War in the Shadows

Plato and the Tankers

Well, on the surface there doesn’t seem to much happening in either of the wars. Hezbollah is still trying to rebuild, Hamas is refusing to disarm, Tehran is behaving as though nothing has changed, and Russia is still entranced by its sentimental mythifications about the Great Patriotic War.

That doesn’t mean that nothing’s happening, it just means that at the moment we’re pretty much like the imprisoned cave dwellers in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which is in his book 7 of his Republic. I’m sorry if that’s not very helpful, and I’m aware that it may not be, but at the same time, it’s easy to lay your hands on, and it’s both profound and easy to grasp. But here’s the most relevant part.

Now imagine what would happen naturally if the prisoners were released from their shackles and cured of their ignorance. Right after they are released and suddenly forced to stand up, turn their necks around, walk, and look towards the light, these activities will cause them pain; because of the bright glare they would be unable to see those things which they previously had seen only as shadows. Now what do you think they would say if one were to tell them that what they saw before was fooling them, but that now, when they are closer to what really exists and when they face that which more truly exists, they see more clearly, in a straightforward manner? What if that person pointed to the objects as they passed and asked the former prisoners to tell him what they were? Don’t you think they would be baffled and think that the shadows they formerly saw were truer than the objects that are now being pointed out to them?

The reason I quoted that passage is that Plato understood that we humans being who we are, some of us would prefer that the shadows of the objects they saw in the cave were “truer” than the objects themselves.

Left unsaid, probably because either to Plato it was obvious, or he’d made his point, was that the cave dwellers who believed the shadows were truer wouldn’t simply realize they were wrong.

On the contrary. They would engage in all the defense mechanisms posited by modern psychology: denial, rationalization, projection, reaction formation, and so on.

So Hamas and its friends, having expended a great deal of time and energy claiming that Israel was waging a genocidal war in Gaza (speaking of projection), are now trying to explain why the United States (and Israel) have revealed that out of 80 thousand dead, the vast majority (seven out of ten) killed were terrorists, and a good many of the supposedly innocent civilians were killed by Hamas either by accident or design, the former being the case with the explosion at the hospital.

And of course as the evidence accumulates the response is ratcheted up into fantasy land. For example, the latest attempt is to claim that since the IDF was using thermobaric bombs a lot of civilians were just vaporized. An argument which reveals an ignorance of the weapon that is so fundamentally wrong in so many ways, that as one expert observed, they might as well be saying the IDF used death rays.

Tehran is making equally unhinged threats about what they’ll do if attacked, despite the abject failure of their earlier attempts, and the war in Ukraine still continues, although after four years Moscow’s accomplishments, like the Shia’s are really just a series of disasters. Russia’s are just bigger.

The people in the cave that Plato described as sticking with the shadows aren’t going to stop. Neither logic nor rational discourse works. Moreover, there are a good many cave dwellers fixated on shadows everywhere.

For example, as far as I can tell, most of the same people who have been insisting since October 2022 that Russia is winning are still saying that, and ignoring all the inconvenient facts. Probably the chief inconvenience is that the slaughter of the Russian Army still continues. The best current estimate is that it’s approaching 1.2 million, and Kiev admits to losing 50 thousand. Maybe, maybe not, but if we double Kiev’s claim, and halve the Russian estimate, the exchange ratio is still a lopsided six to one.

That’s not the only metric that determines winners and losers, but the war is now going into its fifth year, Russian forces have never gotten any more of Ukraine than they’d grabbed in 2014, and certainly not enough to compensate for for their losses.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, there are important developments.

Planning

Both the IDF and the US are preparing for military operations against the Shia that may be necessary.

In the case of the IDF, it’s an operation to disarm the remaining Hamas terrorists who are openly defying the terms of the peace agreement. For the United States, I think the plan has five components (at least), and the key factor is that they can be implemented in a combination of ways.

Here they are: a second round aimed at putting a permanent end to Tehran’s determination of go nuclear, a strike aimed at destroying the remainder of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, precision strikes on IRGC assets, the final elimination of whatever air defenses are left, the shutting down of Iran’s ports (which would eliminate its ability to ship oil), and decapitation.

