8 ms·

An unusual (and worrying) part about this incident is how drones are being used, not with an explicit military goal in mind, but rather for the purpose of econo

by aazaa 7y ago

An unusual (and worrying) part about this incident is how drones are being used, not with an explicit military goal in mind, but rather for the purpose of economic strangulation. Like terrorist operatives, drones are relatively cheap and expendible. But unlike terrorism, which seeks to grind away at the enemy's resolve, this kind of attack attempts to deprive an enemy of the money needed to fund its operations. Like terrorism, even the threat of loss of key infrastructure can have consequences (e.g, the interest rate a country is forced to pay as risk premium). Also as ub terrorism, the targets are "soft" and therefore difficult to defend. It looks like there's something new here that could serve as a model in other conflicts. The most vulnerable players are those who have put all their economic eggs in one basket.

AndrewBissell 7y ago
I mean, it's not really that new. Saudi Arabia, with our help, has been turning an economic vise on Yemen throughout the conflict, using the weapons we supply to embargo their ports and choke off the flow of goods, even essentials like food and medicine. The only difference here is that the relatively much weaker combatant found a unique chokepoint in Saudi infrastructure that was easy to exploit. You couldn't, say, cut off an entire country's food supply with drones in this way. My suspicion is that it won't be too difficult for the Saudis to harden their defenses against this particular kind of attack.
- lapnitnelav 7y ago
  SA's economy is -AFAIK- mostly / completely dependent on natural ressources. Given that SPOF, one can't help but think of the IRA's threat to Margaret Thatcher : "[...] we only have to be lucky once – you will have to be lucky always."
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    It's been trying to both diversify and privatize, but progress is very very slow. Probably fear of instability, IMO. "The petroleum sector accounts for roughly 87% of budget revenues, 42% of GDP, and 90% of export earnings." https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sa.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... Anecdotally, I met far more Saudis when I lived in Seattle than I did when I lived in Houston. I wonder if that was part of the diversification effort.
    - fmajid 7y ago
      The Saudis don't need to go to Houston to learn about petroleum. Their domestic universities are world-class on the subject, for obvious reasons.
      - reaperducer 7y ago
        I don't recall stating that they were going to Houston to learn about petroleum. There are plenty of other reasons most of the world's major energy companies have their North American headquarters in Houston.
        selimthegrim 7y ago
        Speaking of diversification, what’s Houston’s plan?
        reaperducer 7y ago
        From an outsider's perspective, it seems to be more robust than some other cities. It went from being an oil town to an energy town a few decades ago. It has massive investments in the medical sector, with 60 institutions generating $25 billion annually.† That's bigger than the GDP of Iceland coming out of just one neighborhood. NASA Mission Control is still there, and it's the headquarters of NASA's manned spaceflight programs. Though I know there was disappointment that a lot of the Mars stuff went to Alabama. Shipping has been huge there since the early 1900's. It's the #1 port in America for foreign cargo, #2 in overall cargo, and #16 in the world.†† The Port of Houston also added a cruise ship terminal that seems busy. I know insurance was becoming a large sector there at one time, but I haven't looked into it lately. One thing it never really got a handle on was tourism. I think that's because it has a lot more locally-born residents than many large American cities, so it's very inward-looking. But even that is growing. The museums alone logged something like seven million visitors last year. Overall, it seems to be doing well. To put it in perspective, New York is the only city in America with more Fortune 500 headquarters. The only thing Houston has to worry about is hurricanes. † https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Medical_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Medical_Center †† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Houston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Houston
