Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Month: October 2023 Page 3 of 4

Thinking About A Hezbollah Intervention

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On October 9, 2023

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So, let’s say Hezbollah intervenes, as they have said they will if there’s a ground incursion–and Netanyahu has announced it has started.

Remember that Hezbollah has thousands of missiles and that the Israeli “Iron Dome” couldn’t even keep up with Hamas’s attack.

Hezbollah didn’t have much of a missile force in 2006, and what they had were short range and inaccurate. Still, Israel was unable to find and destroy most of the launch sites and its ground incursion was defeated. Indeed Hezbollah was able to intercept Israeli comms while Israel could not intercept Hezbollah’s comms, since they were based on an underground private system.

It seems like the first steps would be to overwhelm the Iron dome, then hit the airfields and ports. A few missiles that get thru to the ports could wreck enough ships to make the ports unusable and hitting airfields, whether the planes are on the ground or not, would cripple the IAF. No nearby nation is going to let Israel run its air attacks off their airfields, after all. Even places where the government is sympathetic (Egypt) couldn’t, the population backlash would be immense and violent.

The Israeli army isn’t an elite bunch, they’re mostly conscripts who man checkpoints. Hezbollah is battle hardened. Once the Israeli air force is grounded, a land incursion suddenly doesn’t look as bad. Israel deploys its artillery in formations which indicate it hasn’t learned the lessons of the Ukraine war: drones and missile attacks could take much of it out.

At that point its Hezbollah ground troops vs. Israeli ground troops, and that’s a lot more even than it looks. Israel is a small country, there’s little land to give up.

The joker is Israeli nukes, but I have seen claims that Iranian intelligence knows where the ground based nukes are.

A strike against them is super-dangerous, if Israel thinks they are going to lose them, they’ll use them. At the same time, if Israel looks like it’s going to be defeated, they might use them anyway. Especially if Iran becomes involved, taking them out becomes very important.

Israel also has five diesel subs, possibly retrofitted with nuclear launch capability. I don’t know if Iran has any way of dealing with those.

Now, remember that there are other actors. Iraqi militias have indicated they support the Palestinians, and I would expect that many of them are already on their way to Israel’s borders. Syria hates Israel, and may decide to join in. Yemen has plenty of missiles as well, and strongly supports Palestine. Finally, there is Iran.

Iran is significant Russian ally, and one of the only countries to unconditionally support Russia in Ukraine (Israel has supported Ukraine.) Russia’s unlikely to extend its nuclear umbrella to Iran against Israel, but it might warn the US not to use nukes if the US decides to escalate.

I am not convinced that if the entire “axis of resistance” gets involved that Israel will win the ensuing war. These aren’t the incompetent Arab armies of the 60s, these are well equipped and battle-hardened troops who have been fighting for much of the last 20 years.

I think Israel’s military position is far more tenuous than it wants to admit, and probably more so that it even realizes.

We’ll see how this plays out. But the first thing to watch is Hezbollah. If they decide to go “all in” this is going to be a real war, not a replay of 2006 where they had to stay on the defensive and just take the massive bombing from Israel.

(Oh, and as for the American carrier group, well, don’t be so sure that if it gets involved, it’s immune to counter-attack.)

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Hamas Attacks, What Does It Mean?

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On October 9, 2023

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For once I was taken by surprise. I didn’t expect this attack and despite my low opinion of the Israeli military, would not have expected it to be so successful.

Hamas actually captured the Israeli southern command base briefly. It was retaken with massive air strikes (meaning Israel was willing to hit its own people.) In the initial 12 hours or so they wiped the floor with local Israeli forces.

This is the most successful Palestinian military operation I can think of.

Hamas could not, of course, hold the ground it took and is retreating to Gaza. Israel has declared war and stated that they will invade Gaza.

A ground invasion will be extremely bloody, Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, and Hamas has had plenty of time to prepare. Bombing and shelling urban areas does not make invasion significantly easier.

