Weimar Britain

And no, this isn’t a result of Brexit. Germany is in even worse shape. But regardless, it is clear that the decision to back Ukraine has been a fatal one for the British economy, the coming collapse of which is becoming increasingly obvious in the wake of Ukraine’s recent defaulting on its massive debt:

22 July 2024: we have a deal!
Almost as soon as Zelensky’s visit in London concluded, the Government of Ukraine announced that a deal was reached with its main bondholders to restructure the country’s near-$20 billion worth of bonds, including a 37% reduction of the amounts owed. But this was only “an agreement, in principle,” reached with an “ad-hoc creditor committee,” and it wasn’t binding on all the bondholders. Instead, it imposed on Ukraine’s government “the Restructuring as soon as practicable,” to be implemented through a “consent solicitation.” In other words, Ukraine was expected to chase after its creditors and beg them to accept the deal, even offering them a 1.25% “consent fee.” Well, things were about to take a sharp turn for the worse…

24 July 2024: Ukraine strikes the Fitch iceberg
Only two days after Ukraine announced the deal with their bondholders, Fitch downgraded Ukraine’s credit rating from CC to C, reflecting extreme credit risk reserved for countries that “entered default or default-like process.” Significantly, Fitch made it explicit that “the publication of sovereign reviews is subject to restrictions and must take place according to a published schedule…”

31 July 2024: Zelensky ‘temporarily’ suspends debt repayments
Zelensky signed a law enabling Ukraine to suspend payments of external debts for two months (or longer).

Thursday, August 1 2024: debt repayments freeze takes effect
Bondholders’ grace period expires; Zelensky’s unilateral debt repayments freeze takes effect.

What’s peculiar about the British financial system is that the taxpayers are obliged to reimburse the Bank of England for any losses it sustains on its balance sheet assets. If the price of gilts on the bank’s balance sheet collapses, British taxpayers must cover those losses and make the bank whole. So, what kind of money are we talking about? As the the FT reported last July, the BOE has estimated it will require the Treasury to transfer a total of £150 billion by 2033 to cover expected losses on the central bank’s quantitative easing program.

So how much is £150 billion? Provided that things haven’t deteriorated since July 2023 (they have), we’re talking £2,240 per man, woman and child in Britain. Stand and deliver: that’s the ransom that the BOE is claiming from them! But given that the British workforce is only about half the population, and that private enterprise accounts for less than 55% of the British GDP, this sum represents nearly £10,000 per employee working in the private sector.

In all, the situation is impossible and all the cabinet reshuffles and cosmetic patches changed nothing of substance in the UK; they amounted to a sort of rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic as the ship is already sinking.

Translation: Ukraine is bankrupt and can’t even pretend that it’s going to repay all of its massive war-related debts after defeating the Russians. The economic collapse of the Ukrainian government will lead to a political collapse and the military collapse of its armed forces; Russia’s increasingly rapid advances in the Donbass are in part due to the beginning stages of the latter. And the surrender of Ukraine may lead directly to the economic collapse of Britain as well as several countries inside the EU, most likely those most deeply invested in Ukraine, which includes the Baltics, Germany, and Poland.

28 August 2024: Game Over? Ukraine Announces Partial Halt to Payments on Its Gargantuan Debt

This is the genius of Putin’s patient multi-front attritional strategy and why he has an economist running the Russian Ministry of Defense. He never needed to bomb Britain or Berlin in order to comprehensively defeat them. And as for the USA, well, China and Iran are taking the lead with regards to the Clown World’s major stronghold.

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So That Went Well

It didn’t take long for Ukraine to lose its first F-16. And by “not long”, I mean the very first mission. So much for the so-called game-changer.

Well, the quintessential ‘game-changer’ of all game-changers was unceremoniously shot out of the sky on its maiden mission. As I had stated from the get-go, F-16s were being utilized only in “safe” defensive roles in the far rear of the country to help shoot down Russian drones. Apparently even this task was too great for the poor F-16. But the more shocking detail was revealed when Ukrainian Rada rep Mariana Bezuglaya claimed on her official account that the F-16 was kiboshed by none other than a friendly American-made Patriot missile system. Face palm. Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh confirmed the loss but refused to comment on whether it was indeed a Patriot that brought the plane down.

