Something is brewing up in the Gulf

[Skybird]

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/ne...0906-iraq1.htm

This is a 2002 summary of events during the greatest wargame excercise ever, Millennium Challenbge 2002. That is the famous excercise that fantasised about a war against a ME-style Gulf-region enemy, and saw the orginal American Navy fleet decisively wiped off the face of the ocean. The Pentagon then stopped and started new, this time heavily scripting the way in which the leader of OpFor was to command his troops and what to do and how to behave - so that the Blue Forces would eventually claim a shining, glorious victory with friendly assistance by OpFor that was demanded to follow the screenplay and act stupid.

Interestingly, the leader of OpFor was using tactics and a force composition that worries me since some time now. Originally, he avoided to use communicationmlines that could be monitored by the US military, and he used civilian sportsplanes and speed boats "harmlessly" loitering around in an unsuspicious manner, until an encoded call from the mosques simultaneously ordering to attack, which they did - "floodin g" the action area of the US navy in a coordinated assault that saw planes and speedboats slamming into cruisers and carriers and sinking or damaging almost the entire fleet, by strikes in 9/11-style, and using sportboats to fire swarms of silkworms aginst the carriers, which sank them.

Speedboat attacks in this style worry me since longer time. Just weeks ago I discussed that issue with somebody here on the board.

I now learn that the Iranians have gotten their hand on one of the world's fastest speedboat designs available, the Bladerunner 51, claiming that they copy and equip them with cannons and missiles.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040402889.html
http://www.icemarine.com/spec/51_spec.htm
http://www.motorboatsmonthly.co.uk/n...sile-launching

the Bladerunner indeed can be used for military purproses - a military version already is being offered:

http://www.navatekltd.com/br51.html

Now consider such a boat equipped with Silkworms, like done in that exercise, or loaded with explosive.

Today, I then getb this article, in German. It says that Obama'S hesitation to make a clear stand nagainst Iran makes the states in the Gulf region nervous, becasue they lose confidence in that the Us indeed would be willing to confront Iran if it goes nuclear. A nuclear Iran however, would cause only one of two possible reactions: either a desire to contain it militarily by increasing military investements, or - more likely if you ask me - by leaving the "alliance" witht he Us and joining a patrongae by the Persians, under their nuclear umbrella.

http://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/a...-dem-Iran.html

At the same time I read this, weapons deals Obama approved for Saudi Arabia means a serious shifting of balances against Israel which depends on maintaining it'S air superiority. While Saudi Arabia seems to be willing to let an Israeli air strike against Iran transit through Saudi air space, Israel and Saudi Arabia enverteless are not true allies, but quite the opposite, Araba that Saudi Arabia is. It took the Israelis heavy lobbying to get an american statement that the F-15s they intend to deliver to Suadi Arbaia at least will not be equipped with the latest generation of long range weapons, and, while Israel should start to receive it's first 20 F-35 from 2015 on.

Obama's foreign policy, if one dares to call it that, for that region sends contradictory signals, but shifting the balance between Israel and it's neighbours against Israel, at the same time appearing to be extremely weak and undecided on wether or not to accept a nuclear armed Iran. However, one US aircraft carrier originally heading for another destination now has been redirected to the Gulf theatre, where tensions since many weeks and months are constantly rising. If Obama does not finally start to get his acts together, we will get a nuclear Iran, a loss of the already uncomfortable status quo in the Gulf, Gulf states switching sides and falling onto the Irqanian camp (ehat else should they do in the shadow of suczh a powerful and then: nuclear armed neighbour?), and Saudi Arabaia, Syria and Turkey starting nuclear weapon programs and an arms race, too.

I do not like how Obama handles things. Not one bit. As I see it he does his best to make sure that all what we better should fear about the Iranian developement - becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. the point when he must decide, is approaching rapidly, but all he bdoes is not getting prepared for that time,l but sending contradictory, even appeasing signals, expressing trust in proecdurfes that already in the past have proven not to work. As I call it in German: he seems to put his money on the good fairy queen.

My view of it all pretty much is described in this, both in Goldberg's and Mullen's comments:

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...od-idea/61346/

No good options left, only bad options are left, because things were allowed to drift for too long.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internati...om-iran/60800/

We do not even talk about a destruction of the iranian program anymore. We just talk about a dely of 1-4 years. Which in my thinlkimng translates into: killing and destruction on a big scale being done for nothing but a handful of some more hours (unacceptable for me). Hell, what a mess this issue has been allowed to degenerate into. Over well-meaning intentions, of course.

This confrontation is enforced upon us, and faling in it will have unimaginable strategic consequences none of which are acceptable or to be tolerated. I only see two cards on the table: killing the program completely and accepting the costs needed to secure that objective completely (both in own losses suffered and damage done to Iran), or just delaying it, but nevertheless maybe accepting even higher costs in losses and damage for that - but wallowing in the moral self-assurance that one only "meant it well".

