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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   1204 thread views

Transnational Thursday for July 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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https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/19/yemen-houthis-claim-deadly-drone-attack-on-tel-aviv-israel

Yemen apparently got a drone through Israeli air defences yesterday, hitting an apartment building near the US embassy and killing one guy. The Houthis clearly don't mess around with these telegraphed, performative missile strikes like Iran, they get things done. I'm still somewhat surprised they've been able to block Suez transit. Since when was Yemen a major power?

The Israelis have vowed to strike back. Presumably they also have to do something about Hezbollah, which has forced evacuations from the north of Israel that continue to today. A few days ago it looked like the Israelis were about to go in on Hezbollah but nothing seems to have happened other than skirmishing. Hamas hasn't been destroyed, nor have the hostages been freed - Israel's war-objectives have not been achieved. Nor has Hamas destroyed Israel either, tbf. The three organizations seem to be slowly chipping away at Israel, wearing down resolve and trust in their government.

Apparently Arabs are good at fighting if their organization starts with 'H'.

I'm still somewhat surprised they've been able to block Suez transit. Since when was Yemen a major power?

Seems like at current levels of technology navies are just outmoded? A lot of fundamental issues are stacked against them. Sea and air based suicide drones are available to countries with very low levels of development. Missiles available at levels barely above that. On the other hand anti air is more costly to develop and operate.

We see this dynamic a lot in the Ukr-Rus war, modern western AA and the higher end Russian stuff can be overwhelmed with saturation attacks via mixed drones + missiles. At sea this problem is compounded given that you are even more limited when it comes to your supply of AA missiles and can't easily be resupplied. Also with the advances in surveillance there is no way to hide at sea. You are basically a floating AA with a limited supply of missiles sitting on a featureless plane. Seems like this dynamic will just get worse with computer vision and other basic AI features becoming more and more available which can overcome EW.

On the other hand when it comes to shutting down land based missiles and drones the task has become nearly impossible. They can be hidden from satellite and drone surveillance on land though this is more difficult than in the past, but the biggest problem is shutting down supply. There is no obvious "missile factory" or industrial supply chain that we can target or sanction because we've globalized industry which means parts can just be sourced from all over the place and the weapons pieced together on site or at a neighboring country and then shipped in bypassing sanctions. Again we see this with the sanctions failing when it came to Russia and the US looking like lunatics complaining about China exporting washing machines due to "dual use" components helping Russia's war. Navies just kinda suck now.

The only way to defeat the Houthis is to just starve the population until so many die that support for them either falls or the whole movement crumbles. Unfortunately that would be a war crime and millions of civilians would die, which is also what limited the joint UK-US action there. Plus nobody really wants to have to pacify Yemeni Shias afterwards which everyone knows would be an endless insurgency. Egypt doesn’t want to get involved because the people sympathize with Hamas anyway and the army faction don’t want to risk almost getting overthrown by the MB (ie Hamas’ affiliate) again, plus there was that whole failed war in the 60s that left long scars.

Israel’s war aims were fake PR goals for the plebs, nobody in the IDF believes that Islamist insurgency is going to be destroyed in Gaza, or that Hezbollah can be conventionally defeated without US boots on the ground. They can bomb South Beirut into a crater but 250k civilians would die, it’s unclear how deep the Hezb bunkers might go and they have now spread a lot of assets and senior leadership across Southern Lebanon so no decapitating strike is possible there either, plus the resulting attack on Tel Aviv would deal a big economic blow to Israel (whereas Lebanon is already and will remain a basket case) even if casualties were manageable, while Hezbollah doesn’t give a fuck about the Lebanese economy.

Judging by Vance and Trump’s extreme pro-Israel position so far, the Israelis seem to be trying to prolong this until January, after which they can provoke a big Hezb-Iranian attack and trigger some kind of US response.

I don't think the US has another Middle Eastern adventure in the tank at this point. Between Europe, Asia and the last 20 years they're tapped out. Trump might try but the end result will surely be another quagmire and Chinese hegemony. There is no CIPAC, China is much more likely to favour the oily lands and their pals in Tehran over their great rival's proxy.

If I were in charge of Israel, I'd start settling my conflicts quickly.

The only way to defeat the Houthis is to just starve the population until so many die that support for them either falls or the whole movement crumbles.

I've thought this for a while about both the Yemen war and everything about Palestine. If aid was cut off these states would not only starve, but they would be robbed of a significant source of income from what they skim off the top of aid shipments. To say nothing of the Iranian military aid mixed into the humanitarian aid.

We did worse to the Belgians in WW1, but now we can't lift a finger to protect our own interests.

