Iran, Israel, and MAD
So, what’s going on between Iran and Israel after Israel launched a limited strike against Iran?:
The primary target seems to have been air defense systems around the Khatami Air Base near Isfahan. This is one of the bases from which last weekend’s attack on Israel was launched. …
Concurrent with the attack in Iran, Israel hit air defense sites in Syria. There are no conclusive reports of damage caused by any of the strikes. The scope of the attack indicates that Iranian nuclear facilities were not the target.
Neither side is making a big deal of the attack.
Is this just some sort of theater? Or is it a prelude to something bigger? I’m not sure that either side is all that sure at the moment. They’re jockeying for position and sizing each other up.
I’ve long thought that Iran won’t do all that much to Israel – except through terrorist proxies as well as worldwide propaganda – until it has nuclear weapons. Even then, it might hesitate – accent on the might – if it thought Israel would destroy it in return.
I read this interesting article at Ace’s recently. It looks at the big picture:
… [T]he Iranian attack [on Israel] was a three-pronged event using slower drones, faster cruise missiles, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. This was different, not just in who was attacking, but the methodology. The success of the defense has got a lot of people thinking and planning and, frankly, worried.
Worried? Why worried? Wouldn’t a successful defense be a good thing? Well:
The creation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile systems (ABMs) [in the Cold War] resulted in a series of negotiations, because this was destabilized the MAD doctrine. A viable ABM system allows one side to defeat a first strike, then free it to launch a strike of their own– and win. So both sides agreed to stop building and limited themselves to one system. The US put its ABM system around some of the missile fields; the Russians put theirs around Moscow.
Now let’s consider a Regional Conflict. Over time nuclear weapons have proliferated. Pakistan, India, China, France, and Great Britian have nukes, and likely others such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, South Africa (maybe), and presumably, Israel. In the bipolar years, nobody gave much thought to Regional Conflicts. Why? Regional powers didn’t have nukes, so why bother. But not anymore. This begs the question then — and the reason a lot of thinkers are busy late into the night — can a Regional Nuclear War be fought, and won?
That would act as an incentive rather than a deterrent – if a country such as Iran thought that was possible.
More:
Can MAD exist in a regional context? I think it can, but the likelihood of weapon use in oneies and twoies goes up dramatically. More so given there are other delivery options: trains, cars, airlines, etc. Better question is can MAD exist in the Middle East? Just how crazy are the muzzies? This would keep me awake at night.
In the short run, a wider war with Iran doesn’t appear to be happening right now. But the situation is highly unstable, and you don’t need me to tell you that. It’s obvious.
And nukes could and almost certainly would change the whole picture.
ADDENDUM:
Hat tip: commenter “sdferr.”
Fascinating take on it:
Actually, this discussion ignores one key point — the REAL, underlying reason that both sides agreed upon the ABM Treaty, which limited both sides’ deployment of ABMs.
Offense is much cheaper than defense, when it comes to ABMs. MUCH.
It’s easier to throw 10x the missiles at a target than it is to defend against 10x as many missiles. It is cheaper to overwhelm a defensive system in this case than it is to bolster it — this is counterintuitive, as the usual case in war is “Defense is a force multiplier”. Not here. Only one missile has to get through to ruin everything.
I’m not sure exactly how much this applies in a regional sense, as the real issue there is, “who targets whom?”
Remember, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Red China developed nukes, within a couple years. Did they just magically get technically astute? No, the French did it — this is a well-known fact. The French gave Red China the tech to become a nuclear power.
This makes a certain sense, after Cuba, in as much as it created a triumvirate — because relations between China and the USSR had soured somewhat. Which meant that, if any two of the three decided to “nuke it out”, then the uninvolved one would “win”. Triumvirates are naturally fairly stable — it’s how the American government works, in fact — the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches each constrain the other two.
In fact, the USSR had its own troika — The KGB, the Army, and the Party.
Now consider — China and India are historical enemies — akin to France and Germany. Or Serbia and Croatia. They have a long running hatred of each other, with lots of military interactions over the last couple thousand years… And, as of the 1970s, both are nuclear nations.
So… how to balance it out? How about Bozo Bill giving Pakistan nukes? Yup. Another triumvirate.
