Pakistan Recalls Ambassador to Iran After Airstrikes

[Joe in PNG]

Kraut once commented that Pakistan was a world Champion in the International Stupid Game (state sponsoring of terrorism). Of course, Iran is on that podium as well.

[MickAK]

we'd be taking a lot of ships out of mothballed/rotting status and scrambling to get them back online

The last Turbo Activation exercise was in 2022 and it did not go well. This is after the 2019 exercise did not go well with blackjack and hookers and there were a bunch of modernization and retention initiatives.

MARAD is a shitshow. We rightfully shit on the Russians for their logistics failures, but we'd do better for as long as the prepositioned materiel holds out and then we'd honestly be better off outsourcing the process of ship transportation. It ain't coming.

[JRB]

The last Turbo Activation exercise was in 2022 and it did not go well. This is after the 2019 exercise did not go well with blackjack and hookers and there were a bunch of modernization and retention initiatives.

MARAD is a shitshow. We rightfully shit on the Russians for their logistics failures, but we'd do better for as long as the prepositioned materiel holds out and then we'd honestly be better off outsourcing the process of ship transportation. It ain't coming.

Give me a little credit - I'm an Army logistics nerd with a passing interest in Naval stuff. I actually got to accompany a very in-depth walkthrough and inspection of LSV-6's refit in 2019 (Army boaties are weird dudes, but that's another whole story)

Note I said 'scrambling to get them back online'. I didn't say succeeding in getting them back online in a timely or cost effective manner, or having crews available let alone crews that knew WTF they were doing. Turbo Activation 2022 was a failure in several ways - experienced manpower, manpower in general, and logistics support for a myriad of mixed ex-commercial vessels that often had very different systems, engines, etc.
A lot of those engines and ship's systems are wildly obsolete and have no logistics or parts support anywhere in the world, and when new parts have to be custom made at a shipyard, that is utter crap for speed or cost-effectiveness in restoring a vessel to seaworthiness. It's especially expensive in time and money if that's all done at a union shipyard in the U.S.

Agreed on MARAD having a lot of problems on the horizon especially in the next 5-10 years. Agreed also that our prepo stocks are probably our biggest advantage but it's only good for that initial response and not the long haul. We've also tapped into a lot of those prepo stocks already.

So yeah, I agree on all points, but I contend that it's easier to design and start churning out a bunch of new 21st century Liberty ships than it would be to recruit and train enough good crews for them.

[0ddl0t]

What I meant was we no longer have the heavy industrial base necessary to fight a World War.

Neither does anyone else.

For that matter, neither did the US in 1941. The majority of war materiel was produced in the last two years of WW2 alone.

It takes years to build defense manufacturing capacity to the point of a fully mobilized society, and nobody maintains it during peacetime because it would bankrupt your country. This capability was never an expectation for long term peace time periods.

I think DDTSGM's point is we had a much more robust civilian industrial base going into ww2 from which we could rapidly militarize. In short order we had sewing machine & typewriter manufacturers making firearms, automakers building tanks and bombers, and a major highway/paving contractor churning out liberty ships.

Ford had ~150,000 employees in 1940, most of whom worked assembly lines. Ford has ~85,000 employees today, only ~50,000 work on the assembly line. Virtually all of Ford's raw materials came from the US & Canada in 1940 whereas about 50% of today's Ford materials/components are from elsewhere.

[Caballoflaco]

Note I said 'scrambling to get them back online'. I didn't say succeeding in getting them back online in a timely or cost effective manner, or having crews available let alone crews that knew WTF they were doing. Turbo Activation 2022 was a failure in several ways - experienced manpower, manpower in general, and logistics support for a myriad of mixed ex-commercial vessels that often had very different systems, engines, etc.
A lot of those engines and ship's systems are wildly obsolete and have no logistics or parts support anywhere in the world, and when new parts have to be custom made at a shipyard, that is utter crap for speed or cost-effectiveness in restoring a vessel to seaworthiness. It's
So yeah, I agree on all points, but I contend that it's easier to design and start churning out a bunch of new 21st century Liberty ships than it would be to recruit and train enough good crews for them.