Let’s drawn out some specific points:

Complete Mossad Intelligence Failure

Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, has a fearsome reputation, but they either wanted the attack to happen (which is unlikely) or they were caught completely by surprise. This is an embarrassment, to vastly understate the case.

Israeli Military Weakness

As I have said repeatedly, and as the last war with Hezbollah showed, the Israeli army, no matter how many weapons or men or planes it has, is weak and incompetent. This is not the military of 1967 or even 1980, when the legend of Israeli military brilliance was created.

This is due to serving primarily as an occupation army. All occupation armies, fighting against the weak, become weak, brutal bullies incompetent at fighting real opposition.

The Israeli army was slow to respond, a general was captured and a command base. This is, again, humiliating.

Humiliation

Humiliation is the word of the day. Just as a bully whose victim manages to get in a few good punches has to be brutal in response, so Israel will lash out massively.

Context

This is one reason why Hamas lashed out. No one could be expected to endure this, year on year, and not want to strike back. It is also why, while I have sympathy for anyone hurt or killed, I have no patience with crocodile tears from Israeli supporters, acting as if they haven’t been doing worse to Palestinians for years.

The Hezbollah Question

is whether they’ll attack. The answer seems to be “probably” as Hezbollah has said that if there is a ground invasion of Gaza, they will declare war. Hezbollah is no joke, they are battle hardened, have between 40K and 150K missiles, a drone force, and their own private comms system.

Israel is moving forces to the Lebanese border as we speak. Militarily speaking, if I were Hezbollah, I might attack sooner rather than later.

The Iran Question

Iran is Hamas and Hezbollah’s sponsor. It is VERY unlikely Hamas did this without Iranian greenlighting and if that’s so, the plan isn’t “do one attack, then get hammered.”

The “Iron” Dome

Israel’s missile defenses cracked under Hamas’s missile barrage. There is no question, if Hezbollah attacks, the Iron Dome will not shoot down most missiles. This time it won’t be Lebanon’s heartland being bombed mercilessly while Tel Aviv is spared, there will be carnage in both homelands.

Nukes

In some ways this is the bottom line. Israel has nukes. If they did not, I would expect Iran to join in and if I were Egypt, I might invade. Israel is weak and humiliated. But as long as they have nukes, other countries will shy off from direct war unless they think they have a way of taking out those nukes.

Diplomatic Damage

Israeli-Saudi Arabia negotiations are dead for the time being and other Arab allies will not be able to do anything but condemn Israel. There are massive demonstration in support of Hamas in Turkey, Egypt and many other Muslim countries.

Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation

Israel has a huge problem, in that it has a massive population of non-citizens, and those non-citizens are out-breeding the citizenry, except for the ultra-orthodox Jews who do not serve in the military. This is an ulcer, and many Israeli politicians have been clear they want to just get rid of the Palestinians. They can’t genocide them, because it would destroy the Holocaust trump card, but many would love ethnic cleanse them. This may be an opportunity.

This is also an issue because if Israel wants to directly run Gaza, the occupation will be a bloody guerilla war, an endless bleeding ulcer.

If they don’t want to run it, they have to find a friendly quisling force, like the Palestinian authority, to do it for them, and at least right now, there’s no one to take that role. Hamas are more moderate than the other main Gaza factions.

Imperial Overstretch

Usually when Israel is in trouble the US airlifts in massive arms and munitions to help them, as they did in the 2006 war. But right now the shelves are almost bare because of Ukraine.

Balance of Forces

Hamas is obviously still the massive underdog. They are praying for Hezbollah to join in, and perhaps they want Israel to invade so they can fight a ground war against Israel on their own ground. The smart money is still on Israel.

But do not underestimate Hezbollah, and don’t underestimate how nasty this could get if Hezbollah does intervene. As noted above, they will be able to strike Israel’s heartland. If Israel attacks into Lebanon in response, with ground assets, my money is Hezbollah and if I were Hezbollah I would want that. Defeat the attack, then counter-attack into Israel.

