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Nessus posted:Oh, the Iskandars? How far do those reach anyway? Up to 500 km.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 21:49 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 13:16 |
Kazinsal posted:Up to 500 km.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 21:52 |
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Lovely Joe Stalin posted:There's a lot of active political/espionage/sabotage/direct military intervention aimed at stopping them. Also it's actually very hard to do. Mederlock posted:US intelligence services literally created one of the most innovative and successful computer worms ever written, which managed to penetrate a strictly controlled air gap at their nuclear research facilities. This whole thing was made to implant code that would sabotage the function of centrifuges they were using to disrupt their production of enriched uranium, by making them run so erratically that they would blow themselves up. They distributed things like USB drives at scientific conferences that Iranian scientists attended, amongst other methods, eventually leading to the destruction of a significant amount of their centrifuges. This is a big part of it (6-8 mo is nothing to sneeze at, if true, and the above wasn't the only effort, see also assassinations etc). Engaging Broken Record Mode to reiterate that the book SANDWORM is a good explanation of both the above operation and a general primer on infosec with some focus on Ukraine and a fun read besides. Regarding proliferation chat, the raw fact of more actors possessing the capability does increase the chance that it is used hence outside desires to prevent it, but also from Iran's perspective they'd be fools not to pursue it absent concessions of equal (very high) value. I would guess there isn't a ton of Iranian appetite for that at the moment, given recent history what with Suleimani, wildly inconsistent US posture (towards Iran), Ukraine, regional ambition and so on.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 21:54 |
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Nessus posted:Oh, the Iskandars? How far do those reach anyway? No, and I don't think Ukraine ever had those. Kh-55. At least 2,500 km. And I was wrong in that it was a separate agreement.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 21:59 |
Imagine if instead of being bad we helped Iran modernize in the 1970's, or the 1980's, or the 1990's, or the 2000's, or the 2010's, or now... Maybe we wouldn't have the nuclear problem of a repressive government.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 22:02 |
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M_Gargantua posted:Imagine if instead of being bad we helped Iran modernize in the 1970's, or the 1980's, or the 1990's, or the 2000's, or the 2010's, or now... Amazing how our choices were moderate, possible socialist uprising in the 50s and 70s, but no, the repressive hardliners was somehow deemed the better choice
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 22:03 |
Lol at thinking Ukraine would have still gotten invaded if they had nukes. Russians literally made that the treaty conditions for surrendering them. Putin wouldn’t trade Moscow evaporating to take Kiev smdh.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 22:09 |
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Yes, because the post revolutionary Iran of the 1970s and 1980s was definitely receptive to Western attempts at diplomacy and modernization. Next you'll be telling me that the Red Army Faction was simply trying to improve the level of discourse in West Germany.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 22:10 |
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tiaz posted:This is a big part of it (6-8 mo is nothing to sneeze at, if true, and the above wasn't the only effort, see also assassinations etc). Engaging Broken Record Mode to reiterate that the book SANDWORM is a good explanation of both the above operation and a general primer on infosec with some focus on Ukraine and a fun read besides. I've found Countdown to Zero Day a much better book on the topic of Stuxnet/Olympic Games. Sandworm is mostly about, well, Sandworm aka GRU m/u 74455.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 22:21 |
That Works posted:Lol at thinking Ukraine would have still gotten invaded if they had nukes. Russians literally made that the treaty conditions for surrendering them. Putin wouldn’t trade Moscow evaporating to take Kiev smdh.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 22:31 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's not my conclusion. End of the day, any country considering deproliferation is going to think "look what happened to Ukraine after they surrendered their stockpile" and then they won't deproliferate. Now I’m wondering if Japan abruptly needed to field an army how hollowed out it would be after decades of peace. Assuming that on paper they have a significant force but we found out how under strength Germany has been & how Russia’s supposedly high tech super army had shortcomings. Would Japan have enough ammo for like a week? With the state of US artillery production needing massive investment to supply Ukraine, guessing that whatever domestic artillery factories Japan had might not be ready to go (I am not an expert just assuming that hasn’t been a political priority.)
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 22:37 |
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Japan is a pacifist* nation which is constitutionally barred* from having a military and thus "does not" have one.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 22:41 |
I think their
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 22:53 |
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Now I’m wondering if Japan abruptly needed to field an army how hollowed out it would be after decades of peace. Assuming that on paper they have a significant force but we found out how under strength Germany has been & how Russia’s supposedly high tech super army had shortcomings. Has Japan's military gotten any actual experience outside of exercises with friendly nations since WWII? Have they even participated in stuff like UN peacekeeping missions? I feel like a bigger problem for them than "not enough guns" would be "no one who isn't 100 years old has any experience getting shot at and shooting back."
