If Iran is supplying these to Russia, it could "basically hit the depth of Ukraine," Hinz said.

"The range of the Zolfaghar is actually slightly more than the Russian Iskander," he adds.
Regardless of the type that is supplied, Finz points out that due to Iran's extensive missile program, they are capable of "delivering in quantity."

"They have significantly increased their capabilities in recent years and they can just deliver the numbers the Russians want," he adds.
https://kyivindependent.com/what-irans-ballistic-missiles-in-russian-hands-could-mean-for-ukraine/

Damn, those Iranians sure are exporting a ton of arms these days and now turkey wants to join the axis of evil? The red sea will be permanently closed.

Italy never received a sovereign bailout. The bailouts for Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Cyprus were about as big as those received by Greece alone, and magnitudes smaller when you compare then to the size of the respective economy. So the only country which really fell to the point of not being able to get out of the crisis on its own was indeed Greece. The others could have dealt with their economic issues on their own, but that would have necessitated dropping out of the eurozone, which the eurocrats wanted to prevent at any cost. A major economic crisis with deep spending cuts, wealth taxes and that kind of stuff in places like Spain would also have had economic ripple effects on their European neighbors, considering how interwoven the economy is in Europe. This would nonetheless have been the better course imho, I even argued for such a more "hawkish" course back in the day.



I am by no means saying that the economic situation in Europe is great at all, I'm just rejecting 1) your doom and gloom predictions and 2) the notion that countries like Russia or Turkey are in a stronger position just because of one cherry-picked metric (low debt to GDP ratio).

I am personally against quantitative easing and reckless spending, but let's be realistic, it is the way the world is going. The ECB is not alone in that regard, the US, Japan etc. aren't any better. Russia is on wartime footing, we'll see the true cost of their war once it's over and the dust has settled. China is propping up its economy with trillions of corporate subsidies and sits on a gigantic housing bubble. The Saudi economy is fully dependent on oil revenue, they racked up huge losses in 2020 and huge profits in 2022/23. Broadly speaking, the inflation surge and interest rate hikes of 2021-2023 have hit developing countries even harder than the industrialized world. Things aren't going well for us, not at all - but most others are even worse off.

Fact of the matter is that the Euro exchange rate against the US Dollar and the Chinese Yuan (as well as the Canadian and Australian Dollar and the British Pound) is back to where it was in 2019 while it has appreciated substantially versus the Japanese Yen, the Indian Rupee and the Brazilian Real.



I am sure the Chinese (and also the Indians) will be thrilled if/when longer shipping routes hamper their trade with Europe...

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 7 2024 06:35am

I'm not predicting doom and gloom I'm pointing out facts, China and SA are BRICS members and China is dumping US treasuries, it's unclear what SA is going to do but if SA follows China's example it's having an impact because the US literally needs to keep selling those treasuries to stay on course.

Italy's debt is one of the highest in the entire EU btw...

National debt in the EU is sky high (just like in the US and UK), I pointed out Turkey's national debt to GDP ratio is like ~40% and Russia's debt to GDP ratio is like ~15% IIRC. Those are numbers EU countries can only dream of.


@second bold --> I read that Russia is expanding it's fleet of icebreakers to open up a northern passage and are likely going to charge unfriendly countries for passage. I'm sure Western countries will be thrilled ^^

The US Navy has been battling the Houthis and some of Iran's best weaponry in the Red Sea and changing some of the ways it fights to defeat them, America's top naval officer said this week.
"We're continuing to learn," Franchetti responded to questions at a Wednesday Defense Writers Group event. "And again, I'll just go back to the changing tactics, techniques and procedures based on adversaries."

"The Houthis are using the best Iranian technology, and we know that we need to be able to defeat that," she added. "And again, our ships are doing an amazing job. And our aircraft."
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-battles-best-iranian-tech-red-sea-admiral-2024-10

So Ansarallah has closed the red sea for almost a year now but dont worry boys cause uncle sam is "continuing to learn"

What a joke

Its not worth the resources for them. The embarrassment is how Saudi Arabia, Egypt or even India can't police their own back yard.
Quick to complain about the US dominated global order, even quicker to complain when they don't pickup slack for incompetent regimes.

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Oct 6 2024 08:22am

In hindsight, the Saudis were tright to try to crush the Houthis and we should have helped them accomplish this goal. That said, the performance by the Saudi military against a bunch of goat herders was pathetic, considering their huge military spending.

It's game of whack a mole, those Houthis just keep popping up and they're fanatic enough to keep going.

Remember Afghanistan / Taliban? Same story. Vietnam? Yep.

It's an entirely different case than Afghanistan. We're not talking about nation building or stabilizing a post-Houthi Yemen, we're talking about initially defeating them on the battlefield. That part of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars was finished successfully within weeks while the Saudis have been engaged in Yemen for 8+ years and still failed to get even this first step done.

The Taliban weren't successfully defeated they just adopted to fight a long term guerilla war.

If the Saudis had done the same with the Houthis, crushed their infrastructure and forced them to resort to guerilla warfare, then the Houthis wouldn't be able to consistently shell cargo ships.