|
Al-Saqr posted:Thanks rear end in a top hat, all that writing I did went to nothing. Did you not read the OP? It specifically mentions that it's temporary until someone more qualified either makes another thread or writes up a better OP. Everyone knows you called dibs, and I'm sure it'll work out. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Nov 6, 2017 |
#
¿
Nov 6, 2017 17:26
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 11, 2024 10:35 |
|
|
Helsing posted:I'd be curious to hear from anyone familiar with the region who can comment on how the Saudi war in Yemen is perceived. It comes off like a pretty embarrassing disaster in which a country with a very expensive array of military toys repeatedly fails to defeat a poor insurgency in its own backyard. Do other countries in the region actually fear the prospect of a military confrontation with the Saudis or are they more concerned about the soft power resources that the Kingdom can wield? I'm not in the region, but if we're being fair powerful countries with expensive militaries fail to defeat poor insurgencies all the time, though doing so right on your border does make it worse. Even then though, Russia lost to Chechnya in the first war, and the Soviet Union bordered Afghanistan. Fully defeating a sufficiently motivated enemy is just really hard when you're fighting a war of choice, because the enemy is a lot more willing to incur losses than you are. It's embarrassing, but this doesn't mean Saudi Arabia is necessarily a total paper tiger (though I wouldn't like their chances in a real regional war either tbh). Their alliance with the US does more to deter aggression than anything though.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 6, 2017 23:27
|
|
|
OhFunny posted:http://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-politics-hariri-analysis/saudi-reopens-lebanon-front-in-struggle-with-iran-idUSKBN1D72BA You could make the case that forcing Hezbollah out of the shadows and shoving the reality of their control of that country in everyone's faces serves Saudi Arabia's purpose to the extent that it makes hardliners in Israel and the US more likely to fight Iranian influence in the region, or at least gives Saudi Arabia more justification for brutalizing the gently caress out of Yemen to resist it themselves.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 7, 2017 18:27
|
|
|
Going into exile in Iran is an interesting choice for a Saudi royal. This whole thing is crazy. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/saudi-arabia-prince-turki-bin-mohamed-bin-fahd-flees-to-iran/1/1084357.html
|
|
#
¿
Nov 7, 2017 19:58
|
|
|
Yeah the idea that the region would be better off with any one overseer seems suspect, particularly if you want a country led by Shia religious leaders to dominate a region at the heart of a majority Sunni religion. That doesn't really seem to me like a scenario that leads to peace.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 8, 2017 19:35
|
|
|
Volkerball posted:I love how quickly supposed radical anti-establishment leftists will hop in on the generic Kissinger realpolitik bullshit as soon as the victims of such stupid thinking get foreign enough that we can't identify with them anymore. It's pretty obvious who you're supposed to side with on these issues when you stop looking at the geopolitical actors as factions in a loving video game that you get to arbitrarily pick between based on poo poo like who has the cooler flag. Kind of a mirror image of freedom loving neocons embracing ostensibly friendly dictators as long as they have the right enemies.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2017 15:08
|
|
|
I wouldn't bet on Russia staying out of it if Israel/Saudi Arabia somehow decide they're going to go all out to destroy Hezbollah. Hezbollah's been just as important for Assad's survival as Russia has been, so Russia would very much like to keep them in the game if possible. Obviously Iran would want to find ways to help them too, and Assad owes them bigtime. The Iraqi government would presumably face a lot of pressure to do something too. Israel could probably get away with a "mowing the grass" level confrontation without sparking that level of regional crisis, but it might not go as well for them as they'd like.
Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Nov 9, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2017 16:18
|
|
|
MiddleOne posted:Can someone educate me on how Saudi Arabia going to war with Lebanon would even work logistically? As I'm looking on the world map I'm gradually realizing I know literally nothing about Jordan but this is still very confusing to me. The US would probably have to be involved too if they want Jordan to grant access. Trump loves Saudi Arabia now though, so who knows. Israel going alone with rhetorical support from the GCC seems more likely though. Imagine the optics of Saudi and Israeli forces fighting on the same side to invade Lebanon. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Nov 9, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2017 16:21
|
|
|
cochise posted:That one airstrike that did nothing but blow up some dirt and maybe took out hangers that were apparently cleared beforehand. Yeah, it was a lot less effective than the deal the Obama administration made with Putin to remove most of Assad's chemical weapons, but Americans are so used to thinking of foreign policy as blowing stuff up that Obama's response is considered weak and Trump's action was seen as decisive. Assad only used sarin again in the first place because Trump was seen as so soft on Russia and his administration had openly rejected regime change, so the regime felt emboldened to act more openly again after a period of (obviously relative) circumspection after the deal.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2017 18:08
|
|
|
Brother Friendship posted:Obama has a mixed bag as far as chemical weapons are concerned because Assad never stopped using them and clearly held a substantial arsenal in reserve. Trump's strikes did have a serious deterrent effect, as little credit as I would like to give alzheimers president. My understanding is that they're still using chlorine, which they did continue to use while Obama was president. You didn't see a large scale sarin attack again until Trump was president and confused everyone about where he stood on Syria though. I think it's fair to argue that Obama's response was inadequate, but anyone who thinks Trump's was adequate can't really make that case. To be fair, Russia was far more active in Syria when Trump was president, so he faced more constraints than Obama, but on the other hand we hadn't already been active fighting ISIS for years at the time Obama had to choose whether or not to enforce the red line, so the American people were less ready for another confrontation in the region at the time. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Nov 9, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2017 18:47
|
|
|
Brother Friendship posted:I always felt that Assad was acting like a creeping troll with his use of chemical weapons while Obama was in office and sort of danced around the 'red line' to both demoralize the opposition and undermine US authority in the region. I haven't seen that behavior continue since Trump's airstrikes because he is clearly more hot heated and impulsive than Obama but I'll also say that I haven't been following the war as much as before so I could be wrong. The only mention of Chlorine attacks since the strikes that I have seen were in Ghouta in the past month and that seemed to be out of frustration for how the battle in Jobar was going for the regime as opposed to any sort of underlying strategy. To be fair, it's been less than a year since Trump's strike. The regime probably took time to regain its courage after the red line incident under Obama too. Plus I'm sure Russia is leaning on them pretty hard not to blow all the gains they fought for by doing something stupid now that they've basically won.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2017 21:37
|
|
|
CrazyLoon posted:I wouldn't call the Israelis anywhere near the badasses they're still being hyped up to be ever since the war in the 60s, but no loving way would they be anywhere near as useless in an actual war as the Saudis have proven themselves to be. The two biggest checks on Israel acting more aggressively in the region are that they're extremely casualty averse, which isn't likely to change in general, but they could endure more risk in the short term in order to head off what they see as a bigger problem down the line (Hezbollah becoming battle hardened with more Iranian support really does pose a problem for them), and that international pressure builds pretty quickly when they act outside of Palestine (and ultimately plays a factor when there's open conflict there too, though that issue is beyond the scope of this thread). The inconclusive fight in Lebanon in 2006 dragged on longer than it would normally be allowed to because Bush was unusually pro-Israel and was willing to play defense for them internationally, but Trump might be willing to back them even harder, particularly if there's a guarantee of quiet support from Saudi Arabia. That said, Russia's more involved in the region than they were back then, and would be unhappy to see Hezbollah ground to dust, so they may place some limitations on an Israeli campaign even if the US doesn't want to. Obviously Iran would be unhappy too, but Israel might be happy to have a chance to kill some Iranians in Syria if they tried to interfere (keeping Iran out of the border area is a strategic goal of Israel's), so that's arguably more pro than con. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Nov 11, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2017 00:01
|
|
|
Al-Saqr posted:the question running through my head is why now and not sooner, if they wanted to actually successfully attack Hezbollah they shouldve done it while the Iron was hot in Syria and while Assad was on the back foot and while there was enough hezbollah fighters busy in Syria, why are they picking the fight now?! at this point the Russians and Iranians have Syria Covered and now Hezbollah can recall it's battle hardened fighters back to lebanon no problem. Trump is way more likely to support an attack than Obama would have been. The demonstrated reality of Iranian military power and influence in Iraq and Syria is surely behind some of the recent aggressive Saudi policy too, and MBS personally seems to be an aggressive leader. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Nov 11, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2017 02:13
|
|
|
