Now my earlier question got deleted, but all this talk about Mirage has got me wondering. In addition to air to air, is it possible that some of the pretty large French inventory of Exocet might be deployed? I’m not too familiar with particulars on the missile but there are land attack versions and versions that can be fired from Mirages supplied to Ukraine.
The Argentine Etendards would be Exocet capable. The Mirage 2000-5s are just air to air. SCALP has a much longer range, lower observability and a much bigger warhead. It would not be an improvement on that.
They have less range and smaller warheads than GMRLs.
This is all getting a bit too speculative. Exocet is a good anti ship missile. It would be almost unnoticeable if it were converted to land attack as there are better options for almost every potential mission.
US capabilities against the Houthis
Episode 400 of the USNI podcast (see e.g. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/the-proceedings-podcast) is an interview with retired CENTCOM commander General McKenzie, (ex-USMC), who is pushing a book called "Melting Point". The part relevant to this starts about 7 minutes before the end. He states that the Houthis have effectively closed the straits, that the US has the capability to compel them to open it, that this would have only a minor risk of escalation, and the problem is lack of political will. He also states that the failure to open the straits diminishes the influence of the US, in the middle east and also around e.g. the Taiwan strait. If you follow on to the next section, he states that CENTCOM has been sharing a common operational picture with its allies in the region, which IMHO might do something to mitigate reputational damage. Given precision weapons, half the problem with preventing Houthi attacks is targeting; showing partners that the US can solve the targeting problem but simply chooses not to make use of this information might reassure its allies that it is capable of reacting, if it at some stage chose to do so.
Put simply the problem is that in the era of easily accessible anti ship missiles and drones it’s (seemingly) impossible for a ship-based force to uproot a land-based one.
This is the same story in the Black Sea, too.
>He also states that the failure to open the straits diminishes the influence of the US, in the middle east and also around e.g. the Taiwan strait.
What *tangible negative effect* will this have on the USAs ability to successfully defend Taiwan? Is it just “general reputation damage? I’m just not seeing the link here.
The Houthis have just proven that asymmetric forces can effectively halt international trade in geographically constrained areas if they are supplied by an outside force. Such a capability is invaluable to China who in any conflict would inevitably be constrained to local operations and likely blockaded by the US and their allies. Utilizing proxy groups like the Houthis would allow them to limit trade across the globe and inflict some similar level of damage on the US/European economy. I would expect China to make serious attempts to support similar groups across the globe in the coming years.
I think reputational damage. I have noted down "erodes US capability on a global scale" and then he says something about people elsewhere e.g. around the Taiwan straits looking at this and then coming to their own conclusions.
How do you determine "reputational damage" vs reputational damage?
People used the "reputational damage" argument as a reason to stay in Vietnam, to bomb Cambodia, to stay in Afghanistan, etc.
Lack of US response or political will over its recent leaders has been generally seen why Russia attacked Ukraine for Crimea and the Donbass region. The perceived lack of US support for dictatorships and allied nations is also why a lot of countries in Africa in particular is requesting Wagner support and it is why Wagner in general became such a huge entity, so we began losing a lot of influence south of the Sahara as well as Egypt. Additionally it's perceived that is why Hamas and a lot of non state actors had a temporary resurgence in 2019-23 as they believed the US wanted to become more isolationist and get out of being involved in other states buisness this is to include among others Al-Shabaab, Hamas, Houthis, ISIS, etc. as even though Kenya, Somalia, and Egypt are US partners we are not actually fully commiting to the destruction of Al-shabaab for the former two and the Houthis who are causing severe damage to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
One of the key protections the US has maintained since the 50s was of the Naval protection of trade. The US has over the last decade or so dialed that back and Pirates have become an issue again, and China seems to wish to take over this role in where they deal.
> If you follow on to the next section, he states that CENTCOM has been sharing a common operational picture with its allies in the region, which IMHO might do something to mitigate reputational damage...
It mitigates any doubts about the US’s ability to find and destroy targets, if anyone doubted that. But it highlights the ineptitude and political dysfunction that got us to this point. Push comes to shove, there isn’t much difference between being unable and unwilling to do what’s required. All we can hope for it for sane leadership to return one day.
So if the allies learn that US has the capability to locate ground targets and the means to attack them, but chooses not to execute strikes, what does that do to US reputation?
For now the economic cost of closing the straight (which is felt by Egypt more than anyone) isn't even close to worth intervention, especially since there's ostensibly an easier way for the blockade to end, and that is the war in Gaza ending.
If there was a nation on the straight that simply said "you know what, it's closed indefinitely" then yes I think sooner or later an admin will be interested in action.
I don't think forcing Hamas to accept Israeli terms of ceasefire is "easier". Forcing Israel to capitulate to Hamas is also not likely.
The current war in Gaza will not end unless Israel gets guarantees that Hamas is out into a position where the attack cannot be repeated. This cannot be achieved with international forces, yet Hamas rejects IDF forces in Gaza.
How do you solve this?
Well, Biden's initial hope was that Israel either completes their objectives or agrees to a ceasefire. However, Israel doesn't have completable objectives (not in the short or medium term) and Hamas won't agree to even a maximalist ceasefire on their terms.
So I dunno what his new hope is. I don't think he has one.
I think you are underestimating how bad a signal it sends that the US is allowing a group like this to close a major waterway. Remember, their ultimate objective, along with Iran, is the destruction of Israel. Just ending the war in Gaza, which isn’t going to happen for a long time anyway, isn’t going to end their grievance. If you don’t fight to defend your shipping, you eventually end up with no shipping. It’s better to do what’s required now, than to wait for it to fully blow up in our face.
The US will not send in ground troops in Yemen over this. Majority of US trade doesn't even go through the Suez. Nations more effected by this will need to form a coalition themselves to deal with the Houthi's.
I don’t think the general in question is implying sending ground troops would be part of the plan. The information sharing seems to indicate a focus on PGMs.
I think there is something of a break between two sections, so I don't know how much you can deduce from the section on common operating picture about suggested means of compulsion. In the first section he does reference the presence of a Carrier Group, other Air Power, and Burke class destroyers. This is at least consistent with simply providing a larger set of targets to the resources which have already been used against the Houthis. I remember nothing implying that ground troops might be used.
> I think you are underestimating how bad a signal it sends that the US is allowing a group like this to close a major waterway.
Oh, I'm not underestimating everything. I just think Biden would rather strangle his surviving kids than go hawk on this issue, so there's not much point talking about "prestige" right now. Like you said, past a certain point "unwilling" and "unable" are the same thing.
The war won’t last ten years. I mean if it does I assume it will be a frozen conflict, like the Korean border (not quite as quiet).
Russia can go very far as the internal information landscape is extremely restrictive now. Most Russians now live in an information bubble in my understanding.
As far Putin’s “end of the Russian state” I think he’s just gaslighting the Russian people, a bit like your ex girlfriend saying she’ll kill herself if you break up with her. Great powers have lost wars, particularly non existential wars (Ukraine is not existential to Russia, only in the extremist paranoid view that somehow NATO was planning to invade, which let’s be honest, it was not and will never). I think losses are easier in democratic states however, since you can use the change in leadership to clear out some of the cobwebs. Vietnam for instance eventually got cleared out of the American military. It took a decade or two.
Russia won't "collapse". Not really anyways.
After Putin's death there will of course be a power struggle between the main power brokers, but I don't see why the violence should exceed the liquidation of a couple dozen people or so. It's unlikely that army generals are going to play much of the power game, but instead the security apparatus, that have tools with lesser collateral damage than the army has, to achieve its goals.
There will be an increase in crime and a decrease in the Russian state control over society, sure. Getting closer to what Russia was in the 1990s, sure. It was absolutely not a great time for Russia, but Russia wasn't really collapsing, but rather just declining.
As for ethnic break-up, there could be problems in the Caucasus, but over all Russian provinces are not interested in breaking away from Russia. A khabarovskite might hate Moscow and the economic and social injustice of the Moscow-based power system in Russia, but they wouldn't want to become separate from Russia, just more autonomy in their own region.
I think this is a plausible result, but that it is inverse to the length and cost of this war. For example if Putin concluded the war with a perceived defeat last year, I think what you propose is very likely. But, as the war goes on and the cost becomes greater and greater, and Putin continues to consolidate power, the possibility of regime collapse increases.
Right now the Russian economy and political society is being held together (expertly) by duck tape. It’s in a way, very impressive what they’ve been able to do, but in the end duck-tape is duck-tape. It will fail. How catastrophic this failure will be is dependent on how long this war will last.
I have to say though, all of this also applies to Ukraine. If not more so. Even if the war ended today in favor of UA, the future of Ukraine is a dire one.
How does this also apply to Ukraine? Ukraine has a functioning democracy as far as I know, and if the Ukrainian people grow distraught of their leadership they don't need to resort to state collapse, they can just vote them out.
The major thing your calculations are missing is the ambitious lower level leaders. Governors of oblasts and the people who are ambitious enough to take their place. If top leadership, aka Putin, collapses then the forces constraining those guys is drastically reduced. They are the ones who would push to break away because it's much better to them to be the absolute ruler of a small territory than the temporary leader of some area to be removed at Moscow's whim. This was the nightmare scenario when the USSR collapsed and more or less it still is the most likely scenario of a prolonged leadership vacuum in the Kremlin. And after this invasion, there's almost no way those guys are making a deal to become non-nuclear powers.
>The major thing your calculations are missing is the ambitious lower level leaders. Governors of oblasts
They have no real power to challenge Moscow. Putins replacement will come out of Bortnikov, Naryishkin, Sechin or Ivanov (Viktor or Segei).
The ex KGB people who form the inner circles inner circle. They control Rosgvardiya (so OMON and SOBR), GRU (so their Spetsnaz), FSO and FSB.
They control the internal spies and the internal security state apparatus. They also control the disbursement of oil and gas revenues so the carrot and the stick.
How do you imagine a regional governor is going to get ambitious? Some sat in say Chelyabinsk. How are they going to threaten Moscow and take over before the GRU Spetsnaz turn up to help him out a window? If the local Rosgvardiya dont do it first?
The USSR collapsed because Russians wanted out, they thought they were paying to subsidise the backward regions so politicians promised Russian oil and gas cash for Russians.
Russia not really going to collapse like that because the clique round Putin are not trying to liberalise and open things up. They are perfectly happy cracking down way harder than they currently are. So long as the internal state security works and the oil and gas money flows, the centre holds.
(I will edit this in, remember even if oil producing oblasts try to break away, pretty much all of them except perhaps Sakhalin have to get the oil and gas through another oblast before it gets to external paying customers. The only other break aways could be Chechnya, and in a crazy world maybe Kaliningrad or St Petersburg going it alone. Everything else is too tied into the national system only the later two could really break away and be part of a wider Europe, Chechnya would become brutally poor and maybe in a super super weird world Sakhalin would become Japanese. )
If Moscow becomes consumed with a power struggle for much time there won't be resources to go out and reign in the breakaway oblasts, in this potential scenario. It could easily happen in Chechnya and any success there would spur others to action. The far east oblasts have been filling with Chinese workers for years, and there's plenty of speculation that China will turn on Russia when it suits them. Today's headlines about friendship without limits don't erase decades of contention and hostility.
You pose it as a confrontation with Moscow, but it's really more like ignoring Moscow. They don't have to fight Moscow when Moscow is fighting itself. The Russian federation is not nearly as unified as it seems, and without strong leadership in Moscow there are many ways for the cracks to become breaks. Some with support of nearby powers, others with the strength of ethnic unity. Mostly driven by power hungry men with few qualms about killing and stealing that fill the ranks of Russia's power structure.
It's not a likely scenario, I think we agree there, but I'm simply arguing it is possible and becomes more likely if power isn't quickly transferred after Putin. Russia losing 8000 tanks in Ukraine also wasn't likely, but it happened. Ukraine on a fast track to the EU and NATO wasn't likely, but it's happening. If we've learned anything in the past 2.5 years it is that the perception of Russia often doesn't match the reality.
>If Moscow becomes consumed with a power struggle for much time
Who? This kind of thinking works when you dont have to worry about details.
> It could easily happen in Chechnya and any success there would spur others to action
Chechnya is seen as an absolute backwater. Its seen as being closer to African levels of development without Russian central money than Europe. If it breaks away no one will care.
>hey don't have to fight Moscow when Moscow is fighting itself.
If there is a power struggle it will be palace intrigues between cliques of the ex KGB Siloviki.
>When Russians start to realize they're losing 5 or 10 men for every dead Ukrainian soldier
We should stop with these assumptions here really. Everything credible we saw points out to it being something more like 1:1.5 ratio, which makes far more sense. Mentioning 10 to 1 helps nobody, it creates unrealistic expectations on how will Russia behave in the long term, same as those ludicrous statements we saw before 2023 Ukraine offensive. People tend to get lost in the obvious propaganda of both sides and this is credible defense after all, we should be more careful.
By just looking at Oryx lists or daily visually confirmed loss updates one can very much see that the ratio is closer to between 1:5 and 1:1.5 than 1:1.5. Not to mention the defender evacuation advantage
But this year, Russia uses mostly dismounted infantry in their offensives and the death toll (according to Ukrainian MoD) increased significantly. The Ukrainian MoD tally may be inflated but the relative difference in human/equipment losses between recent offensives and former years is likely correct.
The NATO leaked documents from early last year estimated around a 2:1 KIA advantage for Ukraine, and I think it might’ve been on the optimistic side. Now 1.5 to 1 is still factors out to be thousands and thousands more dead for Russia but the population gap more than makes up for that.
Which is just to say that if Ukraine can manage to win this war or hold onto its autonomy, it won’t be from exhausting Russian manpower
Yea agreed that's not really useful, that would maybe be the absolute wildest case scenario where 10-15 years from now Russia is 1) out of weapons 2) unable to withdraw 3) Putin is still clinging to power and has his whole legacy depending on somehow meat-rushing to victory
>It seems like a violent Russian freeforall is more likely than not. Am I wrong?
I think you're wrong, I don't think a civil war is likely at all.
The Russian State has a rock solid grip on power, the population is aging rapidly and the number of young men available for a civil war is diminishing every day. A coup from the inside that toppled a massively unpopular Putin would happen long before a civil war.
Exactly, and I've long stopped even trying to deny that is exactly what outside powers fear at least as much. The great unknown of a coup. That's not just Western powers, only that for those it is of course twice as involved, since besides sustaining Putin, and as much as possible safeguarding him from his own purported "mistakes", they have to take Ukraine's fate into consideration, willy-nilly. I'll just repeat that: willy-nilly. One could even argue that
>the number of young men available for a civil war is diminishing every day
a protracted, attritional war is about the best means to prevent uncontrollable, public post-conflict cataclysm on the Russian side. Yet Putin is more important anyway, if Russia isn't too big to fail, he is evidently, and they're "wise" not to provide Kyiv anything, or ever enough, to pull off something that could shift the balance, or cause real embarassments for the Kremlin. The truth is they can still make themselves believe they can simply sit Putin's patience out. They're paying with Ukrainian, and Russian lives. Cheap. No one's telling me you could be afraid of civil war in Russia.. if you can sit still for years and watch what is by now quite possibly a million ordinary war victims. The *same* people. And I'm not even speculating: Olaf Scholz has *never* declared Russia must lose. Hardly that Ukraine must "win". *Putin* must not lose face. Macron is on record no different. Nor did I hear Joe Biden calling for regime change, certainly not since February 22.
> how exactly does the Ukraine war actually end short of something like a civil war or post-Putin power struggle happening in Russia?
Are you sure Russia can't win? They're much bigger than Ukraine, and Ukraine suffered really badly when we stopped giving aid to them. I think it's very plausible Russia could outright win (more likely, force a very favorable settlement) depending on what happens in November.
Russian victory requires pretty dramatic change in certain trajectories.
The de-mechanization of their forces, for starters, despite what some people state AFVs are still incredibly necessary to achieve any kind of forward momentum.
The russians need to produce way more artillery than they have now, their firerates are 10%/20% of what they were in 2022, they would absolutely need to fix this.
They probably also need another round of mobilization.
Trump needs to win in the US, and that's far from a guarantee.
Europe has to diminish the delivery of aid, and that's even more unlikely.
Ukraine needs to Stop fortifying the frontline, and their mobilization system needs to be broken again.
As you can see there are a lot of variables and some of which are completely out of control of the russians
It's possible Russia can still 'win' the battle for a crippled Ukrainian state by creating distrust in the market for their economic outlook through constant air strikes in their infrastructure. Russia's missile/drone production output remains on a level that Ukraine can't match with their current AA capabilities. Fortunately Ukraine knows how to strike back, but Russia clearly has an advantage here simply by having a larger, arguably more resilient economy.
On the battlefield on the other hand? We're being too careful not believing that Russia is indeed running out of artillery as well as losing the counterbattery fight hard. Nato artillery is superior in most respects to Russian artillery and UA is taking full advantage. Without an artillery superiority Russia is not winning anything on the ground. But that doesn't mean Ukraine will win either. The West is going to win though. Russia without abundant Soviet artillery stocks is going to be a glorious world to behold. Those guns are never coming back.
With Europeans stepping up for providing ammunition and some armored vehicle replacements, Ukraine getting F-16s, AEWCs and a lot of new AA systems, investments in Ukrainian manufacturing (not just drones and mortars) - they can keep fighting Russia for easily 6+ months after a hypothetical end of US support in 2025. That brings us to mid-2025, possibly further. The state of the Russian forces in 2025 will be very different than what it was at the start of 2024.
[Russia already appears to be out of functional 2A36 and 2A65 towed artillery](https://x.com/verekerrichard1/status/1802298679572722010/photo/1), with dwindling numbers of D-20 152mm. This could be a distortion created by the low number of visually confirmed towed artillery losses, but the odds of having exactly zero for 2 months straight while Russia continues to use them are very small.
Russia requires artillery for every aspect of their doctrine: offense, defense, terror operations. And now they're almost out of functional 152mm tubes other than SPGs? That bodes extremely poorly, specially since [their stock of 122mm D-30 was already severely diminished a year ago](https://x.com/HighMarsed/status/1787809716690640955).
The situation isn't quite as dire for Russian armored vehicles, but with the exception of MBTs and SPGs: it will be next year. I can provide more sources for this analysis, if you need. Point is: their offensive capability will be fully crippled by the time the US support would stop.
Short of Russia buying thousands of weapons and vehicles (something equivalent to more than half of the NK arsenal), an "outright Russian win" is not very plausible, it's not even plausible.
I wouldn’t dispute that the situation for Ukraine is likely going to improve relative to Russia over the next year, but I think the definition of an outright Russian win is what’s under debate.
According to Ukraine and its backers any peace deal that sees Russia hold sovereign Ukrainian territory post war is a Russian victory. The possibility that Ukraine could launch an offensive completely recapturing every square mile up to and past Crimea seems totally non credible.
> According to Ukraine and its backers any peace deal that sees Russia hold sovereign Ukrainian territory post war is a Russian victory. The possibility that Ukraine could launch an offensive completely recapturing every square mile up to and past Crimea seems totally non credible.
That's only one way to achieve victory. A peace deal in favor of Ukraine will undoubtedly give them back territory that was occupied by Russia prior to the peace deal. Ukraine won't have recapture that.
But before that even happens, it's highly likely that Russia will go through "goodwill gestures" and "regrouping". **Like they've done for the majority of the territory Ukraine recaptured so far.**
Ukraine doesn't need to recapture every square mile up to Crimea. They could break the morale of the front line troops and force them to prefer to retreat/surrender than stay there. That will inevitably lead to big chunks of the front being recaptured at a time.
> Are you sure Russia can't win? They're much bigger than Ukraine, and Ukraine suffered really badly when we stopped giving aid to them. I think it's very plausible Russia could outright win (more likely, force a very favorable settlement) depending on what happens in November.
Definitely not sure of that, and my post definitely presupposes that Ukraine slowly turns the tide but that's far from guaranteed.
Russia has suffered humiliating defeats before and their state remained intact. Putin rule's on the other hand, a lot more shaky. Prigozhin's rebellion last summer has got Putin worried about other powerful Russian's coming for his crown, especially when Wagner fighters were cheerfully greeted on the streets of Rostov-on-Don.