This pattern has happened throughout history, a triangle of power. Among other things, if one of the triumvirate starts to get too strong, the other two combine forces and weaken the strong one.
So, any analysis of the issues of Regional Conflicts requires at first a serious examination of, again — “Who is going to attack whom?”
The Israeli attack could have been warning. Iran’s nuclear facility is close to the site where the Israelis struck. Maybe it was “next time we will destroy your nuke facility.”
It isn’t Iran, Israel and MAD. It’s Iran, Israel and Mahdi.
“Is this just some sort of theater?”
I think the Iranians were deadly serious with their attack. Something of that size would represent a major undertaking for Iran.
But it was an utter and complete failure due to the successful defense.
Israel’s response was a required smack back, coupled with a warning. Israel hit sites that are important to Iran, but didn’t hit the important things at those sites. Israel *could* have damaged important stuff, but didn’t.
So Iran is stuck in the situation of not being able to directly go after Israel, while Israel can hit anything it wants to in Iran.
Small wonder that the Iranians are blaming everything on internal saboteurs instead of the Israelis.
They’ve studied us. They know how to couch their language in English or whatever. But say something different in Arabic or Farsi. Just bicurious
Are we obligated to be stupid forever. Because I’m not playing.
It’s not out of arrogance. I want to leave my descendants something besides the the message I should have none. And I agreed to it.
FIDF, J. Schanzer analyzes the Israeli strike, looks back too at the Iranian strike and the defensive effort against it (28:49): https://youtu.be/bUWKnyELivA?si=slMYNW01BVvLu-B5
Well the chinese program had a lot of influence from the ussr the indian program fron canada? The pakistani fron china and the dutch the north koreans from china and north korea its a game of leapfrog
sdferr:
Thanks for that. I’ll put it in the main post. If that guy is correct, what a clever move.
I think they should have taken out more of Iran’s radar facilities.
Saw a report what was hit in Iran was a radar station, near the nuclear facility. This could be a precursor or just making the nuclear facility a bit unwarn in a future attack.
Somebody is blowing “Iranian-backed” shit up in eastern Iraq, OSINTdefender:
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1781445277095715228?t=JF7rRxu71Wfoj-H_sczGLA&s=19
Smart weapons have changed warfare in the last fifteen years. It’s now a case of which side has the smartest weapons. And Israel certainly has smarter weapons than Iran or their proxies.
The ultimate hole card in nuclear bomb deterrence is our nuclear submarine fleet. That threat of having the ability to destroy an enemy even if they hit you first, is what the subs provide. No one else has the size and scope of our capability in that area. It’s the big stick that allows us to be confident among our nuclear armed enemies
Skip:
If you watch the video I added at the end of the post, you’ll see more about that.
What I heard in the video that I found most unexpected was that Washington and London now want the IDF to finish the job in Gaza, as the lesser of two dangers, to prevent the bigger danger of a wider war.
Looks like the Gazans rolled snake-eyes again.
this was suleimani’s boy band, it changes more names then the judean peoples front, essentially Iraqi Hezbollah, much like their comrades to the South, in the Peninsula, and the Houthi’s and Hezbollah prime in Lebanon,
I remember Isfahan from one of Claire Berlinski’s novels Lion Eyes, the title concerns a mysterious Iranian anthropologist who resides in Paris where a character much like herself encounters him,
Is this just some sort of theater?
–neo
Partly. Clearly opposing nations are not going full-scale mano-a-mano. Which is just as well IMO.
I’m haunted by the “Phoney War” after the Nazi/Soviet invasion of Poland:
_____________________________________
The Phoney War was an eight-month period at the start of World War II during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germany’s Saar district. Nazi Germany carried out the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, and the Phoney period began two days later with the declaration of war by the United Kingdom and France against Germany, after which little actual warfare occurred, and ended with the German invasion of France and the Low Countries on 10 May 1940.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War
_____________________________________
Maybe it’s not the greatest historical parallel. However, I note that the Phoney War led to a Real War, i.e. World War II. It’s a decent bet that this could too, though still a bet.
The ultimate hole card in nuclear bomb deterrence is our nuclear submarine fleet. That threat of having the ability to destroy an enemy even if they hit you first, is what the subs provide.