For the latter option, I am unavailable.

Obama's foreign policy, if one dares to call it that, for that region sends contradictory signals, but shifting the balance between Israel and it's neighbours against Israel, at the same time appearing to be extremely weak and undecided on wether or not to accept a nuclear armed Iran.

Let's not worry too much about what Obama is doing on foreign policy. Shall we? He knows what he is doing and the German people thought Bush was bad but at least you know where he stood.

PS if I gave you too much grief the other day I am sorry. Irish whiskey does it every time.

[Onkel Neal]

I thought this thread was about hurricanes....

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I thought this thread was about hurricanes....

Weather reports? Me...?

[Oberon]

I don't think you could actually stop Irans nuclear program, not permanently. Sure, you can bomb the sites, heck if you get lucky you might knock seventy five percent of them out, or if everything goes right then you get a clean sweep and knock the lot out and kill a load of scientists.
Twenty years down the line Iran will be at it again, if not sooner, and probably with Russian or Chinese protection. Then what happens?
I think right now the only thing that can be done is to bulk up ABM and ABL defences in Israel like crazy, and perhaps offer the same treatment to other Gulf states to try and keep them on the US playing field, or as Skybird says, they'll retreat under the Iranian nuclear umbrella rather than face the chance of Dinnerjacket letting one rip on them.
ABM and ABL research needs to be promoted, because when your enemy gets a bigger sword, the only thing you can do is get a better shield.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I thought this thread was about hurricanes....

The tropics have been unusally quite so far. Knock on wood.

I now return you to the topic at hand

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Skybird

the Bladerunner indeed can be used for military purproses - a military version already is being offered:

http://www.navatekltd.com/br51.html

Now consider such a boat equipped with Silkworms, like done in that exercise, or loaded with explosive.

Silkworm? Doubtful- too big. 224mm Torpedoes or maybe C-701 Light ASMs would be the armaments.

[Jimbuna]

I'm simply hoping Obama will declare the US intent one way or the other.

Otherwise the Iranians et al will perceive it as a sign of weakness.

I submit that the problem is less that of an Iranian bomb but rather that nuclear deterrence has lost much of its effectiveness. Back in the days of MAD, there was no doubt in anybody's mind that the men in the silos, the bombers and the SSBN's would launch on order and that an order was sure to come. Facing the imminent prospect of mutual annihilation there were no issues of national security that superceded the political will to survive so keeping the nuclear peace was easy.

However, in the post Cold-War world, nuclear forces are no longer on a hair trigger alert while probable targets are dependent upon whomever the percieved threat is in a nuclear crisis. More to the point, the political will is now lacking to kill millions of civilians or destroy entire cultures in reaction to a nuclear attack. Because that certainty is lacking, weapons proliferation and the threat of local use by despotisms like Iran and the DPRK are inevitable.

Since they have no fear of massive retaliation by Western nuclear forces they can sabre-rattle all they want, playing to their target audience as heros and encouraging tin-pot dictators elsewhere to join the nuclear club. This makes the situation worse as there are few direct consequences to acquiring atomic weapons. Standing up to sanctions and threats of limited conventional attacks represent nothing less than political propaganda victories for the faithful while uselessly polarizing third-parties and the domestic front in the West.

Nuclear weapons are first and foremost political weapons and what is needed is a carrot to deter proliferation in the first place. The Kim Jong Il's and the nuke crazy mullah's of the world need to know that should they actually decide to use their pathetic little weapons caches, their nation, culture and language would cease to exist. Their cities and places of worship would become sheets of green radioactive glass and their legacy would be as a footnote in the history of bad ideas.

This should be what decades of MAD taught the West, many of us grew up in the shadow of potential total destruction by the Bomb but the world changed and with it the threat. The key to dealing with these pissant bomb makers is to ensure that they live under the real threat of total destruction should they get out control. What is needed is a very public statement like JFK's over Cuba, that any nuclear attack on the USA or her Allies would result in massive nuclear response. Full Stop. Too bad any such declaration would be spun into war-mongering and be politically unacceptable.

Go ahead, build your bomb Iran but use it and be wiped out, completely and without mercy.

The mullah's are not stupid and are certainly rational by their own standards so it is doubtfull that they would actually pass nuclear weapons to non-governmental (read terrorist) factions and give up the control that comes with the Bomb. Deterrence with nation states is easy when they know the cost of any use is unbearable but they need to truly believe it or it cannot work.

Nobody wants a repeat of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but the mullah's and their ilk need to know clearly and unambiguously that the consequence of actually using their bombs would be the total and immediate destruction of all they hold dear.

Apologies for the wall of text.

[Skybird]

MAD depended on a minimum of rationality. And that is a quality that in case of religious fanatism glorifying the ideal of martyrdom is not a given anymore - religious fanatism is not rational.

