Sparky wrote:.
Iran is a one trick pony. Oil provides Iran's government with 2/3 of it's income, and 4/5 of it's foreign currency earnings.
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While vessels can use Omani waters to sail when in the east of the strait, some 92 kilometers westward and into the Persian Gulf, shipping lanes run directly through Iranian territorial waters off the Iranian islands of the Greater Tunb, the Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa.
Moreover, the only access route for larger ships including aircraft carriers is passing between the Tunb islands and Abu Musa.
Under the very international law Britain misuses as reference, the waters inside a roughly 22 kilometer limit from a country's coastline are considered an extension of that nation and its territory.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) rules that if there are islands lying off a nation's coast then the 22 kilometers extend “from the outermost island” - in this case Abu Musa.
To put it in a nutshell, as Abu Musa is located deep into the Persian Gulf, Iranian territorial waters extend to 40 kilometers off the United Arab Emirates, effectively covering the entire sailable area to the west of the Strait of Hormuz.
Therefore all ships crossing the strategic waterway can only use the right of “innocent passage” to pass Iranian waters in the strait, a right that means they can pass as long as they do not pose a threat to the coastal state or cause aggravation with warships specifically required to minimize their military profile to gain a passage permit.
British officials seem to have turned a blind eye to the whole bulk of the presented details, which are widely available on the web, to surprisingly claim they have a right to enter Iranian waters without Tehran's consent.
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Three more articles repeating Debka nonsense verbatim maketh not news.AzariLoveIran wrote:Sparky wrote:.
Debkafiles ?
Iran is a one trick pony. Oil provides Iran's government with 2/3 of it's income, and 4/5 of it's foreign currency earnings.
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I thought you into Debkafiles, sorry
otherwise, Sparky, a simple Google search would give you 20 other sources confirming this
Free Republic .. Forex Report .. Business Insider
and
No
Iran no "one trick pony" .. Iran big copper exporter, Petro-chemical, agri export and and and
as said, less than 25% of Iranian GDP comes from Oil .. and , probably 50% of foreign currency earnings.
But
good news is all those not stolen from other nations, like the parasite Brits living from milking Arab cronies.
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Look back last 33 yrs .. where was and where is Iran now .. and .. where was and where is West nowSparky wrote:.
Watch and see. Iran will do little more than bleat and rage on the beach as tankers waft effortlessly back and forth through the strait, plying their trade, as American warships enter and leave the gulf with impunity.
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Sparky wrote:.
Three more articles repeating Debka nonsense verbatim maketh not news.
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Even undeclared war makes strange bedfellows, and none more so than the former politicians, generals and spooks on the panel at a conference in Paris on Friday evening and their hosts, the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran.
¶In its checkered history, the P.M.O.I. has been accused of murdering American servicemen, was involved in not one but two invasions of the U.S. embassy in Tehran during the Iranian revolution, and allied itself with the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
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AzariLoveIran wrote:Look back last 33 yrs .. where was and where is Iran now .. and .. where was and where is West nowSparky wrote:.
Watch and see. Iran will do little more than bleat and rage on the beach as tankers waft effortlessly back and forth through the strait, plying their trade, as American warships enter and leave the gulf with impunity.
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and
What Iran will and will not do you will know down the road
Iran not into winning battles .. Iran into winning the war
and
watch in Libya and Egypt and Yemen and Bahrain .. and .. hopefully .. in Arabia
Can I haz an impotent bluster naow?
AzariLoveIran wrote: BTW , Iran could (probably will) send a Submarine (with all kinds of missiles and warheads) parked just outside British territorial waters .. and see how you react
Oh could it now? All kinds, eh? Wow! Now that's comedy. Perhaps if they dismantled one, loaded the crates onto a container ship and sailed that there.
No, it's done - or rather there's nothing that can be - or will be - done by Iran, save make noise and show away.AzariLoveIran wrote: UK warns of more firepower in Hormuz
Brits would be easier to take care off .. America has to portray power, not so the Brits .. 2B seen whether teaching a 2nd lesson to Brits would push America to start swingin .. I doubt
Stay tuned , this not done yet
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Well, Sparky.
