7 ms·

That's all well argued, but I can't get over the asymmetries of country size and the asymmetry of missile defense vs shooting the missile. Russia wasn't suppos

That's all well argued, but I can't get over the asymmetries of country size and the asymmetry of missile defense vs shooting the missile. Russia wasn't supposed to be economically capable of a war this long and yet here we are. And that's a war of choice. If Iran is being attacked, they have no choices. People will find a way to make missiles underground if they have to. And that's all before we get into political and psychological factors. How long does Netanyahu stay in power if Tel Aviv is hit every day? (I have to note, USA vs Iran and Israel vs Iran are very different economic comparisons. It would be impossible for Israel to sustain 24/7 suppression over a country Iran's size but maybe with enough American funding its more feasible.)

sir0010010 1y ago
Iran has a choice - it could choose not to support Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis or any other group firing rockets on Israel. It could also choose not to enrich uranium.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- 8note 1y ago
  israel also has a choice, to attack or not attack. iran doesnt make israel's choices, so chances are israel is gonna attack either way for israel's own internal politics
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> I can't get over the asymmetries of country size and the asymmetry of missile defense vs shooting the missile You're referring to strategic depth. Iran has lots of it. Israel does not. Countering that, however, is power projection capability. Israel has a lot of this, through its air force and allies. Iran was thought to have a lot of it, through its proxies, but that failed. Without its proxies, Iran's fire on Israel has to originate from its own territory. That means trading missile range against the protection offered by its strategic depth from Israeli counter-battery fire. Hence why Iran's launchers were somewhat distributed across its territory. But! If Israel has air supremacy, that strategic depth changes from a risk to a logistical cost. If Israeli jets can freely access Iranian air space, that extra distance Iran's central and eastern launchers have to fly don't trade against any defensive upside--they're still going to be blown up shortly after a pad is revealed. They just have to burn more fuel to get the same payload to the same place. > Russia wasn't supposed to be economically capable of a war this long There were a variety of estimates. Most of them assumed Russia's economy would crumble under sanctions and so Moscow would lose the will to fight. I don't believe any showed Russia would lose the ability. > If Iran is being attacked, they have no choices. People will find a way to make missiles underground if they have to Rockets, sure. Missiles? No. The Shahab-3 reaches altitudes of 400 km [1]. That's where the ISS orbits [2]. > How long does Netanyahu stay in power if Tel Aviv is hit every day? How long does Putin stay in power if Ukraine keeps dismantling Russia's energy infrastructure? The sad truth is war-time leaders tend to be deposed after unpopular wars, not during them. > It would be impossible for Israel to sustain 24/7 suppression over a country Iran's size Again, they don't need to. They just need to destroy the launchers. It's estimated Iran went from 350 to 100 launchers in the war. Once you've levelled the launchers, you're defending against unguided rockets (which everyone in between will try to pot) and drones (which are cheaper and easier to destroy and cause less damage). > would be impossible for Israel to sustain 24/7 suppression over a country Iran's size but maybe with enough American funding its more feasible Israel's economy is twice the size of Irans's [3][4]. Its smaller territory means it can concentrate air defences. And with 10x fewer mouths to feed, it can devote more of that economy to its war machine in a spurt. Iran-Israel is super interesting because they don't share a border, and they sort of min-maxed their militaries and economies in very different ways. If Iran had maintained its proxies, I think your original analysis stands. Without them, when it can only fire from one direction and from far away, all while Israel can scoot up close and right on top of it, many of its advantages turn into liabilities. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahab-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahab-3 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iran
- woooooo 1y ago
  Don't know why you're getting downvoted for a thoughtful comment. I think you're overindexing on a prepared sneak attack with maximum ops velocity from Israel. They threw the best punch they had and it.. disrupted Iran. Didn't knock them out. Longer term, Israel has 260 fighter-bombers and Iran is huge. Allied analysts after WW2 generally concluded that strategic bombing didn't really move the needle on German war production, and that was with 10s of thousands of bombers, although admittedly a lot less precision. Any long, flat building in Iran's gigantic, mountainous country could be building missiles. And new launcher locations won't be plotted out ahead of time for a high-tempo 72 hour operation, they'll be coming up continuously over the long haul. They don't need to be hypersonic once interceptors are exhausted. How's Israel going to sustain that long term, especially if they take any amount of ongoing civilian losses at all? It stops being an abstract conversation about collateral damage to civilians pretty quickly once it's happening to them. 10/1 ratio is nowhere near good enough for the polity there.
  - sudosysgen 1y ago
    A more relevant historical parallel was the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq, in the first 5 years of the war, had largely degraded Iranian air defenses and was able to carry out many thousands of airstrikes, at some points even using strategic bombers, many of them with precision weapons. That was enough to degrade Iranian industry, but not enough to destroy it, and by the late 80s Iran still won the war of attrition, and managed to develop their weapons industry. By the end of the war Iran was using domestic surveillance drones to direct artillery, and was even experimenting with the first attack drones by fitting RPGs on their larger surveillance UAVs, had reverse engineered and started domestically producing TOW missiles, had started producing the Shahab-1 ballistic missile (a Scud clone), Silkworm-clone radar-guided antiship cruise missiles, etc..., all the while their air force was down to less than 100 hundred aircraft in various degrees of disrepair and with very few advanced munitions remaining. The war ultimately ended in a stalemate, even after the US intervened in Praying Mantis.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago

sir0010010 1y ago

Iran has a choice - it could choose not to support Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis or any other group firing rockets on Israel. It could also choose not to enrich uranium.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
8note 1y ago
israel also has a choice, to attack or not attack. iran doesnt make israel's choices, so chances are israel is gonna attack either way for israel's own internal politics

