGIS.

However, Patriot is based on largely the same technology as AEGIS (PESA engagement radar, TVM, Hit-to-kill capability, etc...), is supposed to have a high kill probability against these targets, and like the SM-3, is made by Raytheon.

So if Patriot can't intercept SRBMs reliably, it's unlikely that another missile system made by the same company using the same technology could intercept MRBMs reliably.

>largely the same technology

At a high level right? Like both "PESA" radars, but completely different implementations. Similar, but not at all the same missles, etc.

And it's not clear a Patriot system was in Irbil, in the right spot anyway, right?

So this all could mean something, but that's unclear.

It seems the air defences were indeed in Erbil: https://globalcomment.com/how-effective-air-defences-in-iraq...

As far as implementation, yes of course the implementation would be different, but it bears to notice it is made by the same company. Is it really reasonable to expect Raytheon to fail at making competent air defences and greatly overstate their capabilities for Patriot, whereas their naval missiles are nearly perfect?

>The more interesting thing however is that the US SAMs failed once again to intercept the SRBMs. If really US air defences can't intercept SRBMs reliably, the US Navy is in gigantic, perhaps even existential, trouble.

I don't know if this has anything to do with that:

"Biden Orders Major Reversal Of Trump’s Missile Battery Build-Up In Gulf" [0]

>"A major “realignment” of US defense priorities is resulting in a new extended drawdown of troops, aircraft, and anti-aircraft missiles from the Middle East, The Wall Street journal says in a new report, especially a prior missile battery build-up under Trump in Saudi Arabia."

The article mentions Iraq but not Erbil.

[0]: https://zububrothers.com/2021/06/18/biden-orders-major-rever...

> The more interesting thing however is that the US SAMs failed once again to intercept the SRBMs. If really US air defences can't intercept SRBMs reliably, the US Navy is in gigantic, perhaps even existential, trouble.

I don't know if it shows a failure. Were there even appropriate air defenses in range?

Edit for more info:

If the launch location is as mentioned in a Twitter thread [0] then there's approximately 165 miles for the missile to travel. If the nearest US air defenses are in, say, Kuwait, that's over 500 miles to travel to intercept. I don't know where the US has their air defenses currently.

[0] https://twitter.com/obretix/status/1502794434999730177

> I don't know if it shows a failure. Were there even appropriate air defenses in range?

Found one source [0] saying that there are Patriot and C-RAM systems in place at Erbil airport, from September 2021. I guess we'll have to wait for some official statement in the next few days.

[0] https://globalcomment.com/how-effective-air-defences-in-iraq...

> Erbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq

> …

> Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said on Twitter: "Erbil is under fire... as if Kurds were not Iraqis".

For such a short article, it packs a lot of historical bread crumbs if one wants to follow/knows to look for them.

Can’t edit now but for context: at the time I wrote this comment, there were only three paragraphs in the article and those were the only substantive parts of it. It’s still a short article, but not what was published when I shared that reaction.

This is a developing story and a lot of people are leaping to conclusions. It's not clear yet who launched the missiles, or from where.

There is a video from a truckdriver showing them leave. It is very clear where they came from.

But I am skilled in the arts of war and militry tactics, sire

I always feel out of my depth whenever something happens in the Middle East or Europe. Wouldn't mind getting a few classes on all the conflicts between these groups.

If you’re looking for a high-level, fast-paced overview of some of the major points, Crash Course has some entertaining content.

European history: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMsMTfmRomkVQG8...

World history: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9

It's very difficult for a Westerner to understand the Middle East - they don't think like you do, their, I don't know how to put it, "value metric" is different from yours. So their action as a result of information will be different from yours (they value different things than you do).

Even if you learn the information, and you can, you still won't understand why they act as they do, unless you really immerse yourself in their culture.

