Iran’s Next Move? The SAM Trap was an attempt to identify a form of retaliation not unavailable requiring resources. Events have probably moved beyond that.  One commentator has stated that, due to the inability of Iran to project air, other than missiles, or ground forces,  Israel has escalation dominance.

As far as direct confrontation with Israel, this seems reasonable. While we hope for regime change, and events that enable it, there may instead emerge a revised version of the current regime, in which overt expansionism is replaced with stoicism.  Expansionism  would become a revanchist myth, without overt repudiation. If this occurs, Iran’s goal may shift from overt obsession with Israel to regaining relevance in the international community.

Iran’s relevance has, since 1979, taken the form of making trouble for the West and Western allies, creating domestic political pressure that would undermine support for Israel.

Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if Iran’s own oil exports are halted. Years ago, the threat was actualized as Chinese Silkworm missiles embedded in cliffs. Iran may have since added capability to this threat. Nevertheless, it does not seem feasible for a weakened Iran to halt traffic through the Strait via missile attacks for an extended period.  This problem has been war-gamed to the max.

The reader is challenged to devise a method for Iran to halt or greatly diminish traffic through the strait that is more resistant to military reversal than missiles or other elements vulnerable to air attack. From the p.o.v. of the problem, reversal of the blockade should require land invasion or diplomatic concessions.  Extra points if the Iranians can still transport their own oil.

I have an idea, but I’m not spilling the beans. Have fun, but don’t tell the Iranians!

 

 

(Youtube IsraeliPM )  Statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu;  Ayatollah regime was planning to give nuclear weapons to proxies.

This was anticipated in (CNN) Israeli foreign minister: Trump admin. didn’t force Israel into accepting ceasefire ; Future Trends of M.E. Terrorism. Quoting,

One of our secular givens is that these terror groups are basically fighting for a life on earth. This implies that the land of Israel must be regained as a habitable place. This negates the possibility of a completely religious motivation, the land now a mere symbol of possession, regained as a completely sterile wasteland, incapable of human habitation. The reservoir is Syria; see After Assad; a Terror Nation-State.

This implies that non-state actors will attempt the use of weapons of mass destruction without regard for the populations for which they presumably advocate.The use of Gazans as human shields is an early form of this meme, which will evolve with greater virulence.

 

 

Israel and the U.S. possess complimentary capabilities, which is why  Trump said “it might actually help”:

• The U.S. has superlative technical intelligence and unique strike capability against hardened targets.
• Israel has unparalleled HUMINT (human intelligence) bolstered by the Jewish Diaspora and widespread dissonance in Iran.
• Israel’s strike capability against soft targets is similar to U.S. in quality, though not in quantity or reach. It is bolstered by on-the-ground damage assessment.
• This results in a well defined target dichotomy. Israel’s target is human capital, intellectual property and research facilities. The U.S. target would be industrial base.

The timing was forced by the tendency of HUMINT to go stale. Top generals are easily replaced, scientists less so. Depending upon the depth of intelligence, the strike may impede Iran’s program for a year or two.  However, it is relatively easy to cache this kind of property, both intellectual and technical, in multiple locations, not all of which may be known to Israel.

It is doubtful that the underground centrifuge halls of Natanz can be   penetrated by Israel, though above ground support structures are vulnerable. Entrance portals may be vulnerable to specialty weapons.

The regional trajectory  is unlikely to deflect by much. The inability to  extirpate Hamas should  give pause for a much larger target. Quoting from Iran’s Options for Retaliation,

The leaders and  senior politicians of Israel have all lived through  the unsuccessful attempt to influence Lebanon’s trajectory, to deny terror a sanctuary in Lebanon by skilled military intervention. Despite calls to “finish off Hezbollah”, their inner thoughts must span a range, from doubt of the achievable to realistic buying of time, time of relative security. When the enemy has 200,000 missiles, you have to do something. Perhaps time is all you can buy in the Eternal City._*

Quoting from Iran history II: two societies,

It is the living embodiment of a Plato’s Republic, incongruously set against a secular majority that pretty much does what they please — in private. The dichotomy is so severe as to seem institutionalized hypocrisy.

This culture of centuries resulted from  the melding of Abbasid and Persian cultures. It has produced Iranian negotiators rich in verbal expression and nuanced meaning, delaying  the  onset of “Haven’t we been here before?”,  entrapping Trump’s negotiators in an endless circle of words.

