Radio War Nerd EP #438 — Iran-Israel Air Wars

Mark, you just let him get by without commenting on “closet of forgotten adult toys”?

I know times are rife and you guys don't like talking about WW2, but I'd be interested in an ep or series about Yugoslavia in WW2. The eastern front is not studied well in America, but I think the partisans in Yugoslavia are studied even less.

Another fine episode on a breaking news item. As many listeners doubtless remember, US attempts to build an ABM system in the sixties/seventies (the Spartan/Sprint duo) ran up against what may be a law of missile warfare almost as unbreakable as the laws of thermodynamics- it is a lot cheaper to toss a missile at something than it is to catch that missile. It is a lesson every military seems to need to learn for itself but the truth, which you wisely pointed out in the conversation, is that it cost Israel and the US a heck of a lot more money to intercept these drones and missiles than it did to build and fire them. I would not be surprised if many of these drones and missiles had their warheads removed before launch, making the discrepancy even greater. Although Clausewitz is over-quoted, the line that war is politics by a different means is applicable here. And if one remembers that economics was often labeled political economics in early texts on the subject, the high cost of defense versus offense takes on another dimension. Iran can keep throwing unarmed cheap drones at Israel for a lot longer than Israel can afford to keep knocking them down. I doubt Biden understands this. As I haven't heard the fat lady sing yet, I very much doubt that this is over. Keep up the great work!

I've seen a few places mention 7 hypersonic missiles were fired by Iran and none of the 7 were destroyed by Israel or the US. I have a hard time believing 7 were fired due to the astronomical cost of hypersonic missiles, but if 7 were fired and all 7 did evade air-defense systems then that would be quite the deterrent to escalation.

Thank you

I think they will go after the president of Iran. They have to do something worse than what they did to initiate Iran’s attack

Mark's description of how the Israeli military operates can really just be summarized in his usual phrase about them: they're meatheads.

I actually did go to a movie in between the drones being launched and when they arrived with time to spare.

Biden's unconditional support for the Netanyahu government is really the biggest risk at this point as far as a regional war is concerned. I know Netanyahu is not an outlier in terms of his hawkishness, but the sense that I get is that the other leaders -- Gantz, Lapid, et al -- will have a much more collaborative approach with the U.S. and the Biden administration in particular. If the U.S. government is telling Israel to put the brakes on, they will put the brakes on. Netanyahu is more inclined to take the initiative, and ask for forgiveness later and he knows that Biden is an enabler. If the Netanyahu government thought they might have to go it alone against Hezbollah or Iran, I suspect we would see a lot more restraint on their part. With Biden the only real challenge is just to find a sufficient pretext and provocation to get the "correct" response out of Hezbollah and Iran first.

Thanks for the three episode blitz. I enjoyed the Sudan episode and appreciate that you’re trying to keep on top of the rapid pace of development. You know what would be a good topic to cover would be how the lessons learned in the Iran-Iraq war shaped Iran’s current military doctrine, because it’s really coming back around when you think of, say, the war of the cities, the tanker war, or the surprise capture of the Al Faw peninsula as a model for infiltration tactics. Alternately, it’d be interesting to do a deep dive into the IRGC in Iranian civil society, which as John pointed out is a path for lower class people to climb the ranks. It's not just the military, but the government and civil service as well. In a lot of ways it's kind of a long term project on the part of conservatives to create a more friendly bureaucracy/political class for them

With Republicans in control drones will blare Ride of the Valkyrie. With Dems it will be a loop saying 'I see you. I hear you. This hurts me more than it hurts you' before launching Hellfire missiles.

BUY THE CROW AMES

Whoa, spoilers

I would assume Mediaite is just doing what they're told. The editor goes "figure out a good anti-trump angle for this boring sound byte" and the best they can do is "he used a positive adjective to describe Gettysburg, we can turn that into him being some kinda war junkie" Israel has a 10:1 over Hezbollah as far as airstrikes and kill count goes, so it is kinda funny that the settlers are still to afraid to go back and try to steal more land

NEVER FIGHT UP-HILL ME BOYS!

yeah parrots make me nervous as hell, those beaks are POWERFUL and those fuckers might even be smart enough to steal my identity online for all i know. all corvids are cool tho

I feel like the Israeli response to the counter attack will be a massive escalation because the stupidest, most bigoted and insane people are now fully in control of all levers of power in Israel. The Americans must be telling them how much damage Iran could do if they really wanted, but my guess is that is falling on deaf ears and the Americans aren’t setting any red lines so it’s only emboldening the yahoos.

Does anyone know who much all this is costing? At the moment, it looks like the Iranians are sending over flying rocks and the West is responding with giant, flaming bags of money.

I suspect that the Iranians and (at least the Russians as well) gathered treasure troves of ELINT and SIGINT in their recent aerial feints. Israel (and the U.S. at least) would not have pulled any punches. So future defensive moves will be much more easily countered.

More evidence that the primary role of the US armed forces is to money launder the cash printed by the Fed directly into Pentagon suppliers pockets. That it does very well. The secondary objective is to pose as a military operation. That it does well too. Its objective is not to "win" wars.

When doing an accounting of Israeli defense spending, the money quote is from Carl Reiner in The Slums of Beverly Hills. "If he pays the check, it's still me."

It’s out of character for sure, but I’d love to hear that John started to do surgical airstrikes on noisy neighbors by suicide droning the grill, or the stereo system, etc

I thought I had read the cost was around 20k, not 200k, but I also don’t remember where I read that. Sounds like some helicopters need to get outfitted with flak guns or something

Trump famously has somebody make condensed movie edits for him – on his 2016 campaign, he apparently spent most airplane time watching a version of Jean-Claude Van Damme's BLOODSPORT that was fight scenes only

Really hoping part 2 of Kursk was pre taped and I don’t have to wait for schedules to align for it.

Gary Brecher enters the drone age! very timely i look forward to listening to this. I still think you guys should have a hardware expert on (or maybe multiple over two or three eps) to discuss Chinese and Iranian missle tech. TP Huang is one of the few people who fits the bill in that he has a lot of technical expertise and is fluent in mandarin. Another good option would be Lyle Goldstein who spent most of his career teaching at the US Naval Academy and specializes both in Chinese military capabilities as well as emerging nuclear powers initial breakout period. Finally Theodore Postol would be another great option given his work at MIT, NORAD and the pentagon (cribbed all these sources from manifold one).