All in all, it’s a testament to the fact that modern near-peer, high-intensity conflict is not about wunderwaffe and ‘game changer’ toys. There is no such thing as a golden bullet or unicorn weapon that can really move the needle in near-peer conflict. It’s all about the totality of what your nation as a whole can bring to the table, economically, militarily, productively, and in terms of willpower, political influence, morale, etc. Any single weapon system is meaningless in the grand scheme of things and can be destroyed easily by the plethora of available modern counter-systems.

Simplicius is right. As is Martyanov. Victor Davis Hanson’s division of the way of war into Eastern and Western variants needs an updating, because there is a more important and fundamental difference between the way a sea power wages war on an expeditionary basis, a land power wages war on an existential and attritional basis, and an air power wages war on an regime change basis. This is why Clown World is obsessed with gestures, gimmicks, and short-term game-changing moves that look pointless and insane from a land power perspective; not even when their threats prove utterly toothless do they understand that their defeat is as inevitable as was Japan’s in 1941.

UPDATE: Ukraine’s General Staff has confirmed that a Western-supplied F-16 fighter jet has been lost along with its pilot.

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Kursk was a UK Operation

Andrei Martynov and others have gradually come to the conclusion that the US military was actually not involved in the debacle of the Kursk invasion:

Many online commentators were surprised when footage of the Challenger 2 in action in Kursk began to circulate widely on August 13th. Furthermore, numerous mainstream outlets dramatically drew attention to the tank’s deployment. Several were explicitly briefed by British military sources that it marked the first time in history London’s tanks “have been used in combat on Russian territory.” Disquietingly, The Times now reveals this was a deliberate propaganda and lobbying strategy, spearheaded by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Prior to the Challenger 2’s presence in Kursk breaking, Starmer and Defence Secretary John Healey had reportedly “been in talks about how far to go to confirm growing British involvement in the incursion towards Kursk.” Ultimately, they decided “to be more open about Britain’s role in a bid to persuade key allies to do more to help – and convince the public that Britain’s security and economic prosperity is affected by events on the fields of Ukraine.” A “senior Whitehall source” added:

“There won’t be shying away from the idea of British weapons being used in Russia as part of Ukraine’s defence. We don’t want any uncertainty or nervousness over Britain’s support at this critical moment and a half-hearted or uncertain response might have indicated that.”

In other words, London is taking the lead in marking itself out as a formal belligerent in the proxy war, in the hope other Western countries – particularly the US – will follow suit. What’s more, The Times strongly hints that Kursk is to all intents and purposes a British invasion. The outlet records:

“Unseen by the world, British equipment, including drones, have played a central role in Ukraine’s new offensive and British personnel have been closely advising the Ukrainian military…on a scale matched by no other country.”

Britain’s grand plans don’t stop there. Healey and Foreign Secretary David Lammy “have set up a joint Ukraine unit,” divided between the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence. The pair “held a joint briefing, with officials, for a cross-party group of 60 MPs on Ukraine,” while “Starmer has also asked the National Security Council to draw up plans to provide Ukraine with a broader range of support.” On top of military assistance, “industrial, economic, and diplomatic support” are also being explored.

It’s becoming more and more obvious that Martyanov’s observation that neither the British nor the US militaries have any idea of how to fight a war on this scale was spot-on. How the British think they can fund, plan, and help execute attacks on Russian soil without the world endorsing Russian reprisals on British soil is entirely beyond me. I mean, there is no amount of conceptual redefining and word magic that is going to defend these clearly belligerent actions and redefine them as non-belligerent.

The only thing I can come up with is that Britain is playing the same game with Russia that Israel is playing with Iran, which is “Mom, He Hit Me First”, in the hopes that provoking a reprisal will commit the USA to fighting the war for them. Unfortunately, neither the British nor the Israelis appear to understand that the global superpower days are over and the USA is no longer capable of successfully fighting Russia in Russia or Iran in Iran.