The above should not be construed as an opinion on military strikes. History is  a mighty river that just carries us along. Iran might buy North Korean nukes, which are much more advanced than what they are trying to build.

 

Dear POTUS,

No doubt you wish the mass expulsion of illegal aliens to be one of the positive aspects of your legacy. This is not about the politics of that goal.

The police, guard and marines personnel share the desire to serve.  It takes better than average people to serve well. But they, like most of us, are not mental giants. The capability to make split-second decisions is enhanced by their training, specialized to the scenarios they are expected to encounter.

A policeman is not trained to storm an objective requiring lethal force from the get-go. The training of a cop involves a very careful sequence of escalation: request,  demand, compel. Execution of this template,  switching almost instantaneously to deadly force according to the regulations of a department, is the hallmark of superior training and ability.  The ability to persuade a suspect to comply with minimum force, or any force at all, is far more complex than the use of deadly force. This is what makes the career of law enforcement rewarding. It maintains the consent of the governed, without which civil government loses all meaning. A cop practices his skills every day.

The training of the national guard  in police work is occasional and rarely practiced.  The Guard is not a law enforcement agency.  Training for civil unrest is combined with the training of a combat infantryman, which is almost entirely occupied with perfection in the use of lethal force.  This combination leads  to the possibility of horrendous error, when a unit of guardsmen  spontaneously switches from civil policing to the massive application of lethal force.

The U.S. Marines train hard to kill. “No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy”  is a valiant motto, full of honest intent. But the potential risk of misidentification of a civilian as an enemy combatant, and the resulting application of lethal force, remains. It is impossible to guarantee that a Marine in a civil situation will suppress reflexes developed for combat.

History is replete with unfortunate examples:

William Calley was by all accounts a decent guy, who regretted the My Lai massacre for the rest of his life.

The Kent State shootings were committed by 28 frightened guardsmen.

The 2005  Haditha massacre in Iraq was committed by Marines enraged by a  lethal IED. While the participants have been partly excused by the character of the war zone,  a domestic response would be unforgiving.

The risk exists of unintended death of of civilians, in confrontation with soldiers lacking the trained finesse of  professional police officers. The event is not a desirable legacy.. It makes political sense to avoid fatalities committed by federal forces. The best way to avoid this is to use the Guard and Marines strictly in a defensive capacity. Powers of arrest and detention should remain the province of DHS and other federal agencies with experience  in law enforcement.

 

 

(Axiox) CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery to split into two companies, and 

(CNN) Warner Bros. Discovery is splitting into two companies.

Zaslav’s approach to the problems of CNN  was threefold:

• Find the right guy to run it, which took two tries.
• Foot the bill, $70M for a streaming website.
• Be patient. (Adweek)  David Zaslav Waves Off Concerns About CNN’s Ratings Woes 

One has to admire Zaslav’s commitment –, though the concept of the wild duck, the value of outliers as harbingers of the future, did not appear to resonate with him. Perhaps the split, with Zaslav as head of WBD Streaming & Studios, will land him back in his comfort zone of what movies have become –scripts, and talent — traditional fictional IP with streaming delivery, and derivative video games.

WBD Global Networks, which includes CNN, TNT Sports U.S. and Discovery, is touted as a split-off of the traditional OTA and cable networks, but it is more than that. It is also the nonfiction part of WBD. Fiction is more attractive than nonfiction. WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels will have to simultaneously innovate while treading water with cable and the networks, service a $37B  debt, or ride the stock down to the floor, hopefully supported by a 20% stake in Streaming & Studios.

I would throw Wiedenfels a life preserver, but he has a reputation as a ruthless bean counter. Quoting (yahoo/finance) Who Is Gunnar Wiedenfels? WBD’s Cost-Cutting Finance Exec Picked as CEO of New TV Networks Spin-Off Comprising CNN, TBS, TNT, Discovery+ and More,

As CFO at Warner Bros. Discovery, Wiedenfels has been the face of the cost-cutting that has ensued since David Zaslav and the Discovery gang took the reins of the merged Discovery-WarnerMedia in Burbank in April 2022. As such, Wiedenfels often been the focus of frustration among employees in his role as the instigator of belt-tightening and other massive changes including a series of layoffs.

