So while Hezbollah may have as many as '100,000 rockets' from Iran, they can only launch a limited # of them per day, while Israel could rain-down thousands of missiles and smart bombs on southern Lebanon, setting back Hezbollah capabilities 'by decades' while they struggle to perhaps fire off a few rounds towards Israeli population centers.
To enable this strategy, Israel is currently in the midst of a radical air-power expansion that has brought a 4x increase in her striking power over the span of just two years:
The firepower of the Israel Air Force (IAF) will be four times greater by year’s end than it was two years ago, according to its commander, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, enabling Israel to bring another round of fighting with Hezbollah to a swift end.
“We can destroy [Hezbollah’s] military capabilities and the infrastructure that supports its activities on a scale that would take decades to rebuild,” he told a conference on national security, “an unimaginable scale”. ...
Eshel acknowledged that Hezbollah now has precision rocketry capable of hitting Israel’s northernmost air force base and to interfere with operations. However, he said, it would not diminish the IAF’s offensive capabilities, which can be projected from other bases as well....
The use of precision munitions and upgraded intelligence, based in part on satellites, accounts in good part for the increase in the IAF’s effective firepower... the air force could carry out thousands of accurate strikes in a single day.
By the end of this year, the air force will be able accomplish in 24 hours what it took three days to accomplish in the war with Hezbollah eight years ago...
And if the Lebanese national government -and Army- get involved? It's now pretty much controlled by Hezbollah anyway, so it's not hard to envision the entire country dragged into a war with Israel. And which side would Obama take? Good question!
Yet this would probably be a grave error for the Lebanese, as already back in 2010 Israel had fully prepared a plan for the IDF to wipe the entire Lebanese military off face of the Earth in just four hours... one can only assume they're still ready to do that -and more- if circumstances demand it.
Coincidence? IAF launches largest international military exercise in Israel's history
On Sunday, November 24, for the first time in Israel's history, the
Israel Air Force launched the "Blue Flag" training exercise - an
international air force exercise with participation by the US, Italian
and Greek air forces.
Say it isn't so: US no longer capable of effectively attacking Iran?
In an earlier post, I reported that both IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and Minister of Defense Moshe Boogie Yaalon said on Tuesday that Israel is capable of attacking Iran by itself.
J.E. Dyer, a former US Naval officer, doesn't discuss those statements in the article excerpted below, but assuming that her assessment is correct, it should be clear why Gantz and Yaalon found it necessary to say what they did: The United States is no longer capable of effectively attacking Iran, and a threat coming from Binyamin Netanyahu to attack Iran is far more credible than a threat coming from Barack Hussein Obama.
My Liberty Unyielding colleague Timothy Whiteman highlighted last Thursday the number of Air Force squadrons that will have to cease training later this year because the Air Force doesn’t have funds for the flying hours. This is real, and it is astounding. It will mean that, at a certain point in the near future – as early as this fall, if no additional funds become available – the cost of mounting an operation big enough to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons-related installations is likely to be too high.
This is because there will be no force depth to either sustain follow-on operations or overcome the geographic constraints U.S. forces are increasingly likely to face. Assuming all of the Air Force’s stand-downs and readiness losses do occur, the available front-line forces would be maxed out with a moderately scoped strike package. To meet the task, they would require the most favorable basing options that could be available in the Persian Gulf under today’s conditions – but which may not be. If we don’t have those favorable basing options, and the Air Force squadron groundings remain on track, the Iran strike goes from all-but-under-resourced to impossible.
There will not, after all, be two aircraft carriers on station near Iran, with their combined eight squadrons of Navy strike-fighters (more on that below). It will in theory be possible to deploy a second carrier, but doing so is pretty much certain to require more money from Congress. (Doing so would also enlarge and accelerate the readiness snowball for the Navy’s carrier force, a snowball that will inevitably become an avalanche of carrier unreadiness in the next three years, if world problems require unplanned operations during this period.)
The Air Force will have to carry the load of a strike on Iran, if there is to be one in the foreseeable future. The Air Force’s forward-deployed squadrons will continue to train and conduct operational flights. The B-2s and some of the B-52s, which can deploy immediately and/or operate globally from their bases stateside, will remain combat ready. But the strike-fighter squadrons at their home bases in the States, which would be called on if a major operation had to be ordered, will be in an impaired state of readiness. The aircrews will fall out of combat qualification when they haven’t been able to get their training hours in (and some aircraft maintenance will be deferred as well). If the president wanted to order a new operation, beyond our current military commitments, it is not clear what would happen.
...
An option Israel has always had, and one we are now more likely to select ourselves, is to go after only one or two target installations, hoping to set Iran back but not destroy her nuclear-weapons program to the extent that the whole thing must be reconstituted. Choosing such a limited objective, however, would mean less support for a U.S. operation from our regional partners. We can’t rely on them to let us expose them to Iran’s wrath for operations that aren’t worthwhile. We will not get to decide how worthwhile the operation must be, if we seek to calibrate it at a level too low for our partners’ confidence.
...
It would be challenging but well within our capabilities to launch a comprehensive strike, and complete it in 96 hours or less, if we had – at the ready – a deep Air Force roster and at least two carrier strike groups, with the air wings and Tomahawks they bring, in or close to the Persian Gulf. But in 2013, we no longer do. The prospect we face is of being squeezed out of strike-option feasibility by a combination of resource attrition – driven by the sequester – and the geographic constraints that are closing in due to political shifts in the region.
