Jon Elmer on the latest radio war nerd discussing specifics of the Palestinian resistance within gaza. A lot of topics covered won't be new to the newsmega but Elmer brings a deep understanding of tactics and history all the same.
this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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The imperial core is continuing the process of self-cannibalization as the interimperial wars between Europe and the US over resource and territorial control continue. Greenland, populated with less than a hundred thousand heavily exploited people, is the newest territory to fall under Trump's gaze. The main draw is the mineral resources present there, of which it boasts nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum, and much more than remains unexplored under the ice. But the ice is melting, and profit must be made. There is an additional element of wanting Arctic territory to counter Chinese and especially Russian interests and aims; Russia is increasingly eyeing the northern Arctic route as an alternative to more vulnerable routes through the Suez Canal or around Africa, and is investing heavily in icebreakers for that purpose.
However, even if Europe possessed the desire to resist American annexations - and they absolutely do not, at the end of the day - they do not even have the ability. Denmark may, to a lesser or greater extent, make angry sounds and talk about national honour or some such, but their military would be trampled underfoot by even the New York Police Department, let alone a concerted military effort by the US. If Trump wants Greenland, he will have it. This will naturally increase the grumbling in Europe about reconsidering the Transatlantic alliance, and that grumbling may, in the medium-term future, as the American Empire continues its decline, lead to meaningful results. But in the short term, Europe shall have to bear whatever Trump throws at them, for they obviously cannot now ally with Russia, who was the natural counterweight to American interests for decades before 2022.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
I am like a year behind on RWN episodes. Anything interesting covered in the episode?
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Trump says he will revive TikTok, but wants 50% U.S. ownership
Trump said he would “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.”
“I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump said the executive order would specify there would be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before his order.
Joint ownership was exactly as I wrote in this comment here - we’ll probably see a joint venture in some kind of AI development between Meta/Google and a Chinese partner in return. The whole TikTok ban was just to open up the path for Meta/Google to enter China again:
I would expect some kind of joint venture in the field of AI development, which is what Meta and Google excel in.
For reference, Apple is currently in talks with Tencent and ByteDance to roll out its AI features in China, you can see why Meta and Google, both banned in China, would want a slice of that share too. How do you force China to lift the ban? By banning TikTok itself and force a hostage exchange situation.
It also fits with the recent US emphasis on banning AI stuff to China. The US then offers an olive branch if China allows American tech companies to enter to participate in their AI development. Now we see how China responds.
I really hope they don't sell, but I can see it happening because TikTok CEO is a capitalist at the end of the day
From a business/capitalist point of view, not selling and keeping it banned generate no revenue plus all the burden of paying for overhead cost and investment already in place. So, having the option of being restructured into a jointly owned enterprise as one of the most popular social media apps is still worth the revenues it generates.
However, I suspect the situation is far from that simple. There are three inter-connected crises facing the Chinese economy right now: low consumption, property market bubble, and local government debt crisis.
How all these crises came about will require an entire effort post (I have written parts of it but it’s way too massive in scope to address everything) but let’s take the local government debt problem as an example.
Currently, many local governments are running deep into deficits and have overburdened debt ratio (all these have to do with property market/land premium speculation and Covid but I will not go into it here) and as soon as the Fed cut interest rate back in September last year, the Chinese government immediately rolled out their debt relief program for the local governments.
Because China does not have debt cancellation mechanism (amazing huh), the proposed solutions involved debt restructuring/refinancing, for example, raising the debt ceiling by 6 trillion yuan so local governments can borrow more money at the now lowered interest rate, to pay back their outstanding debt that demanded higher interest rate. So the debt relief comes from borrowing cheap to pay back expensive outstanding interest.
Just last month, Fed’s Powell released more mixed signals, citing uncertainty in inflation and said that the Fed may only cut once or twice in 2025. Of course, interest rate has very little to do with inflation in the US, but it should be seen as an imperialist tool that controls foreign economies.