Duckbox posted:Because something has changed in the kingdom. The Qatar incident seemed equally unprompted and was rooted in grievances that went back years. Maybe Trump's "leadership" has enboldened them, but I think MBS's power play took precedence over everything else. Some of the other princes were involved in their own maneuverings in Syria and Lebanon and maybe two years ago he was more interested in watching them fail than helping the revolution succeed. I don't think it's so much that Trump is prompting Saudi Arabia to do this stupid poo poo as that Trump will allow it. Obama obviously went along with the intervention in Yemen, and provided logistical support, but even that was grudging, so it's hard to believe he would have been on board for further adventurism. Trying to do it without the US on board at all would obviously be a lot harder logistically, would contribute to diplomatic isolation, and would risk a bigger response from Russia in the worst case scenario. That isn't to say MBS isn't behind all of this, because I think he is the driver here, but conditions elsewhere are what's enabling his recklessness, though it's still very likely this will end up being as much of a bluff as the threats toward Qatar have been.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2017 03:16
|
|
|
Watch MBS invade Kuwait.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2017 04:35
|
|
|
Not to go full Godwin here, but the whole kidnapping a head of state thing reminds me of Emil Hácha.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 12, 2017 23:45
|
|
|
Libya's doing great. https://twitter.com/CNNAfrica/status/930368723818606593
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2017 15:42
|
|
|
Sergg posted:ISIS is dead. Syria and Russia are demanding full US withdrawal from Syria. Turkey and Iraq will have to demand it and enforce a blockade on US forces using their territory to get there too before it's really a crisis, since Russia and Assad aren't likely to start bombing US forces. I do think the long term logistical issues limit the extent to which we can credibly back the Kurds as a de facto independent faction indefinitely though, sure. We'll just have to see how realistic the Kurds are about that, which they may well be since they've shown a willingness to work with the regime in the past before the US presence became so large, and Afrin still relies on Russia to keep Turkey from invading.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2017 16:09
|
|
|
Josef bugman posted:Which is the least worst group that are operating in the area? The United States of America. 
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2017 16:33
|
|
|
Cat Mattress posted:So Turkey retaliates to blackmail with more blackmail. Those sorts of escalating threats make Turkey leaving NATO seem a lot more plausible than it seemed even a year ago, and certainly than it seemed just a few years ago after Turkey shot down a Russian plane. I supported using the YPG as proxies against ISIS, but the way it's contributed a lot to a growing alliance between Turkey and Russia is obviously less than ideal, and this is where having some sort of exit strategy from Syria so we can try to reset our relations with an important country (even if it's ruled by a lovely dictator) might be helpful. I don't think Erdogan was ever going to be the dependable ally that Turkey's military dominated governments were, but giving him a shove into permanently joining the Russian camp seems unwise. If we work out some kind of negotiated framework between the SDF and Russia/Assad, the YPG stops being a problem for Turkish-American relations and either Turkey finds a way to live with the new status quo or it becomes a problem for Turkish-Russian relations. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Nov 20, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Nov 20, 2017 15:55
|
|
|
CrazyLoon posted:To me, Russia has always wanted the Bosphorous straits. Like...since the last several centuries, if not a millenia. So Erdogan chumming up with Putin, to me, looks like his one-way ticket to a royal backstab in the long-term, if not the short-term, precisely because of how unreliable he has proven to be and how Russia would immediately start working on somehow nixing him from the picture altogether to make things more predictable. Turkey's a regional power, not just a scrub tier country Russia could easily subvert if they left NATO. They'd always have plenty of options to realign back to the West if they needed to, and would be impossible to absorb in any case (they have over half the population of Russia, higher GDP per capita (!) and a different religion), so I don't think they have anything to worry about. I mean Iran has been a problem for the US since 1979 and we've never done anything about them, and Turkey's more powerful than Iran, while Russia is less powerful than the US. Just having Turkey as an ally effectively gives Russia what they've always wanted in a strategic sense, at least in the modern version in which you can't just conquer countries because you feel like it. Even their interventions in Georgia and Ukraine have been pretty limited by historic standards, and only stand out now because Europe is otherwise at peace. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Nov 20, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Nov 20, 2017 20:23
|
|
|
Volkerball posted:That's many times more than the entire death toll of the Yemen war up to this point, so nah. I tend to think it's better to err on the side of the sensational rather than the dismissive when it comes to impending human rights disasters, but the problem with that is that someone will eventually hold up reports like this one that end up being wrong in numbers as evidence of biased reporting, and use it to argue that all news about the humanitarian situation in Yemen is sensationalized. That's what happened in Aleppo. Even as someone who's been frustrated with US complicity in the devastation in Yemen being ignored by the media, it does seem like we've been reading headlines about impending starvation for Yemen for well over a year now. I do believe the situation continues to worsen, so maybe people will suddenly fall over the line between near starvation into actually starving to death, and more credible sources seem to be speaking up about a famine this time, but yeah some caution is warranted in assumptions about the death toll. Of course getting lulled into complacency is how a ton of people could end up dying while nobody pays attention, but the sensational headlines over the last year don't seem to have really made anyone care anyway, so  .
