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Dzhankoi Airbase in Crimea has had its biggest-ever Ukrainian strike. Ukraine damaged the runaway (something they've avoided so far as it's very, very hard to put runways out of commission for any length of time, as Iran has found out to its cost) and also completely destroyed an S-400 complex, including multiple launchers and radar systems.

Azath Vitr (D, on 16 April 2024 - 09:04 PM, said:

It would be hard to gauge the full impact. It depends on how big the Iranian attack was, if it was genuinely huge enough and if there's evidence of WMD involvement, maybe it would be better tolerated. If it was seen as an unnecessary reaction by Israel, then Israel would turn into an utter pariah state, probably with global demands to give up its nuclear arsenal immediately.

But the economic, ecological and human damage would be incalculable, the size of the refugee crisis engendered (and Iran's neighbours aren't exactly best-placed to deal with that), would be unprecedented in human history. The current estimate is that an Iran-Israel war that closed the Straits of Hormuz would almost immediately trigger a global recession.

Israel's current response plan seems to be to get the UK, France and other countries still trying to revive the nuclear deal to drop it and reimpose all the sanctions they dropped on Iran's nuclear programme back in 2016. That would be a very big win for Israel. If they comply, Israel will limit its response to a series of attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon and will not hit Iran directly.

This seems to be the preferred plan floated by Netanyahu, over the ultra-hardliners in their camp who want to completely destroy Iran's military in response, or at least take out their nuclear and missile programmes. The US, which already dropped the nuclear deal under Trump and hasn't rushed to reinstate it under Biden, already seems on board and is floating a big package of new sanctions later this week.

This sounds weaksauce, but the Iranian economy is fairly exposed to sanctions, with current rampant inflation of 40% being caused by lack of access to global markets due to the existing US sanctions regime. Europe beefing that up considerably will cause real issues for Iran's economy and none of its other partners, especially Russia, can really bail it out.

This plan isn't final and it sounds like the hardliner argument that Iran went all-out in its attack and achieved Jack S is becoming more accepted in Jerusalem, with the implication that if Israel hit them hard, they wouldn't be able to do much back in return. Other analysts are considerably less sanguine about that, citing Hezbollah's short-range missile arsenal as capable of causing immense damage in the north. There's also real concern about Iranian ground forces (which are not degraded at all at the moment and considerably unlikely to be in Israeli air strikes) rolling across Iraq into Syria to threaten Israel. However, without good air cover - Iran's air force is poor - or good AA defences - Iran's antiair network is pretty crap and Russian attempts to upgrade it with systems that can't handle Ukrainian drones or missiles most of the time are not going to be giving Tehran huge confidence - such a force would be pummelled into oblivion from the sky.

If this wasn't Iran's best shot and it could fire many more missiles much more quickly, then things could get very existential very quickly (faced with hundreds of incoming missiles with not enough air defence to deal with them, Netanyahu might feel the need to flip the switch marked "JERICHO 3" and we wake up the next day in an incredibly different world to the one we went to sleep in).

There are multiple arguments raging in both Jerusalem and Tehran about this (probably Washington as well).

In one scenario this was Iran's maximal effort, representing Iran going all-out to strike at Israel with one powerful strike. If so, Israel and its allies rather easily defeated it. If this is all Iran can get off in one go, Israeli and US hardliners will be arguing for massive strikes on Iran targeting military command centres, AA defences, missile stockpiles and production, Shahed drone production facilities (which would help Ukraine as well, although Russia does have some native construction facilities now) and, most notably, Iran's nuclear research facilities. The idea is that in one or two days of strikes they could obliterate a considerable amount of Iran's military potential, end its nuclear programme for the foreseeable future and possibly even weaken the regime so internal protests could successfully turn into a major popular uprising (this latter is probably over-optimistic, and of course could also swing the population behind the government).