If Hezbollah has to attack on the ground because Israel won’t oblige them I honestly don’t know how it will go.

But, while smaller and less well equipped, Hezbollah is the superior military with higher morale. If I were Israeli, I would not be sanguine.

Concluding Remarks

I won’t cavil, I think Hamas is justified in this attack. I also think the argument that settlers are civilians is weak (though by settlers I do not mean all Israelis.) Israel is an apartheid religious-ethnic state which stole another people’s land and continues to brutalize them.

The only humane solution, one which allows Israel to continue to exist, is a single state with everyone as full citizens.

Alas, that is not on the table.

In the long run, Israel as an ethic religious state, like the Crusader States, is doomed.

The only question is how many people have to suffer before Israel becomes a nation whose very basis is not completely unjust.

(Oh, and if Iran joins in.)

**Edit: it seems early reports of Ukrainian aid weapons winding up with Hamas are incorrect, or at least unverified. Removed with my apologies. (Although I suspect many have wound up on the black market, and would be surprised if Hamas didn’t wind up with a few.)

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 8, 2023

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On October 8, 2023

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 8, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

War

Hamas Attacks, What Does It Mean?

Ian Welsh, October 7, 2023

Hamas actually captured the Israeli southern command base briefly. It was retaken with massive air strikes (meaning Israel was willing to hit its own people.) In the initial 12 hours or so they wiped the floor with local Israeli forces….

As I have said repeatedly, and as the last war with Hezbollah showed, the Israeli army, no matter how many weapons or men or planes it has, is weak and incompetent. This is not the military of 1967 or even 1980, when the legend of Israeli military brilliance was created.

This is due to serving primarily as an occupation army. All occupation armies, fighting against the weak, become weak, brutal bullies incompetent at fighting real opposition.

The Israeli army was slow to respond, a general was captured and a command base. This is, again, humiliating.

Humiliation

Humiliation is the word of the day. Just as a bully whose victim manages to get in a few good punches has to be brutal in response, so Israel will lash out massively….

Nukes

In some ways this is the bottom line. Israel has nukes. If they did not, I would expect Iran to join in and if I were Egypt, I might invade. Israel is weak and humiliated. But as long as they have nukes, other countries will shy off from direct war unless they think they have a way of taking out those nukes.

Diplomatic Damage

Israeli-Saudi Arabia negotiations are dead for the time being and other Arab allies will not be able to do anything but condemn Israel. There are massive demonstration in support of Hamas in Turkey, Egypt and many other Muslim countries….

The Ukraine Connection

Of significant amusement is that it appears that much of the weaponry used by Hamas is from stockpiles sent to Ukraine and sold on the black market. This spread of weaponry was predicted and lo….

 

Invading Mexico to Destroy the Drug Cartels? Here’s How!

Harold Meyerson, October 5, 2023 [The American Prospect]

The Republican candidates for president, The New York Times reports, have united around a common solution for the scourge of fentanyl and other drugs coming across the border: invading Mexico. Almost to a person, they are calling for sending our armed forces—chiefly, special operations troops—into Mexico “to annihilate the Mexican drug cartels,” as Vivek Ramaswamy recently put it.

More than 20 Republican House members are co-sponsoring a bill that would authorize the deployment of U.S. forces against nine of those cartels. And a Reuters/Ipsos poll from September shows considerable public support for such action: By a 2-to-1 margin (52 percent to 26 percent), respondents favored sending troops there to take on the cartels. Even Democrats were narrowly divided: While 47 percent opposed such action, 44 percent backed it.