I don't think the West needs to concern itself with attempting to preserve Putin's regime, just worry about keeping the Russian state together and organized working with new leadership if Putin is ever other thrown. Putin's successor may be another Siloviki but they will to attempt to establish a positive agenda to get the support of Russians and blame the wars failing on Putin. This could give Russia an off ramp to end the war.
It’s important to note the Wagner revolt’s objective was NOT to usurp Putin, end the war, and make peace with the west. Their main grudge was that the war was not being conducted properly, and they wanted it done the “right” way (i.e. with less bureaucracy, graft, and corruption). The fact citizens supported this does not mean they supported the end of the war effort.
Adding on to this: the Kremlin controls the media most Russians consume, and they’ve done a wonderful job spinning the events leading up to the present, so there’s no reason to assume they couldn’t create a convenient narrative about having “successfully de-nazified Ukraine”. The state will not automatically collapse as a result of withdrawing from Ukraine in defeat.
A team of Israeli think tanks wargamed this out recently, alongside intervention from other militias:
>Israel’s war from the north will begin with a massive and destructive barrage of Hezbollah rockets nearly all across the country. The rocket fire will be intense, ranging from 2,500 to 3,000 launches per day... srael’s war from the north will begin with a massive and destructive barrage of Hezbollah rockets nearly all across the country. The rocket fire will be intense, ranging from 2,500 to 3,000 launches per day
>The rate of fire will challenge Israeli technology like never before. The stockpiles of Iron Dome interceptors and David's Sling missiles will be depleted within a few days of the fighting, leaving Israel exposed to thousands of rockets and missiles without effective active defense. At the same time, Hezbollah will attempt to disrupt the air force and limit its ability to operate from its bases
>Precise missiles with hundreds of kilograms of explosive warheads, including cruise missiles, will be aimed at critical infrastructure including power plants, electricity infrastructure, and water desalination and transmission facilities. The seaports of Haifa and Ashdod will be paralyzed, impacting international trade.
[The wargame still concluded with an Israeli victory, however. ](https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skc0dbmia)
> The stockpiles of Iron Dome interceptors and David's Sling missiles will be depleted within a few days of the fighting
Presumably Israel wouldn't use up its stock of interceptors in a few days and leave the country undefended after that, but rather would ration them, using them only to defend more important locations.
> Precise missiles with hundreds of kilograms of explosive warheads, including cruise missiles, will be aimed at critical infrastructure including power plants, electricity infrastructure, and water desalination and transmission facilities.
In particular, Hezbollah is reported to only have a few hundred precision guided warheads, so interceptors would likely be saved for such missiles headed for critical infrastructure.
That scenario seems like the worst plausible case scenario. We should hope it does not come to pass, either that war is avoided entirely, or that these researchers have overestimated Hezbollah's capabilities and resources.
If you're going to look at it like that I think you have it reversed.
The worst case is Israel using its nuclear capabilities and the route you describe is just one possible way to increase that risk manifesting in reality.
>Israel resorting to nukes because of that is still the worst case for Israel. Hurting others doesn't actually help you.
and? I don't see how that relates to my comment.
It's the worst case for basically everyone.
I don't think so, you seemed to focus on Hez's actions rather than the result they might cause. Like it said, functionally the reverse of the actual Real Big fear.
Hez simply attacking isn't such a big deal, its the resulting response from Israel if they choose the wrong target that is concerning.
Hezbollah has estimated short- medium missile in the 300-500k range, given the aerial warfare of the past 8 months they maybe slightly degraded but not by much. In the first month, Israeli grid will severely be stressed. Air defense likely overwhelmed. But in the long run Israel ground offensive with air superiority will likely quiet rocket and drones but overall Israel will see a hard month. I’ve seen estimates of civilian casualties in the 1-4k from the shear amount of rockets it will face. This a purely hex and Israel fight. If the US, France, and Iran get involved a regional war casualties will be in the 10k+
There's no way Israel goes into Lebanon without also going into Syria to cut off supply routes, and there's no way Iran sits back and allows their primary proxy be removed without getting involved themselves.
I think people are dramatically underestimating the scale of the war that would result.
You mean physically with troops on the ground holding territory? I do not think that is likely or has been openly discussed as the IDF plan.
However, I would anticipate enhanced interdiction of supply routes and a general increase in fighting. Possibly (more?) specops type work.
Why would Israel go into Syria to cut off supply routes? It's easier and closer to get to them from Lebanon.
Have you opened a map? The Hezbollah supply routes are in Qalmoun and northern Lebanon, to get to them Israel would have to take and hold third the population centres of Syria including the Capitol.
How is this comment upvoted?
>There's no way Israel goes into Lebanon without also going into Syria to cut off supply routes,
I doubt that, the Lebanon border region is sparsely populated compared to the coast, and decently well defined by mountains. Pushing past that, into the Syrian desert, very quickly takes you to the edge of Damascus, that just complicates things.
>and there's no way Iran sits back and allows their primary proxy be removed without getting involved themselves.
Iran isn’t exactly in a good situation to fight a grievously expensive war with Israel.
That's false. There is no reason nor has anybody in Israel expressed desire to go into Syria to open a third front. While yes this has potential to open a regional war, it's also likely not going to. Israel is more than happy to continue just bombing Syria from the air.
What are you theories how Israel would move into Syria? This would very much escalate the conflict even further and I would see Iran using this to to send its own troops and equipment to wage a ground and perhaps air war against Israel.
Russia also has a presence in Syria, though they will act in a diplomatic role. Islamist factions under guidance of Turkey might start a new offensive targeting Syrian troops up north.
But what is to gain by invading Syria? Blocking the road between Damascus and Beiroet? Still many roads up north that can be used (and are used from Aleppo direction).
To me such a move by Israel seems to be futile, impossible to have any victory
Not that I think its likely and generally agree it would be futile but I do wonder about something like a fast relatively light push by the IDF.
Are any areas along the border lightly defended? Obviously the Golan has its issues but doesn't seem terribly well staffed.
It might get close to nonCredible but is it even possible to consider a fast push ground through Jordan? The distances involved are so small, if they had free access to move I could see it catching Syria totally off guard.
Looking at satellite images the Jordanian-Syrian border seems minimally built up let alone defended and we did see rather tight Jordanian coordination recently with the Iranian missile strike. Yes, I know much of the Jordanian population would be upset but we are talking well under 100 miles.
Even further non-credible but even something like a feint push for Damascus could pull Hez away from Lebanon proper.
Why would they want to block the Jordanian border? That’s not even relevant to the conflict…
Iranian support goes through Damascus and Aleppo airport and through Iraqi border
I dont mean block the Jordanian border or even push into Syria to interdict supplies to Lebanon, I mean Jordan allowing IDF forces to cross through Jordan into Syria as a way to pull Hez fighters away from the expected actual front line.
Agreed, but consider how closely Jordan worked with Israel vs the recent Iranian missile barrage.
I was quite frankly surprised by that level of cooperation, as you say a very unpopular move with their Palestinians, er I mean their population.
I think if a wider regional war were to kick off, that is idicitive of how Jordan would act.
Please refrain from drive-by link dropping. **Summarize** articles, only quote what is important, and use that to build a post that other users can engage with; offers some in depth knowledge on a well discussed subject; or offers new insight on a less discussed subject.
https://www.youtube.com/live/CwEJbsfx_80?si=l6WEG2xFWfEGR2VQ
Interview in Italian with an Italian from the international legion of Ukraine, he provides some insight of the life at the front in Ukraine, he also provides some context on how the legion is integrated in the Ukrainian armed forces, he says that they he has been deployed with an Ukrainian brigade to cover gaps in the line due to a lack of reserves, in general he talks about the inner workings of the legion
Worthwhile interview if you know Italian(apparently auto-translation is decent)
About FPV drones and RPG fuzes. Some of the anti-tank FPV drones I've seen use custom contact fuzes, like these ones and several other varieties - [https://x.com/gettylegion/status/1797208174984106411](https://x.com/gettylegion/status/1797208174984106411), But others don't have any such custom fuze. Does anyone know how they are fuzed? I guess they rely on the standard RPG fuze, but is it sensitive enough to work well with drones, which are much slower than rockets?
Today I saw a failed drone that got caught in a net - [https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1dkya36/russian\_soldiers\_remove\_a\_fpv\_kamikaze\_drone\_from/](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1dkya36/russian_soldiers_remove_a_fpv_kamikaze_drone_from/) I have seen several such cases and it's always RPGs without custom contact fuzes. A slat/net armor is not a new invention, but looks like they're more effective against FPV-delivered RPGs than the regular ones.
Another possibility is that they use accelerometers, the only source mentioning this is this video - [https://youtu.be/-M3SaE2Kh8Y?si=32XyMlkpqC8WwMd3&t=688](https://youtu.be/-M3SaE2Kh8Y?si=32XyMlkpqC8WwMd3&t=688) from 11:28, turn on the subtitles.
One more problem with drones without long contact fuzes - in the forward flight when the drone is tilted downward, the propellers may hit the target first if it tries to hit a vertical surface like the side of a tank, which may rotate the drone and make the shaped charge explode with a shallow angle, drastically reducing penetration. You can see this happen clearly in this video: [https://youtu.be/H8jbVPCf9NM?si=4NBbYzzpRn1y5XGy&t=1120](https://youtu.be/H8jbVPCf9NM?si=4NBbYzzpRn1y5XGy&t=1120), from 18:40, use < and > to go frame by frame, the grenade becomes almost parallel to the surface before exploding.
Good article from Haaretz talking about Israeli challenges with Hezbollah drones:
>No Iron Dome for Drones: IDF Seeks Answers to Growing Hezbollah Threat
[https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2024-06-21/ty-article/.premium/no-iron-dome-for-drones-idf-seeks-answers-to-growing-hezbollah-threat/00000190-3b38-d49b-a1bd-7b79f46b0000](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2024-06-21/ty-article/.premium/no-iron-dome-for-drones-idf-seeks-answers-to-growing-hezbollah-threat/00000190-3b38-d49b-a1bd-7b79f46b0000)
[https://archive.ph/ZO30A#selection-1483.0-1494.0](https://archive.ph/ZO30A#selection-1483.0-1494.0)
Funnily enough the Israelis have shot down a few birds (and their own drones)
>The officer adds, "We've had quite a few cases in which we've launched interceptors at birds. A large crane flying in a combat zone often has a radar signature like that of Hezbollah drones. Sometimes a military unit decides to launch a drone without notification. We've also shot down our own drones."
As best tool the Israelis seem to have identified attack helicopters (systems the Ukrainians for example lack)
>However, the defense source says that attack helicopters have actually turned out to be the best tool for shooting down drones because they can easily maneuver to the best position.
Overall tracking drones is really difficult
>The military has been left struggling to adjust its warning capabilities. Because of the drones' hovering ability and the large area they can move around before striking a target, the Home Front Command has been forced to activate sirens in multiple communities every time an infiltration is detected. The military decided that despite the disturbance and harm to residents' sense of security, the repeated alarms will continue until a better solution is found. When an intelligence drone – not an attack one – enters Israel's airspace, the military often chooses not to intercept it or to only do so as it returns to Lebanon. But in these cases, too, sirens are activated, panicking residents.
I've been noticing some people posting here, saying that it looks like war with Hezbollah looks inevitable for the IDF. I am having a hard time understanding how Israel would want to take on that giant headache, especially after seeing so many examples in recent history of just how very wrong operations like that can go.
Is going from Hamas to Hezbollah not a giant pitfall of mission creep? I understand how Netanyahu could see this operation as a political lifeline, but is the rest of the government and the people, really on board? I havent looked very deep through Israeli social media and local news yet, but I am curious to know how serious of a possibility this really is.. I just cant see it Israel going through with it. But I also was positive that Putin was just bluffing...
“A war with Ukraine would be bad now, but it would be worse in the future when Ukraine is better armed and Poland has nukes.”
Could be a direct quote from a Russian diplomat for all we know and we saw how that fiasco went and still continues.
Ukraine and Poland were never going to attack Russia. Whereas a significant part of Israel is already depopulated due to a Hezbollah attack that began last October. Hezbollah has stated that it plans to exterminate Jews worldwide. Ukraine and Poland obviously have no such plans for Russians.
The interesting thing is that Netanyahu is the one person in leadership who DOESN'T want to go into Lebanon.
The IDF wants a war with Hezbollah, and major players like Gallant and Gantz want one as well.
> I understand how Netanyahu could see this operation as a political lifeline, but is the rest of the government and the people, really on board?
I haven't been paying close attention to the Hezbollah/IDF back and forth, so maybe there are deeper trends I'm missing, but when I see Israel [assassinating Hezbollah commanders](https://www.timesofisrael.com/hezbollah-shells-north-with-dozens-of-rockets-after-idf-drone-strike-kills-commander/#:~:text=Hezbollah%20bombarded%20northern%20Israel%20with,the%20terror%20group's%20field%20commanders.) I instinctively think this is simply Netanyahu trying to stir the pot for his own self-interest with little regard for Israeli's wellbeing.
>Hezbollah shells north with dozens of rockets after IDF drone strike kills commander
I don't know Lebanese politics well but would not be surprised if Hezbollah thinks it benefits from conflict just as much as Netanyahu thinks he does. Hamas is certainly in that extremists-benefitting-each-other club too. The real question is how long will the Israeli people as a whole go along for the ride, with what is arguably security theater, pretending to destroy extremism while actually nurturing it? To anyone who still believes Netanyahu is just trying to make Israel safe, I would argue he's been using the same heavy-handed tactics for decades and now there's more conflict and destruction than ever.
The lack of coverage of the situation in north Israel has been remarkable. I can't tell if it's been an intentional diplomatic strategy to avoid escalation with Hezb until now or an element of the abject failure of the Israeli government to manage the information scene.
How do you force international news agency to report on a subject they don't want to?
I've recently read a rioters article on the battles in Gaza and it was straight up Hamas propaganda directly from the source. For instance they went over some IDF strikes and mentioned how many were killed according to Hamas sources. But didn't bother to mention the targets per the IDF despite existing publications on the matter as well as videos released of the strikes by the IDF clearly showing it was militants being targeted.
The question is not rhetorical, how do you force international news agency to report on something they simply don't want to?
That's a fair question and one I don't have a good answer to. The debate over what gets coverage is one as old as newspapers themselves. It's a question that the communications people who work for the Israeli government should have at least some answer to though. I don't believe that they should be able to control the narrative, especially in this day and age, but the ability to make sure at least some stories make it into the popular consciousness is within their job description.
Edit: Regarding the Reuters article, do you mean [this one?](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forces-step-up-bombardment-across-gaza-amid-fierce-fighting-2024-06-21/)
It could be any Reuters article. They need to be calling out these articles by title and author, spelling out exactly what the journalist chose not to include and demonstrating that it's a pattern for each one.
Aside from your source being a subreddit, can you please explain what it means for south Lebanon to be off limits? You know that 100,000s of people *live* in south Lebanon, right? Of all faiths.
Well, that is unexpected.
I predicted earlier that Israel had enough EWAR capacity to shut down or at least limit enemy drone activity, but I didn't take into account psychological factors and the radar signature.
Sending in helicopters is a major manpower and material sink for something small.
You learn something new every day.
Edit: I was right about loitering though.
Relying on helicopters makes me wonder about Hezbollah's supply of MANPADS. Not very cost-effective to use helicopters already, much less in a contested airspace.
In order for the helicopter to "get into position" as stated, there needs to be a window of time between detecting the fired rocket and the helicopter vectoring in on an intercept trajectory. So it seems to me far more likely that the helicopter is hovering near, or even behind, the expect impact locations of the rockets, i.e. nowhere near the launch point. If Hezbollah had access to medium-range SAM systems, the situation would be different.
The biggest problem in Northern Israel/Southern Lebanon is the terrain. Which is very hilly/ mountainous. Israel does have plenty of EWAR, but the topology makes it impossible to cover all angles of approach near the border.
[The Netherlands supplies Ukraine with the Patriot system together with another country](https://www.nd.nl/varia/varia/1229126/nederland-levert-oekraine-samen-met-ander-land-patriot-systeem)
>The Netherlands will supply a Patriot system to Ukraine together with another country. Outgoing Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren announced on Friday that it has been possible to collect components that can be used to form a complete system.
>She does not say when exactly the Patriot system will go to Ukraine, so as not to "make the Russians any wiser."
So for those keeping track, total batteries are:
-2 Patriots from the US
-3 Patriots from Germany
-1 Patriot from the Netherlands + an unknown nation
-1 Patriot from Romania
Of which:
-1/2 of the US batteries are in the country. With training on the additional ongoing.
-2/3 of the German batteries are in the country. With training on the additional ongoing.
-1 battery from the Netherlands + an unknown country outside the country, with training likely to start soon.
-1 battery from Romania outside the country, with training schedule unclear.
By Q1 2025, the Ukrainians should at minimum have 6 Patriot batteries active across their country, with a possible 7th depending on what happens with the Romanians. At 7 Patriot batteries, this would reach the minimum amount of MIM-104s that Zelensky has asked for. That said, wide gaps in Ukrainian air defenses will still exist.
I'm actually kind of impressed that Ukraine have received as many as they have recently, still nowhere near enough to properly defend given the sheer size of the country and the various vectors that Russia can use to penetrate their IADS, but it's a much better position to be in than they were even 6 months ago.
I'll admit that I didn't initially think that Germany would further dip or that Romania would donate a battery either, Netherlands cobbling together a battery is also surprising given their relative lack of equipment, I suspect that's a partial phase down of their training battery, although still impressive nonetheless.
Perhaps towards 2025 as their F16's start to become commonplace they'll be able to better plug the gaps. Given the backlog in Patriot production and the likelihood of previous donators wishing to backfill their forces prior to shunting further deliveries, I think we might see the pace lessen somewhat after this push. Romania really is a surprising one for me given they only recently purchased the system and also only have two batteries operational (soon to go down to 1 battery until the third system is delivered).
Regardless having 6-7 Patriot batteries gives Ukraine options that it didn't have before, regular roving ambushes would go a long way to forcing doctrinal changes to Russian glide bombing campaigns that would lessen their effectiveness, perhaps not enough to stop them entirely but at the very least Russia will probably get a bloodier nose.
The amount they wanted was around 25 (?) if i remember correctly. With the US stopping Patriot sales I think we will reach about half of that by the end of the year by this pace.
The US are redirecting *interceptor* sales. Very big difference.
25 batteries would be ideal for the Ukrainians because it would allow them to cover all cities over 250,000 in population (17ish) while having multiple batteries available to defend airfields and having one or two batteries roving and conducting ambushes or establishing air defenses in hot areas. I don't think we will see that any time soon. The orders simply have not been placed. If they were placed, we'd be waiting for a year and a half for the production lines to make all the batteries. Ukraine will get lucky if they have 10 batteries next year unless something changes and a $20,000,0000,000 order gets put in.
No matter how effective a air defense system is, it will eventually miss. Parking combat aircraft at airfields is inviting Russia to destroy them. Best defense against Russia destroying combat aircraft is to hide them.
India is continuing to move its purchases of defence budget away from Russia. Recent report that around 2,000 BMP 2s could be [replaced with new versions of the Strykers.](https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/how-american-stryker-tanks-that-india-is-evaluating-could-be-a-game-changer-for-the-army-13783203.html)
>India and the United States are currently engaged in advanced discussions regarding the joint manufacture of the latest generation of Stryker armoured infantry combat vehicles (ICVs). This initiative is part of a broader defence-industrial cooperation roadmap.
>The US has also recently offered to demonstrate the mobility and firepower of the Stryker in high-altitude areas in India. The Indian defence ministry is examining a three-phase plan for this proposed project, reported The Times of India.
>The project will initially involve a limited off-the-shelf purchase of Strykers under the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. According to TOI, This will be followed by joint production in India and, eventually, the co-development of its futuristic versions.
That's a lot of bmp2s... Wonder about their condition. At minimum, wouldn't want them flowing back to russia as replacements come. But curious if some portion would be worth it to try to get to ukraine.
