“Russia said Monday it would treat F-16s in Ukraine as an escalation because they’re nuclear-capable.
Its foreign ministry said it would consider the delivery of the jets as a “purposeful provocation.”
Meanwhile, the warplanes already used by Ukraine can be fitted to deploy nukes, too.”
“Forget the tank, the fighter jet and even the drone. Artillery is the most important weapon on the modern battlefield, just as it was 100, 200 or even 300 years ago. It was not for nothing that Stalin dubbed artillery the ‘God of War’.
So it’s extremely problematic that the world’s leading army, the US Army, can’t manage to develop a new howitzer. Trying and failing three times in a generation to acquire new heavy artillery, the Army is stuck with upgraded versions of the same howitzers it’s been using for 61 years.”
In January, an Iranian exploding drone hit a US military base in Jordan, killing three US service members. The Washington Post cited a defense source who said the weapon was a small attack Shahed-101.
The drone was able to sneak past American defenses by shadowing a US drone also landing at the base — a trick believed to have been picked up from Russia, Bloomberg reported.
“Russia and Iran are learning from each other. That is almost as important as the technology-sharing itself,” Matthew McInnis, a Pentagon intelligence officer who was a State Department representative for Iran, told the outlet.
But Iran’s influence goes beyond Russia. Iranian-backed Houthis have curtailed trade in the Red Sea in recent months by perpetrating drone attacks on cargo ships.
Bloomberg reported that Ethiopia had used Iranian drones to squash rebellions in the country, while Tajikistan, Algeria, and Venezuela were also partnering with Iran.
“Over 300 drones and missiles navigated above Iran’s neighbors, including Jordan and Iraq — both with US military bases — before penetrating the airspace of Iran’s mortal enemy, Israel. Israel’s allies helped shoot down the bulk of these weapons, but couldn’t prevent what was long believed to be the Middle East’s doomsday scenario, the Islamic Republic’s first-ever attack on Israel.
Israel’s fabled Iron Dome air defense system did not disappoint Israelis, many of whom took to bunkers. Only a small handful of locations were attacked, including a military base and an area in the Negev desert, injuring a Bedouin child, while the dome fended off one of the largest drone attacks in history
Yet it was an operation that seemed designed to fail — when Iran launched its killer drones from its own territory some 1,000 miles away, it was giving Israel hours of advance notice.
The symbolism of the attack did the heavy lifting. Rather than fire from one of the neighboring countries where Iran and its non-state allies are present, this was a direct attack from Iranian territory on Israeli territory. This compromised Iran’s ability to damage Israel because it robbed the operation of the element of surprise.
Yet for some four hours, the world held its breath as weapons whizzed through the night sky. They were balls of fire hovering overhead as onlookers across three different countries filmed images that seemed to harken the start of a cataclysmic war.”
…
“The strike served as a retaliation against the Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s consulate in Damascus earlier in April that killed a top commander, and it was in keeping with US intelligence and analysts’ expectations. Iran’s leadership felt compelled to strike Israel in order to reiterate its position as a regional powerhouse and to dispel notions of it as a paper tiger. It doubled down on its show of force by launching the operation from its own territory and not by proxy in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen or Iraq.
Yet Iran also needed to try to avoid sparking an all-out war. Its economy has buckled under the weight of Trump-era sanctions, and there is growing discontent on its streets over the government’s repressive policies. On Sunday, Iran appeared not only to have factored in Israel’s robust air defense systems, but to have relied on it. The relatively high degree of US intelligence about the operation also suggests Iran may have engaged in back-channelling with Western leaders. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said he gave neighboring countries, including major US allies, 72-hour notice. To contain the fall-out of their own operation, they appeared intent to foil it.
The style of attack is reminiscent of Tehran’s response to former President Donald Trump’s targeted killing of Iran’s most storied general, Qassem Soleimani, in January 2020. Tehran gave US troops 10 hours of advance warning before raining down massive ballistic missiles on US military positions in Iraq, including al-Asad airbase. The attack wreaked havoc, leaving gaping craters in the ground, but caused no known US casualties. In the process, Iranian forces accidentally shot down a commercial jet taking off from Tehran airport, killing over 100 passengers and fuelling public anger against a regime increasingly seen as incompetent.
At the time, the Iranians were preoccupied with demonstrating what their military could do, rather than what it was willing to do. The US did not retaliate, averting regional war.
Four years later, Iran’s playbook may not unfold in the same way. Israel has already vowed to respond. The US has publicly stated it would not participate in an Israeli retaliation, which may reassure Iran. Yet Netanyahu’s Israel has proven increasingly unpredictable. Iran’s threats of more severe action in case of further escalation may fall on deaf ears in Israel, to its own peril.”
“Russia’s military has suffered severe losses in Ukraine, but it appears to be bouncing back to what it was before it invaded, says Gen. Chris Cavoli, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander and the head of US European Command.
“They’ve grown back to what they were before,” Cavoli said in a House Armed Services Committee Hearing on Thursday. “They’ve got some gaps that have been produced by this war, but their overall capacity is very significant still, and they intend to make it go higher.”
The commander’s comments lent support to Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell’s April 3 statement that Russia “almost completely reconstituted militarily.”
The war has cost Russia thousands of tanks and seen the military suffer at least 300,000 casualties, by some estimates, yet Russia, the general explained, has been particularly successful in building back its ground forces, most notably by refurbishing, repairing, and producing tanks.
“They still have as many tanks functioning inside Ukraine as they introduced at the beginning of the war,” Cavoli said.
In addition to tanks, Russia’s army has also grown in size by 15 percent, and the country is currently on the path to “command the largest military on the continent,” he said. The size of Russia’s army has exceeded the size it was when it had first invaded Ukraine in 2022. There are questions of capability and quality though.”