A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years.
On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles.
That finally made it undeniable that sending naval vessels anywhere near a hostile shore is a thing of the past. Countermeasures can take out some attacking missiles, but not all of them.
This is a real problem for the U.S. Navy, because they've invested heavily in craft intended to operate near hostile shores. Littoral combat ships and amphibious assault ships are intended to operate offshore of trouble spots. This worked a lot better when the trouble spots couldn't do much to them.
The size of Iran means that knocking out drone and missile production for long won't work. Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now. Ukraine produced 4 million drones last year, and production continues to increase. Ukraine even exports drones now. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE have been making deals with Ukraine for air defense systems. Iran exports drones to Russia.
Mass-produced drones today are a simple airframe, a lawnmower engine, and the smarts of a cell phone.
Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran.
The US can't just pull out, either. The enemy gets a vote on when it's over. Israel, Iran, and Yemen now all have to agree. Probably the best deal the US can get at this point is a cease fire with Iran collecting tolls on the Strait of Hormuz.
Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US.
> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia.
According to [0], in 2025 Iran had 86M people. Ukraine had 29M (~33%), Germany (highest in Europe) had 83M (~96%, uh?), Iraq had 46M (~53%), and Russia had 146M (~168% / ~59% reversed).
Wildly, wildly wrong about Germany but not too far off the rest[1].
[1] Although if you include Turkey in "Europe", "more than any country in Europe" droops a little because Turkey's 86092168 (99.456%) is basically identical to Iran's 86563000 when it comes to projection and estimation errors.
But then don't say "people"? Because if you say "has N people" and then "more than 2x Y", no-one is going to go "yes, that's 2x land area" when it was NEVER MENTIONED IN ANY CONTEXT.
I don't think they can be because "About 2/3 of Russia" -> Iran is (according to [0]) about 636k mi^2 whilst Russia is 6600k mi^2 or just over 10x the area.
(Iran is 4.5x the land area of Germany, 2.7x Ukraine, 3.7x Iraq - sure "2x" works but it's out enough that it doesn't fit with the "land area" claim.)
Also Denmark is in Europe and has a land area (including Greenland) 1.3x that of Iran which strictly breaks the "more than any country in Europe" claim.
In summary, if it's about land area, it's absolute gibberish. If it's about population, it's mostly accurate.
> Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US.
If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon. After 9/11, there's no world in which any attack on the US homeland, however small or local, is met with anything other than overwhelming retribution.
Having difficulty projecting force from the air with fighter bombers launched from air craft carriers and refueling caravans from the Indian Ocean or Mediterranean Sea against a determined enemy that has been preparing for this eventuality since 1979 is one thing. Being able to fly non-stop B-52 and B-2 sorties from home air bases with single-digit-hour flight times is a different thing entirely.
It is so rich hearing that America can attack anybody, but godforbid an attack on the "homeland" is an unforgivable act that will invoke nukes immediately.
That's how nukes work. When it comes to nuclear weapons, the world is divided into haves and have-nots. Anyone lacking effective nuclear response can be steamrolled by those who do with total impunity.
The USA has been attacked before but it has never been invaded and forced to fight a war on its own soil against foreign enemies. It's possible that they unconsciously believe war is something they bring to others, never something others bring to them. It's impossible to predict how traumatizing it would be for them if that belief is proven wrong. They could absolutely reach for nuclear weapons if that threshold is reached.
If thats important its counter intuitive to show that agreements about not getting any nuklear arms is worth nothing, and wont stop you getting invaded.
Basically, I think the most optimistic possible outcome from of this is returning to something like the nuclear deal, but with way better terms for Iran.
I don't see any realistic path for this fuck up to be unfucked. Aggressive foreign policy is seldom reversible, there is no way to get back to the previous save game.
The fundamental issue in dealing with Iranians was that they were strongly ideological and not very realpolitk - this is exactly what drove them into a conflict with US in the first place, a series of ruinous foreign policy moves - the hostages crisis, the Beirut bombing, proxy wars - that served no strategic long term purpose for Iran other than signaling ideological commitment within the regime.
So whatever you negotiated with Iran, you could only extract at gunpoint threatening their destruction (which even they understand is bad for their ideological goals), and you could never fully trust them to see their own-self interest and follow through. Their nuclear program was, in this context, more of a bargaining chip than an ideological regime goal, a way to put something on the table while maintaining their ideologically-mandated tools for power projection in the region, missiles and drones programs, various proxy fronts etc. This was a state of affairs that Israel was strongly opposed to, so they applied lobby pressure to kill the deal.
Well, having now actually attempted to destroy the regime and failed, whatever leverage you had for a non-nuclear Iran is gone. You have demonstrated to the Islamic republic that the only way to continue to exist is to obtain nuclear weapons, that no negotiated compromise can exist. You have also replaced the older, conservative, nuclear skeptic Ayatollah with his son, who's entire family was hit: father, wife, teenage son, sister and her toddler son and husband were all killed. Does he sound like a man who accepted to succeed his father's because he wants to correct the late Khamenei's mistakes and make a bid for peace?
The refreshed Islamic republic might sign various treaties or truces and accept nuclear deals, but they will surely break them because obtaining nukes has become existential. My expectation is that, if the regime does not collapse, either as a result of a ground invasion, internal uprising, or some combination (civil war etc.), then they will get nuclear weapons in the next decade. They are too easy to procure and the regime has now too little to lose.
No, Iran started helping the US against Taliban only to be put on the axis of evil list by Bush. Signed a deal with the US only to be torn and Trump placed maximum pressure.
US foreign policy in the Middle East is run by Israel.
This is an english speaking tech forum, so it’s safe to assume most people here live in a country that has nukes like the US, UK, India, probably decent number of people who came from China and Russia too.
Ukraine is different and did the reverse, giving up their nukes. They said it was too expensive to keep them, which is only partially true. Ukraine could have deconstructed them and created new Permissive Action Links (PALs) in Dnipro although this process would have taken years and carried a high risk of accidental detonation or radioactive mishaps during the reengineering phase.
Barring an attack on the US itself, the US under the current regime will never attack Russia. Whatever the kompromat happens to be, the President is completely bound by it.
The "kompromat" is the world's largest nuclear arsenal, some five thousand and change warheads, along with a delivery system that includes an HGV MIRV payload that can deliver a multi-megaton warhead at ~mach 20-something.
Their video recordings of Trump doing God-only-knows-what, on the other hand, appear to be working great. Ditto, the unreleased files hacked from the Republican National Committee's email server in 2016.
Honestly, I thought part of MAD was how, once a nuclear missile was launched, it would be better for other nuclear states to decimate the country of origin than to wait and figure out where it would hit.
> It's possible that they unconsciously believe war is something they bring to others, never something others bring to them
Spot on. As an American who is quite critical of the imperialist dynamic, I still catch myself thinking this way. Like "what if Iran actually attacks something around me?" But it's war, shouldn't one expect that an enemy might attack at any point?! Except, we just don't think of war as something that might have direct repercussions for us personally, which is why most of us vote for chucklefuck leaders who start them so readily.
This is interesting. Even though its many years ago most of Europe have a big open wound from WWII. That might be a missing ingredient for the american people to be less trigger happy when it comes to bombing other countries. The act of bombing a school full of children would have turned everything on its head in my country.
Your "big open wound" is my country's stepping into what was still mostly an elective war, saving the day, coming out as the head of a global economic empire, and being lauded for all of it - including well after the war itself for being the alternative to the more direct-subjugation-based empire of the USSR.
I'm not saying this to brag or something, but to drive home how radically different the perspectives are. Even our stories that are fundamentally tragedies (eg Saving Private Ryan) are still tales of distant heroic sacrifice, rather than the nihilistic smothering of helpless humans that war actually is. And to that above-it-all entitlement, we've mixed a cocktail of religious fundamentalism to help with the rationalization.
Vietnam was seemingly the only time since that there has been serious society-wide anti-war sentiment, and that's because people were being forcibly conscripted against their individual will. They fixed that by (effectively) removing the draft, while the economic treadmill was turned up such that more people "volunteered".
That was my first thought too, but I think it's overly pedantic. If we're reaching all the way back to 1812 then I think parents point is true in spirit if not letter
It was fought on US soil but did they really get invaded in that war? They declared war on Great Britain. They even invaded Canada themselves. It just doesn't seem to match the conflicts the USA brings upon other nations.
What was 9/11 if not military actions on USA own soils? Like, sure it can be labelled terrorism rather than "conventional military intervention", but psyops apart, on practical level that’s typical asymmetric/guerrilla warfare.
"Military action", perhaps, but that is a very vague term. You replied to someone about "fighting foreign troops on own soil" which describes a ground invasion. 9/11 was something else.
It is USA did not respond with any military force. The response, if any, was behind closed doors and we may never know the details. The only thing we know is that relationships with the Saudis are closer than ever. Journalists aren't even allowed to question why they chop up their regime critics in small pieces and put them in a box because that is considered "impolite".
The public response was largely within domestic policy. New laws, new government agencies, more money spent on the military. It was also alluded to when fighting the continuation war with Iraq, but nothing was ever said explicitly about that.
it's indeed a distinction without a real difference, but terrorism is specifically targeted at civilians to produce some political outcome.
It's wild to suggest that terrorism against the US should not be responded with by military action - it's only the degree and targets that should be under debate.
This is foolish nonsense. An organized foreign army directing improvised missiles against your cities is very definitely conducting 'military action' and is a valid target for a military response.
There are gun nut americans who truly believe gun owners would contribute an effective resistance to a modern invading army because they own an ar15. That country is deluded and everyone falls off eventually and trump may have actually accelerated the country out of it's golden age
> There are gun nut americans who truly believe gun owners would contribute an effective resistance to a modern invading army because they own an ar15.
It would depend on their patience.
The insurgency in Iraq was eventually suppressed (American COIN manuals were updated). The insurgency (?) in Afghanistan outlasted the patience of the invaders.
So how long do the 'gun nutters' want to keep at it compared to the opposing force?
Further, it's worth asking how effective, on average, is violent disobedience. Generally speaking a movement has about double the odds of success by not using violence:
I don’t feel well educated in modern military actions- are you saying that civilian gun owners in America would contribute meaningfully to the national defense (maybe because of things like civil resistance in other modern conflicts?), or am I misunderstanding? Do you have any suggestions for how I could start to broach the topic? It’s so broad and fast-moving that it’s hard to know where to start.
Yes absolutely they would and insurgencies are not the same thing as two nations fighting each other. America has twice as many gun owners as there are people in Afghanistan, a large chunk of them have combat experience.
Civil wars happen all of the time. Not only is propaganda effective, but militaries have ways to mitigate this, like moving soldiers far away from home to fight in places they don't have familial/cultural/economic/etc ties, which also makes it more likely that the propaganda will work.
The thing that makes the large quantity of American gun owners potentially useful in that sort of scenario is not that they possess guns. That matters a little, but usually most of the equipment a resistance uses is captured and/or supplied by allies. The thing that would be useful is these individuals' skills with firearms. It's theoretically kind of an alternate route to a similar (but lower) background proficiency level that some countries achieve with mandatory military service.
Note however that America is not only not unique in having that background proficiency -- but unlike mandatory military service, this approach has not really been tested. It's far from a certain proposition either way.
The hardware still matters because it lets you execute suspected collaborators and force the occupiers to incur cost hardening their logistics train (i.e. insurgency 101 type stuff) without waiting for the bureaucrats in whatever foreign country wants to fund your insurgency to prepare your arms shipments.
If you're in a situation where the thing you're doing can be meaningfully called an "execution", a firearm is a convenience, not a necessity. There are also plenty of effective attacks on logistics trains that don't involve firearms, though I will grant that they are at least sometimes a force multiplier there. Hence "that matters a little".
Exactly the type of gunnut I'm talking about. You lot couldn't handle being asked to wear a COVID mask, you wouldn't be able to handle actual war against a state armed with ya assault rifle and tinned food
I think you misunderstand me. I have never owned a gun, fired one exactly once more than 20 years ago (Boy Scouts), and advocate for more gun control (not less). I would be totally useless in any realistic fight. The argument has some merit though, in that it is as yet unclear how much it would matter.
I don't think that unclear merit outweighs the very clear and data-driven drawbacks. I just prefer to engage subjects like this in a charitable manner.
What makes you think the us army would unite against them? Sure a few nut militials would be suppressed, but if gun owners in mass are raising up that means a large controversy that the military will be aware of. The us military is not full of 'yes men' who will follow orders that blindly on home turf, a lot of them will follow.
> What makes you think the us army would unite against them?
I'd turn that around and ask, "What makes you think the people would accept the gun nuts rebellion?"
Many would be celebrating in the streets if the military showed up with tanks and started blasting. Furthermore, there's enough people in the military from far, far outside whatever state is being threatened to care that much about the locals.
Again, you are assuming a small rebellion - of course those will be put down. Texas has enough gun owners to put down a small rebellion without the military (they would let the military/police do it). However if things got so far that the majority of gun owners were willing to go to war that implies the US is at least very divided and the military is going to at least partially be on the side of the rebellion.
The 2nd amendment types are a little too impressionable for their guns to be of much use. They were soundly defeated in 5th generation warfare without the need to fire nary a shot. Less gullible americans tend to not own guns, so they were also defeated without firing nary a shot. Now America is just a big dumb worm that Netanyahu has his hooks in and uses to cruise around the desert with.
Guns are not only for counter-insurgency on invasion/warfare. For most people I know who own guns, that's not even on their top 10 list of reasons. But if you don't think they'd be a factor, then you disagree with some of the top generals around the world.
Civilian guns (armament generally, not just guns) aren't for going toe to toe with a trained military in the field.
They're for putting a bullet in you and/your your family if you act as a collaborator, taking potshots at the logistics train, and all the other nasty stuff you have to do to make occupation costly in terms of both life and dollars. Every cent spent on putting bullet proof glass in the camera installation van and drone cages on the police station and using those cameras and drones to track down the guy who shot you for collaborating is a cent that must be extracted from either the occupied population or the population that's financing the occupiers and not spent in direct pursuit of the political goal.
All the more reasons for Iran to drop their self imposed fatwa on nuclear weapons and get a few, to put an end to interference.
Iran has been on the receiving end of weapons of mass destruction, that is, chemical weapons, by way of US sponsored Saddam Hussein and lost close to half a million of their people. Yet they never for once retaliated with such weapons which to them is against their Islam.
Those half a million dead are part of a still unhealed wound and that is felt and remembered in every city and town in Iran.
Except that it's a bit more complicated than that. Russia has nukes and is under attack from Ukraine, and while in the past they sabre-rattled that they would use tactical nukes if there was ever any incursion, they haven't done so because they know that would cause the whole world to retaliate.
Then there's nuclear defenses - if a country would have an effective anti-ICBM system (like Star Wars or whatever), it would make a nuclear counterstrike ineffective and end Mutually Assured Destruction. On paper anyway, in practice there are no perfect anti-ICBM systems, and they're effectively cluster bombs so in theory after the initial launch they can break up into half a dozen "dumb" nukes. Good luck hitting those.
No, it is not. Russia was attacked by Ukraine multiple times and nukes are still not used. India, Pakistan and China are in various stages of conflicts with each other for decades and all of them are nuke-enabled super-powers.
There are three points of having nukes:
1. Deter other countries with nukes from using them against you, or your military ally.
2. Prevent total annihilation in the war. You can lose the war, but not too much.
3. Burn the world to ashes. Very few countries can do it. It effectively forces the whole world to make sure that this scenario does not happen. So you can be sure that scenario where Ukraine conquers Russia and completely destroys it - will be prevented by the very Ukraine supporters. They don't want to live in the nuclear post-apocalypse, because there are scenarios where Russia fires every single nuclear missile on every major city on the Earth. As Putin framed it: We will go to heaven as martyrs, and they will simply drop dead.
America lost several wars, recently they lost Afghanistan war and right now they're losing Iran war. They won't invoke nukes to overturn the table, they'll accept the lose.
How do you know? Trump's frustration is on the rise; at some point he very well may threaten nuclear strikes.
Another scenario is, he tries to invade, an Iranian drone makes it through and sinks a big US ship, hundreds or even thousands of American soldiers die in a very short period of time. Now everyone's upset and the American public screams "revenge".
> Just disable Microsoft/Google/AWS/Apple crap for them and they will be on their knees.
The dumb thing is that there are people in the US that actually believe this. Apparently including you. It would destroy the US as a trading partner and cause overnight implosion of the USD. If you thought brexit was an own goal this would be on another level entirely. But please, shout it around some more and prove the point that I've been making to every company that I've been involved with in the last decade: have a plan in case your cloud stuff isn't available anymore.
First, the US has recently done a lot of dumb shit and own goals. One never knows where is the boundary, especially if things escalate gradually.
Second, the spinelessness of 'the west' also seems unbounded (the failure to condemn Venezuela action, Iran war, or Israel's behaviour). Even after the Greenland fiasco. Carney's words at Davos seem very hollow, when one sees his reaction to Iran war. So, it might not even come to full stop of IT infrastructure, just 'a gentle warning'.
Third, the US has no problems screwing its partners, with those obediently bowing down; that is not a new phenomenon. Read on 1971 Connaly's statement "The dollar is our currency, but your problem."
Ah hahahaha. Yeah... No. Contrary to popular belief, the 2-300 year old upstart that is the United States doesn't have a magical lynchpin it can pull to get the other longstanding nations of the world to acquiesce entirely. If the U.S. really pushes things, it will soon find itself on the shit list of everyone else on whom we rely for implementing key links in the supply chain. I honestly do not understand where the gung ho America ooh rah comes from anymore these days. People, we sold out our industrial base. We sold out how to make things. We sold out everything that wasn't nailed down chasing cheaper payroll to undercut the American worker. This country is not as on it's own two feet as we like to believe. One need only look at the supply chain disruptions of the last decade to understand that.
Perhaps I should have formulated my post more precisely.
1) So much goodwill gone up in smoke. Yes.
a) Will the US stop wasting its goodwill? Well, that would be a new thing, so no. b) Will it exploit the dependence on its IT infrastructure muscle? Who knows? It exploited the dependence on it financial infrastructure, despite obvious long term consequences on trust in this financial infrastructure.
c) Will it come to truly turning off IT infrastructure? Probably not, the threat of that is sufficient, plus see 2).
2) My main beef is not with the US (I am not from US), its with Europe, for its spinelessness and inability to break its US dependence.
> 2) My main beef is not with the US (I am not from US), its with Europe, for its spinelessness and inability to break its US dependence.
Silicon Valley has an 'unfair advantage' in terms of capital available and the talent pool (though the latter is changing). This means that if you're going to roll something out you have a very good shot at cleaning up the EU market besides your home market because you will have the ability to massively undercut any EU competitors to the point that it would have to be an existential risk (after all your other EU competitors can do the same) to not do business with the US tech giants.
That's not spinelessness, that's sheer survival in a world where the table is massively tilted.
Breaking US dependence means breaking SV dependence and that's not even something the other states in the US have been able to do (Seattle got a head start and still didn't manage).
The same goes for the rest of the world...
Now, as to whether or not the EU could do better: so far, not really, because the main reason the EU does what it does is because it is a strong subscriber to free market principles, both within and without (and for better or for worse). The US has now burned a number of bridges which for most people in the EU (present company apparently excluded) were beyond the pale not that long ago.
So the tide is finally shifting: doing business with the US for critical services is now seen as a massive liability. This opens the door to local competition but that local competition still has to deal with various realities: environmental laws, anti-competitive legislation (which is stronger than in the USA) and a fractured linguistic environment as well as a lack of available capital. Those are - each by themselves - massive challenges that will need to be overcome.
