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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   35622 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025

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I think the heat dissipation will be a similar problem with a depth of 50m. You will need active cooling either way, and the facility can be trivially disabled by attacking either the surface structures or the power lines.

The reason why you put your weapons program in the underground is not that you will be impervious from surface attacks. It is so that surface attacks will not set you back very much.

Fans and pumps for cooling, or electricity are not a bottleneck for the Iranian weapons program. Their bottlenecks are definitely gas centrifuges and enriched uranium, plus possibly engineers to design their bombs and raw uranium.

Also, if the Iran manages to put Israel in a situation where their best option is to be the first country in 80 years to use a nuclear weapon in anger, that itself would be a big win on their part. In retrospect, the obvious place for a nuclear facility would be deep under Tehran, so that when someone nukes you, they will also murder a few millions Muslims. It is certainly where Hamas would have placed such a facility.

Oh, heat dissipation, ventilation, etc. is definitely a concern at 50m too, it's just more of an issue at 800m (note that mineshafts are generally cooler than outside air at the start, then heat up as you go down). More stuff to get blown up on the surface, more difficulty repairing it after a strike. If 100m protects you from US bunker busters, no need to keep digging.

I'm seeing claims that Israel "destroyed" the underground structures at Natanz, but from the pictures going around it looks more like the kind of surface strike you describe - smash up the aboveground buildings and tunnel entrances to set things back and make the site a pain to clean up, ideally contaminate the site with the radioactive materials already there.

It's quite possible clear the sites are deeper.

Back in the GWB II era neocons American like Cheney were obsessed with hydrogen bomb bunker busters and talking loudly how such strikes are clean bc the radiation is mostly contained. Which is kind of true.

Hamas would have scavenged such a facility long before it produced anything. Rockets now or nukes later? The decision practically makes itself.

To be fair, during the preparations of Oct-7, Hamas actually passed the Marshmallow test.

It is certainly where Hamas would have placed such a facility.

Hamas seems to be the only governing body on the planet where "deliberately putting your own people on danger" is seen as a plus, not a minus. I have trouble imagining, say, the Russian populace being used as public affairs shields by Putin on such a scale and putting up with it.

Do Hezbollah and the Houthis also do this?

Hezbollah to a limited extent, but they're not what I would have considered a full governing body. Houthis, I have no idea what their infrastructure or... anything there actually is like, I will admit.

I think it's because it's the only governing body on the planet that is ideologically bound to engage in total warfare against an opponent that dominates it in every way, so that losing in ways that creates a PR nightmare for their opponent is the only possible victory they can get.

I also find it fascinating not just for their decision to use it as a strategy, but for the population to go along with it with (apparently) only limited coercion required.

It is also probably the governing body whose leaders spend least time in the territory they govern. Your average tinpot dictator is most likely to be found in his Presidential Palace in his own country. Hamas leadership are most likely to be found in a luxury hotel in Qatar.

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