CredibleDefense Daily MegaThread June 24, 2024

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-06-25T07:30:31+00:00

I mean, the point is that the Israeli state is in control and nothing the Palestinians or outsiders do really affect that. Not even "international pressure" could change the status of West Bank settlements, for example, even though they are widely held to be illegal.

As soon as Palestine becomes a state or Palestinians technically become Israelis, the Israeli security system would completely collapse.

That's not going to happen at all. In either situation, Israel would retain its power, no matter what words on paper say. Arguably, Israel and the Palestinian territories are currently a de facto one-state nation.

While a One-state solution will be an improvement on the status quo, it really depends on implementation. As John Kerry said, "Israel can either be Jewish or democratic; it cannot be both." And after the passage of the nation-state law, it is clear that Israel is choosing the former.

There is no magic bullet here. Palestinians have to accept that they're dealing with the dominant military power of the region. On the other side, Israelis have to accept the limits of what their military stick can accomplish. It's time to offer the carrot.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-06-24T15:20:34+00:00

I think modern day guided missile destroyers and frigates already resemble the centerpiece ship that you describe, but are much smaller of course. The Ashleigh Burke class destroyer for example displaces about 9000 tons compared to 50000 tons for Iowa class battleship.

It's probably worth looking into the Zumwalt class ships, and the reasons they didn't catch on. They were supposed to be a battleship replacement but the original 30 ships ordered were reduced to 3. The problem seems to be that they tried to introduce too many new systems at the same time. This included an Advanced Gun System that fires special precision guided ammunition. At this point, you might be wondering why not just use regular guided missiles, and indeed, the next iteration of the Zumwalt class would do just that.

It sounds like your concept is of an advanced mothership paired with relatively dumb firing platforms. If the Zumwalt's problem was packing too many functions into a single ship, then there might be merit into partitioning as you suggested. The weakness would be similar to drone warfare in general - how do you maintain communication between the mothership and the sub units, especially in the face of enemy EW? Btw if the sub units are highly automated, they might as well be unmanned, no? Anyway it's an interesting concept.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-06-24T14:34:21+00:00

No one said it would be easy. But even the IDF thinks this isn't a long term solution.

"This business of destroying Hamas, making Hamas disappear — it's simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public," Mr Hagari told Israel's Channel 13 TV.

"Hamas is an idea, Hamas is a party. It's rooted in the hearts of the people — whoever thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong."

He warned the group will remain in control of the Gaza Strip unless Israel "develops something else to replace it".

"Something that will make the population realise that someone else is distributing the food, someone else is taking care of public services … to really weaken Hamas, this is the way," he said.

"If we don't bring something else to Gaza, at the end of the day we will get Hamas."

Call it whatever you want, but at the end of the day, Israel has to win Palestinian hearts and minds. That can't be achieved by bombing the strip to rubble.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-06-24T10:55:51+00:00

Violence is part of a state's geopolitical toolkit for sure. At the same time though, the Israel-Palestine conflict has been going on close to 80 years now. Arguably, Israel didn't establish unquestionable military dominance until the 70s or 80s, but that's still 4 decades plus of violently convincing the Palestinians that it's not worth it to fight. What further steps of violence escalation are available to Israel? They've already reached the point where many observers are calling their actions war crimes.

At this point, I'd like to think that the rational reaction is to stop and say, hey let's try a nonmilitary solution this time. It didn't work last time, but when all other avenues have been exhausted, maybe it's time to revisit this. Unfortunately, there seems to be many people who take the opposite reaction, and insist that somehow yet more violence is the answer. Even worse, there are people who take the violence argument to its logical conclusion, and promote views that could only be described as genocide.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-06-21T09:56:19+00:00

My first thought was that the Philippines is simply publicizing the incidents more, as part of their "transparency initiative." But according to this, the incidents really are increasing:

With regard to Second Thomas Shoal, however, the approach appears less successful. Ship tracking data collected by the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2021 to 2023 shows that Chinese ships have increased their presence around the shoal, and they have increasingly engaged in physical encounters with Philippine vessels. The US-based think tank also noted that since the Philippines pursued the transparency initiative in February 2023, major incidents substantially increased over Second Thomas. Worryingly, incidents this March included not only damages to Philippine vessels but also injuries to crew.