Such bluster is not all talk. The US may outspend the Islamic Republic nearly 90-to-1 on defense. But Iran, heir to ancient Persia's naval innovation, has a well-honed asymmetric strategy designed to reverse that advantage.
A 2002 US military exercise simulating such a conflict proved devastating to American warships.
Indeed, Iran can cause immense harm, analysts say, without ever directly facing off against far superior conventional US forces. Even a few incidents – like mines laid in the Gulf, or Iran's small-boat swarming tactics against oil tankers or a US Navy ship – could raise fears of insecurity to unacceptably high levels.
It could also have far-reaching economic consequences, including a spike in oil prices, since roughly a third of all seaborne oil shipments pass through the Strait of Hormuz – making it the single most important choke point for oil tankers in the world.
"[Iran's] final aim is not to physically close [the strait] for too long, but to drive up shipping insurance and other costs to astronomical heights – which is just as good, in terms of economic damage, as the physical closing of the strait," says a former senior European diplomat who recently finished a six-year tour in Tehran.
"If you are not sure whether you will get hit, or if you get hit not by conventional force but some wild boat that might float around in the sea – or a mine or two – that will create far more insecurity than a battle line where the strait is closed," he says.
And Iranian harassing tactics are just the start, he adds. Other layers include artillery and rockets stationed at the Strait of Hormuz, Kilo submarines, and mini-submarines from which divers can be sent out to damage ships.
Many options short of full-blown war
Iran's conventional military forces are often aging and of limited capability. Iran spent just $7 billion on defense compared to America's $619 billion defense budget in 2008, the latest year for which Iran's data was available, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's database.
Iran's strategy of asymmetric warfare recognizes that, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has little chance of winning any face-to-face military contest with powerful enemies like the United States.
Instead, Iran aims to "exploit enemy vulnerabilities through the used of 'swarming' tactics by well-armed small boats and fast-attack craft, to mount surprise attacks at unexpected times and places" which will "ultimately destroy technologically superior enemy forces," writes Iranian military expert Fariborz Haghshenass in a 2008 study based on published doctrines of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
In any future fight, Iran would likely "avoid escalating the conflict in a way that would play to US strengths in waging mid- to high-intensity warfare – by employing discreet tactics such as covert mine-laying, limited submarine options, and occasional mobile shore-based attacks," writes Mr. Haghshenass, in the study for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
In fact, Iran has many options short of a direct challenge in the Persian Gulf.
"Iran could seek to create perpetual, low-grade instability in the strait, mostly through asymmetric means, with the objective of making it an aquatic 'no-man's land,' " says Reza Sanati, in an analysis published by the Tehran Bureau/PBS Frontline website. "For Iran, the choice is not 'to close' or 'not to close,' but rather to clog. A major global choke point, once considered safe, would no longer be so."
The US "would be drawn into providing the manpower and bearing the exorbitant cost for removing the impediments," adds Mr. Sanati, while the risk of inadvertently sparking a war would "vastly multiply."
Devastating result for US in war game
Iran's asymmetric focus is no secret. It has sought to enhance deterrence by claiming repeated triumphs during large military exercises, and by fielding new hardware, from super-fast torpedoes and to kamikaze drones.
During the "Great Prophet V" exercise in April 2010, for example, the IRGC Navy trumpeted the launch of a new "ultra-fast" watercraft that it claimed was less detectable by radar. Across the shimmering Gulf waters, Iran fielded 300 boats in a swarming attack, with commandos landing on one of the target warships.
"The Strait of Hormuz belongs to the region and foreigners must not intervene in it," military spokesman Ali Reza Tangsiri said at the time.
That warning echoed the words of a ranking Iranian cleric in 2008 that the "first shot" fired against Iran would turn the Israeli capital Tel Aviv and the US fleet in the Persian Gulf into "the targets that would be set on fire in Iran's crushing response."
More than a decade earlier, in 1997, then-IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaei said "Iran will never start any war," but if the US attacked first "we will turn the region into a slaughterhouse for them. There is no greater place than the Persian Gulf to destroy America's might."
Could Iran do it ?