CANADA AND THE NATO ALLIANCE HUNKER DOWN TO DEFEND RACE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA — THE NEW EVIDENCE

John Helmer [via Naked Capitalism 10-03-2023]

Who Is Operating Ukraine’s New Abrams Tanks? Presence of U.S. or Polish Contractors Likely 

[Military Watch Magazine, via Naked Capitalism 10-01-2023]

Army War College Report Predicts Mass Casualties in Near-Peer Fight Against [Russia] – Analysis 

[Simplicius the Thinker(s), via Naked Capitalism 10-05-2023]

…The general gist of their chief point of concern is something we’ve all known, and something I’ve continuously written about, including in the previously posted report. It’s the fact that the past two decades of U.S. military action abroad have been nothing more than glorified policing actions against insurgent threats, dealing primarily with COIN (Counter Insurgency) training, tactics, and general strategic doctrine.

They now understand that years of fighting in a way where signal dominance and air supremacy reigned, allowed the U.S. to become undisciplined and lax, never having to worry about being ‘contested’ in any domain. This is the same point made by Dr. Philip Karber’s West Point Talk, where he repeatedly emphasized how bright the U.S. army’s rear logistical and C2/C3 points “glow” in the electromagnetic spectrum, and how easily this would be seen and pinpointed by Russia or any advanced peer force….

The Plan to Avert a New Cold War

Blaise Malley, October 5, 2023 [The New Republic]

Michael Doyle’s new book lays out how to avoid conflict with China and Russia.

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Open Thread

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On October 7, 2023

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Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

The Triumph Of The Good

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On October 6, 2023

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…my strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure

-Tennyson

A little while back John Michael Greer wrote an article about “stormtrooper syndrome”, the idea that the good always win and the bad always lose. Excellent article, and worth your time.

Greer blamed some of this on Tolkien, a frequent sparring target, and with some reason.

But this is as an old idea, and I place the most modern wellspring firmly in the mythos of World War II.

The Germans were Nazis, and the Nazis implemented the Holocaust. The Holocaust was Evil, not just evil. At first they seemed unbeatable, but the forces of good did eventually win.

Every western war of my lifetime has had its propaganda wellspring firmly in World War II, as the constant Hitler and Munich analogies suggest. “We must stop him now” (whoever he is), “or he will keep going, just like Hitler did.”

Saddam wasn’t going to conquer much beyond tiny and completely artificial oil-states. He tried with Iran and failed. Putin isn’t going to conquer Europe. China has some territorial disputes but it isn’t going to go on a Japan style rampage and conquer multiple neighbours.

But every time I deal with Ukraine supporters they fail to account for fundamental realities. Russia has more resources and the backing on China. It has air superiority and artillery superiority, and it is producing more artillery shells than the West, whose shelves are bare and and who has not ramped up war production significantly.

WWII wasn’t won because we were the good guys. It was won because more of the world’s resources wound up on the other side and Hitler made huge mistakes, over and over again. One example is that Germany was winning the Battle of Britain with its initial strategy of attacking airfields and factories: it was killing RAF planes and pilots faster than they could be replaced. Then Hitler freaked out after the British raid on Berlin and ordered the Luftwaffe to attack population centers, which allowed the RAF to recover.

If the initial strategy had been stuck to, the RAF would have been defeated, and the Royal Navy, without air support, would have been unable to stop the German from crossing the Channel and conquering Britain. Imagine trying to do DDay without holding Britain?

Germany lost because more resources were on the other side, and because Hitler screwed up multiple times, not because they were evil, though they were that.

And while the Allies were less evil, Dresden and the Tokyo firebombing and so on show that we were not “good”.

Ukraine cannot make up for material short-fallings and bad strategy by being the “good guys” (we’ll leave aside whether they are the good guys.)

America, having given its industrial base to China will not defeat China in the game of Great Powers because America is the good guy either (and Americans aren’t, though for some reason they think they are.)

There are some advantages to genuinely being the good guys, even military advantages, but they aren’t large enough to determine most wars, especially since it’s very rare that either side is good, the best we usually see is “less evil.”