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No Carriers in the Pacific

The US Navy has lost control of the Pacific Ocean:

The U.S. Navy is facing a shortfall of deployed carriers in the Pacific as the buildup in the Middle East continues. The lack of carriers has left a critical gap in the West Pacific. The departure of USS Abraham Lincoln coincides with the change in homeport of USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) from Yokosuka, Japan to Bremerton, Washington. The Ronald Reagan‘s replacement, the USS George Washington (CVN 73) still in San Diego on a scheduled port visit.

The U.S. Navy’s other Pacific-based carriers are in port or in their maintenance availability period. Out of six carriers in the Pacific, the USS Carl Vinson recently participated in RIMPAC 2024, the USS Nimitz recently completed a six month planned incremental availability period for maintenance, the USS Ronald Reagan recently completed a homeport shift to Naval Base Kitsap, and the USS George Washington will remain in San Diego until the crew and equipment swap from USS Ronald Reagan is complete.

With no U.S. carriers in the Pacific for at least three weeks, the Navy is leaving a critical gap in coverage in a region where standoffs and incidents are common, as seen this week when a Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) vessel collided with a Philippines Coast Guard (PCG) vessel in the South China Sea near Filipino outposts in the region.

The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense also announced several live fire exercises with precision guided weapons, including a series of tests with PAC-2 and Tien Kung III surface-to-air missiles and Hsiung Feng II-E anti-ship missiles.

Between the Middle East, maintenance periods, and the Indo-Pacific, the US Navy’s carrier fleet is stretched thin trying to uphold a high-demand presence worldwide.

It’s fascinating to see how the once-dominant power of the US Navy has so rapidly faded, without the Navy losing a single capital ship to enemy action. But the advancements in anti-ship missile technology are rendering surface ships even more vulnerable than aircraft; since the US has always been an air-and-naval power, these advancements have naturally affected the US military most and eliminated its global superpower status.

We’ll know that the USA has surrendered the Pacific to China when Japan formally switches sides and shuts down the US bases in the mainland, and especially, on Okinawa. This could be coming as soon as the next Japanese administration, depending upon whom is elected as the next leader of the Liberal Democratic Party.

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A Dying Outpost

Things are not looking good for Israel, which is reaping the bitter harvest of completely ignoring the sage advice of one of its greatest sons. Though respected by militaries throughout the world, especially the U.S. Marines, the great Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld has been utterly ignored by the generals of the IDF and the Likud politicians as they wage precisely the sort of Goliath vs David war that he has observed tends to enervate a military.

Meanwhile, Simplicius contrasts the difference between Russia’s war on NATO and Israel’s war on Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and Yemen, and concludes that very different results are likely.

Analysis continues to be churned out heralding the end of the Israeli economy:

The economic indicators speak of nothing less than an economic catastrophe. Over 46,000 businesses have gone bankrupt, tourism has stopped, Israel’s credit rating was lowered, Israeli bonds are sold at the prices of almost “junk bonds” levels, and the foreign investments that have already dropped by 60% in the first quarter of 2023 (as a result of the policies of Israel’s far-right government before October 7) show no prospects of recovery. The majority of the money invested in Israeli investment funds was diverted to investments abroad because Israelis do not want their own pension funds and insurance funds or their own savings to be tied to the fate of the State of Israel. This has caused a surprising stability in the Israeli stock market because funds invested in foreign stocks and bonds generated profit in foreign currency, which was multiplied by the rise in the exchange rate between foreign currencies and the Israeli Shekel. But then Intel scuttled a $25 billion investment plan in Israel, the biggest BDS victory ever.

It’s difficult to guess the future without going overboard with recency bias, but as the article above states, many figures have now proclaimed that the age of Zionism itself has come to an end, and a slow outflow from Israel, a kind of anti-Aliyah, will continue to take place until Israel itself falls apart and dissolves.

I’ve professed before that I can see Israel’s end resembling that of former Rhodesia. I’ve stated before that Netanyahu and Zelensky are two birds of a feather with the same desperate goals: they need to drag the US into a wider global war to save their regimes and their country. But what they don’t know is: they are doomed whether that happens or not. That’s because the US does not have the power to win a wider war against either adversary, and both Ukraine and Israel would be doomed to their fates, with US merely sacrificing itself in the process as well.

There’s good chance that by 2050-2075 Israel goes the way of Rhodesia, or at least won’t exist in its current form.

