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.
@rpluim @cstross already happening in some countries, and if Trump targets Iranian energy then I imagine that the response probably ends up even worse.
And Iran hasn't even started on non conventional warfare like flying smuggled in drones into US refineries, data centres or world cup stadia
Israel has the world's best air defence and it can't keep their missiles out.
@rpluim @cstross Manhattan wil be under water in 50 years anyway at current rates.
The previous Iranian leader issued a fatwah prohibiting nuclear weapon usage but they blew him up so who knows
Seems they like finely calculated responses. Like the DIego Garcia attack when Starmer decided to help the US. Easy to shoot down but the clear message being "actually we can hit London if we want"
And for the world cup they just need to blow up one stadium that's empty just before a game.
@rpluim @etchedpixels @cstross
Does it matter if they have plutonium?
Do they have Shaheeds? Yes
Is Russia willing to pay for them? Yes
What is the Shaheed to plutonium exchange rate on the black market?
@rpluim @etchedpixels @cstross
The worst case is that he hasn't destroyed Iran's nuclear program and in their desperation they somehow manage to cobble together an NK level nuke. And they would instantly use it.
@CrypticMirror @rpluim @etchedpixels Pre-air strikes Iran had 400kg of 20% enriched U235 which is enough for about 6-10 A-bombs, depending how well-designed. Enough trip or two through the gas ultracentrifuge cascade could take that to 60% at which point they could make far more efficient bombs—maybe a few dozen.
That horse had left the stable by 2020 at the latest.
The reason they haven't used a nuke yet is probably because they don't want to or see any benefit from it.
@CrypticMirror @rpluim @etchedpixels Probable reasons Iran hasn't nuked anyone:
1. A couple of A-bombs are not a strategic deterrent.
2. Without an SD backing it up, one nuke would invite massive retaliation—by Netanyahu (absolutely guaranteed), from Trump (highly likely).
The main military effect of a single nuke today would be political disinhibition: the worst having happened, the next step is escalation. And Iran can't win that game.
@CrypticMirror @rpluim @cstross makes no sense to do so. Their non nuclear missiles can remove all of Israel's electricity supply, what else would they achieve - nothing.
And the previous supreme leader actually issued a religious edict against nukes.
Remember these people are religious zealots and their holy book does have things to say on right and wrong.
"The allies are cowards for not helping with the thing he doesn’t need, which is why he’s sending Marines to die for it, unless the countries that do need it do it themselves, which they won’t, because they’re cowards"
Pure gold
@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 Yep.
For people who've never looked at a map (most Americans, apparently), my synopsis is, "Iran is Mordor". Big-ass empire surrounded on all sides by water or mountains. Also, it's on the other side of the world from the USA. Also-also, the littoral approaches are all naval death-traps. There's a REASON the Persian Empire didn't get conquered very often, and it's geopolitics!
@blotosmetek @caesarologia @isaackuo Iran is very nearly as large as Mexico (90% of the area), 75% of the population (with a LONG history of resisting invaders), surrounded by mountains, and the closest points in CONUS and Iran are 7500km apart. (Unlike Mexico, where there's a land border.)
US folks who think "Iraq, Iran, what's the difference?" need to think in terms of "one is Ukraine (only crappier), the other is Russia (minus Siberia)" to get anywhere close to the scale of the problem.
@cstross @isaackuo From where I’m sitting Iran has won the gulf by logistics - there’s no reason to hide under the American shield when Paedopotus Rex (the leading light in Just Stop Oil apparently) will stomp hard on you anyway and Iran has the biggest supply of drones and missiles.
I expect Iran to demand withdrawal of US forces from these protectorates and I suspect they’ll get it because you want to deal with a organisation that is reliable and consistent. The USA is neither.
@cstross @isaackuo I think its even simpler - Iranian leadership has been planning for this for 50 years and are clearly prepared to extract maximum pain from the world until the us is stopped.