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 22:58 |
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Tunicate posted:Japan is a pacifist* nation which is constitutionally barred* from having a military and thus "does not" have one. They also do not have giant robot death mechs, but nobody can guarantee they don't have a plan to develop them at rapid speed in case of emergency.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 23:00 |
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The JSDF hasn't done any combat ops in peacekeeping missions and only started doing logistics for them in 2003.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 23:08 |
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spankmeister posted:I've found Countdown to Zero Day a much better book on the topic of Stuxnet/Olympic Games. Sandworm is mostly about, well, Sandworm aka GRU m/u 74455. would you believe I combined the two in my memory? agreed though, Countdown was great, and thank you for the correction/reminder Nessus posted:Yeah like it would have been completely off the table imo. He might not have even tried for Crimea. Hell, he might have treated them nicely enough to buy Crimea or at least work out some kind of basing rights long-term at Sevastopol. I thought they already had a 99-year lease on Sevastopol with decades yet to go? Were there indications pre-2014 that Ukraine would be motivated not to renew?
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 23:17 |
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tiaz posted:I thought they already had a 99-year lease on Sevastopol with decades yet to go? Were there indications pre-2014 that Ukraine would be motivated not to renew? 25-year lease that would have expired in 2017.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 23:25 |
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Now I’m wondering if Japan abruptly needed to field an army how hollowed out it would be after decades of peace. Assuming that on paper they have a significant force but we found out how under strength Germany has been & how Russia’s supposedly high tech super army had shortcomings. Perun thankfully has a good video answering some of your questions! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BHnijL9xYc
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 23:39 |
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Nessus posted:My loose understanding is that Iran is a large enough country that a US/allies invasion would not have a high chance of actually toppling the government. The nuclear deterrent would be a way to make the cost going high enough that even a truly desperate American president would not take the gamble. the cost of invading iran for the US would already be catastrophic and would dwarf the cost of the adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan even without nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons would just make that even less tenable. bulletsponge13 posted:My favorite thing to ask in Iran Nuke discourse is "Why shouldn't they have them?" Iran's current government is loving monstrous and some of the last people on the planet you should want to have nuclear weapons.
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# ? Aug 11, 2023 23:49 |
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Nessus posted:I think generally it is easier to keep a high state of preparedness in the navy vs. the army. lol. This isn't true at all. Navy ops all require heavy technical and tactical knowledge and massive upkeep costs due to the nature of the platforms and their operating area. (Hint: The ocean likes to corrode things very quickly.) The only time its more difficult to maintain your army over your navy is if your army is just THAT mechanized or THAT large.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 00:11 |
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Nessus posted:I think their JSDF is a military holding up a fig leaf and swearing they're not a military force (I believe they're easily the third most powerful military in East Asia, behind China and the US). They have really nobody who has any combat experience at all though.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 00:20 |
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AlternateNu posted:lol. This isn't true at all. Navy ops all require heavy technical and tactical knowledge and massive upkeep costs due to the nature of the platforms and their operating area. (Hint: The ocean likes to corrode things very quickly.) This is why the PLAN and Russian navies have historically not been super great
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 00:40 |
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Mederlock posted:Perun thankfully has a good video answering some of your questions! Oh nice thanks I’ll need to watch.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 00:57 |
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AlternateNu posted:lol. This isn't true at all. Navy ops all require heavy technical and tactical knowledge and massive upkeep costs due to the nature of the platforms and their operating area. (Hint: The ocean likes to corrode things very quickly.) I think they were getting at it being easier to justify big spending on the JMSDF vs the JGSDF, as China is actively harassing Japanese territorial claims (Senkaku Islands) and the whole thing with Russia and the Kurils.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 01:05 |
orange juche posted:I think they were getting at it being easier to justify big spending on the JMSDF vs the JGSDF, as China is actively harassing Japanese territorial claims (Senkaku Islands) and the whole thing with Russia and the Kurils. Russia notably did not usually sail their ships around from what I know, other than perhaps their subs.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 01:15 |
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I've never seen anyone in Iraq more visibly afraid than the JSDF.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 02:01 |
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Nessus posted:Yeah I meant they actually sail their ships around and my understanding is that if you're sailing your ships around you are two-thirds of the way to being ready, if not more. Kiiiiiiiinda. Sailing around comes with it the assumption you're dumping enough into your ships to at least make them sea worthy. But you still need the operational experience and training to use them effectively. The real issue is that even the most hardened navy in the world has practically no ship-to-ship combat experience. It's all training and theory most of the time. Because every time we've gone operational in the last 40 years, it's never been with a near peer opponent.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 02:02 |
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psydude posted:What's funny is that I still deal with plenty of customers (laughably, most of them in the Middle East) who insist that data diodes and airgaps are an essential part of OT network security. To be fair, data diodes are very useful, but only as part of a bigger structure of mitigations.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 02:35 |
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If you have the entire western intelligence apparatus arrayed against you airgapping is still a pretty good start.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 02:39 |
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What’s the most recent near peer-ish one? India/Pakistan in the 70’s?