I'm too old to take the lead in any of this - assuming I even could - so I'm happy to stand back to see what is going to happen and to help people see what is to their advantage and what is not. But I'm going to reserve judgment because I think that if you want to solve a problem you're going to have to work with people rather than to blame them for any of the ruts they're in.
The tilted table facing the Silicon Valley: Yes, definitively. The US is screaming murder regarding the others (China...) subsidizing their industries to gain monopoly advantage. That is exactly what US (via Venture Capital) is doing regarding the SV startups -- the whole model there is burning cash to scale quickly to market dominance.
If China and Russia have been able to (at least somehow) insulate themselves from US IT dominance, so should had Europe, at least for the most critical things. Hiding behind 'free market' ideology when the other (stronger!) side is not playing by the same rules is sheer stupidity.
Yeah, yeah, nobody could have foreseen the level US would abuse its power... if you wholeheartedly believed the spiel about the common values and interests. In reality, the US has always been very transactional and aggressive. Its just that with Trump the mask has come off.
So, here you are with your successful EU startup. This time you'll do things right. So you go and raise some EU VC in order to be able to fight off the SV competition. And miracle: it works, you are successful. You consolidate your EU presence and get to the point where even the SV competitors can no longer compete.
Oh nice, tell me what legal basis you will use to stop a takeover bid. Have a look at NXP and a whole raft of other absolutely critical companies whose shares eventually wound up in the hands of countries hostile to Europe.
We have a whole department in the EU that would like nothing better than to be able to stop these kind of things from happening but time and again the business world finds a way around it. That's one of the main issues with the EU: we play by the rules even if the rest of the world does not. But that's a very expensive principle to let go and I for one am happy that so far they have not, even if you think it is 'spineless' it actually is the opposite.
This applies to incumbents (well maybe until it does not). Smaller countries facing destruction of their regime might actually use the nukes. Probably do the test first along with the warning
> What criteria are you using for this assessment?
We lost the moment we started because we went on a whim and without a cohesive strategy. This was a stupid stupid thing to do, and the longer it goes on the more obvious it becomes that this administration has no idea what it is doing.
If we look at the stated goals (as inconsistent as they have been):
Unconditional surrender -> nope
Regime change via popular uprising -> nope
Destruction or removal of enriched uranium -> nope
Destruction of drones and ballistic missile capability -> nope
Final goal of getting back to the pre-war state (which is admitting loss in itself):
Reopen in the straight of Hormuz -> nope
So no objectives have been achieved, and although you could argue they will be in the future, this seems increasingly unlikely in the short timeline the Trump admin has given themselves. It any of them were possible at all, which seems doubtful.
Has anyone “won” a war in the recent past? In the old fashioned sense that they conquered something and used the newly acquired resources to make their own citizens lives better?
The problem with the post ww2 world is that the old definition of winning a war no longer holds. You just don’t see wars of conquest very often and they don’t seem to work when they happen.
The closest I can think to winning off hand is a few of the colonial civil wars. Vietnam for instance won in the sense that they outlasted the US and have a nominally communist government but it is not an outpost of the Soviet Union and it’s a major trading and tourist partner of the US.
Iraq is not led by a belligerent to the US dictator and Afghanistan isn’t home to training camps for terrorists dedicated to attacking the US (yet).
These were all extremely stupid, expensive and inhumane military actions. But the US never went into them to hold territory. So “there until we got tired of it” is as close to winning as it was ever going to be.
Yes, winning a war means achieving your political objectives. For example Iran wins this war even if they maintain the status quo. And they are on track to get even more, like obtaining ownership over the strait.
Some of them. These were the stated objectives as per general Tommy Franks:
* Depose's Saddam government
Accomplished.
* Identify, isolate, and eliminate Iraqi WMDs
Failed. They were never there.
* Find, capture, and drive out terrorists from Iraq
Failed. Iraqi-based terrorism increased in the aftermath.
* Collect intelligence related to terrorist networks, and to "the global network" of WMDs
Failed. North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006, years after the invasion. The US accuses Iran of trying for them to this day. Chemical weapons were used by ISIS.
* End sanctions
Accomplished.
* Deliver humanitarian support to the Iraqi people, including the displaced
Failed. There were more displaced people due to the war than before and a higher need for humanitarian support which took years to complete.
* Secure Iraq's oil fields and resources, "which belong to the Iraqi people"
Accomplished. Somewhat, US and UK based companies, plus China, now runs a lot of their oil fields. Iraqi GDP per capita is one of the lowest in the region.
* Help the Iraqi people "create conditions for a transition to a representative self-government"
Arguable. Parts of the country want to secede and have armed groups. Representation and turnout is not amazing, but I guess not even in Western countries it is.
> Secure Iraq's oil fields and resources, "which belong to the Iraqi people"
The cynical read of this statement (extract resources from the invaded countries in order to enrich the American capital class) is the primary aim for all these conflicts.
The notion of owning or monetizing an international waterway is fundamentally incompatible with customary international law. Iran can try it anyway if they're not worried about international law, but that was always an option for them, war or not. The timing of performing this extortion now seems to be mainly about scoring war propaganda points.
> fundamentally incompatible with customary international law
So is bombing countries on a whim.
If you want to take the high ground you have to make sure you don't first poison it with your own stupid mistakes. Iran can make a pretty credible play for reparations, and if the belligerents are unable or unwilling to pay up then Iran can selectively blockade the strait for their vessels and cargo. It is one of those little details that was 100% predictable going into this.
Yes, and before you know it we're at the Balfour declaration. But none of that matters in the context of the situation on the ground (and, crucially, in the water) today which was entirely predictable (except by Trump, Hegseth & co). You either plan for that eventuality or you don't start the war.
Note that we're talking about the US and Iran, not about Israel, though obviously they are a massive factor here it is the US that is in the hot seat, both Israel and Iran were doing what they've been doing for many years.
I can't find sources for "tens of thousands of rockets just since oct 7", can you help me? I see a few thousand as parts of exchanges after the Israel-initiated "12 Days War", and then a few thousand more after the (also Israel-initiated) current conflagration. Notably, the rocket attacks stopped during peace talks that US and Israel entered after starting the wars, only to resume after those peace talks were betrayed with bombing.
The 9,500 figure was for all fronts, not just Gaza. But true, it does include some Hamas rockets, most of which are not exactly "Iranian" (although Iran helped with training and smuggling some parts).
> Since the start of the war, 13,200 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza. Another 12,400 were fired from Lebanon, while 60 came from Syria, 180 from Yemen and 400 from Iran, the military said.
So 12,400 rockets fired at Israel by Hezbollah, the vast majority of which are supplied by Iran at no cost. That's just in one year and doesn't include drones.
Azerbaijan invaded Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023 and now all their enemies are gone (disarmed and Armenians expelled) which presumably makes their citizens better off once they move into the empty territory.
Two things to note there. One, many did make a peep; I have friends, coworkers who both ardently discussed and even pointlessly protested in small groups with signs.
The other - I don't pay taxes to the Azeris, every moment of my productive life doesn't support the genocide there, and my soul is in some way not as blackened by the atrocities there. I think people care about Palestine because they rightly feel complicity. Maybe Russian citizens - whose labor indirectly goes to supporting Azeri atrocities - are up in arms?
It hasn’t. There hasn’t been a war in centuries where America didn’t obliterate its opponent. It loses politically because its people don’t want war, but it’s defeated militarily everyone it’s engaged with.
If you can not win a war because your population is unwilling to bear the cost, then you are still unable to win (that is in fact a very typical way for a war to end).
Nobody is disputing the fact that the US spends more money on arms than anyone else and has the shiniest of toys as a result, but "winning" in war is about effecting the outcomes that you want, not about whether your weapon systems are superior.
The US military has clearly failed to deliver the outcome that Americans wanted in many recent conflicts (Vietnam, Taliban); counting those wars as "lost" makes a lot of sense.
One of the reasons to do a war is to simply show the enemy that you are able and crazy enough to go to war with them over whatever grievances you had. This is called strategic deterrence.
You are making the folly of thinking of war like lawsuits, where one side wins and the other side loses, and the losing side goes home with nothing. This is not so.
If you're walking home from work and some person tries to mug you, even if they are unsuccessful, that will permanently change your behavior as if they had successfully robbed you anyway. Maybe you'll change your route. Maybe you won't walk and drive instead.
Yes but if you spend some billions of dollars to replace the Taliban with the Taliban, you have only demonstrated that you are willing to make your own citizens suffer with diminished resources for no outcome.
>If you're walking home from work and some person tries to mug you, even if they are unsuccessful, that will permanently change your behavior as if they had successfully robbed you anyway. Maybe you'll change your route. Maybe you won't walk and drive instead.
In global politics, this tends to make you want to increase your defenses so it doesn't happen again, and find local partners for that defense. This usually comes at the cost of US influence, not its increase.
Like Iran is looking at its current situation and going "The literal only deterrence we could have to prevent this is to develop a nuclear capability. The US cannot be trusted to deal with, and it is pointless to try."
A nuclear Iran can now only be avoided by scorched earth. Scorched earth will now just cause an already partly US hating population to hate them more and create matyrs. Theres no possible upside to this conflict.
With Afghanistan, I think people fixate on the fact that the Taliban is still there and while that's true, Al Qaeda has completely been wiped out (except fringe groups that have adopted the name) and OBL, the person most responsible for 9/11, was successfully killed by an attack launched out of Afghanistan. The current Taliban and whatever terrorist groups remain in that region no longer have an interest in hurting the US directly. The current Taliban is also very different from the one in 2001, almost geopolitically flipped in some ways (allied with India instead of Pakistan, and almost certainly responsible for majorly disrupting China's OBOR project in that region, another win for the US.
Not to mention, 20 years of no Taliban. An entire generation of Afghans grew up without being under a Taliban government.
You can both "win" or both "lose" if your goals are not in direct conflict (rare).
I'd argue that the most important thing when trying to win wars is to aim for realistic outcomes.
The first gulf war was arguably a win because of realistic goals (get Iraq out of Kuwait and stop them from invading it again), while most other interventions in the region were basically "designed to fail", and unsurprisingly never achieved anything of note (and the problem was not lack of military capability).
“A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. Predictable law-abiding behavior lulls drivers. They mentally assign you to a little box in the lane, assume you will stay there, can't handle it when you leave that little box.” - Snow Crash
Is it strategic deterrence, or just being so unreliably and inconsistent that insider information becomes more valuable?
Is it strategic to demonstrate a lack of planning or that you are a poor ally incapable of garnering support (either domestically or abroad)?
Being a superpower means being free of ethics or reason. 'We are the good' sufficently summarizes a regular US-born worldview.
You also shouldnt be too naive to think, US citizens would bring up ethics or reason when choosing their leaders or commenting on their own countrys aggression.
Why do you think, the world is unfair? Some decades ago, we had a world police.
How is this not just common sense? Why would we care more about foreigners' interests than our own? You're trying to apply a moral frame to a discussion of self interest and geopolitics. "The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must".
To an otherwise defenceless country, it's really the same thing. Indiscriminately flattening buildings without notifying civilians to move, destroying industries, stealing their resources and reserves.
Who can recover from this, especially a small nation? You might as well declare everything to be radioactive.
So they'd react harshly even when they started it.
Back when North and South Korea were Korea, the US killed more than 10% of the civilian population and razed every building of what is now North Korea.
I don’t know what rich means here or why homeland is in scare quotes but that’s the way it is. An attack on the US will be met with unrelenting and unstoppable force. I see a lot of delusional posts that seem to indicate people think the US military capability is weak but I assure you it is not. Also, you do realize the Iranian people were pleading for the US to attack. All these people holding vigils are fir the Ayatollah are just embarrassing themselves.
> If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon.
Yes that would be a typical US solution. Let's liberate the Cuban people! By flattening them.
Americans sure love their war crimes! Indiscriminately killing civilians is how they've gotten past, present and future terrorist attacks. I can't imagine the parents of the children they keep on killing (or maiming, or otherwise) standing by and watching. People wouldn't necessarily need to wait for their country's army to do something when they've got nothing significant left to lose.
What was the reason for those protests? Was it perhaps economic hardship brought about by US sanctions? How much is the US liable for the suffering of the Iranian people?
(A lot, is the answer)
That doesn't excuse the Iranian regime, but the US is not exactly helping, is it.
It was hardship brought on by not attempting to address the problems. Sanctions made things a bit worse but if Iran put effort into ensuring there was fresh water instead of funding terrorists and building missles things would have been a lot better for the people. (And likely no senctions for those things)
A bit worse? The sanctions directly brought about this. Scott Bessent admitted -- unprompted -- that the purpose of the sanctions was to destroy the Iranian economy.
I'm not saying the regime is good. It's not. It's terrible. But that does not change what the US has done.
The US has consistently made the suffering in Iran worse over the years. And let's not forget that the US and the British caused the Islamic revolutionaries to come into power by installing a puppet Shah that was deeply unpopular.
Why, that's why you don't do genocide half-heartedly, you need to go all in, roll up your sleeves and really get down to work! Can't get a swarm of radicalized people if there is no people left to get radicalized.
I'm not sure that you can have the moral high ground in a hypothetical scenario where Cuba conspires with Iran to attack the US. At that point both parties are banking on "might makes right".
Well, in this hypothetical scenario you can just as well say that Cuba is defending from the future threat from USA, the same way USA is now defending from future threat from Iran.
Not future threat though what US has put Cuba through the last 70 years any aggressive military from Cuba is probably justified. And no any attack from Cuba on US will still be morally ok if they attack US military and US banks etc.
> After 9/11, there's no world in which any attack on the US homeland, however small or local, is met with anything other than overwhelming retribution.
Yes remember when they invaded Saudi Arabia? That taught everyone an important lesson on the consequences of terrorism on American soil.
The suggestion that Cuba would risk that for no obvious benefit is weird. Some wildcards in Cuba might be doing this unsanctioned. But any Cuban sanctioned/sponsored attack is very unrealistic.
Cuba is the easiest target the US could have. It's very close to the US and very far from any potential ally. The US has never shied away from committing acts of extreme cruelty, well into terrorist or war crime territory. From dropping nuclear bombs on civilians, phosphorus bombs, drone bombing innocent people, schools, hospitals, institutionalized torture, etc. even with far weaker reasons.
There is no scenario where a direct attack on the US wouldn't lead to an extremely violent response in complete disregard of Cuban lives. And get away with it.
The hijackers were Saudi nationals, but the operation was in no way sponsored by the Saudi state, which is a staunch US ally. Which is why the US proceeded to (attempt to) flatten Afghanistan instead.
> the operation was in no way sponsored by the Saudi state,
We do not know this. There are plentiful evidence to suggest direct involvement of the state itself, and the bin Ladin family is certainly hard to untangle from the Saudi state. That is just from what we can know from unclassified sources.
The current Taliban are an almost completely different organization despite there being continuity from then to now. A good comparison point is the church of England in 1520 vs 1620.
USA is good at bombing places. It just so happen that it usually looses the wars after that and usually creates a lot more probpems for itself in the long run.
Taliban is back in power, having stronger grap on power then before. Meanwhile, everybody knows what happens to those who cooperate with USA - they get abandoned and betrayed.
There are no incentive structures (besides possibly "posterity") to encourage anyone to see past their noses. In fact, hardly anyone at any level of any organization, public or private, is able to operate with a real longterm, sustainable outlook. They'd get shitcanned for trying to plan ahead, even if they were intellectually equipped for that.
With respect, this is such a terrible position. This view basically says that we should accept terrorists regimes to do what they want because if they don’t, they will commit terrorisk against us. That is not the right way to deal with bad actors.
Sounds more like he's saying killing civilians naturally makes people mad at you. We shouldn't avoid talking about this because of this fear of terrorism. In fact some would say when army kils someones family, they will look at us as the terrorists and demand it not be accepted like you
With respect, this is such a terrible position. This view basically suggests you should bomb civilians in terrorist countries, because that reduces terrorism somehow. Despite the whole GWOT making that lie obvious to everyone.
You should live up to your nick and do some of that thinking. I never said we should accept 'terrorist[s] regimes'. But there is a massive difference between actually doing something about terrorism and bombing large numbers of civilians in the hope that the problem goes away. That only results in more terrorists as has been amply borne out by history to date.
You don't deal with bad actors by becoming a bad actor yourself. If the US really wanted to deal with 'the terrorists' (by your definition) then they should start with ensuring that there is no risk of increasing their numbers as a result of the operations performed. Failing at that is an automatic own goal because now you've turned a problem into a larger problem.
Terrorism is the typical response of any group that isn't able to wage war in the preferred manner of the perceived enemy. But nicely declared wars between nation states are an imaginary thing, every nation that ever went to war pretended they had the moral high ground, brought a suitcase full of fig leaves and usually some holy scripture or some other book to prove that theirs was the just cause. Solving that takes unity, time, massive amounts of money and the ability to introspect. If you don't bring all of those (or even none of those) to the table then the only thing you will achieve is that you will end up in a (possibly much) worse place than where you were before.
Lumping everybody in Iran under the 'terrorists' banner is just as stupid as lumping everybody in Israel under the 'zionists' banner. Neither is going to lead to a resolution, all you will end up achieving is more war, more people dead and another century or so added to this conflict. But I'm not surprised. Trump & Co are categorically incapable of planning anything that takes longer than a news cycle, whether it is making changes to the White House or trying to grab some more oil.
The real thought experiment is ~600m people in central/south American within ~6000km, i.e. IRBM range of US gulf coast, where ~50% of US oil refinery and LNG plant production are. Now that Iran has validated mid tier power can cobble together precision strike complex, it's only going to be matter of time before relatively wealthier countries realize only way out of M/Donroe is to build conventional strike against US strategic infra. This stuff going to get commoditized sooner than later with competing mega constellation ISR. It's pretty clear building up conventional airforce/navy etc will simply get overmatched vs US projection and only credible deterrence is PRC style rocket force. There's a fuckload of places to hide 8x8 missile launchers in the Americas.
E: 50% of PRODUCTION, not plants, as in a few plants responsible for 50% of US refinery / LNG production.
We're soon to have electric cars (and trucks) that cost less ICE ones, on top of the lower operating costs. Which in turn cost even less when more solar and wind are added to the grid because the "charge more when power is cheap and less when it's expensive" thing lowers their operating cost even further and reduces the amount of natural gas you need in the grid because periods of lower renewable generation can be offset by deferred charging instead of natural gas peaker plants.
Even without any purposeful efforts to do anything about climate change, the economics point to fossil fuels declining over time as a proportion of energy. Meanwhile the US administration flips parties every four to eight years and the next time they're Democrats they'll be trying to hasten that result rather than impede it. Which makes a long-term strategy of building the capacity to target petroleum infrastructure something that could plausibly be increasingly irrelevant by the time it would take to implement it.
Yes, refinery mismatch vulnerability something that can be built around, ~10-15 year horizon. US can also bring down oil as % of energy mix and distribute renewables. If US smart they would do this.
But at same time, extend IRBM range by 1000km, and replace refineries with hyperscalers, or whatever targets that worth deterrent value (energy at top of list). Refineries just most immediately very high value targets that happens to be closest to missile range.
But the assumption is less about US adaptability/smartness, as the way commodity conventional strikes is trending, CONUS _ will _ be vulnerable eventually. Fortress America is as much function of geography as technology. Just like how 20 years ago Iran couldn't hit Israel or many GCC companies even if it wanted to... now it can. The natural outcome of longer and longer range strikes is at some point US becomes in range of Monroe neighbours who doesnt want to be Monroed.
> But at same time, extend IRBM range by 1000km, and replace refineries with hyperscalers, or whatever targets that worth deterrent value (energy at top of list).
