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Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

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Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#471

Post by LorenPechtel »

snickerbockers wrote: post #362
mupuff1234 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technical solutions can lead to diplomatic solutions as it changes the power dynamics. Will it solve the "root cause"? Probably not, but that's because there's no single "root cause", but it still might lead to some diplomatic resolution.

This does not change any power dynamics. The only time the iron dome has ever come close to failing on a systematic level was when they ran out of interceptors during their own unprovoked war against iran.

They ran out of interceptors on 10/7.

And they didn't provoke a war with Iran. Israel struck those arming Hezbollah. They got somebody high up in the Iranian chain of command. Iran responded with major Geneva violations.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#472

Post by wat10000 »

jstummbillig wrote: post #90
jmyeet wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as a defensive weapon. You might be tempted to say "what about a missile shield?" but such a thing allows the owner to act with impunity with levels of violence we arguably haven't seen since 1945. As a real example of this, the only reason a deeper conflict didn't develop with Iran this year was because Iran demonstrated they could overwhelm the various layers of Israel's missile shield and Ir…

> You might be tempted to say "what about a missile shield?" but such a thing allows the owner to act with impunity with levels of violence we arguably haven't seen since 1945. I would still say "what about a missile shield?". If a missile shield is a weapon, because of its affordances, then any object is a weapon. And while that's marginally true I don't think we get anywhere by entertaining category errors. If some…

> then any object is a weapon. And while that's marginally true I don't think we get anywhere by entertaining category errors.

We get a really ripping novel from Iain M. Banks, at least.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#473

Post by LorenPechtel »

snickerbockers wrote: post #408
mupuff1234 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a scenario where israel doesn't need bomb shelters or sirens since rockets are destroyed almost instantly. Right now even if iron dome works it still greatly disrupts the day to day life in israel (not to mention the pure financial burden of interception) Now I doubt the technology is anywhere close to that now, but in 10-20 years alongside other technological advancements? Who knows.

Their constant warmongering is why they constantly are being bombarded with rockets. That you're primarily concerned with disruption to life and financial burden rather than casualties and infrastructure indicates that iron dome is already capable of preventing these rockets from being a serious threat. The absolute asymmetry of every war they fight is proof enough that the only real solution is a commitment to negot…

Leftist fantasy.

Diplomacy only works if both sides desire peace.

The reality:

Israel desires to avoid a continuation of the Holocaust.

Iran desires stirring up trouble as a means of taking over countries, and uses the conflict with Israel as a justification. It's working fine for Iran, why would they agree to peace? They never have, just some stuff playing us for fools. I don't support The Felon but tearing up the Iran agreement was a stopped clock thing.

The left thinks everything can be solved with enough jaw, jaw. The right thinks everything can be solved with enough war, war. Both are wrong.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#474

Post by LtWorf »

logicchains wrote: post #418
fnordian_slip wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea how this hypothesis ("guns protect from oppressive governments") is still holding people's minds captive. The current regime in the US disproves this every day, constantly eroding civil rights and not even being subtle about it. And the people with guns mostly either cheer it on or pretend it's not so bad (until they themselves feature in /r/leopardsatemyface).

Americans still have more rights than almost any other country in the world WRT free speech and weapon ownership for self defense.

White americans.

Try being arab and going around armed.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#475

Post by jmward01 »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #293
jmward01 wrote: post #159

The thing that worries me isn't the drone/anti-drone escalation. It is the fact that these weapons aren't actually limited to anti-drone use. Recently we have seen clear examples of countries, including Israel, that will use automatic id technology to mass tag a population. If you then have tools that can automatically track and mass kill, which this type of weapon represents, then we have reached a type of warfare t…

It's been possible for a long time. For antipersonnel use, guns are perfectly adequate and guns on tracking turrets have been widely deployed (for example, CIWS). The underlying technology is a ballistic calculator and a fast panning turret. Modern ballistic calculators, weather stations (a small device about the size of a cellphone), and good quality ammunition allows for incredible precision with small arms -- hitt…

CWIS is pretty massive, not that this isn't still big, but I think this is taking a miniaturization turn, is upping the accuracy and number of engagements it can handle significantly and potentially upping the range especially in urban environments. CWIS in an urban environment would cause chaos and a lot of collateral damage to buildings but you can now be very sure that only your intended target is being hit so people could die without all the optics of buildings crashing down. It is much easier to have a war when the cameras don't see the destruction. Positive ID is huge, if you really care about it, but even with perfect positive ID if a government is ok with genocide then everyone is a valid target. Are you a male older than 13? You are a combatant and will be killed once you are in sight. Did someone help you in any way (like your mother of family giving you food?) They are also combatants. It is unfortunately not a stretch with modern tools to see this happening in real time. This weapon is, unfortunately, on an inevitable path.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#476

Post by kennywinker »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #469
kennywinker wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That the US contributes doesn’t take away from the billions Israel did and does invest Actually it does? It takes about 1/4 away. > The US also gives similar levels of military aid to Egypt as well. The EU and US give billions to Ukraine. Yes, the US uses defense aid to further their own agenda internationally, and funnel public dollars into private hands. > Gaza also receives billions in aid Food, medical, and inf…

They want you to think that. There is no way any group other than Hamas could be operating at that scale. It's Hams taking the aid to use it to control the population. It's not like they were actually starving--Hamas never managed to find a legitimately starving person to point a camera at. Every single person they paraded in front of the cameras had medical issues that were the cause of their problems. Just go look…

https://www.who.int/news/item/22-08-2025-famine-confirmed-fo...

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#477

Post by LorenPechtel »

netsharc wrote: post #348
scottoreily wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You'd be amazed at the amount of radicalization Israeli society gets if you'd bother to look with unbiased eyes. Attacking aid trucks? Spitting at Christians, even tourists? Stealing houses of West Bank people? (Oh must be for that Lebensraum) Maybe that's one goal you should add to your 2026 list...

Radicalization??

No. Yes, there were a few attacks on aid trucks. People who saw aid going to those who were holding Israeli hostages. You realize Israel was under no legal obligation to permit the aid? Don't chant "Geneva", it only requires allowing aid to non-combatants. When there is even a reasonable threat of diversion to military purpose the obligation goes away--and there was not only a reasonable threat, but the vast majority was being diverted.

The only appreciable Geneva violation that Israel engaged in is not sending notice of suspected misuse of civilian things--but this is of no actual importance as the rule exists to avoid mistakes. It wasn't written with a situation where civilian cover was used to the greatest extent possible. For them to have simply said "everything is being misused" would have been a pretty good approximation of the truth.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#478

Post by kennywinker »

throw10920 wrote: post #437
kennywinker wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That the US contributes doesn’t take away from the billions Israel did and does invest Actually it does? It takes about 1/4 away. > The US also gives similar levels of military aid to Egypt as well. The EU and US give billions to Ukraine. Yes, the US uses defense aid to further their own agenda internationally, and funnel public dollars into private hands. > Gaza also receives billions in aid Food, medical, and inf…

>> That the US contributes doesn’t take away from the billions Israel did and does invest > Actually it does? It takes about 1/4 away. It literally does not. The way that every English speaker uses the word "invests" is exactly the opposite of this. If you're going to speak English, you use words as native speakers use them and you don't make up your own definitions.

I am a native english speaker.

Israel “invests” ~30b in military spending.

Of that, ~7b is not their own money, and the could not accept that money and spend it another way.

Therefore, israel “invests” about 1/4 less than it would seem.

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#479

Post by newsclues »

newsclues wrote: post #340
elcritch wrote: post #70

Personally I think that defensive technology like this is fantastic. It means that innocent citizens will be protected from constant bombardment or thread of bombardment by cheap mass produced rockets or drones. Israeli civilians have faced bombardment by tens of thousands of rockets from Gaza for the last 20 years [1]. Outside the Middle East there's many areas threatened by combatants with similar cheap missiles. P…

Part of the issue is that it makes it more possible to launch a first strike attack without fear of suffering blows in retaliation, and gives one side of conflict the overmatch that enables leaders to start a conflict thinking they can win without repercussions

For the downvotes https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2023-09/features/delusions-a...

Re: Iron Beam: Israel's first operational anti drone laser system

#480

Post by kennywinker »

throw10920 wrote: post #431
kennywinker wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say that israel invests in defense is at least 1/4 untrue, since the US sends billions every year. The US gave them about 7b cash last year, which is around 1/4 of their defense budget, and doesn’t include things like stationing carriers nearby, or doing airstrikes on houthi blockades. Us $ to israel: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-foreign-aid-does-the-u... Israel defense budget: https://www.reuters.com/wor…

> To say that israel invests in defense is at least 1/4 untrue, since the US sends billions every year. This is factually incorrect. The amount of money that the US gives Israel is completely and totally irrelevant to whether or not Israel also invests their own money in defense. The fact that the US has a problem with foreign influence literally does not matter for the statement above. To be clear, I don't agree wit…

Can i rephrase to help you understand my point?

The defensive and offensive capabilities of Israel is about 1/4 larger because of american tax dollars not their own spending.

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