Originally Posted by bourbon
Which, in this case, had nothing to do with Biden's decentralization/partition plan.
Israel
The Palestinians
Two States
Neither, some other State or people rule.
Neither, mutual destruction.
One State, two peoples
One State, one people (intermarriage)
Which, in this case, had nothing to do with Biden's decentralization/partition plan.
They mostly come at night. Mostly.
- university webpage: McGill University
- conflict simulations webpage: PaxSims
The partition of Iraq wouldn’t have been to Israel’s strategic benefit?
Not especially, no.
A stable, united, and generally pro-Western Iraq that wasn't a client of Iran would be more of an Israeli prefence, I should think.
Now, back to the Iran topic of the thread...
They mostly come at night. Mostly.
- university webpage: McGill University
- conflict simulations webpage: PaxSims
Radioactive fallout
"Now, back to the Iran topic of the thread..."
Is no one here concerned that such an attack would cross a radiological/nuclear threshold that has remained closed since 1945? This would be regarded as WMD terrorism, were it even threatened against any but N.Korean nuclear facilities.
Iran is probably 10 years away from an operational nuclear deterrent. S. Africa came much closer, produced HEU and tested a Jericho-type IRBM, before apartheid collapsed. But no one proposed blasting tons of radioactive toxins across the African countryside.
Bourbon made a strong point above, that nuclear Israel and IRBM equipped Arabian Sunnis feel threatened by the emergence of another strong tribe. But the assertion that Iran's nuclear future is an existential threat to Israel or an imminent threat to the US is a specious casus belli for large-scale radiological warfare.
The question is not tactical, how to sequence letting the radiological war genie out of the bottle. The question is strategic, how that would end, who the winners and losers would be.
Debating with Iran?
I posted this earlier:This offers some help:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...te_ahmadinejadWe know that the current Iranian regime has its internal critics and its own problems of legitimacy. By addressing those factors offers a way ahead.
davidbfpo
OK David, I believe once the decision has been taken to not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon then the strategy to achieve that should be "as many as the branches of a tree" with the threat of the use of military force while being a last resort being accepted as inevitable if all else fails. The Iranian leadership must know that they can duck and dive only for so long but in the end they (the Iranian leadership) will either dismantle their nuclear weapons programme or face carefully targeted military action.
Not an easy project ....
taking out hardened, underground facilities.
There have been lots of bytes spilled on this issue (and on the Iranian facilities); and I've downloaded a lot of them to my computer for future reference. My interest in this area is nuclear containment and limitation (I Law stuff), and not targeting.
A 2000 article, Eric M. Sepp (LTC USAF), Deeply Buried Facilities - Implications for Military Operations (Occasional Paper No. 14, Center for Strategy and Technology, Air War College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base), points up some of the technical issues and problems in destroying underground facilities - if deep-penetrating nuclear weapons are not used.
Much more in the 48-page article, but here is the bottom technical and political lines (pp. 37 & 9-10):
A tricky, sticky wicket for thems what wants to penetrate the briars.[JMM: technical problem]
The immediate problem is that, short of the use of nuclear weapons, the current generation of technologies for locating and neutralizing these types of facilities are not sufficient for holding deeply buried facilities at risk. This means that the United States should direct its research and development organizations to develop weapons that will allow U.S. forces to locate, characterize, and neutralize underground facilities. One must also consider that a military response to these facilities may involve more than brute force attacks against the facility or its contents.
The use of advanced conventional penetrating weapons may not be sufficient to ensure complete success because if a weapon misses an underground facility by a mere 50 feet, the facility may survive. Furthermore, if it is desirable to preserve the contents of the facility or if collateral damage is politically unacceptable, the use of overwhelming force simply may not be a realistic military option. The implication is that alternative means of neutralizing deeply buried facilities must be vigorously pursued so that the United States and its allies will have the widest range of capabilities and options for destroying these facilities.
.....
[JMM: political problem]
While one military plan for defeating deeply buried targets was to use nuclear weapons delivered by B-2 bombers,[5] the Clinton administration overturned this policy and banned the use of nuclear weapons to defeat such targets. The reason behind this decision is the concern that the use of nuclear weapons would have grave political consequences, especially in an era when nuclear weapons are less central to defense planning.[6] While the use of nuclear weapons is a militarily practical way to destroy targets that may be hundreds of meters below the surface, their use involves political and environmental risks that increase when one considers that the location, configuration, and contents of underground targets are often unknown.
5. Susanne M. Schafer,"B-2s are Combat Ready, "Air Force Times, April 14, 1997, Vol 57, Issue 37, p 16.
6. Patrick J. Sloyan, "A Policy Change Undone; U.S., Says Nuclear Threat Not Needed" Newsday, February 26, 1998.
.......
The political repercussions of employing nuclear weapon may be greater than the United States would want to contemplate, and the environmental consequences of potentially spreading a warehouse full of potentially deadly biological or chemical agents would be unacceptable. The reality is that the use of nuclear weapons is not a practical option for dealing with underground targets in most circumstances.
The problem with using conventional weapons against such targets is that the depth and hardness of the targets can exceed the physical ability of the weapon to survive passing through tens of meters of rock and rubble. Some experts estimate that new materials will need to be developed to penetrate modern concrete structures.
The result is that the U S military strategy and operational capabilities for holding hardened and deeply buried targets at risk will be deficient until the appropriate technologies and tactics are developed that will allow the United States to put such targets at risk. ....
Regards
Mike
This is a very informative paper that points out several interesting points. In addition to the ones you mentioned, I think determining the structure of the facility is essential for success. Several quotes from the paper support this assertion.
Underground facilities are difficult to find, are resistant to revealing the physical details that are critical to effective targeting, and in many cases are fundamentally beyond the reach of most conventional weapons.If Israel, or the US conducts a strike on Iran, knowing the layout of the facility is very important. It's not only imperative to understand the deepness of the facility for determining how the necessary amount of warheads, but it's also essential to understand where your target is in the facility. There could be a 100 meter tunnel that leads away from the main base to WMDs. If you target the main base, the blast may not destroy the WMDs. Obtaining this intelligence is very trick. The paper described some scientific ways of doing it, but human intelligence is extremely important. This makes me wander what specific questions were asked to that "kidnapped" Iranian scientist......The tunnel has significant implications for the survivability of the facility, principally because a smaller diameter tunnel is less detectable than a larger diameter tunnel. Tunnel entrances can also be designed to collapse at predetermined lengths in order to attenuate the blast, shock, and overpressure of an explosion...Another advantage of tunnels is to increase the uncertainty about the location of the underground facility.
With its capabilities, the US may be able to obtain solid intel. However, I don't think that Israel could do it by itself.
Yup,
you got the technical targeting issues right - basically a civil engineering project, using cute little devices like this:
b61-losalamosmuseum1.jpg
A B-61 museum piece from Los Alamos, first produced in 1966 and becoming something of a family affair. A much updated version became the B61-11 earth-penetrating weapon.
A quick look at the effects of nuclear weapons can be found in Alexander Glaser, Effects of Nuclear Weapons (WWS556d, Princeton University, February 12, 2007). Here is a brief, general overview of Earth-Penetrating Weapons (Google will provide many hits).
See also this thread, Israel strikes Iran...., which meanders along dealing with other Israeli-Iranian points, until some targeting diiscussion is found starting on page 3, post #57, which continues through page 4 and ends on page 5, post #94.
I wouldn't sell the Israelis short on intel about their own neighborhood (HUMINT to SATINT); but I've no idea what they know or what we know, for that matter.
Cheers
Mike
Last edited by jmm99; 07-31-2010 at 05:42 AM.
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