
Saudi Arabia builds 600-mile border wall equipped with Airbus radar and helipads - mbgaxyz
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/11344116/Revealed-Saudi-Arabias-Great-Wall-to-keep-out-Isil.html
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m-i-l
If the map is correct, it looks like it could be bypassed by entering through
Jordan or Kuwait. I wonder if the designers know about the Maginot Line [0]
(extensive and costly fortifications on the Germany / France border, which the
Germans simply bypassed by invading through Belgium)?

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line)

~~~
CapitalistCartr
There is no love for ISIS in Jordan after they burned a Jordanian pilot alive
on television. Going through Jordan is not likely.

~~~
TeMPOraL
The question really is, will Jordan border defence be stronger than this wall?
Somehow I don't see ISIS shying away from taking the way around if they really
want to atack Saudis.

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airesQ
It might well be.

Jordan's military leadership is surprisingly competent, with lots of forward
thinking, preparations and plans for eventualities.

~~~
dopamean
Why is that surprising? I'm not particularly well informed on the matters and
for some reason thought for years that Jordan was militarily competent.

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pawadu
> When a raiding party from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant attacked a
> Saudi border post last week...

This statement seems backward to me. Isn't ISIS supported by the Saudis to
overthrow the Shiite government of Iraq?

~~~
andy_ppp
Yes, I did have a little chuckle to myself about this irony until I realised
there were probably (in total) millions dead at this point because stupid
people are allowed to run the world.

The sooner we divest from oil reliance the better; hopefully this awful Trump
presidency will give the left a mandate to do this in 4 years.

~~~
mseebach
Obama had all the mandate he could have dreamt of with the 28 pages in the
9/11 report[1]. He also had the opportunity, with fracking and Keystone XL
offering the potential for the US/Canada to becomes entirely energy-self-
reliant. He didn't take it, preferring instead to accommodate domestic
environmental concerns. Such is politics, it is about prioritising between
sub-ideal options -- but there's no reason to expect the next president will
have significantly different priorities, regardless of what havoc Trump will
end up wreaking.

De-carbonising the US economy to achieve energy-self-reliance through locally
produced renewables through policy (as opposed to eg solar being market-
competitive and taking over at scale through market processes) will take
decades and be way out of reach for any one president to see through -- it
will require a much deeper (in practise, bipartisan congressional) commitment.
Also, anyway, these are not exclusive options. It's not materially different
to decarbonise from domestically produced oil than from Saudi produced oil --
indeed, it might be easier, as domestic oil is fairly expensive and Saudi is
pretty cheap.

1: [http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/15/politics/congress-
releases...](http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/15/politics/congress-
releases-28-pages-saudis-9-11/)

------
HugoDaniel
The market for border walls seems to be thriving

~~~
bane
It's almost like heavier than air vehicles were never invented.

~~~
TeMPOraL
There might be a market for fast, lightweight, extremely cheap aircrafts. No
border wall defenses will help if you swarm them with more planes than they
have anti-aircraft missiles.

~~~
venomsnake
It it is fast and lightweight and cheap shooting it down also won't be hard.
you don't need a missile, you need a bullet.

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dopamean
This definitely should have the date posted in the title (2015).

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mjolk
> Despite the difficulty of access to westerners, the country is relatively
> open to fellow Muslim nations, particularly during the Haj season when
> pilgrims from across the world come to Mecca and Medina.

This is helpful as I assume this means that they'll be able to take in large
numbers of refugees. It seems like Saudi Arabia is very intent on keeping
themselves safe from attack, so it seems a geographically close safe-haven is
an ideal situation for those that would otherwise have to brave trips to
Europe or the Americas.

~~~
programmernews3
They can certainly accommodate a lot of people. They have over 100,000 air
conditioned tents at Mecca which can hold over 3 million people:

[http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/beautiful-urban-
moments/mina-...](http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/beautiful-urban-moments/mina-
tent-city-mecca/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina,_Saudi_Arabia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina,_Saudi_Arabia)

Despite the facility to do so, they take in no refugees.
[https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/12/facts-
figures...](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/12/facts-figures-
syria-refugee-crisis-international-resettlement/)

~~~
mjolk
> The six Gulf countries - Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait
> and Bahrain - have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees.

That's really shocking to me as these countries are rich in resources.
Further, AFAIK, the majority of the populations share a religion/culture and
these countries are very close (comparative to Europe/US) to the current
middle east struggles, so why would they turn away refugees? I'm surprised
there's not more political discussion happening to pressure stable,
neighboring countries to help in this global challenge.

~~~
briandear
The reason is simple: incoming refugees will cause internal strife and
fracture the Saudi Royal family's tenuous hold on power. I don't agree or
disagree with that premise, but that's the reasoning.

~~~
up_so_floating
The same is occurring in Europe and even America. The establishment is
threatened as a result of this mass immigration. Perhaps the difference is
that the Saudis do not suffer from white guilt and, hence, attempts at
rational discourse are not drown out with calls of racism, Islamophobia, and
xenophobia.

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blisterpeanuts
Is the U.S. wall on the Mexican border going to be anywhere near this
sophisticated? I had the impression it's going to be basically a single fence,
enforced by a bulked up Border Patrol.

~~~
jjawssd
The focus of border security has been on stemming the flow of people through
various “hot spots” – border crossings that can be secured. The idea of
building a long barrier like Great Wall of China has never materialized due to
both cost and the impracticality of securing rugged terrain that might include
mountains and rivers. In addition, the American border includes vast areas of
open space far from people and infrastructure such as power, which makes
monitoring difficult, according to Dewar.

Faced with long borders and limited manpower, agencies have increasingly
turned to technology to detect unauthorized intrusions. They include long-
range fiber-optic sensor systems such as Senstar’s FiberPatrol system. These
sensors can be deployed on a fence with just a single optical cable stretched
up to 10 miles.

Buried RF cable sensors operate very much like radar and offer the advantage
of being both out of sight and protected from the elements.

“People don’t know that it’s there,” says Dewar. “So they may know a system is
there, but they don’t know exactly where it is and that makes it hard to
defeat. It’s very tolerant to vegetation, so it works very well for borders.”

Both of these systems are able to pinpoint intrusions to within meters. If the
system also is integrated with CCTV, central station monitors can point
cameras in the right direction for further investigation. Border Patrol agents
can then be dispatched quickly.

src: [https://us.sourcesecurity.com/news/articles/border-
security-...](https://us.sourcesecurity.com/news/articles/border-security-
technologies-shoot-donald-trump-co-1090-ga.19574.html)

~~~
dingaling
Re: long barriers in inhospitable territory

One of the lesser-known but technically-impressive border fences was the
Cordon Sanitaire ( Corsan ) built by Rhodesia in the 1970s along the border
with Mozambique.

The idea of relying solely on sensors was rejected because even heliborne
troops were inadequately slow when intruders could disappear into the African
bush. Instead the Corsan consisted of two fences bracketing a minefield and
much Israeli monitoring equipment, ran for 180 km along incredibly hostile
African territory.

Eventually the cost proved prohibitve and the next 800km of border had to be
secured with only a minefield and a homeward-side fence.

~~~
FabHK
When you put it like that, fences on both sides seem a proper friendly
gesture...

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avh02
2015 tag?