It would seem so, in light of a $250 million classified US war game called Millennium Challenge 2002. The gaming scenario hypothetically pitted the Blue Team (representing US warships) against a Red Team that launched a coordinated assault using swarming boats and missiles – the kind of tactics Iran might employ.
In the game, 16 American ships, including an aircraft carrier and most of its strike group, were sunk before the exercise was suspended and the parameters controversially changed to ensure a US victory.
The Red Team commander, Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper, told the New York Times in 2008, "The sheer numbers involved overloaded their ability, both mentally and electronically, to handle the attack.” He said he had been inspired by Marine Corps studies of the natural world, where everything from ant colonies to wolf packs took on larger prey.
"It is not a matter of size or of individual capability, but whether you have the numbers to come from multiple directions in a short period of time," said Van Riper.
Since then, American naval strategists have worked to overcome the vulnerabilities of conventional warships to swarm tactics. One solution has been a US Navy project to build a “littoral combat ship” (LCS), designed to operate at high speeds and close-to-shore, with shallow draft and capable of launching helicopters, assault boats and submarines. Only two have been built, the project plagued by delays and cost overruns.
The LCS fits Iran's coastal waters and its methods, and is designed "to counter growing potential 'asymmetric' threat of coastal mines, quiet diesel submarines, and the potential to carry explosives and terrorists on small, fast, armed boats," according to the website http://www.naval-technology.com.
Iranian units given great independence
Iran also appears to have learned from the 2002 US exercise, just as it learned from a 1988 incident during the Tanker War in the Persian Gulf, when US forces sunk or damaged three Iranian warships in a single day, to retaliate for an American ship hitting a mine.
Part of Iran's strategy includes decentralized decisionmaking.
"The entire [IRGC] structure – if you look at how air defense is organized, the land forces, the combination of the Basij [militia] and the [IRGC] – this is all geared toward what they call the Mosaic Strategy, where you have individual military units who have a great deal of independence to decide what they can do without referring back to the center," says the former European diplomat.
Haghshenass explains one way this could play out in the Gulf.
"In the naval arena, speedboats will be taken out of camouflaged coastal or inland hide sites and bunkers, hauled on trailers to coastal release points, and given mission-type orders that will not require them to remain in contact with their chain of command," he writes.
But Iran's retaliation would not likely be limited to the strait.
"This is only one aspect of their deterrent strategy. Threats about Iraq and Afghanistan ... there is Hezbollah and Hamas they could activate," says the diplomat, referring to the militant groups active on Israel's borders. "There is a whole array of deterrent strategies they have put into place, and the Strait of Hormuz is just one aspect. [T]hey have made it very clear the last few years that they have this whole portfolio, and will use it all in case of a military attack."
Labyrinth of ports and 'spiritual' superiority
Historically, the fleets of ancient Persia sailed far afield, and in the Mediterranean used "spy ships, disguised as foreign merchantmen and small warships for clandestine operations," notes Haghshenass's analysis. Ancient Pomegranates, during the reign of Xerxes, "invented the concept of naval infantry."
The geography of Iran's southern coastline hasn't changed, and with 10 large ports and 60 small ones – and an endless labyrinth of fishing villages, inlets, and coves – it is ideal for staging the kind of hit-and-run and stealth operations envisioned by the Iranian strategy.
With a daily transit rate of 3,000 boats and ships in the strait, US forces could have trouble differentiating friend from foe, providing Iran with an upper hand.
And Iranian commanders believe they have another advantage, if the rhetoric about the Strait of Hormuz ever turns into a real conflict.
"The IRGC places religious belief at the core of the Iranian concept of asymmetric warfare," writes Haghshenass. "In Iran's concept of asymmetric warfare, the ideological or 'spiritual' superiority of the community of believers is considered as important as any other factor."
That means, he adds, that Iran's Revolutionary Guard believes that "its chain of command extends through Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to God, thereby investing military orders with transcendent moral authority ... "
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WASHINGTON - Like the imminent prospect of one's hanging, to paraphrase the 18th century British essayist Dr (Samuel) Johnson, the suddenly looming possibility of war can concentrate the mind wonderfully.