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 03:05 |
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The idea that nuclear deterrent doesn't work is absurd. I don't LIKE that it works, necessarily, but it does. We can't ever know for certain whether Ukraine keeping its nukes in the 90s (however you want to handwave a situation where that was possible) would have prevented the current invasion, but we can say with a high degree of certainty that despite Putins disgusting invasion, Russia's sovereignty is not at risk and that is specifically because of the nuclear threat. It's why western aid has only drip fed longer range weapons until now. It's why NATO Abrams won't be rolling into Moscow. It's not surprising that a bunch of governments (good or bad) who want to continue to exist in power look to either an active stockpile or "tripwire" method. It's why Iran wants it. It's why Israel has it (official or not). It's why Japan effectively has a "tripwire" on it. I have no doubt Australia will do the same with the AUKUS program - while we're absolutely not going to take possession of any nuclear weapons, I have no doubt they will all have the capability to be loaded with the spicy variety of tomahawk on short notice, and for all potential adversaries to know it.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 03:10 |
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Carth Dookie posted:The idea that nuclear deterrent doesn't work is absurd. I don't LIKE that it works, necessarily, but it does. If Australia wanted nukes, they could have them and it'd basically be impossible to stop them. They can manufacture their own centrifuges, and have the worlds 4th largest Uranium reserves. There's enough GDP, industrial, and scientific know how to get a program up and running and seen to completion in a moderately short time. It wouldn't be a sprint program, but I'm confident they could do it faster than NK did. As for delivery systems, that'd probably take longer. They don't have a domestic space or rocketry program that I'm aware of, and I don't know much about AUS aircraft manufacturing capability.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 03:20 |
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A.o.D. posted:If Australia wanted nukes, they could have them and it'd basically be impossible to stop them. They can manufacture their own centrifuges, and have the worlds 4th largest Uranium reserves. There's enough GDP, industrial, and scientific know how to get a program up and running and seen to completion in a moderately short time. It wouldn't be a sprint program, but I'm confident they could do it faster than NK did. As for delivery systems, that'd probably take longer. They don't have a domestic space or rocketry program that I'm aware of, and I don't know much about AUS aircraft manufacturing capability. If they can miniaturize it to the point you could load a warhead on a canvas wing ultralight, or a light duty seaplane, they've got it covered. Anything that doesn't use a propeller, not so much. I watch a lot of Scott Manley and I think they're supposed to have their very first domestic launch this year. Didn't some of the American MIC set up shop there recently to make cruise missiles?
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 03:33 |
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Pretty much every advanced industrial state with a nuclear energy program from Australia to Brazil to Japan to Germany to Iran can probably produce a nuclear weapon within six months. The real trick is miniaturizing them to the point where they can fit onto a delivery vehicle of some sort, but again, if they’re a competent military power, they can likely figure that out too. Nuclear weapons are a terrible thing, but they’re also a necessity in maintaining what passes for international order. And if they ever may be used again, let it be against a worthwhile target, like a particularly excessive HOA.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 03:39 |
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Oscar Wilde Bunch posted:What’s the most recent near peer-ish one? India/Pakistan in the 70’s? I would say the Falklands in '82. Argentina didn't have the sheer numbers, so they were never going to win. But their platforms were top-of-the-line, particularly their aircraft, and their crews were well trained. Purely from the naval perspective, the loses were pretty even. U.K. lost four warships and two landing ships. Argentina lost one warship, a sub, two patrol boats, and a smattering of cargo vessels but had more overall loss of life.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 03:56 |
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AlternateNu posted:But their platforms were top-of-the-line, particularly their aircraft Mirage IIIs and A-4 Skyhawks?
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 04:02 |
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pantslesswithwolves posted:Nuclear weapons are a terrible thing, but they’re also a necessity in maintaining what passes for international order. And if they ever may be used again, let it be against a worthwhile target, like a particularly excessive HOA. in the post OEF/OFS world, "putting warheads on foreheads" means the busybody Karen who measures your grass and submits a complaint to the board because it's 2mm over the specified height.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 04:14 |
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Oscar Wilde Bunch posted:If they can miniaturize it to the point you could load a warhead on a canvas wing ultralight, or a light duty seaplane, they've got it covered. Anything that doesn't use a propeller, not so much. I watch a lot of Scott Manley and I think they're supposed to have their very first domestic launch this year. Didn't some of the American MIC set up shop there recently to make cruise missiles? Pretty sure Australian Missile Corporation is basically Raytheon and Lockheed offices with a bunch of Australian flags around the place.
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 04:14 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 13:16 |
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i would die a happy man if I got to see a JSDF attack helo with anime on the side get loving wasted
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# ? Aug 12, 2023 04:14 |