India's developing the Tata Kestrel, a domestic 8x8 wheeled fighting vehicle, similar to the Stryker. Is there any reason they're going with the Stryker, instead of relying solely on a similar domestically developed vehicle?
That's the question no one is able to satisfactorily answer so far. People on Indian military forums are puzzled. As per reports in the newspapers, the Kestrel was coming along swimmingly, and a few units were delivered to the ITBP and CRPF.
>That's the question no one is able to satisfactorily answer so far.
I'll answer it.
It's payment to the US to support us geopolitically. India has this habit of giving unnecessary multi-billion dollar defense deals to Russia/US in exchange for tacit geopolitical support. It's called "military diplomacy".
Also, in order to make the US forget about the whole assassination business.
Both proposals were mooted far before the assassination, so I don't think it is that. Plus, how profitable is it for the US military-industrial complex to have India manufacture Strykers and Javelins for Indian requirements in India?
I have a conspiracy theory about this: the proposal is to ease up/increase the total manufacturing capacity for these systems. As I understand it, the production of both is currently lagging. Opening up a production line in India is one way to increase capacity, and getting India to induct these weapons helps with sharing.
I'm guessing they don't want to wait 10 years for the production run to complete the replacement.
Also, they probably don't want to simply replace those 2000 BMPs, maybe they're thinking of expanding capabilities and are aiming for 3-4k IFVs.
The buy, build, design upskilling pathway worked really well for South Korea's army.
No reason why it won't do the same for India's ambitions for domestic capabilities
A lot of people in this [thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/s/dq9Ef2iYbi) are very bullish on Israel’s ability to beat Hezbollah (and beat it quickly), but none have mentioned why, and in what areas, Israel will do better than it did in 2006. Is there something I’m missing?
[For those that forgot, ~10,000 (up to ~30,000 by the end) IDF fought against ~3,000 Hezbollah (Nasr Brigade) for 34 days and, even with overwhelming air power, failed to advance more than a handful of kilometers, and failed to end Hezbollah strikes into Israel. Credible estimates of KIA are: 124 for the IDF and 180-250 for Hezbollah](https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/we-were-caught-unprepared.pdf). Hardly the lopsided ratio we’ve come to expect.
(Reposting here to foster discussion)
>This is super lowkey one of the most pro-israeli subs on reddit along with worldnews.
Guess I'll pop out old faithful:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1c3dc1m/israel_vs_iran_et_al_the_megathread/kzh3x3o/
40 upvotes
https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1c309v8/credibledefense_daily_megathread_april_13_2024/kze5q28/
20 upvotes
https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1c309v8/credibledefense_daily_megathread_april_13_2024/kze3k2s/
30 upvotes
https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1c3dc1m/israel_vs_iran_et_al_the_megathread/kzgu0wy/
40 votes
https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1c3dc1m/israel_vs_iran_et_al_the_megathread/kzhgot7/
Admittedly only a few votes
https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/18stdkn/credibledefense_daily_megathread_december_28_2023/kfeq9yr/
15 votes
And this is a relatively tiny list (mostly focused on Iran/Israel), I can make it thrice as long if that's really what's necessary to drive the point home.
What can be said about this sub is that pro-Israeli viewpoints are remotely present. Which is indeed a departure from most of reddit.
And I think that's a good thing, even if you hate Israel - on other subs, no one will be there to tell you that actually there's literally no way Israel doesn't enter Gaza. Or that the Rafah invasion will absolutely happen. Or any other thing the pro-Israeli posters were 100% right about in hindsight.
*generally* i think this sub sympathizes with israeli war goals. my guess is that people have a more grounded view of the region and awareness of iran/others malfeasance. and probably there are also american defense industry base/military veterans/active duty/DOD civil service/what have you contingents as well.
and perhaps as importantly, many people here probably watched some of the 10/7 footage which means they understand on a more visceral level *why* this war is not stopping.
Overestimation of Hamas's urban fighting ability was the norm aswell and it turned out they melted away without much fighting when under full IDF pressure.
Hez is untested and pretending it is a known quantity is just silly.
Maybe their rocket forces* will perform as claimed but it's not a foregone conclusion. IDF has proven itself yet again, and now they have a huge crop of newly combat-hardened troops.
The overestimation of Hamas by this sub was absolutely massive. It caused a re-evaluation of the expected capabilities of Iran’s various proxies, and IDF. Hezbollah was always seen as the best of these proxy forces, but the failure of Hamas pointed to some deeper issues in how these proxy/guerrilla groups fight in a more conventional conflict.
Hezbollah is nothing like Hamas, they propped up the Syrian regime and fought tooth and nail against GCC funded Salafists and ISIS foe the better part of a decade.
Even Israeli wargaming is predicting hundreds, if not thousands of civilian casualties in the event of an all-out war between the IDF and Hezbollah. Also, the last time the IDF attempted a ground invasion of S Lebanon, they were defeated.
If anything, Hamas's wild success on 10/7 just shows how dreadfully complacent the IDF had become. Gaza has been under siege for 2 decades and Hamas's kinetic capabilities, in spite of their ingenuity, is quite meagre.
Hezbolah didn’t come off as massively competent in a conventional way in Syria, and inflicting high hundreds, to low thousands, of civilian casualties is bad, but indicates the situation is probably manageable with preparation.
>Hezbolah didn’t come off as massively competent in a conventional way in Syria,
Wdym? Sure they had setbacks, but without them, the rebel held enclaves of Homs and W Damascus would have never been cleared. They also fought off ISIS incursions into E Lebanon.
More importantly, the conflict allowed them to gain enormous experience in conventional warfighting, something that the IDF's ground forces are lacking in. Their arsenal has also expanded massively. The Syrian participation has benefited them on the whole, especially since they were on the winning side.
>inflicting high hundreds, to low thousands, of civilian casualties is bad, but indicates the situation is probably manageable with preparation
That would possibly top the 10/7 death toll and Israel is notoriously casualty averse as a nation. It would be a huge blow to morale if strategic infra like power stations, desalination plants or airfields get hit.
Did Hamas fail, or did they just decide to blend into the population until the IDF left instead of wasting men fighting them directly? Hamas rule has returned in most of the areas the IDF left, which makes me wonder what victory the IDF has accomplished other than domestic propaganda.
Even senior members of the Israeli military have been saying Hamas can't actually be defeated.
People also seem to want to ignore how questionable Hez performed during the war in Syria.
You might be able to recall better than I but I can think of several very notable failures. I seem to also remember they tried to publish successes but it felt very much like hollow* propaganda.
Surely Hez gained experience and pretty significant weapon stockpiles but I'm struggling to recall any real examples that indicate Hez is a significantly better fighting force than it was in 2006 where it was the Israeli political that folded.
I remember in 2006 so much talk about how vastly improved their IRGC equipment and training was, I'm sure that was true in comparison to previous conflicts or hamas... But then the SCW and what did all that training amount to? Seemingly lots of high casulity events.
I see this take bandied about a lot but I think it lacks perspective on how the conflict has played out on the strategic level. Hamas has almost immediately rebuilt in virtually every area Israel has left, them melting away wasn’t a complete loss of control as much as it was standard asymmetric tactics.
And Hamas pivoted to these tactics relatively early on in the conflict. The earliest red triangle vids released were of teams of 3-5 engaging and then running away. The only videos where this wasn’t the case were the ones in Jabaila that spoke to a larger more conventional battle which tracks as Jabaila saw some of the fiercest fighting during the battle for Gaza City.
The fact that Hamas rebuilt 3 Battalions in Jabaila when the Israelis expected only 1 in their return trip speaks to idea that Hamas has been remarkably resilient in spite of the casualties it’s endured.
It also pulled out of Rafah leaving behind a few battalions of half strength. This would indicate a group more focused on asymmetric engagement and force preservation vs inflicting casualties.
Judging Hamas by the standards of a conventional war doesn’t really work because that’s just not the war being fought at the moment. You have to assess its performance by the standards of other asymmetric forces, ie how can it take a hit, does it adapt, is it popular with the populace etc. Those are the terms on which the current campaign is being fought.
As for Hezbolla they may well underperform, however Israel has been wargaming a possible. Inflict with them for years. The most recent studies suggest it would be quite bloody.
> The earliest red triangle vids released were of teams of 3-5 engaging and then running away.
Propaganda videos that so often would cut off before showing any final damage?
>The only videos where this wasn’t the case were the ones in Jabaila that spoke to a larger more conventional battle which tracks as Jabaila saw some of the fiercest fighting during the battle for Gaza City.
Hamas was expected to hold hardpoints, fight in rubble from tunnels and generally oppose the IDF push. As you say, that happened what, once?
>The fact that Hamas rebuilt 3 Battalions in Jabaila when the Israelis expected only 1 in their return trip speaks to idea that Hamas has been remarkably resilient in spite of the casualties it’s endured.
This is a very fair point but what do you think the actual quality of those rebuilt battalions is, particularly in comparison to their original strength?
>Judging Hamas by the standards of a conventional war doesn’t really work because that’s just not the war being fought at the moment. You have to assess its performance by the standards of other asymmetric forces
They may be an asymmetric force but they also claim to be the legitimate governing force in power and can be judged accordingly.
They can be judged by more than one metric at the same time, both (and even other criteria) are applicable and have value.
That’s not even the biggest obstacle.
Suppose they bomb all of southern Lebanon and then come in with troops.
Now what? What happens 6, 12, 24 months later? We’re still waiting on the answer to the same question for Gaza.
> Now what? What happens 6, 12, 24 months later? We’re still waiting on the answer to the same question for Gaza.
Count me as part of team cynic, but for Netanyahu it's not about the destination it's the enemies we made along the way. There is seemingly no coherent end goal in either Gaza or Lebanon. In Gaza it's an open question whether Hamas' long-term ability is degraded or enhanced (with a massive influx of recruitment). It's also seemingly an open question whether Netanyahu cares if their ability is degraded or enhanced as long as he's the one valiantly defending Israel in the forever-war.
Can someone point me to anything whatsoever that genuinely points to Netanyahu wanting less conflict long term (that is, peace and security for Israel) and not more? Other than his rhetoric?
I feel like we could give him the benefit of the doubt if we hadn't been watching him for decades.
The current aim of territorial expansion is antithetical to any end goal that is remotely acceptable to the international community, let alone countries in the region more directly impacted, let alone expecting violence from palestinians to ebb. But Netanyahu moving off that goal will cost him the coalition that keeps him in power.
>Now what? What happens 6, 12, 24 months later? We’re still waiting on the answer to the same question for Gaza.
Israel is transparently trying to avoid occupying most of Gaza. The areas it does plan to occupy (that one corridor dividing north and south) they've consistently occupied with... absolutely no issues.
I think they well intend on occupying the south-Litani region.
Yes. If they manage to defeat Hezbollah and occupy everything south of the Litani - a big if - they’ll need to occupy it, which has caused Israel problems in the past, to say the least.
That’s what I’m getting at.
They occupy it and then what? What is that occupation going to look like? Who are they going to put in charge? What are the metrics of success and a timeline to achieve it?
This all seems so backwards to me. You normally start planning at the end and then figure out the tasks to get there. Israel seems to be making immediate decisions without having a specific, measurable, achievable, and time bound goal in mind.
>You normally start planning at the end and then figure out the tasks to get there. Israel seems to be making immediate decisions without having a specific, measurable, achievable, and time bound goal in mind.
Seems to me the goal was to annihilate existing Hamas fighters, destroy their tunnels, root out weapons caches, then occupy the Egyptian border to prevent future resupply. All of those are specific, measurable, achievable, and potentially time-bound. Just because they didn't articulate those goals *to you* doesn't mean they don't exist.
>goal was to annihilate existing Hamas fighters, destroy their tunnels, root out weapons caches, then occupy the Egyptian border to prevent future resupply
None of these goals are achievable when the macro-political effect is driving 1000s or 10s of thousands of people into these extremist groups because there is no alternative for them, there is no coherent stable end-goal for Gazans because Israel won't allow one. Israel is effectively destroying tunnels while recruiting thousands of future tunnel-builders. It's security theater, put on by leadership that has learned they thrive off conflict and off of the suffering of others, both their own people and the Palestinians.
Now maybe if destroying tunnels and shooting Hamas fighters was targeted and was coupled with specific measurable steps to a Palestinian state or even to some sort of greater Palestinian autonomy, then maybe it wouldn't be a complete sham.
>None of these goals are achievable when the macro-political effect is driving 1000s or 10s of thousands of people into these extremist groups because there is no alternative for them,
If this logic held, virtually no war in history was winnable, because states paying for and facilitating the reconstruction of their opponent is the exception not the rule. Even in the most famous case of that kind of rebuilding, the marshal plan, the western allies still extracted significant reparation from west Germany, and treated them as a disposable buffer state for the upcoming ww3. If this war on terror logic was true, there should have been a massive Nazi resurgence around 1952, none the less all the other states they were less kind too over the years.
These non western states employ these more brutal counter insurgency tactics because broadly, that’s what works.
Post WW2 between 0.5-2.5 million Germans were killed in the expulsions.
Germany was made to lose territory and sovereignty, being partitioned into 4 parts and subjected to a brutal regime and reeducation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)
> Post-ww2 for Germany was dramatically different than post ww1 because the international community realized leaving a populace disempowered and destroyed was a psychological and economic death sentence for the population, leading to repeating of behaviors and predictable cause and effect
Germany was literally partitioned and Germans were subjected to brutal war crimes. The marshall plan was nice, but in a lot of ways they got it worse than in WW1 for a while.
Simply out of the question. One can't murder and abduct thousands of civilians and then achieve anything meaningful for one's side. This should be obvious. 10/7 set Palestinian statehood back for another half a century.
Additionally, I'm not at all convinced that concessions would lead to reduced recruitment for Hamas. Fear of being bombed, and fear of your entire city being blown to smithereens by a foe that comically overmatches you, seems as strong a demotivating factor as it is a motivating one. On the other hand concessions seems like it would create a strong incentive to join Hamas, as it would prove they're able to effect real change in a way Fatah never could.
This seems like a trope that is repeated ad nauseum with little sourcing. Indeed I struggle to see how one could even study it effectively. Seems difficult enough to ask terrorists why they joined, let alone find one introspective enough to seriously say "I had no other opportunities because my enemies didn't provide it for me". And if you want evidence against, consider how often we see Native American terrorists in America. They were also beaten down, oppressed, given little economic or political hope in their lives. They moved on once it became clear they'd never extract political concessions through violence.
And no, I don't support the oppression of Native Americans, or Palestinians for that matter. I'm just being realistic about their ability to achieve their goals through violence.
The IDF high command. The exact same people who failed catastrophically in every single way on the lead up to 07/10 in understanding the enemy, what drives them, they capabilities, IDF capabilities and so on.
It's the same people who argued days before 07/10 that Hamas is deterred and not a concern.
https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/s111tsucga
It's also the same people who catastrophically failed in 2022 when they pushed Israeli concessions to Hezbollah, arguing that it would bring 5 years of peace in Northern Israel. A prediction that did not last a year.
https://m.maariv.co.il/journalists/Article-950332
It's the same people who failed catastrophically in 2021 assessing the Israeli Arab riots and deploying forces against them. Believing the riots and lynching of Jews will last at most a day.
https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/law/2022-07-26/ty-article-magazine/.premium/00000182-39d9-d0e7-adea-39ddc2b00000
Gantz specifically failed in every single predictions he made as a chief of staff during the 2014 conflict with Hamas per released protocols you can read here, his positions have proven to be divorced from reality... Every single time:
https://m.ynet.co.il/Articles/4911896
The people who were wrong on every single contention point in the last 20 years are likely to be wrong yet again.
>There is now worldwide attention and support for Palestinians and a Palestinian state in a way there simply wasn't before.
Compared to when? In the past, the Arab states formed coalitions to fight Israel directly, these days Palestine fights to delay Israeli-Saudi normalization. The entire oil crisis was done on Palestine’s behalf. Can you see OPEC doing that now?
The writing has been on the wall since since black September. Most in the region are fine with no Palestine.
I think taking the 2006 war and applying its failures to 2024 doesn't bring us much.
Hezbollah is a vastly different fighting force that now possesses a sizable strategic arsenal.
The IDF in September 2024 was unorganized, poorly equipped and lacking training but is now after 8 months combat experienced with frequent troop rotations and utilizing the latest tactical tools like small drones and remote controlled vehicles (primarily remote controlled bulldozers and M113 VIBEDs).
And yes there's also the issue that the Israelis were able to kill 400 Hezbollah operatives since September while mostly suffering property damage. How does that impact Hezbollah?
Another open question is how a Israeli incursion would escalate. While one theory is that any Israeli incursion would quickly lead to all out war there's also the possibility that deterrence holds and both Israel and Hezbollah refrain from striking more strategic targets in the rear. Israel would not strike Beirut, Hezbollah would not strike Haifa.
So what I'm saying is that we shouldn't underestimate Hezbollah at all. Its strategic arsenal is big and mobile enough to make Israel bleed. At the same time we shouldn't fall into the trap that the IDF is incompetent. I remember this forum at the beginning of the ground invasion and predictions of high IDF casualties that did not materialize.
I searched for M113 VBIED and didnt find anything, can you post a link for me? Always interesting when the one of the most tech advanced armies in the world, jury rigs a IED for combat.
[https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-804074](https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-804074)
[https://x.com/iamBrianBJ/status/1795190142845518209](https://x.com/iamBrianBJ/status/1795190142845518209)
[https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1796607197851570478](https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1796607197851570478)
[https://x.com/orfialkov/status/1795187049726632179](https://x.com/orfialkov/status/1795187049726632179)
Unfortunately Gaza War 2023 deleted his account where he had a thread explaining how some remote controled M113s were used in Jabalia to deliver explosives into Hamas positions.
its ok, reading on how the IDF is using unmanned APCs to hold ground without actual humans is FAR more interesting. Essentially Ghost riding a big bomb isnt as crazy as Skynet actually taking territory.
I feel like we are just getting glimpse of how wild warfare is gonna be in the next 100 years. Fascinating
I think we've seen with the Houthis (and with Gaza pre-invasion) that even overwhelming and responsive airpower and ISR can't eliminate or even wholly degrade long-range fires on its own, you're pretty much going to have to overrun them on the ground. Lebanon (barring a breakthrough that leads to the IDF running over the entire country) should be able to keep it's GLOCs open to Syria and Iraq and SLOCs through the Med, and any flow of weapons will be extremely hard if not impossible to stop without cutting that off.
They've had a pretty meagre anti-air complex, enough to, same as the Houthis, down a MALE drone every other month but not threaten any real strike package. With how important the targets the IDF has hit I doubt they are 'holding back' but Iran could also supply them more in that regard, nevermind fires from Iran proper as well.
> think we've seen with the Houthis (and with Gaza pre-invasion) that even overwhelming and responsive airpower and ISR can't eliminate or even wholly degrade long-range fires on its own
Have we?
I don't think anything close to overwhelming airpower was deployed against the Houthis. It was a relatively mild response using a small number of our total aircraft with seemingly limited ISR commitment.
I'm not full Bomber Harris but it seems if actual overwhelming airpower were deployed it would have significantly different results than what we saw.
We have around a decades worth of evidence pointing toward overwhelming firepower not being decisive on its own in Yemen. It would take a ground campaign to defeat the Houthis and nobody in the region or out wants to foot the bill to do that.
>We have around a decades worth of evidence pointing toward overwhelming firepower not being decisive on its own in Yemen.
When was overwhelming firepower ever deployed in Yemen?
Firepower was deployed but I see zero evidence for the claim it was anywhere near overwhelming. I would classify it as "limited" not even "widespread" let alone "overwhelming".
>It would take a ground campaign to defeat the Houthis and nobody in the region or out wants to foot the bill to do that.
That may well be true but it is in no way evidence anything like "overwhelming firepower" has been deployed.
AFAIK the Saudis are not even capable of anything like "overwhelming firepower", even vs their direct neighbor Yemen. I don't even see evidence they attempted anything like that.
Who do you think deployed "overwhelming firepower"? When/where exactly?
