The Great Wall of Saudi Arabia.

[classical_hero]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2912334/The-Great-Wall-Saudi-Arabia-Kingdom-plans-build-600-mile-barrier-Jordan-Kuwait-response-threat-invasion-ISIS.html

The Saudi royal family are building a 600-mile barrier to fortify the northern frontier of their kingdom.

The fence and ditch, punctuated with radar surveillance towers, command centres and guard posts, aims to protect the Saudis' oil-rich territory from invasion by the Islamic State insurgency.

Last week a suicide bombing and gun attack which killed two Saudi border guards and their commanding officer was styled by one analyst as the Islamic State's first attack on the kingdom.

Looks like they want to build a fence to keep out the ISIS fighters, considering they want to take over the holy sites of Mecca and Medina.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Should create lots of good death jobs for south Asian and African slaves ... sorry, rightless migrant workers.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I don't think this is anything new. Saudi Arabia has always felt threatened by its northern neighbours and there have been fortifications being built up there from (IIRC) even before the Gulf War.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

The desert itself is a fortification. Throw some sensors across the usual access routes and you're done. The wall/fence described in the press will almost certainly never be built.

 

[bhsup]

Throw some sensors across the usual access routes and you're done.

Also his laughing face, but I no speakeh de Deutch, so no text.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Historian Peter Brown called this frontier the 'soft underbelly of the Middle East'. What he meant was that the while Romans and Persians had a hard heavily fortified frontier against each other in Mesopotamia and Armenia, the south was virtually unguarded.

The frontier is enormous and the militarization of adjacent desert region does pose a threat to the Saudis. Also, the Saudis have very limited outlets for capital expenditure.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Also his laughing face, but I no speakeh de Deutch, so no text.

Rommel still got beaten by some Australians huddling in Egypt.

 

[bhsup]

But he GOT there to be beaten. That's the point

 

[gay_Aleks]

I just realised.. You're not Hygro. You're bhsup.

 

[azzaman333]

A wall seems like a good way to encourage complacency along the border. But hey, if they wanna build it, doesn't worry me.

 

[Tahuti]

Rommel still got beaten by some Australians huddling in Egypt.

Honestly, you are quite a poor general if you manage to get defeated by Australian rabble. Rommel is definitely overrated; Simeon II was a better general even when he was still a child-czar.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Yes, he surely mastered the tactic of running back to his home Germany once the Red Army marched in.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

So, are they doing anything about all the subversive wahhabies already inside Saudi Arabia ?

 

[gay_Aleks]

Too busy fighting the enigmatic snow camels.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

So, are they doing anything about all the subversive wahhabies already inside Saudi Arabia ?

That's what internal security services are for.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

They do a great job. Thanks for asking.

 

[Tee Kay]

Honestly, you are quite a poor general if you manage to get defeated by Australian rabble.

But we actually defeated a German force and held off the Japanese in the East Indies... which is both more than the Dutch managed, so...

 

[Tahuti]

But we actually defeated a German force and held off the Japanese in the East Indies... which is both more than the Dutch managed, so...

Admittedly WWII was not our best war at all. Fortunately, we can play the 80-year war card! You yet have to expel your sovereign overlords and place one of your own in Australia, especially as you failed horribly at the Eureka stockade.

 

[Tee Kay]

Admittedly WWII was not our best war at all. Fortunately, we can play the 80-year war card! You yet have to expel your sovereign overlords and place one of your own in Australia, especially as you failed horribly at the Eureka stockade.

Admittedly we've never had a real tyrant to fight against until we got Tony Abbott.

We made up for it by overthrowing tyrants in other countries.