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Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

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Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#161

Post by db1234 »

echelon wrote: post #105
jmyeet wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine is a cautionary tale in that as much as military technology can change, that conflict is being decided by trenches, minefields, artillery, fixed fortifications, the inability of either side to cross a river and manpower attrition. At this point, it's basically a World War One conflict, mainly because neither side has air superiority. Russia's strategy now seems to be to wait out the Western will to provide ma…

The tactics are an artifact of the players attempting to avoid a broader-scale conflict. Moreover, direct conflict between two nuclear-armed states isn't something we've ever done before. Nobody wants to go down that road. If the US and/or NATO were directly involved, it wouldn't look anything like trench warfare, and we wouldn't be using 30+ year old military tech. We really want to avoid this, though.

> Moreover, direct conflict between two nuclear-armed states isn't something we've ever done before. Nobody wants to go down that road.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#162

Post by empath75 »

mkii wrote: post #130
elromulous wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any country with the ability to completely erase entire countries (i.e. has an enormous stockpile of nuclear weapons) is a superpower.

That might be a necessary condition, but definitely not a sufficient one to be considered a superpower. Simple thought experiment, "completely erasing" the US as you suggest would render the Earth unpleasant to live on, for a while, for all inhabitants.

yes, that's why they remain a superpower. If you have the ability to make life on earth extremely unpleasant for all of humanity, that's super power status. Even just having nuclear weapons isn't enough for that- you need large numbers of fusion bombs -- which Russia has, and the US has, and no one else does.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#163

Post by kevingadd »

exabrial wrote: post #153
huytersd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shoot, with free energy you could build your own land.

precisely my point and what the downvoters are missing. ultimately all wars are energy wars... just maybe 2-3 times removed.

The people born in Palestine or Ukraine don't want to build a new country in the ocean using limitless energy. They want to stay in their homes. The same is true for most people, I'd wager.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#164

Post by c0nducktr »

wolverine876 wrote: post #129
davidw wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something I'm unsure about is what does and doesn't trigger wars. Probably more in the 'emotions' camp than in the 'concrete facts' camp, even if no one wants to admit it.

Many US wars were triggered by dis/misinformation: The Gulf of Tonkin for Vietnam, and the fictitous nuclear weapons program in Iraq come to mind. For Iraq, the government made an argument something like, 'you can't wait for the mushroom cloud'.

The US War in Iraq was not due to misinformation. Misinformation may have sold it to the public, but to give the people responsible for that war a pass, as if they were just mislead, is .. well it's just covering for their actions.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#165

Post by empath75 »

reso wrote: post #120
TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And now the Houthi rebels have become battle-hardened guerillas and insurgents, capable of projecting force into the vital shipping lanes of the Red Sea. Their ability to attack the red sea has nothing to do with being "battle-hardened". They can only do so because Iran decides to supply them with missiles.

Regardless where they get their weapons, Ansar Allah is a battle-hardened, professional fighting force. They have fought the powerful Saudi military to a stalemate. Not a group we should be underestimating.

the saudi military is kind of a joke. They have a bunch of expensive gear, but their soldiers aren't particularly well trained or motivated.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#166

Post by smegsicle »

photonbeam wrote: post #95
defrost wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than the US getting called out in front of Russia and China in front of the UN Security Council: On 9 December 2011, Iran lodged a formal complaint to the United Nations Security Council over the UAV violating its airspace. Iran's U.N. ambassador stated in the letter that "My government emphasizes that this blatant and unprovoked air violation by the United States government is tantamount to an act of hostility…

Thats hardly a meaningful consequence though

did anyone say it was not an act of hostility?

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#167

Post by whatwhaaaaat »

pxeger1 wrote: post #125
jmyeet wrote: post #19

Once again we see "blowback" in action. Here's the cycle: 1. A major power backs a side in an internal struggle for their own end. If necessary, a conflict is manufactured by propping up rebels, a coup, etc; 2. The other side, which tends to be the internally popular side, resists. Because of that popular support, they can survive, thrive and grow; 3. Insurgencies are incredibly effective. Counter-insurgencies are in…

> At any time, the US could've ended Saudi atrocities in Yemen with a phone call. Could you elaborate a bit more on this? What would the US have to say, and what would the other consequences be?

You have to understand the US position and the assistance the US provided first and then this question makes less sense. We ran their airborne refueling ops used in many of the strikes for years for a start.

No opinion of this being good or bad is made with this comment

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#168

Post by Exoristos »

nomilk wrote: post #4

Something I'm unsure about is what does and doesn't trigger wars. Russian jets downed a US drone over the black sea in March 2023, I thought for sure there'd be a commensurate US military response. But there didn't appear to be one. Was it because no human was aboard the drone (so no response was justified), from fear or escalation, or something else? In any case, if a large cargo ship were sunk, would the US or othe…

Your reasoning seems to assume the U.S. has near-infinite power to wage war. Rather, right now the U.S. is stretched thin in Middle Eastern waters. They can't move their ships far from where they have them already without major strategic sacrifices.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#169

Post by empath75 »

xwowsersx wrote: post #56

How much longer can this go on? It seems like there are so many parties whose economic interests all align that this would just be dealt with swiftly and decisively. Am I just naive? Is there no reasonably straightforward way to stop the Houthis? Wouldn't much of Europe, Saudi Arabia and others be very interested in ending this as quickly as possible?

An "easy" response against the houthis would not be particularly effective -- lob a bunch of cruise missiles at them, which would be more annoying than anything else. An "effective" response would be the full shock-and-awe treatment -- wiping out their air defense, followed by a massive bombing campaign that destroys their ability to fight. Then -- what next? Yemen's in the middle of a civil war as it is... does the US then have a responsibility to stabilize it to prevent a humanitarian crisis? And then how does Iran react? Do we have to get into war with Iran, too? And then presumably hezbollah would launch a war against Israel.

Re: Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

#170

Post by throwup238 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #159
throwup238 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember the Maine! The military responses are difficult to predict because most of the time the headlining events only provide casus belli for plans that are already in motion but kept secret for strategic reasons. They're the sparks that politicians use to justify their actions abroad and at home because few people want to die for unrighteous causes but they're a sideshow to the planning and logistics that goes on…

> Game theory is useless if you don't understand the interests of all the relevant players in a polity and even in an authoritarian regime like Russia or Saudi Arabia there are a LOT of them. Game theory can be applied to infer interests when behavior and context are known as well as to predict behavior when interests and context are known (it can also be used to infer hidden elements of context when interests and be…

That's just ivory tower wishful thinking.
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