Hyperscalers are probably not a great example because a) they don't really benefit that much from being physically centralized (especially at the building level rather than the regional level) and b) data is one of the easiest things to keep redundant, and then even if you destroy a large facility, backups get restored to another facility or distributed set of facilities with no downtime at all if the target is well-prepared and only a short period of time if they've done even minimum diligence.
The critical ones can also do the "build it on the inside of a mountain" thing and then your capacity to take down grandpa's WordPress is mainly useful to the target for rallying opposition against you.
> whatever targets that worth deterrent value (energy at top of list).
If "energy" turns into solar panels on the roof of every house and widely distributed low density wind farms etc., that's pretty hard to target.
In general centralization is often done because it has economies of scale, but those same economies of scale have diminishing returns. One huge facility reduces certain fixed costs by a million to one (i.e. 99.9999%) over having a million small facilities, but a thousand medium facilities are much harder to target while still reducing them by 99.9% and the remaining 0.0999% is negligible because you're long since already dominated by unit costs. The target can also choose where to take the trade off based on how likely they expect to be targeted. And that's a broadly applicable principle rather than something that only applies to any specific industry.
Hyperscale/data just one example, f35 manufacturing, specialty feed stock production, transformers, gas compression etc, the list of currently centralized (as in have large target profiles) that will remain soft for decades is long with varying degree of disruption/dislocation, i.e. you don't restore hardware with multi year lead times.
Those are ridiculous / absurd economies of scale numbers, splitting piles up 20-50% per duplication inefficiency, especially in US context (expensive regulatory/physical buildout), splitting 1 hyper to 1000 medium is not marginal more cost, it's magnitudes / 1000%s more cost - costs private or public will not go for, and is prematurely self defeating because others can always build cheaper missiles than US can build infra (hence goldendome theatrics).
In principle, US can preempt CONUS physical vulnerabilities, where 100+ years of built up over assumption of CONUS not being vulnerable. In practice the chance of that happening approaches 0. Didn't even harden CENTCOM air shelters and planners have been noting vulnerability for years. Not just economies scale, but JIT and all other aggregate downstream optimizations US likes to make in name of efficiency. US simply not culturally PRC who does not mind (and is optimized for) some extra concrete for physical security. Not that PRC does not have huge vulnerabilities, just development has been made with mainland strikes in mind.
> splitting 1 hyper to 1000 medium is not marginal more cost, it's magnitudes / 1000%s more cost
It isn't. The primary costs of both the medium and enormous facility are the same: Server hardware and electricity, and server equipment and electricity don't have significantly lower unit costs when you're buying a million instead of a thousand. Also, you can still buy a million servers and then put them in a thousand different buildings.
It's only when you get down to very small facilities that things like staffing start to become significantly different, because amortizing tens of thousands of employees over millions of servers results in a similar unit cost as amortizing tens of employees over thousands of servers. It's only when you get to the point that you have only tens or hundreds of physical servers that you get scale problems, because it's hard to hire one tenth of one employee and on top of that you want to have more than one so the one person doesn't have to be on call 24/7/365. Although even there you could split the facilities up and then have multiple employees who spend different days in different locations.
> especially in US context (expensive regulatory/physical buildout)
This is another reason that "hyper economies of scale" don't actually do you any good. Which costs less, having dozens or hundreds of suppliers for the various parts of an aircraft, or one single Lockheed that should nominally capture all of these great economies of scale from being a single company?
It's the first one, because then it's a competitive market and the competitive pressure is dramatically more effective at keeping costs under control than a single hyper-scale monopolist that should be able to do it more efficiently on paper until the reality arrives that they then have no incentive to, because a monopoly is the only one who can actually bid on the contract and a duopoly or similarly concentrated market can too easily explicitly or implicitly coordinate to divide up the market. At which point they can be as inefficient as they like with no consequences.
This does mean you have to address the regulatory environment that tends to produce concentrated markets, but we need to fix that anyway because it's a huge problem even outside of this context.
> where 100+ years of built up over assumption of CONUS not being vulnerable
That's not true, there was a significant push during the Cold War to decentralize things to make them less vulnerable to nuclear strikes. The government pushed people into the suburbs on purpose:
There are obviously significant costs to that but Americans were willing pay them when there was a reason to and much of the landscape is still shaped by those decisions even now.
You also see this in the design of the internet, which came out of the same era and has a design that facilitates the elimination of single points of failure, and that sort of thing is as close as we've seen to an unmitigated good.
When I say hyper, I'm referring to hyper size vs distributed, not limited to data centers. It generalized reply to your insinuation of economies of scale is broadly applicable when it is absolutely not, i.e. 99.9999,99.9%,0.0999% which fantasy figures. The general economics of economies of scale is you split 1 facility in 2 you add 20-50% overhead due to duplication. The immediate cost of redundancy/resiliency is adding double digit overhead. The point is duplication doesn't happen when "only when you get down to very small facilities", it happens when you go from 1 to 2, incremental distribution increase cost disproportionately. Breaking economies of scale of 1 hyper facility int to 2,5,10,100 smaller facilities is possible on paper, but no one doing it in practice.
>don't actually do you any good.
Sure, economy of scale good for consolidator being net bad is valid, but this wasn't discussion on optimal macroeconomics, this discussion on what US politically able to do. There are things US should do, but systemically can't.
> Cold War to decentralize
Cold war dispersion for nuclear math and precise conventional strike math is different. Spreading 2 factories apart so they draw 2 nukes vs 2 factories get 2 conventional packages regardless of spatial separation.Circle back to feasibility, what is required for distributed / dispersed survivability. Is US going to dismantle gulf oil infra and move it inland. Most physical infra processes are not fragmentable or self healing like internet. How much are Americans willing to pay, coldwar was eating 15% of GDP. All this ultimately secondary to the point that doing all this costs US more (because everything in US costs more) vs adversaries simply getting more missiles, it's economically/strategically self defeating. Let's not forget Soviet answer to US disbursement was building more missiles while US still pays inefficiency tax on suburbs.
> The general economics of economies of scale is you split 1 facility in 2 you add 20-50% overhead due to duplication.
There is no general figure for this, it depends both on the type of facility and the size of it to begin with. At hyper-scale the incremental efficiency gains are much smaller because a medium-sized facility is large enough to have captured most of them already. Where you get 20-50% is where you have a single small facility and try to split it in two.
The general premise of economies of scale is that there are costs that don't depend much on scale, so at increased scale, the amortization of those costs over all units contributes less to the cost per unit.
However, at very large scales, three things happen.
First, many of those costs look like "you need this piece of equipment that can handle 1000 units per year" and then the facility that produces 1000 units can amortize it over 1000 units but the facility that only produces 100 units has to amortize it over 100 units. However, the facility that produces 100,000 units then has no advantage over the one that produces 1000 because they then need a hundred of those pieces of equipment and have no advantage in unit cost.
Second, some costs only have to be paid once regardless of the number of units. If you sell each unit for $1000 and have a fixed overhead of $10,000, at 100 units the over per-unit overhead is $100 (i.e. 10%), but at 1000 units it's already down to 1%, at 10,000 units it's 0.1%, etc. The incremental advantage of doing millions of units instead of thousands is thereby negligible because it was already under 1% of the unit cost by the time you were doing thousands. The number of industries where you need to be producing some double digit percentage of the entire national capacity of some product before those costs get down to a manageable percentage of the unit cost is extremely uncommon, to the point that it may well not even exist for a country the size of the US. Especially when you're talking about costs that specifically can't be amortized over more than one facility.
And third, some costs actually increase with scale, e.g. coordination costs. So once you pass the point that those costs exceed the diminishing incremental benefit from amortizing costs of the second type over more units, increased scale reduces efficiency even before you consider the consequences of reduced competitive pressure on incentives.
> Sure, economy of scale good for consolidator being net bad is valid, but this wasn't discussion on optimal macroeconomics, this discussion on what US politically able to do. There are things US should do, but systemically can't.
"Systemic" means that in order fix problem A, you first have to fix problem B. That is not a formal proof that A is permanently unsolvable, it's a just a dependency graph for the order in which they have to happen.
> Cold war dispersion for nuclear math and precise conventional strike math is different. Spreading 2 factories apart so they draw 2 nukes vs 2 factories get 2 conventional packages regardless of spatial separation.
Sure, but the first is the stricter requirement because "2" is an insufficient number in both cases. The USSR definitely had more than two nukes. And if you need 100+ facilities, in the second case it's fine to have multiple facilities in each of a handful of cities, whereas in the first case you need them to be in 100+ different cities, which is harder to do but effective against both.
> Is US going to dismantle gulf oil infra and move it inland.
The original premise was it would rely less on petroleum, so in that sense, yes.
> Most physical infra processes are not fragmentable or self healing like internet.
That's not actually that uncommon. Transportation networks, power transmission, etc. map to the same sorts of designs where in the common case the multiple independent paths increase capacity and efficiency and in the damage case they keep the system running for critical infrastructure by redirecting critical uses from the damaged route to the operating one.
Meanwhile most infrastructure is inherently fragmented. There is no single water treatment plant in DC that runs the whole country because you need them to be closer to the point of use.
> How much are Americans willing to pay, coldwar was eating 15% of GDP.
Starting from the status quo, getting to the scenario where there are a larger number of competing suppliers for various things would lower the costs people are paying.
> All this ultimately secondary to the point that doing all this costs US more (because everything in US costs more)
Which brings us back to, that's the real problem we need to solve. If your problem is that it's now easier for someone to blow stuff up and you've made it excessively expensive to build another one, the solution is to focus on lowering the cost of building things in the US, which would benefit people independently of this anyway.
> It's the stated goal of one of the parties to keep or increase fossil fuel usage, isn't it?
The stated goal of the same party is to have "cheap energy" and the way voters judge is by things like how much they're paying for electricity. Which means their incentive is to make a lot of noise about how much they hate windmills and love coal while not actually preventing data center companies from building new solar farms to power them. One of their most significant benefactors is also the CEO of the largest domestic electric car company.
> Magic 8 Ball says "yeah, in the past, 2028 isn't looking good though"
Two years is forever in politics. We also have the leader of the Republican party doing all the pandering he can right now because he's trying to sustain a majority in the midterms, whereas in 2028 he can't run, and what's Trump going to do in the intervening two years during which he has no personal stake in the next election?
> Which will be blocked and/or immediately overturned by the current/next Republic Congress/Senate/SCOTUS/President.
That's not what happened last time. The electric car subsidies were introduced in 2008 and sustained until 2025.
We're also at the point where these things are going to get rapidly adopted during any period without active resistance to them.
How many years of the majority of new vehicles being electric or plug-in hybrids would it take before there are enough in the installed base to cause a long-term reduction in petroleum demand, and in turn a reduction in the economic and political power of the oil companies? Also notice that this still happens if Asia and Europe adopt electric vehicles regardless of whether or to what extent the US does, since it's a global commodity market.
The problem for a would be attacker is that the US still has enough military power to give almost any country on the planet a very bad day every day for as long as the US cares to. Historically, the way to win against the US is to survive long enough for the US to get bored and leave. The last time that happened, it took us 2 decades to get bored.
The problem is they are not would be attackers, they're countries building up domestic defense that US would have to preempt ala Cuban missile crisis, and sustain preemption over entire continent, with each preemption legitimizing rational for more build up.
Of course US can try to coerce INF for conventional in Americas, but commoditized conventional precision strike are conventional... and commoditized, it's the kind of product where specialized dual use components may need to be sourced... among millions of TEU traffic, but otherwise local industries can build, like Iran.
There's also no global pariah status for proliferating conventional missiles for self defense and hence accessible to many players, coercion / enforcement would require trying to mow grass to keep capabilities out of 600m people...in perpetuity... tall task even for even US. Especially considering form factor of missiles... i.e. sheltered / hidden, they are not major battlefield assets like ships and planes that needs to be out to have wheels turned.
Ultimately it's not about winning vs US, it's about deterring US from historic backyard shenanigans by making sure some future time when US is tempted, and US always tempted, it would risk half of CONUS running out of energy in 2 weeks.
Like the Iran logic is extremely clear now, no amount of defense survives offensive overmatch, the only thing left is to pursue some counter offensive ability that can have disproportionate deterrence value. The thing about US being richest country is US has a lot of valuable things.
I think you underestimate how much of that 50% is just exports. And how much other plants can be scaled up quickly. And how the US can temporarily nationalize things, and ensure all the output goes domestic. Just a backroom threat of emergency, temporary nationalization, would ensure CEOs give the US priority.
IE, they'd get to retain higher profits.
What I think would really happen, is the rest of the world would suffer and run out of energy. Not the US.
Gulf coast PADD3 refineries = disproportionate production of diesel, aviation, bunker fuel for CONUS use. Something like 70% of all refined products used in US comes from PADD3, other refineries cannot replace PADD3 complexity/production levels (think specialty fuels for military aviation, missiles etc). US economic nervous system is EXTRA exposed to gulf coast refinery disruptions. PADD3 refineries (or hubs / pipelines serving east/west coast which more singular point failure) itself enough to cripple US with shortages even if all exports stopped. Gulf gas terminal is for export i.e. doesn't materially impact CONUS, it's deterrence conventional counter-value target. There's also offshore terminals. The broader point being gulf coast has host of targets along escalation/deterrence ladder.
Yes, I'm not disagreeing that there are lots of interesting things to hit on the Gulf coast. PADD3 is just another way to say "gulf" refineries, it's a location not a technical specification.
Other refineries can indeed take up the slack. Especially if the US stops exporting. Trains can deliver fuel, trucks. The US military would not be crippled, most certainly, and the domestic US would see primary production kept in-nation, not exported.
I'm not sure why you think that only Gulf refineries can make jet fuel.
NOTE: I'm not saying it wouldn't be a key attack vector, or non-disruptive. I'm just saying the US would do what it always has done, as any nation would do, it would ensure survival first, and so the rest of the world would suffer far more.
It's location, it's also recognizing refineries in PADD3 are, in fact, technically specific and different from other regional refineries which cannot pickup the slack. Light/sweet vs heavy/sour geographic refinery mismatch are not interchangeable, some products other refineries can produce with low yield, some can't be produced at all. Hence specific highlighting their complexity AND productive/yield levels. US has never tried to survive this level of disruption, which is not to say it couldn't, simply it will be at levels that will significantly degrade CONUS beyond any historic comparison, enough to potentially constrain/deter US adventurism in Americas.
Some specific products like SPECIFIC mixes of aviation fuel, only some PADD3 refineries are setup to produce or produce significant % i.e. IIRC something like 90%+ of military JP5/JP10 come from PADD3. That's why I said "specialty" aviation fuel, not just general aviation fuel. Or taking out out Colonial pipeline which ~2.5m barrels - US doesn't have 10,000k extra tankers or 5000 extra rail carts in reserve for that contingency. Turning off export has nothing to do with this, there isn't enough to keep in-nation due to refinery mismatch, or not enough hardware to move it in event of pipeline disruption.
Of course predicated on timeline/execution, i.e. US can potentially fix refinery mismatch and harden/redundant over next 10 years. We don't know if/when Monroe countries will start adopting their own rocket force. Just pointing out after Iran has demonstrated defense is useless for midtier powers and mediocre offense can penetrate the most advanced defense, the only rational strategic plan is go hard on offense for conventional counter-value deterrence. The logic like Iran, it matters less RoW suffers more, only specifically that US suffers as well, the harder the more deterrent value. And due to sheer economic disparity, could be trillions for US vs billions for others, even if trillions for US is relatively less.
The US was ensuring survival just fine when it was big on soft power. If you let go of soft power your remaining choices are diplomacy (which takes skill) and hard power (which takes a different kind of skill). If you go down the hard power road (which the US seems to be doing) you will end up with a very long list of eventually very capable enemies. It's a madman's trajectory and historically speaking it has never worked. I suspect it also will not work for the US.
The biggest effects would be economic, and would drive any sensible country away from a reliance on Gulf Oil.
The US is essentially a military/petro-oligarchy wrapped inside a republic pretending to be a democracy.
If the global oil economy is badly damaged, the US will be badly damaged with it.
This isn't about who can blow the most shit up. It's about global standing in the economic pecking order, which is defined in part by threat credibility, but also by control over key resources.
If some of those resources stop being key, that's a serious problem for any hegemon.
We're seeing a swing towards global decarbonisation, and this war is an ironically unintentional turning point in that process. The US has had decades of notice that this is inevitable, but has failed to understand this.
A petro-oligarchy? With all due respect, all this is so Internet-brained. Where do you all come up with this stuff. Many other posts are in heavy need of grass-touching as well but still. The US is not pretending to be a democracy. It’s a constitutional republic. So, if I understand this right, all this is about something called “decarbonisation” and the US has been unable to realize this apparent but, of course, I’m sure any EU citizen is totally aware of all this right? I definitely give points for originality and not making it all about the people from that other small country.
Downvoting a description of a technical solution for smaller nations based on actual evidence from existing conflicts is silly. You might not like the politics you perceive from someone using particular vocabulary, but the proof is there. The USA's supremacy has been challenged in a meaningful way (along with every other major military power). The strategies of the large powers will have to evolve.
People way underestimate what kind of mental fortitude you have to have to fight an overwhelming enemy. That's not something a tourism oriented country like Cuba has. At least I massively doubt that.
It lacks the ideology to fight such a war, since you have to be ready to die. That's why Yemen and Vietnam won, while Venezuela folded. This is also why US "culture" is so much more powerful as a weapon than the aircraft carriers.
The willingness to fight until the end, whatever the cost, is not something you rate a priori.
The thing with war is that once you have it for a certain amount of time, you create a generation of people whose kids died, wife died, neighbors and family died, you have nothing to loose anymore.
There is a critical mass of casualties upon which you effectively create a population whose sole purpose, for generations, will be to resist and harm you, and that is not dependent on culture or whatever "tourism orientation" a country is labeled.
>The thing with war is that once you have it for a certain amount of time, you create a generation of people whose kids died, wife died, neighbors and family died, you have nothing to loose anymore.
You... didn't learn history from before 1945 did you?
With incongruous premisses, one can conclude anything. How many cases of such a total annihilation/surrender goal have been attempted in human history, and how many actually achieved it?
I mean, the GP example about Venezuela and Cuba was totally on point. They are not at any degree comparable to the sentiment against the US and the west in general of some Middle-East countries. I mean, Palestinian are bound to hate to death Israel and the US for a couple generations more (and for good reasons). The same does not apply to Venezuela, even with all the Chavez/Maduro propaganda against the Evil Empire.
I don’t know if you are hiding a reasonable point underneath a misuse of the term “ideology”, but the idea that the fine differences between the Cuban and Vietnamese flavors of Marxist-Leninist ideology are critical differences on this point seems unconvincing without some argument clearly articulating the relevant ideological differences an how they produce the described divergence in capacity.
>If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon.
I sort of think it maybe is an exaggeration, you're evidently of the opinion that the U.S happens to have enough battle ready troops with the requisite hardware positioned within a few hours of Cuba so that they can invade and flatten in the time it takes to fly from Miami to Havana?
I don't know, but a Destroyer would take about 10 hours to get from Florida to Cuba.
It seems your definition of invade and flatten is just dropping bombs, but that definitely does not handle the invade part of things, and it remains to be seen as to whether, with drones, being able to fly non-stop is the great technological advantage it once was.
Some preliminary evidence from around the world suggests in a drone led conflict it confers the ability to have expensive hardware destroyed and pilots killed non-stop.
Assuming the scenario happened the first bombing runs would be over after 2h and would continue for the next 48h until amphibious assault fast response finishes landing, by which time it’s safe to assume there isn’t much left to defend (though rubble makes a horrible war zone for the attacking side).