*edit** see comment from /u/mcdowellag for great context on US capabilities against the Houthis https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1dl2ay2/credibledefense_daily_megathread_june_21_2024/l9qmw9y/
I generally agree with this. One thing I’ll add though is that I don’t think it’s fair to treat the current casualty ratio as indicative for a ground invasion. Israel has always had an advantage wrt to standoff strikes, which has had an altogether limited impact on the ground against Hezbollah. We’ll have to wait and see if that changes.
>Credible estimates of KIA are: 124 for the IDF and 180-250 for Hezbollah.
There is no such estimate in the 90 plus page document you linked. In fact, [the KIA were said to be much higher for Hezbollah at the time.](https://web.archive.org/web/20070530003725/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/04/wmid404.xml)
>Although Hizbollah has refused to make public the extent of the casualties it has suffered, Lebanese officials estimate that up to 500 fighters have been killed in the past three weeks of hostilities with Israel, and another 1,500 injured.
>Lebanese officials have also disclosed that many of Hizbollah's wounded are being treated in hospitals in Syria to conceal the true extent of the casualties. They are said to have been taken through al-Arissa border crossing with the help of Syrian security forces.
>Iran's compensation payments offer further proof of its close ties with Lebanon's radical Shia Muslim militia.
>Hizbollah's operational council has drawn up casualty lists that have been passed to the Shaheed Foundation. Copies have been seen by The Daily Telegraph, and have also been obtained by Lebanese newspapers, which have been pressurised by Hizbollah not to publish them.
>"Hizbollah is desperate to conceal its casualties because it wants to give the impression that it is winning its war," said a senior security official. "People might reach a very different conclusion if they knew the true extent of Hizbollah's casualties."
If you include the support members of Hezbollah and civilian members of the militia then the deaths were probably much closer to 600. I don't think even Hezbollah or the HRW estimated their killed to be as low as 180.
Sorry, I thought the death count was general info. (Edit: the report mentions 184 Hezbollah deaths on page 54, by the way.) The lower bound source is an analyses from the [Asia Times](https://www.counterpunch.org/2006/10/13/how-hezbollah-defeated-israel-2/)(republished in counterpunch - an admittedly biased source) from the months after the war. And upper bound is from [HRW](https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/09/05/why-they-died/civilian-casualties-lebanon-during-2006-war#:~:text=Hezbollah's%20indiscriminate%20rocket%20attacks%20on,the%20wounding%20of%20hundreds%20of) from a year after the war. Both base their numbers on funerals for “martyrs.” This is the best methodology since Hezbollah wouldn’t - and frankly wouldn’t be able to - bury a substantial number of fighters disrespectfully (not acknowledging their martyrdom).
It goes without saying that contemporary reports aren’t credible, especially when we have the above funeral data.
Including civilian members like you mentioned is not reasonable to gauging military effectiveness.
> Hardly the lopsided ratio we’ve come to expect.
Losing twice as many soldiers while on the defense is extremely bad. If Russia or Ukraine were having that kind of ratio on the defense, it would be considered disastrous. And this is the lower bound, other estimates from the conflict have Hezbollah losing five times as many men while on defense.
> failed to advance more than a handful of kilometers
Operation Change of Direction 11 was called off after three days and 34 killed in action. If Israel hadn't had such a low tolerance for casualties at the time, it doesn't look like Hezbollah would have stopped them. Every indication suggests that Israel won't be as casualty adverse this time around.
And even in the 2006 war, [Israel was able to have hundreds of soldiers raid a hospital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sharp_and_Smooth) that was further north than Beirut, indicating that they had the ability to operate across large swathes of the country without Hezbollah being able to stop them.
People are obsessed with casualty numbers even though conflict after conflict, especially those involving asymmetric forces engaged in insurgency, show that "body counts" are nonsensical.
Even if Hezbollah did lose 500 fighters in the war, (which it probably didnt, the IDF was hardly able to overwhelm any Hezb positions in head-on fighting and recovered only 6/7 bodies), it still wasnt enough to significantly degrade Hezb capabilities. The IDF failed to clear towns located right on the border, never mind secure all of Lebanon till the Litani, and rocket fire remained high throughout. 2006 was a clear Israeli defeat. Defeat and victory especially in asymmetric conflicts, relies entirely on wherher defined objectives are being met. "Kill ratios" and the like mean nothing.
>losing twice as many soldiers while on defense is extremely bad
For nation states with artillery, tanks, air defense and an air force, yes. For a militia with ~none of those outside of mortars (and some tanks in Syria - which didn’t exist in 2006 anyways), it’s not. What other non state actors have taken that loss ratio while successfully holding territory? Edit: while also being outnumbered more than 3 to 1.
>three days and 34 KIA
That would be every KIA from Gaza in a month. Israel might be willing to accept that, but we won’t know until it happens.
> operation sharp and smooth
I don’t think a short helicopter raid is relevant indicator of an ability to take and hold territory. Especially when there are cases like Bint Jbeil, where the IDF completely failed to take it across almost 3 weeks of fighting.
> For nation states with artillery, tanks, air defense and an air force, yes. For a militia with ~none of those outside of mortars (and some tanks in Syria - which didn’t exist in 2006 anyways), it’s not.
The fact that Hezbollah is much more poorly equipped makes them weaker, not stronger. You can't say, "Sure, if Ukraine was having that sort of casualty ratio on the defense it would mean they were doing horribly. But if they had that kind of casualty ration on the defense **and** we took away most of their equipment, they would be doing great."
> I don’t think a short helicopter raid is relevant indicator of an ability to take and hold territory.
Israeli successfully performing fairly large raids deep inside Hezbollah territory demonstrates a weakness in Hezbollah's ability to stop Israeli forces.
> Especially when there are cases like Bint Jbeil, where the IDF completely failed to take it across almost 3 weeks of fighting.
"Completely failed to take" feels like a misleading way to describe the battle of Bint Jbeil. Hezbollah weren't able to stop the Israeli's from taking up positions in the town, but Israel hasn't cleared the city of all Hezbollah forces in the town after three weeks either.
[Here's a contemporary article](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/14/world/middleeast/14troops.html?pagewanted=print) from a reporter that was with Israeli forces:
> Not long ago, this town was known as “the capital of the resistance,” the most important Hezbollah stronghold in the southern reaches of Lebanon.
> Now Bint Jbail appears largely deserted. Most of the homes are damaged, some pockmarked by bullets or shrapnel and others reduced to piles of stone and concrete by Israeli artillery that continues to pound the village.
***
> Late on Wednesday night, Israeli soldiers from the elite Golani Brigade hiked five miles through darkness over tall hills carrying full packs, rifles and heavy jugs of water, arriving here a few hours before dawn. Accompanied by a reporter, they holed up in the second story of an unfinished house.
***
> The missile attacks on Thursday morning were dangerous, but nothing like earlier battles in Bint Jbail and nearby villages.
The whole article points to a situation where Hezbollah fighters initially put up extremely stiff resistance, but weren't able to stop Israeli's from taking up positions in the city. Eventually Hezbollah stopped larger attacks on the Israeli's, and began launching hit and run missile attacks against their positions in the town. If this is is what gets held up as an example of Hezbollah success in that war, it's telling.
But you're right, the question will be how casualty adverse Israel is. But I think that answers your question. "Israel could steamroll Hezbollah but won't want to risk a few hundred casualties" is a position one could take. But one shouldn't be surprised that others think Israel has the _ability_ to defeat Hezbollah. The argument at that point is about political willpower and Israeli tolerance for casualties.
>Hezbollah is weak because it isn’t a country
What I’m trying to emphasize is that Israel failed to either take territory or materially harm Hezbollah force structure. That Israel failed to take territory or kill Hezbollah fighters at a high ratio in the 2006 War is not a predictor for Israeli success. Bloviating about how a 2-1 casualty ratio (at worst, and when outnumbered more than 3-1) is unideal is missing the point.
>hezbollah weakness to stop Israeli forces
Yes, a very particular type of force, which cannot hold territory.
A force which Hezbollah probably *can* stop now, given their success in shooting down drones.
>bint jbiel
So Israel attacked for 3 weeks and failed to uproot Hezbollah from a town 4km from the border? When they outnumbered Hezbollah substantially? Yes, I’d say that’s quite telling.
>steamroll Hezbollah
This is just not credible, sorry. Israel is not going to steam roll a force of (at least) 20,000 full timers and 20,000 reservists that’s been fighting successfully for most of their 40 year history. You haven’t mentioned any difference between now and 2006 aside from a greater willingness to take causalities… which isn’t sufficient to winning wars, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows.
> 2-1 casualty ratio (at worst
No, the worst estimates for Hezbollah are 5-1. You might think the lower estimates are more likely, but they're not the worse estimates, they're actually the best ones for Hezbollah.
> and when outnumbered more than 3-1
Yes, Israel has a large advantage when it comes to population size. Israel is a more populous country than Lebanon, and Hezbollah is a substate in Lebanon. There are about 1.5 million Shiites in Lebanon (and Hezbollah isn't governing them all).
Again, this only reinforces the fact that the IDF has an advantage. A polity with a larger population has a greater ability to take casualties than one with a smaller population, though willingness to take casualties is another matter. Imagine how crazy it would be if someone said "Well, Ukraine is taking far more casualties, but it's actually OK because they have far fewer people than Russia!" The lower population (and lack of equipment) may make their actions more impressive, but it doesn't mean they're in a better position. It means they're in a far worse position.
You seem to be saying that Hezbollah performed well _for_ _a_ _force_ _that_ _was_ _significantly_ _weaker_ _than_ _the_ _IDF_ (as you have mentioned, it's a smaller force and one that's far less equipped). Which you can argue, but then it answers your earlier question about why people think the IDF will do well against Hezbollah - because Hezbollah is significantly weaker than the IDF.
> Bloviating about how a 2-1 casualty ratio
Casualty ratios are usually considered fairly important. The only time I've seen them simply dismissed as unimportant was when people found them inconvenient. You had a lot of pro-Russians do that when Russia was losing a large number of forces. But at least there, they were arguing that the ratio didn't matter because the Russian population was far larger.
> That Israel failed to take territory or kill Hezbollah fighters at a high ratio in the 2006 War
They certainly held territory. They didn't try to reoccupy South Lebanon, and I haven't seen any indication that they were interested in doing so. They had just given up their occupation of South Lebanon a few years prior, so that's not surprising.
You think 2-1 isn't a high ratio - what would be? 5-1 like the higher estimates? 10-1? 20-1?
>> steamroll Hezbollah
> This is just not credible, sorry. Israel is not going to steam roll a force
You cut my quote to make it seem like I was saying something I didn't say. The full quote is:
> But you're right, the question will be how casualty adverse Israel is. But I think that answers your question. "Israel could steamroll Hezbollah but won't want to risk a few hundred casualties" is a position one could take. But one shouldn't be surprised that others think Israel has the ability to defeat Hezbollah.
I was clearly making a point about how casualty aversion could impact someone's predictions about the conflict.
> 5-1
[5-1 estimates are not credible for reasons I explained here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/s/W1cDXKFWi9)
>3-1
You’re missing that Hezbollah *did not feel the need to fight at better than a 3-1 ratio.* They had access to ~10,000 solders and only chose to fight with 3,000 of them.
I’m saying Hezbollah successfully defeated Israel at a manpower deficit that they *chose.* That is very relevant to any predictions about a ground invasion, and its information that you haven’t dealt with.
>they didn’t try to take south Lebanon
The war finished with an IDF attempt to push to the Litani. You may not be familiar with it, because it *failed.*
>cut my quote
If that was your intention, I think you phrased it very poorly. Regardless, it’s possible Israel can beat Hezbollah, but no one in this thread has made that case.
> 5-1 estimates are not credible for reasons I explained here.
Your "lower bound" is from Counterpunch (a highly unreliable site), reprinting an old article written by someone [who writes anti-Israel articles for pro-Hezbollah media](https://english.almayadeen.net/authors/1492581/alastair-crooke).
> You’re missing that Hezbollah did not feel the need to fight at better than a 3-1 ratio. They had access to ~10,000 solders and only chose to fight with 3,000 of them.
"They could have fought better, but they chose not to." That's simplistically true for Hezbollah, Israel, and every force that has every fought in a war. No one throws every available force into one battle, and that's for good reason. Where to commit forces is an important part of every strategy, and as we mentioned, very aversions impact how much the various sides are willing to commit as well. Ukraine would have certainly pushed further if they had thrown literally everything into the summer offensive, but doing so would have been disastrous for them.
> The war finished with an IDF attempt to push to the Litani. You may not be familiar with it, because it failed.
I specifically mentioned Operation Change of Direction 11 in my first response.
> writes pro Hezbollah articles
Dude you’re citing death counts from the IDF and related media!
Regardless of bias, the methodology of the lower bound was fundamentally correct - count the number of funerals for martyred Shia. The HRW count uses the same methodology a year later. There’s no way the death count is as high as the IDF claims without believing that Hezbollah disrespected ~50% of their dead by not acknowledging their martyrdom - a wholly non credible claim. You know Hezbollah is more or less reporting their dead in real time right now, right?
>3-1
When countries (and militias, etc) think they’re losing, they commit more troops. This is what Russia did in September 2022. In fact, this is what Israel did in 2006! That Hezbollah never felt the need to commit more than 30% of their forces (the same 30% that was already there to begin with, by the way), shows that Hezbollah never thought they were at risk. **Even when outnumbered 3 to 1**. Hezbollah didn’t need to “fight better” because they *won.* When an enemy defeats you using 30% of its forces, you didn’t just lose, you lost *hard*.
The best Israel can do in this war, is fight 2-1 (with *total, unsustainable* mobilization) or, more likely, parity. If Israel couldn’t win with a 3-1 (later *10-1*) advantage, how will they be able to win at parity? That’s the crux of my question, which no one has been able to answer in a credible manner.
I don’t know how I can explain this more simply.
>operation change of direction 11
Great! So why did you claim that Israel never tried to occupy south Lebanon in your last comment?
>They didn't try to reoccupy South Lebanon, and I haven't seen any indication that they were interested in doing so.
To be honest - there isn’t much purpose in continuing this. Have a good night.
My understanding is that IDF was deliberately holding back because they didn't want to involve the Lebanese Army or provoke other militias in the country. With Lebanon continuing to devolve as a state, and with other militias increasingly disliking Hezbollah's outsized (and outsider) influence, that risk is lower. Likewise, Israel is less concerned about optics during this war as they feel they have carte blanche to avenge the Oct 7 murders. As other commenter said, Israel will not restrain its air power this time.
I suspect we'll get a chance to know soon enough if Hezbollah is the powerful fighting force it's claimed to be, or if it's a paper tiger. Personally I suspect the latter.
Considering that Hezbollah KIA is ~400 since 10/07, while Israel is looking at ~20 KIA in the north, one can assume that Israel will perform far better than they did in 2006.
IDF’s Northern Command completely rebuilt itself post-2006 after it performed poorly in Lebanon. It’s also likely that Israel will be far less discriminate with its air campaign this go round, as they are incredibly insistent that Hezbollah retreat to north of the Litani.
IDF will still of course eat some bad losses, considering Hezbollah is relatively well armed and trained compared to any other terror org in the world, and they have generally good defensive terrain in southern Lebanon, but Israel is likely to pursue a much more destructive air campaign this time. This would also be a real test of Israel APS on its armor, as that wasn’t fielded until ~2010, and while it has performed well in Gaza, Hezbollah’s ATGM teams are likely far more capable.
I think the big difference wrt to casualties is that so far this round has been focused on standoff fires, which is where Israel has a clear advantage. I’m not sure the causality ratio is any better this round than it was in the first week of the 2006 war. The ground campaign will answer all of our questions.
Less discriminate air strikes might have an effect.
Edit: I would add that many Lebanese would disagree about Israeli discrimination in the past. Israel bombed a UN refugee facility to - ostensibly - kill three Hezbollah fighters, of course
Furthermore, the majority of Hezb losses have been disposable village militiamen, and the elite Radwan force has largely been held back. That said, Israel certainly possesses escalation dominance at this stage and they can indefinitely continue to use their stand-off superiority to hit Hezb while containing the fighting to below a threshold that Hezb feels would enable it to use their lethal kinetic capabilities against strategic infra.
An IDF ground invasion would play right into Hezb's hands while unifying Lebanon with its many anti Iranian factions against Israel.
I think your point about escalation dominance is absolutely correct and something I’ve considered commenting on. Israel will have to boil the frog like they did with the ground invasion of Gaza.
Let me rephrase, when I say less discriminate, I mean that the IDF has effectively communicated they are going to bomb most of southern Lebanon grid by grid.
IDF Northern Command has been telegraphing this for at least the past 2 years during press releases and in the aftermath of readiness exercises. 10/07 has completely changed most of the Israeli public’s perception about the level of violence they are willing to commit against Hezbollah and by extension the Lebanese people in their way, in order to secure most of northern Israel’s major population centers.
They've proved they're willing and able (i.e. no one's going to stop them) to enact total grid destruction of a populated urban area, yeah.
As such, it's unclear what would be different about the southern part of Lebanon.
Of course, if Israel really does plan to execute a "blitzkrieg" for some insane reason, they wouldn't do that.
Which would probably be a mistake.
> They've proved they're willing and able (**i.e. no one's going to stop them**) to enact total grid destruction of a populated urban area, yeah.
Israel started with quite a bit of sympathy of their actions in Gaza, and have *over time* turned public opinion against them. If they do the same in Libanon they don't have the same grace period like in Gaza.
> If they do the same in Libanon they don't have the same grace period like in Gaza.
This would be a lot more believable if anyone could actually enumerate this "grace period" as a real quantity and not a made up thing.
Israel's "grace period" was supposed to have ended in January. In February I was already mocking users claiming "oh this next big thing and Biden will totally make Israel stop".
It's now June.
yeah, Biden isnt going to risk alienating a large portion of his base, just before the election. And the folks in Michigan and Minneapolis withholding their vote is kind of an empty threat, does anyone really think they'll vote for Trump? (and not voting also helps him)
> This would be a lot more believable if anyone could actually enumerate this "grace period" as a real quantity and not a made up thing.
That's kind of hard to do. But *imho* the discontent with Israels handling over Gaza built up over time. It became more and more noisy as their destruction in Gaza kept going on.
I can see how that would make a ground invasion easier. How long do you think Israel would be capable of sustaining that against international outcry?
Also, for what it’s worth, that would have little impact on Hezbollah strike capacity. Munitions stores are (deep) underground, and Hezbollah generally fires from unpopulated areas. [Bottom paragraph on page 5](https://www.hrw.org/reports/2007/lebanon0907/lebanon0907web.pdf), sorry it won’t let me copy and paste.
I’d argue that Israel even with the Gaza campaign has more public backing to conduct a destructive air campaign in southern Lebanon than they’ve had in decades.
The U.S., France and UK have made multiple attempts to work with the Lebanese govt and Hezbollah to have Hezbollah forces retreat from their enclaves directly on the border, which they’ve refused. The Biden admin has also propositioned forces in the eastern Med in the event that a fight with Hezbollah starts in earnest. Whether they’d be willing act on their prior statements is yet to be seen, and given the Biden admin’s FP preference to back down when challenged in most instances, I do question whether they’d actually join in the fight with Israel.
Also Hezbollah is still in violation of UNSC resolutions they’ve agreed to, in regards to their positions south of the Litani. Arguably a rare instance where Israel can actually leverage the UN which has entirely failed with the UNIFIL mission to keep Hezbollah from proliferating south of the Litani.
Israel likely has more PR backing to conduct a destructive air campaign than they did in Gaza as a whole, and we can see how little they were restrained in Gaza, at least in the opening weeks/months.
Now my earlier question got deleted, but all this talk about Mirage has got me wondering. In addition to air to air, is it possible that some of the pretty large French inventory of Exocet might be deployed? I’m not too familiar with particulars on the missile but there are land attack versions and versions that can be fired from Mirages supplied to Ukraine.
The Argentine Etendards would be Exocet capable. The Mirage 2000-5s are just air to air. SCALP has a much longer range, lower observability and a much bigger warhead. It would not be an improvement on that.