Frankly I think this fact is a major barrier for people with Ukraine and Russia as well. People can’t comprehend that people there, especially in Russia, see the conflict much differently than people in Canada or the USA might. It’s almost as though instead they assume people are dysfunctional or stupid. It seems very detrimental to collectively moving forward. People really do seem well-suited to living in small and homogenous groups, not billions upon billions in a global civilization.

> People really do seem well-suited to living in small and homogenous groups, not billions upon billions in a global civilization.

Humanity has done and is doing far better in the multi-billion person global civilization (whatever that means) than in small homogenous groups, by any measure you can imagine, by many orders of magnitude. There is no comparison.

And in fact, most of the remaining problems are due to people trying to divide others into homogenous groups.

How astonishingly racist. And how astonishingly uncurious.

If you find this reaction shocking and you sincerely want to find more understanding of the Middle East, your ancestors or peers almost certainly have also been colonized, or have neighbors who have. This reaction to colonized people is so banal you should be able to find troves of understanding if you bother to look.

Edit: I expect this to continue to be downvoted, because I know the way things go here. But honestly every one of you downvoting me who think it’s a reasonable thing to say ‘they don't think like you do, their, I don't know how to put it, "value metric" is different from yours’… take a moment and think about that.

So, an alternative view point here. Fwiw I'm Iranian and I'm living in the US.

I kinda agree with you that just dismissing it like that feels off-putting. However, I actually want people (mainly westerners) to admit that they don't know how shit works there, and how, for example, Iranians deal with conflicts and grief.

What I don't want is that they assume that the way Americans do it is the right way, and everyone else is wrong. Or that they really could have any reasonable opinion that isn't going to make the shit worse without REALLY taking the time to try to learn and talk about what's going on and how to not fuck it up even more because America and Europe keep fucking it up.

I agree with this completely, for what it’s worth. The thing I objected to in the comment above was the ‘we/they just think differently and it’s not knowable’ attitude, which is dehumanizing as fuck. I would hope people are interested in learning why other people act and react the way they do, and understand that there are cultural and historical influences on that. And to the point of not assuming American reactions are right: we’re so screwed up we don’t even realize we’re still reacting to our own colonization even after being colonizers for centuries.

I feel like you read a judgment in there that I did not write.

For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt%E2%80%93shame%E2%80%93fe... someone from one type would have a hard time understanding the actions of someone from the other type "why did you do that?".

Even if you manage to intellectually understand the concept, internalizing it is a whole other level, which takes time and lots of contact.

The Middle East culture is different from the Western culture, and knowing this helps understanding.

Maybe it’s because I’m from both cultures and I don’t need Wikipedia pages theorizing kinds of cultures to interact with humans in both. Maybe it’s because I’ve had people literally tell me to my face that my people hate dogs and abuse them, or do all manner of other inhumane things, but they don’t know they’re telling me about me because I’m also white and they don’t think I also come from the culture they’re describing.

What is “the Middle East culture”?

Maybe you are downvoted because of the inflammatory way you said it. If you could have said it otherwise, you'd have a great point IMHO.

Start here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XN8UG3C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan

With Russia so heavily committed in Ukraine, everywhere else they are active is going to become hotter as their opponents take advantage.

[Japan claims disputed islands annexed by Russia after WWII | Israel National News - Arutz Sheva](https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/323757 )

If they care that much about them, it's strategically smart. It gets lost in the news and Russia is dealing with other things.

They do it every year.

Unipolar is dead, long live multipolar!

https://archive.ph/j7lPZ

2022 is going to be balls to the walls geopolitical drama isn't it. The impact on food, fuel prices around the world from all the ongoing conflicts is going to cause even further instability.

It’s going to be more than a year.

Suddenly having deja-vu’s from when Covid-19 emerged.

Yeah, I'm remembering March 2020 and people saying this was going to be a multi year pandemic. I didn't want to believe it, but it sounded about right, given how pandemics go...and here we are, in 2022.

You'd think COVID would have taught me some good coping strategies for disconcerting world events, and yet here I am, still anxious as ever.