Cuba simply isn’t Iran. They’re a blockaded island with not much military experience. Iran is a huge mountainous country preparing for war for the last 40 years with first hand experience of getting blown up from above and from the inside by USA allies and surviving just fine.
By at least some. The Americans I know who have traveled to Cuba (policy changes, it was possible a few years ago at least) report the people love Americans. Of course what you see as a tourist isn't reality but at least some is true.
For any country, really; wars cannot be won anymore unless you exterminate its inhabitants completely. At best you can force a regime change, but as Afghanistan showed, that's fragile and tenuous at best if it's not fully backed by the population.
Afghanistan and Iran are not the same. Afghanistan is filled with people that don’t know the Earth is round. Iranians or Persians are educated and largely do not support this regime at all.
Do they support the governments that started this by blowing up 100s of children at their school? Give me a break, even the left-wing Iranians who hate the theocracy also hate Israel. Hell nearly all left-wing young people in the U.S. despise the Israeli government's actions and U.S. support of said actions and that's only for things that have happened in the last year.
Please provide your source for opinions that are not generally accepted except among those with politically self-serving bias. A few seconds of research demonstrates that's false.
https://mei.edu/publication/new-polling-highlights-iranians-...
67 percent opposed to even normalizing relations with Israel.
61 percent of support Iranian proxies or Axis of Resistance.
70 percent agreed their military presence makes them safer at home.
We have no reason to believe any of these have decreased since the bombing campaigns have begun. While there are significant numbers of people who would protest the government and maybe attempt to overthrow it, there is no where near enough evidence to suggest it possible and the last half century has demonstrated this.
We already supported a major ground campaign against Iran with the Iran-Iraq war that caused millions of deaths and ended in Iranian victory after 8 years.
In this case it's especially depressing that the war's rationale exists only because Trump wanted to tank the deal made by Obama. Which was not a perfect deal but better than the status quo back then, and much better than any likely outcome of this war.
Politics will exist for as long as there are people.
Any country not able to or interested in waging occasional war will be destroyed by countries that can and do.
Simple as that.
But please I'm interested in hearing any utopia arguments that claim we can/should deprecate war. And remember - you have to convince your country along with every other country.
You haven't really made an argument of your own. You've just made a claim and presented no evidence. "Simple as that" is neither argument nor evidence nor rationale. This is no better than the people who fall back on "war is hell" to justify when they've fucked up and caused the deaths and suffering of a bunch of civilians for no good purpose.
You could at least say something like "we have to bomb the people so they can be free" or "don't you know the Iranians were seconds away from nuking new York, because they have no regard for their own survival".
We should "deprecate" offensive wars of choice based on lies because the opportunity cost is enormous (what could we have bought with the 200+ billion they're already looking to spend here?).
Every time we do this we create more terrorists (see the blowback incidents weve already had from this war), which results in more egregious government overreach on the domestic population (see patriot act and the experience of commercial flight in today's world).
And those are just some of the basic reasons. I don't have time to write them all.
> Having difficulty projecting force from the air with fighter bombers launched from air craft carriers and refueling caravans from the Indian Ocean or Mediterranean Sea
This is not to be underestimated. It is very rare to be able to project military power far from one's capital. That the US is able to do it at all is remarkable. We should not expect it to be easy.
We can remove them and do the isolationist thing as many have been clamoring for. Then we have no need for bases in Europe or the Middle East. Gulf States can figure out how to live with a nuclear armed Iran or one that has a repository of thousands of missiles to blow up gulf state infrastructure when they misbehave. We can remove the bases in Europe too, and when Russia invades Lithuania the Spanish and Germans can take care of it.
Or perhaps these bases aren’t just in allied countries “at their grace”. These alliance systems don’t just solely benefit America.
I mean, theres meant to be intangibles, and some financial support. Most of the financial support got cut by doge and the rest would go with leaving NATO. The intangibles literally never eventuate. Australia tried to invoke ANZUS with East Timor and got brushed off, despite the various US facilities in Aus being sold to the australian voter as insurance that the US would help if requested.
Honestly the US as a strategic partner is just a joke. its nothing but sigint.
I don't disagree with you, but just pushing back on this high-and-mighty "we let you be here" sensibility from the OP. For some reason folks seem to have become convinced the opposite way from MAGA that these bases only serve American interests which is certainly not the case. Likewise the bases also don't only serve the interest of others, they allow us to have more flexibility in our objectives and responses to issues that we see.
Its equally misleading to pretend like the bases have just a couple small benefits for the US. Come on, please. You dont believe it either. Ah yes, the post world war doctrine has been so that the us can have more flexibility. Sure thing. What a waste it has been for European Nations to have sacrificed lives for Americas wars the last decades.
I agree with you, it is misleading. But there are two sides who are both being misleading - that's all I'm calling out here.
> What a waste it has been for European Nations to have sacrificed lives for Americas wars the last decades.
I personally don't support any comment suggesting that Europe hasn't at times been there for us in these conflicts or that their sacrifices weren't meaningful. But that's only part of the equation. We're in a different world from where we were in 2001 and things change and so you can't just hang your hat on this one thing, else we (Americans) get to hang our hat on any time period we want to as well where Americans sacrificed for Europe.
The whole "we did this then" is driving a lot of folks into lunacy, but there does seem to be material differences and that is concerning if you believe in these alliance systems which I generally do.
You have folks on this website who would tell you the US is actively working with Russia against Ukraine, and then in the same breath defend Iran from the US blowing up drone factories that Iran is using to manufacture drones for Russia to use to go murder Ukrainians! Kind of hard to have a conversation or an alliance if a population is being convinced of absolutely crazy things like this.
Their grace? Who powers NATO? People need to realize that just because you don’t like something like America, it doesn’t mean beliefs that are divorced from reality about it are true.
> Being able to fly non-stop B-52 and B-2 sorties from home air bases with single-digit-hour flight times is a different thing entirely.
I agree with you in principle, but I worry that the United States hasn't been stockpiling enough ordinance to keep that up for very long at all. We don't keep many munitions factories on a hot standby either.
> If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland,
Cuba is not stupid. They will attack the infamous Conquistador Torture Base on their soil and US ships that carry out high piracy of their trade vessels.
Why would they do that? They won't have any nukes (not after the Cuban missile crisis), and the island isn't big enough (plus closely monitored) to house any significant amount of weaponry. What would they shoot them at? It'd be superficial damage and / or civilian casualties at best, and the retaliation would be immediate and devastating.
> After 9/11, there's no world in which any attack on the US homeland, however small or local, is met with anything other than overwhelming retribution.
Unless it's by a right-wing white male, obvs., in which case they get promoted / lauded / re-elected / etc.
"After 9/11, there's no world in which any attack on the US homeland, however small or local, is met with anything other than overwhelming retribution."
Ok, just follow through with the logic.
If the US 'flatteNed' Cuba (like Gaza) in response to a few drones - it would 100% make the US 'The Evil Empire' and turn the world 100% against America as a neo fascist entity.
The costs would be unthinkable, and probably the demise of the nation as a having a 'historical special place'.
It would not ever fully recover, and the 'New World Order' would be something really hard to imagine.
In reality - something else would play out ..
I think the response would be disproportionate, but probably focused, but it depends on the 'populist effect' aka what exactly Cuba attacked, and how it was provoked.
If the US attacked Cuba first, and responded with drones on a US military installation - I'll bet there is populist resistance to escalation.
Event that tussle alone would look really bad on US, would guarantee the DJT regime probably 'last place' for all US presidents, people would be calling for 25th Amendment and for new leadership, even at the same time as they might even support strikes in response.
It'll mean total political chaos until the Admin steps away, probably Congress/Institutions trying to put a 'bubble' around WH Admin.
> If the US 'flatteNed' Cuba (like Gaza) in response to a few drones - it would 100% make the US 'The Evil Empire' and turn the world 100% against America as a neo fascist entity.
It has already happened. Even in west Europe politicians are discussing how to protect their nations from US imperialism. Every remaining alliance the US has is strictly quid pro quo, there's no trust left anywhere (Israel being the singular exception). Meanwhile 50% of the planet is completely fed up and can't wait to have China take over as leader of the international order.
The whole thing is stupid. The US wouldn’t flatten Cuba. Only leftists think the Cuban people support the communists. It’s like that Hasab Piker saying “the good Cubans are still in Cuba but the ones in the US that don’t like communism are crazy.” The reality is we would decapitate their regime, kill all their top brass, blow up their military installations, probably gave some collateral damages, and then in a year there would be reports, modern vehicles, and commerce.
"The reality is we would decapitate their regime, kill all their top brass, blow up their military installations, probably gave some collateral damages, and then in a year there would be reports, modern vehicles, and commerce."
I couldn't imagine a delusional statement, considering we are literally at the moment, failing to 'change a regime' in an active war, once again!
The lack of self awareness here is ... scary.
Iran? Afghanistan? Iraq? Vietnam? Venezuela?
How many more lessons do you need, beyond than the one literally on your TV set right now ?
Here are some historical realities:
Nobody thinks of 'Castro Inc' as 'Communist' other than young folks on Reddit, or people listening to Joe Rogan.
Every adult - those living there, here, and elsewhere - know that Castro Inc. are ruthless authoritarians - their 'nominal communism' is barely relevant. Ideology is barely cover for anything as it is with all regimes.
If they have any residual popularity at all - it's for 'Standing up to America!' and those who held up the ancien regime in Cuba that 'Kept the people down!' - which has at least some historic resonance.
Nobody liked Saddam, nobody likes the Taliban, and the Communists in Vietnam were not popular in the South, and unlikely in the North as well.
Chavizmo had popular support, but that waned, and nobody likes the current regime.
And yet - where is all of this 'modern vehicles and commerce' in all these places?
The lack of self awareness is shocking.
The US ended up killing 100's of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Almost 1 million peopled died in Saddam's US-supported invasion of Iran.
The Israeli government has now admitted that up to 70K Arabs were killed in Gaza.
Many in the US have no problem bombing the smithereens out of civilians, so long as there can be some kind of populist cover for it even if it's totally disproportional.
If Castro Inc. were so irresponsible that they sent drones into a US base, it's entirely plausible that Trump Inc. bombs Cuba with enormous civilian collateral damage.
Whatever happens, the regime will not fall, thinking as much is a dangerous insult to reality.
The only way Cuba could be liberated by force is a 'full invasion', which is technically very feasible but completely unlikely, or, a long, protracted movement towards detente. That's it.
> it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon
But it is, the US is no position to flatten anything.
Afghanistan? Lost
Vietnam? Lost
Ukraine? Lost
Iran? will be lost
And these are heavily embargoed 3rd world countries.
In the first days of the Israeli-US war in Iran (a country under decades of embargo by the way) the US, Israel and vassals lost 60+ planes (plus who knows what else they are not reporting.
Trump is not coming out of this, if he makes the grave mistake of sending troops to their demise this administration is done.
> But it is, the US is no position to flatten anything.
The US is certainly in a position to flatten (with conventional force) anything in the Carribean, whatever failures it had in long counterinsurgencies where the logistics tail wrapped nearly halfway around the world. (And however badly it would probably fail in occupation in many of the places it could easily flatten close by, for that matter; flattening is much easier than occupying.)
> Afghanistan? Lost Vietnam? Lost Ukraine? Lost Iran?
Lost Ukraine? Ukraine hasn't lost and the US was never a direct belligerent in that conflict.
This is pure propaganda. It should be flagged as misinformation. There is no true to this complete nonsense that 60+ planes were lost. You can hate the US or have any opinion you want like the Ayatollah was great or whatever but don’t spread pure social media propaganda, please. Do you know how big of a deal losing 60 actual planes for the US would be? I would just say, if you are quite sure about all this then I think you might hit it big on polynarket.
Cuba is a relatively small island, and (by area) it's mostly agrarian. Conventional bombing campaign on the industrial and urban centres would send them back to the Iron Age in a matter of days. Which is why this whole scenario is absurd, Cuban leaders aren't about to start a war.
That’s MAD. It’s much more likely that we just blockade and invade Cuba than we nuke it. Even Trump isn’t crazy enough to start a nuclear war (I hope).
The big mistake was underestimating the appetite for rebellion despite 70%-80% wholesale opposition to the regime.[0] I personally know many, many Iranians who welcome the attacks along with their families. All of the high-profile assassinations involve intelligence from Iranians.
However, no one has guns, and government-backed militias roam the streets to maintain order.[1] There is no possibility of military coup. Many officers lives and livelihoods are at stake post-revolution, and they will go to great lengths to protect it. Remember, they killed 30K of their own to quell an uprising.[2] Surveillance is everywhere online and in person.[3] One spy in ten can ruin a revolutionary group. To make things worse, there is no unification around a leader or what should come next.
If anything, this war demonstrates the tyranny and tentacles of the modern state. The well seems forever poisoned once power is lost to despots.
> I personally know many, many Iranians who welcome the attacks along with their families.
Yeah florida is filled with former cubans who want the USA to destroy cuba. The issue is what do actual iranians think? What people who used to live in iran or never lived in iran think is not that relevant really.
> The big mistake was underestimating the appetite for rebellion
I'd frame it as the biggest mistake was underestimating the work required to facilitate a successful rebellion - you have to be ready to go to support the people rebelling. Form support networks ahead of time, airdrop supplies, supplement with small but crucial boots on the ground, etc - all things the domain experts of the "deep state" would classically do [0] before it got smashed under the banner of doggie, anti-woke, juche, or whatever the rallying cry is this month. These chuds thought success and praise would just automatically occur by virtue of them having some innate special quality, like every one of their "plans".
[0] note that I'm having to suppress a bit of a gag here writing sympathetically about the military-industrial complex that foments regime change in other countries. but if we're being honest about what it took to pull off the American-exceptionalist thing we've become accustomed to, this is what it took.
Let's be fair, they're being attacked by a foreign superpower, if something "brings the people together" is having a common external enemy.
I assume you don't live in iran and don't converse with iranians who live in iran and have bombs fall on their homes. If you asked yugoslav people in argentina in 1945, they'd be very anti-communist too... the situation in yugoslavia was a lot different (just giving an example from home).
The statistics are well... just statistics, if you collected the stats on trump support in san francisco near colleges, you'd get a drastically different result then on the elections. Same thing is happening in eg. serbia, where "everyone hates vucic", but the second you leave urban areas or ask anyone above 50yo, the situation is much different.
> If anything, this war demonstrates the tyranny and tentacles of the modern state. The well seems forever poisoned once power is lost to despots.
Didn’t we just see in Syria that’s not the case. It is supremely hard to nation build a large failing state no matter who’s attempting it. Having the guns to challenge the internal security forces seems like a necessary first step.
Syria project was to topple a secular Iran allied government with any other alternative which ended up being ISIS because Israel wanted it and they control the government, mainstream media and have passed laws at state and federal levels so you can’t even criticize them
Did you not see how long it took in Syria? Did you miss ISIS? the massive number of groups splintered off? Sure people hated Assad but what it took to get rid of him was horrid. If any thing the Iranians are probably scared that this is what will become of them I know I would be.
Libya is and always was a small tribal state that Gadhafi held together by using the revenue from oil to devise a system of alliance that gave a semblance of stability. It never had strong foundations to begin with. Libya and the states in the Arabian peninsula will always be played over because they're stuck in Bedu culture.
This. It also fails to understand that the vast majority of the Iranians that are capable of change have actively left over the rule of the regime - that's why there are huge Persian diasporas in LA, Paris, London, NYC, etc. Those who have the money or smarts to leave, do so.
Also, a good majority of Iranian people might despise the regime, but also have long enough memories (or their parents do) of what happened the last time the West tried to intervene in their internal affairs.
To be charitable, it is prima facie weird that that this seems to be the one thing we do know for sure. Literally every other detail here seems to be trapped in a black box or uncertainty, except for this. First the US blew up all the nuclear last year, then it turns they were days away. They were out of missiles a week ago, and then they werent at all. We were so sure about "the appetite for rebellion" among the people, until we weren't.
I guess you just have to reflect on how nice it is that the one thing we know for sure aligns with an ongoing justification for all the bad stuff that needs to happen! It's funny how it works like that, but we have to take their word for it.
I remember seeing those maps pointing to the WMDs in Iraq on NYT. I remember when it was unspeakable to be critical of the narrative. All you can do, I guess, is hope that they wouldn't do that again, believe that this time its different.
What Trump said is not what independent experts said.
Iran likely was weeks away from a nuclear bomb - they had all the parts, materials and know-how. They just needed the final steps of enrichment, and hand assembly a bomb. They had been in this position of a long time without taking the final steps, but at any time they only needed a few weeks to the first working bomb if they wanted to take those steps. (if they wanted to do mass production that would take longer)
> he vast majority of people trust the Iranian government
Right... Nobody sane would trust an authoritarian regime which suppresses any type of free speech and and even banned the internet regardless of everything else.
Mistrusting Israel is understandable but that seems tangential.
I don't think I have the skillset and personality that would me allow to rise to the top of the hierarchy in a brutal totalitarian regime built on religious fanaticism. So no I would not do that.
> armed insurrectionists
Unfortunately not even remotely armed enough to make a difference...
> War changes rules of a country.
Oh so the Iranian regime was not murdering its own peacefully protesting citizens (regardless of the existence of these "armed insurrectionists") for many years now?
>I don't think I have the skillset and personality that would me allow to rise to the top of the hierarchy in a brutal totalitarian regime built on religious fanaticism.
This is about whether you would shut down the internet or not, not whether you would rise to the top of the hierarchy on a brutal totalitarian regime built on religious fanaticism... like Israel. You know, a country with strict limits on media, including shutting down media outlets it deems critical of the state.
Yes, you would shut down the internet in a war. Yes, specifically you. Just like how you would just down media companies and plane flights in wartime, since you, yes you specifically, do not believe in Democracy.
>Oh so the Iranian regime was not murdering its own peacefully protesting citizens (regardless of the existence of these "armed insurrectionists") for many years now?
So then for how many years do you think Mossad armed the insurrectionists that you are trying to call "peaceful protesters"?
"Brutal apartheid state"? Well perhaps... certainly not a totalitarian regime, though.
> many years do you think Mossad armed the insurrectionists
Sadly and unfortunately either not long enough and/or didn't provide them with enough weapons. But yeah I agree with your sentiment that Mossad should have done a much better job if they were serious about overthrowing the regime.
Great. Glad you agree that it was Mossad that was responsible for all the civilian deaths during the violent Iranian insurrection, and not the Iranian government.
I think we can all agree that the Iranian government are the good guys and the Israeli regime are the bad guys. That's not in dispute. What IS in dispute is how we work together on removing the Israeli government. I think we should support the Iranian government, since they are already well on their in the process of removing the Israeli regime from power and replacing them with the good Hamas government.
> It’s a comparison with Israel rather than a stand alone statement
Yes, I understood that and still it makes no sense to me, I mean extremely untrustworthy and very untrustworthy seems about the same since you can't trust anything either source says.
Israel at least have a free(ish) media and is less likely to hang someone leaking information from a construction crane.
This completely insane and sounds like Iranian propaganda. You can hate Israel but spreading propaganda is really terrible. You find it hard to believe that the regime that hangs women from a crane in the square for not wearing the hijab would not do this? There are videos of IRGC shooting into crowds and apartments but your view is just “Israel Bad”. Be seious. You can be against the war and still live in reality with everyone else.
> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine
Population size is relevant but not the most important factor. Russia has 146,000,000, more than 4x than Ukraine. It doesn't guarantee that Russia will win the war.
> On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles.
