RE: https://infosec.exchange/@bontchev/116271481696841313
Oh good grief, this summary is both farcical and tragic: also, Trump has fucked air travel for at least the next two years, never mind automobiles and logistics. The supply chain shock will get as bad as 2022 within a couple of months—then keep getting worse.
@cstross Trump and the people around him are absolute morons, yes, but there is a weird motivated thinking desire among many to breathlessly claim US military hardware - which Trump had no hand in the development of - somehow sucks.
The F-35, for all its infamous flaws, is working better than experts expected. It was never designed to be fully stealthy - it emits radar so it can see and shoot at enemy aircraft.
And SM-3 continues to be phenomenal.
But the awesome performance of some systems
@cstross really does not change the fact that there never was any way to "win" this Iran War. You just have to look at this size, terrain, population layout of Iran compared to Iraq 2003 to get an idea of what sort of invasion force would have been necessary.
And there aren't any neighbors to Iran eager to become an invasion staging area.
So ... Iran will win. Period. They'll get bombed and stuff, and then ... they'll win.
@isaackuo @cstross The US victory conditions are for the Islamic Republic to go away. (US elite consensus that it's illegitimate, generational offense at daring to claim ownership of oil, etc.) They don't need to be Napoleon and be lauded as a conqueror.
Take a look at Iran on Google Maps; switch on the traffic.
Sparse transportation network, very concentrated; single export economy.
Think kinetic sanctions; blow up the ability to export oil and the roads over the mountains. Mine the ports.
@isaackuo @cstross Is this a big bundle of war crimes before they start bombing power plants? Yes. The whole thing is illegitimate per the defunct post-war order.
Does anyone in the US administration care at all? No. (Many are actively in favor.)
Can the US do it? This is one of the things you can do with air supremacy.
Will it work?
It could; starving people are docile, but people who know they're going to starve are not. (Not that this is going to save anybody.)
@graydon @cstross Okay, but how does this actually make the Iranian regime go away?
Yeah, starving people may be docile, but this would help whoever's already in power.
Unless you have a full on invasion force, I see "regime change" as a political struggle. And Trump's hurting, not helping, political support for the Iranian opposition.
@isaackuo @cstross It takes a minimum economy to maintain a regime. It needs radios and the ability to manufacture small arms ammunition and keep records. If you crash an economy hard enough and external support isn't available (no sufficient transport network over those mountain passes before they get mined), it stops being able to have a government.
It's not even a little bit hard to imagine this administration deciding that's the plan.
Much better if they don't, but.
@graydon @cstross Okay, I understand that as a theory, but I don't see how that would work in practice.
It's hard to imagine being bombed back into the Stone Age more than the Taliban, and ... well, we saw how that worked out.
And it's not like the Taliban was the darling of external helping superpowers or anything.
And the terrain was - oops - yeah, similar to much of Iran. And the region - oh yeah, right next door.
@isaackuo @cstross The US adventure in Afghanistan was undertaken while trying to do nation-building and while following the laws of war. (the much-complained about JAG representatives checking legitimacy of airstrike targets, etc.) It was seen as a fight.
If you don't do that and bomb power plants, food stocks, oil refineries, water infrastructure, etc. with specific genocidal intent, you get different results. There's a circulating narrative around "could have won if" about this approach.
@graydon @cstross Well, I can certainly believe that various people who are stupid (if not AS stupid as Trump) wishfully believing in that sort of genocidal theory.
I just don't think it would actually work.
I mean, of course the sort of people who would fall for this sort of theory tend to not be the most stable minds to begin with...
@isaackuo @cstross Which is kinda the problem; someone sensible won't do this even if they're certain it will work because it affects everyone's planning for centuries thereafter, and the cost of that is greater than any present gain can possibly be.
That's different from saying that it won't be tried, and there is certainly both a profit motive and a structural desire for revenge involved.
(Oil has an extraction price; this gets the commodity price much higher than the extraction price.)
@graydon @isaackuo I see us getting into a feedback cycle.