I wouldn’t give it that long, since Israel is a Clown World outpost that cannot survive support from the USA and its European puppet states, and the USA is unlikely to survive in its current form more than another decade or so. 2033 is rapidly approaching, but the USD will likely be dethroned before that, with the inevitable debt chickens coming home to roost hard.

What the war in Ukraine has revealed is that the entire basis for the Israeli military superiority necessary for its survival in a hostile environment was built on a false foundation of quality over quantity. That concept works in the small-scale series of battles in which Israel engaged during the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 through 1983, and it works in the foreign adventurism in which the US has engaged for most of its military history, but it doesn’t work in real war.

Real war is existential and attritional. Doctrine doesn’t matter, elan doesn’t matter, technological advantage doesn’t matter. Four things are relevant: industrial capacity, numbers, societal morale, and leadership. And in both the Middle East conflict and the European one, Israel and the USA are severely deficient in all four aspects.

Which is why any serious observer is bound to conclude that both conflicts – which of course are different fronts of the same war – are going to end in defeat for the Clown World side. And that is why Ukraine, Israel, and the USA should all be attempting to negotiate surrenders to their respective adversaries on the best terms they can still obtain. But who surrenders when they are constantly assuring everyone that they are winning and victory is imminent in just two more weeks?

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The Battle of Kursk, Round 1

As the second Battle of Kursk winds down, it seems appropriate to note the anniversary of the end of the first, much larger one.

The Battle of Kursk, which involved the largest tank battle of the Second World War, was fought on the steppe of Kursk oblast between July 5 and August 23, 1943. It was initiated by the Germans who, in retreat after their spectacular defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad, concentrated 50 divisions, two tank brigades, three tank battalions, and eight artillery assault divisions comprising 2,700 Tiger and Panther tanks, some two thousand aircraft, and 900,000 men in all. The Soviet forces, consisting of General K. K. Rokossovskii’s Army of the Center, General N. F. Vatutin’s Voronezh Army, and the reserve army of the Steppe Front under General I. S. Konev, numbered 1.3 million troops, 3,600 tanks, and 2,800 aircraft.

The German offensive, code named “Citadel,” involved two simultaneous thrusts against the Soviet-held northern and southern salients. Both were successfully repulsed, and by July 12, the Soviet forces had gone over to the offensive. On August 4, the city of Orel was liberated and by the 18th the German army took up defensive positions east of Bryansk. It had lost 30 of its 50 divisions and up to 500,000 men killed, wounded or missing in action. From its victory in the Battle of Kursk, the Soviet Red Army went on to liberate most of Ukraine in the autumn of 1943, marching into Kiev on November 6. Although Western historiography traditionally marks the beginning of the German downfall to the D-Day invasion of Normandy, the crushing defeat of Kursk makes a more likely turning point for the war.

For anyone who knows anything all about military history, or just WWII, the idea that a single, solitary Ukrainian division was going to accomplish anything of note on Russian territory was always absurd on its face. And remember, the Russian population today is 34 percent larger than it was in 1943.

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At Least They’ll Warn Us

Simplicius analyzes the recent release of secret Russian nuclear doctrine dating back to 2014:

The first truly eye-opening detail is the claim that these secret internal Russian documents include plans for a potential nuclear “demonstration” strike, if things really begin escalating:

The presentation also references the option of a so-called demonstration strike — detonating a nuclear weapon in a remote area “in a period of immediate threat of aggression” before an actual conflict to scare western countries. Russia has never acknowledged such strikes are in its doctrine.

Such a strike, the files say, would show “the availability and readiness for use of precision non-strategic nuclear weapons” and the “intention to use nuclear weapons”.

To clarify: we’ve often talked about Russia doing a demonstrative nuclear test in order to get NATO’s attention in the Ukrainian conflict. That is something entirely different. A nuclear test would be something run by scientists for measuring purposes, conducted in a safe and controlled way, with a nuclear device usually detonated in a stationary mode somewhere on or near the ground.

That is why this is particularly eye-opening because it is something far more aggressive and threatening. It would entail Russia not setting up a test, but actually live-firing a real tactical nuke from one of their many systems into a remote area. The simple acknowledgment that Russia even has such contingencies drawn up is fairly startling and clearly draws a heavy shadow over the now-escalating Ukrainian conflict, where NATO’s involvement continues to grow more out of control each day.