If that aphorism didn't apply in the run-up to the United States invasion of Iraq nearly 10 years ago, it appears to be the case now for key sectors of the US foreign-policy elite - notably, liberal hawks who supported the Iraq war - with regard to the sharp rise in tensions between Iran and both the US and Israel earlier this month.
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The Israelis, he reportedly said, "aren't going to [attack Iran]. They can't do it, it's beyond their capacity. They only have the ability to make this [problem of Iran's nuclear program] worse."
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Yes, but with a little but: if the US drops the idea of ground troops, of regime change, don't bother about the consequence for ordinary Iranians, the price of oil, temporary blockages of the strait of Hormuz, of anything else other than just weaken somebody you decided is a big threat... then the USA biggest muscle will suffice: air power. Of course the enemy will recover and hate you even more.. but then there will just be a next round of what the USA might by then cynically call seasonal weeding by air. That could at least be the military-political sales pitch used for this war... It will go Air Max.Typhoon wrote:Fred | Advice to a generic POTUS candidate
Nonc Hilaire wrote:Moderator: Request moving "Air on the G-string" to the nudity thread
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The State Department drones, by contrast, carry no weapons and are meant to provide data and images of possible hazards, like public protests or roadblocks, to security forces on the ground, American officials said. They are much smaller than armed drones, with wingspans as short as 18 inches, compared with 55 feet for the Predators.
The State Department has about two dozen drones in Iraq, but many are used only for spare parts, the officials said.
The United States Embassy in Baghdad referred all questions about the drones to the State Department in Washington.
The State Department confirmed the existence of the program, calling the devices unmanned aerial vehicles, but it declined to provide details. “The department does have a U.A.V. program,” it said in a statement. “The U.A.V.’s being utilized by the State Department are not armed, nor are they capable of being armed.”
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Do Israeli Leaders Really Think Iran Is an Existential Threat ?
By Robert Wright
This Sunday's New York Times Magazine will feature a big piece, already available online, by the Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman called "Will Israel Attack Iran?" The first paragraph sets a dramatic scene featuring Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak. As Sabbath eve approached two weeks ago, and Barak "gazed out at the lights of Tel Aviv," he said to Bergman, "This is not about some abstract concept, but a genuine concern. The Iranians are, after all, a nation whose leaders have set themselves a strategic goal of wiping Israel off the map."
Actually, the Iranians aren't a nation whose leaders have set themselves that "strategic goal." They are a nation with a crackpot president who (a) isn't the country's supreme leader and doesn't have the power to order an attack on Israel; (b) did say "the occupying regime must be wiped off the map" (or "vanish from the page of time"--the translation is disputed); but (c) later said he was referring to eliminating the Zionist form of government, not the people living under it; and (d) said the way to achieve this was to give Palestinians the vote--and that if they opted for a two-state solution rather than a single non-Zionist state, that would be fine, too; (e) also said that Iran would never initiate military hostilities with Israel.
In sum, whatever you think about President Ahmadinejad (and I think he's pretty horrible), or about what he said or about the sincerity of his subsequent qualifications of what he said, for Barak to say Iran's "strategic goal" is Israel's annihilation is a bit misleading.
But let's leave aside the facts of the case. Could Barak really think that, even if Iranian leaders had said they would launch a first strike, they'd actually do such a thing? To believe that, you would have to believe that the Iranian regime is literally suicidal, since Israel's nuclear retaliatory capacity is very robust (not to mention the fact that the event wouldn't exactly go unnoticed by America). Does Barak really believe the Iranian leadership is crazy?
Here's something he said in 2010 that didn't make it into the Times Magazine piece: "I don't think the Iranians, even if they got the bomb, (would) drop it in the neighborhood. They fully understand what might follow. They are radical but not totally crazy. They have a quite sophisticated decision-making process, and they understand reality."
It's enough to make you think that maybe as Barak "gazed out at the lights of Tel Aviv" he was thinking to himself, "Hmmm, this guy says he's writing a story for a major American media outlet. Maybe if I sound sufficiently terrified, he'll report that Israel is determined to launch a military strike before too long, thus scaring America into either ratcheting up sanctions to even higher levels or going ahead and bombing Iran."
