A ceasefire.
To be broken in 3, 2, 1 …
Added:
Patrick Armstrong
So, what have we learned?
Iran is a lot more powerful than many people thought.
Western air defense systems aren’t very effective.
Who knew those little Iranian lawnmower-engined dorito drones could get all the way to Israel?
Hypersonic missiles are invulnerable and very frightening.
Tehran now knows which missiles in its arsenal are most effective and which most effectively soak up the enemy’s air defense and will build accordingly
Tehran’s decision to follow the missile-based armament route is vindicated. Suvorov: “Fight the enemy with the weapons he lacks“; Sun Tsu: “avoid strength and strike weakness“. `Others will notice.
Israel has used up the sleeper cells and intelligence penetration that it had built up in Iran.
and
My predictions.
The damage in Israel will be much greater and much more effective than we have been told.
In Iran, not so much.
“Who knew those little Iranian lawnmower-engined dorito drones could get all the way to Israel?…. Tehran now knows which missiles in its arsenal are most effective and which most effectively soak up the enemy’s air defense and will build accordingly”
I suspect a quick move to all MIRV warhead missile systems will be the best move going forward. It throws multiple punches from one rocket shot and a single TEL launch platform. The defense will need to invest heavily in the more expensive high altitude intercept systems to get them before the MIRVS are deployed. Most of the terminal interceptors will have no chance. This method depends entirely on the volume to overwhelm the defense and allows you to keep punching out of your weight class even if the enemy takes out many of your TEL launchers.
The long range drones work, are cheap, and will absorb defensive missile stocks, but they take too long to reach the target and telegraph the pending attack. They also are slow enough to be engaged with fighter aircraft. You want all those planes on the ground at their bases when the ballistics arrive. MIRV warheads solve all of this for you.
One good shoot into Dimona ends it all for the Israelis and a good portion of the immediate region. On the other hand, MIRV ballistic missiles which they have should blanket the cities and get the yelp from Bibi and then the US will start using all the gear we’ve sent there.
Until the “sleeper calls” that infest our government are gone, the US is not safe (and I am not talking about Iranian ones obviously).
you do have a point there.
in the moment the ground war starts, the cells here in the US will likely be activated. we haven’t been shipping equipment to the theater for two and a half months for dry storage.
The attack last year by Iran on Israel was retaliation–but more importantly a test of Israeli capabilities and intense ISR study by Iran itself and Russia who were closely monitoring the whole show with all their resources. You’ll note that the early attacks last week were in fact done with swarms of older style ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones–of which the Israeli’s reacted to with the full capabilities of their interceptor systems… giving Iran and Russia further data to more effectively unleash the subsequent phases of their attacks with more sophisticated and faster weapons–including hypersonic systems. And it worked as Israel’s stock of interceptors ran dangerously low and were only 10% effective against the incoming fusillade.
The whole conflict showed just how vulnerable Israel is to attack–even by conventional stand-off weapons. It revealed that Israel is a paper tiger with only the threat of its nuclear weapons looming somewhere in the background. Israel suffered over 1/2 trillion dollars in damage and many civilian KIA and wounded. What’s more it suffered hundreds of billions of dollars in economic damage as the whole country was literally shut down during this conflict. On top of this was the psychological damage heaped upon the Israeli public at large–who beforehand viewed themselves as an invincible power. Not so anymore.
Now Israel has to think twice before it acts outside of its borders unilaterally as there’s a new sheriff over the horizon waiting and watching in the tall grass. And this sheriff can lob high explosive death at Israel at hypersonic speeds now with devastating accuracy. What Israel accomplished with their preemptive ‘sneak attack’ is thus: further invigorate Iran’s weapons development and most likely take its entire nuclear research and weapons development deep, deep underground and cloak it in impenetrable secrecy.
It also deepened ties to Russia and China–who will now be licensing more of their own weapon system to Iran, seeing that the mullahs are not afraid to use them. One weapon system in particular would be the Orishnik missile system which Russia owns. This little pet, can deliver nuclear level destruction without the use of atomic blasts. Just 20 of these unstoppable missiles could have kicked three legs out from Israel’s defense systems in under 5 minutes–or completely level the whole of Tel Aviv. You can bet the Mullahs are now combing through those Russian weapons catalogs and stopping on the Orishnik page–possibly ordering a dozen or more for Christmas.