I don’t view this as a bad thing at all. The threat of tactical nuke strikes to eliminate Europe’s already limited war-making capacity has existed all along, whether we think about it or not. So to know that the official doctrine incorporates a demonstration strike and a warning period is actually rather comforting, as it provides time for people to get away from any obvious military targets.

The risk of tactical strikes is much higher than strategic strikes, because the USA is not going to put itself on the line for Europe, not even if its own military bases are hit there. That’s the whole point of “foreign adventures”; keep them foreign and keep the bloodshed well away from the homeland. Even the foreign elite that runs the US empire is unlikely to react to tactical strikes on Europe for the same reason; they don’t want their homeland turned into a glass desert either.

It’s informative to observe how the USA, Germany, and the UK are all disavowing any knowledge of, much less involvement with, the Ukrainian Kursk offensive now that it has proven to be a tactical defeat and a strategic disaster.

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The Proxy War is Over

Russia makes it explicit: WWIII is now a direct war between Russia and Clown World:

Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine is actually an armed conflict with the US-led collective West, Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov said at the opening ceremony of the Army 2024 forum.

“I welcome you all at the opening ceremony of the Army 2024 International Military-Technical Forum. As you know, the event is taking place amid the special military operation. In fact, it is an armed conflict between Russia and the collective West,” he pointed out.

According to Belousov, the armed confrontation “is driven by the desire of the US and its allies to maintain their dominance and prevent the construction of a new multipolar and equitable world order.”

“In this regard, the confrontation affects the interests of every country,” the Russian defense chief stressed.

This isn’t exactly news, but rather, confirmation of what we all assumed from the start. Everything that Russia has done, from relying heavily upon the separatist and various irregular forces to standing down its air forces to building up the anti-Clown alliance around the world, has been in preparation for direct conflict with the regular militaries of the US-led collective West, which includes Australia, Israel, Japan, and South Korea.

While the Second Front appears to be in the Middle East, don’t count out hostilities opening in Asia in the near future. Taiwan is not the only hot spot, as it could be the Philippines, it could be the Korean Peninsula, it could be an attempted color revolution in Indonesia or Vietnam, or it could be Japan shocking everyone by breaking with the USA and allying with China.

Regardless, it’s clear that Russia has given up on its attempts to keep the conflict localized. This change will likely have far-reaching implications, some of which may well prove surprising. As to why they’ve finally articulated the true scope of the war now, I presume it is to make it clear to those seeking a negotiated end to the Ukraine aspect of the conflict that not even peace in Ukraine will be sufficient to end the global conflict.

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Kiev Regime Running Out of Time

Zelensky is lurching from one senseless act of desperation to another in a futile attempt to improve Ukraine’s negotiating position vis-a-vis Russia. These acts are futile, because Russia is not going to negotiate with him, and turning him and his cronies over for trial are almost certainly going to be one of the Russian conditions when it negotiates the surrender of Ukraine with its NATO masters.

The 2024 Kursk Offensive was a small and feeble echo of the Unternehmen Wacht am Rein, the final, failed offensive of the Wehrmacht in 1944. Its failure means that missile strikes on nuclear plants are about all the Ukrainians have left to offer in the way of threats.

There was still some hesitation on my part on whether the Kursk madness was truly a sign of an AFU reaching its critical end point or not, though mostly I leaned on the affirmative. However, the latest desperate move seems to fully avow this interpretation of events. But, I believe there are a few multi-varied nuances to properly interpreting Zelensky’s threatening signal.

First: it can be said that this act of desperation was a strong signal to Zelensky’s own “partners” in the U.S. and the West. I predicted long ago—last year—that once things finally grind down to the gristle for Ukraine, Zelensky would have no choice but to begin threatening his partners through escalation to save his own hide. He would threaten not only pushing Russia’s red lines in unnerving ways which would pose the threat of nuclear annihilation to the U.S., but as a last ditch effort he would also float the threat of unveiling many secrets and ‘skeletons in the closet’ of his Western partners as blackmail.

