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There is an assumption here that the value in improving defenses is the same as improving offensive weapons. That is not the case in the assymetry that drones p

• icegreentea2 7mo ago
  Air defenses do not need to be 100% effective to be... effective. Russia cannot keep Ukraine from targeting their oil infrastructure, yet here Russia is, still fighting on. Ukraine cannot prevent Russia from targeting their energy infrastructure or apartment buildings, yet here they are, still fighting on. If we're talking about strategic/civil air defense, then you must figure out what's tolerable to your population (and how to increase and maintain that tolerance), and then figure out all the means to reduce the incoming attacks to below that tolerance. That must include the full spectrum of offensive, counter offensive, defensive, and informational options.
  • energy123 7mo ago
    In the Ukraine-Russia war, air defense is used to deny air superiority to the enemy. Just a few days ago, Ukraine blew up Russia's helicopters in the air with drones. It's not the successful hits that matter, it's the capabilities that you deny by posing that credible threat.
  • bojan 7mo ago
    The difference being, Ukraine has no choice but to fight on.
• deleted 7mo ago
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• breppp 7mo ago
  > interception rate yet it's really at the mercy of Iran to not target their most vulnerable sites And what this site and you don't account for, is Iranian rather low missile accuracy. If Israel was at the mercy of Iranian attacks, Iran could have simply struck Israeli airbases to the point they cannot be used, and then stop any Israeli attacks on its territory. It's pretty obvious they don't have the capabilities of doing that
  • dlisboa 7mo ago
    You're making the same argument I am. If Iran had a small increase in accuracy they could hit targets that'd disable a lot of Israel military and civilian infrastructure. A lot of stuff is getting through. To counter that Israel has to achieve a perfect interception record. The balance is throughly on the side of offensive drone/missile warfare.
    • breppp 7mo ago
      I don't think we are arguing the same thing. I am arguing that even without any air defense, Iran would have difficulty hitting its targets in Israel with ballistic missiles due to low accuracy. When adding interception rates they have a real problem in attacking strategic facilities, air bases is a good example, which would be much more important than desalination plants. You can then see that they shifted to completely attacking large cities, usually with cluster bomblets. The reason is when you are bombing a large area, aim is less of an issue, similar to WW2 carpet bombing Your post alludes to drones, these do not reach Israel (from Iran) at all and are all intercepted
      • YeGoblynQueenne 7mo ago
        Shahed drones have a maximum range of 25000 km [bbc_1]. The distance from e.g. Isfahan to Tel-Aviv is ~1592 km [google]. Shaheds can reach Israrel from Iran. As to them all being intercepted, in the 12-day war that seemed to be the plan, i.e. force Israel to waste interceptors on cheap drones [bbc_2]. That seems to have changed in the current conflict. _______________ [bbc_1] With a maximum range of 2,500km it could fly from Tehran to Athens. [bbc_2] When Iran attacked Israel with hundreds of drones in 2024, the UK was reported to have used RAF fighter jets to shoot some down with missiles that are estimated to cost around £200,000 each. Both exceprts from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-b3a272f0-3e10-4f95-9cd1-b34ab8ad033c https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-b3a272f0-3e10-4f95-... [google] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Isfahan,+Isfahan+Province,+Iran//@31.658003,39.431095,2532919m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m9!4m8!1m5!1m1!1s0x3fbc35fe8c326799:0x7ab57816ef5837f5!2m2!1d51.6659656!2d32.6538966!1m0!3e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMyMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Isfahan,+Isfahan+Province,...
• lumost 7mo ago
  I don't see how drones don't make all conflicts into WW1. 100 Billion dollars buys about 3.3 million Shaheds assuming the manufacturing is not made more efficient. There are many questions on whether its possible to spend 100 billion dollars on Shaheds, or launch all of them. But this is more than enough to destroy any logistics and transportation infrastructure necessary for a ground invasion. There are many many countries who can afford 100 billion dollars for stored military equipment that has a long shelf life. The US makes ~50k artillery shells a month at a cost of about 10k per shell.