I think one of the biggest problems we’ll have in a ww3 situation is finding workers to build or repair ships and munitions etc. one of the biggest differences between now and WW2 is that during the Great Depression people had no jobs and wanted to work. We’re at historical employment numbers and the only people not working are ones who don’t want to.

Good luck finding people who want to build ships in post-industrial America.

[Stephanie B]

Wartime does have a way of accelerating the weapons development process.

The B-29 program was an example of that. The first few hundred wew a flying dog’s breakfast.

[Stephanie B]

Attacking Pakistan wouldn't be prudent. Somebody needs to lighten up.

They have a military that seems geared to suppressing its own population, not fighting another army. So they’d probably reach for their nukes rather quickly.

(I don’t want to see nuclear weapons in use, but I will appreciate the irony if the first use of nukes in this century is one Islamic nation nuking another Islamic nation.)

[Borderland]

They have a military that seems geared to suppressing its own population, not fighting another army. So they’d probably reach for their nukes rather quickly.

(I don’t want to see nuclear weapons in use, but I will appreciate the irony if the first use of nukes in this century is one Islamic nation nuking another Islamic nation.)

Israel has been pro active in keeping Iran from building a nuke. They think if Iran has one they will use it on Israel. They probably would.

So yeah, it's probably going to happen in some Islamic country against another Islamic country. Things aren't as peaceful in those ME countries as many people believe. SA and Iran have been testing each other for awhile now. Pakistan/Iran is new and not yet fully understood. Shia/Sunni differences again.

[Joe in PNG]

The B-29 program was an example of that. The first few hundred wew a flying dog’s breakfast.

A flaming dog's breakfast- the engines were famous for catching fire.

[TGS]

They have a military that seems geared to suppressing its own population, not fighting another army. So they’d probably reach for their nukes rather quickly.

(I don’t want to see nuclear weapons in use, but I will appreciate the irony if the first use of nukes in this century is one Islamic nation nuking another Islamic nation.)

Quite the opposite, the Pakistani military is almost entirely built around the existential threat of fighting a military ~2x their size. The "muscle work" of the internal security mission is generally carried out by the federalized, state-run paramilitary police forces called the Civil Armed Forces such as the Frontier Corps, Frontier Constabulary, Rangers, and Scouts these are almost all descendents of the various British Raj levies, and are under civilian police control unless specifically transferred to military control during times of war. As for nukes, continued below...

Israel has been pro active in keeping Iran from building a nuke. They think if Iran has one they will use it on Israel. They probably would.

So yeah, it's probably going to happen in some Islamic country against another Islamic country. Things aren't as peaceful in those ME countries as many people believe. SA and Iran have been testing each other for awhile now. Pakistan/Iran is new and not yet fully understood. Shia/Sunni differences again.

This has nothing to do with Sunny/Shia, and Pakistan isn't in the ME.

Nor is this a new thing. There has been a simmering Balochi insurgency for decades, on both sides of the border. The Balochi region is mostly undeveloped and split in half between Iran and Pakistan, and it's a place where people generally care more about their tribal alliances and less about what nation lays claims their territory in a given century. They want greater autonomy...sort of how the Kurds have a semi-autonomous region in Iraq.

This is not Pakistan vs Iran. The respective governments are generally cooperative about the Balochistan insurgency, as it's a mutual problem for each side. Thing is, you can't just go violating another country's sovereignty, and that's what Iran did. That smeared egg on Pakistan's face, especially so given us doing the same thing to them for the Bin Laden raid. There is a sizeable and enduring dissent within Pakistan over weak federal governance and licking the boot of other nations, so Pakistan likely attacked Balochi insurgents in Iran to point out to Iran that they're being dicks and to abide the golden rule.

Pakistan will not be reaching for nukes, because neither country is likely interested in fighting each other. Remember, the attacks were against insurgents....not government forces.