Oil/gas war in the Gulf -> skyrocketing oil/gas prices.
High fossil prices -> PV/battery more profitable
Profitable renewables -> less demand for fossils
Sinking demand -> increases incentive for war in the Gulf to keep prices high (before fossil energy fields become stranded assets)
So we're getting into end-of-oil scarcity wars, with the added twist that there's no overall energy shortage, it's just a capitalism extinction burst.
@cstross @graydon @isaackuo Possible side quest for those of us keeping a classic vehicle pet going on the side:
With the cost of dino fluid skyrocketing, it might actually make synthetic fuel look reasonable by comparison, and as that happens that might even get cheaper due to more demand.
Context: The 2.71 euro per liter of euro98 I had to pay 2 weeks ago was a bit yikes, and it'll likely cross 3 euro per liter by the end of the week.
@cstross Yeah it all depends ofcourse, but there's at least a chance to get something a bit cleaner than straight petrol.
Until recently that still fell into the firmly way too expensive bucket if you wanted to fill something bigger than a lawnmower, but times they are a changing.
I mean for the daily commute and other dumb A-B stuff an EV makes a ton more sense obviously...
@fazalmajid @cstross @isaackuo I can well believe it.
A sea mine as generally imagined is 19th century technology and not in any way efficient.
Today, there are ocean gliders with many month's endurance; it would not be hard to make these crisscross shipping lanes and preferentially attack propellers. One state-level actor doing the design work is all it takes, and it's not easy to believe no one has.
Clearing such things would be a selection of novel challenges.
@graydon @fazalmajid @isaackuo And then there are CAPTOR mines. The US has had then since 1979; it's as mature a technology as cruise missiles—a homing torpedo in a can. Sits on the sea floor for weeks to months, listening for the blade count characteristic of a designated target. When a target drives by, the torpedo pops out and makes a speed run at it.
I am *certain* Iran has the chops to build its own version. And the Straits are narrow enough to make a database of targets easy to build.
@cstross @fazalmajid @isaackuo Yup.
Submerged deployment options are certainly a thing. (Maybe not for Iran, but that tech is widespread, too.) And "go for the prop, not a sinking" is an item there, too; the owners now have to try to recover their drifting asset, which is an insurance and liability nightmare before it's a stack of costs. The attacker can point out they are being ecologically responsible. (Perhaps by only shooting at empties, even.)
@graydon @fazalmajid @cstross My intuition is that ocean gliders would not be suitable for acting as sea mines - too much mass and complexity for too little payload - but in any case they aren't needed. (And they're way too slow to go after propellers.)
As it is, even WWII era mines are DIFFICULT to counter and DIFFICULT to sweep. Particularly difficult to deal with are simple sea bed mines, and you can't just sweep them easily because they can be programmed with a waiting counter.
@graydon @fazalmajid @cstross Another thing to ponder is that the Strait of Hormuz is narrow enough to use fiber optics to command and receive sensor data from sea bed mines.
This would provide a precision and flexibility that WWII commanders could only wish for.
@isaackuo @fazalmajid @cstross the problem with trad mines is that you have to deploy them in visible ways; it isn't practical if the other side has continuous reconnaissance or air dominance.
Anybody planning to fight the US expects to operate subjected to both of those things.
A modern take on the [Helmover torpedo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmover_torpedo) with more autonomy and some form of rapid coastal launch could be quite effective for strait control.
@graydon @fazalmajid @cstross Yeah, but sea bed mines can easily be deployed years in advance during peace time.
So, some Iranian military boats sail around the Strait all the time. Who can tell if/when/where they drop mines? Not so easy.
And fiber optic is not the only command option. They could receive a coded sonar ping for activation, for example.
@fazalmajid @graydon @cstross Taiwan Straight.
Much of it, btw, is not deep enough for effective use of submarine gliders. But really good for sea bed mines.
Charlie Stross
Isaac Ji Kuo
Graydon
Alien software, human hardware
Tubemeister
Fazal Majid