|
|
#
¿
Nov 21, 2017 10:58
|
|
|
Saying the numbers are made up isn't fair, but they should be taken with a grain of salt if for no other reason than because people seem to be able to find a way to survive in far worse conditions than we tend to expect. The death toll falling short of estimates shouldn't discredit people trying to point out that a real crisis exists in the country, and that crisis is being worsened with US assistance, but sensational headlines predicting absolute catastrophe that fails to materialize do tend to foster a sense of complacency going forward. The reality is that nobody gives a poo poo anyway since there's no significant interest group in the US that's pushed back against our role in that pointlessly gruesome conflict, so people trying to draw attention to the crisis are in a tough spot, especially because underestimating the scope of a crisis also has consequences.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 21, 2017 15:48
|
|
|
Tree Bucket posted:Yeah, what on earth is going on? Have things always been this mad, or are we just more aware of it? I keep getting the very distinct and very unpleasant sensation that we are living through History. There's a dreadful resonance in all those old stories of civilisations bickering about last century's fight while next century's disaster creeps up on them. (I need to stop reading the news for a while.) Things have been unbelievably worse than they are now many times in history, this is just a relatively minor uptick from the most peaceful time in human history. Obviously none of that is worth a poo poo if nuclear powers ever get drawn into conflict and poo poo gets real again, but while there are a lot of awful things happening in the world (and a combination of instantaneous communication and availability bias makes it seem like everything's going to poo poo), this is still a great time to be alive by historical standards, at least until global warming and overpopulation make this uptick look more like a hockey stick.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 21, 2017 23:44
|
|
|
Nevermind, I don't even know what point I'm trying to make anymore.
Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Nov 23, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Nov 23, 2017 01:54
|
|
|
This seems significant, though I guess we could just go back to pretending only the Arab elements of the SDF receive weapons and/or the Pentagon could remind Trump he has no idea what he's talking about and convince him to change his mind. https://twitter.com/rebeccagberg/status/934099715611865088
|
|
#
¿
Nov 25, 2017 00:43
|
|
|
I'm deliberately not quoting in case you decide to edit, but at this point you really seem to be out on a limb way past the kinds of things people used to say "stop trying to get Al Saqr killed" about. Posting anonymously on a dead American forum probably isn't the biggest threat to MBS, but even using that particular phrase ironically seems ill advised.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 25, 2017 20:16
|
|
|
The orange moron is providing cover to all sorts of awful poo poo around the world just by being himself. https://twitter.com/jenanmoussa/status/935507511242784768
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2017 19:28
|
|
|
Saudi Arabia isn't exactly a model signatory of the NPT either given their investment in Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2017 03:08
|
|
|
Count Roland posted:I think these things because I think US hegemony is on its way out the door. Not that I want to get into an argument about that, I'm aware its not a popular opinion, but there ya go. Weird inputs give weird results I guess. It is, but US primacy will still be around for a while, and other powers will still seek to align to counter our interests for quite some time. China may be on our level a lot sooner than people think, but they're really the only ones with any shot of reaching parity in the next few decades unless we collapse like the Soviet Union or something, and while Chinese interests are steadily expanding, they aren't a realistic threat to vital US interests outside of East Asia for a while still. This seems interesting: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/witness-says-turkey-s-erdogan-ordered-movement-iranian-cash-n825271 The prosecution's star witness implicated Turkish President Recep Erdogan in a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran during a trial that has strained relations between the two countries. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Nov 30, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2017 20:45
|
|
|
Count Roland posted:I view the US as being (by far) the strongest of the Great Powers, and no longer a Super Power. This is basically what I meant, yeah.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 30, 2017 23:13
|
|
|
tsa posted:For a perfect illustration of the distinctions between the two, just look back in the thread to Libya, where the great powers (NATO allies like France) couldn't even operate for more than a week or two without US support. Meanwhile the US could probably support 5-10 Libya like conflicts simultaneously for extended periods of time. France and the UK aren't great powers anymore, though a genuine European force could be if they decided to or were forced to stop relying on the US. Russia (by punching above its weight class) and China (still punching below theirs) are great powers though. The US is still clearly superior to both, but can't just get its way by default around the world like it could in the 90's and 00's (before exposing the limits of getting its way by losing two wars and turning Libya into chaos slavery warlord land). I think our military superiority compared to our allies gave us an inflated sense of our greatness in the 90's in particular, but a lot of our great accomplishments have been with things like smart bombs and missiles that allow us to strike targets with fewer civilian casualties than ever before. That's great for PR and ethics (though it does create a moral hazard issue if you start feeling more free to launch these wars because you believe you'll be killing fewer people and things don't go as well as you'd hoped), but one way other powers can compete is just to not give a poo poo about how many civilians they kill. Russia's crude bombardment of Syria is pretty clearly less expensive than our own more sophisticated version, but has also been decisive in turning the tide in many parts of the country. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Dec 1, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2017 03:39
|
|
|
The Houthis seem to be claiming that they launched a cruise missile toward a nuclear reactor in Abu Dhabi, but there seems to be some dispute on whether or not the released video is authentic. The reactor's fine in any case, but the missile shown was a relatively new Iranian model, so if the Houthis actually did fire it, it means Iran is shipping them pretty sophisticated missiles they can't credibly claim to have scrounged up in a pre-war stockpile. The video might just be from Iran though .