Herbert Hoover and the United States averted the Belgian famine, there's no "we".

I'm still somewhat surprised they've been able to block Suez transit. Since when was Yemen a major power?

Since nobody did anything about it.

Like, seriously, I'm surprised they haven't been flattened.

More to the point- since when did it take a major power to block Suez transit?

The technology that the Houthis are using to disrupt shipping is not particularly advanced. Military drones are not the sole domain of great powers, and haven't been for nearly a decade. The technology is ubiquitous, and well within the capacity of small states, especially when backed/supplied by other states.

Sure, some goat herders with a steady stream of Iranian drones can shut the straight down. But major powers(US, India, Saudi, France) can also bomb them back into the Stone Age, which they aren’t doing.

Bomb who, the goat herders? Goat herders are already Stone Age tech levels.

Iran, in turn, is a power who is at nuclear breakout capacity, which is to say that by the time they could be bombed back to the stone age, doing so would not only be extremely expensive on multiple fronts- more expensive than the impact to the Suez Canal- but by the time it could be accomplished, the Mullahs would almost certain bite the bullet and produce nuclear weapons for use.

Wrecking some tents in the desert doesn’t really do anything except kill some teenaged boys(and probably a bunch of slaves, traders, etc), but I highly doubt these drones are launched from random meadows that they’re brought to on the back of a camel/Toyota tundra. Hangars, launchsites, maintenance facilities, fueling equipment- all that can be blown up to the point of ‘goat herders can’t shoot at ships anymore’.

Not really. Your conception of how much it takes to launch drones like the Houthis is probably way, way, way more than is actually required.

Drones may fly, but they require nothing even within the same magnitude of care or capital and infrastructure as, say, your average commercial airport. When your requirements are that small-scale and ubiquitous- a 'maintenance facility' for a cheapo drone can be as minimal as a tarp on sticks- well, those tents in the desert are your hangers, maintenance facilities, and fueling depots. And well, precision munitions are expensive, and tarps and basic building materials are really, really cheap.

And that's just the monetary cost.

Yeah the beauty of modern drone weapons is that pretty much any electronics hobbyist has more than enough skill and money to build and fly them. State-level weapons at individual-level prices.

Well the US and UK bombed various parts of Yemen, who knows whether it was decoys or anything important. They sent a bunch of escorts for Operation Prosperity Guardian, which seems to have effectively failed.

Frankly I’m starting to believe the conspiracy theories about the attack on the USS Eisenhower. I don’t put much stock in Houthi press releases, but the behavior of the US and EU navies is much more consistent with that story being true than not true.

What story is that?

The Houthis claim they hit the USS Eisenhower with a missile while it was patrolling the Red Sea, and damaged it pretty badly. The US Navy denies it, but the ship did have to abruptly leave the Red Sea for “repairs” a day after the Houthis made the claim. And there’s some evidence it had to be towed, and wasn’t moving under its own power.

Interesting. If true that would be a big blow to the idea that US aircraft carriers are nigh-invincible.

A squadron of Israeli F-35s have just bombed an oil depot on Yemen, likely in response to the Houthi attack on Tel-Aviv yesterday. The Houthi’s are promising further attacks in the coming days.

Reuters: Explainer: Why are Bangladesh students protesting against job quotas?

The demonstrations started last month after the High Court reinstated a quota system for government jobs, overturning a 2018 decision by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government to scrap it.

That move, which covered the 30% of jobs reserved for family members of freedom fighters in the 1971 war for independence from Pakistan, followed similar student protests.

But the Supreme Court suspended the high court order after the government's appeal, setting a date of Aug. 7 to hear the government's challenge.

However, the students stepped up their protest when Hasina refused to meet their demands, citing the court proceedings.

 

Introduced in 1972, Bangladesh's quota system has gone through several changes since. When it was abolished in 2018, 56% of government jobs were blocked under various quotas.

The bulk covered groups such as freedom fighters' families, with women and those from underdeveloped districts receiving a share of a tenth each, with 5% allotted to indigenous communities, and 1% for the disabled.

The protesting students want all categories abolished, except the last two.

 

Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, who led its freedom movement. Protesters and critics say the 30% quota for families of freedom fighters favours Awami League supporters, which led the independence fight.

Experts also attribute the unrest to stagnant job growth in the private sector, making public sector jobs, with their accompanying regular wage hikes and privileges, very attractive.

The quotas shrink the number of government jobs open for all, hurting aspirants who want them filled on the basis of merit.

They have sparked anger among students grappling with high youth unemployment, as nearly 32 million young people are out of work or education from a population of 170 million.

