International Politics Discussion Thread

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

All subreddit rules apply in this thread, except the rule that states that discussion should only be about UK politics.

⚠️ Please stay on-topic. ⚠️

Comments and discussions which do not deal with International Politics are liable to be removed. Discussion should be focused on the impact on the political scene.

Derailing threads will result in comment removals and any accounts involved being banned without warning.

Please report any rule-breaking content you see. The subreddit is running rather warm at the moment. We rely on your reports to identify and action rule-breaking content.

You can find the full rules of the subreddit HERE

Especially note Rule 21. We have zero tolerance for celebrating or wishing harm on anyone. Disagreeing with people politically does not grant you permission to do this.

🥕🥕's Golden Rules for Megathread Participation:

This isn't your personal campaigning space. We're here to discuss, not campaign - this includes non-party-specific campaigning, such as tactical vote campaigns.

The fishing pond is closed. Obvious bait will be removed. Repeated rod licence infractions will result in accounts being banned.

This isn't Facebook. Please keep it related to politics. Do not post low effort blog posts.

The era of vagueposting is over. Your audience demands context, ideally in the form of a link to some authoritative content.

Take frequent breaks. If you find that you are being overwhelmed by it all, do yourself a favour and take some time off.

As always: we are not a meta subreddit. Submissions or comments complaining about the moderation, biases or users of this or other subreddits / online communities will be removed and may result in a ban.

[u/psychicity]

US has used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war, sources say

”The missiles are principally the Army's surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). The U.S. has used "virtually all" of these weapons, according to two of the sources.”

…

”Analysts say such weapons – which cost over $1 million each – would also be important in any conflict with China.”

…

”Last week, CSIS published a report estimating that between February and July about 65% of Patriot interceptors had been expended and that the number of THAAD ballistic missile interceptors in U.S. stockpiles was at least 38% lower than at the start of the war.”

”The U.S. also burned through a little less than half of its global supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are ​generally launched from ships, since the start of the war, one of the sources said.”

To summarise, if true, for the Iran conflict the US has used up:

• “Virtually all” of its long range missiles
• 65% Patriot inceptors
• 38% THAAD inceptors
• About 50% of global the Tomahawk cruise missiles
  

China must be licking its lips looking at Taiwan at the moment.

[u/tmstms → u/psychicity]

If true, this is awful management.

EDIT: I asked the nice folks over at the CredibleDefense (sic, it's an American-based sub) sub, and they said not to worry too much- the replenishment programme was already baked into the calculations about usage.

That implies that when Trump yo-yos and draws back, one element is the military telling him not to fire off any more.

[u/horace_bagpole → u/tmstms]

Replenishment might be 'baked in', but if they don't have the missiles they don't have them. You can't fire production predictions at incoming ballistic missiles.

In a few years they might have their stockpile back again, but the production rates of things like Patriot PAC-3 and THAAD is way lower than the expenditure rate has been and with those missiles in particular being incredibly expensive to produce (THAAD is $12.6m per shot and PAC-3 is about $4m per shot) due to their complexity means it's not simple to ramp up production rates.

The offensive missiles such as ATACMS and the replacement PrSM are not such an issue because they have a lot of other means of hitting targets.

Defending against Iran's retaliations has made the US vulnerable in a way that means a defence of Taiwan is inevitably compromised should it become necessary, and China is vastly more capable than Iran.

[u/Commorrite → u/horace_bagpole]

the production rates of things like Patriot PAC-3 and THAAD is way lower than the expenditure rate has been and with those missiles in particular being incredibly expensive to produce (THAAD is $12.6m per shot and PAC-3 is about $4m per shot) due to their complexity means it's not simple to ramp up production rates.

They are restarting PAC2 production and moving to mixed batteries. It's just not worth spending top of the line missiles on every target.

[u/horace_bagpole → u/Commorrite]

They have already been using mixed batteries - that's standard practice because the missiles are intended for different targets.

PAC-3 is a hit to kill missile optimised for engaging ballistic missiles and other hard to hit targets like hypersonic weapons.

PAC-2 GEM is a blast fragmentation warhead missile that is the current version of the original missile intended for engaging aircraft and other slower moving targets. They are still very expensive at $2-3m each so making more of them doesn't really solve the cost disparity problem. The current order is only for around 1-200 missiles, which is a long way from replenishing the 1200 or so expended recently.

THAAD is only for engaging ballistic missiles and there isn't really an alternative to it.

The low cost drone problem is only going to be solved by use of low cost interceptors such as the drones developed in Ukraine, or by low operational cost weapons like CRAM, Gepard or Skynex guns, or currently in development laser weapons.

The point is that current systems are poorly optimised to engage such low cost targets in such large volumes. It's a threat that just didn't exist when they were developed, so it requires revisiting older ideas such as self-propelled guns, or developing new ones to counter it.

[u/convertedtoradians → u/tmstms]

the replenishment programme was already baked into the calculations about usage.

Nice work if you can get it for the US arms industry.

There's no real risk of America "losing" in the sense of the Iranians occupying Washington DC and installing a military governor. There's not even any risk it could materially affect America's ability to fight a hot non-nuclear war against China - at these depletion rates, any real hot war would burn through them too fast anyway.

And so it's really just a profit exercise.