So Trump has a lot of leverage here: if he can get the Fed to cut more rates this year, then the PBOC can also cut their rates, this will then allow the local governments to borrow at an even lower interest to pay back their outstanding debt, and thus bringing huge relief to their current budgetary situations. Here, you can see how the Fed’s interest rate directly impacts China’s local government finances.
This is just one weapon the US can use. Tariffs, sanctions, interest rates are all “threats” that can be negotiated down if China gives in to what the US wants. What we will have to wait and see is how Trump and Xi deal with these issues in their ensuing negotiations.
(On the other hand, the Fed bringing down too much interest rates plus Trump’s government deficit cuts with DOGE will also have the opposite impact of plunging US into recession, and that hurts China’s export industries too. So, we are locked into a complex and difficult situation with both the US and Chinese economies being their own ticking time bombs, and this will send shockwaves across the global economies. Things are really in a delicate situation and we can only hope that the US and China sort out a deal that isn’t going to crash the global economy.)
but, they aren't making no money. the app is banned in the US but still has many millions of users elsewhere. is it a significant part of their userbase? sure, that's not up for doubt. so, from a capitalist point of view, they're making revenue right now, and by selling them will make none. so idk if that argument holds as purely logical
They’re being asked to sell the US unit, their operations in Europe (UK-based), Australia/NZ and Asia (Singapore-based) are not affected.
oh I thought they were being asked to like sell EVERYTHING from international tik tok to the US
Yeah I recently learned that many Chinese capitalists (and probably many global multinational corporations as well) set up many subsidiaries to avoid taxes and scrutiny at home. TikTok Ltd itself is just a shell company in the Cayman Islands, and its regional subsidiaries funnel their revenues there.
It is not even clear how much of those revenues actually go back into China, as the capitalists are more interested in storing their assets overseas, and this is one of the reasons that make it hard for China to decouple from the dollar regime because many huge corporations in China have already invested in so much dollar assets, it’s hard for to tell them “we don’t want to use dollar anymore, we’re gonna make them useless”.
It’s also one of the reasons why China has ramping up on cracking down corruption. For example, it’s been rumored that the real reason behind the prosecution case against Evergrande was how much their profits have been funneled overseas into their Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands shell companies - the 2.3 trillion yuan scandal, much of which came from scamming the Chinese people had likely been laundered into overseas accounts. (It’s also part of the answer to the very important question of “how can China see such amazing development over the past two decades, and yet its people have no money to consume and local governments mired in endless debt?” - far from the only reason, but certainly part of it).
Just so I understand, would a TikTok ban in the US be that impactful to the Chinese economy? Are you saying the sale of it can be a negotiation tool for a economic agreement between the US and China?
No, but it can be used as one of the conditions, as an incentive for China to take for maintaining a good business relations with the US.
For example, Trump can say, “look, you’ve banned Facebook from China before under national security reason (for refusing to share the Xinjiang terrorist information with Chinese government), and now Biden’s banned TikTok for the same reason. But I can offer you a deal: how about we turn TikTok into a joint venture to circumvent the ban in the US, and in turn, you lift the ban on Meta and let it participate in one of your AI development venture?”
I have no idea what Trump’s going to say but you can see how this is a standard business dealing that he’s used to.
Note that Trump’s trade war against China even back in 2018 always had equivalent retaliatory measures (such that they can eventually be negotiated and settled in a very business-like fashion), whereas Biden’s sanctions, tariffs and bans against China were imposed in such a way that provided no equal exchange in return.
Would the idea of forcing a joint venture even sound bad to a Chinese public? I mean, that's how the Chinese economy got off the ground in the first place in a way.
Israeli minister Ben-Gvir quits Netanyahu’s coalition over Gaza ceasefire
Israeli minister along with his entire party have resigned from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition over the Gaza ceasefire agreement.
Itamar Ben-Gvir and his “Jewish-power” party announced on Sunday that they are leaving the coalition “in light of the approval of the reckless agreement with the Hamas.”
The party called the ceasefire agreement a “capitulation to Hamas” and the renunciation of the Israeli regime’s so-called achievements since the start of the war.