Of course, maybe Barak didn't think that. But if he did, then Ronen Bergman has made him a very happy man. The piece's final paragraph begins, "After speaking with many senior Israeli leaders and chiefs of the military and the intelligence, I have come to believe that Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012. Perhaps in the small and ever-diminishing window that is left, the United States will choose to intervene after all..."
Barak isn't as alarmist as some. He concedes in the Times Magazine piece that "Iran has other reasons for developing nuclear bombs, apart from its desire to destroy Israel." For example: "An Iranian bomb would ensure the survival of the current regime, which otherwise would not make it to its 40th anniversary in light of the admiration that the young generation in Iran has displayed for the West." Got that? Two of the reasons the Iranian regime wants the bomb are (1) to launch an attack that would be literally suicidal; and (2) to ensure its survival. (No wonder Israelis think the Iranians are crazy!)
Notwithstanding my doubts about Barak's agenda, Bergman's piece is well worth reading--richer and more nuanced than my selective summary might suggest. Meanwhile, if you want another view of what Israeli government officials are thinking, Trita Parsi, who just published a book called A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy with Iran, has this appraisal:
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Sparky wrote:.
Watch and see. Iran will do little more than bleat and rage on the beach as tankers waft effortlessly back and forth through the strait, plying their trade, as American warships enter and leave the gulf with impunity.
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. . according to a recent report issued by an independent, non-profit public policy research institute in Washington DC. The report found that the traditional post-Cold War US military ability to project power overseas with few serious challenges to its freedom of action may be rapidly drawing to a close.
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The report, "Outside-In: Operating from Range to Defeat Iran's Anti-Access and Area-Denial Threats" [1] notes that Iran has been preparing for a possible military confrontation with the United States for decades. Instead of engaging in a direct military competition, which would be pitting its weaknesses against US strengths, Iran has developed an asymmetric "hybrid" A2/AD strategy that mixes advanced technology with guerilla tactics to deny US forces basing access and maritime freedom of maneuver.
Even if Iran did not disrupt Gulf maritime traffic for long, it could still have a devastating impact. A recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) found that Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz would "neutralize a large part of current OPEC [Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries] spare capacity," saying "alternative routes exist, but only for a tiny fraction of the amounts shipped through the strait, and they may take some time to operationalize while transportation costs would rise significantly."
"A blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would constitute, and be perceived by markets to presage, sharply heightened global geopolitical tension involving a much larger and unprecedented disruption," it said.
The IMF said that "supply disruption would likely have a large effect on prices, not only reflecting relatively insensitive supply and demand in the short run but also the current state of oil market buffers".
"A halt of Iran's exports to OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] economies without offset from other sources would likely trigger an initial oil price increase of around 20-30% (about US$20-30 a barrel currently), with other producers or emergency stock releases likely providing some offset over time," the report showed.
It stressed that "a Strait of Hormuz closure could trigger a much larger price spike, including by limiting offsetting supplies from other producers in the region".
"If you could cut off oil flow for even several weeks the global economy would be in depression. That would be a serious price to pay; it is a sobering thought," according to Patrick Cronin, a senior advisor at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington DC think-tank.
Attacking ships is not the only option available to Iran to disrupt oil supplies, according to Cronin. In a phone interview with Asia Times Online he said, "Forget about shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, you could hit the oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia; that would have enormous impact."
Cronin, who was involved in the reflagging of oil tankers during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, agrees that the Iranian ability to disrupt maritime traffic is real. "Iran is acquiring greater capabilities and has geographical advantages. Even back in the 1980s, we were very worried."
Currently, aside from military factors, Iran can take advantage of a number of political and demographic realities.
For example, the populations, governments and much of the wealth of the region are concentrated in a handful of urban areas within range of Iran's ballistic missiles. While attacks against Gulf cities may have little direct military utility, their psychological and political impact on regional governments could be significant, especially if Iran demonstrated the capacity to arm its missiles with chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear warheads.
And, as most analysts recognize, Iran could also mobilize its network of predominately Shi'ite proxy groups located across Southwest Asia to conduct acts of terrorism and foment insurrection in states that remain aligned with the United States.