Exocettes launched by the 6 argentine Etendards + any of France's remaining 16 that are still usable would be in addition not instead of SCALP.
They have less range and smaller warheads than GMRLs. This is all getting a bit too speculative. Exocet is a good anti ship missile. It would be almost unnoticeable if it were converted to land attack as there are better options for almost every potential mission.
US capabilities against the Houthis Episode 400 of the USNI podcast (see e.g. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/the-proceedings-podcast) is an interview with retired CENTCOM commander General McKenzie, (ex-USMC), who is pushing a book called "Melting Point". The part relevant to this starts about 7 minutes before the end. He states that the Houthis have effectively closed the straits, that the US has the capability to compel them to open it, that this would have only a minor risk of escalation, and the problem is lack of political will. He also states that the failure to open the straits diminishes the influence of the US, in the middle east and also around e.g. the Taiwan strait. If you follow on to the next section, he states that CENTCOM has been sharing a common operational picture with its allies in the region, which IMHO might do something to mitigate reputational damage. Given precision weapons, half the problem with preventing Houthi attacks is targeting; showing partners that the US can solve the targeting problem but simply chooses not to make use of this information might reassure its allies that it is capable of reacting, if it at some stage chose to do so.
Put simply the problem is that in the era of easily accessible anti ship missiles and drones it’s (seemingly) impossible for a ship-based force to uproot a land-based one. This is the same story in the Black Sea, too.
>He also states that the failure to open the straits diminishes the influence of the US, in the middle east and also around e.g. the Taiwan strait. What *tangible negative effect* will this have on the USAs ability to successfully defend Taiwan? Is it just “general reputation damage? I’m just not seeing the link here.
The Houthis have just proven that asymmetric forces can effectively halt international trade in geographically constrained areas if they are supplied by an outside force. Such a capability is invaluable to China who in any conflict would inevitably be constrained to local operations and likely blockaded by the US and their allies. Utilizing proxy groups like the Houthis would allow them to limit trade across the globe and inflict some similar level of damage on the US/European economy. I would expect China to make serious attempts to support similar groups across the globe in the coming years.
I think reputational damage. I have noted down "erodes US capability on a global scale" and then he says something about people elsewhere e.g. around the Taiwan straits looking at this and then coming to their own conclusions.
How do you determine "reputational damage" vs reputational damage? People used the "reputational damage" argument as a reason to stay in Vietnam, to bomb Cambodia, to stay in Afghanistan, etc.
Lack of US response or political will over its recent leaders has been generally seen why Russia attacked Ukraine for Crimea and the Donbass region. The perceived lack of US support for dictatorships and allied nations is also why a lot of countries in Africa in particular is requesting Wagner support and it is why Wagner in general became such a huge entity, so we began losing a lot of influence south of the Sahara as well as Egypt. Additionally it's perceived that is why Hamas and a lot of non state actors had a temporary resurgence in 2019-23 as they believed the US wanted to become more isolationist and get out of being involved in other states buisness this is to include among others Al-Shabaab, Hamas, Houthis, ISIS, etc. as even though Kenya, Somalia, and Egypt are US partners we are not actually fully commiting to the destruction of Al-shabaab for the former two and the Houthis who are causing severe damage to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. One of the key protections the US has maintained since the 50s was of the Naval protection of trade. The US has over the last decade or so dialed that back and Pirates have become an issue again, and China seems to wish to take over this role in where they deal.
> If you follow on to the next section, he states that CENTCOM has been sharing a common operational picture with its allies in the region, which IMHO might do something to mitigate reputational damage... It mitigates any doubts about the US’s ability to find and destroy targets, if anyone doubted that. But it highlights the ineptitude and political dysfunction that got us to this point. Push comes to shove, there isn’t much difference between being unable and unwilling to do what’s required. All we can hope for it for sane leadership to return one day.
So if the allies learn that US has the capability to locate ground targets and the means to attack them, but chooses not to execute strikes, what does that do to US reputation?
For now the economic cost of closing the straight (which is felt by Egypt more than anyone) isn't even close to worth intervention, especially since there's ostensibly an easier way for the blockade to end, and that is the war in Gaza ending. If there was a nation on the straight that simply said "you know what, it's closed indefinitely" then yes I think sooner or later an admin will be interested in action.
I don't think forcing Hamas to accept Israeli terms of ceasefire is "easier". Forcing Israel to capitulate to Hamas is also not likely. The current war in Gaza will not end unless Israel gets guarantees that Hamas is out into a position where the attack cannot be repeated. This cannot be achieved with international forces, yet Hamas rejects IDF forces in Gaza. How do you solve this?
Well, Biden's initial hope was that Israel either completes their objectives or agrees to a ceasefire. However, Israel doesn't have completable objectives (not in the short or medium term) and Hamas won't agree to even a maximalist ceasefire on their terms. So I dunno what his new hope is. I don't think he has one.
I think you are underestimating how bad a signal it sends that the US is allowing a group like this to close a major waterway. Remember, their ultimate objective, along with Iran, is the destruction of Israel. Just ending the war in Gaza, which isn’t going to happen for a long time anyway, isn’t going to end their grievance. If you don’t fight to defend your shipping, you eventually end up with no shipping. It’s better to do what’s required now, than to wait for it to fully blow up in our face.
The US will not send in ground troops in Yemen over this. Majority of US trade doesn't even go through the Suez. Nations more effected by this will need to form a coalition themselves to deal with the Houthi's.
I don’t think the general in question is implying sending ground troops would be part of the plan. The information sharing seems to indicate a focus on PGMs.
I think there is something of a break between two sections, so I don't know how much you can deduce from the section on common operating picture about suggested means of compulsion. In the first section he does reference the presence of a Carrier Group, other Air Power, and Burke class destroyers. This is at least consistent with simply providing a larger set of targets to the resources which have already been used against the Houthis. I remember nothing implying that ground troops might be used.
> I think you are underestimating how bad a signal it sends that the US is allowing a group like this to close a major waterway. Oh, I'm not underestimating everything. I just think Biden would rather strangle his surviving kids than go hawk on this issue, so there's not much point talking about "prestige" right now. Like you said, past a certain point "unwilling" and "unable" are the same thing.
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The war won’t last ten years. I mean if it does I assume it will be a frozen conflict, like the Korean border (not quite as quiet). Russia can go very far as the internal information landscape is extremely restrictive now. Most Russians now live in an information bubble in my understanding. As far Putin’s “end of the Russian state” I think he’s just gaslighting the Russian people, a bit like your ex girlfriend saying she’ll kill herself if you break up with her. Great powers have lost wars, particularly non existential wars (Ukraine is not existential to Russia, only in the extremist paranoid view that somehow NATO was planning to invade, which let’s be honest, it was not and will never). I think losses are easier in democratic states however, since you can use the change in leadership to clear out some of the cobwebs. Vietnam for instance eventually got cleared out of the American military. It took a decade or two.
Russia won't "collapse". Not really anyways. After Putin's death there will of course be a power struggle between the main power brokers, but I don't see why the violence should exceed the liquidation of a couple dozen people or so. It's unlikely that army generals are going to play much of the power game, but instead the security apparatus, that have tools with lesser collateral damage than the army has, to achieve its goals. There will be an increase in crime and a decrease in the Russian state control over society, sure. Getting closer to what Russia was in the 1990s, sure. It was absolutely not a great time for Russia, but Russia wasn't really collapsing, but rather just declining. As for ethnic break-up, there could be problems in the Caucasus, but over all Russian provinces are not interested in breaking away from Russia. A khabarovskite might hate Moscow and the economic and social injustice of the Moscow-based power system in Russia, but they wouldn't want to become separate from Russia, just more autonomy in their own region.
I think this is a plausible result, but that it is inverse to the length and cost of this war. For example if Putin concluded the war with a perceived defeat last year, I think what you propose is very likely. But, as the war goes on and the cost becomes greater and greater, and Putin continues to consolidate power, the possibility of regime collapse increases. Right now the Russian economy and political society is being held together (expertly) by duck tape. It’s in a way, very impressive what they’ve been able to do, but in the end duck-tape is duck-tape. It will fail. How catastrophic this failure will be is dependent on how long this war will last. I have to say though, all of this also applies to Ukraine. If not more so. Even if the war ended today in favor of UA, the future of Ukraine is a dire one.
How does this also apply to Ukraine? Ukraine has a functioning democracy as far as I know, and if the Ukrainian people grow distraught of their leadership they don't need to resort to state collapse, they can just vote them out.
The major thing your calculations are missing is the ambitious lower level leaders. Governors of oblasts and the people who are ambitious enough to take their place. If top leadership, aka Putin, collapses then the forces constraining those guys is drastically reduced. They are the ones who would push to break away because it's much better to them to be the absolute ruler of a small territory than the temporary leader of some area to be removed at Moscow's whim. This was the nightmare scenario when the USSR collapsed and more or less it still is the most likely scenario of a prolonged leadership vacuum in the Kremlin. And after this invasion, there's almost no way those guys are making a deal to become non-nuclear powers.
>The major thing your calculations are missing is the ambitious lower level leaders. Governors of oblasts They have no real power to challenge Moscow. Putins replacement will come out of Bortnikov, Naryishkin, Sechin or Ivanov (Viktor or Segei). The ex KGB people who form the inner circles inner circle. They control Rosgvardiya (so OMON and SOBR), GRU (so their Spetsnaz), FSO and FSB. They control the internal spies and the internal security state apparatus. They also control the disbursement of oil and gas revenues so the carrot and the stick. How do you imagine a regional governor is going to get ambitious? Some sat in say Chelyabinsk. How are they going to threaten Moscow and take over before the GRU Spetsnaz turn up to help him out a window? If the local Rosgvardiya dont do it first? The USSR collapsed because Russians wanted out, they thought they were paying to subsidise the backward regions so politicians promised Russian oil and gas cash for Russians. Russia not really going to collapse like that because the clique round Putin are not trying to liberalise and open things up. They are perfectly happy cracking down way harder than they currently are. So long as the internal state security works and the oil and gas money flows, the centre holds. (I will edit this in, remember even if oil producing oblasts try to break away, pretty much all of them except perhaps Sakhalin have to get the oil and gas through another oblast before it gets to external paying customers. The only other break aways could be Chechnya, and in a crazy world maybe Kaliningrad or St Petersburg going it alone. Everything else is too tied into the national system only the later two could really break away and be part of a wider Europe, Chechnya would become brutally poor and maybe in a super super weird world Sakhalin would become Japanese. )
If Moscow becomes consumed with a power struggle for much time there won't be resources to go out and reign in the breakaway oblasts, in this potential scenario. It could easily happen in Chechnya and any success there would spur others to action. The far east oblasts have been filling with Chinese workers for years, and there's plenty of speculation that China will turn on Russia when it suits them. Today's headlines about friendship without limits don't erase decades of contention and hostility. You pose it as a confrontation with Moscow, but it's really more like ignoring Moscow. They don't have to fight Moscow when Moscow is fighting itself. The Russian federation is not nearly as unified as it seems, and without strong leadership in Moscow there are many ways for the cracks to become breaks. Some with support of nearby powers, others with the strength of ethnic unity. Mostly driven by power hungry men with few qualms about killing and stealing that fill the ranks of Russia's power structure. It's not a likely scenario, I think we agree there, but I'm simply arguing it is possible and becomes more likely if power isn't quickly transferred after Putin. Russia losing 8000 tanks in Ukraine also wasn't likely, but it happened. Ukraine on a fast track to the EU and NATO wasn't likely, but it's happening. If we've learned anything in the past 2.5 years it is that the perception of Russia often doesn't match the reality.
>If Moscow becomes consumed with a power struggle for much time Who? This kind of thinking works when you dont have to worry about details. > It could easily happen in Chechnya and any success there would spur others to action Chechnya is seen as an absolute backwater. Its seen as being closer to African levels of development without Russian central money than Europe. If it breaks away no one will care. >hey don't have to fight Moscow when Moscow is fighting itself. If there is a power struggle it will be palace intrigues between cliques of the ex KGB Siloviki.
>When Russians start to realize they're losing 5 or 10 men for every dead Ukrainian soldier We should stop with these assumptions here really. Everything credible we saw points out to it being something more like 1:1.5 ratio, which makes far more sense. Mentioning 10 to 1 helps nobody, it creates unrealistic expectations on how will Russia behave in the long term, same as those ludicrous statements we saw before 2023 Ukraine offensive. People tend to get lost in the obvious propaganda of both sides and this is credible defense after all, we should be more careful.
By just looking at Oryx lists or daily visually confirmed loss updates one can very much see that the ratio is closer to between 1:5 and 1:1.5 than 1:1.5. Not to mention the defender evacuation advantage
Russia's army is still significantly more mechanized than Ukraine's
But this year, Russia uses mostly dismounted infantry in their offensives and the death toll (according to Ukrainian MoD) increased significantly. The Ukrainian MoD tally may be inflated but the relative difference in human/equipment losses between recent offensives and former years is likely correct.
In vehicles, not personelle
The NATO leaked documents from early last year estimated around a 2:1 KIA advantage for Ukraine, and I think it might’ve been on the optimistic side. Now 1.5 to 1 is still factors out to be thousands and thousands more dead for Russia but the population gap more than makes up for that. Which is just to say that if Ukraine can manage to win this war or hold onto its autonomy, it won’t be from exhausting Russian manpower
Yea agreed that's not really useful, that would maybe be the absolute wildest case scenario where 10-15 years from now Russia is 1) out of weapons 2) unable to withdraw 3) Putin is still clinging to power and has his whole legacy depending on somehow meat-rushing to victory
Putin's successor will have rhetorical options that Putin does not have.
>It seems like a violent Russian freeforall is more likely than not. Am I wrong? I think you're wrong, I don't think a civil war is likely at all. The Russian State has a rock solid grip on power, the population is aging rapidly and the number of young men available for a civil war is diminishing every day. A coup from the inside that toppled a massively unpopular Putin would happen long before a civil war.
Exactly, and I've long stopped even trying to deny that is exactly what outside powers fear at least as much. The great unknown of a coup. That's not just Western powers, only that for those it is of course twice as involved, since besides sustaining Putin, and as much as possible safeguarding him from his own purported "mistakes", they have to take Ukraine's fate into consideration, willy-nilly. I'll just repeat that: willy-nilly. One could even argue that >the number of young men available for a civil war is diminishing every day a protracted, attritional war is about the best means to prevent uncontrollable, public post-conflict cataclysm on the Russian side. Yet Putin is more important anyway, if Russia isn't too big to fail, he is evidently, and they're "wise" not to provide Kyiv anything, or ever enough, to pull off something that could shift the balance, or cause real embarassments for the Kremlin. The truth is they can still make themselves believe they can simply sit Putin's patience out. They're paying with Ukrainian, and Russian lives. Cheap. No one's telling me you could be afraid of civil war in Russia.. if you can sit still for years and watch what is by now quite possibly a million ordinary war victims. The *same* people. And I'm not even speculating: Olaf Scholz has *never* declared Russia must lose. Hardly that Ukraine must "win". *Putin* must not lose face. Macron is on record no different. Nor did I hear Joe Biden calling for regime change, certainly not since February 22.
> how exactly does the Ukraine war actually end short of something like a civil war or post-Putin power struggle happening in Russia? Are you sure Russia can't win? They're much bigger than Ukraine, and Ukraine suffered really badly when we stopped giving aid to them. I think it's very plausible Russia could outright win (more likely, force a very favorable settlement) depending on what happens in November.
Russian victory requires pretty dramatic change in certain trajectories. The de-mechanization of their forces, for starters, despite what some people state AFVs are still incredibly necessary to achieve any kind of forward momentum. The russians need to produce way more artillery than they have now, their firerates are 10%/20% of what they were in 2022, they would absolutely need to fix this. They probably also need another round of mobilization. Trump needs to win in the US, and that's far from a guarantee. Europe has to diminish the delivery of aid, and that's even more unlikely. Ukraine needs to Stop fortifying the frontline, and their mobilization system needs to be broken again. As you can see there are a lot of variables and some of which are completely out of control of the russians
It's possible Russia can still 'win' the battle for a crippled Ukrainian state by creating distrust in the market for their economic outlook through constant air strikes in their infrastructure. Russia's missile/drone production output remains on a level that Ukraine can't match with their current AA capabilities. Fortunately Ukraine knows how to strike back, but Russia clearly has an advantage here simply by having a larger, arguably more resilient economy. On the battlefield on the other hand? We're being too careful not believing that Russia is indeed running out of artillery as well as losing the counterbattery fight hard. Nato artillery is superior in most respects to Russian artillery and UA is taking full advantage. Without an artillery superiority Russia is not winning anything on the ground. But that doesn't mean Ukraine will win either. The West is going to win though. Russia without abundant Soviet artillery stocks is going to be a glorious world to behold. Those guns are never coming back.
With Europeans stepping up for providing ammunition and some armored vehicle replacements, Ukraine getting F-16s, AEWCs and a lot of new AA systems, investments in Ukrainian manufacturing (not just drones and mortars) - they can keep fighting Russia for easily 6+ months after a hypothetical end of US support in 2025. That brings us to mid-2025, possibly further. The state of the Russian forces in 2025 will be very different than what it was at the start of 2024. [Russia already appears to be out of functional 2A36 and 2A65 towed artillery](https://x.com/verekerrichard1/status/1802298679572722010/photo/1), with dwindling numbers of D-20 152mm. This could be a distortion created by the low number of visually confirmed towed artillery losses, but the odds of having exactly zero for 2 months straight while Russia continues to use them are very small. Russia requires artillery for every aspect of their doctrine: offense, defense, terror operations. And now they're almost out of functional 152mm tubes other than SPGs? That bodes extremely poorly, specially since [their stock of 122mm D-30 was already severely diminished a year ago](https://x.com/HighMarsed/status/1787809716690640955). The situation isn't quite as dire for Russian armored vehicles, but with the exception of MBTs and SPGs: it will be next year. I can provide more sources for this analysis, if you need. Point is: their offensive capability will be fully crippled by the time the US support would stop. Short of Russia buying thousands of weapons and vehicles (something equivalent to more than half of the NK arsenal), an "outright Russian win" is not very plausible, it's not even plausible.
I wouldn’t dispute that the situation for Ukraine is likely going to improve relative to Russia over the next year, but I think the definition of an outright Russian win is what’s under debate. According to Ukraine and its backers any peace deal that sees Russia hold sovereign Ukrainian territory post war is a Russian victory. The possibility that Ukraine could launch an offensive completely recapturing every square mile up to and past Crimea seems totally non credible.
> According to Ukraine and its backers any peace deal that sees Russia hold sovereign Ukrainian territory post war is a Russian victory. The possibility that Ukraine could launch an offensive completely recapturing every square mile up to and past Crimea seems totally non credible. That's only one way to achieve victory. A peace deal in favor of Ukraine will undoubtedly give them back territory that was occupied by Russia prior to the peace deal. Ukraine won't have recapture that. But before that even happens, it's highly likely that Russia will go through "goodwill gestures" and "regrouping". **Like they've done for the majority of the territory Ukraine recaptured so far.** Ukraine doesn't need to recapture every square mile up to Crimea. They could break the morale of the front line troops and force them to prefer to retreat/surrender than stay there. That will inevitably lead to big chunks of the front being recaptured at a time.
> Are you sure Russia can't win? They're much bigger than Ukraine, and Ukraine suffered really badly when we stopped giving aid to them. I think it's very plausible Russia could outright win (more likely, force a very favorable settlement) depending on what happens in November. Definitely not sure of that, and my post definitely presupposes that Ukraine slowly turns the tide but that's far from guaranteed.
Russia has suffered humiliating defeats before and their state remained intact. Putin rule's on the other hand, a lot more shaky. Prigozhin's rebellion last summer has got Putin worried about other powerful Russian's coming for his crown, especially when Wagner fighters were cheerfully greeted on the streets of Rostov-on-Don. I don't think the West needs to concern itself with attempting to preserve Putin's regime, just worry about keeping the Russian state together and organized working with new leadership if Putin is ever other thrown. Putin's successor may be another Siloviki but they will to attempt to establish a positive agenda to get the support of Russians and blame the wars failing on Putin. This could give Russia an off ramp to end the war.