Although Jewish power said it will not try to bring down Netanyahu’s cabinet, the departure of its ministers, especially Ben-Gvir, makes Netanyahu’s coalition >significantly weaker.
The party said it would be willing to return to Netanyahu’s coalition should the war eventually resume.
In a video posted to X, Ben-Gvir admitted that he and Bezalel Smotrich, another Israeli minister, used their political influence in order to prevent a ceasefire >agreement from moving forward.
“If this irresponsible agreement is approved and implemented, the Jewish power party will not be part of the government and will leave it,” he said.
Ben-Gvir also said humanitarian aid and fuel, electricity, and water must be “completely stopped” from entering the war-torn Palestinian enclave.
Ben-Gvir has been convicted of incitement to racism, destroying property, possessing a “terror” organization’s propaganda material, and supporting a terrorist >organization – the Israeli group Kahane Chai, which he joined when he was 16.
Israel was forced to accept a ceasefire deal with Hamas on Wednesday. The agreement has been set to take effect on Sunday 06:30 GMT.
Israel launched its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after Hamas-led resistance groups carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in >retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
Since October, the occupying regime has killed at least 46,788 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured nearly 110,450 others, in Gaza.
What a bunch of crybabies.
Itamar Ben-Gvir and his “Jewish-power” party
Huh what a funny name for a party 
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Arnaud bertrand continues to be a good follow on twitter
spoiler
The real important story that happened since the Cold War is perhaps best illustrated by this Margaret Thatcher anecdote: in 2002, she was asked for her greatest achievement. She replied: "Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds."
And guess what: she was right, that was indeed her greatest achievement.
That's what happened throughout the West: the ideological takeover of the "left" by "social democrats" who had no substantial difference to their opponents across the aisle. And in order to maintain the pretense that they were different, they decided to focus their platform on cultural and identity issues while abandoning any challenge to economic or imperial power - reducing civil rights struggles to convenient diversions from questions of class and systemic change. It's not the left that's unpopular, it's this sanitized ersatz of it. Voting essentially became a choice between the same product with different packaging, the illusion of choice.
Even more contemptible: candidates who emerged who were actually on the left, who wanted to drive actual substantial and meaningful change, were endlessly demonized with some of the most dishonest and disgusting tactics in politics. Jeremy Corbyn in the UK is a perfect example of this - smeared as a national security threat (and an antisemite) not just for his economic program but for questioning the wisdom of NATO expansion and opposing Western imperialism. In France we're currently seeing much the same playbook being applied on Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
This ties back to the concept of "extreme center" described by thinkers such as Tariq Ali, Pierre Serna or Alain Deneault. A radicalized form of liberalism that presents itself as moderate and reasonable while actually taking extremist positions in defense of the status quo - whether through unwavering support for imperial adventures abroad or the suppression of democratic alternatives at home. This centrism is 'extreme' in how viciously it reacts to any genuine left-wing challenge to the established order, whether through media smear campaigns, lawfare, or the cynical weaponization of identity politics to defend both domestic inequality and imperial power.
The irony and the situation we today find ourselves in is that this "extreme center," in its zealous defense of neoliberal orthodoxy and its refusal to address fundamental economic grievances, ended up creating the very conditions of social instability and political polarization it claims to stand against. And, ultimately, the conditions of its demise as we're currently seeing throughout the West.
The sad result though is that because the actual left has been so thoroughly demonized, legitimate popular anger and resentment largely get directed towards nihilistic movements that, far from solving our fundamental problems, channel these sentiments into scapegoating and division. These movements won't solve our fundamental problems - while they may break with certain aspects of neoliberal orthodoxy, they mostly offer the aesthetic of rebellion while dropping even the pretense of serving the common good.
That's where we are: the victory of the 'extreme center' over the left has proven to be simultaneously absolute and self-defeating. Thatcher's boast about Blair might have been premature - her true legacy may not just have been making the left compatible with neoliberal economics, but creating a world where our only choice is between the plague and cholera.
