Priory_of_Sion

There was no physical button, there was a drop-down menu on a computer that had the options of Missile Warning Test and Missile Warning right below it. 

I'm not mentally prepared for a nuclear attack on the United States. 

I just think it’s kinda funny that the “blue” states are the ones that have the worse infrastructure. 

Having not been out west, I can’t attest. 

Interesting map showing road quality besides fucking up the upper peninsula. 

As a Georgia fan, I knew deep down that this was inevitable. History repeats itself. 

Ahmadinejad arrested for inciting unrest

On 12/31/2017 at 12:35 AM, Scolopax said:

Saudis still making sure to keep up with bombing civilians

 

 "Yemen war: Saudi-led strikes 'kill 68 civilians in one day'"

This is fine, but those Houthis better not fire a missile back at the Saudis. 

Also, I didn't know the Houthis have frogmen. They seemed to have captured a coalition AUV. The naval aspect of this war needs to be reported on more. 

Anti-government protests in Iran are spreading

Protests might end up being useless if the moderates aren't able to gain power from the Ayatollah's backers and the IRGC.  Gotta wonder how shaky the relationship is between Iran's formal military and the IRGC is. 

On 12/23/2017 at 4:27 PM, Xoon said:

the Right-left-Progressive-christian coalition

That's something you don't see in Merica. 

What is the Norwegian opposition's platform regarding this looming oil crisis/dispute?  

Looking at the potential reserves in the Arctic on the Business Insider map, Russia looks like it is in a good position to take advantage of deposits in the western Barents Sea towards Franz Josef Land without needing to get too antagonistic towards Norway. 

TIL that Gen. James GAVIN became an ambassador to France after his paratrooping and assured American backing of De Gaulle during the 1961 putsch that had the threat of rebel paratroopers from French Algeria landing in mainland France sparking a coup/civil war. 

Sri Lankan MiG-27

Just now, Belesarius said:

If they bulk up their air force, I wouldn't bet against mercenary pilots at all.

Tho the African Mercs in Yemen haven't been doing all that great from what I've seen.

 

Do you expect the racist Gulf states to treat African soldiers unlike cannon fodder? 

Qatar just doesn't have the population to have such a large military. Only about 12% of their population (so about 300k) are actual Qataris and not foreigners. 

Though, Qatar could just buy soldiers from Africa or pilots from the US/elsewhere if it really needed manpower to go along with all its new toys. Hell, the UAE and Saudi Arabia would probably have used their own mercenaries in an invasion of Qatar just like they've done in Yemen. 

Pretty sure if you double the amount of battles Price fought in, then he'd be ranked behind Lee who has about twice as much battles. As Sturg points out, the major problem with this is the number of battles thing.  

Someone took sabermetrics and applied it to generals and their success at warfare. Napoleon is currently the most successful by far with Caesar being a distant 2nd. The author left out a good deal of the Mongols conquests, so hopefully the data gets updated soon. Zhukov seems to be the best modern general in the data set. Unsurprisingly, Robert E. Lee, Patton, and Rommel are all vastly overrated. 

Here's a link to a visualization https://ethanarsht.github.io/military_rankings/

Nobody's perfect

16 minutes ago, Ramlaen said:

 

Yemen is probably going to last a long time as a proxy.

Yep, Yemen has been a rather low-cost endeavor for Iran too. As long as the Saudis don't starve every Zaidi Shia in Yemen to death, the Houthis are going to bleed them. 

And hell, I'd say that Iran has already basically won its proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Syria. 

2 hours ago, SergeantMatt said:

I'm rooting for the chaos of the war to cause the Saoshyant to emerge, lead a Zoroastrian Revolution, and restore the SasanianAchaemenid Empire.

FTFY

I don't think the Saudis & Gulf Friends will directly fight the Iranians as long as the US and Israel don't join along. 

I have some questions that I've been trying to answer regarding this hypothetical war:

• Where would you invade Iran from? Southern Iraq into Khuzestan seems like the easiest route if you were to ignore that Southern Iraq would likely be filled with Iraqi Shia militias aligned with Iran. Crossing the Persian Gulf seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Using Afghanistan as a staging ground for invading Iran sounds like a bad idea, but is probably the best. I doubt you could use Turkmenistan, Turkey, or Azerbaijan as staging areas. 
• In the same vein, how are you going to get from Iran's borders to Tehran which is kinda in the middle of the country? Afghanistan has similar geography, but the Taliban didn't have S-300s. 
• How willing are the Saudis/Israelis/Americans willing to take casualties? The Saudis have mostly been using mercenaries in Yemen, but a war with Iran will likely need them to actually send its own soldiers onto the battlefield. Israel fought Hezbollah in 2006 and took relatively heavy casualties before deciding that it was going to be a lot bloodier than they originally thought, and Hezbollah is an even better fighting force now than it was in 2006. If America was to invade Iran, I think it would make Iraq look like a cakewalk. 
• Iran doesn't seem to have the offensive capabilities to conventionally invade another country, but is it possible for them to try to turn Bahraini and Eastern Saudi Arabian Shia into some sort of Hezbollah-like group and get a foothold on the other side of the Gulf? 
• Would the Saudis & friends actually be ok with a near useless war that shuts down the Persian Gulf and thus their economies? 

I'm more optimistic about reform in Iran once Khamenei dies in a year or so. Rafsanjani should've been Ayatollah instead fwiw. 

Why would China want a regime change (from a Chinese-friendly one to another Chinese-friendly one) in Zimbabwe in exchange for potentially destabilizing a nuclear-armed state on their border? 

OTOH, a deal concerning the US conceding the South China Sea dispute would probably get the Chinese to put more pressure on NK. Though the notion that China can magically deal with the North Koreans is wrongheaded in my opinion. 

39 minutes ago, Belesarius said:

One can hope.

I seriously think one of the best outcomes in NK would be the Chinese backing and orchestrating a coup in NK, and then basically taking over.

 

From my read of NK-Chinese relations, the North Koreans are just as paranoid of this scenario as they are from a potential US/SK attack and rightfully so. The Chinese loath the North Korean leadership and vice-versa. So, the North Koreans have probably already purged anyone that would be in charge of a successful Chinese-backed coup. 

Pretty sure the AFVs are Chinese-made ZSD-89-IIs  

Possible coup attempt going on in Zimbabwe against Mugabe