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Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

wsj.com

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Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#31

Post by baybal2 »

aazaa wrote: post #9

An unusual (and worrying) part about this incident is how drones are being used, not with an explicit military goal in mind, but rather for the purpose of economic strangulation. Like terrorist operatives, drones are relatively cheap and expendible. But unlike terrorism, which seeks to grind away at the enemy's resolve, this kind of attack attempts to deprive an enemy of the money needed to fund its operations. Like…

From my life experience, what people in power really hate is to be made to look powerless.

And there is simple rationale to it. The power of people in power lays in hands of other powerful people serving them. And as a rule, the powerful people don't obey to ones they see as weak.

And this is more apparent in the regime states than anywhere else, when generals/ministers/big shot advisers and fixers risk far more than just their political entitlement if their patron is about to loose it out.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#33

Post by mLuby »

algaeontoast wrote: post #5
tdhz77 wrote: post #2

The use of drones in this way by rebels makes me rethink the media image of a rebel. They are educated, lawyers, doctors, engineers.

Does anyone have more info on the specific kind(s) of drone used in the attack?

"Houthi rebels have been using drones in combat since the start of the Saudi-led war. The first appeared to be off-the-shelf, hobby-kit-style drones, but later versions have been nearly identical to Iranian models. Tehran denies supplying the rebels with weapons, but the west and Gulf Arab nations say it does." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/14/major-saudi-ar...

Also if the drones were launched from Yemen then they've probably flown ≥700km, so I'd be surprised if they're commercial octocopters.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#34

Post by reaperducer »

lapnitnelav wrote: post #21
AndrewBissell wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's not really that new. Saudi Arabia, with our help, has been turning an economic vise on Yemen throughout the conflict, using the weapons we supply to embargo their ports and choke off the flow of goods, even essentials like food and medicine. The only difference here is that the relatively much weaker combatant found a unique chokepoint in Saudi infrastructure that was easy to exploit. You couldn't, say,…

SA's economy is -AFAIK- mostly / completely dependent on natural ressources. Given that SPOF, one can't help but think of the IRA's threat to Margaret Thatcher : "[...] we only have to be lucky once – you will have to be lucky always."

It's been trying to both diversify and privatize, but progress is very very slow. Probably fear of instability, IMO.

"The petroleum sector accounts for roughly 87% of budget revenues, 42% of GDP, and 90% of export earnings."

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

Anecdotally, I met far more Saudis when I lived in Seattle than I did when I lived in Houston. I wonder if that was part of the diversification effort.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#35

Post by droithomme »

aazaa wrote: post #9

An unusual (and worrying) part about this incident is how drones are being used, not with an explicit military goal in mind, but rather for the purpose of economic strangulation. Like terrorist operatives, drones are relatively cheap and expendible. But unlike terrorism, which seeks to grind away at the enemy's resolve, this kind of attack attempts to deprive an enemy of the money needed to fund its operations. Like…

> not with an explicit military goal in mind

Um, the Houthis are under a multi-year campaign of strikes by Saudi Arabia. It's an actual war. This was definitely a military strike. It also levels the playing field. If you are a "tribal" with no money, you can go against vastly wealthy countries hellbent on your destruction who are actively slaughtering your people.

It's a hell of a lot better approach than the other low cost tribal defense, which is biological weapons.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#36

Post by MiroF »

en-us wrote: post #22
partialrecall wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be noted, engineers being well represented in these sort of rebel/revolutionary/terrorist organizations isn't a new phenomenon. Here is an article from a decade ago: https://slate.com/technology/2009/12/why-do-so-many-terroris... The notion of terrorists as uneducated goat farmers is more a manifestation of western biases than it is an accurate representation of the truth.

I see this in discussions about 9/11 all the time, where someone will express incredulity that it would be possible for a bunch of "goat farmers" to execute such a plan. But if you actually look at those terrorists, many were educated and from well-to-do families.

Very much the same thing with the Sri Lanka attacks.

I think the American public/media likes to paint everyone from the non-West as extremely backwards, when in reality I feel like everywhere in the non-West has "West"-like pockets of extreme affluence and then just huge amounts of inequality and rural poverty.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#37

Post by bidatzi »

lacker wrote: post #26
avocado4 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yemen is a really poor country, they don't have this capability. This is a proxy war, we had a lot of them in the past 100 years.

Do they really not have this capability? You can buy a decent drone off the shelf for a thousand bucks, how hard is it to strap an IED on the back?

With a range over 1000km?

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#38

Post by MiroF »

capableweb wrote: post #7
avocado4 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(removed)

I tried quickly to find a source that confirms this since you didn't provide one but I cant find anything. Where did you get "It's Russian / Iranian technology deployed by Russian / Iranian mercenaries" from?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/world/middleeast/saudi-ar... for the tech claim.

The "mercenaries" claim is wrong (at least in Yemen) though.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#39

Post by beaner »

wbl wrote: post #18
aazaa wrote: post #9

An unusual (and worrying) part about this incident is how drones are being used, not with an explicit military goal in mind, but rather for the purpose of economic strangulation. Like terrorist operatives, drones are relatively cheap and expendible. But unlike terrorism, which seeks to grind away at the enemy's resolve, this kind of attack attempts to deprive an enemy of the money needed to fund its operations. Like…

You've just described air power. Except now it's actually possible to destroy industrial facilities instead of maybe hitting a city.

What prevented that from being possible before?

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#40

Post by chvid »

avocado4 wrote: post #13
tdhz77 wrote: post #2

The use of drones in this way by rebels makes me rethink the media image of a rebel. They are educated, lawyers, doctors, engineers.

Yemen is a really poor country, they don't have this capability. This is a proxy war, we had a lot of them in the past 100 years.

My thought exactly. This is too expensive an attack. But for Iran it makes sense (or at least follows the pattern of their recent behavior) and they also have the capability.
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