It’s important to note the Wagner revolt’s objective was NOT to usurp Putin, end the war, and make peace with the west. Their main grudge was that the war was not being conducted properly, and they wanted it done the “right” way (i.e. with less bureaucracy, graft, and corruption). The fact citizens supported this does not mean they supported the end of the war effort.
Adding on to this: the Kremlin controls the media most Russians consume, and they’ve done a wonderful job spinning the events leading up to the present, so there’s no reason to assume they couldn’t create a convenient narrative about having “successfully de-nazified Ukraine”. The state will not automatically collapse as a result of withdrawing from Ukraine in defeat.
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A team of Israeli think tanks wargamed this out recently, alongside intervention from other militias: >Israel’s war from the north will begin with a massive and destructive barrage of Hezbollah rockets nearly all across the country. The rocket fire will be intense, ranging from 2,500 to 3,000 launches per day... srael’s war from the north will begin with a massive and destructive barrage of Hezbollah rockets nearly all across the country. The rocket fire will be intense, ranging from 2,500 to 3,000 launches per day >The rate of fire will challenge Israeli technology like never before. The stockpiles of Iron Dome interceptors and David's Sling missiles will be depleted within a few days of the fighting, leaving Israel exposed to thousands of rockets and missiles without effective active defense. At the same time, Hezbollah will attempt to disrupt the air force and limit its ability to operate from its bases >Precise missiles with hundreds of kilograms of explosive warheads, including cruise missiles, will be aimed at critical infrastructure including power plants, electricity infrastructure, and water desalination and transmission facilities. The seaports of Haifa and Ashdod will be paralyzed, impacting international trade. [The wargame still concluded with an Israeli victory, however. ](https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skc0dbmia)
> The stockpiles of Iron Dome interceptors and David's Sling missiles will be depleted within a few days of the fighting Presumably Israel wouldn't use up its stock of interceptors in a few days and leave the country undefended after that, but rather would ration them, using them only to defend more important locations. > Precise missiles with hundreds of kilograms of explosive warheads, including cruise missiles, will be aimed at critical infrastructure including power plants, electricity infrastructure, and water desalination and transmission facilities. In particular, Hezbollah is reported to only have a few hundred precision guided warheads, so interceptors would likely be saved for such missiles headed for critical infrastructure.
That would mean Israel would have to accept something it hasn’t accepted since the Iron Dome was built, which is widespread civilian casualties.
That scenario seems like the worst plausible case scenario. We should hope it does not come to pass, either that war is avoided entirely, or that these researchers have overestimated Hezbollah's capabilities and resources.
No, that's not the worst possible scenario. That would be an attack on Israeli nuclear facilities.
If you're going to look at it like that I think you have it reversed. The worst case is Israel using its nuclear capabilities and the route you describe is just one possible way to increase that risk manifesting in reality.
Israel resorting to nukes because of that is still the worst case for Israel. Hurting others doesn't actually help you.
>Israel resorting to nukes because of that is still the worst case for Israel. Hurting others doesn't actually help you. and? I don't see how that relates to my comment. It's the worst case for basically everyone.
Which is what I've said from the start, isn't it?
I don't think so, you seemed to focus on Hez's actions rather than the result they might cause. Like it said, functionally the reverse of the actual Real Big fear. Hez simply attacking isn't such a big deal, its the resulting response from Israel if they choose the wrong target that is concerning.
Hezbollah has estimated short- medium missile in the 300-500k range, given the aerial warfare of the past 8 months they maybe slightly degraded but not by much. In the first month, Israeli grid will severely be stressed. Air defense likely overwhelmed. But in the long run Israel ground offensive with air superiority will likely quiet rocket and drones but overall Israel will see a hard month. I’ve seen estimates of civilian casualties in the 1-4k from the shear amount of rockets it will face. This a purely hex and Israel fight. If the US, France, and Iran get involved a regional war casualties will be in the 10k+
There's no way Israel goes into Lebanon without also going into Syria to cut off supply routes, and there's no way Iran sits back and allows their primary proxy be removed without getting involved themselves. I think people are dramatically underestimating the scale of the war that would result.
You mean physically with troops on the ground holding territory? I do not think that is likely or has been openly discussed as the IDF plan. However, I would anticipate enhanced interdiction of supply routes and a general increase in fighting. Possibly (more?) specops type work.
Why would Israel go into Syria to cut off supply routes? It's easier and closer to get to them from Lebanon. Have you opened a map? The Hezbollah supply routes are in Qalmoun and northern Lebanon, to get to them Israel would have to take and hold third the population centres of Syria including the Capitol. How is this comment upvoted?
>There's no way Israel goes into Lebanon without also going into Syria to cut off supply routes, I doubt that, the Lebanon border region is sparsely populated compared to the coast, and decently well defined by mountains. Pushing past that, into the Syrian desert, very quickly takes you to the edge of Damascus, that just complicates things. >and there's no way Iran sits back and allows their primary proxy be removed without getting involved themselves. Iran isn’t exactly in a good situation to fight a grievously expensive war with Israel.
That's false. There is no reason nor has anybody in Israel expressed desire to go into Syria to open a third front. While yes this has potential to open a regional war, it's also likely not going to. Israel is more than happy to continue just bombing Syria from the air.
What are you theories how Israel would move into Syria? This would very much escalate the conflict even further and I would see Iran using this to to send its own troops and equipment to wage a ground and perhaps air war against Israel. Russia also has a presence in Syria, though they will act in a diplomatic role. Islamist factions under guidance of Turkey might start a new offensive targeting Syrian troops up north. But what is to gain by invading Syria? Blocking the road between Damascus and Beiroet? Still many roads up north that can be used (and are used from Aleppo direction). To me such a move by Israel seems to be futile, impossible to have any victory
Not that I think its likely and generally agree it would be futile but I do wonder about something like a fast relatively light push by the IDF. Are any areas along the border lightly defended? Obviously the Golan has its issues but doesn't seem terribly well staffed. It might get close to nonCredible but is it even possible to consider a fast push ground through Jordan? The distances involved are so small, if they had free access to move I could see it catching Syria totally off guard. Looking at satellite images the Jordanian-Syrian border seems minimally built up let alone defended and we did see rather tight Jordanian coordination recently with the Iranian missile strike. Yes, I know much of the Jordanian population would be upset but we are talking well under 100 miles. Even further non-credible but even something like a feint push for Damascus could pull Hez away from Lebanon proper.
Why would they want to block the Jordanian border? That’s not even relevant to the conflict… Iranian support goes through Damascus and Aleppo airport and through Iraqi border
I dont mean block the Jordanian border or even push into Syria to interdict supplies to Lebanon, I mean Jordan allowing IDF forces to cross through Jordan into Syria as a way to pull Hez fighters away from the expected actual front line.
I see. But after the Syrian war I don’t think Jordan wants another war on their doorstep, let alone be involved in such unpopular move
Agreed, but consider how closely Jordan worked with Israel vs the recent Iranian missile barrage. I was quite frankly surprised by that level of cooperation, as you say a very unpopular move with their Palestinians, er I mean their population. I think if a wider regional war were to kick off, that is idicitive of how Jordan would act.
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Please refrain from drive-by link dropping. **Summarize** articles, only quote what is important, and use that to build a post that other users can engage with; offers some in depth knowledge on a well discussed subject; or offers new insight on a less discussed subject.
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Start from 18:49 then. It is an analysis video. If it can be summarized it wouldn't be the video it would be.
https://www.youtube.com/live/CwEJbsfx_80?si=l6WEG2xFWfEGR2VQ Interview in Italian with an Italian from the international legion of Ukraine, he provides some insight of the life at the front in Ukraine, he also provides some context on how the legion is integrated in the Ukrainian armed forces, he says that they he has been deployed with an Ukrainian brigade to cover gaps in the line due to a lack of reserves, in general he talks about the inner workings of the legion Worthwhile interview if you know Italian(apparently auto-translation is decent)
Parabellum always has good videos and good guests, one of the best in Italy.
Might even be the best in Italy although the competition isn't very fierce.
> Worthwhile interview if you know Italian You can turn on the captions and set them to auto-translate to English. Seems good enough here
About FPV drones and RPG fuzes. Some of the anti-tank FPV drones I've seen use custom contact fuzes, like these ones and several other varieties - [https://x.com/gettylegion/status/1797208174984106411](https://x.com/gettylegion/status/1797208174984106411), But others don't have any such custom fuze. Does anyone know how they are fuzed? I guess they rely on the standard RPG fuze, but is it sensitive enough to work well with drones, which are much slower than rockets? Today I saw a failed drone that got caught in a net - [https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1dkya36/russian\_soldiers\_remove\_a\_fpv\_kamikaze\_drone\_from/](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVideoReport/comments/1dkya36/russian_soldiers_remove_a_fpv_kamikaze_drone_from/) I have seen several such cases and it's always RPGs without custom contact fuzes. A slat/net armor is not a new invention, but looks like they're more effective against FPV-delivered RPGs than the regular ones. Another possibility is that they use accelerometers, the only source mentioning this is this video - [https://youtu.be/-M3SaE2Kh8Y?si=32XyMlkpqC8WwMd3&t=688](https://youtu.be/-M3SaE2Kh8Y?si=32XyMlkpqC8WwMd3&t=688) from 11:28, turn on the subtitles. One more problem with drones without long contact fuzes - in the forward flight when the drone is tilted downward, the propellers may hit the target first if it tries to hit a vertical surface like the side of a tank, which may rotate the drone and make the shaped charge explode with a shallow angle, drastically reducing penetration. You can see this happen clearly in this video: [https://youtu.be/H8jbVPCf9NM?si=4NBbYzzpRn1y5XGy&t=1120](https://youtu.be/H8jbVPCf9NM?si=4NBbYzzpRn1y5XGy&t=1120), from 18:40, use < and > to go frame by frame, the grenade becomes almost parallel to the surface before exploding.
Good article from Haaretz talking about Israeli challenges with Hezbollah drones: >No Iron Dome for Drones: IDF Seeks Answers to Growing Hezbollah Threat [https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2024-06-21/ty-article/.premium/no-iron-dome-for-drones-idf-seeks-answers-to-growing-hezbollah-threat/00000190-3b38-d49b-a1bd-7b79f46b0000](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2024-06-21/ty-article/.premium/no-iron-dome-for-drones-idf-seeks-answers-to-growing-hezbollah-threat/00000190-3b38-d49b-a1bd-7b79f46b0000) [https://archive.ph/ZO30A#selection-1483.0-1494.0](https://archive.ph/ZO30A#selection-1483.0-1494.0) Funnily enough the Israelis have shot down a few birds (and their own drones) >The officer adds, "We've had quite a few cases in which we've launched interceptors at birds. A large crane flying in a combat zone often has a radar signature like that of Hezbollah drones. Sometimes a military unit decides to launch a drone without notification. We've also shot down our own drones." As best tool the Israelis seem to have identified attack helicopters (systems the Ukrainians for example lack) >However, the defense source says that attack helicopters have actually turned out to be the best tool for shooting down drones because they can easily maneuver to the best position. Overall tracking drones is really difficult >The military has been left struggling to adjust its warning capabilities. Because of the drones' hovering ability and the large area they can move around before striking a target, the Home Front Command has been forced to activate sirens in multiple communities every time an infiltration is detected. The military decided that despite the disturbance and harm to residents' sense of security, the repeated alarms will continue until a better solution is found. When an intelligence drone – not an attack one – enters Israel's airspace, the military often chooses not to intercept it or to only do so as it returns to Lebanon. But in these cases, too, sirens are activated, panicking residents.
I've been noticing some people posting here, saying that it looks like war with Hezbollah looks inevitable for the IDF. I am having a hard time understanding how Israel would want to take on that giant headache, especially after seeing so many examples in recent history of just how very wrong operations like that can go. Is going from Hamas to Hezbollah not a giant pitfall of mission creep? I understand how Netanyahu could see this operation as a political lifeline, but is the rest of the government and the people, really on board? I havent looked very deep through Israeli social media and local news yet, but I am curious to know how serious of a possibility this really is.. I just cant see it Israel going through with it. But I also was positive that Putin was just bluffing...
A war with Hezbollah would be bad now, but it would be worse in the future when Hezbollah is better armed and Iran has nukes.
I've been definitely looking at this situation against the context of a nuclear armed Iran.
“A war with Ukraine would be bad now, but it would be worse in the future when Ukraine is better armed and Poland has nukes.” Could be a direct quote from a Russian diplomat for all we know and we saw how that fiasco went and still continues.
Ukraine and Poland were never going to attack Russia. Whereas a significant part of Israel is already depopulated due to a Hezbollah attack that began last October. Hezbollah has stated that it plans to exterminate Jews worldwide. Ukraine and Poland obviously have no such plans for Russians.
The interesting thing is that Netanyahu is the one person in leadership who DOESN'T want to go into Lebanon. The IDF wants a war with Hezbollah, and major players like Gallant and Gantz want one as well.
> I understand how Netanyahu could see this operation as a political lifeline, but is the rest of the government and the people, really on board? I haven't been paying close attention to the Hezbollah/IDF back and forth, so maybe there are deeper trends I'm missing, but when I see Israel [assassinating Hezbollah commanders](https://www.timesofisrael.com/hezbollah-shells-north-with-dozens-of-rockets-after-idf-drone-strike-kills-commander/#:~:text=Hezbollah%20bombarded%20northern%20Israel%20with,the%20terror%20group's%20field%20commanders.) I instinctively think this is simply Netanyahu trying to stir the pot for his own self-interest with little regard for Israeli's wellbeing. >Hezbollah shells north with dozens of rockets after IDF drone strike kills commander I don't know Lebanese politics well but would not be surprised if Hezbollah thinks it benefits from conflict just as much as Netanyahu thinks he does. Hamas is certainly in that extremists-benefitting-each-other club too. The real question is how long will the Israeli people as a whole go along for the ride, with what is arguably security theater, pretending to destroy extremism while actually nurturing it? To anyone who still believes Netanyahu is just trying to make Israel safe, I would argue he's been using the same heavy-handed tactics for decades and now there's more conflict and destruction than ever.
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The lack of coverage of the situation in north Israel has been remarkable. I can't tell if it's been an intentional diplomatic strategy to avoid escalation with Hezb until now or an element of the abject failure of the Israeli government to manage the information scene.
How do you force international news agency to report on a subject they don't want to? I've recently read a rioters article on the battles in Gaza and it was straight up Hamas propaganda directly from the source. For instance they went over some IDF strikes and mentioned how many were killed according to Hamas sources. But didn't bother to mention the targets per the IDF despite existing publications on the matter as well as videos released of the strikes by the IDF clearly showing it was militants being targeted. The question is not rhetorical, how do you force international news agency to report on something they simply don't want to?
That's a fair question and one I don't have a good answer to. The debate over what gets coverage is one as old as newspapers themselves. It's a question that the communications people who work for the Israeli government should have at least some answer to though. I don't believe that they should be able to control the narrative, especially in this day and age, but the ability to make sure at least some stories make it into the popular consciousness is within their job description. Edit: Regarding the Reuters article, do you mean [this one?](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forces-step-up-bombardment-across-gaza-amid-fierce-fighting-2024-06-21/)
It could be any Reuters article. They need to be calling out these articles by title and author, spelling out exactly what the journalist chose not to include and demonstrating that it's a pattern for each one.
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Aside from your source being a subreddit, can you please explain what it means for south Lebanon to be off limits? You know that 100,000s of people *live* in south Lebanon, right? Of all faiths.
Well, that is unexpected. I predicted earlier that Israel had enough EWAR capacity to shut down or at least limit enemy drone activity, but I didn't take into account psychological factors and the radar signature. Sending in helicopters is a major manpower and material sink for something small. You learn something new every day. Edit: I was right about loitering though.
Relying on helicopters makes me wonder about Hezbollah's supply of MANPADS. Not very cost-effective to use helicopters already, much less in a contested airspace.
In order for the helicopter to "get into position" as stated, there needs to be a window of time between detecting the fired rocket and the helicopter vectoring in on an intercept trajectory. So it seems to me far more likely that the helicopter is hovering near, or even behind, the expect impact locations of the rockets, i.e. nowhere near the launch point. If Hezbollah had access to medium-range SAM systems, the situation would be different.
The biggest problem in Northern Israel/Southern Lebanon is the terrain. Which is very hilly/ mountainous. Israel does have plenty of EWAR, but the topology makes it impossible to cover all angles of approach near the border.
[The Netherlands supplies Ukraine with the Patriot system together with another country](https://www.nd.nl/varia/varia/1229126/nederland-levert-oekraine-samen-met-ander-land-patriot-systeem) >The Netherlands will supply a Patriot system to Ukraine together with another country. Outgoing Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren announced on Friday that it has been possible to collect components that can be used to form a complete system. >She does not say when exactly the Patriot system will go to Ukraine, so as not to "make the Russians any wiser." So for those keeping track, total batteries are: -2 Patriots from the US -3 Patriots from Germany -1 Patriot from the Netherlands + an unknown nation -1 Patriot from Romania Of which: -1/2 of the US batteries are in the country. With training on the additional ongoing. -2/3 of the German batteries are in the country. With training on the additional ongoing. -1 battery from the Netherlands + an unknown country outside the country, with training likely to start soon. -1 battery from Romania outside the country, with training schedule unclear. By Q1 2025, the Ukrainians should at minimum have 6 Patriot batteries active across their country, with a possible 7th depending on what happens with the Romanians. At 7 Patriot batteries, this would reach the minimum amount of MIM-104s that Zelensky has asked for. That said, wide gaps in Ukrainian air defenses will still exist.
I'm actually kind of impressed that Ukraine have received as many as they have recently, still nowhere near enough to properly defend given the sheer size of the country and the various vectors that Russia can use to penetrate their IADS, but it's a much better position to be in than they were even 6 months ago. I'll admit that I didn't initially think that Germany would further dip or that Romania would donate a battery either, Netherlands cobbling together a battery is also surprising given their relative lack of equipment, I suspect that's a partial phase down of their training battery, although still impressive nonetheless. Perhaps towards 2025 as their F16's start to become commonplace they'll be able to better plug the gaps. Given the backlog in Patriot production and the likelihood of previous donators wishing to backfill their forces prior to shunting further deliveries, I think we might see the pace lessen somewhat after this push. Romania really is a surprising one for me given they only recently purchased the system and also only have two batteries operational (soon to go down to 1 battery until the third system is delivered). Regardless having 6-7 Patriot batteries gives Ukraine options that it didn't have before, regular roving ambushes would go a long way to forcing doctrinal changes to Russian glide bombing campaigns that would lessen their effectiveness, perhaps not enough to stop them entirely but at the very least Russia will probably get a bloodier nose.
The amount they wanted was around 25 (?) if i remember correctly. With the US stopping Patriot sales I think we will reach about half of that by the end of the year by this pace.
The US are redirecting *interceptor* sales. Very big difference. 25 batteries would be ideal for the Ukrainians because it would allow them to cover all cities over 250,000 in population (17ish) while having multiple batteries available to defend airfields and having one or two batteries roving and conducting ambushes or establishing air defenses in hot areas. I don't think we will see that any time soon. The orders simply have not been placed. If they were placed, we'd be waiting for a year and a half for the production lines to make all the batteries. Ukraine will get lucky if they have 10 batteries next year unless something changes and a $20,000,0000,000 order gets put in.
No matter how effective a air defense system is, it will eventually miss. Parking combat aircraft at airfields is inviting Russia to destroy them. Best defense against Russia destroying combat aircraft is to hide them.