  - kingofpandora 7y ago
    Or Kissinger's aphorism that (I'm paraphrasing a bit here), "the military loses if it doesn't win, while the rebels win if they don't lose."
    - zipwitch 7y ago
      There's a relevant Latin quote from the era of the Punic Wars (if I recall correctly), Qui vincit non est victor nisi victus fatebur - "The victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not consider himself so."
wbl 7y ago
You've just described air power. Except now it's actually possible to destroy industrial facilities instead of maybe hitting a city.
- beaner 7y ago
  What prevented that from being possible before?
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Air power wasn't usually available to smaller players in capacity large enough to be reckoned with.
    - HenryBemis 7y ago
      Basically it momentarily eliminates the advantage of supreme military power; "you got F16s", and you spend $1.8m [0] for each cruise missile, and we will make you never sleep again with 100k (I have no idea about the types of drones and their costs - just throwing a number). Similarly, once can disrupt (peacefully - no deaths) civil aviation, e.g. use of drone in Heathrow airport. [1], [2] [0]: https://www.johnlaurits.com/2018/cost-of-tomahawk-missiles-trump-strikes-damascus/ https://www.johnlaurits.com/2018/cost-of-tomahawk-missiles-t... [1]: https://dronedj.com/2019/08/14/climate-change-activists-shut-down-heathrow-drones/ https://dronedj.com/2019/08/14/climate-change-activists-shut... [2]: https://voyagesafriq.com/2019/01/08/heathrow-airport-drone-sighting-halts-departures/ https://voyagesafriq.com/2019/01/08/heathrow-airport-drone-s...
  - rdtsc 7y ago
    Technology. Now with relatively cheap drones you can have surveillance, bomb delivery, and you can mostly hide and not risk your operatives loosing their lives. Before there was the annoying bit of having to brainwash them to blow themselves up along with the bomb they where delivering on foot, by car or boat.
  - HarryHirsch 7y ago
    You needed airplanes, and antiaircraft weapons were so much cheaper. With drones the calculation is the other way around. It completely changes the face of war, offensive warfare is now possible again. Ernst Jünger said something similar when he witnessed the first tanks in World War 1.
baybal2 7y ago
From my life experience, what people in power really hate is to be made to look powerless. And there is simple rationale to it. The power of people in power lays in hands of other powerful people serving them. And as a rule, the powerful people don't obey to ones they see as weak. And this is more apparent in the regime states than anywhere else, when generals/ministers/big shot advisers and fixers risk far more than just their political entitlement if their patron is about to loose it out.
droithomme 7y ago
> not with an explicit military goal in mind Um, the Houthis are under a multi-year campaign of strikes by Saudi Arabia. It's an actual war. This was definitely a military strike. It also levels the playing field. If you are a "tribal" with no money, you can go against vastly wealthy countries hellbent on your destruction who are actively slaughtering your people. It's a hell of a lot better approach than the other low cost tribal defense, which is biological weapons.
sschueller 7y ago
Isn't this also the strategy of every military at this point? Take out power and infrastructure, starve the opponent into submission?
mytailorisrich 7y ago
> not with an explicit military goal in mind, but rather for the purpose of economic strangulation. In the context of a military conflict, which is what is going on, this was a bone fide target.
jillesvangurp 7y ago