Ukraine also had Bayraktar TB2 overhead which distracted Moskva's crew and provided targeting information. Russia probably didn't sent a fighter to down it because skies around Ukraine are contested. Skies not only around but over Iran are not reallty contested. Having said that Iran could sink an american ship if the navy will become complaicent and will assume there are no threats.
> The size of Iran means that knocking out drone and missile production for long won't work. Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now.
Russia cannot fly planes over Ukranian territory. The US can fly not only F-35 but even B-52. That's a big difference. The only thing which could prevent the US from knowking out missile and drone production is insufficient intellegence.
There is, at this point in time, literally 0 evidence B-52s are flying over Iran with JDAMs. Every single photo we saw of B-52s literally shows them with AGM-158, which means they are launching outside Iran aerospace.
The biggest evidence for B-52s not flying over Iran is that there have still not been any losses. Go look at attrition rates in Linebacker 2 for comparison.
> USAF B-52H refueling from a KC-135 tanker on its way to strike Iran.
with emphasis on "on its way", so not "over" Iran. So not sure your link proves your original point (which, if I understood right, was that these Americans are flying these bombers over Iran itself).
It's also telling that the Americans haven't managed to gain their much desired air supremacy, lots of Dohuet fanboys in the US Military, hopefully this war will bring their Air Power ambitions a notch or two down (even though I have my doubts).
Gee, you guys really couldn’t infer what the picture means and had to rely on words? The B-52 is a high-altitude aircraft, a truck-mounted SAM couldn’t hit it, you’d need at least something like a Pantsir(Buk is more realistic, but Pantsir had hit airliner). It implies the US has combat air patrol in the area, ready to conduct SEAD/DEAD while B52 dumps its short range JDAM.
Where is the actual OSINT though? No geolocation where the refueling is taking place, no timestamp on photo, no suggestion where the bomb is dropped.
By your logic an OSINT account can show a picture of a SU-34 in the air with 4 UMPK bombs, write "On its way to Odessa" and people will think Russia has air supremacy over Odessa.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We know that Russian air force is actively using gliding bombs to attack objects on the front line while flying over the territory controlled by Russia. One would need strong evidence to convince us that they have started to use gliding bombs differently.
The US on other hand is flying over the Iran for a month so the claim that they started to use B-52 in addition to smaller jets is not extraordinary. It would be strange to deploy B-52 with GBU only to strike something on/near the Iranian border (where there are not many targets which would justify GBU usage) so it's a logical conclusion from the posted photo that B-52 can fly over the Iran (at altitude beyond MANPADS reach).
...also, Germany has 84,000,000 people, so definitely not half of Iran.
> Having said that Iran could sink an american ship if the navy will become complaicent and will assume there are no threats.
Also, this is an election year in the US, and the war is already hugely unpopular, so despite all of Hegseth's posturing, they're probably playing it extra extra safe. That's also the reason why Trump is so angry that other countries aren't willing to take the risk in their place...
Are you delusional? The US militarily weak? Based on what? What in your view is an example of a strong military? And the US is reliant on NATO allies? HN has really become massively under America Derangement Syndrome. This is like a fever dream.
> If the enemy does the same kind of mindless killing to the civilians, then I would have different ideas.
You mean like bombing a school and killing about 150 schoolgirls?
The USA had a lot of local support and goodwill in Afghanistan, and turned it into support for the Taliban, because they kept killing civilians in their attempts to beat the Taliban with bombs, because they wanted to limit the unpopular ground troop deloyments. The chance that the same will happen in Iran is precisely 100%
> You mean like bombing a school and killing about 150 schoolgirls?
Even Hamas knows western powers don’t do this on purpose - which is why they take up arms inside of civilian facilities. The Iranian people know the US doesn’t intentionally kill little girls.
Meanwhile the Iranian government quite literally has killed upwards of 30,000 people (maybe some were little girls even) and is hanging people in the public square for protesting.
Not to mention Iran intentionally targeting apartment complexes and other civilian targets throughout the region. Why are we even talking about the US accidentally blowing up a school? We should be talking about Iran and their revolting crimes instead.
The US attacked Iran because Israel was going to do so anyway. If they didn't attack, that missile wouldn't have killed 150 schoolgirls. Sure, the target was a mistake, but mistakes happen when you shoot thousands of missiles and drop thousands of bombs. If they had not attacked, the girls would be alive.
If Iran hadn't funded and supplied Hamas who then attacked and killed how many people (how many were little girls who were murdered and raped by Hamas?) then Israel wouldn't have had to bomb Iran.
You can go back and forth on who did what first but it ultimately accomplishes nothing in this scenario.
If Israel wants to bomb Iran, whatever, that's Israel's problem. The fact that we (the United States) continue to give unquestioning support to Israel is the problem. If Israel want's America's help, they should need to heel to America's interests, and I completely fail to see how fucking up the global oil trade benefits us.
I don't think it's quite that simple. Of course you know the isolationist point of view goes many directions. If Russia wants to bomb Ukraine, whatever, that's Ukraine and Russia's problem, &c. (I believe in engagement in both conflicts myself). Israel alone can't really stop Iran anyway besides their "mowing the grass" strategy but how long will that work?
But you have to think about the future state. What does an Iran that continues to:
- Build and supply drones and drone technology to Russia
- Build and purchase missiles and missile launchers
- Continue to pursue a nuclear weapons
- Continue to fund groups recognized as terrorist organizations by the United States, European Union, and others
.... look like?
Well, if they have 1,000 missiles today and that's giving us a problem (I'm not sure the true extent to which it is a problem really) and then they have 5,000 missiles tomorrow maybe sprinkle in some Chinese hypersonic missiles just to see if they can take out an American aircraft carrier or other sensitive military equipment, and now when Iran decides to close the Straight or tax the Gulf States or whatever other crazy idea they get in their heads we're facing a much, much bigger problem. It's like having a North Korea in the Middle East. We can't have that. We have seen that movie already and it does not turn out great.
And that's excluding nuclear weapons or an arms race in the Middle East. You can certainly see how easy it would be for the Gulf States to decide Iran is such a threat that they start loading up on missiles and maybe everyone decides they need a nuclear deterrent and now we've got maybe 2-3 countries including Iran with nuclear weapons and there's nothing we can do about it.
Folks like to paint this as an Israel problem, and yea they've done some bad stuff too but this isn't just an Israel problem nor is it just an America problem. It's just that unfortunately the United States is the one that yet again has to go be involved to try and deal with some chaos now to prevent an untenable situation later.
I think it's certainly worthwhile to debate various assumptions, capabilities, &c. but at the end of the day it's important to actually take a look at many aspects of this situation and to try peace together what's really driving this conflict. If your frame of reference is just "what are we doing there?" I'm afraid it puts you at a real disadvantage in terms of understanding the conflict and its repercussions.
I firmly believe a nuclear-armed Iran would be a net positive for world stability. It's not an ideal state of being, but with the existence of a nuclear armed Israel destabilizing the entire region, there needs to be a check against them. But that's besides the point, because by all accounts except on odd-numbered days the Whitehouse's, Iran was responsibly following the non-proliferation agreements that we had made with them under the Obama administration. Either way "Iran might make nukes" is bad reason to start a war.
If "Iran is aiding Russia against Ukraine" was a good reason to start this war, then we should be a lot less wishy-washy about our support of Ukraine themselves. The fact that we keep playing "will they won't they" with ongoing support to Ukraine is in no small part why that war is still ongoing.
And Israel is, absolutely, unequivocally, America's problem. They exist because we decided they should exist, we armed them to keep them existing, and we get involved in absolute quagmires in the Middle East every time that they do something stupid. Every time Israel does some fucked up shit, the UN goes "wow, we should acknowledge that was some fucked up shit", and the only country that consistently backs Israel is the United States.
I am not an isolationist. I fully recognize, and appreciate, the US's (potentially soon to be former) place as global hegemon. But we achieved that position by leveraging soft power, while maintaining the capability to absolute smite parties that won't play ball. And that worked. It worked great. It's why backing Ukraine was a great play: No American lives at risk, we pay a few bucks, Ukraine damages Russia, we remind our allies just how great it is to be under America's umbrella.
But Israel bombing Iran is not the same thing. Israel and the United States are the aggressors in this conflict, plain and simple. We had half-normal relations with Iran, then because Israel decided they weren't content being one of two regional powers, we decided to kick off another damn war in the Middle East.
> Either way "Iran might make nukes" is bad reason to start a war.
I think we disagree here, but that's because I believe in nuclear non-proliferation. More countries have them, more likely they are to be used. If Iran gets them, well maybe South Korea, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Brazil... the list goes on. Is that a better and safer world? I doubt it. Not only are arms races probably bad, they take up resources that could be used for making the lives of everyone better.
> If "Iran is aiding Russia against Ukraine" was a good reason to start this war, then we should be a lot less wishy-washy about our support of Ukraine themselves.
I think it's a contributing factor, but not the sole reason to start (or depending on your perspective, continue) a war here.
> And Israel is, absolutely, unequivocally, America's problem. They exist because we decided they should exist, we armed them to keep them existing, and we get involved in absolute quagmires in the Middle East every time that they do something stupid.
I don't follow this line of reasoning. Israel has existed long before the United States. Admittedly the modern state of Israel as we know it today was carved out in the last century, but the fault there lies primarily with European countries who created empires and then failed to maintain them. But you sort of seem to be justifying things like October 7th or other aggressive actions perpetrated by Iran and its proxies as though Israel existing is just somehow a problem. Last I checked Iran is its own country. What justification does it have to bomb Israel in any way?
> But Israel bombing Iran is not the same thing. Israel and the United States are the aggressors in this conflict, plain and simple. We had half-normal relations with Iran, then because Israel decided they weren't content being one of two regional powers, we decided to kick off another damn war in the Middle East.
Don't recall the US being in a state of war prior to October 7th. Iran overplayed their hand, Israel absolutely fucked up Hamas and Hezbollah with little effort, and then we found out Iran was pretty weak and so we did something about it before they accumulate so much military power that stopping them from effectively taking over the Middle East is untenable. I'm not sure your cause-effect reasoning here makes a lot of sense. We haven't had half-normal or normal relations with Iran for a long time - like 50 years.
> I am not an isolationist. I fully recognize, and appreciate, the US's (potentially soon to be former) place as global hegemon. But we achieved that position by leveraging soft power, while maintaining the capability to absolute smite parties that won't play ball. And that worked. It worked great.
It seems that you're cherry-picking here. The US attacking Iran can just be another case of smiting parties that won't play ball. Same with Iraq, or Vietnam, or Korea.
> It's why backing Ukraine was a great play: No American lives at risk, we pay a few bucks, Ukraine damages Russia, we remind our allies just how great it is to be under America's umbrella.
I generally agree and watching Russia's military be absolutely humiliated was exhilarating, but providing money alone isn't enough to win or stop that war it seems.
The US is still helping, but for some reason when it comes to Iran actually selling and supplying drones that kill Ukrainians it's all of a sudden well that's not a good reason to go to war, Iran isn't the aggressor, Trump is bad, how dare the US stop Venezuela from evading US and EU sanctions, blah blah blah. You're twisting yourself into circles trying to defend Iran for some reason when they're murdering their own population for protesting, helping Russia bomb Ukrainians, and starting wars and destabilizing Yemen, Lebanon, and more. Speaking of the UN, weren't they supposed to stop Hezbollah from indiscriminately launching rockets into Israel? Now Israel is there cleaning house and all of a sudden well that's Americans problem, Israel is America's problem, how can Israel do this? Who cares about the UN in today's world?
Are you unfamiliar with the October 7th attack? This alone proves the point, never mind we can get into details of the Middle East slave trade, general violence perpetrated by Hamas, and well, of course Hezbollah, Iran, &c.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched the largest-ever terrorist attack on Israeli soil. The Palestinian organisation, considered a terrorist group by the EU and the US, stormed through the security fence separating Gaza and Israel in the early morning, killing 1,189 people, including 815 civilians, wounding 7,500 and taking 251 hostage.
Not an embellishment, though you are right that the tragedy alone proves my point.
Anyway back to Iran - those are the bad guys.
Their regime killed by many estimates 30,000 of their own people for peacefully protesting already. They're conscripting child soldiers [1], attacking apartment buildings in neighboring Gulf States, and are hanging people as young as 19 for protesting [2]. They're actively helping Russia prosecute their war against Ukraine by selling drones and other technology. They're responsible for funding and inciting terrorist groups as recognized by the United States and European Union (Hezbollah, Hamas, and more) which have indiscriminately attacked civilians in many countries and continue to threaten international shipping even prior to American attacks on their military infrastructure. They're doing all of this while pursuing a nuclear weapon, which will of course be a catastrophe for nuclear non-proliferation as the Gulf States will certainly work to acquire their own, and they've been ramping up and deploying extensive missile capabilities so that they can force Gulf States to acquiesce to any of their demands, else they attack and shut down oil shipments. Tehran ran out of water because the money the regime has was spent on military forces and funding destabilizing proxy military groups for no good reason.
Ok I'm "spreading debunked Israeli lies" - they were only murdered, not raped and murdered. At least what the US did was an accident, unlike what Hamas did.
What point are you trying to make here? We're talking about the atrocities that Iran has committed and how it is responsible for so much death and destruction.
You're blindly believing the propaganda from two truly evil governments (Israel, USA) about a country that they absolutely want to destroy. Why don't you question the legitimacy of what they tell us.
Not an American problem. Its a problem between Iranians, Palestinians, Israelis and other relevant middle eastern countries. If they want to fight and kill each other, it's their right to do so.
Not an Iranian problem. Iran doesn't have anything to do with Israel or Palestine. You're just drawing an arbitrary line and saying "these countries get to be involved". But if you want to say Iran gets to be involved than so does the US since Israel is our ally.
> Even Hamas knows western powers don’t do this on purpose - which is why they take up arms inside of civilian facilities. The Iranian people know the US doesn’t intentionally kill little girls.
You really think someone who just had to bury the mangled, burned corpse of their daughter cares whether it was intentional, or because the US military couldn't be arsed to update the data their targeting system operates on?
And it's not going to end with that one "accident". The war hasn't even really started, and the US military is led by a vaguely human-shaped lump of feces who absolutely will start ordering the intentional bombing of civilian targets and gleefully boast about it once he's starting to feel personally offended by the continued failure of "the Iranians" to submit to his will.
> Why are we even talking about the US accidentally blowing up a school?
Asking that question puts you outside the boundaries of polite conversation, so I'll end with a hearty "may you get what you deserve".
Do you really think someone who just had to bury the mangled, broken-necked corpse of their son cares whether it was intention.... oh right it was intentional by their own government.
> Asking that question puts you outside the boundaries of polite conversation, so I'll end with a hearty "may you get what you deserve".
Please stop the pearl-clutching.
If you don't want to talk about intentional Iranian atrocities because you're fixated on the United States making a mistake, then I don't think there's much for either of us to talk about.
> Not to mention Iran intentionally targeting apartment complexes and other civilian targets throughout the region. Why are we even talking about the US accidentally blowing up a school? We should be talking about Iran and their revolting crimes instead.
My family are in the GCC, and my parents live near the coast. Iran has not once targeted a civilian infrastructure there directly, except for specific landmarks (Burj al Arab, the Palm, etc.). Whenever Iran prepares a barrage, they usually announce it on state TV, which is then picked up by local authorities or by social media channels. All the attacks that have resulted in deaths in civilian settings are due to intercepted debris falling on civilians. If Iran wanted to destroy Dubai and kill civilians, they could've easily done that by just swarming the skies with drones and exact maximum damage - but they haven't done that. It also doesn't help their case either - most civilians in the GCC are foreign expats, and the backlash against Iran from most countries like Russia, India, China and Pakistan would be severe. Iran isn't stupid, as much as you'd want to believe that.
Civilian life in the GCC is still pretty normal, except for the downturn in business and the lack of tourists during the season. People are losing jobs and Airbnbs are turning into long-term stays. But otherwise civilian life is still pedestrian - heck, my younger brother is going to the Atlantis water park tomorrow because they offered him free tickets.
Israel is obviously a different story, being directly responsible for attacking civilian targets in Iran.
> My family are in the GCC, and my parents live near the coast. Iran has not once targeted a civilian infrastructure there directly, except for specific landmarks (Burj al Arab, the Palm, etc.).
That's still not ok, still targeting civilian settlements and infrastructure which is of no military value. Stop making excuses.
> But otherwise civilian life is still pedestrian - heck, my younger brother is going to the Atlantis water park tomorrow because they offered him free tickets.
That's really cool. Life is pretty normal here in the US too. In Israel from what I understand most folks just have to go to the air raid shelters once in a while but life is otherwise pretty normal.
> Israel is obviously a different story, being directly responsible for attacking civilian targets in Iran.
Likewise Iran is directly responsible for attacking civilian targets in Israel and other gulf states. I'm not sure life in Iran is really all that normal though. Tehran ran out of water in part because Iran instead spent money on offensive war capabilities and funding terrorist groups, and then they murdered around 30k of their own people. Sounds like most everyone else is living normal lives (Israel, Gulf states, US) but things are not great in Iran under the current leadership and their mismanagement of the country.
1.) Iran warns civilians days in advance with the exact date and time - establishments are warned beforehand. Pray tell, when did the US or Israel warn Iranian civilians in Tehran about the same? This is about equivalence, not whataboutism.
2.) Unlike for the privileged West, this is Iran's last stand for survival. What started as a "regime change" operation has turned into a "send Iran to the Stone Ages" operation. While I don't condone their regime's actions, I can understand them applying pressure on the GCC countries, especially the ones that goaded the US into the war. More importantly, it's telling when citizens of said GCC countries are on the Iranian side in spite of being attacked. Just check Al Jazeera (the most popular Arabic media outlet) and their coverage in spite of being an Iranian target. Check all the open criticism coming from business circles of the wealthy magnates in the GCC.
3.) Unlike Israel, the GCC countries don't have air raid shelters, but because of the above, casualties have been much lower. Again, that's because of Iran's early warnings and the respective countries' countermeasures. Iran has a vested interest in preventing civilian deaths in the GCC, unlike the US and Israel have in Iran.
4.) Iran's attack on Al Minhad airbase (which is close to where some family live), showed that they can inflict casualties and turn any GCC country to glass if they wanted to, just by concentrating force.
5.) Life in Iran isn't normal, precisely because Israel and USA are intent on bombing it to smithereens. Your arguments otherwise about water in Tehran and protests are pre-war tangential arguments. As mentioned above, Iran could make life in the GCC "abnormal" if they wanted to - they just haven't yet because they haven't been pushed to the brink.
> Pray tell, when did the US or Israel warn Iranian civilians in Tehran about the same? This is about equivalence, not whataboutism.
Why would they warn them when they don't intentionally target civilian infrastructure?
> Unlike for the privileged West, this is Iran's last stand for survival.
We're privileged because we generally don't do really dumb and awful things like what Iran is doing. If they spent their wealth improving the lives of their citizens instead of on missiles Iran would be in a much better state. The responsibility for that failure and lack of "privilege" falls squarely on the shoulders of the regime running Iran.
> Unlike Israel, the GCC countries don't have air raid shelters, but because of the above, casualties have been much lower. Again, that's because of Iran's early warnings and the respective countries' countermeasures. Iran has a vested interest in preventing civilian deaths in the GCC, unlike the US and Israel have in Iran.
I'm not interested in excuses like this for targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. The United States and Israel have done much more than Iran has to protect civilians and it shows in the way that the United States and Israel only target military infrastructure which Iran is using to lob missiles at... civilians in other countries!
> Iran's attack on Al Minhad airbase (which is close to where some family live), showed that they can inflict casualties and turn any GCC country to glass if they wanted to, just by concentrating force.
Likewise the United States can turn Iran into "glass" if they'd like.