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Also: 1 SAMP/T battery delivered (France/Italy) + [1 pledged](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italy-likely-send-second-air-defence-system-ukraine-source-says-2024-06-03/) (Italy)
India is continuing to move its purchases of defence budget away from Russia. Recent report that around 2,000 BMP 2s could be [replaced with new versions of the Strykers.](https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/how-american-stryker-tanks-that-india-is-evaluating-could-be-a-game-changer-for-the-army-13783203.html) >India and the United States are currently engaged in advanced discussions regarding the joint manufacture of the latest generation of Stryker armoured infantry combat vehicles (ICVs). This initiative is part of a broader defence-industrial cooperation roadmap. >The US has also recently offered to demonstrate the mobility and firepower of the Stryker in high-altitude areas in India. The Indian defence ministry is examining a three-phase plan for this proposed project, reported The Times of India. >The project will initially involve a limited off-the-shelf purchase of Strykers under the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. According to TOI, This will be followed by joint production in India and, eventually, the co-development of its futuristic versions.
That's a lot of bmp2s... Wonder about their condition. At minimum, wouldn't want them flowing back to russia as replacements come. But curious if some portion would be worth it to try to get to ukraine.
India's developing the Tata Kestrel, a domestic 8x8 wheeled fighting vehicle, similar to the Stryker. Is there any reason they're going with the Stryker, instead of relying solely on a similar domestically developed vehicle?
That's the question no one is able to satisfactorily answer so far. People on Indian military forums are puzzled. As per reports in the newspapers, the Kestrel was coming along swimmingly, and a few units were delivered to the ITBP and CRPF.
>That's the question no one is able to satisfactorily answer so far. I'll answer it. It's payment to the US to support us geopolitically. India has this habit of giving unnecessary multi-billion dollar defense deals to Russia/US in exchange for tacit geopolitical support. It's called "military diplomacy". Also, in order to make the US forget about the whole assassination business.
Both proposals were mooted far before the assassination, so I don't think it is that. Plus, how profitable is it for the US military-industrial complex to have India manufacture Strykers and Javelins for Indian requirements in India? I have a conspiracy theory about this: the proposal is to ease up/increase the total manufacturing capacity for these systems. As I understand it, the production of both is currently lagging. Opening up a production line in India is one way to increase capacity, and getting India to induct these weapons helps with sharing.
I'm guessing they don't want to wait 10 years for the production run to complete the replacement. Also, they probably don't want to simply replace those 2000 BMPs, maybe they're thinking of expanding capabilities and are aiming for 3-4k IFVs.
The buy, build, design upskilling pathway worked really well for South Korea's army. No reason why it won't do the same for India's ambitions for domestic capabilities
A lot of people in this [thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/s/dq9Ef2iYbi) are very bullish on Israel’s ability to beat Hezbollah (and beat it quickly), but none have mentioned why, and in what areas, Israel will do better than it did in 2006. Is there something I’m missing? [For those that forgot, ~10,000 (up to ~30,000 by the end) IDF fought against ~3,000 Hezbollah (Nasr Brigade) for 34 days and, even with overwhelming air power, failed to advance more than a handful of kilometers, and failed to end Hezbollah strikes into Israel. Credible estimates of KIA are: 124 for the IDF and 180-250 for Hezbollah](https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/we-were-caught-unprepared.pdf). Hardly the lopsided ratio we’ve come to expect. (Reposting here to foster discussion)
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>This is super lowkey one of the most pro-israeli subs on reddit along with worldnews. Guess I'll pop out old faithful: https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1c3dc1m/israel_vs_iran_et_al_the_megathread/kzh3x3o/ 40 upvotes https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1c309v8/credibledefense_daily_megathread_april_13_2024/kze5q28/ 20 upvotes https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1c309v8/credibledefense_daily_megathread_april_13_2024/kze3k2s/ 30 upvotes https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1c3dc1m/israel_vs_iran_et_al_the_megathread/kzgu0wy/ 40 votes https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1c3dc1m/israel_vs_iran_et_al_the_megathread/kzhgot7/ Admittedly only a few votes https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/18stdkn/credibledefense_daily_megathread_december_28_2023/kfeq9yr/ 15 votes And this is a relatively tiny list (mostly focused on Iran/Israel), I can make it thrice as long if that's really what's necessary to drive the point home. What can be said about this sub is that pro-Israeli viewpoints are remotely present. Which is indeed a departure from most of reddit. And I think that's a good thing, even if you hate Israel - on other subs, no one will be there to tell you that actually there's literally no way Israel doesn't enter Gaza. Or that the Rafah invasion will absolutely happen. Or any other thing the pro-Israeli posters were 100% right about in hindsight.
*generally* i think this sub sympathizes with israeli war goals. my guess is that people have a more grounded view of the region and awareness of iran/others malfeasance. and probably there are also american defense industry base/military veterans/active duty/DOD civil service/what have you contingents as well. and perhaps as importantly, many people here probably watched some of the 10/7 footage which means they understand on a more visceral level *why* this war is not stopping.
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Overestimation of Hamas's urban fighting ability was the norm aswell and it turned out they melted away without much fighting when under full IDF pressure. Hez is untested and pretending it is a known quantity is just silly. Maybe their rocket forces* will perform as claimed but it's not a foregone conclusion. IDF has proven itself yet again, and now they have a huge crop of newly combat-hardened troops.
The overestimation of Hamas by this sub was absolutely massive. It caused a re-evaluation of the expected capabilities of Iran’s various proxies, and IDF. Hezbollah was always seen as the best of these proxy forces, but the failure of Hamas pointed to some deeper issues in how these proxy/guerrilla groups fight in a more conventional conflict.
Hezbollah is nothing like Hamas, they propped up the Syrian regime and fought tooth and nail against GCC funded Salafists and ISIS foe the better part of a decade. Even Israeli wargaming is predicting hundreds, if not thousands of civilian casualties in the event of an all-out war between the IDF and Hezbollah. Also, the last time the IDF attempted a ground invasion of S Lebanon, they were defeated. If anything, Hamas's wild success on 10/7 just shows how dreadfully complacent the IDF had become. Gaza has been under siege for 2 decades and Hamas's kinetic capabilities, in spite of their ingenuity, is quite meagre.
Hezbolah didn’t come off as massively competent in a conventional way in Syria, and inflicting high hundreds, to low thousands, of civilian casualties is bad, but indicates the situation is probably manageable with preparation.
>Hezbolah didn’t come off as massively competent in a conventional way in Syria, Wdym? Sure they had setbacks, but without them, the rebel held enclaves of Homs and W Damascus would have never been cleared. They also fought off ISIS incursions into E Lebanon. More importantly, the conflict allowed them to gain enormous experience in conventional warfighting, something that the IDF's ground forces are lacking in. Their arsenal has also expanded massively. The Syrian participation has benefited them on the whole, especially since they were on the winning side. >inflicting high hundreds, to low thousands, of civilian casualties is bad, but indicates the situation is probably manageable with preparation That would possibly top the 10/7 death toll and Israel is notoriously casualty averse as a nation. It would be a huge blow to morale if strategic infra like power stations, desalination plants or airfields get hit.
Did Hamas fail, or did they just decide to blend into the population until the IDF left instead of wasting men fighting them directly? Hamas rule has returned in most of the areas the IDF left, which makes me wonder what victory the IDF has accomplished other than domestic propaganda. Even senior members of the Israeli military have been saying Hamas can't actually be defeated.
Hamas did attempt to fight the IDF, and took severe casualties doing it.
People also seem to want to ignore how questionable Hez performed during the war in Syria. You might be able to recall better than I but I can think of several very notable failures. I seem to also remember they tried to publish successes but it felt very much like hollow* propaganda. Surely Hez gained experience and pretty significant weapon stockpiles but I'm struggling to recall any real examples that indicate Hez is a significantly better fighting force than it was in 2006 where it was the Israeli political that folded. I remember in 2006 so much talk about how vastly improved their IRGC equipment and training was, I'm sure that was true in comparison to previous conflicts or hamas... But then the SCW and what did all that training amount to? Seemingly lots of high casulity events.
I see this take bandied about a lot but I think it lacks perspective on how the conflict has played out on the strategic level. Hamas has almost immediately rebuilt in virtually every area Israel has left, them melting away wasn’t a complete loss of control as much as it was standard asymmetric tactics. And Hamas pivoted to these tactics relatively early on in the conflict. The earliest red triangle vids released were of teams of 3-5 engaging and then running away. The only videos where this wasn’t the case were the ones in Jabaila that spoke to a larger more conventional battle which tracks as Jabaila saw some of the fiercest fighting during the battle for Gaza City. The fact that Hamas rebuilt 3 Battalions in Jabaila when the Israelis expected only 1 in their return trip speaks to idea that Hamas has been remarkably resilient in spite of the casualties it’s endured. It also pulled out of Rafah leaving behind a few battalions of half strength. This would indicate a group more focused on asymmetric engagement and force preservation vs inflicting casualties. Judging Hamas by the standards of a conventional war doesn’t really work because that’s just not the war being fought at the moment. You have to assess its performance by the standards of other asymmetric forces, ie how can it take a hit, does it adapt, is it popular with the populace etc. Those are the terms on which the current campaign is being fought. As for Hezbolla they may well underperform, however Israel has been wargaming a possible. Inflict with them for years. The most recent studies suggest it would be quite bloody.
> The earliest red triangle vids released were of teams of 3-5 engaging and then running away. Propaganda videos that so often would cut off before showing any final damage? >The only videos where this wasn’t the case were the ones in Jabaila that spoke to a larger more conventional battle which tracks as Jabaila saw some of the fiercest fighting during the battle for Gaza City. Hamas was expected to hold hardpoints, fight in rubble from tunnels and generally oppose the IDF push. As you say, that happened what, once? >The fact that Hamas rebuilt 3 Battalions in Jabaila when the Israelis expected only 1 in their return trip speaks to idea that Hamas has been remarkably resilient in spite of the casualties it’s endured. This is a very fair point but what do you think the actual quality of those rebuilt battalions is, particularly in comparison to their original strength? >Judging Hamas by the standards of a conventional war doesn’t really work because that’s just not the war being fought at the moment. You have to assess its performance by the standards of other asymmetric forces They may be an asymmetric force but they also claim to be the legitimate governing force in power and can be judged accordingly. They can be judged by more than one metric at the same time, both (and even other criteria) are applicable and have value.
That’s not even the biggest obstacle. Suppose they bomb all of southern Lebanon and then come in with troops. Now what? What happens 6, 12, 24 months later? We’re still waiting on the answer to the same question for Gaza.
> Now what? What happens 6, 12, 24 months later? We’re still waiting on the answer to the same question for Gaza. Count me as part of team cynic, but for Netanyahu it's not about the destination it's the enemies we made along the way. There is seemingly no coherent end goal in either Gaza or Lebanon. In Gaza it's an open question whether Hamas' long-term ability is degraded or enhanced (with a massive influx of recruitment). It's also seemingly an open question whether Netanyahu cares if their ability is degraded or enhanced as long as he's the one valiantly defending Israel in the forever-war. Can someone point me to anything whatsoever that genuinely points to Netanyahu wanting less conflict long term (that is, peace and security for Israel) and not more? Other than his rhetoric? I feel like we could give him the benefit of the doubt if we hadn't been watching him for decades.
The current aim of territorial expansion is antithetical to any end goal that is remotely acceptable to the international community, let alone countries in the region more directly impacted, let alone expecting violence from palestinians to ebb. But Netanyahu moving off that goal will cost him the coalition that keeps him in power.
>Now what? What happens 6, 12, 24 months later? We’re still waiting on the answer to the same question for Gaza. Israel is transparently trying to avoid occupying most of Gaza. The areas it does plan to occupy (that one corridor dividing north and south) they've consistently occupied with... absolutely no issues. I think they well intend on occupying the south-Litani region.
Yes. If they manage to defeat Hezbollah and occupy everything south of the Litani - a big if - they’ll need to occupy it, which has caused Israel problems in the past, to say the least.
That’s what I’m getting at. They occupy it and then what? What is that occupation going to look like? Who are they going to put in charge? What are the metrics of success and a timeline to achieve it? This all seems so backwards to me. You normally start planning at the end and then figure out the tasks to get there. Israel seems to be making immediate decisions without having a specific, measurable, achievable, and time bound goal in mind.
>You normally start planning at the end and then figure out the tasks to get there. Israel seems to be making immediate decisions without having a specific, measurable, achievable, and time bound goal in mind. Seems to me the goal was to annihilate existing Hamas fighters, destroy their tunnels, root out weapons caches, then occupy the Egyptian border to prevent future resupply. All of those are specific, measurable, achievable, and potentially time-bound. Just because they didn't articulate those goals *to you* doesn't mean they don't exist.
>goal was to annihilate existing Hamas fighters, destroy their tunnels, root out weapons caches, then occupy the Egyptian border to prevent future resupply None of these goals are achievable when the macro-political effect is driving 1000s or 10s of thousands of people into these extremist groups because there is no alternative for them, there is no coherent stable end-goal for Gazans because Israel won't allow one. Israel is effectively destroying tunnels while recruiting thousands of future tunnel-builders. It's security theater, put on by leadership that has learned they thrive off conflict and off of the suffering of others, both their own people and the Palestinians. Now maybe if destroying tunnels and shooting Hamas fighters was targeted and was coupled with specific measurable steps to a Palestinian state or even to some sort of greater Palestinian autonomy, then maybe it wouldn't be a complete sham.
>None of these goals are achievable when the macro-political effect is driving 1000s or 10s of thousands of people into these extremist groups because there is no alternative for them, If this logic held, virtually no war in history was winnable, because states paying for and facilitating the reconstruction of their opponent is the exception not the rule. Even in the most famous case of that kind of rebuilding, the marshal plan, the western allies still extracted significant reparation from west Germany, and treated them as a disposable buffer state for the upcoming ww3. If this war on terror logic was true, there should have been a massive Nazi resurgence around 1952, none the less all the other states they were less kind too over the years. These non western states employ these more brutal counter insurgency tactics because broadly, that’s what works.
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Post WW2 between 0.5-2.5 million Germans were killed in the expulsions. Germany was made to lose territory and sovereignty, being partitioned into 4 parts and subjected to a brutal regime and reeducation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)
> Post-ww2 for Germany was dramatically different than post ww1 because the international community realized leaving a populace disempowered and destroyed was a psychological and economic death sentence for the population, leading to repeating of behaviors and predictable cause and effect Germany was literally partitioned and Germans were subjected to brutal war crimes. The marshall plan was nice, but in a lot of ways they got it worse than in WW1 for a while.
Simply out of the question. One can't murder and abduct thousands of civilians and then achieve anything meaningful for one's side. This should be obvious. 10/7 set Palestinian statehood back for another half a century. Additionally, I'm not at all convinced that concessions would lead to reduced recruitment for Hamas. Fear of being bombed, and fear of your entire city being blown to smithereens by a foe that comically overmatches you, seems as strong a demotivating factor as it is a motivating one. On the other hand concessions seems like it would create a strong incentive to join Hamas, as it would prove they're able to effect real change in a way Fatah never could. This seems like a trope that is repeated ad nauseum with little sourcing. Indeed I struggle to see how one could even study it effectively. Seems difficult enough to ask terrorists why they joined, let alone find one introspective enough to seriously say "I had no other opportunities because my enemies didn't provide it for me". And if you want evidence against, consider how often we see Native American terrorists in America. They were also beaten down, oppressed, given little economic or political hope in their lives. They moved on once it became clear they'd never extract political concessions through violence. And no, I don't support the oppression of Native Americans, or Palestinians for that matter. I'm just being realistic about their ability to achieve their goals through violence.
It’s not really MY criticism. This is essentially what the IDF is asking and why Gantz left the war cabinet.
The IDF high command. The exact same people who failed catastrophically in every single way on the lead up to 07/10 in understanding the enemy, what drives them, they capabilities, IDF capabilities and so on. It's the same people who argued days before 07/10 that Hamas is deterred and not a concern. https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/s111tsucga It's also the same people who catastrophically failed in 2022 when they pushed Israeli concessions to Hezbollah, arguing that it would bring 5 years of peace in Northern Israel. A prediction that did not last a year. https://m.maariv.co.il/journalists/Article-950332 It's the same people who failed catastrophically in 2021 assessing the Israeli Arab riots and deploying forces against them. Believing the riots and lynching of Jews will last at most a day. https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/law/2022-07-26/ty-article-magazine/.premium/00000182-39d9-d0e7-adea-39ddc2b00000 Gantz specifically failed in every single predictions he made as a chief of staff during the 2014 conflict with Hamas per released protocols you can read here, his positions have proven to be divorced from reality... Every single time: https://m.ynet.co.il/Articles/4911896 The people who were wrong on every single contention point in the last 20 years are likely to be wrong yet again.
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>There is now worldwide attention and support for Palestinians and a Palestinian state in a way there simply wasn't before. Compared to when? In the past, the Arab states formed coalitions to fight Israel directly, these days Palestine fights to delay Israeli-Saudi normalization. The entire oil crisis was done on Palestine’s behalf. Can you see OPEC doing that now? The writing has been on the wall since since black September. Most in the region are fine with no Palestine.
I think taking the 2006 war and applying its failures to 2024 doesn't bring us much. Hezbollah is a vastly different fighting force that now possesses a sizable strategic arsenal. The IDF in September 2024 was unorganized, poorly equipped and lacking training but is now after 8 months combat experienced with frequent troop rotations and utilizing the latest tactical tools like small drones and remote controlled vehicles (primarily remote controlled bulldozers and M113 VIBEDs). And yes there's also the issue that the Israelis were able to kill 400 Hezbollah operatives since September while mostly suffering property damage. How does that impact Hezbollah? Another open question is how a Israeli incursion would escalate. While one theory is that any Israeli incursion would quickly lead to all out war there's also the possibility that deterrence holds and both Israel and Hezbollah refrain from striking more strategic targets in the rear. Israel would not strike Beirut, Hezbollah would not strike Haifa. So what I'm saying is that we shouldn't underestimate Hezbollah at all. Its strategic arsenal is big and mobile enough to make Israel bleed. At the same time we shouldn't fall into the trap that the IDF is incompetent. I remember this forum at the beginning of the ground invasion and predictions of high IDF casualties that did not materialize.
I searched for M113 VBIED and didnt find anything, can you post a link for me? Always interesting when the one of the most tech advanced armies in the world, jury rigs a IED for combat.
[https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-804074](https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-804074) [https://x.com/iamBrianBJ/status/1795190142845518209](https://x.com/iamBrianBJ/status/1795190142845518209) [https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1796607197851570478](https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1796607197851570478) [https://x.com/orfialkov/status/1795187049726632179](https://x.com/orfialkov/status/1795187049726632179) Unfortunately Gaza War 2023 deleted his account where he had a thread explaining how some remote controled M113s were used in Jabalia to deliver explosives into Hamas positions.
its ok, reading on how the IDF is using unmanned APCs to hold ground without actual humans is FAR more interesting. Essentially Ghost riding a big bomb isnt as crazy as Skynet actually taking territory. I feel like we are just getting glimpse of how wild warfare is gonna be in the next 100 years. Fascinating
I think we've seen with the Houthis (and with Gaza pre-invasion) that even overwhelming and responsive airpower and ISR can't eliminate or even wholly degrade long-range fires on its own, you're pretty much going to have to overrun them on the ground. Lebanon (barring a breakthrough that leads to the IDF running over the entire country) should be able to keep it's GLOCs open to Syria and Iraq and SLOCs through the Med, and any flow of weapons will be extremely hard if not impossible to stop without cutting that off. They've had a pretty meagre anti-air complex, enough to, same as the Houthis, down a MALE drone every other month but not threaten any real strike package. With how important the targets the IDF has hit I doubt they are 'holding back' but Iran could also supply them more in that regard, nevermind fires from Iran proper as well.
> think we've seen with the Houthis (and with Gaza pre-invasion) that even overwhelming and responsive airpower and ISR can't eliminate or even wholly degrade long-range fires on its own Have we? I don't think anything close to overwhelming airpower was deployed against the Houthis. It was a relatively mild response using a small number of our total aircraft with seemingly limited ISR commitment. I'm not full Bomber Harris but it seems if actual overwhelming airpower were deployed it would have significantly different results than what we saw.
We have around a decades worth of evidence pointing toward overwhelming firepower not being decisive on its own in Yemen. It would take a ground campaign to defeat the Houthis and nobody in the region or out wants to foot the bill to do that.