This is classic war fare and not terrorism. The Saudi's have made a mess of the conflict in Yemen, which is more or less part of a bigger proxy war that also involves the US and Iran. On paper it's rebels vs what passes for a government there locally. But in practice it's Iran sponsored weaponry vs. Us & EU sponsored weaponry. If you look at a map, the reasons are obvious. The Saudi's are connected to international waters via two narrow straights that border on Iran and Yemen. Yemen is strategically relevant to Iran for this reason because it allows them to isolate the Saudis. What Iran is demonstrating here is that they can put the squeeze on oil supplies. The wars in the middle east are fundamentally oil centric. It's about who gets to supply oil to the world in exchange for vast amounts of dollars. The ideology gets the headlines usually but if you follow the money, you end up in Riyad, Teheran, Moscow, Washington, and Tel Aviv. Iran is making a very basic point here: we can shut down your oil any time we want. It's a clever move since it puts everybody on the spot economically. In related news, Trump is planning to meet Rouhani. I'm guessing they have a lot to discuss.
- weberc2 7y ago
  Why can’t the Saudis likewise shut off Iran’s oil any time they want?
  - mhkool 7y ago
    Because Iran knows how to defend itself.
  - lazide 7y ago
    They already are, through US sanctions.
    - jillesvangurp 7y ago
      Exactly. Iran has nothing to lose economically by going after Saudi oil. Before the sanctions against Iran, the status quo was OPEC as a vehicle to divide up the dollars. Everybody in the region profited from that arrangement. Now that the sanctions are in place that former arrangement no longer keeps the peace. Iran wants in on the action and if they can't have it, they'll go after the Saudi's. They've been putting their ability to do so on display with not so subtle actions. The US has two options here: 1) go to war with Iran. 2) find a way through diplomatic channels to make this go away. It looks like Bolton (aka. option #1) is out and Rouhani is meeting with Trump to discuss option #2.
edf13 7y ago
And watch the share prices of Drone Defence companies soar...
- netsharc 7y ago
  "My new startup leverages AI/ML combined with blockchain technology to do real-time disabling through software hacking of drones in-flight... we also rent out office space for dynamic companies!"
anigbrowl 7y ago
That is absolutely a military goal, and a far worthier one than terrorist attacks against civilians. One might note that Saudi Arabia has been economically strangling people in Yemen by basically shutting down the ports and restricting the distribution of food and medicine and knowingly inflicting a horrific famine (PBS Newshour has had especially detailed coverage of this conflict and this is one of the few contexts where TV news can do a superior job to print analysis). While it's unwise to apply moral analysis to military conflicts because of the potential for both self-deception and ideological excess, this incident strikes me as richly deserved.
- fit2rule 7y ago
  It should be recognised that the USA and its Coalition partners have been supporting Saudi efforts to strangle/starve the Yemeni people. We are on the wrong side this time, folks.
dan_mctree 7y ago
Even diversified countries are vulnerable to similar shenanigans. There are a lot of vulnerable points in modern society. Destroy a couple of electricity substations or power line towers and you could paralyze cities housing millions. These kinds of targets are also really hard to defend and comparatively easy to destroy. Hell, you could probably drive around tossing copper wires over power lines and inflict gigantic economic damage that way. (You would also probably die)
dragonwriter 7y ago
> An unusual (and worrying) part about this incident is how drones are being used, not with an explicit military goal in mind, but rather for the purpose of economic strangulation. Economic strangulation is a military goal. In fact, most other military goals are merely methods of positioning better for economic strangulation, which is pretty nearly the ultimate military goal.