Hasina is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, who led its freedom movement

It is important to put this in context. All direct and extended members of the Rahman family were murdered in cold blood, children and all. Hasina is the only* living member of her family, that's only because she was in Europe at the time.

This is a muslim majority country that's lived through a major genocide (in 1971), multiple bloody coups and is still attempting to be a democracy. Just the fact that that a muslim country is trying to be democracy is already a tall task.

Under her tenure as prime minister, Bangladesh has experienced democratic backsliding. Human Rights Watch documented widespread enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings under her government

Wikipedia being tone deaf as usual. Practically every non-Hasina Bangladeshi leader has a genocide or dictatorial military coup on their hands. Bangalesh can't experience democratic backlisliding beceause it started at the bottom.

These fledgling countries need time. If you don't want military coups every 3 years, you need to keep them well fed. Yes, that means 100x better perks than civilians. But, it is better than having your head chopped off. Yes, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan are genetically and historically quite similar. But, only India has shown a genuine affinity for democracy. The other 2 are still figuring it out. There are obvious reasons for why, but that's a whole another discussion.

5% allotted to indigenous communities

I am legitimately curious who "indigenous communities" here refers to: I usually associate that term with first world countries with guilt complexes around historical events. I may be ignorant of regional events, here, but I'm not quite sure who this means, and what they were present before.

The Bangla-language version of Wikipedia's article on the quota system uses a word that Google translates as "tribal" rather than "indigenous".

Wikipedia's article on Bangladesh's demographics says:

Bangladesh's tribal population was enumerated at 897,828 [1.0 percent of the total] in the 1981 census. These tribes are concentrated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and around Mymensingh, Sylhet, and Rajshahi. They are of Sino-Tibetan descent and differ markedly in their social customs, religion, language and level of development. They speak Tibeto-Burman languages and most are Buddhist or Hindu. The four largest tribes are Chakmas, Marmas, Tipperas, Tanchangya, and Mros. Smaller groups include the Santals in Rajshahi and Dinajpur, and Khasis, Garos, and Khajons in Mymensingh and Sylhet regions.

There's a separate Wikipedia article on the topic.

Fascinating. Quotas in multi-ethnic society make some degree of sense, but it's like they wanted to create a quota system and then, upon discovering that their country was 99% Bengali, just decided to bodge one together anyway.

Reading the Wikipedia, it seems that the founders of the system wanted to:

  1. Reward their fellow soldiers who fought in the war
  2. Reward women who were raped by Pakistani forces during the war
  3. Give out 'traditional' quotas for the poor (those from 'underrepresented districts')

What seems to have happened is that as the first two groups aged out, rather than replacing these positions with merit appointees, they expanded the rape victim quota to all women and expanded the soldier/political faction quota to the children and later grandchildren of those who previously held it.

It's a really interesting example of how this kind of corruption can be self-reinforcing. Even when a system is obviously not doing what it claims/claimed to do, it may still be kept in place due to the self-interest of those who benefit from it.

Quotas for veterans of major conflicts in this kind of third-world post colonial nation aren’t just a matter of favoring supporters, they’re a necessary coup-avoidance strategy to avoid getting overthrown by men who have guns and know how to use them.

For example, some people are suprised that Mugabe was fine with much of Zimbabwe’s farmland being owned by whites for the first 20 years of independence; he only changed position significantly in the late 90s after agitation by various veteran allies, many of whom were still well armed, and who hadn’t received the dividends they’d been promised after a series of long post-independence separatist struggles they had won. White farmland wasn’t redistributed to these veterans out of some kind of Malema-esque nativist-socialist platform, but because Mugabe feared being overthrown if he didn’t do it.

In Bangladesh Hasina started abolishing the system in 2018, but there were powerful constituencies in both the Awami League and the BNP (and in the ~20 or so extended families who rule Bangladesh and dominate every aspect of its political, economic and legal elite) who feared the consequences of no longer being able to reward the families of countless mid-level peons, and so the courts reversed the reversal, and now the higher courts have reversed that. We shall see what happens.

More generally, the Bangladeshi elite are highly westernized and secularized in what is largely a conservative and deeply religious Muslim country that has (like every Muslim country) seen the growing and significant influence of fundamentalist Islam since the late 1970s that emerged from the Gulf and spread with oil money, and which has extreme levels of wealth inequality. The BNP is in opposition but still largely dominated by these same elites. They all fear being overthrown by Islamists, and have all stashed billions of dollars in Singapore, the US and Canada. Every aspect of politics in Bangladesh must be viewed through this lens.

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