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Notes -
Some various thoughts about the whole thing with Iran. My apologies if much of this was already discussed before by others in previous Culture War threads.
What worries me about is to what extent Russia can prop up Iranian anti-ship capabilities cheaply. It would be very much in Russia's interests to keep the strait closed as long as possible, it harms their enemies and helps Russia. Every air defense capability sent to the gulf is one not sent to Ukraine. Buying Russian oil and propping up Russia becomes the lesser evil compared to surrendering to Iran. They don't need to give the Mullahs the bomb or supply their whole war effort, just keep a trickle of drones and missiles coming in to prevent a total degradation of Iranian launch capabilities. Keep Hormuz' legs crossed, and the more both sides destroy more oil infrastructure the more the price premium Russian oil will demand for months or years afterward.
I think the two complications for Russia in helping Iran are as follows:
The Russian government's actions over the course of the last decade show that it values having friendly relations with Israel and the Arab Gulf States even while having hostile relations with the United States. I don't know to what extent this policy is motivated by geopolitics and to what extent it is motivated by shady financial interests of the Russian elite. In the case of Israel, the friendly relations are also probably motivated in part by the fact that just like America, Russia has many Jewish elites, and that Israel has many Jews from a Russian background.
Russia can ship things to Iran across the Caspian Sea without the ships being attacked. However, the US/Israel have very good surveillance and spying capacity, so they can probably accurately target that stuff as soon as gets into Iranian hands. This is similar to how things work in the Ukraine war, where the Russians don't bomb supplies while they are in NATO countries (with the possible exception of some alleged sabotage operations), but as soon as the supplies cross the border into Ukraine, Russia feels free to target them.
One darkly humorous part of the whole China/Russia/Iran is how each of them very clearly wish they had different allies and aren't exactly shy about it. China always hedging between Russia/EU and Iran/Sunnis/Israelis, Iran originally preferring European companies over Chinese companies, and the above behavior from Russia. Rumors of Axis 2.0 are overstated.
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