> Life in Iran isn't normal, precisely because Israel and USA are intent on bombing it to smithereens.
Factually incorrect statement. Life in Iran isn't normal because of the actions of their government.
> Your arguments otherwise about water in Tehran and protests are pre-war tangential arguments.
It's a common theme and actions pre-war are related to actions during-war as well. It's a bad government that has mismanaged itself into the situation it is in now and that mismanagement falls squarely on their shoulders.
> As mentioned above, Iran could make life in the GCC "abnormal" if they wanted to - they just haven't yet because they haven't been pushed to the brink.
"I'd kill you but you just haven't made me mad enough yet". Sounds like an unhinged viewpoint to me. That's no way to run a country or treat your neighbors.
> Not to mention Iran intentionally targeting apartment complexes and other civilian targets throughout the region.
You realize that Iran provided 24h notice about attacks that were upcoming today advising people to evacuate and Israel bombs hospitals without warning, right?
What does that have to do with Iran indiscriminately bombing apartment complexes and high rises and civilian infrastructure in countries like the United Arab Emirates? What does that have to do with Iran massacring 30,000 of its own citizens and hanging 19 years old kids for protesting as recently as yesterday?
If Israel or the United States bomb a working hospital (and even then it depends) I stand against that. Though of course even your premise is generally questionable because terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and others (as recognized by the European Union and United States) know that Western forces do not on purpose bomb or attack civilians or civilian infrastructure and have a difficult time when Hamas/Hezbollah fighters lodge themselves in mosques, elementary schools, hospitals, which is why they do it - they understand we are culturally against such practices.
But if they bombed a hospital they'll have to bomb a lot of hospitals before they approach the death totals that the Iranian government has already inflicted on its own people.
> What does that have to do with Iran indiscriminately bombing apartment complexes and high rises and civilian infrastructure in countries like the United Arab Emirates?
USA soldiers were in those buildings because they'd been moved off-base. But at this point, you're not arguing in good faith. You wouldn't know about that without the part about our people being the targets so I don't trust you to be forthcoming at all.
> USA soldiers were in those buildings because they'd been moved off-base.
Source please.
> You wouldn't know about that without the part about our people being the targets so I don't trust you to be forthcoming at all.
Iran launched 2500 missiles at the UAE alone, and those missiles hit obvious civilian infrastructure including where US soldiers weren't, airports, &c. and has threatened unprovoked to blow up desalination plants to cause mass famine and destruction. No excuse for that. Sorry, Iran is the bad guy here and their actions prove that without question.
Ok by that same logic almost all areas of Iran are valid military targets because IRGC soldiers are spread throughout the country. Nevermind that they're recruiting children now. [1]
By that same rationale you'd justify blowing up schools. I don't find that to be a good enough argument to deliberately target civilian infrastructure. But if you do, then it justifies the US and Israel too.
I am not saying this. Israel is saying this. Israel bombs schools and hospitals claiming they are housing military. So I say why not then, most of Israel is a valid military target too by their own rules of engagement. Israel even fired missile into a residential building in Qatar to hit someone that was not a combatant or military officer. So clearly civilian buildings are anyways valid targets too. Israel has murdered civilian Iranian scientists. So likewise Israeli scientists and intelligence agents are valid military targets too.
Ok that's fine if that's your justification, but then the US and Israel get to target civilian targets just like Iran. So morally they're the same when it comes to targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure and now I won't be concerned if the US or Israel bomb apartment complexes in Tehran. Everyone is a combatant!. Though Iran has obviously killed a lot more civilians including over 30,000 of their own so they're doing quite a lot of damage to themselves without anyone else's help.
Who cares if you are super happy, you get force-drafted with alternative either harsh deadly jail or firing squad. You have 10 seconds to decide. Good luck on having strong opinions in such case.
The truth barely matters anymore. People believe whatever they want to believe, or whatever they are told to believe. You can be sure that Iranians are being blasted with propaganda just the same as Americans are being blasted with propaganda, except that currently Iran is cut off from the internet so the effect is much stronger.
You can't say for sure that you wouldn't wilfully join up if you were in that kind of information environment.
Information does go around even without the internet - doubt that iranians do not know about the things their government is doing in those mass executions.
Knowing is not the same as believing. ICE shoot innocent people in the street but there's still enough Fox News watching idiots who believe the victims somehow had it coming. Now take that and add no Internet access, no independent media, living under sanctions, etc.
If the Fox news watching Americans can be broadly supportive of this war, you'd best believe that there's an equally large contingent of Iranians who feel an equal and opposite antipathy towards the US.
German geography makes it much easier to invade (most of the country except for the far south is a relatively flat plain). And it still wasn't much fun for the troops who had to do it in 1944 and 1945 even against a significantly weakened force fighting on multiple fronts at once
Weird that we can afford how many hundreds of thousands per bomb but can't be bothered to pay entry level wages to manually verify each site. I'm sure the DoD has access to something even better than Google Maps.
Does it matter, at this point? If you go and tell someone who’s lost their home and half their family in a strike, "oops, it was just bad intel", do they hate you less?
Yeah, but… I think if you’re bombing a child’s school because of bad intel, the deaths are on you either way. We’re not going to be like “oh, this war was necessary, which means it’s no biggie that you accidentally killed two hundred children because you didn’t do your DD”
I sometimes wonder if our modern philosophy of requiring intentionality for crimes is the wrong way. You can launder intentionality be not trying too hard. If you try really weakly, it's called negligence but even that isn't as morally bad as intentionality. Perhaps we should forget about trying to read the mind of a state or criminal and only judge them by their actions.
In my country, punishments for killing people with deliberate violence varies from 8 months home detention (bus driver punched a passenger in the face, knocking him out so he fell backward and cracked his head on the ground), to several decades (man grabbed scissors from the kitchen, ran to his ex girlfriend's room, and stabbed her repeatedly). Both victims are equally dead but the courts decided that the perpetrators' feelings mattered far more than what they did. Perhaps if the bus driver had been weaker and needed a weapon, he'd be in prison for 10 years instead of free? Perhaps if the ex-boyfriend had used his fists outdoors on a concrete pavement, he'd be free? Seems grossly unfair.
Was it true for Japan and Germany post WWII? Or between European nations after the same said war?
On the other hand, until a couple of years ago, Iranians and Israeli never directly exchanged even a bullet between them and yet Iran was dedicated to the destruction of Israel, so YMMV.
The threat of Japanese people all waging guerrilla warfare was considered real enough that the US decided to keep the Japanese Emperor as figurehead (even though the US had enough power to sentence or even execute him for war crimes), just so that the Emperor could order his people to surrender and obey US forces.
Something the current US regime might have forgotten.
> Something the current US regime might have forgotten.
Nah, it wouldn't have worked with Khamenei after a few decades of destroy America and Israel rhetoric. It was a good decision to eliminate him and most of Iran's hardliner senior leadership. Now maybe they can make a "deal" with whoever they're replaced with, but I doubt it. The trouble was going all in without a clear plan. Or maybe they have one but they keep it to themselves?
Second, Khamenei in fact presided over Iran who exercised restrain in their responses to attacks and was willing to enter international agreements. And followed them to reasonable level. They did cause destabilization by proxis, they were still regime they were. But like, what Iran regime learned was that restraint makes them look weak and makes them be bombed every couple of months. And that negotiation and international agreements mean nothing.
Third, frankly, as evil regime was, American history and role in Iran was destructive one. You cant take down elected president, put cruel monarchy in power and then play victim when revolution happens. And yes, who ends up winning bloody revolution does not tend to be nice pro-democratic side either. It tends to be the side willing to kill and risk more.
The zionists do not want an economically prosperous Iran. They actually want Iran to descend into civil war and starvation.
Also the reason why Europeans hate this war- we all know were the refugees will end up.
Maybe it's related to the fact that every missile, drone, bullet or bomb used to attack Israel over the past two decades came from, was paid by, and operated in behalf of Iran.
Had Israel treated Palestinians better and remained within their territorial limits afforded by UN that may not have come to pass. Recall Iran was one of the very few ME countries that supported the UN charter for creation of Israel. Israel then became the long arm of the forces that wanted to turn Iran into a vassal. Not surprised why they did not like it much.
Until the Islamic revolution Israel and Iran were the best friends in the Middle East, long after Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza (1967 vs 1979). It's not the Palestinians that are the issue here, rather an excuse by Iran to constantly attack Israel and rally their population around a cause.
Irani people's relations soured when Israel was recognized as the long arm of US and Britain's meddlesome interest, and if course the treatment of the Palestinians. Shah's personal feelings was a different matter.
You're talking as if hating Israelis is the normal course of action and it's just because of the Shah that the populations tolerated each other. That's a very grim world view.
Not taking anything just describing when and why the hating started.
That the revolution was and is against Jews is a lie.
Tehran hosts Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center, a Jewish charity hospital, the largest charity among the religious minorities in Iran. It is doing well, thank you.
Ayatollah Khomeini himself wrote a personal note thanking the hospital for its help after the revolution succeeded.
Synagogues in Tehran are doing very well in the Islamic regime, thank you.
In fact Irani Jews have often criticized Israel when Israel has acted against Palestinians. Chief Rabbi of Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehuda_Gerami has denunciated Zionist and Israeli policies.
""" It comes as a surprise to many visitors to discover that Iran, a country so hostile to Israel and with a reputation for intolerance, is home to a small but vibrant Jewish community that is an officially recognized religious minority under Iran's 1979 Islamic Constitution.
"Khomeini didn't mix up our community with Israel and Zionism - he saw us as Iranians," says Haroun Yashyaei, a film producer and chairman of the Central Jewish Community in Iran. """
At this point, Israel does not get to play victim anymore. It was not an innocent victim for a long time now. You dont really get to misplace and kill as many people and expect they will be nice to you back.
And that includes killings of journalists and doctors. That includes tolerance and celebration of settlers violence ... or the fact that settlers should not even be a thing.
Israel is not the only one engaging in those, Saudi and UAE and murderous too. But, like, common, most of what Israel does is ethical cleansing, expansion and intentional destabilization of other countries.
Israel is not a victim. It's a winner. It completely decimated the Iranian plan of encircling it with violent radicalized proxies, despite that plan being decades and many billions of dollars in the making. It is a country that since October 7th has decided that enough is enough and just dismantled its enemies one by one.
The countries Israel fight are declared enemies. Israel is a very convenient ally to countries that struck peace with it, but it's a really nasty enemy to have for those who have not.
Israel didn't take responsibility for those until October 7th. Now clandestine operations happen all the time, like the Iranian bombing on Jewish center in Argentina in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing
While I understand why Israel would want to target Iranian nuclear scientists, I find it much harder to comprehend why Iran would go out of their way to bomb a Jewish community center in South America.
Germans were salty about being bombed and Germany destroyed. They were also occupied for years and also victory forces made sure the victory was absolute - no peace agreement but armies everywhere. There were other aspects too - like nazi doing a lot of destruction of the Germany by themselves. Germans back then seen the whole thing as a tragedy for Germany and Germans.
The rebuild phase where allies put a lot of effort and money into rebuilding Germany did a lot to ensure good result there. And you still see fascists being popular in Germany, especially in former easter block. It is just that everyone else is still traumatized by the past, school system make sure everyone knows past and nazi propagation is literally illegal.
There is a good case to be made that if it weren't for the consistent pressure, sanctions and assassinations from US/Israel, the moderates would have prevailed in Iran.
Don't forget the coastal geography.
Iran's coastline in the Persian gulf is longer than California's coastline, and they can do drone attacks anywhere in the Gulf, not just the narrow strait portion that everyone seems to focus on.
Cuba allying with Iran is pure fantasy though. There's no logistical connection between the two nations. It would be as irrelevant as Greenland allying with Antarctica.
> Countermeasures can take out some attacking missiles, but not all of them.
Exactly. On asymmetrical warfare, one side needs to get lucky all the time while the other only needs to get lucky once.
> Mass-produced drones today are a simple airframe, a lawnmower engine, and the smarts of a cell phone. Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran.
Their cheap and simple nature allows them to easily swarm targets and saturate their defenses. You can defend from a dozen incoming drones, but a hundred is significantly more difficult.
Also, consider the massive quadcopter shows in China as an example of how a well placed shipping container can swarm a target and make a devastating attack. Ukraine demonstrated one and disabled a significant part of the Russian bomber fleet.
> Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US.
Cuba would be foolish not to do that at the first opportunity, not to attack the US, but to neutralize any offensive from the US. Without a navy, a land invasion, or an effective blockade, is impossible.
Watch orange man pull that one out. There are no rules of behavior anymore, he can do whatever the fuck he wants, laws, treaties, morals, future and so on be damned, ego whims dominate the decision chain. Who is going to do anything. The only exception is israel, they seem to have a massive leverage on him and utilize it to the fullest.
Also he and his clan are heavily gaining from insider trading on those huge swings, we talk about billions here on just closest circle and everybody knows this. Also, US is gaining on big oil prices, another reason to sow more chaos. Not happy times ahead.
This is a fairly well trod argument. It also requires a fairly long series of strawman arguments to come together. Yes, there are challenges, but ...
The reality of Hormuz was well known decades ago - even in 2002 Millenium exercise a bunch of speedboats and motorcycles stopped the US Navy from opening hormuz. [1]
Moskva was taken down by a well coordinated strike that distracted its one (1!) fire control radar. It was also alone. Those are important factors. [2]
A blanket comparison of Russia's attempts to eliminate Ukraine's industry with US Navy's ability to eliminate Iran's is ... questionable. We've flown 1000s of uncontested sorties over Ukraine, and Russia has been relegated to knocking down apartment buildings with Iran's own drones.
It is entirely possible that the US Navy is commanded by myopic idiots who fall for those tricks, but I doubt it.
Finally, it's not entirely clear that the large population won't, itself, become at least partially an asset of the resistance.
> A blanket comparison of Russia's attempts to eliminate Ukraine's industry with US Navy's ability to eliminate Iran's is ... questionable. We've flown 1000s of uncontested sorties over Ukraine, and Russia has been relegated to knocking down apartment buildings with Iran's own drones.
Russia has literally taken over the industrial heart of Ukraine in the east and southeast regions. With boots on the ground, tanks, everything. They claim it as their land. And yet they can't stop Ukraine from building drones.
That's far more than the US/Israel have done or are willing to do. It's extremely realistic that they do not have the capacity to destroy Iran's drone making capabilities, ever.
Think about it this way - if Russia had the US Navy's task force near Ukraine, and the level of air dominance that US has in Iran, do you think Russia would do anything differently? Would they, for example, be making 100s - 1000s of daily aerial strikes anywhere in Ukraine?
Because US _does_ have that, and so it _does_ significantly change the calculus. Unless you think it doesn't. In which case, we just disagree.
In the matter of drone production, which was my point, it doesn’t change the calculus. It is evident that short of regime change or popular upheaval Iran can produce or import drones indefinitely and the only thing that can stop it is a ground invasion.
The US Navy or any navy can’t destroy that production from the air.
The evidence is pretty clear on that. We see that is already the case in Ukraine or with Hezbollah and Ansar Allah.
I agree with some of your points, but I'm not sure about the drones. I don't think the kind of drone you can build with a lawnmower engine would be likely to do any significant damage to any but the smallest ship. And the US/Israel coalition has a much greater airpower advantage enabling them to target drone production than Russia does.
Cuba is in no shape to do anything. Even if they had drones, the leadership there is very unlikely to use them since doing so would result with almost 100% probability in the US killing or capturing them.
> I don't think the kind of drone you can build with a lawnmower engine would be likely to do any significant damage to any but the smallest ship
It's not really a lawnmower engine, but the L550E clones used in the Shahed drone are roughly the same scale as a big lawnmower engine (higher power/weight, but similar horsepower), and they've successfully taken out $100 million radar installations.
> Mass-produced drones today are a simple airframe, a lawnmower engine, and the smarts of a cell phone. Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran.
The ships the LCS are intended to replace are significantly more capable at absorbing damage from this type of threat. If you are willing to go up to destroyer class, you are probably approaching immunity for this scenario.
> Former CIA intelligence officer Robert Finke said the blast appeared to be caused by C4 explosives molded into a shaped charge against the hull of the boat.[6] More than 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of explosive were used.[7] Much of the blast entered a mechanical space below the ship's galley, violently pushing up the deck, thereby killing crew members who were lining up for lunch.[8] The crew fought flooding in the engineering spaces and had the damage under control after three days. Divers inspected the hull and determined that the keel had not been damaged.
"Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. "
>Germany's population is approximately 83.5 to 84.1 million as of early 2026
agree with analysis of iran industry etc, cant see cuba happening. usmil could roll over cuba in a few months and the local population probably wouldnt be hostile
Underestimation requires estimation. There was no thought put into the decision to start this war. These are people who have thoroughly bought into their own propaganda. Can the US win a war against Iran? The answer is “America, fuck yeah.” They think we’re omnipotent and literally favored by their god. They think the reason we’ve had military problems in the past is because lefty bedwetters insist on stupid rules like “no bombing schools.” You’ve put more thought into this operation in this comment than our top leadership has.
The global Shia’s population is even larger than Russia’s population, and more willing to fight the US/Israel. Russia is of course superior to Iran technologically but Iran has the larger support worldwide.
I’m not sure I agree with your argument but all of it made sense until you started talking about Cuba.
Iran knows that the US population really really doesn’t want a ground invasion. Right now, we have lost a handful of lives from missiles hitting US bases, but it’s not the same as a ground war.
Cuba, however, would very much get a ground invasion if they start striking the US with missiles. It’s not even a question. And I also assume their leaders are not religious fanatics with any interest in martyrdom.
Iran also knows that Americans don't want high gas prices so they targeted Americans' wallets from the outset. If even a half-assed invasion attempt existed that so much as involved a single dock being damaged, the psychological damage to America would be intense. America hasn't really been invading in, what, 2 centuries? War is a thing that happens "over there", never at home. It's easy to dissociate and pretend it doesn't affect you. Once people realize they've poked a bear, regret sinks in fast.
> The US can't just pull out, either. The enemy gets a vote on when it's over. Israel, Iran, and Yemen now all have to agree
Is that really true? Just claim that Iran's Nuclear ambitions have been destroyed, and anyone who needs oil can "Buy it from the US or get it themselves from Hormuz" - mission accomplished!
With the US withdrawing (or atleast not attacking), Iran can stop the drone attacks and open Hormuz - collecting fees from passing ships, call it reparations and a win!
Bibi has been found guilty by his own court system of gross corruption. Bibi tried to neuter his country's court system as a result, which pissed off a lot of Israel's population. Everything from 10/7 onward has been done to encourage Israelis to rally 'round the flag and keep fighting the enemy. Bibi goes to jail if the perma-war stops. Bibi does not want to go to jail.
I live in SoFLA and have seen one of his kids around town a few times. The kid is 110% all-in on the "chosen people" mantra and seems to think everyone is beneath him. Miami Beach's jewish population loves him.
Ironically enough, I do business frequently with a secular Israeli dude who has introduced me into some of the circles he runs in (mainly other secular Israelis), and they all seem to despise Benjamin "Nutty-Yahoo" Mielekowski and his ilk.
I like the size and population take, but the industry perspective is bad: Russia doesn't have air superiority. US and Israel do. Cuba becoming a base for Shaed drones? You are out of touch with how much industry you need for that. They are cheap, but they are not FPVs or off-the-shelf Mavics.
> A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years.
I think you're missing the point.
I am sure Israel did not underestimate the scale of Iran.
That is why Netanyahu dedicated 40 years of his life to the famous "40 years 2-weeks away from a bomb" one-man stand-up comedy show when visiting the US or the UN.