But what’s happening now is in effect a double nuclear blackmail. Not only was Zelensky trying to reach the Kursk nuclear plant for this very purpose, but has now acted out his furious frustration at the ZNPP, as well. It’s difficult to know for certain, but captured AFU POWs have in fact now attested to the Kursk plant as being the objective, or Kurchatov, the town where the plant sits. This was supposed to have been reached in the first day or two, which now appears to have been a miserable failure being covered up by more antics.

But getting back to the second point. I believe the ZNPP strike was also a double threat toward Russia. ZNPP may be currently inactive, but Kursk is in operation, and Zelensky likely meant to send a symbolic message that the Kursk nuclear plant may be “next”. In essence, it is saying: “Be wary, the Kursk plant is in my sights. This is just the first demonstration of my seriousness.”

But why would Zelensky threaten his partners as well? The obvious answer is to shock them into providing more aid and committing totally to Ukraine’s victory. “Give us everything or we’ll take the entire world down with us in a ball of nuclear flame.” Funny how much similarity there is between Zelensky and Israel, what with their Samson Option and all.

The only answer to a Samson Option is to call the bluff. It may not be entirely a bluff, but it’s almost certainly a partial one. And for the citizens of most countries across the West, the threat to eliminate their capital cities is not necessarily seen as a negative anymore. To paraphrase Ivan Drago, if we die, we die. Otherwise, you live in a permanent state of submission to the whims of a weak psychopath, which is obviously worse than death. These acts of increasing desperation by the Kiev regime are indicative of both its weakness as well as its awareness that it is rapidly running out of options.

Apparently, the enemy, relying on the help of its Western masters… is striving to improve its negotiating positions in the future. But how can we talk about negotiations with those who conduct indiscriminate strikes on civilians, civilian infrastructure, or try to threaten nuclear energy facilities?
– President of Russia, Vladimir Putin

To say nothing of those who have absolutely no electoral mandate to govern, represent, or speak for the people of Ukraine.

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Technology Changes War

And when it changes, those who struggle to adapt will suffer. Col Macgregor reports that an attempt to infiltrate Yemen resulted in a complete disaster courtesy of Russian satellite technology.

Andrew Napolitano: Colonel was there recently some military activity by the Houthies which resulted in about 70 deaths of IDF and some American contractors about which you can tell us?

Col. Douglas Macgregor: Well, I can tell you only what I found through open source material. I haven’t seen anything classified but I am reliably told that roughly 70 Israeli Special Forces along with some number of Americans, the total number was 70. How many were American mercenaries that joined in this operation, I don’t know what the exact breakdown was, but it was obviously mostly Israeli. They infiltrated successfully into Yemen, but they were tracked from the moment they infiltrated by overhead satellites, presumably Russian, and the Russians provided this information to the Iranians who immediately telegraphed it to the Houthis. Whatever you say about the Houthis, they’re tough hombres on the battlefield. They set up an ambush and they killed all of them, and there is footage of the dead. I haven’t had a chance to examine it carefully, clearly most of it’s Israeli, but there are some indisputably some American mercenaries, there may be some Brits mixed into it who are also employees of the same contract firm now. This is something very important for everybody listening to understand: persistent surveillance today changes everything in warfare. It not only enables precision strike on a scale that has never been the case in the past, it makes it impossible for forces to infiltrate into regions without being discovered.

We can’t know yet if this report is true or not. But there are four reasons it is credible:

  1. Yemen successfully denied the Red Sea to the US Navy earlier this year.
  2. The US Navy wants to put its four aircraft carriers in the Middle East in position to support Israeli efforts in the region, but is endangered by Yemeni land-to-sea strike abilities.
  3. Taking out the coastal missile batteries using air strikes has failed.
  4. An infantry infiltration was the only remaining option for eliminating Yemeni land-to-sea capabilities.

So, the fact that the IDF and some US special forces are reported to have attempted the obvious solution to the problem makes sense. However, I fail to see how this puts Israel on the ropes in any way; the denial of the Red Sea was already an accomplished fact and despite decades of claims to the contrary, Iran is observably not in any particular hurry to start a full-scale war with Israel.

Speaking of technology and war, I highly recommend Martin van Creveld’s work on the matter. It’s an excellent and informative book.

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