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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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This is cope. Hezbollah losses were twice as high as Israel ones during 2006 according to wikipedia

This is cope. I applaud Israel's proficiency in killing Arabs. However in the real world wars are not won by kill/death ratios. Israel had to give up its military objectives and withdraw. They lost. Israel is not the kind of country that can stay mired in a 1/2 kd ratio war/occupation for long.

Israel has one of the most advanced defense sectors on the planet

Yes it is advanced, and also it is wildly not self sufficient and in parts very specialised. It functions as part of the American defense cinematic universe. They make very precise bombs to be thrown from F35s, with the assumption that the US will rapidly resupply them of artillery shells when IDF is running low. Many similar examples. Ultimately we are talking about a fairly small country.

This means Israel's actions are heavily constrained by Western public opinion and American grand strategy considerations.

This is concern trolling

No I have several Israeli friends who had been conscripted since October that I keep in touch with. I like those guys and this is genuine concern. And you seem to entirely misunderstand where my concern lies. The world is more dangerous than ever for Israel and they are acting more stupid than ever.

Defense cinematic universe. Cute phrase, might repeat in future.

There is no military now that is actually self sufficient in the way they wish to be, autarky is a impossible and leveraging comparative advantage is the ideal optimal solution. Hamas and Hezhollah employment of rocket and ATGM munitions are not autarkic, just as Israeli employment of Boeing-purchased JDAMs are not autarkic. But if Israel were to be entirely self sufficient, they just switch from precision weapons to whatever they have, meaning imprecision weapons. On a cost to probable kill ratio, an available resource of precision weapons fulfills multiple objectives, and if that resource is denied than the objective fulfilment prioritization matrix changes, usually to the detrimental of 'minimize civilian casualties'. Hamas might state a preference to kill only Israeli soldiers, but with the specific precision of their own hands they choose to kill civilians on livestream instead of rushing to kill more soldiers with their limited - and externally supplied - cache of arms.

With regard to Israeli munitions depth, cor all of Erdogans pretensions, premier Turkish contractor Rokesan is actually close to Israel manufacturers having jointly supplied Azerbaijan in the region and to a lesser extent having information exchanges in Libya. If the US stops supplying Israel, Rokesan is the most likely backstop, and Hanhwa is also sniffing around to supply. This must all be balanced against internal Israeli capabilities: they can manufacture their own precision or imprecision weapons, but taxing Israeli companies provides outsized purchasing power to obtain munitions externally compared to employing factory workers to crank out shells and bombs.

Israels military is uniquely unsuited for policing operations, which is the precise conflict style Hamas and Hezbollah are directing operations towards but that is because Israeli overmatch in direct actions has pushed attention solely to policing and peacekeeping. Israel could have pivoted and curbstomped Hezbollah in 200...6? but USA imposed a ceasefire and put in UNIFIL, which is technically a win condition by externalizing the policing responsibility. Israel rotations for the reservists have normalized, and Israelis on this board can confirm how many people are in sustained mobilizations - my own observations show intermittent mobilizations among different rear echelon units, with sustained operations confined to units already tasked with the respective areas of operations. I only know one guy in the 143rd, and he's not actually mobilized at the moment even though he flew back to serve, because his role is not specifically relevant to the current CONOPS.

Long term policing actions truly is the most irritating and difficult type of military/civil management exercise, and no country has truly succeeded at that. Ironically the absolutely trash tier Arab militaries - who are still trash tier against even the (slightly) degraded Israeli post-2007 military - are uniquely suited to long term policing actions, with a surplus of bodies to post on corners and a lack of consideration for smacking heads indiscriminately. Arab militaries are happy enough to subjugate their own populations now, and getting shekels to crack skulls is something few military men will object to.