For 40 years Netanyahu waited for a stupid enough President to take a seat in the Oval Office.
For 40 years, consecutive US presidents asked their advisors before going back to Netanyahu with a polite but firm "Thanks, but no thanks".
Then along came the Donny.
Advisors ? What advisors ?
Cabinet of yes-men ? Yes please !
Netenyahu's birthday and christmas both came at once.
So is everyone with enough power, every law requires enforcement. But even without enforcement or with the ability to outright block laws, being in violation of international law still matters. It informs others whether you truly belief in a rule-based order or whether you only use it as a tool if it benefits you and they will adjust their behavior accordingly. Also if you want support from others, if you are in violation of international law, the others will think twice if they should support you.
> This is a real problem for the U.S. Navy, because they've invested heavily in craft intended to operate near hostile shores.
It's a great sign for the US military as a whole: That is the primary American tactic to defeat China, using land forces hidden on the First Island Chain with anti-ship missiles, to control the seas around China. More here:
The impetus for the blockade on the Strait goes away when the US pulls out. Even the UAE said as much as which is why they are currently trying to pass a UN Security Council Resolution stating as much and get the RoW to show enough teeth to get Iran to back down.
I am not a military expert, but the US theory of war has for a long time started with and was based on airspace dominance/control, and drones/cheap missiles put a serious dent in achieving that. Maybe laser weapons put the balance back toward the side that has them?
I didn’t say it was original with the U.S., just that it has been their strategy for some time.
And the U.S. has been prepping/testing lasers on boats for some time. Combine rapid fire/quick kill with good radar and you have (airborne) drone defense.
I saw a teardown of an Ukrainian drone a while ago and I was surprised how similar the setup was to the IoT project I worked on. I could be setting up a good chunk of the software part of a similar system myself and I am not that specialized of an engineer.
If you've been paying attention you'd understand that (1) the US military brass has been almost entirely replaced by MAGA stooges who think the rapture is real and (2) Trump and co 100% thought they could Maduro-esque behead the IRGC and this would be over in a week. The military officials who (correctly) dare not attack Iran aren't in any positions of power any longer.
God created war so that Americans would learn geography. Like Trump's obsession with Greenland because he does not understand the Mercator projection...
Cuba can barely keep electricity on amid fuel shortages and ancient infrastructure. They are in no position to fight a war, and don't really have a strong ideological force like IRGC in Iran. The ruling elites are way more likely to make a deal that allows them to keep their heads.
The "fuel shortages" are caused by the blockade started by USA a few months ago, which has also threatened with an actual unprovoked attack against Cuba.
Even just the blockade cannot be considered as anything else but an act of war, even if, as usual, USA does not declare the wars it starts.
In the past, USA at least made attempts to appear that it follows the international laws, but today it makes great efforts to perfectly match the stereotype of the lawless "Imperialist Americans" that was used in the past in the propaganda of the former communist countries.
Any act of war that Cuba would ever do against USA would be perfectly justified by the already done actions of USA, which make random Cubans suffer from serious shortages.
I figure the US was aware of the scale of Iran. It seems the US were talking with about three possible people in the Iranian government who could take over like what happened in Venezuela but their initial strikes killed them all which was a bit of a screw up. (Trump vid https://youtu.be/Zokz9DJ0KhI)
And the expectation was that IRGC and Islamists just accepts that and Israel stops bombing Iran at that point? Why would Israel find that sufficient considering that would give them nothing?
And the other thing is that I just dont understand how that can be called a regime change. Venezuela was not regime change either - Venezuelan regime stayed exactly the same as before, but now USA is co-responsible for the abuses.
Sorry but if Cuba starting launching drones at Florida, especially Mar-a-Lago, Cuba will be carpet bombed. Americans would simply not put up with that. It would be sad days in history imho.
>Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now.
To be fair this is basically a weakness of modern kid gloves warfare not really due to any asymmetric advantage. If the year were say 1941, Kiev and the rest of Ukraine would have been reduced to rubble and conquered years ago by now and not thanks to technology but the state of what is seen as politically acceptable. Really, Putin could do this today if he really wanted to waste a couple million ukrainians. There is no technological moat protecting kiev from destruction today. People claim if he did something like that then western nations would rally to arms and prevent that, but they said the same before he invaded ukraine in the manner they did, too. Maybe Putin doesn't even realize the bluff is a bluff, or maybe he does have a bit of a conscious unlike Stalin.
Why do you think the number of people in Iran matters?
I think most of what you said is just speculation, not founded on reality. The only thing that would stop the US from invading Iran in under 3 months is political will.
Russia doesn't have the scale and power of the US airforce, or the ability to project that power using the US navy and all the bases in the middle-east. Any comparison with russia at all makes me question your entire analysis.
Iran is big and geographically challenging, Afghanistan is notorious in the same sense as well, even more so by their infamous defeat and expelling of Russia in the 80's. The US invaded afghanistan in a matter of 1-2 months and held on to the country for 20 years.
Establishing a FOB initially will be challenging but with Kuwait and KSA eagerly cooperating, it won't be a challenge.
Drones are effective when your enemy is nearby and you can project it against them. Iran can threaten just about any US interest in the region but not the US homeland itself. They can't attack Europe because that would risk drawing them into the conflict, so their only option is to attack existing enemies in the region and do their best to inflate the price of oil.
And therein is their strategy that might win the war, it isn't all the reasons you listed, but political will as a result of economic pressure. The US lost in Afghanistan, Vietnam, and even arguably in Iraq because of loss of political will to continue the conflict. But then again, the current administration will not be deterred by pesky things such as the will of the american people, they'll use it to declare emergencies and attempt to hold on to power instead. The only thing that can defeat the US right now is the republican party in the US willing to turn on their beloved dictator.
> Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran.
The US has bunker-busters.
Even though your analysis is full of many technical flaws the most critical flaw in my opinion is how you aren't considering aerial advantage for the US, but yet you seem to think drones are an advantage. Drones are only useful at attacking pre-determined regional targets to influence political will. For the US however, unlike Russia, the US doesn't have a decrepit airforce, and doesn't flinch at launching $70~M/launch tomahawks. The ukrainain army right now isn't withstanding a constant barrage of bomber jets dropping on them. Russia is several decades behind US equivalent fleets from what I understand.
The US military hasn't been sitting on their hands watching the Russia-Ukraine conflict either. They've been testing all kinds of anti-drone tech in the desert for a while now, but this is the real opportunity for them to battle-test different techniques. No one is sanctioning the US either (more like sanctioning itself), and there is no real or practical shortage of war-chest funds (unlike Russia), and having a big war every two decades means the US military-industrial complex far more capable to meet the supply-chain logistics demands.
The US military certainly is the biggest in the world, dwarfing all other countries' militaries combined. But the thing most people don't realize is that is not what makes it the most capable invading force in the world, it is the sheer efficiency of the logistical effectiveness unseen the history of war before, backed by the ability to fund years-long wars without so much as flinching on the domestic economy front.
I would argue that the if the political will existed, the US can invade the entire region, from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas in less time than how long Russia has been at war with Ukraine. Even if the US couldn't use the bases and airspace in Europe at all, the calculus remains the same.
> This worked a lot better when the trouble spots couldn't do much to them.
Huh? what do you mean? They're entirely designed to address hostilities, they're not designed establish access in a non-hostile littoral, this goes back to WW2 beachead establishments (like normandy). The carrier ships are never meant to be close to land to where they're a target, but the carrier group itself is entirely designed to establish a beachead and deploy an expeditionary force under hostile conditions. I admit, maybe my history recall is lacking, do you know of any post-WW2 conflicts where the US navy established a beach head as part of an invading force that didn't face both aerial and naval resistance? Iran and Afghanistan didn't require it, neither did Korea or Vietnam as far as I know.
The non-war obsessed normies are something to behold, that's for sure. Most probably the GP has never looked at the FPV videos coming out of Ukraine, or maybe he somehow thinks that US soldiers are Terminator-like machines who would have nothing to fear from aerial drones.
whooptie doo, you're special and those who disagree with you are normies. that doesn't make a good argument, neither does misrepresenting what I said. and all your speculation about me there is wrong (your argument shouldn't be about me but about the topic anyways?).
I'm sure US troops will be plenty terrified, and there will be lots of casualties, you just made that argument on my behalf so you could have something to win. The amount of fear or the level of sheer human carnage on either side does not affect the outcome. Like I said in my post, if these factors affect political will in the US, Iran will win, if not then US military will not take very long, despite the costs, to achieve victory. It will not be defeated on grounds of "drones", terrain, Iran being well prepared, or oil prices.
I never claimed that, I only made the argument that the terrain and population won't be the hard part. Iran is well prepared for this invasion, so it will be harder, but the US military is also the most well-practiced, well-armed, and well-funded military in history, so harder is kind of relative. I doubt it will take a year, and I don't think it will take a month, that's as accurate as I think my educated guess can be.
Israel's army is on par with US, if not better, regarding practice and armament.
Have a look at the kind of problems they have in South Lebanon. Against supposedly destroyed Hezbollah.
Now imagine the same, just on a much larger scale...
The new technology (drones) changes the game quite a bit.
> Iran can threaten just about any US interest in the region but not the US homeland itself.
Much thanks to the impenetrable Mexico border, through which no foul thing has ever slipped past... /s
Iran can very much sneak drones into the US and do an Operation Spiderweb-style attack. Won't happen next week, but Russia thought they were done in 3 weeks.
Are you claiming Iran has the logistics and capability to constantly deliver drone attacks against the US homeland persistently? Or were you thinking of more like a one time flurry of drones? I mean, even if Mexico joined the war and Iran managed to provide them with unlimited drones, what changes? US border cities will be affected and there will be civlian casualties. Do you know why Ukraine is avoiding attacking civilian targets when Russia is doing just that? Because that is the exact opposite of their objective!
Read what i said again, even with Russia, the one thing that can defeat them the most is loss of political will, just like with the US. If Iran attacks even one civilian US target, that's the ammunition Trump needs to keep fighting, and to get his war fund approved all he wants. Why would Iran want that? If you said Ramestien (within their reach), that would be more reasonable, but even then, that draws in NATO. Ukraine is attacking Russian soldiers and military targets by drones, Iran doesn't have much US military targets other than the ones that are specifically there to engage with it as part of the conflict. If a serious enough attack on US soil took place, that is the exact worst scenario where the circus in the whitehouse will be talking about nukes (and that's why I suppose the WHO is preparing for a nuclear disaster).
> Or were you thinking of more like a one time flurry of drones?
No continuously, but enough to do serious damage to important assets.
Not sure if they'd go for civilian assets, new leader is supposedly more extreme than the previous (funny how that's often the case), but so far their responses seems measured.
But if they could take out a bunch of B-52s and whatnot sitting parked in the open, like that drone scare last year...
If they did want to go after civilians, they could however easily do a 9/11 level of attack against airlines or similar targets that are not prepared.
This is, as you allude to, likely not a good move for Iran. However, Israel said they'd prefer a failed state over the current regime, and in that case I could see some fanatics thinking that's a play to make, not unlike 9/11. So if Israel continues without direct US support, and the regime falls...
A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran.
There is value in much of what you're saying in your post, even though I don't necessarily agree 100% with all of it. However, no one involved in planning or starting this attack, underestimated the size of Iran at all. All of that would have been covered by all briefings. The US admin and military knew all of this, and frankly has planned all of this.
The US has some of the most capable spy networks, knowledge, and military experience on the planet. And yes, even the current admin takes advantage of this.
So the real question is, what is the end goal? None of the noise we hear from mouthpieces is really it. I suspect that causing trillions in damage to Iran is likely simply it. A bloody nose. I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this.
The US military, and daily briefings have all covered every aspect of what's been happening in the Ukraine war. They know. They've been studying it. They're not surprised by it. They 100% knew that Iran has been supplying drones to Russia in vast quantities.
What I strongly suspect is that Iran is being given a message. One it didn't listen to when it was bombed months ago. Don't help Russia. Don't align with China. Don't sell oil to China. And also?
Right now, all those drones made-in-Iran? All the munitions. All the missiles. All the tech they've been shipping Russia? It's ground to a complete halt. So whether or not Iran was stubbornly going to continue to export these things to Russia, it can't, as it needs them domestically now.
Russia is now cut off from that supply chain, because Iran needs it for itself.
If you look at what's happening, Russia has been forced to withdraw from the world stage as it is bled dry by the Ukraine war. It first pulled back from Syria, and it (Assad) fell. It pulled out of Cuba, out of Venezuela, all troops and aircraft and support. Russia has ceased to be a world power, it's literally done. It's become nothing but a regional power, incapable of projecting any power on the world stage.
The Ukraine war is serving its purpose. The West and the US are only supplying enough weaponry to keep Russia bleeding. Never enough weaponry for the Ukraine to win, never enough support, the US just trickles weaponry to them. The Ukraine just serves one purpose -- keep Russia fighting, keep it off the world stage, keep it bleeding all its power and might until it's a complete empty husk.
Yet as Russia has pulled back, China has attempted to moved to fill that vacuum. It's been buying oil from places like Venezuela, and Iran. It was extending soft power into Cuba. The US cannot tolerate this, and back to the start, I suspect that this is also a secondary message being given. A message to China. "Don't do this".
Cutting Russia and China off, each for different reasons, could be viewed as a good success for the US. My thoughts are -- what's next? What other thing does the US want to cut off from China, and Russia?
Because I suspect that's where things will pivot to.
--
(One thought here is, about exit strategies, is that just walking away and leaving the straight Hormuz a mess, will literally force Western allies to police that straight with their navies. The US has been pulling back from policing shipping lanes world wide over the last 20 years, and unhappy with its allies for not taking up the slack, or what it deems a "fair share". With Hormuz, US allies will be forced to take up the slack, an interesting outcome. This too would be an immense success for the US.)
You have it backward, Iran is not shipping shahed drones to russia anymore its not 2022, the trend reversed and russians are teaching iranians about their mods that improve penetration chances. russians are now fully self-sufficient with shaheds.
The rest I fully agree with, although its a half-assed effort that will likely backfire long term.
> will literally force Western allies to police that straight with their navies
If it can't be done by the US navy, it can't be done by Western navies either. What will actually happen is the Eastern countries (including Australia for this purpose!) will just pay the toll. Much cheaper than a military operation.
Iran has already achieved an important objective: getting un-sanctioned.
All this "message" stuff? That's not coming in the public messaging.
> If you look at what's happening, Russia has been forced to withdraw from the world stage as it is bled dry by the Ukraine war. It first pulled back from Syria, and it (Assad) fell. It pulled out of Cuba, out of Venezuela, all troops and aircraft and support. Russia has ceased to be a world power, it's literally done. It's become nothing but a regional power, incapable of projecting any power on the world stage.
This has certainly happened, but Russia can stop at any time. It's their Afghanistan (again) or Vietnam. Your analysis also completely leaves out the EU and rNATO role.
> It's been buying oil from places like Venezuela, and Iran. It was extending soft power into Cuba. The US cannot tolerate this, and back to the start, I suspect that this is also a secondary message being given. A message to China. "Don't do this".
Intercepting international trade on the seas is just piracy. China may get the message but they're under no obligation to respect it.
The US didn't refill it's own strategic oil reserve before it attacked and raised its own oil prices, there is no foreseeable exit strategy where Iran doesn't now effectively own and charge usage for the straight, and Russia (and Iran but I digress) are now more able to sell their oil than before, bolstering their economy and helping them continue to attack Ukraine.
This reads as a Tom Clancy wet dream of American Machiavellian geopolitical maneuvering and not (what it is) yet another historic military intervention blunder - the likes of which we've seen multiple times in just our lifetimes alone (Vietnam/Iraq) - lead by some of the dumbest people to ever grace the highest positions of our military apparatus.
Not only is China still receiving oil from Iran but Russias oil revenues have spiked significantly because of the conflict with the FT considering Russia the biggest winners of this conflict so far.
Hard to really analyze your post because you look at geopolitics through the lens of Jack Bauer
And what happens if Iran doesn't fold like Venezuela? Then the gates are open to trade in whatever is not dollars. Which means that the US economy will die.
> The US has some of the most capable spy networks, knowledge, and military experience on the planet.
Oh how cute, we are dusting off the cover on the greatest hits! I remember hearing this one back in the early 2000's! Unrelated, how many WMDs did they find in Iraq again? You know what, never mind, i'm sure it was just LOADS obviously!
> The US knows how to exit this.
Oh yeah, how's that? They gonna spend twenty years and $2.3 trillion dollars there?
Re: I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this.
Isn't this just wishfull thinking?
I mean, more mature administrations than Trump's have blundered into Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan without real exit strategies...
Re: Iranian drones to Russia:
Russians now (for quite some time) have their own production and development of Shahed derivatives, I doubt there are shipments from Iran to Russia.
Re: policing Hormuz:
Europe won't do it, for the same reason US is not doing it (it is an impossible task).
Re: the overall aim:
deny China the access to the Gulf oil, succeeding so far, but ultimately pointless (China will be lifted by greatly increased demand for its renewables and battery tech, as well as their electric cars)
It's not just drones, but parts for drones. It's also munitions, shells, missiles. It's about production volume. The Ukraine is also getting large supplies of the same from the West. No side can produce domestically, what the other can product domestically + import. The imports matter.
It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however?
In terms of oil, the US has recently cut China off from Venezuela as well. Short term supplies are important, "the future", a cloud of probabilities about oil shortags helping China, is not immediately apparent. It's suffering shipment halts from two lead suppliers now, both which were non-open market shipments, and volumes are unclear.
I wonder, what if the Ukraine suddenly stepped up and crippled deliveries of Russian oil to China? Or what if Saudi Arabia was told "don't do that". From where I sit, it's China that's being most directly affected by these actions in terms of energy supply.
> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done.
> Is this accurate, however?
Note that as long as there is a risk (even 1 to 20, maybe 1 to 100) that your tanker will be attacked, you just won't sail. (The logic of commercial shipping.)
Hence, blocking Hormuz does not mean total blockage, just a credible threat.
How do you propose to stop such a threat?
Adding warships to the mix, to shoot down incoming drones, simply adds those warships to the risked assets. What happens if a couple of escorts are hit/sunk?
We were not able to stop Houtis. What makes you think we can stop Iranians?
I do not understand this whole "Cripple China" thing. What do you think will happen if China decides that US is REALLY GOING AFTER IT NOW?
Maybe it will be enough for them to just stop shipping crap to US. What will the US do if suddenly the shop shelves become empty, CCCP-style?
> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however?
There have been plenty of analyses pretty much all concluding the same thing. How do you propose to do it? In normal times there were > 150 per day travelling through the gulf. Remember the coastline of Iran along the Gulf is about 2000km, all allowing them to launch strikes against ships (and they don't need to be sophisticated). So would you put a warship with every cargo ship? Occupy the whole coast? I don't see any feasible solution to police it.
> Re: I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this.
> Isn't this just wishfull thinking?
The administration could have asked their favorite LLM to plan 1000 exit strategies, kind of like how, if you asked an LLM to make up a reciprocal tariff formula, you would have gotten approximately the administration’s formula.
None of this means that the results are at all useful.
I doubt this admin is playing 4d chess with Iran. The more likely scenario is that Trump was given all information about Iran and was given several plans for a more indirect way to deal with them but he simply did not listen. He'd rather listen to lies fed to him by Netanyahu then his own staff.