This may or may not be responsible for an organization which is unable to correctly state the weight of a moose (see SLOPPY CNN: New video shows Ukraine striking deep inside Russia; The Difference Between a Rocket and a Gun ) but it can’t help. It cannot explain the persistence of a  format — not just at CNN, but almost universally in TV news — invented by Edward R. Murrow in 1938. The CBS World News Roundup  was actually useful back then. Now it is often reproduced in a mechanical, perfunctory way as the staple template, still, for many slots, in the form of artificial conversation.

The original broadcasts are fascinating,  because the participants themselves were being informed at the same time as the broadcast audience. The modern simulacrum begins with the anchor’s query to a reporter or co-anchor, e.g., “Loretta, tell us about the corn syrup train derailment”, followed by  exactly two head nods by Loretta who can’t hear anything yet, followed unerringly by tasteful descriptions of the two people who drowned in the corn syrup, the panicked experiences of the locals who are delighted at their 15 minutes of fame, and a cut back to the anchor. CNN anchors are deservedly at the top of their  profession, hampered by this hackneyed adherence.

Now for some sketchy free advice, along the lines of CNN Shuffles the Lineup; Front Page Yellow Snow:

• Apart from excellence in politics, the rest is not very satisfying, except to  the person who will pay only four bucks a month for news. That category of customer is small. Either they want quality or they want nothing, or they want the NY Post.
• The touting of “experts”, where CNN excels in word count, has, with a shift in culture over time, come to be condescending. “Here’s what to know” deserves examination as well.
• Innovate, honestly, not via AI retreads. Journalism is a culture, and a good one, but it is not immune to the need for renewal.
• Crack the window open a little, so the wild ducks can fly in.

Does Wiedenfels have the skill of a Houdini to escape his cement boots? Or will he have to dig out the Turner Doomsday Video? The whole world is watching. 

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

 Michelangelo

***Turner Doomsday Video***

 

 

It appears the certificate has not yet been deployed. This should happen early next week.

EDIT 6/8:  The hosting company has not installed the certificate in a timely manner and has not responded to query.

EDIT: It appears the certificate has not yet been deployed. This should happen early next week.

Intel9.us now has an SSL Certificate. This means that individuals who directly access the website will no longer see the alarming browser message, “This website may damage your computer…” highlighted in red.

When I began Intel9.us eleven years ago, lack of an SSL certificate was not an issue. In my opinion, it should not be an issue for a website that  conducts no e-commerce, and does not request information from users. In some locales,  the user could be vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, by substitution of  web pages generated by a third party. But in this case, you have other problems.

Nevertheless, the dire warning message generated by modern browsers, without any knowledge of what the website actually is or who runs it, required this remedy. Ironically, the SSL certificate doesn’t provide any additional security to Intel9; it just disposes of the message.

SSL encrypts the link between a user’s computer and the website, with “https” appearing in the browser address bar, sometimes after an extra click. This does not make the website itself inherently more secure.  Readers with government, media, or corporate  affiliations should continue to access Intel9 by means appropriate to their security requirements.

For the individual unaffiliated internet user, the risks are minimal.  Welcome aboard!

(CNN) Trump considers new sanctions on Russia as he grows more furious with Putin.

This has been addressed in (CNN) Trump threatens new sanctions on Russia after weeks of conciliatory statements toward Moscow. Quoting,

True to form, the Kremlin has interpreted Trump’s conciliation as a sign of weakness. Notably, they have already discounted Trump’s blustery, threatening exterior as a put-on.

Dear President Trump, all that NSC analysis might miss what’s really going on. Putin has stolen your mojo. A technical description follows:

***Theft of Mojo***

 

 

 

For various reasons having to do with national pride, military hubris, or the desire of belligerents to emit propaganda, there has been a tendency in the press to deprecate China’s rapidly developing military prowess. The  downing of as many as two Indian Rafale planes by Chinese PL-15 missiles carried by Chengdu J-10C  is depicted as a shocking upset, demanding re-evaluation of the quality of Chinese weaponry.

What happened was completely predictable. India’s air attack was initiated by 4th generation aircraft, without first acquiring air superiority and unaccompanied by standoff radar jammers. Every U.S. simulation scenario has demonstrated that 4th generation aircraft sustain losses. Against competent air defenses, these are unsustainable.