“Implemented in a combination of ways,” allows for a classical strategy of escalation as posited by Herman Kahn in the late 1960s, some combination thereof, or all of them at once.

I should add two important points in addition. When it is said (purportedly “leaked”) that the United States is planning for strikes that would go on for weeks, that’s picking up on the wrong end of the stick. Even with precision strikes, the extent to which the target was destroyed has to be verified, and that doesn’t necessarily happen overnight. What’s most likely meant is that enough assets and munitions are in theater to hit targets over and over again.

Second, the various rumors about when strikes might occur (tomorrow, ten days, two weeks) are simply a way to achieve both tactical surprise and to wear the defenders down.

I should also add a reminder here. Some you may recall my reference to the former Soviet general Volkogonov, who observed bitterly that Stalin was ignorant of the first principle of the “military art:” Securing your objective with the fewest possible casualties.

It’s an obvious principle, but one that’s all too often not followed. The main reason is that it involves not just a great deal of planning, but accurate and comprehensive intelligence, the anticipation of contingencies, and, above all, confidence that the men executing the plan can not only respond quickly to the unforeseen, but they have the firepower to do that. Any competent commander knows that plans rarely survive once the shooting starts.

Those principles are pretty obvious, and in modern times (post 1600) were first articulated by Jomini in the 1820s. Just because way too many people either haven’t absorbed them, or neglect them in the heat of the moment doesn’t mean they’re not sound.

All of the above takes time, and in the case of Iran, getting the overwhelming force in position most definitely. Since rather obviously, the best solution is to hit your opponent so hard, and in so many different ways, that his ability to respond, that is, cause casualties, is simply smothered.

Now both the US and Israel are currently pretty good at managing this. So the fact that thus far, they haven’t is partly because it takes time to accomplish all of the above, and above all, the leadership needs to conclude that’s the only solution.

Now one of the reasons I started off this discussion by going back to Plato, is as a reminder that human beings can be remarkably resistant to the reality he describes. So I’m not surprised that the Shia are simply replicating Moscow with Ukraine.

But there’s an important difference. There are increasing signs of a growing awareness in Moscow that their invasion has failed, accompanied by a growing realization that their leaders are only making the situation worse.

The recent shutdown of the encrypted Telegram application is a an excellent example. Russian military bloggers believe that has been a major factor in the war, as it enabled Russian soldiers to compensate for their military’s centralized command system, which basically deprived the men doing the fighting from making the adjustments low level commanders need to make when faced with unexpected developments.

In my view, given the enormous disparity between Ukrainian and Russian losses, the internal critics are largely correct. But Tehran, whose subjects are already in revolt, definitely represents an extreme case.

Misunderstandings 1: Negotiations

Now historically, Tehran has been extremely successful at negotiating, as I think just about anyone with an even cursory knowledge of what’s been going on for decades realizes. So as a result, a good many people see the principle as flawed, while others think the problem can be solved by making concessions. In my view, that last reveals a remarkable naiveté, but leave that aside.

But that’s basically missing the point. Ideally, if you’re negotiating from a position of strength, it’s a useful tactic, not least because if gives the other side a false sense of security. That’s particularly the case with Tehran.

More importantly, it lets you fix the other side’s position. Now in this case, given that the United States has already demonstrated that it can destroy Iran’s nuclear sites, just as Israel has demonstrated that Iran can’t defend itself from aerial attacks, and the two powers, working together, have demonstrated that Iran’s missile arsenal has fatal flaws, what you’re really interested in finding out is the extent to which Tehran realizes that

At the same time, the stalling tactic part of negotiations works both ways, as it gives you time to prepare for the alternatives. The principle is like one of Newton’s laws; that is, it works whether we’re talking about selling/buying property, negotating contracts, or going to war. I have enough experience with the first two to grasp three points.

The most important is this: although the ideal is that both sides feel they’ve benefited, most of the time it turns out that the other side really doesn’t understand their position. Either because they haven’t considered the alternative, or they’re like the cave dwellers Plato described: they’re convinced their illusions are real. That’s particularly the case when you know you’re negotiating from a position of advantage. And to be blunt, understanding that going in is important.