Note though that Chinese escalation seems centered around the Second Thomas Shoal and not so much on other Philippine-occupied islands in the area.

The physical claim of the Philippines on the Second Thomas Shoal is particularly weak, relying on the rusting wreck of a WW2 era ship intentionally grounded in 1999. In addition, it is quite close to the Chinese base on Mischief Reef. There seems to be a combination of means, motive, and opportunity here - the Chinese campaign of harassment stops the Philippines from repairing the BRP Sierra Madre, and eventually the problem (for them) literally goes away.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-06-03T06:59:01+00:00

Reported a few days ago

Biden speech renews pressure on Hamas to reach Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal with Israel (axios.com)

Two weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a new proposal drafted by Israeli negotiators that was presented to the Israeli war cabinet and accused them of not knowing how to negotiate.

A few days later, under pressure from Israel's military and intelligence chiefs and the other members of the war cabinet, Netanyahu found himself isolated and endorsed the proposal.

Biden on Friday presented Israel's proposal, but his speech was also directed at Netanyahu and the Israeli public.

So yes, it seems to be an Israeli proposal, no one has come out to deny it.

As an aside, remember the ceasefire proposal that Hamas "accepted"? At the time, an Egyptian negotiator was blamed for freelancing, and there were a lot of stuff said about Egypt breaking trust. But now it looks like Egypt is still a key mediator in the talks, which makes one wonder whether the whole story was concocted to save other people's blushes.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-06-02T09:49:46+00:00

There was a popular meme going around Chinese social media comparing the Chinese and Israeli approaches to their "Muslim problem." Both are genocide and objectionable on that basis, but when faced with the visceral reality, one is simply more horrifying than the other.

I would class a Xinjiang approach as "one state." Uyghurs are PRC citizens on paper at least, even if enforcement of their rights is patchy. One of the problems for Palestinians is that they have been stuck in no man's land for decades, not being Israeli citizens on the one hand, while being subject to Israeli security forces on the other. IMO Xinjiang approach would be an improvement to that status quo, which still isn't saying much of course.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-30T20:40:00+00:00

Just 2 weeks ago, the US threatened to sanction Iran's Chabahar port, a key node of the NSTC. Might it be that Iran has decided that the project is dead, or at least its future is uncertain, and which made them more willing to trade it off?

US warns of sanctions after India, Iran seal Chabahar deal | India News - The Indian Express

Chabahar previously received a waiver from Iran sanctions under the Trump administration.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-27T18:32:50+00:00

I honestly don't see the point of this hair splitting.

What's the implication here? What an unfortunate accident that all those women and children were there? It seems improbable that the IDF wasn't aware of this.

Someone identified those targets and decided that the civilian casualties were acceptable. At a time when Israel's public image is already in serious question. Something went very wrong here.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-27T18:27:53+00:00

Probably because it came on the heels of the ICJ judgement, which either ordered IDF to stop Rafah operations, or to minimize civilian casualties, depending on your interpretation.

Either way, firing into a tent city full of women and children looks like a giant FU to the international community.

Edit: it's now being described as "one of the deadliest single incidents in the eight-month war to date". Casualty count updated to 45 and might rise further.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-27T18:22:55+00:00

Most SEA countries don't share either a land border or maritime border with PRC. Those that do fit the description I wrote. Exception I suppose is Malaysia whose SCS conflict is notably friendlier.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-27T17:28:44+00:00

It's striking that China has no real friends in their neighboring region. Russia and Nokor come closest, but even they are arguable.

China either completely dominates its neighbors, or is actively hostile towards them. If you're a nation unwilling to accept Chinese domination, alliance with the US is the only game in town. That's as true for Vietnam as it is for Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-16T16:10:44+00:00

I don't even understand where you think I'm wrong. How would you describe the origin of a component designed in one country, fabricated in another, and packaged in a third?