The U.S. has long regarded the  PL-15  as a major threat, prompting the crash program to develop the AIM-260 and several other long range missiles. It should be no surprise that at least some Chinese weapons, such as the PL-15, may have superior capabilities not yet bounded on the upside by intelligence.  Better known efforts, such as China’s stealth fighters, are at least credible efforts, likely superior in overall capability to  advanced 4th generation fighters.

India and Pakistan these days have highly manipulated media. It is entirely possible that decision makers in these countries are consuming their own propaganda. Even after loss of two or more planes, India could not stop gloating. Quoting from (Eurasia Times) Tech Bonanza For India! Recovers ‘Near Intact’ China’s PL-15 BVR Missile Likely Fired At IAF Jets:

Squadron Leader Vijainder K. Thakur, an Indian Air Force veteran and a regular contributor to the EurAsian Times, said the missile was found intact, suggesting its self-destruct mechanism did not work…“It is a tech bonanza for India and its allies. The missile has tech issues because the self-destruct didn’t work. It could have other issues. It’s not a mature weapon.”

The missile downed two + or – jets and it’s not mature? See (National Defense Research Wing) Pakistan’s J-10CE Jamming Claims Mocked as Rafale’s Spectra Outshines KG600, The problem with this claim is that it was the responsibility of Spectra to deflect the PL-15 missile! Pakistan may be equally guilty of PR bloviation, but is too terse to pin down.

The outcome was within the bounds of the expected. That the Thales Spectra self-defense jammer failed against the PL-15 may be a minor surprise, but this kind of failure  can be anticipated with electronic warfare. Combined with pilot response, it is responsible for survival of the 4th generation Rafale.

Initially, the launching plane provides the radar beam and guidance for the PL-15. If the PL-15 gets close to the target, the reflection will be strong enough to transfer entirely to the onboard seeker, a complete miniature radar system.

Jamming is a dark art. The jammer tries to fool the seeker by replacing the reflected pulse of the missile radar with its own pulse, which contains false information. To do this, the jammer must have intimate knowledge of the technology of the missile radar, or be so powerful as to overwhelm the electronic circuitry. For success, the jammer must have an up-to-date threat library, a “threat dictionary”, which is hard to get from an enemy — but there is more.

There is a kind of “IQ” competition between the missile and the jammer. Until recent, the anti-jamming capability of a missile like the PL-15 was limited by the need for promptness to two strategies:

• Home-on-jam, where the missile guides itself to the source of the jamming.
• A bunch of techniques based  on the linear “matched filter”, a practical method that uses minimal computing power, fitting easily inside a tiny radar weighing just a few pounds.  Pulse compression is an example.

With modern semis, the lid comes off complexity and clock speed. This opens the door to nonlinear signal processing, even neural nets. A technique such as CDMA, if it were adapted to radar, could make jamming almost impossible. Which of these, if any, is true? Thales Spectra is 15 years old.

One word to Thales, India, Pakistan, and anyone else afflicted with weapon hubris:

Surprise!

CNN live coverage of Kashmir 2025 massacre.

Since the latest terror attack is a strategic replay of many prior incidents, you may wish to read India Pakistan crisis first. While facts of culpability are hard to come by, general principles apply.

Pakistan is a failed state, captive to the unattainable desire to regain Kashmir, with divided authorities, a weak economy, and severe environmental challenges. The level of civilian corruption is  typified by wholesale theft of land deeds by the elite, going back many years, in Balochistan, backstory of current unrest.

The civilian government, in spite of massive corruption and vigilante sharia law, has some democratic trappings. It also functions to shield the upper 1% in their private Western-style indulgences, which would not sit well with the masses. Blasphemy is punishable by death, often at the hands of the mob.

It is simplistic to state that civil government is subordinate to  the nominal intelligence apparatus, the ISI. The conflict resolution mechanism is of a type unknown in the West, The ISI acts as a hidden hand, usually prevailing, but subject to unpredictable reversals by the civilian realm. Political conflict is sustained by circular processes, bouncing endlessly between court and legislature.

When the military have seized power, results have been variable. In 1999, Pervez Musharraf contrived the Kargil War with India, This led to his removal from power, more for reasons of strategy than objective. Perhaps unwittingly, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq imported Islamic extremism. The rest are at least not so memorable.

Since the founding of Pakistan,  no prime minister save Imran Khan has been removed by legal means. Imprisonment, assassination, or execution are typical. There is a strong analogy in the past history of the Turkish military, whose influence on government was seen either positively, as the ghost of Ataturk, or negatively, as a hidden power structure. Since Zia-ul-Haq, the latter is more relevant.

