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doughnutstracks 3 hours ago [-]
Lots of shady missile deals went down in West Asia/North Africa in the 60/70s. Somewhat related: Israel was collaborating with Iran on missile projects but allegedly planned to deceive them by providing outdated missiles while using Iranian funds to develop superior versions for themselves [0].
I read from somewhere that Italy, Libya and some South America country were developing missile programs together, too. Probably from a book about Fiat I think.
breppp 3 hours ago [-]
Where's the part about deceiving in the link? Aren't you conflating Iran-Contra that happened after the revolution?
doughnutstracks 2 hours ago [-]
It's in the last paragraph.
>While Pahlavi's authorities were happy with this project and its advancement away from the eyes of the US in their view, Israel had carefully duped Pahlavi to secure its interests. According to Israel's plan, during this project, contrary to what Iran's top officials think, Iran would only achieve obsolete technology.
and in the original source [0]:
>A very senior source in the Israeli Ministry of Defense reveals that the weapons deal with Iran was fraudulent. With each of the six joint proj-ects, the Israelis planned to deceive the Iranians by providing them only an outdated version of the weapon in question, while using Iranian money to build a new generation for Israel's exclusive use.
When I buy a laptop from Apple, they used my money to build the next generation of laptops… which inevitably come out within a year. I wouldn’t necessarily believe Iran was deceived without more.
xandrius 2 hours ago [-]
This comment is clearly not in good faith but one can clearly understand that the current generation is out outdated.
breppp 1 hours ago [-]
Not sure what's the historical validity for that one source saying it was fraudulent, but this sure reads like anachronism. As someone that tries to defend him being part of selling ballistic missiles to Iran a very short time before it turning into a theocracy.
I am not completely inclined to believe Bergman because of me personally knowing one case where he published something completely wrong, and also this doesn't align with the cooperation Israel had with pre-revolution Iran.
In any case, it's theoretically possible, I guess
tzury 17 minutes ago [-]
Use Google Translate or llm to translate the content in this url
This is something that’s actively happening nowadays as well. One way to slow down a country development is hunting its top scientists that are working in military tech.
In recent years US has been hit so hard, probably it will have even worse side effects since this discourages other scientists from following that career path as well.
buran77 3 hours ago [-]
> hunting its top scientists [...] this discourages other scientists from following that career path
I take it you mean this literally (assassinations) rather than figuratively (getting hired by the competition).
> In recent years US has been hit so hard
Any evidence of this? Other than the storm in a cup that was the recent news of "dead scientists" that turned out to be a nothingburger.
The idea sounds very plausible and it happens again and again elsewhere (e.g. Israel keeps taking out Iranian scientists). But I haven't heard anything major from the US, and I doubt the US would take it lightly and keep everything quiet, especially with the current admin who would kill for more media distractions for the people.
tyingq 3 hours ago [-]
They could just mean that foreign enrollment in US postgrad programs is down significantly, or other forms of specialized visas, etc.
boesboes 1 hours ago [-]
Probably the conspiracy theory about scientists dying suspiciously, that’s just pure statistical noise
Mistletoe 1 hours ago [-]
As opposed to the real hit on science by the sleeper cell of idiocy in the White House.
scarlehoff 55 minutes ago [-]
I took it to mean this. Nothing is more discouraging long-term than the prospect of not having any funding in the future.
phendrenad2 1 hours ago [-]
People are definitely overhyping it, but a missing former Air Force maj. gen is kind of unusual, and "statistical noise" is kind of a funny oxymoron.
mytailorisrich 3 hours ago [-]
You don't normally hear about these things if/when they happen, there is no official reaction, and you don't normally hear about the retaliation, either.
Love it. Im not American nor have my country any interest in this, but definitely promoting the webz narrative that this is nothing, storm in a teacup, nothing to see here , move along while keeping wacking key figures, would be a plausible plan.
Fortunately governments dont care about reddit sentiment and they seem to be looking, per the CNN article.
woodpanel 44 minutes ago [-]
Are we talking about head hunting or just „head hunting“?
Summary: Egypt was going to develop an indigenous fighter in the 1960's based off of a mostly finished Spanish design by a post WWII otherwise unemployed Willy Messerschmitt.
I First heard of the project via a pretty good youtube documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqIpJuqvsWQ Messerschmitt's Remarkably Good Supersonic Fighter (Not A Pound For Air To Ground)
If you want an interesting related story that's so incredible people wouldn't believe if it was a film plot, look up Otrag. Not the Wikipedia page, that only tells a fraction of the full story. There's a documentary floating around somewhere about their work in Zaire under Mobutu before they started building ballistic missiles for Gaddafi.
flohofwoe 4 hours ago [-]
Both cases remind me of Project Harp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP). After the project was shut down by the US and Canada, the engineer behind it (Gerald Bull) decided to work for Saddam Hussein to build a "Babylon Cannon" which then caused Mossad to 'intervene' in 1990:
I wonder how many similar but unknown cases there are involving former Soviet scientists and engineers trying their luck with 3rd world despots after the Soviet Union collapsed.