Meanwhile us leadership appears to have thrown out 50 years of knowledge about Iran, strategic alliances, soft economic power, and every other advantage they had that wasn't "more expensive weapons" and started a war with about 5 seconds of thought
More planning went into the Iraq War for fucks sake
@elricofmelnibone the only thing that will stop the Trump admin at this point is pressure from the international billionaire class and running out of ammo. Even Congress failing to fund the war won't stop them - they'll just keep spending money without authorization
The fuel crisis causing the ai bubble to pop and a stock market crash might stop him, since the stock market legit seems to be the thing he cares about the most
@fazalmajid During the first Gulf War, my asthma medication was suddenly hard to get, because it was supposedly being stockpiled by the US military as a precaution against chemical weapons.
While I don't need missiles to stay alive, I suspect their military will fuck up the supply chain of a bunch of unexpected goods.
@otmar @cstross @isaackuo I mean, religious fanatics whose fetish is martyrdom (for others) riddle the Trump administration. The us secretary of "war" belongs to a Christian apocalypse cult. The us military- especially the Air Force - is completely overrun with them at all levels
Too many people think they can trigger the End Times by starting the right kind of wars and that coloring all of this too
US leadership appears to have gotten to the point where "The USA might not be able to control the course of events" counts as an Outside Context Problem.
I don't think any of our legislators realize how the next couple years are going to go, nor that their only chance to affect that was 3 weeks ago. They seem to believe they can observe events and if, in the future, things will go too far, they'll be able to call it all off at that point.
@Kathmandu @Jer @cstross @isaackuo
War is one of the most irreversible bad decisions. Not only does it destroy a huge amount of what's irreplaceable very quickly, it can't be "called off" unilaterally by any of the participants, so even after everyone knows it was a bad decision, it grinds on and on and the good decision to stop doing it is held out of reach by uncontrollable events.
@Kathmandu @Jer @cstross @isaackuo
A real danger is he does something big and wildly stupid, to either try and regain momentum or to dead-cat the Iran disaster off the news.
There is a real danger now that Trump will do something nuclear level stupid, maybe with actual nukes.
A grown up politician who got themselves this deep into a mess would push back from the table and quit or make their peace with just coasting into electoral oblivion at the next election and not compound things.
@cstross @Kathmandu @Jer @isaackuo
The explanation I've come up with is they've given him one of those toys which are a button that lights up when pushed, and just told him it is the nuclear button.
@CrypticMirror @cstross @Kathmandu @Jer @isaackuo
Probably this one.
@Kathmandu @Jer @cstross @isaackuo
Or that it won’t affect them. It couldn’t possibly affect them. They are members of the managerial caste/business idiots.
@nickfarmer @isaackuo Vikings also conquered England, France, the Byzantine Empire (kinda-sorta), and chunks of northern Russia.
Vikings were the sea-going equivalent of Genghis Khan's Mongol horde, lacking only the loosely unified imperial structure.
@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.)
@isaackuo @cstross Does the current "supply chain shock" scenario go flying out the window singing strange names in unpronouncable tongues once anybody starts figuring out that the supply of fossil carbon from the Gulf is now indefinitely impaired? (It's not like US fossil carbon producers mind the current prices. It's not like elites notice food prices.)
It sure does; that's "some other global economy, try again later" for prognostication. Far too many pieces no one can predict.
@isaackuo @cstross Is the US military going to collectively mutiny over being ordered to commit overt genocide in Iran?
Doesn't seem likely.
Is is getting on for being a really good idea to avoid recreational travel? I would say so.
The Angry Weather would have dragged us out of the domain of preference into the domain of necessity soon enough; this looks like getting dragged firmly into necessity a little early, as planetary scales go.
@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.
@graydon @cstross And that was WITH a huge invasion force, as well as pretty powerful warlords and stuff helping on the ground.
... Annnnnd we still lost. It's not like the locals liked the Taliban, they just had a (correct) expectation that the Taliban would stick around longer than the Americans.
And that was that. Yippee.
@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.
@isaackuo @cstross There's also the definite problem that everyone making decisions on both sides is incapable of doing a quantitative analysis. (They may have access to such analysis; it might be quite good, even. That doesn't mean they have any ability to believe it or to incorporate it into their understanding.)
Something does not have to have a high probability of success to be adopted as a strategic goal; it has to feel right to these specific terrible people.
@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.)
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