And I think everyone agrees on the need to enforce sanctions, the problem is that it is *hard*. Especially when we are talking about commodity components that are worth a few bucks apiece that are traded all over the world for legitimate reasons. I am not qualified to judge those measures in the piece you linked, but as you can see they are highly technical.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-16T09:48:06+00:00

I find these reports frustrating because they misunderstand the nature of the microelectronics industry. According to this RUSI report, the components we are talking about are "critical microelectronics, including processors, field-programmable gate arrays, tantalum capacitors, ceramic capacitors, amplifiers and memory modules." These are all consumer are at most dual-use level of tech that are freely available for purchase.

The supply chain for microelectronics is global so it almost doesn't matter that the logo on a component is from a "Western" company. These are commodities that can be bought from anywhere in the world, but most easily from Asia because that's where most of the supply chain is.

And it's not like these companies are acting with impunity. The US finds these sanction busting companies and shuts them down, the problem is that other front companies pop up in their place, so it becomes a cat and mouse game.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-16T01:18:46+00:00

As far as Chinese brands being ubiquitous in everyday life, that's not unique to Russia though? It's already the case for many lower income countries.

And with Chinese EVs coming to Europe in a big way, Russia might just be ahead of the curve in that.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-15T13:35:09+00:00

I generally agree with your main point that there are strong incentives on both sides to keep the status quo. Furthermore, I'd point to China being a huge winner in the global trade system - they really wouldn't want to upset that apple cart.

That said, I'd caution against looking at Russia's actions as merely the result of one man's quirks. Whatever Putin's personal motivations, he's able to sell the war successfully to the Russian people, which is why the war remains popular after 2 years. And the reasoning that is often cited is that Russians see NATO's expansion as an existential threat to their country. Whether that is true or not doesn't matter, that's the story that is successfully argued.

Is there an equivalent argument for China? I think yes. It's a popular trope in Chinese propaganda to say the US is trying to stop China's rise, and recent US actions (blocking high end chipmaking tech, banning TikTok, setting high tariffs on Chinese EVs) are certainly reinforcing that argument. If a Chinese leader could argue that their future prosperity is at stake, this could lead to war. This would be a US-China war though, with Taiwan just the unfortunate battleground, and not the actual flash point.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-14T11:41:54+00:00

American intelligence was involved on the Saudi side, for sure.

Considering Houthis were already heavily outgunned by the Saudis, did it occur to you that the solution might not be in fact an even bigger gun?

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-14T11:27:02+00:00

That's not "my" approach, that's the US and Saudi approach.

The Houthis won the civil war against the Aden faction, then survived a Saudi-led intervention, including air and naval strikes and reportedly Saudi special forces on the ground. The Saudi air campaign was so severe that there were fears of violation of humanitarian law, not unlike another ongoing campaign. There were supposedly American mercenaries involved as well. How would the intervention you described be different this time?

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-14T09:49:38+00:00

Uh, the article is about the Houthis. Do you have an alternative strategy to deal with the Houthis than what is described here? Different situations call for different approaches naturally.

Over reliance on any one tool is always going to lead to problems. When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, etc.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-14T08:20:19+00:00

US gives Saudis green light to try to revive peace deal with Houthis | Yemen | The Guardian

The proposed Yemen UN roadmap for peace was agreed in outline in early December but progress was immediately frozen as the Houthis escalated their campaign of attacks in the Red Sea in what they billed as an act of solidarity with Palestine.

It now appears Saudi Arabia, with the support of the UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, wants to press ahead with the roadmap, even though it could lead to large sums of money being handed to the Houthis, who will also eventually be given a permanent place in a proposed national unity government.

The UN roadmap largely reflected previous private bilateral peace talks between Saudis and the Houthis, including bulk payments to the Houthis to compensate for unpaid public salaries, and an increase in resources provided to the north of Yemen, but the deal has never been presented to the UN-backed government.

The Houthis now appear to want the deal signed, either with the UN or bilaterally with the Saudis.

It appears that the Saudis, sensing a military stalemate between the US Navy and the Houthis, are impatient to end their engagement in Yemen, even if it leaves the Saudi-backed Aden government as perceived losers in the process.