:::
Trump to unblock TikTok on inauguration day. "On Monday, I will issue an executive order extending the period before the law's restrictions go into effect so we can make a deal to protect our national security," he wrote on social media.
Trump added that the US should have a 50 percent stake in TikTok. "My initial idea is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners, in which the United States would have a 50% ownership interest in the joint venture," the president wrote.
Supporters of South Korean President Yoon Seok-yul, who is accused of attempting to violently seize power, have caused a disturbance in the court that decided to remand the president in custody, the Yonhap news agency reported.
According to the agency, the angry crowd overcame police resistance and broke into the courthouse through the gate behind the building, and some of the president's supporters climbed over the fence. They began smashing windows and managed to get inside the building, where they also smashed glass and furniture with fire extinguishers and other improvised means, shouting "President Yoon Seok-yeol." Some also tried to find the judges who ordered his detention, threw plastic chairs at police officers, took away their shields and rubber batons and used them against the police themselves.
Other supporters of Yun Seok-yol tried to calm their comrades, convincing them that this was "not what the president wanted." The law enforcement reinforcements that soon arrived began arresting individual rioters, calling on those remaining in the building to leave immediately, and on everyone who was in court to disperse, ending the uncoordinated rally and other illegal actions.
The police in South Korea apparently only know how to beat up students and trade unionists; when it comes to incels and chuds, they always act as if they are defenseless against them.
only know how to beat up students and trade unionists; when it comes to incels and chuds, they always act as if they are defenseless against them.
It's hard hurting the people you agree with.
Has the Chinese TikTok always been available to burger brains? Because it is right now
Of course, what do you think overseas Chinese use when they live in America?
I did read news to the effect that you can now easily create douyin accounts using US phone numbers and such. That's an innovation I think.
I think this was just a rumor. ByteDance already denied it.
You can register with US phone number, but it requires a verification step to prove your identity. So far, Douyin does not allow any kind of US identity verification yet.
Disclaimer: I don’t use any of these apps. I just read it on the web.
A vpn?
You can register with any phone number but if not a Chinese number (+86) you need verification (identity card, passport etc.) VPN cannot really help here.
I don't think so
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For me the main benefit of this "cultural exchange" isn't Americans learning that China isn't 1984
The benefit is Chinese citizens learning there is no greener grass on the other side, there's no western salvation, no capitalist led utopia across the pacific.
Honestly, the fact so many Chinese citizens didn't believe a basic fact like American ambulance fees, reveals a serious failure of the Communist Party to inform its populace about basic realities of the world, that goes beyond a simple propaganda failure and right into dangerous 1980s Soviet-style delusions about the western world, which is fertile soil for counter-revoulationary forces
Citizens of the USSR said the same thing about issues like homelessness in the US. AES countries are just awful at getting their message across.
I’m a little concerned that China will allow meta and google back in, allowing for more US propaganda to fill the country and the brainworms that come with it. Also concerned that they’ll be doing the same with apps like rednote as Americans go in there to spread propaganda.
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To be fair, if you're used to living under a government that took care of you, there's a certain level of evil that is very difficult to imagine for the average person. I think a lot of this has to do with projection.
Also, how are US ambulance fees even remotely relevant to a Chinese person's life? Like imagine you're some random middle-aged dude living in Xinjiang. What occupies your mind might probably be the US propaganda on the region's cotton. That is relevant anti-US news for you, where does the state of US healthcare even factor into any part of your thinking?
IMO it's not so much a failure of messaging as it is just people not having a reason to care in the first place.
The people who even give a shit about US healthcare past random curiosity on a good day are those actively looking to improve the healthcare system or liberals trying to shill for uncle Sam. If in the former, they already know what US healthcare is like and naturally dismiss it and if in the latter, they also know but just don't care and prefer to lie about it.
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After all the death and suffering....the entity still exists. What was gained?
So the first and second intifadas gained nothing because the entity still exists? Did you honestly think that 10/7 was going to end the Israeli state?