The tricky part is that sometimes when you listen to the other person, you see that not only does he not understand who has the advantage, but his idea of his situation is totally unrealistic (the shadows once again). It’s tricky because there are a good many different ways in which that realization hits you. And the one that I personally found was the most befuddling was the discovery that the other person really though you were bluffing—that walking away was just a tactic.

So Tehran is just an example of that on a way more serious scale. And yeah, of course you’d prefer a deal. That was why you were negotiating. I mean, duh!

And with each passing day, the American position gets stronger, and Iran’s gets weaker. But that’s not grasped very well either.

Misunderstandings 2: Economic Power

Not only is measuring economic power complicated (and thus not very well understood), but as time passes it can change dramatically. So, just for example, most Candians don’t realize that for the last few years their economic power is neck and neck with Alabama’s, Great Britain’s is about like Mississippi’s, and Italy’s is greater than France.

So the nw and changing reality if difficult to graps for all concerned.

So it’s not surprising that both Russia and Iran have two a common economic problems, that they can’t grasp.

Iran’s currency is rapidly approaching being totally worthless, and Russia is not far behind. The secon problem is that the only export either country has that has real value is oil. And both countries have been fairly successful in continuing to export it, mainly because China, by far the world’s biggest importer of oil, could care less about minor details like sanctions.

So one way to put pressure on them is to to cripple their abilities to export oil by eliminating their buyers. By 2026 the three biggest exporters of sanctioned oil were Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. They were successful at it because Moscow had devoted billions of rubles to creating an enormous shadow fleet (not my word for it). The best estimate was that there were around a thousand of these vessels,

Peter Ziehan, who’s been explaining the importance of oil for these countries for years, explains the mechanism perfectly. Agents associated with the big three (my term) go out and buys

a decommissioned oil tanker that probably doesn’t match current safety norms, gives it a fake insurance policy, puts a fake flag on it, and sends it to pick up the crude from one of those three countries. That crude then comes somewhere in the high seas, where it comes up against another shadow vessel, and they pump the crude from one to another . . . that then happens once, twice, three times more.

So the first hit was on Venezuela, in which Washington Maduro (who was an indicted criminal with a price of his head) started capturing shadow tankers, and basically shutting down the already sanctioned oil shipments. The first casualty of this was the communist regime of Cuba but that was just step one.

The second move was to negotiate with India to stop buying Russian oil. But since the Indian government promptly grabbed three additional tankers, there was obviously more in the negotiations. But the logic there, from India’s point of view, is their interest in anything that weakens China, which they rightly see as their chief enemy in the region.

Now I’m not sure I agree with Ziehan’s other points, but I’ll summarize them, because he knows way more about this areas that I do.

First, Ziehan thinks that India’s move will encourage other countries with navies to follow suit, because these tankers can’t run away, and they can’t defend themselves. He doesn’t say this, but since the Russian navy is at this point trapped in the Baltic (as it’s Bl Sea Fleet no longer exists), there isn’t much they can do do to about this. And despite their supposed build-up of their fleet, thus far they don’t seem to have made the transition to what’s know as a “Blue water” fleet (as opposed to a coastal defense operation)..

Second, Ziehan argues that since these aging vessels aren’t exactly in great shape, they’re an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen, which makes sense.

And he uses that to argue that when it happens, the insurers will lower the boom. That seems to me to be the shakiest part of his argument, but I really don’t know enough to say.

But he’s absolutely correct about the importance of the shadow fleet oil sales to the Russian economy. Serious losses will send the country into a death spiral, because first, whatever under the table military aid they’re getting from China they have to pay for. And second, the bits and pieces of sophisticated electronics they’re buying on the black market (like Star Link) requires hard cash, not rubles.

The diference is that I think he Russans are beginning to grasp that they’re losing, will eventually come out of the cave and settle, but the leaders of the Shia won’t. And I doubt anyone really knows for certain which military option or combination, will effect the desired change. But one way or another, we’ll find out, because the people still believing in the shadows don’t survive.