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2017 15:06
|
|
|
Vincent Van Goatse posted:I honestly can't imagine Iran is thrilled by that choice of target. Yeah. Even if the Houthis didn't really do it, saying they did seems really stupid. Of course there's hypocrisy about some nations' infrastructure being legitimate targets while other nations' infrastructure is off limits, but threatening a civilian nuclear reactor is begging to be labeled a nuclear terrorist.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2017 15:45
|
|
|
Missile defense remains ineffective, but nobody seems to have told Trump since he's saying Japan will have similar success against North Korea. https://twitter.com/malachybrowne/status/937709737398980608
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2017 17:17
|
|
|
Ikasuhito posted:Isn't Hadi the current strongman? Last I checked he's still alive. Yeah, Hadi's the former/current Yemeni President Saudi Arabia is theoretically backing while maybe (according to Al Jazeera, which obviously has an anti-Saudi bias now) holding him under house arrest. Saleh turning on the Houthis would obviously have been good for the Saudis if it had permanently divided the rebellion though. https://twitter.com/ByYourLogic/status/937708270915149827 Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Dec 4, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2017 18:19
|
|
|
Al-Saqr posted:that's the thing, the loss of Saleh meant that any and all backdoor or internal paths to victory are lost to the KSA forces, the only thing they can do now is either starve yemen to death or launch a full scale invasion. Even as someone who hates what Saudi Arabia's doing there, it's hard to get too excited about this since the Houthis are garbage too (as threatening a civilian nuclear plant helped to drive home), and yeah, it probably just ensures continued suffering for a long time to come since the Saudis probably aren't going to be willing to back down any time soon. Wishing the lovely invaders were at least competent enough to salvage some sort of face saving victory so they could go home and stop killing people already isn't the most idealistic dream, but it might actually have been the best outcome possible for Yemen in the foreseeable future.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2017 18:35
|
|
|
Coldwar timewarp posted:They may be garbage, but I will never call a group out for trying to strike back when they are at such a disadvantage. When a country is at war with you and your civilians, hitting at a major piece of infrastructure is 100% legitimate. Having the moral high ground hasn't meant poo poo so far(they have it in that they are being attacked and bombed and starved, not the other way around), so try and give them a bloody nose. It also shows that the UAE is going to have some fun if they do decide to dance with Iran, at least the Saudis have some strategic depth, The UAE will have a lot of problems with massed rockets I would assume. I do think hitting back at infrastructure is justified when your own infrastructure is being devastated, and the whole 'I can hit you but how dare you try to hit me' attitude we an our allies often take is insane bullshit the media shouldn't go along with presenting as a reasonable argument to make, but I draw the line at nuclear power plants. Experts seem to think the chance of actually hitting and damaging containment would be minimal, but even threatening to breach containment and release radiation on the surrounding populace is pretty awful.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2017 18:55
|
|
|
A Buttery Pastry posted:Is it really that bad? Like, is anyone going to do something to them that they wouldn't have done otherwise? At least undermining the economy of their opponents, by making them appear an unsafe investment, has the potential to convince them to back down. If they want to actually draw the US into the war against them instead of a support capacity for the Saudis and taking opportunistic shots at AQAP,, threatening nuclear terrorism with Iranian missiles seems about as good a way to do it as any.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2017 18:58
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 11, 2024 10:35 |
|
|
Moatman posted:This isn’t how nuclear power plants work hth I remember everyone confidently saying the same thing in the Fukushima thread too.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2017 19:02
|
|