Tuesday, March 5, 2024

A NEW WAR INFLECTION POINT

 There are some people that view what is happening in Gaza very much the way they are viewing what is going on in Ukraine and the Black Sea. The two are not really connected by anything except the exposure of the latest generation of war doctrine on display in each area. The United States did away with it's old fashioned and sensible approach to urban combat a long time ago by simply refusing to engage in it or to believe that it mattered since they controlled the cities that mattered. The Israelis are showing a massive contempt for all the whiny shibboleths about not inconveniencing the 'poor innocent civilians' and it shows that there really is no other way to root out dug in combatants who couldn't care less about damage to civilians and/or civilian infrastructure. At heart they are like the Nazis and the Soviets. Destruction is an end to be desired and not something to be eschewed or feared.

The other massive difference that is showing up is happening in Ukraine where the introduction of the totally expendable one-way targeting and killing drone is shaping the new battlefields of the 21st century just about the way most of us predicted. Admittedly, I'm still waiting for those killer drones to start making an impact on the political scene in various cities in the West. Let's be honest, if a cook with a limited bank account and access to some RC parts can cobble together killer drones from kits so can enemies as sophisticated as Baader Meinhof or the Red Brigades or the IRA or all those scary White Christian nationalists. Of course the ones that will be the first to thrust themselves out onto the killing stage will be the likes of anti-fa and our fresh crop of home-grown muslim discontented death to America types.

With any luck they'll practice and hone their skills closer to home and use their local officials as training aids. 

On the gripping hand, one cannot fail to notice that the most involved party of rabid killer lunatics don't seem to have any luck at all with this sort of modern warfare. Even the houthis can make it work somehow but palestinians in Gaza appear to have failed to launch even a single successful drone attack. I join the rest of the world in hoping that that is because somebody like Elbit has deployed a system that makes that impossible.

I still like that the first time I read about this it was fiction.

I wonder how the generals can sleep at night knowing that they have no more defense against the Kinzal and Zircon missiles then the British had against the V2 in 1945. As far as I can see there is nobody making any effort to counter the threat if it can even be countered. This might be one weapon that will always get through simply because the detect-to-engage loop is an unbreakable barrier that cannot be resolved without directed energy weapons of enormous power. Hell, we might be going back to Terrier-BTN type defensive tactics and wouldn't that be a nightmare. It wouldn't work though so they probably won't try it again....

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about this for an inflection point ... the Russians have released a transcript of a WebEx video conference conversation by the German military about how to secretly transfer missiles to the Ukrainians to blow up the Kerch Bridge.

"... provides proof that Germany was planning to help Ukraine to destroy the Kerch Bridge that connects Russia to the illegally annexed Crimea.

Discussions also involved a potential delivery of Taurus long-range missiles to Ukraine for use in the attacks and how Germany could supply these without appearing to be directly involved in the conflict."

If I were the Russians, I would consider this an act of war by Germany.

HMS Defiant said...

I think that the Russians are making their enemies list and it won’t be pretty. Russia is showing remarkable resiliency and the Germans, EU and NATO are not. In a year or two the markets will see fewer and fewer EU goods and unlike the Chinese, the Europeans have not shown that they can profit from trade without dominating the markets. That’s over and gone and the collapepse of ECOWAS is just one more brick taken out of the wall.

Michael said...

On Target HMS. Putin is well aware of the deindustrialization of Germany and thus the EU.

He waits and endures the playground bully with nukes to fall upon his own sword.

My pain is how the collapse of the USA will affect your family and mine.

The British were once the World Reserve Currency with their Pound Sterling. Once had a proud fleet that rules the waves.

They lost it.

Now two aircraft carriers with US Marine Air Wings abord, two maybe three frigates constantly on duty. Minesweepers crippled. Sub launched Nuke test a wet plop failure on TV.

And the 3rd world runs the Joint.