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> I can't get over the asymmetries of country size and the asymmetry of missile defense vs shooting the missile You're referring to strategic depth. Iran has lots of it. Israel does not. Countering that, however, is power projection capability. Israel has a lot of this, through its air force and allies. Iran was thought to have a lot of it, through its proxies, but that failed. Without its proxies, Iran's fire on Israel has to originate from its own territory. That means trading missile range against the protection offered by its strategic depth from Israeli counter-battery fire. Hence why Iran's launchers were somewhat distributed across its territory. But! If Israel has air supremacy, that strategic depth changes from a risk to a logistical cost. If Israeli jets can freely access Iranian air space, that extra distance Iran's central and eastern launchers have to fly don't trade against any defensive upside--they're still going to be blown up shortly after a pad is revealed. They just have to burn more fuel to get the same payload to the same place. > Russia wasn't supposed to be economically capable of a war this long There were a variety of estimates. Most of them assumed Russia's economy would crumble under sanctions and so Moscow would lose the will to fight. I don't believe any showed Russia would lose the ability. > If Iran is being attacked, they have no choices. People will find a way to make missiles underground if they have to Rockets, sure. Missiles? No. The Shahab-3 reaches altitudes of 400 km [1]. That's where the ISS orbits [2]. > How long does Netanyahu stay in power if Tel Aviv is hit every day? How long does Putin stay in power if Ukraine keeps dismantling Russia's energy infrastructure? The sad truth is war-time leaders tend to be deposed after unpopular wars, not during them. > It would be impossible for Israel to sustain 24/7 suppression over a country Iran's size Again, they don't need to. They just need to destroy the launchers. It's estimated Iran went from 350 to 100 launchers in the war. Once you've levelled the launchers, you're defending against unguided rockets (which everyone in between will try to pot) and drones (which are cheaper and easier to destroy and cause less damage). > would be impossible for Israel to sustain 24/7 suppression over a country Iran's size but maybe with enough American funding its more feasible Israel's economy is twice the size of Irans's [3][4]. Its smaller territory means it can concentrate air defences. And with 10x fewer mouths to feed, it can devote more of that economy to its war machine in a spurt. Iran-Israel is super interesting because they don't share a border, and they sort of min-maxed their militaries and economies in very different ways. If Iran had maintained its proxies, I think your original analysis stands. Without them, when it can only fire from one direction and from far away, all while Israel can scoot up close and right on top of it, many of its advantages turn into liabilities. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahab-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahab-3 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iran

woooooo 1y ago
Don't know why you're getting downvoted for a thoughtful comment. I think you're overindexing on a prepared sneak attack with maximum ops velocity from Israel. They threw the best punch they had and it.. disrupted Iran. Didn't knock them out. Longer term, Israel has 260 fighter-bombers and Iran is huge. Allied analysts after WW2 generally concluded that strategic bombing didn't really move the needle on German war production, and that was with 10s of thousands of bombers, although admittedly a lot less precision. Any long, flat building in Iran's gigantic, mountainous country could be building missiles. And new launcher locations won't be plotted out ahead of time for a high-tempo 72 hour operation, they'll be coming up continuously over the long haul. They don't need to be hypersonic once interceptors are exhausted. How's Israel going to sustain that long term, especially if they take any amount of ongoing civilian losses at all? It stops being an abstract conversation about collateral damage to civilians pretty quickly once it's happening to them. 10/1 ratio is nowhere near good enough for the polity there.
- sudosysgen 1y ago
  A more relevant historical parallel was the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq, in the first 5 years of the war, had largely degraded Iranian air defenses and was able to carry out many thousands of airstrikes, at some points even using strategic bombers, many of them with precision weapons. That was enough to degrade Iranian industry, but not enough to destroy it, and by the late 80s Iran still won the war of attrition, and managed to develop their weapons industry. By the end of the war Iran was using domestic surveillance drones to direct artillery, and was even experimenting with the first attack drones by fitting RPGs on their larger surveillance UAVs, had reverse engineered and started domestically producing TOW missiles, had started producing the Shahab-1 ballistic missile (a Scud clone), Silkworm-clone radar-guided antiship cruise missiles, etc..., all the while their air force was down to less than 100 hundred aircraft in various degrees of disrepair and with very few advanced munitions remaining. The war ultimately ended in a stalemate, even after the US intervened in Praying Mantis.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago