In between errands today I listened to an excellent interview with Scott Ritter: INTERVIEW: Scott Ritter - Iran vs Israel: What’s Next? Obviously, Scott gets into the various possible scenarios going forward, especially what form any Israeli “retaliation” might take. Scott leans toward the view—which he presents very articulately—that Israel is in a box and will find it very difficult to retaliate at all. Scott addresses this from a military standpoint. Judge Nap and Max Blumenthal address the turmoil—very real—within the Israeli war cabinet over these issues. All agree that Iran called the Israeli bluff by responding militarily to the Israeli attack on a diplomatic establishment. Israel had not thought ahead and asked, ‘What if?’
Did you ever see the episode of "Seinfeld" where Jerry attends a hockey game and realizes that everyone's just rooting for laundry? Ya, kind of like that. Cheer for team blue or team red, it's just a game. That's why everyone loves the Zamboni.
"... so that Europe can get its hands on Iranian oil?"
Good question! Is that really the reason? What's the point? The whole energy argument for global war is a mystery to me.
Oil (carbon energy) is a ubiquitous (and basically cheap) commodity. It is found literally everywhere (although, alas, not so much in Europe) and it's price is subject to supply and demand, OPEC notwithstanding. Will the global price of oil change much depending upon which hegemon controls the Straits of Hormuz? Perhaps temporarily. But ultimately, both OPEC and non-OPEC oil producing nations have to sell their oil into global markets to obtain revenue and the price is determined accordingly.
And we have learned since February 2022 that oil and gas are fungible products and sanctions really don't seem to work. The West sanctions Russian oil. Russia increases its oil sales to India and India resells Russian oil to who? Who knows?
According to Bloomberg, Russia’s oil and gas revenue jumped more than 80% in February 2024 from a year earlier to "over $10 billion due to higher prices for the nation’s crude as its producers withstood Western sanctions."
Europe had access prior to February 2022 to virtually unlimited amounts of 'cheap' Russian oil and gas. Didn't German industry depend on cheap Russian energy? So Europe (or its master) provoked a war in Ukraine and blew up the NordStream pipeline...to reduce its reliance on Russian oil and gas...and is now pursuing an impossibly risky strategy in the Middle East to...get its hands on Iranian oil???
As to Iran, I'm under the impression that the National Iranian Oil Company already owns and controls *all* of Iran's oil and gas reserves and production. According to Wikipedia ((:-)) NIOC is the world's second largest oil company, after Saudi Aramco.
I'm not beyond learning that today's global instability is all a massive game of (deadly) cat and mouse to control global energy supplies, but it is hard for an armchair observer to see what the point is. Could it really be so that Europe can get its hands on Iranian oil? In any event, can anybody see that actually happening? In fact, what actually is happening?
You actually seem to be making the argument for why the wars are about energy.
But I think you're missing the factional nature of the fighting.
The Anglo-American interest is not the same as the Euro interest is not the same as the ME interest is not the same as the Russian interest is not the same as the Chinese interest.
We didn't start a war with Russia so that Europe could source their oil from Iran. We did it because we wanted control of Russia so that Europe would buy their oil from our surrogates in Russia. But it didn't work out the way we planned.
Iran has always been a steppingstone to Russia. Of course it has its own value, but it is ultimately part of the path to Russia.
You make a good point. I will readily concede the bigger picture regarding the importance of natural resources and that to some extent, perhaps a great extent, wars are about control of natural resources. It may well be that the Neocons’ and their global allies’ ultimate hegemonistic goals include control of the world’s resources, including the enormous wealth which may be attributed to Russia’s immense store of natural resources.
Here are some statistics. According to Investopedia (and Statista) Russia has the most valuable natural resource reserves of all nations by total estimated value as of 2021: Russia's natural resources reserves, including coal, oil, natural gas, gold, timber, and rare earth metals, are stated to be worth $75 trillion…Russia holds the world's largest proved natural gas reserves at 1.32 quadrillion cubic feet, accounting for nearly 20% of the global total as of 2020…Russia was the world's third-largest crude oil producer at 12% of global supply in 2020. Russia's proved oil reserves were the world's sixth largest at an estimated 107.8 billion barrels.
By comparison, according to Investopedia and Statista, the United States natural resources reserves, while impressive, are worth ‘only’ $45 trillion, almost 90% of which are timber and coal. (In fact, and interestingly, the U.S. is the leading producer of coal. As of 2020, it had the largest proven coal reserves in the world.)
Perhaps on some level increasing our control of global natural resources is the ultimate goal of US foreign policy.
But I was not really writing about the bigger picture. I was commenting on the here and now of today's energy picture and practical war aims. The US war against Russia is not working and it is not changing control of Russian energy, although it may be changing the distribution (and/or patterns of distribution) of Russian energy.
I started writing my original post to question the proposition that Israeli aggression is about controlling Iranian energy. I just can't buy the proposition that Europe (or the "West") will ever regain control of Iranian oil and gas. I mean, Israel might try to drag the US into a war against Iran...with the goal of taking control of Iran and its oil? And with the EU cheerleading from the sidelines because it wants/needs Iranian oil? I don’t see it succeeding. I also don't see Iran ever capitulating, even if Israel persuades the US to join it. And I see Russia and China (and their allies) supporting Iran. Of course, I'm open to more facts and argument.
As for the argument that these wars are all about taking Russia down and transferring control of its energy resources to our surrogates...I would say: perhaps. But the unfolding of the war in Ukraine and the facts I recount in my earlier post tend to show how unrealistic this goal actually is. Neither military aggression nor sanctions have apparently materially weakened Russia. In fact Russia seems to be strengthened in many ways. It may be that some elements in the West still believe that Russia can be defeated and its resources ‘expropriated’...and that making war with and somehow defeating Iran is a stepping stone to ultimately controlling Russia.
There's a very big difference between goals and outcomes.
I admit it seems crazy, even crazier now that we're witnessing just how badly the Ukraine operation has backfired.
But this has been the plan since the late 1800s. Everything they have attempted against Russia has failed, and many have boomeranged to their own destruction: from Trotsky to Hitler to bin Laden. They should have gone kinetic in the 1990s; that was their only window of victory. But instead they played their usual games, hoping to overcome Russia through trickery. I've heard numerous commentators (Luongo springs to mind) argue that Syria, Brexit, and Trump have forced them to accelerate and execute before their plans were mature.
As far as Israel goes, I think the base motivation for Israel is self-preservation through aggressive domination and intimidation of their neighbors. But it's the same situation: if they really wanted to implement "greater Israel," they should have done it in the 70s. Now their neighbors have had multiple decades to learn the game, fix their alliances, and stiffen their resolve.
But even with Israel, energy is not absent from the equation. I'm sure you don't need me to remind you that Britain had geopolitical reasons for seeking the creation of the state of Israel, and oil was part of that mix. And even Gaza has massive untapped gas reserves whose exploration rights transfer to Russia soon, and that can't be ignored as part of the timing and motivation of today's genocide.
I would argue that as practicality has closed in on Anglosphere imperial ambitions--which do focus on Mackinder's Eurasian land mass--the goal that is seen as somehow attainable is to prevent the rise of a true multipolar world. To prevent the rise of power poles that cannot be dominated/controlled. Access to and development of resources is key. This is the reasoning behind Western attempts to lock up the Sahel region--which also appear to be coming a cropper.
With regard to Russia. I can't write about everything. Rybar recently had a fascinating piece about US attempts to hinder Russian development of Russia's own energy resources and gaining revenue thereby. It sounds crazy, but it's real:
Our activity in the Caucasus has deep roots in past history of the French and British, including after WW1. In our own time our Deep States have been active throughout the region, seeking to destabilize Russia--Chechnya, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan. Same goes for attempted regime changes in Central Asian former republics of the USSR.
Re Iran, I long ago (2003) argued that the GWOT was largely about taking control of Central Asian energy and its flow to Europe through the Caucasus. That control was to be exercised through major bases across the region. We gave up on Afghanistan finally, but were there for a long time. We're still in Iraq and Syria, still have Turkish bases, still have major naval presences in the Indian Ocean. Iran's focus on missile development is patently about breaking our encirclement--which is intended to exercise control absent boots on the ground.
Even if global hegemony, and global control of natural resources, has always been the real long term goal of the British Empire and, latterly, the American Empire (the Zionist project simply being a convenient add-on), I guess we can both agree that we/they have failed miserably. And current prospects aren't looking much better.
1. Israel has attacked Iran confirmed by US officials
2. So far only small drones have been reported to have struck Iran according to Iranian strikes
3. Iran claims to have shot down 100% of said drones
(1/2)
4. My opinion is this is a strike prior to a "main strike" to detect Iranian radar and air defense systems.
5. This strike seems to be extremely small in scale. Either Israel is planning a 2nd larger strike or Israel is just launching a mini attack to avoid escalation.
 CNN, about an American official: We understood from Israeli officials that they will not target any Iranian nuclear facilities
War Intel @warintel4u
·
11m
"A well-placed military source has told Fox that the [Israeli] strike was 'limited.'"
BNO News @BNONews
·
13m
Iranian official: "There's been no airstrike in Isfahan or other parts of the country. They only made a failed and humiliating attempt to fly quadcopters, and they were all shot down."
So now Israel is bombing Iran, so much for the “holding off hypothesis”. Gee, and I thought “Don’t” was such a stunning geopolitical idea. Think I’ll go see if there’s any chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer.
So, the obvious question is, does a n y o n e in the Biden Administration realize how totally screwed we are? All their delusional, fantasyland notions about how things work in the real world just came crashing down on their heads. All of this empty posturing has been revealed to be what it truly is, just hot air and as the old saying goes, “ there’s no there, there “.
Well, at least we have an ice cream eating buffoon who doesn’t know what century he’s in play acting as POTUS, so we’ve got that going for us.
Why do I have a sinking feeling that the country is doomed?
SMH, bombing Iran has been an obsession with US elites for decades. Not for any reason, just a good excuse to bleed US taxpayers and redraw Middle East boundaries. To elites, Iran=Syria=Russia, all the same, all must be flattened and new boundaries drawn. They thought for sure they could get Obama to do it. And why not? Massive US military bureaucracy, many strutting around with gold bars on their jackets, some appearing nightly on tv news. For what? Unless they can bomb someone, there's no reason for them to be on tv. During JFK admin, Pentagon brass was desperate to bomb the Soviet Union, hated JFK for not doing it, one even went over and started a battle in Berlin. In 1963 JFK was sure the Pentagon was going to remove him from office. The Pentagon should be closed. Nuland's leaving only made neocons stronger.
Would that it were only a Game of Drones…hopefully Iran stays cool and doesn’t indulge Israel’s mad folly by responding…L Johnson this morning is quite pessimistic though…
This is the first report I've seen or heard of that said Iran hit some targets. Everything I saw the day after said no targets were hit. Granted, I didn't think about it too much because it was also said Iran announced ahead of time they were going to do something. Iran was already justified in attacking US or US targets because of Stuxnet in 2009-2010. Michael Hayden even said at the time that the attack on Iran's nuclear labs carried great risk of response from Iran.
I have only seen this idea alluded to , but not really commentated on in depth. Here it is, by Scott Ritter in passing.....
" Adding to the capability and lethality of the US-Israeli ballistic missile defense architecture was the presence of at least two US Navy ballistic missile defense (BMD) system-capable Aegis-class destroyers equipped with the SPY-1 S band radar and SM-3/SM-6 interceptor missiles. The Navy BMD-capable ships are configured to tie into the ground-based AN/TPY-2 X band radar as well as the broader BMD system through the Command and Control, Battle management, and Communications (C2BMC) system. The combination of ground-based radars and interceptors with the US Navy BMD system provides US military commanders with theater-wide protection from hostile ballistic missile threats. This integrated system is designed to detect, acquire, and track incoming threats and, using complex computer-drive algorithms, discriminate targets and destroy them using hit-to-kill kinetic warheads (i.e., a “bullet hitting a bullet”).
On April 13-14, 2023, this system failed. In short, the combination of US and Israeli anti-ballistic missile defense capabilities deployed in and around the Negev desert made the Israeli air bases located there the most protected locations in the world from threats posed by ballistic missiles."
Does everyone understand the Ramifications of this information? NO? Well here it is.
For years we were told, and the Pentagon constantly reminded everyone, that the Aegis Missile Defense system was the Premier ADA system in the world. Nothing could defeat it. Because of the Aegis, US Aircraft Carriers were invulnerable due to the sophisticated and comprehensive ADA bubble created by escort ships and the Aegis system in combination with phalanx and associated ADA radar systems.
For us as servicemen, this was accepted as a matter of course. It assured us dominance of the air and provided protection for ship to shore ground units.
So if the Aegis is not the vaunted deterrent it once was, then the United States as a Real BIG Problem. Its Aircraft Carriers are now vulnerable and so is the rest of the fleet. In a battle with a near peer or peer enemy, how are you going to steam to the South China Sea or to the Med
and make it there in one piece? The answer is, that most likely, you are not.
This is an item (if true) that needs to have the "blinding light of notice" shined on it, so it can be discussed and we as a country figure out the brutal question of: "What are we going to do now?" Now, that the world has changed.
Count on it--there are people scrambling to find a solution--ANY solution, including short term--for this. The rest of the world, including the people whose chains we've been yanking, won't be waiting for us to figure something out.
if they're smart they'll start submitting orders for Russian AD systems. Those seem to have done well, although no AD system can defend against missile swarms.
OT, but would someone please tell me what the hell is with Mike Johnson? Is every Republican in DC a closet Democrat??
Talk about taxation without representation, if this isn’t it then I guess I don’t know what it looks like.
Did you ever see the episode of "Seinfeld" where Jerry attends a hockey game and realizes that everyone's just rooting for laundry? Ya, kind of like that. Cheer for team blue or team red, it's just a game. That's why everyone loves the Zamboni.
US given advanced warning = US gave advanced approval.
-- GEROMAN -- time will tell -  --
@GeromanAT
·
2m
It was so far a face saving PR attack with some drones probably launched from locations inside or near Iran.
Some say Azerbaijan - others say Iraqi Kurdistan.
Both sides reported is as "limited attack" - for sure to prevent further escalations.
"... so that Europe can get its hands on Iranian oil?"
Good question! Is that really the reason? What's the point? The whole energy argument for global war is a mystery to me.
Oil (carbon energy) is a ubiquitous (and basically cheap) commodity. It is found literally everywhere (although, alas, not so much in Europe) and it's price is subject to supply and demand, OPEC notwithstanding. Will the global price of oil change much depending upon which hegemon controls the Straits of Hormuz? Perhaps temporarily. But ultimately, both OPEC and non-OPEC oil producing nations have to sell their oil into global markets to obtain revenue and the price is determined accordingly.
And we have learned since February 2022 that oil and gas are fungible products and sanctions really don't seem to work. The West sanctions Russian oil. Russia increases its oil sales to India and India resells Russian oil to who? Who knows?
According to Bloomberg, Russia’s oil and gas revenue jumped more than 80% in February 2024 from a year earlier to "over $10 billion due to higher prices for the nation’s crude as its producers withstood Western sanctions."
https://archive.is/knMW2#selection-1619.0-1619.191
And at the same time EU LNG purchases from Russia are actually increasing? https://www.politico.eu/article/france-talk-tough-ukraine-while-gobble-up-more-russia-gas/
Europe had access prior to February 2022 to virtually unlimited amounts of 'cheap' Russian oil and gas. Didn't German industry depend on cheap Russian energy? So Europe (or its master) provoked a war in Ukraine and blew up the NordStream pipeline...to reduce its reliance on Russian oil and gas...and is now pursuing an impossibly risky strategy in the Middle East to...get its hands on Iranian oil???
As to Iran, I'm under the impression that the National Iranian Oil Company already owns and controls *all* of Iran's oil and gas reserves and production. According to Wikipedia ((:-)) NIOC is the world's second largest oil company, after Saudi Aramco.
I'm not beyond learning that today's global instability is all a massive game of (deadly) cat and mouse to control global energy supplies, but it is hard for an armchair observer to see what the point is. Could it really be so that Europe can get its hands on Iranian oil? In any event, can anybody see that actually happening? In fact, what actually is happening?
You actually seem to be making the argument for why the wars are about energy.
But I think you're missing the factional nature of the fighting.
The Anglo-American interest is not the same as the Euro interest is not the same as the ME interest is not the same as the Russian interest is not the same as the Chinese interest.
We didn't start a war with Russia so that Europe could source their oil from Iran. We did it because we wanted control of Russia so that Europe would buy their oil from our surrogates in Russia. But it didn't work out the way we planned.
Iran has always been a steppingstone to Russia. Of course it has its own value, but it is ultimately part of the path to Russia.
@mistcr
You make a good point. I will readily concede the bigger picture regarding the importance of natural resources and that to some extent, perhaps a great extent, wars are about control of natural resources. It may well be that the Neocons’ and their global allies’ ultimate hegemonistic goals include control of the world’s resources, including the enormous wealth which may be attributed to Russia’s immense store of natural resources.
Here are some statistics. According to Investopedia (and Statista) Russia has the most valuable natural resource reserves of all nations by total estimated value as of 2021: Russia's natural resources reserves, including coal, oil, natural gas, gold, timber, and rare earth metals, are stated to be worth $75 trillion…Russia holds the world's largest proved natural gas reserves at 1.32 quadrillion cubic feet, accounting for nearly 20% of the global total as of 2020…Russia was the world's third-largest crude oil producer at 12% of global supply in 2020. Russia's proved oil reserves were the world's sixth largest at an estimated 107.8 billion barrels.
By comparison, according to Investopedia and Statista, the United States natural resources reserves, while impressive, are worth ‘only’ $45 trillion, almost 90% of which are timber and coal. (In fact, and interestingly, the U.S. is the leading producer of coal. As of 2020, it had the largest proven coal reserves in the world.)
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets-economy/090516/10-countries-most-natural-resources.asp#:~:text=It's%20estimated%20that%20Russia's%20natural,the%20production%20of%20industrial%20diamonds.
Perhaps on some level increasing our control of global natural resources is the ultimate goal of US foreign policy.
But I was not really writing about the bigger picture. I was commenting on the here and now of today's energy picture and practical war aims. The US war against Russia is not working and it is not changing control of Russian energy, although it may be changing the distribution (and/or patterns of distribution) of Russian energy.
I started writing my original post to question the proposition that Israeli aggression is about controlling Iranian energy. I just can't buy the proposition that Europe (or the "West") will ever regain control of Iranian oil and gas. I mean, Israel might try to drag the US into a war against Iran...with the goal of taking control of Iran and its oil? And with the EU cheerleading from the sidelines because it wants/needs Iranian oil? I don’t see it succeeding. I also don't see Iran ever capitulating, even if Israel persuades the US to join it. And I see Russia and China (and their allies) supporting Iran. Of course, I'm open to more facts and argument.
As for the argument that these wars are all about taking Russia down and transferring control of its energy resources to our surrogates...I would say: perhaps. But the unfolding of the war in Ukraine and the facts I recount in my earlier post tend to show how unrealistic this goal actually is. Neither military aggression nor sanctions have apparently materially weakened Russia. In fact Russia seems to be strengthened in many ways. It may be that some elements in the West still believe that Russia can be defeated and its resources ‘expropriated’...and that making war with and somehow defeating Iran is a stepping stone to ultimately controlling Russia.
But I just don’t see it.
There's a very big difference between goals and outcomes.
I admit it seems crazy, even crazier now that we're witnessing just how badly the Ukraine operation has backfired.
But this has been the plan since the late 1800s. Everything they have attempted against Russia has failed, and many have boomeranged to their own destruction: from Trotsky to Hitler to bin Laden. They should have gone kinetic in the 1990s; that was their only window of victory. But instead they played their usual games, hoping to overcome Russia through trickery. I've heard numerous commentators (Luongo springs to mind) argue that Syria, Brexit, and Trump have forced them to accelerate and execute before their plans were mature.
As far as Israel goes, I think the base motivation for Israel is self-preservation through aggressive domination and intimidation of their neighbors. But it's the same situation: if they really wanted to implement "greater Israel," they should have done it in the 70s. Now their neighbors have had multiple decades to learn the game, fix their alliances, and stiffen their resolve.
But even with Israel, energy is not absent from the equation. I'm sure you don't need me to remind you that Britain had geopolitical reasons for seeking the creation of the state of Israel, and oil was part of that mix. And even Gaza has massive untapped gas reserves whose exploration rights transfer to Russia soon, and that can't be ignored as part of the timing and motivation of today's genocide.
I would argue that as practicality has closed in on Anglosphere imperial ambitions--which do focus on Mackinder's Eurasian land mass--the goal that is seen as somehow attainable is to prevent the rise of a true multipolar world. To prevent the rise of power poles that cannot be dominated/controlled. Access to and development of resources is key. This is the reasoning behind Western attempts to lock up the Sahel region--which also appear to be coming a cropper.
With regard to Russia. I can't write about everything. Rybar recently had a fascinating piece about US attempts to hinder Russian development of Russia's own energy resources and gaining revenue thereby. It sounds crazy, but it's real:
https://twitter.com/rybar_force/status/1778406798057234605
Our activity in the Caucasus has deep roots in past history of the French and British, including after WW1. In our own time our Deep States have been active throughout the region, seeking to destabilize Russia--Chechnya, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan. Same goes for attempted regime changes in Central Asian former republics of the USSR.
Re Iran, I long ago (2003) argued that the GWOT was largely about taking control of Central Asian energy and its flow to Europe through the Caucasus. That control was to be exercised through major bases across the region. We gave up on Afghanistan finally, but were there for a long time. We're still in Iraq and Syria, still have Turkish bases, still have major naval presences in the Indian Ocean. Iran's focus on missile development is patently about breaking our encirclement--which is intended to exercise control absent boots on the ground.
Even if global hegemony, and global control of natural resources, has always been the real long term goal of the British Empire and, latterly, the American Empire (the Zionist project simply being a convenient add-on), I guess we can both agree that we/they have failed miserably. And current prospects aren't looking much better.
You are on target.
Weeb Union @WeebUnionWar
·
3m
What we know so far.
1. Israel has attacked Iran confirmed by US officials
2. So far only small drones have been reported to have struck Iran according to Iranian strikes
3. Iran claims to have shot down 100% of said drones
(1/2)
4. My opinion is this is a strike prior to a "main strike" to detect Iranian radar and air defense systems.
5. This strike seems to be extremely small in scale. Either Israel is planning a 2nd larger strike or Israel is just launching a mini attack to avoid escalation.
(2/2)
My own guess is that so far this is to small to be much of a probe.
dana @dana916
·
11m
 CNN, about an American official: We understood from Israeli officials that they will not target any Iranian nuclear facilities
War Intel @warintel4u
·
11m
"A well-placed military source has told Fox that the [Israeli] strike was 'limited.'"
BNO News @BNONews
·
13m
Iranian official: "There's been no airstrike in Isfahan or other parts of the country. They only made a failed and humiliating attempt to fly quadcopters, and they were all shot down."
So now Israel is bombing Iran, so much for the “holding off hypothesis”. Gee, and I thought “Don’t” was such a stunning geopolitical idea. Think I’ll go see if there’s any chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer.
I see speculation that a drone strike via Azerbaijan is what happened in Iran. Iran has claimed they shot down 9 suicide drones.
War Intel @warintel4u
·
8m
American officials: 9 sites in Iran were attacked
Officials in Iran: No explosions occurred on the ground.
There is also speculation that UAVs could have been launched from inside Iran.
So, the obvious question is, does a n y o n e in the Biden Administration realize how totally screwed we are? All their delusional, fantasyland notions about how things work in the real world just came crashing down on their heads. All of this empty posturing has been revealed to be what it truly is, just hot air and as the old saying goes, “ there’s no there, there “.
Well, at least we have an ice cream eating buffoon who doesn’t know what century he’s in play acting as POTUS, so we’ve got that going for us.
Why do I have a sinking feeling that the country is doomed?
SMH, bombing Iran has been an obsession with US elites for decades. Not for any reason, just a good excuse to bleed US taxpayers and redraw Middle East boundaries. To elites, Iran=Syria=Russia, all the same, all must be flattened and new boundaries drawn. They thought for sure they could get Obama to do it. And why not? Massive US military bureaucracy, many strutting around with gold bars on their jackets, some appearing nightly on tv news. For what? Unless they can bomb someone, there's no reason for them to be on tv. During JFK admin, Pentagon brass was desperate to bomb the Soviet Union, hated JFK for not doing it, one even went over and started a battle in Berlin. In 1963 JFK was sure the Pentagon was going to remove him from office. The Pentagon should be closed. Nuland's leaving only made neocons stronger.
Game on!
Would that it were only a Game of Drones…hopefully Iran stays cool and doesn’t indulge Israel’s mad folly by responding…L Johnson this morning is quite pessimistic though…
https://sonar21.com/
This is the first report I've seen or heard of that said Iran hit some targets. Everything I saw the day after said no targets were hit. Granted, I didn't think about it too much because it was also said Iran announced ahead of time they were going to do something. Iran was already justified in attacking US or US targets because of Stuxnet in 2009-2010. Michael Hayden even said at the time that the attack on Iran's nuclear labs carried great risk of response from Iran.
Censorship in your area. Israel just sent missiles to Iran.
Thanks, I just saw a mention of it.
I have only seen this idea alluded to , but not really commentated on in depth. Here it is, by Scott Ritter in passing.....
" Adding to the capability and lethality of the US-Israeli ballistic missile defense architecture was the presence of at least two US Navy ballistic missile defense (BMD) system-capable Aegis-class destroyers equipped with the SPY-1 S band radar and SM-3/SM-6 interceptor missiles. The Navy BMD-capable ships are configured to tie into the ground-based AN/TPY-2 X band radar as well as the broader BMD system through the Command and Control, Battle management, and Communications (C2BMC) system. The combination of ground-based radars and interceptors with the US Navy BMD system provides US military commanders with theater-wide protection from hostile ballistic missile threats. This integrated system is designed to detect, acquire, and track incoming threats and, using complex computer-drive algorithms, discriminate targets and destroy them using hit-to-kill kinetic warheads (i.e., a “bullet hitting a bullet”).
On April 13-14, 2023, this system failed. In short, the combination of US and Israeli anti-ballistic missile defense capabilities deployed in and around the Negev desert made the Israeli air bases located there the most protected locations in the world from threats posed by ballistic missiles."
Does everyone understand the Ramifications of this information? NO? Well here it is.
For years we were told, and the Pentagon constantly reminded everyone, that the Aegis Missile Defense system was the Premier ADA system in the world. Nothing could defeat it. Because of the Aegis, US Aircraft Carriers were invulnerable due to the sophisticated and comprehensive ADA bubble created by escort ships and the Aegis system in combination with phalanx and associated ADA radar systems.
For us as servicemen, this was accepted as a matter of course. It assured us dominance of the air and provided protection for ship to shore ground units.
So if the Aegis is not the vaunted deterrent it once was, then the United States as a Real BIG Problem. Its Aircraft Carriers are now vulnerable and so is the rest of the fleet. In a battle with a near peer or peer enemy, how are you going to steam to the South China Sea or to the Med
and make it there in one piece? The answer is, that most likely, you are not.
This is an item (if true) that needs to have the "blinding light of notice" shined on it, so it can be discussed and we as a country figure out the brutal question of: "What are we going to do now?" Now, that the world has changed.
100% with you, but 2024 not 2023... :)
Good Catch!! A typo that I did not see.!!! Thank you!
you can edit your comment if you want - click the three dots at bottom right and go from there
I forgot the aegis was used.
Missile defense has been a bit of a red headed child in the U.S. armed forces.
more money to be made on exotic systems
although...the price that I'm hearing for the Patriot system sound like it must be pretty profitable. At least it performs well on the ledger.
Count on it--there are people scrambling to find a solution--ANY solution, including short term--for this. The rest of the world, including the people whose chains we've been yanking, won't be waiting for us to figure something out.
if they're smart they'll start submitting orders for Russian AD systems. Those seem to have done well, although no AD system can defend against missile swarms.