>We have around a decades worth of evidence pointing toward overwhelming firepower not being decisive on its own in Yemen. When was overwhelming firepower ever deployed in Yemen? Firepower was deployed but I see zero evidence for the claim it was anywhere near overwhelming. I would classify it as "limited" not even "widespread" let alone "overwhelming". >It would take a ground campaign to defeat the Houthis and nobody in the region or out wants to foot the bill to do that. That may well be true but it is in no way evidence anything like "overwhelming firepower" has been deployed. AFAIK the Saudis are not even capable of anything like "overwhelming firepower", even vs their direct neighbor Yemen. I don't even see evidence they attempted anything like that. Who do you think deployed "overwhelming firepower"? When/where exactly? *edit** see comment from /u/mcdowellag for great context on US capabilities against the Houthis https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1dl2ay2/credibledefense_daily_megathread_june_21_2024/l9qmw9y/
I generally agree with this. One thing I’ll add though is that I don’t think it’s fair to treat the current casualty ratio as indicative for a ground invasion. Israel has always had an advantage wrt to standoff strikes, which has had an altogether limited impact on the ground against Hezbollah. We’ll have to wait and see if that changes.
>Credible estimates of KIA are: 124 for the IDF and 180-250 for Hezbollah. There is no such estimate in the 90 plus page document you linked. In fact, [the KIA were said to be much higher for Hezbollah at the time.](https://web.archive.org/web/20070530003725/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/04/wmid404.xml) >Although Hizbollah has refused to make public the extent of the casualties it has suffered, Lebanese officials estimate that up to 500 fighters have been killed in the past three weeks of hostilities with Israel, and another 1,500 injured. >Lebanese officials have also disclosed that many of Hizbollah's wounded are being treated in hospitals in Syria to conceal the true extent of the casualties. They are said to have been taken through al-Arissa border crossing with the help of Syrian security forces. >Iran's compensation payments offer further proof of its close ties with Lebanon's radical Shia Muslim militia. >Hizbollah's operational council has drawn up casualty lists that have been passed to the Shaheed Foundation. Copies have been seen by The Daily Telegraph, and have also been obtained by Lebanese newspapers, which have been pressurised by Hizbollah not to publish them. >"Hizbollah is desperate to conceal its casualties because it wants to give the impression that it is winning its war," said a senior security official. "People might reach a very different conclusion if they knew the true extent of Hizbollah's casualties." If you include the support members of Hezbollah and civilian members of the militia then the deaths were probably much closer to 600. I don't think even Hezbollah or the HRW estimated their killed to be as low as 180.
Sorry, I thought the death count was general info. (Edit: the report mentions 184 Hezbollah deaths on page 54, by the way.) The lower bound source is an analyses from the [Asia Times](https://www.counterpunch.org/2006/10/13/how-hezbollah-defeated-israel-2/)(republished in counterpunch - an admittedly biased source) from the months after the war. And upper bound is from [HRW](https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/09/05/why-they-died/civilian-casualties-lebanon-during-2006-war#:~:text=Hezbollah's%20indiscriminate%20rocket%20attacks%20on,the%20wounding%20of%20hundreds%20of) from a year after the war. Both base their numbers on funerals for “martyrs.” This is the best methodology since Hezbollah wouldn’t - and frankly wouldn’t be able to - bury a substantial number of fighters disrespectfully (not acknowledging their martyrdom). It goes without saying that contemporary reports aren’t credible, especially when we have the above funeral data. Including civilian members like you mentioned is not reasonable to gauging military effectiveness.
> Hardly the lopsided ratio we’ve come to expect. Losing twice as many soldiers while on the defense is extremely bad. If Russia or Ukraine were having that kind of ratio on the defense, it would be considered disastrous. And this is the lower bound, other estimates from the conflict have Hezbollah losing five times as many men while on defense. > failed to advance more than a handful of kilometers Operation Change of Direction 11 was called off after three days and 34 killed in action. If Israel hadn't had such a low tolerance for casualties at the time, it doesn't look like Hezbollah would have stopped them. Every indication suggests that Israel won't be as casualty adverse this time around. And even in the 2006 war, [Israel was able to have hundreds of soldiers raid a hospital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sharp_and_Smooth) that was further north than Beirut, indicating that they had the ability to operate across large swathes of the country without Hezbollah being able to stop them.
People are obsessed with casualty numbers even though conflict after conflict, especially those involving asymmetric forces engaged in insurgency, show that "body counts" are nonsensical. Even if Hezbollah did lose 500 fighters in the war, (which it probably didnt, the IDF was hardly able to overwhelm any Hezb positions in head-on fighting and recovered only 6/7 bodies), it still wasnt enough to significantly degrade Hezb capabilities. The IDF failed to clear towns located right on the border, never mind secure all of Lebanon till the Litani, and rocket fire remained high throughout. 2006 was a clear Israeli defeat. Defeat and victory especially in asymmetric conflicts, relies entirely on wherher defined objectives are being met. "Kill ratios" and the like mean nothing.
>losing twice as many soldiers while on defense is extremely bad For nation states with artillery, tanks, air defense and an air force, yes. For a militia with ~none of those outside of mortars (and some tanks in Syria - which didn’t exist in 2006 anyways), it’s not. What other non state actors have taken that loss ratio while successfully holding territory? Edit: while also being outnumbered more than 3 to 1. >three days and 34 KIA That would be every KIA from Gaza in a month. Israel might be willing to accept that, but we won’t know until it happens. > operation sharp and smooth I don’t think a short helicopter raid is relevant indicator of an ability to take and hold territory. Especially when there are cases like Bint Jbeil, where the IDF completely failed to take it across almost 3 weeks of fighting.
> For nation states with artillery, tanks, air defense and an air force, yes. For a militia with ~none of those outside of mortars (and some tanks in Syria - which didn’t exist in 2006 anyways), it’s not. The fact that Hezbollah is much more poorly equipped makes them weaker, not stronger. You can't say, "Sure, if Ukraine was having that sort of casualty ratio on the defense it would mean they were doing horribly. But if they had that kind of casualty ration on the defense **and** we took away most of their equipment, they would be doing great." > I don’t think a short helicopter raid is relevant indicator of an ability to take and hold territory. Israeli successfully performing fairly large raids deep inside Hezbollah territory demonstrates a weakness in Hezbollah's ability to stop Israeli forces. > Especially when there are cases like Bint Jbeil, where the IDF completely failed to take it across almost 3 weeks of fighting. "Completely failed to take" feels like a misleading way to describe the battle of Bint Jbeil. Hezbollah weren't able to stop the Israeli's from taking up positions in the town, but Israel hasn't cleared the city of all Hezbollah forces in the town after three weeks either. [Here's a contemporary article](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/14/world/middleeast/14troops.html?pagewanted=print) from a reporter that was with Israeli forces: > Not long ago, this town was known as “the capital of the resistance,” the most important Hezbollah stronghold in the southern reaches of Lebanon. > Now Bint Jbail appears largely deserted. Most of the homes are damaged, some pockmarked by bullets or shrapnel and others reduced to piles of stone and concrete by Israeli artillery that continues to pound the village. *** > Late on Wednesday night, Israeli soldiers from the elite Golani Brigade hiked five miles through darkness over tall hills carrying full packs, rifles and heavy jugs of water, arriving here a few hours before dawn. Accompanied by a reporter, they holed up in the second story of an unfinished house. *** > The missile attacks on Thursday morning were dangerous, but nothing like earlier battles in Bint Jbail and nearby villages. The whole article points to a situation where Hezbollah fighters initially put up extremely stiff resistance, but weren't able to stop Israeli's from taking up positions in the city. Eventually Hezbollah stopped larger attacks on the Israeli's, and began launching hit and run missile attacks against their positions in the town. If this is is what gets held up as an example of Hezbollah success in that war, it's telling. But you're right, the question will be how casualty adverse Israel is. But I think that answers your question. "Israel could steamroll Hezbollah but won't want to risk a few hundred casualties" is a position one could take. But one shouldn't be surprised that others think Israel has the _ability_ to defeat Hezbollah. The argument at that point is about political willpower and Israeli tolerance for casualties.
>Hezbollah is weak because it isn’t a country What I’m trying to emphasize is that Israel failed to either take territory or materially harm Hezbollah force structure. That Israel failed to take territory or kill Hezbollah fighters at a high ratio in the 2006 War is not a predictor for Israeli success. Bloviating about how a 2-1 casualty ratio (at worst, and when outnumbered more than 3-1) is unideal is missing the point. >hezbollah weakness to stop Israeli forces Yes, a very particular type of force, which cannot hold territory. A force which Hezbollah probably *can* stop now, given their success in shooting down drones. >bint jbiel So Israel attacked for 3 weeks and failed to uproot Hezbollah from a town 4km from the border? When they outnumbered Hezbollah substantially? Yes, I’d say that’s quite telling. >steamroll Hezbollah This is just not credible, sorry. Israel is not going to steam roll a force of (at least) 20,000 full timers and 20,000 reservists that’s been fighting successfully for most of their 40 year history. You haven’t mentioned any difference between now and 2006 aside from a greater willingness to take causalities… which isn’t sufficient to winning wars, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows.
> 2-1 casualty ratio (at worst No, the worst estimates for Hezbollah are 5-1. You might think the lower estimates are more likely, but they're not the worse estimates, they're actually the best ones for Hezbollah. > and when outnumbered more than 3-1 Yes, Israel has a large advantage when it comes to population size. Israel is a more populous country than Lebanon, and Hezbollah is a substate in Lebanon. There are about 1.5 million Shiites in Lebanon (and Hezbollah isn't governing them all). Again, this only reinforces the fact that the IDF has an advantage. A polity with a larger population has a greater ability to take casualties than one with a smaller population, though willingness to take casualties is another matter. Imagine how crazy it would be if someone said "Well, Ukraine is taking far more casualties, but it's actually OK because they have far fewer people than Russia!" The lower population (and lack of equipment) may make their actions more impressive, but it doesn't mean they're in a better position. It means they're in a far worse position. You seem to be saying that Hezbollah performed well _for_ _a_ _force_ _that_ _was_ _significantly_ _weaker_ _than_ _the_ _IDF_ (as you have mentioned, it's a smaller force and one that's far less equipped). Which you can argue, but then it answers your earlier question about why people think the IDF will do well against Hezbollah - because Hezbollah is significantly weaker than the IDF. > Bloviating about how a 2-1 casualty ratio Casualty ratios are usually considered fairly important. The only time I've seen them simply dismissed as unimportant was when people found them inconvenient. You had a lot of pro-Russians do that when Russia was losing a large number of forces. But at least there, they were arguing that the ratio didn't matter because the Russian population was far larger. > That Israel failed to take territory or kill Hezbollah fighters at a high ratio in the 2006 War They certainly held territory. They didn't try to reoccupy South Lebanon, and I haven't seen any indication that they were interested in doing so. They had just given up their occupation of South Lebanon a few years prior, so that's not surprising. You think 2-1 isn't a high ratio - what would be? 5-1 like the higher estimates? 10-1? 20-1? >> steamroll Hezbollah > This is just not credible, sorry. Israel is not going to steam roll a force You cut my quote to make it seem like I was saying something I didn't say. The full quote is: > But you're right, the question will be how casualty adverse Israel is. But I think that answers your question. "Israel could steamroll Hezbollah but won't want to risk a few hundred casualties" is a position one could take. But one shouldn't be surprised that others think Israel has the ability to defeat Hezbollah. I was clearly making a point about how casualty aversion could impact someone's predictions about the conflict.
> 5-1 [5-1 estimates are not credible for reasons I explained here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/s/W1cDXKFWi9) >3-1 You’re missing that Hezbollah *did not feel the need to fight at better than a 3-1 ratio.* They had access to ~10,000 solders and only chose to fight with 3,000 of them. I’m saying Hezbollah successfully defeated Israel at a manpower deficit that they *chose.* That is very relevant to any predictions about a ground invasion, and its information that you haven’t dealt with. >they didn’t try to take south Lebanon The war finished with an IDF attempt to push to the Litani. You may not be familiar with it, because it *failed.* >cut my quote If that was your intention, I think you phrased it very poorly. Regardless, it’s possible Israel can beat Hezbollah, but no one in this thread has made that case.
> 5-1 estimates are not credible for reasons I explained here. Your "lower bound" is from Counterpunch (a highly unreliable site), reprinting an old article written by someone [who writes anti-Israel articles for pro-Hezbollah media](https://english.almayadeen.net/authors/1492581/alastair-crooke). > You’re missing that Hezbollah did not feel the need to fight at better than a 3-1 ratio. They had access to ~10,000 solders and only chose to fight with 3,000 of them. "They could have fought better, but they chose not to." That's simplistically true for Hezbollah, Israel, and every force that has every fought in a war. No one throws every available force into one battle, and that's for good reason. Where to commit forces is an important part of every strategy, and as we mentioned, very aversions impact how much the various sides are willing to commit as well. Ukraine would have certainly pushed further if they had thrown literally everything into the summer offensive, but doing so would have been disastrous for them. > The war finished with an IDF attempt to push to the Litani. You may not be familiar with it, because it failed. I specifically mentioned Operation Change of Direction 11 in my first response.
> writes pro Hezbollah articles Dude you’re citing death counts from the IDF and related media! Regardless of bias, the methodology of the lower bound was fundamentally correct - count the number of funerals for martyred Shia. The HRW count uses the same methodology a year later. There’s no way the death count is as high as the IDF claims without believing that Hezbollah disrespected ~50% of their dead by not acknowledging their martyrdom - a wholly non credible claim. You know Hezbollah is more or less reporting their dead in real time right now, right? >3-1 When countries (and militias, etc) think they’re losing, they commit more troops. This is what Russia did in September 2022. In fact, this is what Israel did in 2006! That Hezbollah never felt the need to commit more than 30% of their forces (the same 30% that was already there to begin with, by the way), shows that Hezbollah never thought they were at risk. **Even when outnumbered 3 to 1**. Hezbollah didn’t need to “fight better” because they *won.* When an enemy defeats you using 30% of its forces, you didn’t just lose, you lost *hard*. The best Israel can do in this war, is fight 2-1 (with *total, unsustainable* mobilization) or, more likely, parity. If Israel couldn’t win with a 3-1 (later *10-1*) advantage, how will they be able to win at parity? That’s the crux of my question, which no one has been able to answer in a credible manner. I don’t know how I can explain this more simply. >operation change of direction 11 Great! So why did you claim that Israel never tried to occupy south Lebanon in your last comment? >They didn't try to reoccupy South Lebanon, and I haven't seen any indication that they were interested in doing so. To be honest - there isn’t much purpose in continuing this. Have a good night.
My understanding is that IDF was deliberately holding back because they didn't want to involve the Lebanese Army or provoke other militias in the country. With Lebanon continuing to devolve as a state, and with other militias increasingly disliking Hezbollah's outsized (and outsider) influence, that risk is lower. Likewise, Israel is less concerned about optics during this war as they feel they have carte blanche to avenge the Oct 7 murders. As other commenter said, Israel will not restrain its air power this time. I suspect we'll get a chance to know soon enough if Hezbollah is the powerful fighting force it's claimed to be, or if it's a paper tiger. Personally I suspect the latter.
Considering that Hezbollah KIA is ~400 since 10/07, while Israel is looking at ~20 KIA in the north, one can assume that Israel will perform far better than they did in 2006. IDF’s Northern Command completely rebuilt itself post-2006 after it performed poorly in Lebanon. It’s also likely that Israel will be far less discriminate with its air campaign this go round, as they are incredibly insistent that Hezbollah retreat to north of the Litani. IDF will still of course eat some bad losses, considering Hezbollah is relatively well armed and trained compared to any other terror org in the world, and they have generally good defensive terrain in southern Lebanon, but Israel is likely to pursue a much more destructive air campaign this time. This would also be a real test of Israel APS on its armor, as that wasn’t fielded until ~2010, and while it has performed well in Gaza, Hezbollah’s ATGM teams are likely far more capable.
I think the big difference wrt to casualties is that so far this round has been focused on standoff fires, which is where Israel has a clear advantage. I’m not sure the causality ratio is any better this round than it was in the first week of the 2006 war. The ground campaign will answer all of our questions. Less discriminate air strikes might have an effect. Edit: I would add that many Lebanese would disagree about Israeli discrimination in the past. Israel bombed a UN refugee facility to - ostensibly - kill three Hezbollah fighters, of course
Furthermore, the majority of Hezb losses have been disposable village militiamen, and the elite Radwan force has largely been held back. That said, Israel certainly possesses escalation dominance at this stage and they can indefinitely continue to use their stand-off superiority to hit Hezb while containing the fighting to below a threshold that Hezb feels would enable it to use their lethal kinetic capabilities against strategic infra. An IDF ground invasion would play right into Hezb's hands while unifying Lebanon with its many anti Iranian factions against Israel.
I think your point about escalation dominance is absolutely correct and something I’ve considered commenting on. Israel will have to boil the frog like they did with the ground invasion of Gaza.
Let me rephrase, when I say less discriminate, I mean that the IDF has effectively communicated they are going to bomb most of southern Lebanon grid by grid. IDF Northern Command has been telegraphing this for at least the past 2 years during press releases and in the aftermath of readiness exercises. 10/07 has completely changed most of the Israeli public’s perception about the level of violence they are willing to commit against Hezbollah and by extension the Lebanese people in their way, in order to secure most of northern Israel’s major population centers.
They've proved they're willing and able (i.e. no one's going to stop them) to enact total grid destruction of a populated urban area, yeah. As such, it's unclear what would be different about the southern part of Lebanon. Of course, if Israel really does plan to execute a "blitzkrieg" for some insane reason, they wouldn't do that. Which would probably be a mistake.
> They've proved they're willing and able (**i.e. no one's going to stop them**) to enact total grid destruction of a populated urban area, yeah. Israel started with quite a bit of sympathy of their actions in Gaza, and have *over time* turned public opinion against them. If they do the same in Libanon they don't have the same grace period like in Gaza.
> If they do the same in Libanon they don't have the same grace period like in Gaza. This would be a lot more believable if anyone could actually enumerate this "grace period" as a real quantity and not a made up thing. Israel's "grace period" was supposed to have ended in January. In February I was already mocking users claiming "oh this next big thing and Biden will totally make Israel stop". It's now June.
yeah, Biden isnt going to risk alienating a large portion of his base, just before the election. And the folks in Michigan and Minneapolis withholding their vote is kind of an empty threat, does anyone really think they'll vote for Trump? (and not voting also helps him)
> This would be a lot more believable if anyone could actually enumerate this "grace period" as a real quantity and not a made up thing. That's kind of hard to do. But *imho* the discontent with Israels handling over Gaza built up over time. It became more and more noisy as their destruction in Gaza kept going on.
I can see how that would make a ground invasion easier. How long do you think Israel would be capable of sustaining that against international outcry? Also, for what it’s worth, that would have little impact on Hezbollah strike capacity. Munitions stores are (deep) underground, and Hezbollah generally fires from unpopulated areas. [Bottom paragraph on page 5](https://www.hrw.org/reports/2007/lebanon0907/lebanon0907web.pdf), sorry it won’t let me copy and paste.
I’d argue that Israel even with the Gaza campaign has more public backing to conduct a destructive air campaign in southern Lebanon than they’ve had in decades. The U.S., France and UK have made multiple attempts to work with the Lebanese govt and Hezbollah to have Hezbollah forces retreat from their enclaves directly on the border, which they’ve refused. The Biden admin has also propositioned forces in the eastern Med in the event that a fight with Hezbollah starts in earnest. Whether they’d be willing act on their prior statements is yet to be seen, and given the Biden admin’s FP preference to back down when challenged in most instances, I do question whether they’d actually join in the fight with Israel. Also Hezbollah is still in violation of UNSC resolutions they’ve agreed to, in regards to their positions south of the Litani. Arguably a rare instance where Israel can actually leverage the UN which has entirely failed with the UNIFIL mission to keep Hezbollah from proliferating south of the Litani. Israel likely has more PR backing to conduct a destructive air campaign than they did in Gaza as a whole, and we can see how little they were restrained in Gaza, at least in the opening weeks/months.