PS: just remembered that Willy Messerschmitt also ended up building a jet fighter for Egypt after the project was abandondend by Spain. Egypt then also eventually cancelled the project in 1969 though and instead decided to become close buddies with the Soviet Union - I wonder if that decision saved Messerschmitt from the same fate as Krug and Bull:
Fortunately, there is no need for despots in our superior first world, where all peoples are steered in eunuch-like consumerist subservience to the interests and designs of the City on the Hill, of an oligarchy with global pretense (which obviously includes the riches of the third world). The need for despotic punishment of insubordinate vassals does arise occasionally, but the lesson is quickly learnt and its repetition feared, so any rebellion against freedom and democracy is quickly stifled.
flohofwoe 2 hours ago [-]
My choice of words doesn't imply that only the 3rd world had despots, that's just what you want to read into it.
Back in the Cold War the 'division' of the world into power blocs was quite simple:
- 1st world: countries aligned with the USA
- 2nd world: countries aligned with the USSR
- 3rd world: independent countries that were neither aligned with the US nor USSR
E.g. in its actual meaning, 3rd world doesn't say anything about how rich or poor a country is, or about its form of government.
Lumich 1 hours ago [-]
« what you want to read into it »
I wanted to provide a counter point, or rather, a more balanced and self-conscious vision. As to your definition of what "third world" meant, that's not how I remember it (but I grew up in West Germany, and the GDR may have defined terms differently). The "third world", according to the Western definition, definitely were those countries that were poor (and also perceived as primitive and culturally backwards, so the term eventually came to be seen as stigmatizing, at least with left-leaning people).
What you're referring to, the unaligned countries/states, were called "blockfreie Staaten", and they were not "promoted" in Western propaganda as featuring "despots", but still could end up being bombed (democratically), like founder state Yugoslaviya.
But it is also true that many "third world" countries joined the block-free group, so there is considerable overlap.
flohofwoe 1 hours ago [-]
It's quite literally the "western definition" of Third World:
Do you think the Soviets would have called the US aligned countries "First World"? ;)
The more 'correct' term for that modern/popular meaning of 3rd world is 'developing countries' (or in German "Entwicklungslaender"). But tbh, I have no idea when, how and why the transition from 'politically unaligned country' to 'underdeveloped country' happened in the modern popular opinion - the Wikipedia article has some ideas though - but tbh I would never have considered Cold Ware era Cuba or Vietnam to be "3rd world countries", and after 1990 the whole idea behind those "three worlds" has lost all meaning anyway, and especially after China had entered the chat.
Yugoslavia and Albania are more interesting cases though indeed, at least Yugoslavia tried to play both sides during the cold war, while Albania started as a very close Soviet ally but then moved towards China and then eventually ending up as completely isolationist.
Also as a clear example for a '2nd world despot' look at Romania's Ceausescu, and for examples of '1st world despots' look at Spain under Franco (easy to forget that Spain was a fascist dictatorship until the 1970s), or Chile under Pinochet.
megous 2 hours ago [-]
"caused"
it's all human decisions. especially at institutional level, there's no causing others to act
flohofwoe 2 hours ago [-]
Yes of course. Bull decided to work for the 'bad guys', and some people at Mossad decided that they didn't like that decision (assuming it was Mossad, but that's pretty much certain). It's still an "action by Bull that 'caused' a reaction by Mossad".
Funny enough the uploader has made that video unavailable in Germany (OTRAG was a German company, the first private/commercial aerospace company about 3 decades before SpaceX).
Scott Manley has a video about them, and that's also available in Germany ;)
China built secret research citys that were essential hermeticly sealed, down to growing there own food, and these days have built such a secureity focused comunication system that any attempts to recruit asassins is going to require money and infuence that doesn't exist, as internaly all of those functions are arms of the state.
Over and over China demonstrates it's dedication to there only rule: dont mess with the brand.
During the first round of the Hormuz crisis, China parked two ships right in the middle of the action, one which is the worlds largest and most powerfull signals intelligence data processing ships, and the other a very large brand new missle cruiser, and then three weeks ago China delivered to Iran a pre agreed upon shipment of brand new MANPADS.
It gets worse as Russia and Iran have demonstrated high acuracy manouverable hypersonic missles, and that there a drones everywhere. The drones are worse in that they are unatributable, perfect false/no flag weapons of terror, murder and mayhem.
So, you know, here we go, into what I call "whatever this is", where our technologys are rapidly approaching the limits imposed by universal laws, but we are still the same
bunch of cheating ,lying, scheeming, steeling, murdering, monkeys.
robbiep 33 minutes ago [-]
What is going on with your account? Years of barely posting, and now lots of poor English highly controversial posts.
Is this a sock puppet account?
pipe2devnull 1 hours ago [-]
As far as I’m aware if you are talking about the Kinzhal it’s a quasi-ballistic missile not really a true hypersonic missile so it’s easy to intercept. They also claim a range of 2000km but that includes the airplane’s range.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Project_Flower
>While Pahlavi's authorities were happy with this project and its advancement away from the eyes of the US in their view, Israel had carefully duped Pahlavi to secure its interests. According to Israel's plan, during this project, contrary to what Iran's top officials think, Iran would only achieve obsolete technology.
and in the original source [0]:
>A very senior source in the Israeli Ministry of Defense reveals that the weapons deal with Iran was fraudulent. With each of the six joint proj-ects, the Israelis planned to deceive the Iranians by providing them only an outdated version of the weapon in question, while using Iranian money to build a new generation for Israel's exclusive use.