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Destruction of the entity was never even close to being a possibility, to think otherwise is to engage in utopianism.
There were goals that Hamas stated they had (release of prisoners, disturbing normalization talk) and other accomplishments that were achieved (exposing the entity’s military as a bit of a paper tiger, setting up the entity as an international pariah state, et al), albeit at a tremendous cost.
The act of settler colonialism is itself extreme violence, and so far the practical reality is that colonial projects don’t just roll over. They engage in even more extreme violence on the way out.
Freedom cost Vietnam millions of lives and took over 30 years. This is a first step in a sadly long process.
Destruction of the entity was never even close to being a possibility, to think otherwise is to engage in utopianism.
This is untrue; Hezbollah alone still has the capability to end Israel's ability to function as a state, let alone Iran. Israel could, at any point in the last year, had a few thousand missiles fired at them every day for a couple months; orders of magnitude beyond their ability to intercept. Their decision (particularly Hezbollah's) not to escalate to that level will be discussed here and elsewhere for years to come, and we'll likely get dripfed information on that over time.
It obviously wasn't cowardice - you don't join or become part of Hezbollah's higher-ups by being a coward - and Hezbollah had increasingly less to lose as Lebanon was increasingly bombed, so I'm curious to know the reasons why. Perhaps Hezbollah's leadership was told that escalation to this level would have resulted in all of Lebanon and Gaza being nuked, with millions of deaths resulting. Perhaps it had something to do with Iran, or Assad.
I find it hard to believe that a bunch of missiles would destroy the state of israel. After a few days they would nuke beirut and the genocide would go back to business as usual. Hezbollah clearly had a red line at a certain level of Lebanese civilian casualties that kept their operations permanently limited. Iran is a greater question, and why they missed this opportunity is a mystery
It was not a "bunch of missiles"; Hezbollah has over a hundred thousand of them. And not Hamas' fertilizer rockets, actual entire-houses-collapse explosives. Hezbollah hitting an electrical substation near the West Bank was the threat of how "a bunch of missiles would destroy the state of Israel"; with electricity off, waterports hit by barrages, airports only occasionally functioning, and water desalination disabled, Israel's population would be reduced - either via emigration or starvation - quite quickly, and life would become difficult to impossible. The economy would certainly be in total collapse. Populations without electricity in a desert-like environment are quite vulnerable, especially ones that are used to high levels of technology (which is why Lebanon is more durable in the face of bombing raids) and frequently ignore indigenous advice that has kept those environments livable for millennia. Israel has a LOT to lose that its surrounding countries do not, which makes it vulnerable.
My biggest question for this entire conflict is why Hezbollah did not use them once the bombings throughout Lebanon were frequent and intense, and I'm 100% sure it was not cowardice, so hopefully we eventually get the answer. I'm not blaming them for anything, I'm sure their reason was very just and reasonable, I'm just curious as it'll help inform me better about the limiting factors on the Resistance and thus make better predictions. There's all sorts of very good possible reasons we can all think of and speculate on as I did above, but I am curious about the actual reasons.
What I'm most afraid of is that it was a "deal" like that Iran made with Israel to delay the response to Haniyeh's assassination, as it would indicate that Hezbollah's leadership, including Nasrallah, were still under the illusion -somehow - that Israel was deal-capable; just like Iran's civilian leadership is/was. And if that's the case - that even your greatest enemies can be convinced to make deals with you because they actually think you'll hold up your end, even if you think to yourself "Hahaha, this deal may benefit them in the short term but us in the long term, so long as they keep their word!" - then Western imperialism is gonna be a bit of a tougher nut to crack than I hoped. But my hunch was that it was some explicit nuclear threat or something similarly apocalyptic.