It doesn’t matter if Ukraine is the “good” side. What matters is who has the best strategy, tactics and resources. And in a war of attrition, well, that ain’t Ukraine.

I would love to live in a world where the good always vanquishes the evil, but that ain’t our world and it never has been.

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Political v.s Physical Tipping Points

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On October 5, 2023

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Back in the 2000’s I belonged to the Netroots movement. Our mantra was “more, better democrats.” We ran primaries, fundraised and put pressure on politicians, on top of all the normal blogging stuff, much of which we were the first mass practitioners of.

We failed. Obama was our loss moment, as he bypassed us and was able to get our readers without having to appease us.

But Obama was something more important. The financial crisis of 2007-9 was a moment which would have allowed for radical change. An FDR figure could have changed the nature of America in their response to it, breaking up banks and other monopolies and letting a vast swathe of the rich go bankrupt and charging them with crimes, thus breaking their power for generations to come.

Obama didn’t do that. He didn’t even seriously consider it, instead he supported the Federal Reserve and Treasury in saving them and enriching them.

I considered it then, and now, a political tipping point. The financial crisis was the last real political chance to change the direction of society, globally (since an American response would have cascaded throughout the world, as it did), enough to perhaps stave off climate change and ecological collapse, since politically dealing with those required breaking the power of the wealthy.

The most important political tipping point was actually the neoliberal empowerment moment: 79’s election of Thatcher and 80’s election of Reagan. Clinton and Blair ascending to the top of the Democrats and Labor were the second political points, since each of them institutionalized the changes made by their Republican/Conservative predecessors. Thatcher understood well, noting that her victory was sealed by Blair.

For both climate change and ecological collapse to be stopped, for the physical tipping points to be avoided, we had to make a radical change in how we ran our societies. Continuing on more or less as we had before meant disaster. To be sure, the changes necessary were truly radical (though less so the sooner they were begun), but nonetheless they required political victory and destruction of the power of vested interests.

So while others were saying “we still have time”, I was looking at the politics and the realities of power and saying the opposite, “it’s too late, we missed the window”, because there was no political possibility.

The physical tipping point for climate change was reached this year or last year, I’m reasonably sure. The ecological collapse tipping point may have been somewhat earlier. The civilization collapse point has also probably passed, and I put that around 2020.

All along the road off-turns were offered. People laugh at Dennis Kucinich, but he wanted to do the right things and ran in the Democratic primaries multiple times. The fact that he was considered laughable even though his policy prescriptions were correct is exactly the problem.

While Corbyn came too late to turn the tide, his election and success, if it had been the precursor of serious political realignment, as was Thatcher, could have saved hundreds of millions of lives and made the process much less painful. Indeed his defeat is one reason (though only one) that I consider 2020 the turning point for civilization collapse. It was definitely the turning point for UK collapse.

Modern propaganda is mighty indeed, and Corbyn lacked the necessary ruthlessness to defeat entrenched interests, if it was even possible. Unlike Obama, however, he at least wished to do the right things.

And that’s the main point: whoever runs society must want to do the right thing. Physically we had plenty of time, if you look at it from back in the 70s, which is when I first became concerned as a child.

Politically, though, we did not have lots of time. Changes in ruling sub-ideologies and opportunities to break the power of elites are not that common, and we failed to do so at each possible political tipping point.

And so, here we are.

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The Pointlessness Of Continuing The Ukraine War (And Its Future)

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On October 3, 2023

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So, this map tells you about half of what you need to know about the war in Ukraine this year:

For this, some hundreds of thousand of soldiers and civilians have been killed, wounded, raped, tortured or made into refugees.

From fairly early I’ve been saying that Ukraine should be settled by peace negotiations.

This is why.

This is WWI bullshit. Ukraine is gaining nothing, and Russia is gaining little (they’ve significantly improved their alliances and their ability to produce war goods.)

Ukraine is under extreme stress. Western countries are becoming less willing and able to support it, they’ve engaged in multiple waves of conscription and are at the point of trying to force men who fled Ukraine to come back, sign up, and go into the trenches.

