And Libya goes on...

[Bob's World]

In 1987, the year the first SU-17 was shot down by a stinger missile over Afghanistan, some 30 Soviet aircraft were shot down.

It would be a very different operation if a similar year were had by the Taliban against the current coalition.

Yet one more reason to side with the populace in Libya. Cut AQ out of the picture, or at least be in position to compete to buy up such missiles as they enter the marketplace. Also small states are easily deterred from employing such systems or selling such systems to our opponents. Individuals and non-state actors are largely immune to our current family of deterrence tools.

Many states that the US sells arms to could easily follow this same path that Libya is on in the near future. Makes one look at the $60 B arms deal with the Saudis announced a few months back in a new light. Hopefully there weren't any shoulder fired missiles in with the F-15s, Longbows and Blackhawks...

[Fuchs]

The old shoulder-fired ManPADS systems should both be susceptible to standard countermeasures (flares, IR dazzlers) and have a weak punch (later Russian-made ManPADS have a substantially enlarged warhead).

They would pose a problem, but only an old one.


Btw, Pakistan is a ManPADS producer and the ISI could easily have slipped some of them into AFG if it had deemed it worthwhile.

[Bob's World]

Btw, Pakistan is a ManPADS producer and the ISI could easily have slipped some of them into AFG if it had deemed it worthwhile.

As I said, weak states are easily deterred from such behavior. Pakistan has interests that it leverages the Taliban to service. But it has interests it leverages its relationship with the US to service as well. They will not lightly make the decision to bite that hand. They rationalize their support of the Taliban, I suspect, as being exempt from being a bite of the US hand. After all, we don't need to be in Afghanistan by their estimation, but they do.

Weapons captured by Libyan freedom fighters and sold to AQ are another story altogether. Such weapons are outside the state system, and thereby outside the system of state deterrence.

I don't figure that Libya would have highend systems, but I do not know what equally vulnerable states with much closer relationships to the US might have.

[Pete]

From the Sunday Telegraph, London, March 6, 2011, story available here:

When the helicopter touched down outside Benghazi in the early hours of Friday morning, the SAS troops on board knew they were entering a volatile situation.

Tasked with escorting a diplomat to meet rebel Libyan forces and assessing the humanitarian situation on the ground, they did not, however, expect a hostile reception.

With the British Government openly rejecting Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and already in dialogue with opposition leaders, it should have been an uncontroversial visit.

[TROUFION]

Ok I am not a democracy zealot but hear this out. The best option (in my opinion) in Libiya is to, with UN and NATO backing, support a local solution to bring about a rapid end to the violence. The rebels may not want overt Western outside assistance but could they say the same for overt Eygptian assitance? Fellow democrats coming to the aid of neighbors desiring freedom and democracy, what could be better. A brigade of armor, some SF, naval and air assets and Eygpt comes in as the cavalry to the rescue of beleaguered democracy craving patriots. With UN and NATO backing, old MQ would be crushed quickly. While some would say Eygpt's military has its hands full with protecting its own house I'd argue this would be the 'right' thing to do and would solidify the Eygptians as true democrats and the Eygptian Military as the protectors of the people. -T

[M-A Lagrange]

Ok I am not a democracy zealot but hear this out. The best option (in my opinion) in Libiya is to, with UN and NATO backing, support a local solution to bring about a rapid end to the violence.

Not a bad idea but arranged peace, especially under UN supervision are seeds for later conflict (cf Ivory Coast, Sudan...).
I believe there is a need for a bigger stand up from the democracies. Also, what ever are the relations between insurgents and AQ, the more we leave them alone, the more they will turn to alternative solutions.
A back up would be certainly interpreted as a come back to ingerence and colonialism by G but who does really care?
We are messing around everytime we do nothing and sending the wrong signal. If we want to "promote peace and a world based on dialog" then we have to back up people who do stand up against their oppressor. Otherwise, we just say: freedom is just for those who obei to us.
In the actual climat in Africa (Cause Libya is an African country) there is strong need to draw a line.
The question is who to interviene not should I stay or should I go.

With UN and NATO backing, old MQ would be crushed quickly. While some would say Eygpt's military has its hands full with protecting its own house I'd argue this would be the 'right' thing to do and would solidify the Eygptians as true democrats and the Eygptian Military as the protectors of the people.

Looks like a starting point to me.

[carl]

The old shoulder-fired ManPADS systems should both be susceptible to standard countermeasures (flares, IR dazzlers) and have a weak punch (later Russian-made ManPADS have a substantially enlarged warhead).

The warhead size of a shoulder fired anti-aircraft missile doesn't make much difference if your target is a small ISR airplane. The kinetic energy of the hit will almost certainly be enough to destroy the airplane. We use a lot of small manned ISR airplanes.

The SA-24 is a very good missile. Venezuela operates those and so far, as far as I know, jolly Ceasar has hung onto the ones he has. If a missile like that got out, we would have a very hard time keeping all those ISR assets flying.

Those missiles will eventually get out so we should probably start thinking about what we will do when they do.

[Stan]

Cut AQ out of the picture, or at least be in position to compete to buy up such missiles as they enter the marketplace.

We've been actively doing that although we don't come right out and say we'll buy MANPADs.

I'll leave the price tag out for now.