"...protected by yards of concrete and steel, and could only be destroyed by the 30,000-pound American GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator—which can only be delivered by the US Air Force’s B-2 strategic bomber."
Or, once Iran is powerless to stop Israel's ground forces, go to the front door or the side door or the back door of the nuclear facility, drag that 30,000 pound bomb inside, place it in an appropriate location, light the fuse, and step back. POOF!
Actually since you wouldn't have to go through all that concrete to get to the reactor, a much smaller bomb would likely fill the bill. A large firecracker, as it were...
Thanks for the commentary on Lidell Hart's insights.
The 20th century "World Wars" really did involve most areas of the globe; the post-war peace was just as problematic and took longer to resolve.
After WWI, the victorious Allies and carved up three empires (Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire) into new and unstable states (Czechoslovakia for example) and mandated 'spheres of influence' in the Middle East, while Russia went through years of revolutionary turmoil to become the USSR.
Post WWII, Europe was divided between the democracies in the west and Soviet 'satellite' states in the east. In Asia, Japan lost its overseas empire and Korea was divided into competing hostile regimes. In Asia, the forces of nationalism and communism worked in parallel to end the European powers' hold on colonial territories.
And of course, the Allied victors of WWII were greatly weakened, economically and in terms of their geopolitical standing, with the exception of the US and USSR, who nevertheless spent enormous sums of money and much diplomatic and military effort in trying to outdo each other, all the while threatening to turn the Earth into a nuclear wasteland.
(The foregoing is of course a vast oversimplification of what occurred)
Do you think these outcomes were predictable? Could they have been avoided with more forethought given at the beginning of the conflict to what the postwar realities were likely to be?
They may seem predictable in retrospect but viewed from the perspective of those who held positions of responsibility at the time, I doubt it.
In 1914, the last general European war was a century in the past. Nobody had a clear idea of what the next one would be like. I wrote about this in the first article of my Great War series:
"...protected by yards of concrete and steel, and could only be destroyed by the 30,000-pound American GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator—which can only be delivered by the US Air Force’s B-2 strategic bomber."
Or, once Iran is powerless to stop Israel's ground forces, go to the front door or the side door or the back door of the nuclear facility, drag that 30,000 pound bomb inside, place it in an appropriate location, light the fuse, and step back. POOF!
Actually since you wouldn't have to go through all that concrete to get to the reactor, a much smaller bomb would likely fill the bill. A large firecracker, as it were...
That would have to be a small covert operation, not a massive frontal assault
That’s an option, for sure. And it may come to that. But a commando operation launched over such a long distance is a dicey proposition.
Thanks for the commentary on Lidell Hart's insights.
The 20th century "World Wars" really did involve most areas of the globe; the post-war peace was just as problematic and took longer to resolve.
After WWI, the victorious Allies and carved up three empires (Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire) into new and unstable states (Czechoslovakia for example) and mandated 'spheres of influence' in the Middle East, while Russia went through years of revolutionary turmoil to become the USSR.
Post WWII, Europe was divided between the democracies in the west and Soviet 'satellite' states in the east. In Asia, Japan lost its overseas empire and Korea was divided into competing hostile regimes. In Asia, the forces of nationalism and communism worked in parallel to end the European powers' hold on colonial territories.
And of course, the Allied victors of WWII were greatly weakened, economically and in terms of their geopolitical standing, with the exception of the US and USSR, who nevertheless spent enormous sums of money and much diplomatic and military effort in trying to outdo each other, all the while threatening to turn the Earth into a nuclear wasteland.
(The foregoing is of course a vast oversimplification of what occurred)
Do you think these outcomes were predictable? Could they have been avoided with more forethought given at the beginning of the conflict to what the postwar realities were likely to be?
They may seem predictable in retrospect but viewed from the perspective of those who held positions of responsibility at the time, I doubt it.
In 1914, the last general European war was a century in the past. Nobody had a clear idea of what the next one would be like. I wrote about this in the first article of my Great War series:
https://unwokeindianaag.substack.com/p/the-great-war