Iran's proxies could become far more dangerous should Iran arm them with guided rockets, artillery, mortars and missiles (G-RAMM). Other groups, like the Lebanese Hezbollah, could conduct a terrorism campaign designed to broaden the crisis and hold US rear areas - even the US homeland - at risk.
And while that indirect approach may not succeed, Iran could use its ballistic missiles and proxy forces to attack US bases and forces in the Persian Gulf directly.
Iran's hybrid strategy would continue at sea, where its naval forces would engage in swarming "hit-and-run" attacks using sophisticated guided munitions in the confined and crowded waters of the Strait of Hormuz and possibly out into the Gulf of Oman. Iran could coordinate these attacks with salvos of anti-ship cruise missiles and swarms of unmanned aircraft launched either from the Iranian shore or from the islands guarding the entrance to the Persian Gulf.
That last scenario is hardly theoretical. Lieutenant General Paul K Van Riper (US Marine Corps-retired) gained notoriety after the Millennium Challenge 2002 wargame, which was a major exercise conducted by the US armed forces in mid-2002, likely the largest such exercise in history.
It cost $250 million and involved both live exercises and computer simulations. The simulated combatants were the US, referred to as "Blue", and an unknown adversary in the Middle East, "Red", commanded by Lieutenant General Van Riper.
Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a pre-emptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed 16 warships.
This included one aircraft carrier, 10 cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.
In the years since then, Iran has been investing in the capabilities necessary to carry out Van Riper's strategy. Looking at its maritime forces, in mid-2001 Iran launched the first of a new type of locally built craft equipped with rocket launchers.
In July 2002, a conventional arms sale triggered sanctions on several Chinese companies. Beijing had transferred high-speed catamaran missile patrol boats to Iran. The C-14 boats are outfitted with anti-ship cruise missiles. Short-range anti-ship missiles for the patrol boats also were sold from China to Iran in January 2002. The high-speed gunboat can carry up to eight C-701 anti-ship cruise missiles, and usually have one gun.
Between 2003 and 2005, authorities in the Iranian navy continued to talk about their pushes for greater self-sufficiency, including the continued development of domestically produced missile boats and frigates, as well as new details about submarine projects.
In 2006 and 2007, the Iranian navy accepted new missile boats and a frigate, as well as two types of submarines. The Sina class missile boats, introduced in 2006, were essentially Iranian copies of Kaman missile boats already in service. Also in 2006, the Iranians deployed the first of the Nahang class of midget submarines, described as the first Iranian submarine designed and produced without foreign assistance.
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. . analysts confirm some of CSBA's report's main points. In December, Anthony Cordesman, a well-respected expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, wrote:
Iran is reshaping its military forces to steadily increase the threat to Gulf shipping and shipping in the Gulf of Oman, It also is gradually increasing its ability to operate in the Indian Ocean.
This increase in Iranian capability is almost certainly not designed to take the form of a major war with the US and southern Gulf states, which could result from any Iranian effort to truly close the Gulf. It does, however, give Iran the ability to carry out a wide range of much lower level attacks which could sharply raise the risk to Gulf shipping, and either reduce tanker traffic and shipping or sharply raise the insurance cost of such ship movements and put a different kind of pressure on the other Gulf states and world oil prices.
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US forces in the region are supported by bases that are in close proximity to Iran. In addition to the port facilities in Manama, US Navy ships frequent ports at Jebel Ali near Dubai in the UAE.
Central Command air forces operate from a number of locations in the region, including al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, and al-Dhafra Air Base in the UAE. Al Udeid hosts the USCENTAF (US Air Forces Central Command) CAOC (Combined Air Operations Center), a critical command and control node for US air and space operations throughout Central Command. These and other US forward operating locations are well within the reach of numerous strike systems, including short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, that could be launched from Iran's coastal areas.
Proxy groups also could have a major impact on US forces and forward operating locations. Using commercially obtained overhead imagery, unconventional forces could fix the coordinates of Persian Gulf port facilities, airfields and fuel depots for guided mortar and rocket attacks.