With enough combat-ready forces, we could overcome the geographic constraints, at least to a large extent. If we didn’t face the geographic constraints, the forces we will have available would be enough for a limited strike package, if not necessarily for the full scope of what needs to be done, or for containing Iran in the aftermath of the strike. But we face both limiting factors now. We have gone about 80 percent of the way from being the “United States” to being “Israel,” in terms of the capability we could actually bring to bear, right now, on the Iranian nuclear problem. There is no prospect of this changing.
And it’s a problem, because, unfortunately, our current president will not have the credibility Netanyahu would have, regarding his determination to neutralize Iran’s most threatening assets. We are not Israel today, in terms of will. We are Obama’s America. Regional nations have real reason to worry that a basing concession to Obama would increase their vulnerability without taking care of the threat. We can hope that Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman would allow us to use their airfields and air space, but it’s not a given anymore.
It isn’t a given that the United States will step up to the plate when the perceived, near-term threat from Iran is not to us directly, but to our regional partners. There is no question that the threat to Israel from a nuclear-armed Iran would be direct and existential. Few would doubt that a Netanyahu would have meaningful strike intentions and would follow through on them. But with our particular president’s history of national-security decisions, it is reasonable, even prudent, to doubt his rhetoric about Iran.
...
If a strike is necessary, we’d better hope it gets ordered in the next 3-4 months. It would be dicey to try one with the comparatively shallow force profile available right now. But after that, Obama can’t just order it. It will have to be prepared for first, at additional expense – if, that is, the president intends for the strike to be effective, for the U.S. to minimize combat losses, and for his administration to have discretion over when and how the strike happens.
Perhaps Obama doesn’t intend to have that discretion. He was willing to deal it away in Libya, and has shown no disposition to secure it in Syria. Unfortunately, you cannot compile Obama’s national-security record and keep respectful assumptions alive in the minds of your allies and opponents.
The president may order an operation anyway, and override any military objections about feasibility. We can hope not, but foreign troublemakers may force his hand. Obama will care about appearances at least until the 2014 election. Our military can get any job done if it has the resources it needs, and a feasible and well-defined objective. But the prospect of our forces being asked to do what they do not have the resources for – with, quite possibly, a poorly-defined objective, as in the Libya operation – is now very real.
Really cool video: IMAX Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag
It's not quite the same as watching it on a 7-story IMAX screen, but Stephen D, who tells me that this video was being shown at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, sent me this video which he says includes Israelis (who fly circles around everyone else). I'm still watching it at this writing, but it's neat enough to share. Here's the blurb:
Boeing Company and IMAX present film Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag
John ("Otter") Stratton is a young American fighter pilot who flies the F-15 Eagle. His grandfather was a decorated World War II flying ace, and he intended to follow in his footsteps. Red Flag is the final training for pilots and their aircrews before being sent into actual combat. We follow our young pilot as he makes his way through this extraordinary event held in the desert of Nevada.
Turkey is sitting with 60 American nuclear warheads at its Incirlik base by the United States because the Turks refuse to allow the US to station the warplanes there that would be able to deliver them (Hat Tip: Will).
The United States currently has 70 type B61-12 tactical nuclear bombs at its airbase in Incirlik in the southern province of Adana, according to daily Vatan.
...
Between 10 and 20 of the 70 nuclear warheads at Incirlik were designed to be delivered to their targets by Turkish warplanes, according to the report.
...
The US military needed a certain warplane type that is different than those stationed at the Incirlik airbase in order to deliver the remaining 50 warheads, the report by Norris and Kristensen said.
The Turkish state, however, has declined to allow the US military to deploy the said aircraft at Incirlik.
US warplanes would need to land at Incirlik from another location, equip the nuclear warheads and then fly to their targets, according to the report.
Turkey’s refusal to station nuclear-capable US warplanes on its soil prevented Incirlik from acquiring a “full NATO position” status. This was a unique case among NATO bases, the report said.
The German daily Bild reports that Iran plans to attack US forces in Germany in the event that its nuclear program is attacked by the US or Israel.
According to the report, German authorities are investigating a German businessman suspected of espionage with intent to sabotage who they believe is in contact with the Iranian Embassy in Berlin.
Bild quoted German Attorney General Harald Range as saying "We have launched an investigation and taken operational measures."
The aim of the attack, the report noted, is to thwart American logistic activities needed in order to carry out a military operation against Iranian nuclear facilities.
In a confidential document leaked to the paper, the German chief prosecutor's office claimed that the businessman is suspected of involvement in "espionage and sabotage" activities. The paper estimated that the suspect engaged in intelligence gathering for possible attacks on dozens of American military bases in western Germany.
According to the report, potential targets included airstrips in military bases that serve the US army and NATO forces.
It's coming. The only question is when. I'm guessing the spring or summer.
This post should be going up right about halftime of the first game of the NFL tripleheader (it was only a doubleheader when I made aliya - so I had one less temptation to stay in the States).
Have I got a halftime show for you. This is from the Mountaineers of West Virginia in Morgantown (I think that's where it is), West Virginia, and it's especially made for Thanksgiving.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