[0] https://books.google.com/books?id=NkxZcHL1xdYC&pg=PA6&redir_...
I am not completely inclined to believe Bergman because of me personally knowing one case where he published something completely wrong, and also this doesn't align with the cooperation Israel had with pre-revolution Iran.
In any case, it's theoretically possible, I guess
https://www.intelligence.org.il/?module=articles&item_id=16&...
In recent years US has been hit so hard, probably it will have even worse side effects since this discourages other scientists from following that career path as well.
I take it you mean this literally (assassinations) rather than figuratively (getting hired by the competition).
> In recent years US has been hit so hard
Any evidence of this? Other than the storm in a cup that was the recent news of "dead scientists" that turned out to be a nothingburger.
The idea sounds very plausible and it happens again and again elsewhere (e.g. Israel keeps taking out Iranian scientists). But I haven't heard anything major from the US, and I doubt the US would take it lightly and keep everything quiet, especially with the current admin who would kill for more media distractions for the people.
That being said: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/21/us/deaths-disappearances-...
Fortunately governments dont care about reddit sentiment and they seem to be looking, per the CNN article.
Summary: Egypt was going to develop an indigenous fighter in the 1960's based off of a mostly finished Spanish design by a post WWII otherwise unemployed Willy Messerschmitt.
I First heard of the project via a pretty good youtube documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqIpJuqvsWQ Messerschmitt's Remarkably Good Supersonic Fighter (Not A Pound For Air To Ground)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull
I wonder how many similar but unknown cases there are involving former Soviet scientists and engineers trying their luck with 3rd world despots after the Soviet Union collapsed.
PS: just remembered that Willy Messerschmitt also ended up building a jet fighter for Egypt after the project was abandondend by Spain. Egypt then also eventually cancelled the project in 1969 though and instead decided to become close buddies with the Soviet Union - I wonder if that decision saved Messerschmitt from the same fate as Krug and Bull:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helwan_HA-300
Fortunately, there is no need for despots in our superior first world, where all peoples are steered in eunuch-like consumerist subservience to the interests and designs of the City on the Hill, of an oligarchy with global pretense (which obviously includes the riches of the third world). The need for despotic punishment of insubordinate vassals does arise occasionally, but the lesson is quickly learnt and its repetition feared, so any rebellion against freedom and democracy is quickly stifled.
Back in the Cold War the 'division' of the world into power blocs was quite simple:
- 1st world: countries aligned with the USA
- 2nd world: countries aligned with the USSR
- 3rd world: independent countries that were neither aligned with the US nor USSR
E.g. in its actual meaning, 3rd world doesn't say anything about how rich or poor a country is, or about its form of government.
I wanted to provide a counter point, or rather, a more balanced and self-conscious vision. As to your definition of what "third world" meant, that's not how I remember it (but I grew up in West Germany, and the GDR may have defined terms differently). The "third world", according to the Western definition, definitely were those countries that were poor (and also perceived as primitive and culturally backwards, so the term eventually came to be seen as stigmatizing, at least with left-leaning people).
What you're referring to, the unaligned countries/states, were called "blockfreie Staaten", and they were not "promoted" in Western propaganda as featuring "despots", but still could end up being bombed (democratically), like founder state Yugoslaviya.
But it is also true that many "third world" countries joined the block-free group, so there is considerable overlap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World
Do you think the Soviets would have called the US aligned countries "First World"? ;)
The more 'correct' term for that modern/popular meaning of 3rd world is 'developing countries' (or in German "Entwicklungslaender"). But tbh, I have no idea when, how and why the transition from 'politically unaligned country' to 'underdeveloped country' happened in the modern popular opinion - the Wikipedia article has some ideas though - but tbh I would never have considered Cold Ware era Cuba or Vietnam to be "3rd world countries", and after 1990 the whole idea behind those "three worlds" has lost all meaning anyway, and especially after China had entered the chat.
Yugoslavia and Albania are more interesting cases though indeed, at least Yugoslavia tried to play both sides during the cold war, while Albania started as a very close Soviet ally but then moved towards China and then eventually ending up as completely isolationist.
Also as a clear example for a '2nd world despot' look at Romania's Ceausescu, and for examples of '1st world despots' look at Spain under Franco (easy to forget that Spain was a fascist dictatorship until the 1970s), or Chile under Pinochet.
it's all human decisions. especially at institutional level, there's no causing others to act
https://youtube.com/watch?v=EA0XfkboFIY
Scott Manley has a video about them, and that's also available in Germany ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed4w4Cz5ccU
PS: GP probably meant this one (this is just the trailer of a German documentary from 2018):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXDdKuRANbc
Me, living in EU, have seen the evils of MENA.