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What I find most interesting about the current Israel - Iran conflict isn't necessarily a lot of the geopolitical implications / consequences (although of course they are important), but instead the way the war is being waged. It seems, so far as I can tell, that they are almost entirely "trading missile strikes" and that no boots are on the ground, there isn't even really much of a naval component. Just missile centers in cities or in the desert shooting at one another, causing damage that, from a citizen's POV, is essentially random.
I know that the World Wars were considered horrible because death in combat felt so random due to bombings, machine guns, etc. Are we now entering a new stage of warfare where soldiers are barely even involved, and we just shoot missiles at each others population centers, trying to decapitate the enemy leadership?
On the one hand, it's certainly... cleaner, I suppose? Much better than the horrid conditions of trench warfare during the World Wars, at least based on what I've read about it. Still though, it feels extremely cold and random, disconnected from the perspective of the average person.
Then again, the whole war in the Ukraine is very much boots on the ground, even if drones are heavily involved. I'm not sure (obviously) exactly how the future of war will develop, but we are certainly seeing interesting new innovations as of late. And we have barely even scratched the surface of using AI in warfare!
What are your best predictions for how future warfare will develop?
Iran and Israel is a special case because they can't reach each other to invade (and if Israel could, they don't have the manpower). And Israel probably isn't trying to decapitate; they're probably not trying to topple the regime (which would lead at best to chaos), but incapacitate it technically. Israel and Gaza is probably a better view of what it looks like when one side is totally outclassed. And Ukraine/Russia for near-peer fights. Total war, WWII style, is still off the table because of the nuclear spectre; a fight between China and the US seems like the only way to get that in the near term, but it will look different than any of the current conflicts because it will be far more about naval forces at least at first.
Israel is absolutely trying to topple the regime, Netenyahu has made this very clear. Reporting is that Israel had a window to assassinate the Ayatollah but was vetoed by Trump, with Israelis claiming it would end the conflict. Trading missile blows was never going to achieve either of Israel's war objectives directly, but escalating to this point forces the hand of the United States to achieve those objectives on behalf of Israel including toppling the regime.
It's going to follow the model of Libya and Syria, with bombing campaigns coincided with arming and fomenting a civil war in Iran. Toppling the regime is without question the goal of Israel, but it remains to be seen if the US is on board with that.
He's said it, but he hasn't done it. I don't believe that Trump would be scrupulous of them doing so... or that the Israelis would actually ask if they thought it would work.
"Reporting". Anyway, it wouldn't end the conflict, there's plenty of Ayatollahs to take his place.
BBC reporting cited three US officials.
Is that more or less than played up the Steele dossier, or reported that Trump commandeered the Beast, or denied the validity of the Biden laptop?
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