naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
On War Tunnels (6 minute video; mild practical speculation by an American who fought in tunnels with the Kurds in Iraq and is now a military advisor in Ukraine)
The video is not super content-heavy, but the general point to consider here is that people may be massively overestimating what Israel can do on the ground even if they take the gloves off.
Hard to see how Israel can mount a land invasion of Gaza without going full Dresden first. Densely populated stretch of endless 6-10 floor buildings; snipers on the rooftops; extensive deep tunnel network resistant to many bunker busters for enemy movement and resupply; perfect arena for drone warfare with $500 drones dropping grenades on groups of soldiers before they realize what’s going on; 15 years of defensive fortification. If they went in now it would be a bloodbath (for the IDF), even if they took a lot of Hamas down with them. And Israel is a rich country, it’s unclear how many casualties the IDF can afford before shit hits the fan domestically. 2000? 5000? 10000?
It really feels like the kind of place an army would have to carpet bomb prior to ground invasion, and even then - unlike a conventional invasion - civilians can’t flee to the country, so civilian casualty counts will be insanely high.
A couple weeks before this kicked off, I’d been reading a really interesting paper about IDF tactics in Nablus post-Passover-Massacre. I had started to write up a commentary on the language of the military industrial complex as compared to the academics who loathe them, but I didn’t get to the point of publishing it before…well. Depending on your tolerance for masturbatory jargon, you may find it interesting.
I remember reading that paper and thinking that 1) it made the IDF sound far too cool 2) you could almost feel the seething of dead left-wing intellectuals' theories being used to conduct urban warfare in the West Bank
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Notes -
On War Tunnels (6 minute video; mild practical speculation by an American who fought in tunnels with the Kurds in Iraq and is now a military advisor in Ukraine)
The video is not super content-heavy, but the general point to consider here is that people may be massively overestimating what Israel can do on the ground even if they take the gloves off.
Gaza's like 4x as dense as Stalingrad.
Hard to see how Israel can mount a land invasion of Gaza without going full Dresden first. Densely populated stretch of endless 6-10 floor buildings; snipers on the rooftops; extensive deep tunnel network resistant to many bunker busters for enemy movement and resupply; perfect arena for drone warfare with $500 drones dropping grenades on groups of soldiers before they realize what’s going on; 15 years of defensive fortification. If they went in now it would be a bloodbath (for the IDF), even if they took a lot of Hamas down with them. And Israel is a rich country, it’s unclear how many casualties the IDF can afford before shit hits the fan domestically. 2000? 5000? 10000?
It really feels like the kind of place an army would have to carpet bomb prior to ground invasion, and even then - unlike a conventional invasion - civilians can’t flee to the country, so civilian casualty counts will be insanely high.
A couple weeks before this kicked off, I’d been reading a really interesting paper about IDF tactics in Nablus post-Passover-Massacre. I had started to write up a commentary on the language of the military industrial complex as compared to the academics who loathe them, but I didn’t get to the point of publishing it before…well. Depending on your tolerance for masturbatory jargon, you may find it interesting.
I remember reading that paper and thinking that 1) it made the IDF sound far too cool 2) you could almost feel the seething of dead left-wing intellectuals' theories being used to conduct urban warfare in the West Bank
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