Pakistan was not originally a very religious country. Quoting the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah,

 “… in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the state … “,

This was subject to profound change under Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization, which established state funded religious schools — madrassas– similar in effect to the Wahhabi madrassas funded by Saudi Arabia, with frequent associations with  past acts of terrorism. Zia’s plane was blown up, but his influence remains. Imran Khan  sought to return to Jinnah’s secular conception, but failed.

Until  the 2014 Peshawar school massacre, the ISI was the unquestioned master of the situation,  capable of hiding Osama Bin-Laden for years, 3/4 miles from the Pakistan Military Academy  in Abbottabad. The result has been a crackdown on terrorism. Whether it was selective to domestic threats, allowing Kashmir objectives, is hinted by open source.

We note a general principle. The history of conflict between religion and government, of which we have thoroughly modern knowledge, begins with the subversive Christianization of Rome in the first three hundred years A.D.  Subversion slept for more than a thousand years,  resurfacing in the modern era. Cryptic Islamism, as an underground challenge to secular government, is currently the most problematic form. Even the most progressive Muslim countries deal harshly with the Muslim Brotherhood, because of its ability to  hollow out the secular state.

Zia’s madrassas set the stage. Initially, their waves of youth were useful proxies for the schemes of the ISI. Then extremism, which had been  carefully fostered for controlled objectives, took on a life of its own, the Islamic “infra-state”. The major groups splintered, competing in  goals, dedication, fanaticism. These factors engage:

• The madrassas are still operating. (The Diplomat) Pakistan Debates Madrassa Reform Rollback asserts that the generational injection of radical Islam continues.
• The National Action Plan is a major effort with widespread support to eliminate the domestic basis of terrorism. Can it block subversion?
• Pakistan claims that terror training camps no longer exist on their territory.
• Could terrorists transit Pakistan from somewhere else?
• India claims that Pakistan culpability is established by intelligence.

The 2019 Balakot airstrike offers clues.The Indian Air Force claimed to strike a terror training camp. Quoting Wikipedia,

…Western diplomats in Islamabad stated that they did not believe the Indian Air Force had hit any militant camp, with one stating that it was “common knowledge amongst our intelligence” that the militant training camp in Balakot had been moved some years back.^[75] Western security officials have cast doubt over Indian claims and asserted that there are no longer any such large scale militant camps in Pakistan.

The  article also hints at concealment:

Reporters from Reuters were repeatedly denied access to the madrassa by the military citing security issues but they noted the structure (and its vicinity) to be intact from the back.^[69][71] The press wing of the Pakistan military had twice postponed scheduled visits to the site.

…

The local people varied as to the purpose of the facility.^[66] In the immediate aftermath of the strikes, whilst some claimed of it being an active Jaish training camp, others asserted it to have been a mere school for the local children and that such militant camps used to exist far earlier.^[

from which may be deduced, with moderate confidence:

• There was no training camp of any size.
• There was a small camp.
• Proximity to a madrassa was not a coincidence, but a logistical convenience.
• Indian intelligence and execution were abysmal.
• Pakistan has with some success curbed terrorism, but is limited by the presence of extremism in legitimate political guise.

Terrorism tends not to disappear, but to transform. Since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2016, there is no real need for large terror bases in Pakistan. Still necessary is transit from Afghanistan through  Pakistan, with small scale logistical support in the general form of safe houses,  unobtrusively blending into urban landscapes. Targeting these structures has high likelihood of civilian casualties, unless specialized weapons, possessed only by the U.S., are used, in conjunction with equally precise intelligence gathering. Although India employed precision strike weapons, the totality of effect is beyond the execution ability of the IAF.

The Indian response was mandated by the horror of the deed, and Narendra Modi’s bristly Hindu nationalism. The Pakistan response will be mandated by civilian casualties, as well as the sense of violation that comes with the targeting of populated areas.

Will this come to an end with the satisfaction of honor, as  in some kind of duel? Not this time. It will happen when both sides have lost enough airplanes.  Military hardware is precious to a small military with pretension to greatness. Uniform epaulets, regardless of design, cannot take wing. It really hurts to lose your toys.

The widespread bellicosity of current foreign relations suggests that many leaders are vulnerable to unconscious influence, a kind of style.