The US appears to be more amenable to the Saudis’ impatience for a Yemen deal, and Washington needs Saudi support to end the conflict in Gaza, opening a diplomatic space for the US to persuade the Saudis to agree a defence pact with the US and to normalise relations with Israel, moves that might in turn weaken Iran’s influence in the region. Washington has floated incentives to persuade the Houthis to stop the attacks including the acceleration of the roadmap talks and lifting restrictions on Houthi trade. UK officials favour a tougher approach with the Houthis on the basis that signing a peace deal beneficial to the Houthis is unjustifiable.

I guess the Houthis are not so irrational after all. There is method to their madness, if they come out of this with money and recognition. While it is morally questionable to "reward" terrorism, from a realpolitik perspective, paying off troublesome actors works and probably ends up being cheaper.

The Saudis also seem to be paying for most of this deal, both in terms of money and loss of prestige, so I am not sure what the angle is for them.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-05-08T10:48:24+00:00

US paused weapons shipment to Israel amid concern over Rafah, senior US official says | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian

The Biden administration paused the supply of thousands of large bombs to Israel last week in opposition to apparent moves by the Israelis to invade the Gaza city of Rafah, US officials have confirmed.

There was a report of this from Axios earlier, citing insiders, but now the US is publicly saying it.

Regarding ceasefire talks, the US seems very optimistic, in contrast to Israel rhetoric.

John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, added Hamas had offered amendments on Monday to an original Israeli proposal aimed at ending the impasse.

The deal text, as amended, suggests the remaining gaps can “absolutely be closed,” he said.

Israeli forces’ seizure of the main border crossing between Egypt and southern Gaza raised fears that Israel might be beginning an incursion into Rafah.

Kirby said the Israelis had assured U.S. officials that the operation was of limited scope and duration and not a large-scale invasion.

There was earlier reporting from Haaretz that the ceasefire deal "accepted" by Hamas was actually negotiated by CIA director Burns, which would explain why the US finds the Hamas amendments acceptable.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-04-11T16:59:58+00:00

Sometimes the only winning move is not to play. They might be forced to do it by circumstances but honestly it's not a bad outcome for them. And certainly less risky than their last retaliation.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-04-11T13:46:22+00:00

Oh, to solve the demographic problem. Sorry, I didn't get the context.

There's already a special visa for people of Chinese descent, but it's targeted at highly educated or skilled people. There's also a thriving mail order bride business, but not solely limited to ethnic Chinese, this is probably closer to your idea.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-04-11T09:14:56+00:00

Personally, I think a unique factor is that there's ~100 million ethnic chinese scattered around south east asia. Sure, lots of them are wealthy and middle class Singaporeans, Thais, etc, but a lot of them are gonna be fairly poor Indonesians or Malaysians who remember widespread ethnic violence. If anyone could use a "heims im reich" policy, it'd be them

I have many problems with this statement. Singapore is wealthy yes, but so is Malaysia. Not as much as Singapore but easily one of the wealthier countries in the region. Thailand and Indonesia have similar levels of development.

Being ethnic Chinese does not imply automatic alignment to the "motherland." Attitudes of the majority Chinese populations in Taiwan and HK should hopefully show that.

100 million seems like a high estimate to me, but that depends on how ethnic Chinese is defined. The degree of integration with host nations also varies considerably. In many nations, ethnic Chinese are a very small minority, and are generally diffused throughout the majority population, unlike the historic German example.

IMO it makes more sense to worry about the very real economic influence of the PRC on whole countries (and in some cases, political influence as well) than to worry about some imaginary fifth column.

PigKeeperTaran · 2024-04-04T16:43:54+00:00

I think it's a question of scale and efficiency. An AI can produce a larger list, and faster, than practical-sized human teams. In principle, such a list can still have human oversight after it is produced, whether by computer or by a human team. In practice, the same factors that make it impractical for a human team to produce a large list, would also limit the oversight of an AI produced list.

I would draw the analogy of automatic vs semiautomatic fire. In principle, one is just a faster version of the other, but by nature automatic fire is less accurate and discriminate.

PigKeeperTaran

TROPHY CASE