However, I get the impression this is widely regarded as optimistic in more cool-headed analyses. They have been citing that Iran could have launched twice as many drones and maybe half again as many ballistic missiles in one go, and then kept up a sustained bombardment over many hours. Even if Israel and its allies had intercepted and destroyed all the incoming weapons, at least a few would have gotten through and Israel would have expended considerable ammunition reserves to do so. In addition, Iran did not order its proxy in Lebanon to join the attack, as Hezbollah have significant medium-to-short range missiles and could have launched attacks across the order that would have been numerous enough to challenge Israel's short-range defences.

The big surprise for Iran seems to have been both the effectiveness of Israel's anti-ballistic missile forces and also how crappily theirs performed: current US analysis indicates a ~40% failure rate with ballistic missiles exploding in mid-air, failing to launch, blowing up on the launch pad or veering off course somewhere over Iraq, Syria or Jordan. Several of the missiles that penetrated Israel's defences were apparently allowed to do so after dynamic modelling confirmed they would not hit a populated area (something Ukraine has also successful done against Russia, avoiding wasting AA fire on missiles that aren't actually going anywhere important). Anti-ballistic missiles fired from the USS Ardleigh Burke and an Israeli frigate in Eilat Bay intercepted and destroyed Iranian and Houthi missiles well outside of the danger zone, and one Arrow-3 missile went extra-atmospheric to destroy an incoming missile whilst it was technically in space.

The Israeli hardliners are absolutely arguing for a massive retaliatory strike that hits Iran incredibly hard. Their allies are talking them down. Netanyahu in particular has been put in the seat of having to thank Jordan, the US, the UK and France for their support in this endeavour (an Arab country like Jordan ordering jets into the sky to shoot missiles down fired against Israel is no small thing). There are also unconfirmed reports that Saudi Arabia provided intelligence directly or allowed US and UK military personnel based in Saudi (ostensibly for anti-Houthi operations) to use their facilities to track and engage incoming fire. Left unspoken is the idea that if Israel continues to escalate both in Gaza and the wider region, then maybe its allies will not be so quick to help it next time (as tough a sell as that would be, especially in the US, to put Israeli civilians in danger).

Israel is also riding something of a minor PR bump with Arab sentiments about the attack mixed, in particular the shots of missiles exploding directly above the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, apparently in a vague effort to hit the nearby Knesset building (one reason why Hamas and Hezbollah do not fire missiles at Jerusalem, it's simply far too hard to avoid hitting Islamic holy sites or Palestinian civilians). That goes away if Israel starts pummelling Iran.

I think Biden's advice here is germane: Israel killed 13 senior Iranian commanders, including two senior Republican Guard generals, in their attack. In Iran's response, the sole injury was to a Muslim girl, and there were no fatalities. As Biden said, "Take the win."

Tsundoku, on 13 April 2024 - 09:17 PM, said:

Putin was recently hiding behind desks the size of a tennis court to avoid catching an illness he is highly unlikely to be adversely affected by. This does not speak of someone who is rushing towards death. It's true that Putin's age is making him think differently in terms of legacy - he is now 3 years older than the average lifespan for a Russian male - but it's also true that he knows he might well live for another two decades or more (Mikhail Gorbachev died just two years ago at the age of 91) and is in no rush to kill himself.

It's also the case that Putin's support network is much creakier than it once was. If he gives the order to use a nuclear weapon, that would be a key moment for the regime to support him or shoot him in the head and discuss a nice peace deal which allows them to get back to their luxury holiday homes on the Italian coast. Putin also has to consider his nuclear forces might be in as much of a mess as his regular forces, with no guarantee of Russia getting off a major strike before it was obliterated by a second strike.

There is also the utility of nuclear weapons on the battlefield: annihilating Kyiv probably doesn't end the war, and nuking bits of the battlefield, leaving irradiated patches its troops cannot advance through (and given their current mood might well revolt if ordered to do so) is actually a much bigger hindrance than it would be helpful.

China has also made it clear that nuclear weapon usage would be a very, very big problem for them: China is blatantly preparing an attack on Taiwan with a high probability of that provoking a direct military confrontation with the United States, and if that happens China wants to keep nuclear weapons off the table, which is much easier if the 79-year nuclear taboo has not just been broken by another country.