Israel: Rumors of war in a world transformed

On 9 April 2023, Israeli Arabist scholar and former intelligence officer Mordechai Kedar published an article recounting information recently received from an associate he describes as a source he has “known for years – an expatriate from the Middle East, a supporter of Israel, who lives in Europe and is in continuous contact with people in Iran and Iraq.”

The article is in the outlet Makor Rishon (“Firsthand Source”), owned by Israel Hayom.  The information outlined by Kedar is from his source’s “assessment that Iran is planning to launch a combined attack on Israel in the foreseeable future that will include all the forces at its disposal in the Arab countries” – Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

Kedar proceeds to describe missile and rocket barrages from all the implicated territories (including the more-distant nations), along with an unconventional ground attack from Lebanon and Gaza using motorcycles and ATVs, assisted by local Arab sabotage in Israel, Judea, and Samaria.

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Iran, TikTok: Two pings on the war that’s in progress

These pings will be brief.  Things are moving quickly at the moment.  That doesn’t mean they’ll continue moving quickly.  The vicissitude aisle is always having a blue-light special.  But the OODA loop is tightening, and if that isn’t a recognized sign that the conflict is underway, it will be when this is wrapped for the history books.

Ping One: Iran and the Biden administration

Readers will be aware that Saudi Arabia and Iran recently effected a rapprochement in relations, brokered by China.  The Biden administration not only wasn’t disturbed by that; it seemed to point out that it had basically through of it first, offering a favorable view of such a prospect last year.

In a new geo-military landscape, Belarus’s Lukashenko goes to China

Just over six years ago, in January 2017, I noted in an article at Liberty Unyielding that China had recently closed a logistics gap eyed for some 200 years by military planners.  The gap had been felt as a hindrance for much longer than that, but it became especially significant to warfare and geopolitics in the age of rail.

China’s feat was completing a capable, reliable rail network all the way from China’s eastern coast to the UK, on the western edge of Europe.  On 1 January 2017, Beijing inaugurated the first freight train service from China to London.

Rail service all the way across Asia and Europe, and not operated by Russia to at least Eastern Europe, had never existed before.  The lack of such service was a key factor in every kind of geopolitical calculation about Asia:  economic and military as well as political.  The Soviet “iron curtain” had laid a long stasis

Fascinating facts: Balloons, farmland, united fronts, shipping companies, military bases

So this happened:  in 2015, a Chinese balloon company, Kuangchi Science, launched a near-space balloon from a dairy farm in New Zealand.

But we’ll get to all that.  With plenty of links, because it’s a well-documented event.

First, we’ll take a detour on the path that led to this discovery.  I don’t think you’ll regret the time.

BREAKING:  This just in.  [Note: It was “just in” on Friday, when this “breaking news” entry was added. – J.E.]  On Friday morning (17 February), the Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed U.S. officials had specifically disclosed that defense intelligence was tracking Chinese balloons over American territory during Donald Trump’s term, but didn’t inform Trump at the time because they weren’t sure what the balloons were doing.  They reportedly thought the balloons might be used

China goes down to the sea: Putting the “hybrid” in warfare (Bonus update: Biden’s excellent balloon* adventure)

Foreword:  In the interim before sending this to post, the Chinese surveillance balloon* swam into America’s ken.  (Since then, more unidentified airborne objects have been shot down in the last 48-odd hours.)  As an example of the intrusive level at which the Chinese Communist Party is prepared to admit itself to other nations, including the United States, the balloon could hardly have been more timely or useful.  The separate phenomenon recounted in this article has been pooh-poohed by some Western observers as a stretch, too exotic, or – somehow – “evidently” not close enough to implementation to worry about.  But there’s really no closer it has to be.  The capability exists; the opportunity is wide open right now.  Of course China didn’t develop the capability merely for the CCP’s amusement, with no intention of using it.  If Xi Jinping has major geopolitical moves in view, as he manifestly does, now is the time to make preparations for it.  That’s what the surveillance balloon was about:  not just a probe, but a measure to prepare a hybrid battlespace.  We should be paying attention to everything.  I’ll have a few comments on the balloon at the end.