Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Lcp Purcell

I don't agree with all of it and it leaves out the two of the weapons Iran manufacturers which scare me the most

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Great question. My bet is that the good men (and woman) of the Forum can handle this expertly and without politics.

As for me? I know absolutely nothing about this topic, so I will sit back, read, and learn.

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As for me? I know absolutely nothing about this topic, so I will sit back, read, and learn

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
I don't recall, but do you have children of draft age, CR?

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ORIGINAL: Icedawg

"Iran assessment (no politics please)"

Discussing Iran without letting politics creep into the conversation?

Isn't that like talking about Pamela Anderson without mentioning her boobs?

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
I don't recall, but do you have children of draft age, CR?

I have sons 18 and 15. The former has no interest in the military (though he would be an ideal leader, IMO). The latter has a very high interest in the military and is currenty involved in Civil Air Patrol.

I think often about the Constitutional Unionists in Georgia (and the South) in the years leading up to secession and Civil War. Many of those men had served during the Mexican American War. They knew war was bad news. They could look at their sons and families and communities and see the horror to come. They knew they lived in a blessed and peaceful nation and that it was insanity to rip that apart. And yet they ultimately could not stop the war from coming.

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve


Part of the problem is that the article , like the conceptions most people tend to have of a potential gulf war, is that it will either be a cakewalk or armagendon. Like most things in life, I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. No where in the article is mentioned the possibilites of a surgical strike (AKA "Praying Mantis") political warfare ( like manipulating a "Prague Spring" or an "Arab Spring") , a proxy war , or any other solution. The author comes out with a "bomb them back to the stone age" strategy that ignores the possibilities of unintended consequences. It for instance doesn't mention that Iran would to some degree use an attack to stabilize it's own crumbling power base. And Iran (and Persia before it) has had a reputation going back thousands of years as the local bully.

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

Part of the problem is that the article , like the conceptions most people tend to have of a potential gulf war, is that it will either be a cakewalk or armagendon. Like most things in life, I think the answer is somewhere in the middle.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I recall a long series of news stories about five or eight years ago suggesting that the Iranian public was on the verge of uprising to overthrow the government. I assume that this sentiment was quashed by the government's rather violent response over the years ensuing. So, what's the current internal state of Iran? Are there a large number of dissatisfied and relatively "progressive" younger people anxious for more freedom, or have they been quashed or subdued to the point that the regime really isn't threatened from within?

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I recall a long series of news stories about five or eight years ago suggesting that the Iranian public was on the verge of uprising to overthrow the government. I assume that this sentiment was quashed by the government's rather violent response over the years ensuing. So, what's the current internal state of Iran? Are there a large number of dissatisfied and relatively "progressive" younger people anxious for more freedom, or have they been quashed or subdued to the point that the regime really isn't threatened from within?

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

impossibility of running a modern country with a 100.0% reduction in one's main / exclusive (?) cash export

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

War IS scarey gentlemen. But a very important part of the use of war is the THREAT of war. Hitler knew that. So did Stalin. And to counter such a threat , one can appease it (AKA Chamberlain) or face it down, such as Truman ,Reagan , (and to a lesser degree LeMay and Kissenger). But brinksmanship might lead to real war. Appeasement definately will.

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

War IS scarey gentlemen. But a very important part of the use of war is the THREAT of war. Hitler knew that. So did Stalin. And to counter such a threat , one can appease it (AKA Chamberlain) or face it down, such as Truman ,Reagan , (and to a lesser degree LeMay and Kissenger). But brinksmanship might lead to real war. Appeasement definately will.

Hitler and Stalin were both facing cultures which value life and reject suicide operaitons as part of a religious tradition, even if that tradition is of a spectrum. I spent a lot of time underwater thinking about MAD. I thought then and do now that it is unlikely that any current nuclear power would even approach that threshold. I don't know if Iran would. That's a problem.

Unfortunately, given geography and the relative military strengths in the neighborhood, Iran doesn't necessarily need nukes to engage in MAD, or at least attempt it. The border with Israel is about two taxi rides away; so is the Saudi border. I have a great imagination. I can imagine everything in Iran which rolls being dragooned into an effort to take one million men to either border, and then across. I can also image what it might look like if 25,000 men were infiltrated into the eurozone nations, armed with kitchen knives, and set onto shopping centers, theaters, schools, and hospitals simultaneously. No shoreline in Europe is secure, and thousands of merchant vessles move across the Med in international waters every day. Zodiacs are cheap.

Asymetric warfare as engineered by Iran has mostly stuck inside the region. It need not stay there.

Returning to the USSR comparison, Stalin, for all his evilness, could be dealt with. We understood what he wanted--a sphere of influence and buffers against another German war. The Kennan doctrine offered that and NATO backed it up. What can we give Iran? Nothing which would satisfy them is possible for us. Yet we cannot allow them to have nuclear weapons either. Containment only works within a framework of cultural truths (we love our children as much as the Russians.) Those truths don't exist in the current environment.