  • Cpoll 7mo ago
    > US makes ~50k artillery shells a month at a cost of about 10k per shell. 50000 * 10000 * 12 is 6B/year. I was surprised, but I suppose that passes the smell test for a ~1T/year defense budget.
    • rdtsc 7mo ago
      Now imagine for the same $10k cost making a cruise missile, instead. This is close to what a Shahed is -- the estimate is $20k-$50k / unit, so close enough. This is bonkers. Countries can now afford for the same cost * to make not a 10-20 mile range artillery shell, but a 1500 mile effective range cruise missile. * Defense costs are "fake" to a large degree. A lot of that is really corruption with money flowing from the taxpayers to the arms manufacturers, but still if we go by the numbers...
      • pyuser583 7mo ago
        They are fake in the sense individual items are listed as having costs that are not accurate. But really the defense deals are very complicated, and not based around buying x number of items. You’re making a not well-formed query. How much is a shell? Adam Smith pointed out the first pencil costs thousands of dollars, but the second is mostly free. Same dynamic here, but multipled by a thousand.
        • rdtsc 7mo ago
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• infinitewars 7mo ago
  It doesn't have to work, when the military industrial complex benefits either way. The U.S. is on a path to spending trillions of dollars to putting missile defense (and offense) systems in space with the Golden Dome.
• yosefk 7mo ago
  What produces this Iranian "mercy" at a time when Iran is extensively bombed, if not a combination of defensive and offensive capabilities providing escalation dominance?
  • seer 7mo ago
    MAD If they strike desalination plants, Israel/us can do the same … really mass casualty event could follow. And they might, at some point the Iranian gov might feel desperate enough to be like “fuck it, we have nothing to lose” … Dubai could end up with a lot more graves. Almost all of their water comes from these plants, and humans can’t survive without water for more than 3 days … There are reserves/stores sure, but how long will they last, and which part of the population do they cover? In a week you could have thousands of civilians dead on both sides. So MAD keeps things in check. I think this is whaly Iran has invested so much into rockets - they are very ineffective at providing decisive military victory by themselves, but without them, Iran will be at Israel’s mercy, and they have proven to not possess that in great amounts lately
    • watwut 7mo ago
      Israel already attacked desalination plants. Iran already responded by doing the same to the surrounding countries.
      • zardo 7mo ago
        It's been tit-for-tat though.
• afdbcreid 7mo ago
  There are two reasons this logic is incorrect. 1. It's not Iran's mercy, but deterrence. If Iran was to target critical infrastructure constantly, Israel and the U.S. would bomb its much more easily. Both sides currently avoid doing that for the same reason. 2. Targeting the same places again and again will mean they cannot target other places, like cities, where even a miss has greater impact. So the economy of munitions make them prefer to not do that.
  • fakedang 7mo ago
    Uh, Israel and USA are already bombing core infra in Iran. Iran is retaliating against Israel as your point 2 states, and against the Gulf countries on their critical monetary assets - because that's where it hurts either party. Targeting civilian infra in Israel means Israel's image of infallibility is shattered, while targeting monetary assets in Gulf countries (like gas fields, refineries, financial districts, etc) means that they're intent on applying pressure to the Gulf countries. They can't do the former to the latter because of the extremely large (90%+) expat populations, and they can't do the latter to the former because Israel's sensitive assets were presumably prepared for the long fight, so are likely to be heavily guarded.
• rcxdude 7mo ago
  This is part of the logic behind strategic bombing, and there's a lot of writing on how it doesn't win wars and can sometimes be counterproductive: firstly it's harder to hit and damage infrastructure than you might think (especially once your target stars fortifying at all), secondly it can be easier and faster to repair critical infrastructure than you might think, thirdly it can easily get way more expensive than you might think, and lastly it doesn't demotivate people like you might think, in fact it tends to will people to fight harder, just because spite is such a motivating force.
• corimaith 7mo ago
  That's only if you continue to assume vulnerable and unfortified critical infrastructure. Did you know the majority of damage from a nuke is more from the aftermath of the blast in fires and crumbling infrastructure than the blast itself. And that can be adequately prepared for one if one needs to.