J.J.:
True. Also back in the day, as I suspect you know, it was a fleet of B-52s carrying H-bombs and circling the US, which safeguarded our ability to launch a devastating counter-attack against a Soviet first strike.
Thoughty2, a YouTuber, has an intriguing video about a 1961 mishap with one of those B-52s which caused two 3.8 megaton hydrogen bombs to crash into North Carolina. One bomb failed to detonate. The second failed to detonate after three of four safeguards failed. A way too close call.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash
–Thoughty2, “There’s a Nuclear Weapon Buried Somewhere And We Can’t Find It”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwOJUN0a4Zc
No matter how clever or lucky we are, one day we will be out of luck. And no one will be surprised.
There is a reason that you hit the air defense system first.
I suspect that Israel is preparing the landscape for more serious attacks if further provoked.
Additionally, if they were able to attack, defeat and degrade Iran’s air defenses it sends a very potent message.
I hope someone briefed Biden that they took his advice and did not attack Haifa. That should make his naps more restful.
Huxley, you overlooked the deterrent value of my squadron standing alert when in foreign ports with four of our AD-6, nuclear capable Skyraiders. JJ probably sees the humor–but we were serious.
BTW JJ, alert duty excused us from “Boat Officer” duty, although a Pac Fleet sailor may not appreciate that..
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1781485483534487900?t=sWRyT9Ry_oC9zD4FkqwIpw&s=19
“Huxley, you overlooked the deterrent value of my squadron standing alert when in foreign ports with four of our AD-6, nuclear capable Skyraiders. JJ probably sees the humor–but we were serious.” Oldflyer
Oh yeah, fly four hours at 100 feet then pull up and toss the bomb at the target. Half Cuban Eight to reverse course and get the H*ll out of there. A flawless plan, if you don’t mind being downed by your own bomb detonation. 🙂
Oh boy, relieved of boat officer duty. Actually, a couple of my most interesting nautical experiences occurred while serving as a boat officer. Last liberty boat out of Sasebo. In command of an LST with a Japanese crew. 150 or so very inebriated sailors on board. About halfway to the ship a massive fight broke out. What to do? I ordered the crew to stop the boat. Got a megaphone and told the sailors we weren’t going back to the ship until the fighting stopped. Magic! The fight stopped and we proceeded. And I said a little prayer of thanks. Not nuclear deterrence but my small contribution to peace in the fleet. 🙂
Taking out the radar is normally part of Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD). I simulated a massive cruise missile attack on the Iceland Air Defense System for the USAF. Pretty much the scenario in the Clancy novel “Red Storm Rising”.
As an aside, when I evaluated the proposed Turkish AD system I noted that it had a heavy orientation towards Greece.
JJ, you do understand boat officer duty. Boat duty and night deck runs, who could ask for anything more?
And you clearly understand the frightful deterrence of the nuclear capable Skyraider. Frightening to the pilot that is. We were told by the slide rule brigade .that the survival probability from our own bomb was 97%. Who could doubt? No assurances about the survival of hours over hostile territory at 100 feet and 162kts.
On the other hand, you were in the company of men who would become like brothers for the rest of your life.
“Those were the days, my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way”
FWIW, a guest on the Podhoetz podcast said exactly the same thing. Glide bomb specifically designed to fly beneath Russian provided air defenses, hitting a radar facility near the nuclear sites. The message is clear. First, we can leave you defenseless, then we can do whatever we want. The guest claimed to have a source inside the IDF who said the attack was successful.
“First, we can leave you defenseless, then we can do whatever we want.”
Which probably means we will be forced to wait while Biden rearms you.
Israeli’s move was part message to Iran part to Biden. What I thought was an old timer told me if you’re not defeating them you’re training them.
“Those were the days my friend……”
Yep. Too many of those friends have flown West. And they’re saving places for us, Oldflyer.
weren’t we told the regime had bought S 300s to defend itself against air attack, if they didn’t have then they will have them now,
}}} Well the chinese program had a lot of influence from the ussr
Nope. Well before 1960, relations had soured between Red China and the USSR.
The consensus is that the French literally gave China all the tech for the bomb after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and entirely because of it. Within 2-3 years, they blew up their first one.