Well in your defence, nothing has really changed to make these events less disconcerting and learning skills to navigate and handle situations of this magnitude isn’t a trivial matter. It’s important to realize, I think, that this stuff really is a big deal. It would be worse if we all became totally apathetic and had no sense of the significance of what’s unfolding around us.

I don't want to become apathetic, but I need to learn how to better process what's happening and continue living my life at the same time. Right now I'm walking around in a near constant state of dread, and tossing and turning every single night (which was how most of 2020 was for me). Which doesn't help me or anyone else.

Absolutely. You’re not alone though. This stuff can be difficult to process at the best of times.

It’s a tired horse to beat, but I’d recommend breathing if you haven’t tried it. My mind races just about every night unless I read myself to sleep. When it’s really bad I’ll often do some sort of hyperventilating exercise combined with breath holds, like the Wim Hoff thing. The rollercoaster of oxygen flushing the system and adrenaline (I think?) winds up being a stellar reset button and I can usually relax well after.

I remember claims at the beginning of covid that it'd realistically be 16 months to get through it which wasn't so wrong considering the timing of mass vaccinations.

Pax Americana was mostly nice.

Too bad viruses didn't give it any mind!

An opinion that would have got you roasted at the stake by the intelligentsia 2 months ago.

There's no shortage of post-soviet-collapse, pre-9/11, peak 90s childhood nostalgia from millennials though. That period of time is what I see whenever someone says Pax Americana.

That's okay, a bunch of crooked politicians who became super rich on insider trading and other shady deals said increased gas and food prices was a sacrifice they were willing to make, and only traitors would question their generosity.

I thought oil was in a free market and the invisible hand of all glorious capitalism decides what’s best for us.

OPEC is an overt cartel. Why would you have thought that?

Sarcasm bro

So it really has nothing to do with capitalism or a free market then.

The failure comes from state regulations, cartel behavior permitted by the WTO and other failed globalist bodies, and state warmongering. The solution is clearly to demonize individual choice and concentrate more power in corrupt state and global bodies!

in what way does capitalism curtail the impulse of those in power to break markets?

having a bonfire in my house is fine, sure it catches the house on fire, but that's the fault of the materials my house is made from, not the bonfire. there are hypothetical materials that wouldn't catch fire, i'm pretty sure.

The same way that socialism or state control doesn't fix those problems either.

At least with capitalism the (alleged) ideal is decentralization of control. Other systems are overtly authoritarian with the explicit goal of consolidation of power.

sure that's the ideal, now how about the reality?

actually, comparing ideal for ideal, isn't socialism ideally about decentralization of control too?

Really? The reality between socialism and capitalism?

Okay look at USSR, pre-capitalist China, North Korea, Communist Cambodia etc. And compare them with USA, Norway, New Zealand, Japan, Germany.

It depends on who's doing the calculating.

From Feb. 23:

"Biden halts all new oil, gas leases" [0]

>The Biden administration is delaying decisions on new oil and gas drilling on federal land and other energy-related actions after a federal court blocked the way officials were calculating the real-world costs of climate change...

[0]: https://www.americanpress.com/2022/02/23/biden-halts-all-new...

One day after nuclear India accidentally fire a missile at nuclear Pakistan.

"Interesting Times" intensifies.

There goes the Iran Nuclear deal

The nuclear deal was killed off a few days ago when the US seized Iranian oil tankers.

On top of the Russians holding things up in Vienna.

Russia doesn't really need to be part of any deal tbh. The thing that's fucking Iran's economy is American secondary sanctions.

Biden could've revived the JCPOA the second he took office.

There's literally no point in Iran joining a new deal. The only way I can see Iran would join a new deal is reperations from America for having trump just get up and leave from the agreement for no good reason. Oh and for assassinating a military personnel.

> There's literally no point in Iran joining a new deal.

Iran doesn't agree.

Iran cut the negotiations because America still doesn't want to admit they don't have the upper hand.

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