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

This is my thought as well. Lost in the discussion of the difficulty / impossibility of running a modern country with a 100.0% reduction in one's main / exclusive (?) cash export.

We have the capability to stop all petroleum exports from and across Iran. If it comes to the Nth hour I expect the last move will be a total naval blockade, which is itself an act of war under international law. But I think that would only serve to accelerate the timeline inside Iran, not cauterize the crisis.

Bombing refineries or crude oil storage facilities used for exporting crude oil could accomplished relatively easily. There's enough domestic grumbling now about Tehran's air quality issues from poor gasoline refinery practices, what would it look like when their domestic stocks (not to mention cash export) dropped to exactly nothing? Would there be massive civil strife and make settlement a 'must'? Nobody has done this before to Iran. They must take the threat of their civil market economy utterly collapsing as an existential threat and deal with it.

Traditionally, when attacked by outside force, cultures tend to shift their focus inward and support their leaderhsip, at least in the short term. I believe a destruction of the oil industry would force the regime's hand. It would not lead to them standing down.

Here, I believe there to be division between the Ayatollah and President Ahm-mad-in-da-head. While the latter is willing to lie, cheat, steal and obfuscate his way towards nuclear-armed status, I'm not convinced that the religious hard liners share the identical fervor. I don't know if they want to go 'all in' to use organically-produced nuclear weapons against Israel as a means of sealing their national fate.

That's the big IF isn't it? The biggest part of deterrence isn't haivng the capability. It's convincing the other guy you'll use the capability. In that respect the past decade might have given the US that credibility. But it still comes down to what Iran does internally. We don't control events; we'd be reacting to them.

Asymmetric warfare works both ways. If the Iranians close the straits of Hormuz (or try), they've guaranteed that their economy plummets within a few months. Sure, they drag a few down with 'em (notably the Kuwaitis), but they're sealing their fate. We wouldn't have to invade anything.

I disagree. If war comes it's regime change war. Not isolation war. Given our experience in Iraq I don't think anyone thinks regime change could happen quickly and without massive ground forces over many years. Any US leader who believes we'd be met with flowers is delusional. When we did DS the US Army was, from memory, seventeen divisions. It's ten now, and it's tired. Which is why I brought up a draft.

Yes, the Iranians would further foster discord and maybe direct action across their borders, but they've already played that card. If they increase their activities, we (or our regional proxy) increase ours. Quid pro quo. They don't have a mortal lock on getting blood on their hands 'outside of war'.

True, but time is on their side, not ours. Once they have a deliverable weapon, even one, and we believe they do, the calculus changes.

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ORIGINAL: Lcp Purcell

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

impossibility of running a modern country with a 100.0% reduction in one's main / exclusive (?) cash export

a person would expect Saudi Arabia to have a far more sophisticated manufacturing center and military industrial complex than Iran, they are richer, they are better educated, they have unfettered access to import advanced technology but they don't have a better industrial complex. Because they have no need to. In 1979 we started an ongoing embargo against Iran, they could not get spare parts for their military equipment, so they figured out how to make those spare parts themselves, 30 some years of sanctions has left them fairly self reliant, while Saudi Arabia buys all their spare parts from us. Iran does not have a modern economy, they have a 19th century economy the kind we had when import tariffs ran 25%-50%

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

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ORIGINAL: Lcp Purcell

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

impossibility of running a modern country with a 100.0% reduction in one's main / exclusive (?) cash export

a person would expect Saudi Arabia to have a far more sophisticated manufacturing center and military industrial complex than Iran, they are richer, they are better educated, they have unfettered access to import advanced technology but they don't have a better industrial complex. Because they have no need to. In 1979 we started an ongoing embargo against Iran, they could not get spare parts for their military equipment, so they figured out how to make those spare parts themselves, 30 some years of sanctions has left them fairly self reliant, while Saudi Arabia buys all their spare parts from us. Iran does not have a modern economy, they have a 19th century economy the kind we had when import tariffs ran 25%-50%

Additionally, SA has a low population base, and it has a cultural view that they don't get their hands dirty. They import guest workers to get their hands dirty. Iran by contrast has a very large, very young, very unemployed male population which can't get brides unless something changes. This is a nation which lost circa one million men in a fruitless war against Iraq. Human wave attacks. And the economy, post-Shah, was relatively much stronger than it is now after decades of mismanagement. Men without women do really stupid things. Men without women infused with religious fervor, a sectarian fervor which teaches martyrdom and has been repressed since the seventh century, are extra dangerous.

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

As for what men do in the absence of women, I hear ya. However, men do crazy stuff around women too. You recently got married, didn't you?