I agree that an Iranian bomb is apparently the smaller problem, compared to the bigger problem of proliferation and nuclear terrorism. but under the umbrella of their bomb Iran can dare to become even more aggressive in the implementation of conventionally destabilising the region and supporting terror. This, and proliferation, are the reasons why simply thinking that anti-missile-shields in Iran'S neigjhbouring countries would be the trick, is a wrong thinking. Agaunst proliferation. internal destabilisation of other nations, and nuclear bombs delivered via shipping containers, missles shields do not protect any cover. Nor do they protect against the strategic consequences of a nuclear Iran: in the first this is a fight between Saudi Arabia (Sunni, Arabs) and Iran (Shia, Persians). It is a gamble for influence, and a civil war as well. Saudi Arabia will not and cannot afford to allow Iran gaining a decisive advantage when shifting the balances so massively in its favour. tukrey has ambitions to become the regionally dominant power - it will seek nuclear weapons, too (Erdoghan already closes ties with Ahmadinejadh, calling him a close friend). Syria will not accept to fall back in it's importance, it wants regional status and dominance as well.

That are too many potentially or already irrational if not insane players wanting to play MAD. It does not compare to the situation of the cold war. In the end, the US and the USSR for the most of the cold war wanted to keep the stability and wanted to keep the status quo, so that the risk of nuclear war remained low. This MAD 2.0 in the future is far more dangerous and uncalculatable. Some players in the region now do not want a stabile status quo, but want dominance and the fall of their rival.

Sorry Skybird but I really think you have it wrong and overstate the case for their irrationality. You don't see the mullah's, the politico's and the generals as suicide bombers, they are the motivators for the propaganda soaked minions with the explosive vest. They did not achieve positions of power by being suicidal, reckless or irrational.

The purpose of power is power and the prospect of total annihilation would serve to rob them of their power. As I stated, they are perfectly rational by their own standards and behave remarkably like despots have always behaved regardless of religion or political system therefore they understand when a threat is real or empty.

If you THINK there is a chance of flipping a bomb at the neighbor and getting away with it once you may be tempted to do it sometime. If you are absolutely CERTAIN that doing so will result in the destruction of all you hold dear you are far less likely to turn that key.

They can huff, puff and strut all they like, if deterrence serves to keep them from first use, their nuclear arsenals have no teeth and merely act as a drain their own resources.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Silkworm? Doubtful- too big. 224mm Torpedoes or maybe C-701 Light ASMs would be the armaments.

Well the precise specifics I cannot judge, I refer just to this passage from the first link i provided:

Van Riper had at his disposal a computer-generated flotilla of small boats and planes, many of them civilian, which he kept buzzing around the virtual Persian Gulf in circles as the game was about to get under way. As the US fleet entered the Gulf, Van Riper gave a signal - not in a radio transmission that might have been intercepted, but in a coded message broadcast from the minarets of mosques at the call to prayer. The seemingly harmless pleasure craft and propeller planes suddenly turned deadly, ramming into Blue boats and airfields along the Gulf in scores of al-Qaida-style suicide attacks. Meanwhile, Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles fired from some of the small boats sank the US fleet's only aircraft carrier and two marine helicopter carriers. The tactics were reminiscent of the al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Yemen two years ago, but the Blue fleet did not seem prepared. Sixteen ships were sunk altogether, along with thousands of marines. If it had really happened, it would have been the worst naval disaster since Pearl Harbor.

[Diopos]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Well the precise specifics I cannot judge, I refer just to this passage from the first link i provided:
...
Meanwhile, Chinese Silkworm-type cruise missiles fired from some of the small boats sank the US fleet's only aircraft carrier and two marine helicopter carriers.
...

Alright, can someone please explain to me the US Navy's fixation on "game playing" the insertion of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf? The US won't play an "Iranian gambit" without local land bases of operation, anyway. Plus the CVNs will still be useful, in larger (and safer) bodies of water, rather than the "narrows" where you f*rt in Persia and it smells in Oman (excuse my language ).


.

Originally Posted by Diopos

Alright, can someone please explain to me the US Navy's fixation on "game playing" the insertion of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf? The US won't play an "Iranian gambit" without local land bases of operation, anyway. Plus the CVNs will still be useful, in larger (and safer) bodies of water, rather than the "narrows" where you f*rt in Persia and it smells in Oman (excuse my language ).


.

I think, but am not sure you mean game theory. It is different, and more telling as a means of winning a battle. Some have used it in a market theory to determine winners in a finance. Bush used it and was heartily criticised for using the gambit.

But it is science so it is OK to use National Socialist methods to predict human behavior.

Plus the CVNs will still be useful, in larger (and safer) bodies of water, rather than the "narrows" where you f*rt in Persia and it smells in Oman

But you have to gameplay it that way, after all if the CVNs were not close inshore amongst the "civilian" flotilla the small boats wouldn't hear the secret call from the minarets telling them to attack....unless of course someone has been breaking sanctions and them coastal mosques have all got really kicking soundsystems now