Getting it wrong to get it right

(Apologies)

Getting it wrong

Good analysts get things wrong sometimes. They make mistakes as we all do.

In fact maybe that's a qualification for being a good analyst – making mistakes-- and learning from them. To learn from them we have to be honest with others and with ourselves. I guess you can say this about almost anything in life

Recently I wrote an article— Israel:Wars 'R Us— in which I posted this map from Will Schryuver's X page.

I wrote:

The US has assembled one of the most powerful naval fleets ever in the Mediterranean.

And I quoted Will:

In my view, this powerful fleet can have only one possible mission: to eradicate all Russian, Iranian, and Iranian-affiliated military power currently present in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Needless to say, these are extremely portentous developments that entail great risk of plunging the world into the biggest and most destructive war in human history.

My regular commenter. Occupy Schagen. noticed that the US no longer has a carrier in the Mediterranean, and its carrier in the Arabian Sea—the USS Abram Lincoln— seems to be withdrawing to be replaced by the Truman later in the Med’.

What's going on?

Will Schryver's post was from a year ago.

It popped up in my X account with a lot so recent stuff and I didn't notice the date stamp. That was a stupid error.

I should have been more careful. My attention moves very fast from one thing to another -- so I notice things that others don't -- but at the same time, I miss obvious things. It is an ASD thing -- but that is not an excuse.

Apologies.

That said, let's look at this naval buildup back in 2023. There is something to be learned there.

Will - who I respect unreservedly-- was wrong.

The mission of the naval buildup was not "to eradicate all Russian, Iranian, and Iranian-affiliated military power currently present in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq."

It was posturing -- show of force intended to intimidate both Hezbollah and the Houthis' as well as Iran a show of force . Bully stuff.

Will was right when he said that if push came to shove the Russians (and Hezbollah_ would wipe out this naval force with advanced anti ship missiles.

As it turned out, the Houthis, continued to develop their capabilities, forcing the single American aircraft carrier in their region to stay out of range. The Truman, when it arrives, will be well out of harm’s way. Or maybe not, now that Hezbollah is using advanced Iranian missiles.

Once the Iranians demonstrated their missile capabilities in their last strike, it was pretty clear they could strike anything with maneuverable warheads — certainly on land — but obviously also at sea.

As I have written before elsewhere, the Iranians have innovated. There is some confusion about what “hypersonic” means….

Ballistic missiles are basically hypersonic if they travel faster than Mach 5 - which is most of them. What the press refers to as “hypersonic’, however, is usually a ballistic missile travelling at Mach 5 above or outside the atmosphere but a with maneuvering warhead (MaRV) that moves at Mach 2 or 3 as the terminal phase in the atmosphere.

The warhead unit detaches as the last stage of the missile. Usually at the edge of antimissile range. It is not impossible to intercept— just difficult.

Even the Houthis now have missiles with this capability. Obviously acquired from Iran.

By attaching a maneuvering warheads to the older ballistic missiles of which it has a large supply Iran can expand its capabilities quickly and cost effectively.

Of course, it is also manufacturing newer true hypersonic weapons from scratch.

While the Israelis say their strike reduced Iran’s missile supply, , the Iranians have recently supplied Hezbollah with brand new, shiney Fatah 110 missiles.

Two can play the Proxy game the Americans so love, it seems.

American funk, American junk

These developments have alarmed the Americans.

So you will notice that the Americans have changed their strategy. Sorta….

They have sent B-52s and F-15s to the Middle East, to shore up Israeli forces after Israel's ineffective attack on Iran.

I know, I know—the mainstream media have been publishing satellite photos which purport to show a lot of damage.

If you look at those photos carefully and critically, however, you will see they show the opposite – not a lot of damage was don. Just as I said was the case at the time, the Iranian version of events was true.

This issue of satellite imagery is explained at length by Alex Mercouris relying on Brian Berletic’s analysis.

My argument when I initially wrote about this was that the Israelis lacked the capability to carry out the kind of complex strike they claim they carried out on Iran. The basic problems were distance --and materiel — it's a long way from Israel to Iran --and upgraded Iranian air defenses – which prevented is really aircraft from getting too close, even overflying Jordan—and Israel just didn’t have enough aircraft of the right kind or the ability to do A2 AD (anti-access area denial).

To carry out the strikes at all as it was, they needed a huge number of support aircraft—-and they ended up with only a limited number of F-15s capable of launching a limited number of standoff weapons.

Sending B-52s to the Middle East is in no way a threat to anybody.

B-52s are huge lumbering targets.

To use them, assuming they were not wiped out on the tarmac, would require intense A2 AD, which would be inadvisable to attempt given the size of Iran and its advanced air defense network, plus its ability to launch massive retaliatory strikes against the US's man bases in the region.

The Israelis used everything they had and managed to get off less than100 missiles, most of which were intercepted. The ones that got through blew up the radar for an obsolete American Hawk missile system from the 60s, while damaging a warehouse or two, and killing a couple of soldiers and maybe cratered a runway on a base.

The Iranians dealt with the attack using second -level AD systems, while collecting information so now they are even better prepared for a bigger attack — with the “right stuff”.

So what we see now is posturing.

The US hopes to dissuade the Iranians when launching a retaliatory attack on Israel, currently reeling from attacks by Hezbollah and the Houthis and the the Axis of Resistance.But things are getting worse and worse for Israel.

Hezbollah is upping the ante gradually, aware that the Israelis are crazy.

When Trump takes office he will be looking at fait accomplis’ in the Ukraine and the ME. Best to blame it all on Biden and focus on the economy, cutting American losses.

Wolves & Us

One of the many things that distinguishes us from H. Neanderthalis is our relationship with dogs - which are really wolves with whom we formed a symbiotic relationship 50, 000 years ago. There is a sense in which dogs make us human. After that came cats and horses.

When I worked in the zoo, my favorite place was the Wolf Park. Guess why!

Ichi, BTW, thinks he is really a dog. He likes to fetch.

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