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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2483 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 18, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Iraq

Well, we’ve all been following Iranian militias firing on American servicemen and vice versa in Iraq. Now everyone is getting in on the fun. Iran has launched airstrikes on Iraq and Syria The situation has strangely reversed a bit with Iran now retaliating against the ISIS terrorist attack that killed over a hundred of their civilians by launching airstrikes: “at what it claimed were Israeli “spy headquarters” near the U.S. Consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, and at targets linked to the extremist group Islamic State in northern Syria.” The latter target of course being in retaliation for the ISIS -claimed terrorist attack that killed over a hundred Iranian civilians.

Turkey decided to get into the action too by…also bombing Iraq and Syria, though they’re strafing for Kurdish militias in retaliation for the Kurdish PKK attack on a Turkish base last month. Iraq is understandably not thrilled about any of this (how does Syria feel? Who’s to say?), recalling their ambassador from Iran and calling their attacks an infringement upon Iraqi sovereignty. Presumably they’re not thrilled with Turkey either but they never had any kind of working relationship before (this is not Turkey’s first random attacks into Iraqi soil).

Basically all the cool kids are launching attacks in Iraq, a country that is really only marginally connected to the actual Israeli-Palestinian war by virtue of the fact that the different powers all have some degree of presence here as well. Rough hand to draw.

Pakistan-Iran attacks updates: 9 killed near Iran’s southeast border

For those not following along, Iran seems to have picked a bone with Pakistan for sheltering militants and has launched airstrikes within their territory. In retaliation, the Pakistanis seem to have launched their own attack on Iranian soil.

I'm not a very good Indian, by any standard, but even I am chortling at the whole affair. The US was far too timid about striking the Taliban when they fled over the porous border, and it took goddamn Bin Laden for them to take off the kid gloves and send Gravy Seals in. On the other hand, fellow Islamist nations seem to be far more laissez-faire about just taking each other on, on a whim, and I can't say I really feel like Pakistan is the aggrieved party.

Honestly, I don't even see much in the way of downsides for a hot war between the two, whoever loses, the rest of us win.

shame on you, @Soriek, for missing such salacious events on the world stage and leaving something for me to add that is semi-informative haha

The mantle has now passed to you to lead Transnational Thursdays.

On the other hand, fellow Islamist nations seem to be far more laissez-faire about just taking each other on, on a whim, and I can't say I really feel like Pakistan is the aggrieved party.

This latest episode of Iran just kind of attacking all its neighbors is pretty uncharacteristic at least, and is hopefully just their way of showing they won't take terrorism lightly, not a continuous thing they're going to commit to. Iraq and Syria at least aren't going to retaliate militarily. I can think of one or two downsides to a war with Pakistan! Though hopefully this won't turn into that.

That being said, how far is Iran from nukes? I know they're not Japan-level "could be any time in the next month if they put their mind to it", but they've been working on it for a while.

Hard to say for certain but I suspect that it's a lot closer than official narratives would have you believe. The Disconnect between CNN's estimates and Janes' is one of the reasons Obama's "Iran Deal" was so contentious.

Just spit-balling but I'd guess 3 months to a Year if they decide to go for it in earnest and Israel doesn't respond with a preemptive strike. In contrast I'd put estimate the Japanese at something like 6-8 weeks if the cultural baggage and budgetary issues were to be hand-waved away.

In contrast I'd put estimate the Japanese at something like 6-8 weeks

How would that work out with the need to refine enough weapons grade plutonium / uranium?

The time needed to gather/refine the materials is part of why my estimate is 6 - 8 weeks instead of 36 hours to a week.

Probably with Japan accepting design compromises to build a working nuke off of reactor-grade uranium- IIRC South Africa did that back in the day, and a shitty gun-type nuke is a lot better than nothing.

You can't build a deployable nuke out of reactor-grade uranium. Even for highly enriched uranium, you need tens of kilograms of it. Plutonium is much more efficient, which is why everyone who can uses it. A "shitty gun-type nuke" needs even more of the material than implosion type weapon since it's significantly less efficient at getting enough of the material to go critical before the whole thing blows up.

There was a scandal a while back that makes me uncomfortable about putting the United States of America on the list of countries that can make advanced hydrogen bombs.

I'd imagine the destructive power of any bombs our adversaries could field top out at Hiroshima, and mostly are “dirty bombs.”

For what that's worth, which ain't much.

I thought Japan was ‘in theory 36 hours, but they’d have to get all their people in a room together so more like a week in practice?’

I definitely agree that if Iran decided they needed a nuclear weapon now, they could have one in less than a year. But 3, 6, and 8 months are very different timeframes with very different implications.

This is one area where if Kishida stays in power in Japan things will stay interesting. Abe talked about Japan hosting nukes but Kishida has been powerfully in favor of nuclear de-armament his whole life and has helped lead international efforts in that space. He was actually the Congressional representative from Hiroshima so it's personal for him and his constituents. That said, his reputation as a lifelong dove in general enabled him to finally boost defense spending without any real complaints, whereas when Abe tried to do the same he understandably made everyone nervous. So Kishida's anti-weapon, anti-war credentials ironically makes the citizenry trust him more to be responsible with actually wielding weapons and war. Nukes are still totally unthinkable for now, but in a situation many steps down the road with a lot of other factors changing plus a national emergency, he's still the highest potential leader they've ever had to facilitate an unthinkable situation.

My estimation for Japan is basically, 1 week to finalize a design (assuming they don't already have one on file), a second week to gather the necessary materials/personnel, and then 4 - 6 weeks to actually build, test, and deploy a handful of functional bombs.

The timeline for Iran is a lot hazier simply because the available information is far less reliable. Though I do agree with you regarding the implications.

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