by aazaa 7y ago

AndrewBissell 7y ago

I mean, it's not really that new. Saudi Arabia, with our help, has been turning an economic vise on Yemen throughout the conflict, using the weapons we supply to embargo their ports and choke off the flow of goods, even essentials like food and medicine. The only difference here is that the relatively much weaker combatant found a unique chokepoint in Saudi infrastructure that was easy to exploit. You couldn't, say, cut off an entire country's food supply with drones in this way. My suspicion is that it won't be too difficult for the Saudis to harden their defenses against this particular kind of attack.

lapnitnelav 7y ago
SA's economy is -AFAIK- mostly / completely dependent on natural ressources. Given that SPOF, one can't help but think of the IRA's threat to Margaret Thatcher : "[...] we only have to be lucky once – you will have to be lucky always."
- reaperducer 7y ago
  It's been trying to both diversify and privatize, but progress is very very slow. Probably fear of instability, IMO. "The petroleum sector accounts for roughly 87% of budget revenues, 42% of GDP, and 90% of export earnings." https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sa.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... Anecdotally, I met far more Saudis when I lived in Seattle than I did when I lived in Houston. I wonder if that was part of the diversification effort.
  - fmajid 7y ago
    The Saudis don't need to go to Houston to learn about petroleum. Their domestic universities are world-class on the subject, for obvious reasons.
    - reaperducer 7y ago
      I don't recall stating that they were going to Houston to learn about petroleum. There are plenty of other reasons most of the world's major energy companies have their North American headquarters in Houston.
      - selimthegrim 7y ago
        Speaking of diversification, what’s Houston’s plan?
        reaperducer 7y ago
        From an outsider's perspective, it seems to be more robust than some other cities. It went from being an oil town to an energy town a few decades ago. It has massive investments in the medical sector, with 60 institutions generating $25 billion annually.† That's bigger than the GDP of Iceland coming out of just one neighborhood. NASA Mission Control is still there, and it's the headquarters of NASA's manned spaceflight programs. Though I know there was disappointment that a lot of the Mars stuff went to Alabama. Shipping has been huge there since the early 1900's. It's the #1 port in America for foreign cargo, #2 in overall cargo, and #16 in the world.†† The Port of Houston also added a cruise ship terminal that seems busy. I know insurance was becoming a large sector there at one time, but I haven't looked into it lately. One thing it never really got a handle on was tourism. I think that's because it has a lot more locally-born residents than many large American cities, so it's very inward-looking. But even that is growing. The museums alone logged something like seven million visitors last year. Overall, it seems to be doing well. To put it in perspective, New York is the only city in America with more Fortune 500 headquarters. The only thing Houston has to worry about is hurricanes. † https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Medical_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Medical_Center †† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Houston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Houston
- kingofpandora 7y ago
  Or Kissinger's aphorism that (I'm paraphrasing a bit here), "the military loses if it doesn't win, while the rebels win if they don't lose."
  - zipwitch 7y ago
    There's a relevant Latin quote from the era of the Punic Wars (if I recall correctly), Qui vincit non est victor nisi victus fatebur - "The victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not consider himself so."

wbl 7y ago

You've just described air power. Except now it's actually possible to destroy industrial facilities instead of maybe hitting a city.

beaner 7y ago
What prevented that from being possible before?
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Air power wasn't usually available to smaller players in capacity large enough to be reckoned with.
  - HenryBemis 7y ago
    Basically it momentarily eliminates the advantage of supreme military power; "you got F16s", and you spend $1.8m [0] for each cruise missile, and we will make you never sleep again with 100k (I have no idea about the types of drones and their costs - just throwing a number). Similarly, once can disrupt (peacefully - no deaths) civil aviation, e.g. use of drone in Heathrow airport. [1], [2] [0]: https://www.johnlaurits.com/2018/cost-of-tomahawk-missiles-trump-strikes-damascus/ https://www.johnlaurits.com/2018/cost-of-tomahawk-missiles-t... [1]: https://dronedj.com/2019/08/14/climate-change-activists-shut-down-heathrow-drones/ https://dronedj.com/2019/08/14/climate-change-activists-shut... [2]: https://voyagesafriq.com/2019/01/08/heathrow-airport-drone-sighting-halts-departures/ https://voyagesafriq.com/2019/01/08/heathrow-airport-drone-s...
- rdtsc 7y ago
  Technology. Now with relatively cheap drones you can have surveillance, bomb delivery, and you can mostly hide and not risk your operatives loosing their lives. Before there was the annoying bit of having to brainwash them to blow themselves up along with the bomb they where delivering on foot, by car or boat.
- HarryHirsch 7y ago
  You needed airplanes, and antiaircraft weapons were so much cheaper. With drones the calculation is the other way around. It completely changes the face of war, offensive warfare is now possible again. Ernst Jünger said something similar when he witnessed the first tanks in World War 1.

baybal2 7y ago

From my life experience, what people in power really hate is to be made to look powerless. And there is simple rationale to it. The power of people in power lays in hands of other powerful people serving them. And as a rule, the powerful people don't obey to ones they see as weak. And this is more apparent in the regime states than anywhere else, when generals/ministers/big shot advisers and fixers risk far more than just their political entitlement if their patron is about to loose it out.

droithomme 7y ago

> not with an explicit military goal in mind Um, the Houthis are under a multi-year campaign of strikes by Saudi Arabia. It's an actual war. This was definitely a military strike. It also levels the playing field. If you are a "tribal" with no money, you can go against vastly wealthy countries hellbent on your destruction who are actively slaughtering your people. It's a hell of a lot better approach than the other low cost tribal defense, which is biological weapons.