Unconventional forces could also use advanced man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), such as the Russian-made SA-24 to attack US aircraft transiting supposedly "friendly" airspace, and use ASCMs, antiship mines, or maritime improvised explosive devices against ships in the Suez Canal, Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf sea ports of debarkation (SPODs).
Iran would also have benefit from being able to exploit its interior lines of operation to deploy and frequently move its mobile ballistic missiles batteries to complicate US counter-strikes, as well as create a distributed resupply network that would be resistant to attack.
While Iran's ballistic missiles are not without limitations, such as limited accuracy for some of them and lack of launchers, the report finds that they give it a strike capability that would be difficult and expensive for US forces to counter. Over the course of the next 20 years, it is possible that Iran will make progress toward addressing these shortfalls.
According to Cronin, "Iran has levers here and their anti-access and area denial capabilities are proven. We would have a difficult time."
The report notes that more than 70% of the US Air Force's budget for new aircraft over the next decade - including a new bomber - will go toward just two programs, the F-35A and a replacement aerial refueling tanker. Such systems will lead to a fighter force that, when airborne, is more survivable in non-permissive areas. But this force will still be highly dependent on close-in bases or aircraft carriers, as well as aerial refueling.
The problem for US forces is that any conflict in the Gulf is going to be extremely non-permissive. The environment will be filled with guided ballistic and cruise missiles, maritime swarming tactics, proxy forces equipped with G-RAMM, and the threat of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) attacks.
The fact that other countries are deploying anti-access capabilities is not news to the Pentagon. This month, it released a Joint Operational Access Concept report and noted many of the same anti-access/area-denial capabilities mentioned in the CSBA report.
According to the CSBA report, if the US military is to successfully sustain access to the Persian Gulf against a determined effort by Iran to shut if off, it would need more than weapons. It would also need a new operational concept "that reduces its emphasis on capabilities that are over-optimized for permissive threat environments in order to prioritize capabilities needed for a range of operations in environments that will be increasingly non-permissive in nature" that it currently does not have.
Achieving this within an increasingly constrained budget would require defense planners to make difficult decisions; "the United States cannot meet the challenges that Iran could pose to its vital interests in the Gulf by simply spending more and adding new capabilities and capacity," according to the report.
more @ the link
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Sparky wrote:.
And yet they continue to nothing other than bluster, as predicted - and will continue to do nothing, for doing anything means suicide, both militarily and financially. A busted flush. A paper cylinder.
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So all this blather and nonsense is just that - blather and nonsense, from a bunch of paranoid, impotent rage-queens. In the mean time, enjoy the sanctions, Hooshang.Sparky wrote:.
In other words, you'll do nothing - as predicted
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After spending 4 months a year for the last 30 years living out of a suitcase, Rick Steves reflects on the value of thoughtful travel. Sharing lessons learned from Iran to El Salvador and from India to Denmark, Steves tells why spending all that time and money away from home has broadened his perspective, enriched his life, and made it clear to him, as he says in his talk, "Fear is for people who don't get out very much."
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
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AzariLoveIran wrote:Sparky wrote:.
In other words, you'll do nothing - as predicted
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Seems Sparky might be a disgruntled Iranian probably People's Mujadehim POS disguised here as Sparky
Well
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Oh, sure, they will. Sure. Enjoy! It'll give you all something to think about whilst you engage in doing literally nothing about the steady stream of shipping through the strait you can't afford to close I think the sanctions are going to backfire. India and China (80% of Iran's exports) have already agreed to buy Iran's oil in gold. This will further damage the U.S. petrodollar hegemony, while raising the fiat prices will speed up the death of the already collapsing E.U.Sparky wrote:In other words, you'll do nothing - as predicted
Nonc Hilaire wrote:.I think the sanctions are going to backfire. India and China (80% of Iran's exports) have already agreed to buy Iran's oil in gold. This will further damage the U.S. petrodollar hegemony, while raising the fiat prices will speed up the death of the already collapsing E.U.Sparky wrote:.
In other words, you'll do nothing - as predicted
enjoy the sanctions, Hooshang.
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Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Yahya Ale-Eshagh told reporters that Iran had purchased the gold in recent years at an average $600 per ounce.
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