This is untrue; Hezbollah alone still has the capability to end Israel's ability to function as a state, let alone Iran. Israel could, at any point in the last year, had a few thousand missiles fired at them every day for a couple months; orders of magnitude beyond their ability to intercept. Their decision (particularly Hezbollah's) not to escalate to that level will be discussed here and elsewhere for years to come, and we'll likely get dripfed information on that over time
In a real all out war, the enemy, in the US and Israel, is not going to tolerate hundreds of missiles being fired at them a day without a response. And the problem with Iranian long range missiles was their accuracy under warfare conditions, evident in post hoc analysis on the strike on Nevatim Airbase. 30 to 40 direct hits on the base, but only one F-35 hangar hit out of 20 total, and one to two large aircraft hangars hit. The accuracy for counterforce targeting is just not there, the missiles have little effect on military bases, which are quite hard targets. So then the missiles can only be used on large soft targets effectively, but these are at levels of escalation Iran was uncomfortable with hitting. This is what I suspect after reading independent analysis, western analysts, and some dripfed information. An alleged leaked voice recording of IRGC General Behrouz Esbati, in regards to this topic said:
- Washington is capable of striking our positions and those of the Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq.
- Our conventional missiles have little impact on American military bases.
- If we attack their military bases, the U.S. will retaliate by targeting dozens of our sites.
- The Islamic Republic has avenged the killing of Hassan Nasrallah.
- Escalating the war in the region does not benefit the Axis of Resistance.
So that is the general idea, Iranian missiles have little impact on military bases, and any resulting retaliation would not be worth it, and a regional war is not in Iran's interest.
Analysis regarding accuracy from the satellite imagery stated similar, if you're looking at the probably of a single specific Iranian missile hitting a single specific hardened aircraft shelter (single shot probability of kill), even under the best case scenario, it's a 0.03% probability. Again, this is the chance one single missile will score a hit against a single specific hardened aircraft shelter. We see better performance at Nevatim, but that’s because Nevatim has many hardened aircraft shelters distributed over a wide area. Once you account for the chance that at least one/any of the missiles fired will strike at least one/any target, your hit chances for hitting at least one target get much better. But the conclusion is simple, you cannot get results from the imagery available that suggest Iranian long range missiles are capable of economic counterforce targeting. IRGC generals would've come to this conclusion upon viewing their own satellite imagery and data. Short range missiles with electro optical sensors that were used against a US military base in 2020 could have counterforce potential, but that means only baes within a 300-500km radius from Iranian launch sites are vulnerable, and the kill chain becomes more complex. And Iran don't have tens of thousands of these missiles. The backbone of Iranian deterrence are longer range liquid fueled missiles, not short range tactical missiles.
What I'm most afraid of is that it was a "deal" like that Iran made with Israel to delay the response to Haniyeh's assassination, as it would indicate that Hezbollah's leadership, including Nasrallah, were still under the illusion -somehow - that Israel was deal-capable; just like Iran's civilian leadership is/was.
I read an interesting piece on strategic front about deception, and how Hamas and Sinwar were able to deceive Israel prior to October 7, and how Hezbollah were deceived by Israel in the lead up to the ceasefire negotiations, not using their full capabilities, a paralysis of the leadership. I'll post it soon, along with the rest of the sources I've read.
That ending question and all the remaining "perhaps" is why I have my perspective. I believe they understood the costs of escalating and chose not to. I am also open to being wrong, but for now that appears to be the limiting factor in the equation. It seems so easy "overwhelming force = infrastructure collapse = death to israel," so the most obvious explanation to me to withhold that force would be the cost of retaliation. You're right, it is just guesswork right now and I hope we get answers eventually.
The Iran question is scary, hopefully you're incorrect, but it's certainly plausible.
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Until 2023, the entity could still get up in front of the UN and claim “we just want peace… we’re just trying to work out the details.” Especially with the ICC warrants for war crimes, bombing whole neighborhoods in a sovereign nation, and the expansion into Syria, this has been laid out as a boldfaced lie.
idk if anyone's kept a consistent cross-theatre tally but a lot of armored vehicles, tens of thousands of casualties--not deaths per se, but their conscription and hospital expansions revealed shortages of able-bodied troops. ammo/missiles were readily replaced by the US but the US cannot materialize new fascist foot soldiers for them or give them 100 merkavas