There’s a fairly strong argument that France never recovered from the manpower losses of the Napoleonic war and WWI.

Now, as for the future, these sorts of wars end when one side can’t keep it up any more, and when it can’t the war ends fast or large gains are made. The country most likely to not be able to keep it up is Ukraine, it has far fewer men and resources than Russia, and those allies providing armaments are losing the will or ability to keep doing so, while Russia’s allies (who provide mostly parts, other than Iran and North Korea, who could care less about sanctions) find Russia’s needs easily supportable.

It’s hard to say “when” this will happen, but it could even occur during the next Russian offensive, it’s more than possible.

Ukraine should have negotiated for peace back in April of 2022. They had almost done so, according to many sources, when Boris Johnson visited and suddenly they changed their mind.

What have they gained by continuing to fight? Nothing but a lot of dead people they can’t replace and a pile of destruction.

As for the West, we are clearly “fighting to the last Ukrainian” and that’s despicable.

End the war. Ukraine is very unlikely to get better terms later than sooner.

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The Absolute Disaster Of Losing Dollar Privilege

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On October 2, 2023

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Most of the world’s trade is done in dollars, even for trade that never goes to the US.

Most of the world’s money transfers at some point go thru the western banking system, and quite often an American bank, even if both parties are not in America. This is how the US justified its’ anti-FIFA case: the bribes, though at never point involving any Americans or going to America, at some point went thru a US bank on their way to their target.

Everyone needs (or needed) dollars, and everyone needed the Western banking system. There was no real alternative, and to a large extent there still isn’t.

But that has been changing. Russia (SFPS)  and China (CIPS) built their own interbank messaging and transfer systems to replace the West’s SWIFT. They have started to connect them together. Since the Ukraine war in particular, China and Russia have been encouraging countries to settle trade in local currencies, and oil has been sold in rubles and yuan (previously, with a few rare exceptions it was always in dollars.

This is called dollar privilege. It has disadvantages, but because everyone needs dollars and because a ton of world debt is denominated in dollars and because the interbank transfer system is controlled by the West (SWIFT is actually located in Europe), America has been able to command far more of the world’s resources than it otherwise would have been able to. Of course this is backed up by US and allied military power, and it was possible to create it because after WWII the US was both the greatest military power and the largest industrial power.

Still, while it was definitely abused during the cold war period, and more than once, it was after the collapse of the USSR that America really went wild with sanctions.

But the most important thing about dollar privilege is not the ability to sanction, it’s the ability to settle all debts in dollars, which everyone needs.

What happens when everyone doesn’t need them? What happens when the US actually has to pay, somehow, for what it consumes?

Though losing dollar privilege is second order, downstream from losing industrial and military dominance, and has been moved forward by the abuse (and failure) of the sanctions system, it will still be a massive blow to America. Put simply (and with some exceptions), America will have to live on what it can actually make and grown and what it can trade for with what it makes and grows. Well, and what it can steal with its still strong military.

This will be a massive blow.

It will also be an opportunity of sorts. Dollar privilege let the US command more of the world’s resources than otherwise, but it also made the dollar worth far more than it should have been, and thus increased costs in America. In principle (though hard to do in practice) the US dollar collapse caused by the end of dollar privilege would make American goods and services much cheaper overseas and improve the US terms of trade, allowing more manufacturing in the US.

In principle. In practice, the collapse in ability to command resources is likely to lead to economic collapse, and only a very savvy leadership class will be able to navigate the issue, at least in a timely manner. In the longer run, America is still a continental power and if it doesn’t split up, the country has significant advantages which may allow it to survive and even be moderately prosperous.

But when you see moves by the BRICS to create their own multinational interbanking system, and moves away from the US dollar, understand that what you’re seeing are attempts to end US hegemony; attempts which will have shattering effects on the US economy.

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