20 Comments

I see a lot of panic over this troop deployment. There are comments predicting falling skies and growing mushroom clouds. Neither will happen.

US Presidents have deployed small numbers of troops to Israel, whether there is a crisis or not, for decades. They often do it when the Israelis are whining that American support isn't what is should be, and it guarantees more funding for the president's political party from AIPAC. Simple math shows this isn't a significant development.

100 troops to man a missile system that cannot possibly stop a saturation strike from Iran, that isn't designed to shoot down hypersonic missiles, and can only shoot down 48 lesser missiles per unit, of which there are a grand total of 7. Which means if Iran or anyone else fires 1000 missiles maybe 350 of them will get knocked down. It's still 350 if Iran launches 10,000, which they can easily do.

Militarily, it changes nothing. Politically, it still changes nothing except to piss off more Americans at the Biden Administration. It will be a tragedy if any of those troops get killed, but in the larger scheme of things this isn't much of a much.

Expand full comment
Oct 14Liked by Andrew Korybko

A token slice of support or is this all the US can offer?

Pretty pathetic stuff. How can the US defend its own territory with this measly system?

Expand full comment

The way Biden has been running things, I don't think we actually can, anymore. We are more concerned with picking our navels and getting lost on the gender spectrum these days than national security. The Republic has gone to pot.

Expand full comment

Maybe it's a political gesture. Little more than that!

Expand full comment

A deterrent, but a bluff rather than a tripwire is decently probable. The mighty wurlitzer will huff & puff with some narrative or another.

Expand full comment
Oct 14Liked by Andrew Korybko

WWIII is coming.

Expand full comment

Looks that way, but keep fighting for peace and sanity anyway. Never, ever, give up. The future is what we make, not anything set in stone.

Expand full comment

Absolutely.

Expand full comment

Sadly!

Expand full comment

The sociopaths who rule over the West would without hesitation annihilate us all, rather than give up their perches.

Expand full comment

Plausible. However, they can retain their perches without the unipolar future. The Orwellian 1984 scenario comes to mind.

Expand full comment

The Iron Law of Institutions would require them to scuttle the "Global Hegemony Project" (Wolfowitz Doctrine) to preserve their perches over the part of the world under their dominance, if acting rationally.

Expand full comment

It's already here, WWIII. Like the previous two world wars, it does not escalate in a linear pattern. The hope is it will not escalate to Armageddon.

Expand full comment

Absolutely not necessarily "hotter" than this new cold war.

Expand full comment

Some hypersonic missiles can change flight paths even during their final dive stage. This can reduce the chance of being intercepted by a system designed to target ballistic missiles. The key is to be able to change flight path multiple times. However, due to its high speed, even if such control mechanism exists, the number of flight path change cannot be high.

Another doubt I have is I thought THAAD is more powerful when it is deployed close to the launch site and has the ability to intercept before the incoming ICBM reaches its zenith. This is why THAAD was pushed into South Korea. The current deployment inside Israel means the shield is close to the impact point. Therefore, some of the THAAD advantages are not obvious -- it is now used as a better, longer range Patriots. Unless its speed and seeker are significantly better Patriots, the difference in effect is likely to be minor, at least not to the full potential of THAAD. In additon, the actual interception point could be inside KSA air space.

Expand full comment

Here we go again… mission creep. It’s no wonder that the Empire of Lies🇺🇸has been at peace for only ~15 years in its existence. They always require & enemy and an “attack on US soldiers.”

Expand full comment

THAD are "bank-wire" fraud deployments. The tubes could be filled with large bottle rockets and no one would know better.

Since they can't hit maneuvering warheads, they are useless against anything but old, slow, large long range ballistic missiles even in theory, and in practice they are a bigger unknown than the Patriot which could not even hit a single Iraqi SCUD during the Gulf War. At least the Patriot can be used against aircraft, not the THAD.

Expand full comment

A key thing of importance, here, I think, is *where* this THAAD system is deployed in Israel. That is, what exactly will it be focused on protecting? Given the assumption of a spade for spade counter-attack by Iran, this would be an indication of exactly what Israel is planning to attack, be it nuke sites, oil production facilities, or otherwise.

Expand full comment

No matter how “marvelous” the THAAD is supposed to be, it CANNOT take down ANY unstoppable iranian Fattah-1, Fattah-2, Kheibar Shekan HYPERSONIC missile.

Thr only Air Defense System in the world known to be capable today of taking down a hypersonic missile is the Russian S-500.

Expand full comment

Apart from fulfilling a warmonger’s dream via a “tripwire” the THAAD will be useless. America will have it’s martyrs.

Expand full comment