sschueller 7y ago

Isn't this also the strategy of every military at this point? Take out power and infrastructure, starve the opponent into submission?

mytailorisrich 7y ago

> not with an explicit military goal in mind, but rather for the purpose of economic strangulation. In the context of a military conflict, which is what is going on, this was a bone fide target.

jillesvangurp 7y ago

This is classic war fare and not terrorism. The Saudi's have made a mess of the conflict in Yemen, which is more or less part of a bigger proxy war that also involves the US and Iran. On paper it's rebels vs what passes for a government there locally. But in practice it's Iran sponsored weaponry vs. Us & EU sponsored weaponry. If you look at a map, the reasons are obvious. The Saudi's are connected to international waters via two narrow straights that border on Iran and Yemen. Yemen is strategically relevant to Iran for this reason because it allows them to isolate the Saudis. What Iran is demonstrating here is that they can put the squeeze on oil supplies. The wars in the middle east are fundamentally oil centric. It's about who gets to supply oil to the world in exchange for vast amounts of dollars. The ideology gets the headlines usually but if you follow the money, you end up in Riyad, Teheran, Moscow, Washington, and Tel Aviv. Iran is making a very basic point here: we can shut down your oil any time we want. It's a clever move since it puts everybody on the spot economically. In related news, Trump is planning to meet Rouhani. I'm guessing they have a lot to discuss.

weberc2 7y ago
Why can’t the Saudis likewise shut off Iran’s oil any time they want?
- mhkool 7y ago
  Because Iran knows how to defend itself.
- lazide 7y ago
  They already are, through US sanctions.
  - jillesvangurp 7y ago
    Exactly. Iran has nothing to lose economically by going after Saudi oil. Before the sanctions against Iran, the status quo was OPEC as a vehicle to divide up the dollars. Everybody in the region profited from that arrangement. Now that the sanctions are in place that former arrangement no longer keeps the peace. Iran wants in on the action and if they can't have it, they'll go after the Saudi's. They've been putting their ability to do so on display with not so subtle actions. The US has two options here: 1) go to war with Iran. 2) find a way through diplomatic channels to make this go away. It looks like Bolton (aka. option #1) is out and Rouhani is meeting with Trump to discuss option #2.

edf13 7y ago

And watch the share prices of Drone Defence companies soar...

netsharc 7y ago
"My new startup leverages AI/ML combined with blockchain technology to do real-time disabling through software hacking of drones in-flight... we also rent out office space for dynamic companies!"

anigbrowl 7y ago

That is absolutely a military goal, and a far worthier one than terrorist attacks against civilians. One might note that Saudi Arabia has been economically strangling people in Yemen by basically shutting down the ports and restricting the distribution of food and medicine and knowingly inflicting a horrific famine (PBS Newshour has had especially detailed coverage of this conflict and this is one of the few contexts where TV news can do a superior job to print analysis). While it's unwise to apply moral analysis to military conflicts because of the potential for both self-deception and ideological excess, this incident strikes me as richly deserved.

fit2rule 7y ago
It should be recognised that the USA and its Coalition partners have been supporting Saudi efforts to strangle/starve the Yemeni people. We are on the wrong side this time, folks.

dan_mctree 7y ago

Even diversified countries are vulnerable to similar shenanigans. There are a lot of vulnerable points in modern society. Destroy a couple of electricity substations or power line towers and you could paralyze cities housing millions. These kinds of targets are also really hard to defend and comparatively easy to destroy. Hell, you could probably drive around tossing copper wires over power lines and inflict gigantic economic damage that way. (You would also probably die)

dragonwriter 7y ago

> An unusual (and worrying) part about this incident is how drones are being used, not with an explicit military goal in mind, but rather for the purpose of economic strangulation. Economic strangulation is a military goal. In fact, most other military goals are merely methods of positioning better for economic strangulation, which is pretty nearly the ultimate military goal.