In chapter 11 of All Quiet on the Western Front Paul and his unit find an abandoned food cache in the middle of no mans land. Instead of secreting away the food back to their lines where they will have to share it, they decide to just cook and eat it right then and there. But a spotter plane from the allies sees the smoke and then begins shelling their position. Cue a terrifying, if hilarious, scene where the soldiers try and cook pancakes as shells explode around them. Paul, as the last to leave, takes his pancakes on a plate and dashes out, timing his escape between bursts, and just barely making it back to the German trenches. Its a rare comic scene in an otherwise horrific and very real look at WW1.
The scene in the book is just so familiar to the lines in Ukraine these days, nearly a hundred years later. Instead of spotter planes near the dawn of aviation, we have satellites and drones (similarly quite new in the role). Instead of just shells and fuzing experts, we have FPV drones and much more sophisticated shells. Instead of buddies from the same towns all huddled together in cold muddy holes, we have deracinated units spread far and wide in laying in fear of thermal imaging. This results in a no mans land again, but a dozen kilometers wide instead of a few hundred meters wide, and somehow more psychologically damaging.
My point is that absent any tech that will miraculously be invented and deployed widely in the new few weeks, the Iran war, if it should be a ground one, is going to be just like Ukraine is today, which is somehow a worse version of trench warfare.
Even casual Victoria II players know that WW1 is essentially the final boss of the game. And the 'lesson' of Vicky II is essentialy: Do not fight WW1, it ruins Everything.
To be clear: The US is choosing to fight a worse version of WW1 without even a stated (or likely even known) condition of victory. We're about to send many thousands boys to suffer and die for not 'literally nothing', but actually literally nothing.
Ukrainian war is the way it is because neither side has a decisive advantage in air. There's barely any CAS - there are, however, lightweight drones.
If Iran were to become a major ground war, one of the sides would have air dominance, and we know which one. How that would change things remains to be seen. But it wouldn't be the same exact trench war, that's certain enough.
I don’t think air dominance will hold up for long if a plane costs billions and a drone a couple thousand. Any interceptor rocket the US uses will set them back millions versus literal peanuts on the other side.
Add that Iran is basically a mountain fortress and they’ll run out of money very quickly; disregarding that prolonging the war will be __very__ unpopular in the US.
They really got themselves into an unwinnable bind
How does a drone costing "a couple thousand" take out a plane? It doesn't.
Shaheds and quads offer no threat to US air superiority. Iran can fling them at the ground targets willy-nilly, sure, and that will inflict causalities on FOBs and ground forces. There's no ready-made solution to low end attack drones. But the sky is going to remain with the US. This allows US to dispense JDAMs at anything that pops its nose out into the open. Which doesn't play well with the notion of "positional trench warfare". Any "position" like this is a liability when the kill loops are tight and the sky speaks precision munitions.
If a major ground operation happens, I expect it to look closer to "2024 Gaza urban warfare hell" than to "2024 Ukraine open field war of attrition". Defending forces hiding from the air power in urban formations, causalities and collateral damage from the attackers trying to flush them out, humanitarian consequences from supply lines interdictions.
I very much agree that "the war is unpopular in the US" is a severe pressure on how much US can accomplish in practice. But what US sets out to do, how hard the US commits and how much can US actually accomplish there all remain to be seen. They could well purge the regime, destroy the key weapon facilities or grab-and-hold the oil fields before the domestic audience runs out of patience and pressures the politicians, or votes the decision-makers out.
Keep in mind: Iran isn't running off a pool of limitless resources either. The regime was already struggling a lot before US and Israel declared open season on the leaders - and the external pressure only buys you this much cohesion. Iran's military infrastructure is not in a tip-top shape, their income streams are dubious, they don't have many allies left after the proxy purges, they don't have reliable weapon suppliers overseas, and their own weapon stockpiles and production are unlikely to be sustainable in any way. They can sustain much more manpower losses and tolerate more hardship, sure - but there is no limitless tolerance. A regime that purges protestors by the thousands can't rely on its population being willing to suffer and die for it.
So there's nothing inherently "unwinnable" about this. It's a horrid mess of unknown war goals, questionable decision-making and dubious war sustainability, on both sides. Outcomes are very hard to estimate without some damn good intel.
This isn't middle ages. Most modern wars have dubious cost-benefit at best. Doesn't stop them from being fought and occasionally even won, no.
If US sets its war goal at "secure the strait and the oil fields" or "dismantle the regime" or "dismantle the nuclear program" and pulls that off, doesn't matter how many billions they would have sunk into the affair and how much they would actually have gained from it. From a military standpoint: a war goal was set and accomplished.
Whether US can actually set such a goal and then accomplish it is debatable, but it is not in any way impossible.
Given that Iran was able to close it? Definitely not "secure" then, no. Let alone now.
If US has a goal of keeping the global oil prices low, then those specific goals make sense.
"Dismantle the regime" can be accomplished with both direct action, and with a more long term "destroy the regime's income streams and supply chains and let it implode". Both are on the table, and the latter can overlap with "seize the strait and the oil infrastructure".
> Given that Iran was able to close it? Definitely not "secure" then, no. Let alone now.
They were able to yet didn't because doing it was sure to provoke a response. In fact if Iran acted first to close the strait it would surely have pulled in all of the European powers.
The only reason they clode the strait is because the US struck first so they had nothing to lose anymore.
"Securing the strait" is completely incoherent as an objective for this war.
Americans do not have the stomach to eat losses like Russia does. This is not een existential war for America. Having daily drone footage of American soldiers getting their face blown off won't do well at home. Casualties will be much higher than Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rig the election? You could pass a law that makes 1/3 of the country ineligible to vote, but makes sure they won't find out until they're at the polling booth. You could also prepare your allied goons to defend polling stations.
> if it should be a ground one, is going to be just like Ukraine is today
I do not think this is correct. The problem in Ukraine is that anti-air defenses control the skies, so the only accurate long range fires are expensive missiles in short supply.
This seems to not be a problem in Iran. US forces can fly relatively cheap bomb trucks anywhere and drop ordinance on anything. Stealth aircraft and NATO doctrine apparently work.
I'm not advocating for a ground invasion, but there's no reason to believe it would go the way of Ukraine.
Iran is a large country, just getting to Tehran with large-enough force is logistically enormous task.
Complicated by the fact that the logistic convoys can nowadays be trivially decimated by FPVs.
Air superiority is not going to help you much against small dispersed resistance groups with FPVs (ideally fiber optics, so not detectable by emissions from afar).
There is a chance that there will be similar democratization with AA (you will need proper AA missiles, the physics of reaching a fast jet flying high simply demands it), but the distributed passive targeting is made much simpler with current commodity computing and optics.
Achieving AA Denial is difficult, but forcing the attacker to use standoff munitions instead of gravity bombs/close-in air support not so much: shifting the risk of losing an aircraft from 1 in 100000 to 1 in 100 will do it.
> The problem in Ukraine is that anti-air defenses control the skies... <snip> ...US forces can fly relatively cheap bomb trucks anywhere and drop ordinance on anything. Stealth aircraft and NATO doctrine apparently work.
In Ukraine, neither side has access to the air weaponry (in capabilities or volume) that the US does - so the battlefield has evolved into one of drone superiority.
So yes, the US could (logistics willing) pummel Iran with B52s, B2s, and the like, maybe largely unopposed. However, this would only achieve so much: "winning" would be very different, especially when it's likely to turn into into a grinding resistance/insurgency ground war. A better analogy than Ukraine may be the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, only Iran has far more trained fighters and weaponry from the start. Or Vietnam, of course.
Maybe the US could "win", but it would depend on the strength of the political will to continue losing soldiers and spending huge amounts of money; and it would certainty be seen as a "forever war". And of course (as noted elsewhere) the US' more recent forays into Iraq and Afghanistan show how difficult regime change by force is.
There is no political will in the US to spend billions of dollars and institute a national draft and have tens of thousands of soldiers dieing.
That would probably cause Vietnam War-style protests if not an outright civil war
I think the poster's point is that FPV drones & accurate/advanced shells mean that you get all the downsides of WW1 trenches and no-man's land, PLUS new downsides of trenches not helping so you're constantly under threat of death no matter where you are. Plus: the more people huddle together the better the target they are, so you get to hide in small groups (or solo) in the hopes that the economics of killing just you doesn't pencil out and the drones will kill someone else while _they're_ sleeping, instead of you.
If you're looking for more reading maybe start with WW1 trenches, then look for YouTube videos about Ukraine drone usage? The drone stuff may be too new for lots of writing about it, but you'll get an oblique view of it by looking at how the Russians put those roll cages / turtle shells over their tanks, etc.
If you find anything and wanted to share it that would be interesting (if morbid)!
Technically, they'd be sleeping in a dugout where the entrance is covered by tarps and has ideally at least 2 turns to avoid the blast traveling inside (and potentially to make non-fiber-optic drones lose signal as they try to maneuver inside in case they get past the tarps).
You're most likely to get droned when on watch or carrying supplies.
I don't know about places to read more about it, but if you want to be psychologically damaged yourself without even being a participant there is a lot of drone footage from the Ukraine war floating around on the internet.
These clips highlight lots of incredibly disturbing events like Russian soldiers having exploding drones blow up close enough to them to cause eventually-fatal injuries without actually killing them, forcing them to kill themselves (and in some cases, their friends) with their own guns.
Its horrific to see on a human level regardless of the political circumstances of the war and who is or isn't in the right.
"The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston" by Siegfried Sassoon. (Ignore the title, it's actually his autobiography, and you could probably skip the first book in the trilogy).
"Goodbye to all that" by Robert Graves.
Two of the best writers in the English language recounting their times in the trenches.
> Cue a terrifying, if hilarious, scene where the soldiers try and cook pancakes as shells explode around them.
In the 1974 movie The Four Musketeers, Athos needs to find a private place in which to impart some information to d'Artagnan. The musketeers are currently deployed battling some French rebels.
The solution he finds is to place a bet with another soldier that he and his friends will have breakfast inside a fortress that is being bombarded by the rebels. We see a similar comedy scene of five people attempting to cook and eat a meal while under attack. (Athos also struggles to get his information across, since the constant attacks understandably pull a lot of attention.)
(Interestingly, I would have said that the translation I read came from Project Gutenberg, but it wasn't the one I just linked and no other is currently available there. Does Project Gutenberg take down existing versions of out-of-copyright books sometimes??)
There are multiple older translations, but Project Gutenberg only has one at the moment. I'm conjecturing that they used to have a different one (also out of copyright; that's their whole thing), but have taken it down for unclear reasons.
It's also possible that I found a free translation of The Three Musketeers somewhere else, or that I read the same version PG has now and have misidentified it as being different.
Trump already said he was just going to bomb all their infrastructure so the economy of the country couldn't function if they didn't negotiate and then it's just going to be a mass refugee crisis. It would be a mass refugee crisis anyway with a protracted ground invasion, but more Americans would die, so Trump is choosing to get it over with the easy way for America at least if they won't negotiate.
IMHO, This is pretty much the strategy the Khans used in the 13th century when they encountered arrogant Islamist Sultans emboldened with the bravery of their faith who refused to capitulate. They killed all the islamic people in Baghdad and then proceeded to fill all their canals and burn all their books. This decisively ended the Islamic golden age and Europe was able to survive after a very difficult 14th century where it would probably have been easily crushed by Islamists from the East had the Khans not set them back at least a few centuries. Truly one of the big turning points in World History.
Oh yeah, we can't do this to Russia because they have nukes, but the Ukrainians are trying to do it piecemeal.
What this current administration is doing speaks much more of a lack of strategy than what the Khans did in the 13th century.
Not having any sort of counterplay to Iran's one big move (the blocking of the straight), in a nation of some of the brighest minds on the planet, speaks volumes of how advisors are clearly not being listened to. The powers of the once mighty Republic have seemingly been vested in the hands of a bunch of incompetent nepo babies.
To wit: Hegseth immediately demanded the loyalty or resignation of the entire officer corps upon taking office. Anyone who would’ve been the voice of reason likely resigned a year ago.
Its not a false assumption. The world today is full of innovative products built with American capital and mostly American minds. If Americans want to do something then they have an rich pool of talent to do it well.
Sure on average, the population of the US is stupid, but that's true of everywhere.
> built with American capital and mostly American minds.
I would say "built with American agency and commercial spirit", not minds.
Most of the things that we have were first built elsewhere (Germany being a prime supplier here with the mp3 or the Zuse), but turning them commercial was the input that came from America.
Just because you sold your soul to an economic superspreader meme that allows your products and inventions to percolate with the rapidity of an influenza-herpes-ebola hybrid doesnt mean that the minds behind it are brighter than the rest of the world.
> You mean the people who voted for trump or those who voted for the democrats?
I'm not talking about plebs, I'm talking about people who know their shit and work at government level. We could just look at the invention of the past century and pluck out relevant events like the moon landing, electronic computer, transistor or ARPANET. Clearly there are smart people living in that nation. They have the talent to draw from to get good advice about stuff like: what Iran's first response might be to an aerial assault.
> Are there some causal reasons you think americans are smarter than people in other countries?
I never said that. I said America is home to SOME of the brightest minds in the world. That sentence does not apportion all the brightest minds to that nation. What you read is clearly something different from what I wrote. Do you have a chip on your shoulder?
Your argument was that you could use your bright minds to win against the iranians. That implies they are brighter than the iranians.
I think america clearly had better opportunities for bright people in the past. Maybe some moved also there so the proportion is a little higher than in other places.
that wasn't my argument. My argument is that the US has enough intelligent people to wargame what would happen in response to their initial strikes on Iran. That they seemingly have no available counter-play to the blocking of the straight of hormuz implies that they have dismissed any experts from the decision making process and are just winging it. Because... why would you start a war when you're weak to your opponent's first obvious countermove?
So yea, you misread that to assume that I was making some quasi-racist statement about Iran. So my question to you, is why do you think you made that intentional misinterpretation?
I agree that what the US did seems like they didn't ask anyone with expertise and brain to make a plan.
I think I filtered that out since I don't wonder about such things anymore. I live in Germany and what our government did in the last decades was so beyond stupid (like blowing up our nuclear power plants and going out of coal at the same time) that I try to ignore these kinds of things.
'intelligent', yes, big scary performative navy/gear, very very costly, here take most of the tax dollars. This is whats going on since WW2, where are these intelligent people who couldn't understand this?
We don't have to infer that they dismissed the experts. It is a documented fact.
Exactly one year ago, Laura Loomer presented Trump with a "traitor" list, all of whom were fired. That included members of the National Security Council, including director for Iran, Nate Swanson. He has since been writing articles staying exactly what would happen in the event of a conflict.
We don't have all the intelligence but we do have many institutions to promote such talent. As well as formerly having policy which let other bright minds immigrate into the US.
and nor does it result in victory without the follow up of a ground assault.
I'm legit baffled by the US engaging in a war that suffers exactly the same negative properties as the Saudi's war in Yemen. You don't even have to learn from history, the Saudi/Yemeni conflict is still active today. Air campaigns alone are entirely insufficient, especially if your enemy has mountains.
I’m not saying you’re wrong. But man haves lots of people who don’t know what a war crime is really devalued the accusation. So much so I read yours and I just assume it isn’t.(again idk)
I and a lot of other centrist-leaning folks are radicalized now in a way we weren't then. Perhaps it still won't happen, I don't have a crystal ball, but right now I will only vote for primary candidates who promise to prosecute Trump's goons and plan to reject the legitimacy of any future government that does not follow through.
Indeed it did not. But Trump and the members of his administration have announced, repeatedly and explicitly, that they hate me and wish me harm. So I can't accept being governed by them or by a system that tolerates them. If they decide they'd like to apologize, and offer some explanation for how I can be sure they won't return to their misdeeds, perhaps we can hear them out.
> If they decide they'd like to apologize, and offer some explanation for how I can be sure they won't return to their misdeeds, perhaps we can hear them out.
Nothing short of life in prison for the ones that plead guilty will accomplish that.
That's dual use infrastructure. Its also used for military and goverment purposes, right? The same as China providing weapons components to Russia, masking them as "civilian".
What's the problem. The Russians do stuff that you say are "war crimes", and what happens to them? Nothing. So why should anyone care if some person on the internet says these are war crimes? There's obviously no penalty against doing them, so they're not really war crimes.
Remember that war crimes were defined to protect civilians. It's usually better for a civilian to be on the losing side in a war with no war crimes, than the winning side of a war with many war crimes.
That was standard practice for much of recorded history. Surrender now or we will kill you all. Alexander the Great did it to Tyre and Sidon. The Romans did it to Jerusalem. The Israelis did it to Gaza. The orange madman and his henchmen have made it very clear that they don't give a shit about the rules of warfare.
> Trump is choosing to get it over with the easy way for America at least if they won't negotiate
That is… not the easy way. That’s how you get a nightmare for decades to come, endless waves of refugees and a limitless supply of terrorists.
Though, to be fair, there is no easy way of doing what Trump claims he wants to do. Which is why it’s spectacularly stupid to do it in the first place. I mean, they did not expect retaliation in the strait of Hormuz. Amateur hour does not even begin to describe it. Spectacularly stupid is probably way too kind.
If you must learn from the Khans, you’ll find that decapitation is not enough. You need people to put in place of the former leadership, and enforcers so that the underlying power structure stays in place to serve the new masters. The reason why is that, as the US learnt in Iraq and Afghanistan, it takes a bloody lot of soldiers to keep a whole population in check. Trump does not want to do the former and does not have the latter.
This just came up yesterday in the sauna with a bunch of dudes. Everything feels unique and special, but we're just repeating history again. Nothing about this situation is actually unique. Change a few names, a few numbers like the year or GPS coords, but most everything today is just history repeating itself.
Don't let capitalism convince us to do bad stuff cuz it makes us feel like the moment is special. It isn't. There is a tomorrow. It will be yesterday soon enough.
Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?
To the extent it's a money making scheme, well, capitalism gets blamed for all money making schemes even if it's supposed to be a specific subset of them which is useful for the feedback one can get from open markets.
(As that's a caveat inside a caveat, I'm mostly agreeing with you).
It's all of those, yet none are the real root reason.
For that, you must look at the main beneficiary. Which country stands to gain the most from a completely dilapidated Iran? Which country stands to gain more when all the regional powers that could stand up to it have been destroyed?
> Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?
Or because America is filled with demented cultists who think a two thousand year old property dispute is the key to triggering the Apocalypse so they can all be whisked away to paradise.
It's not a 2,000 year old dispute. Zionism began in around 1900. It was spearheaded until recently by "secular" Jews, who were borderline atheist. The Jewish religious texts themselves make wishing for a "return to Zion and Jerusalem" sound like wishing for a utopia or world peace. It pretty much reads like a metaphor, not like a political programme. Finally, most highly devout Jews were strongly opposed to Zionism, at least until after WW2.
That comment accurately described what American evangelicals believe.
American evangelicals don't care about 1900, differences between secular and religious Jews or their disputes. They don't care at all. They actually agree with a lot of what loosing side of WWII said and thought. And they in fact do believe the end of times prophecy and their duty to speed it up.
If you are unaware of that, maybe you should not be so arrogant when comment on politics. Because the radical American religious leaders are literally talking to the troops now as minister of war is their disciple.
There's something darkly funny about the reality being so demented that just describing it on HN gathers downvotes because it objectively sounds so awful.
The really crazy thing is just how few death cultists it really takes. The smallest minority of them have been busy radicalizing teenagers and biding their time for the past 20 years and this is what it’s come to.
It's so bizarre how OP was downvoted. It's a truth. History repeats itself. It's not the first war. It's not the last war. Maybe his (or her) tirade on capitalism annoyed the HN downvoting shoggoth.
> Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?
I don’t think we should look too far for reasons. He got all excited with the adventure in Venezuela and wanted to do it again, but with bombs and his pal Bibi. He’s itching to do the same thing to Cuba, and he’s not subtle about it.
> Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?
We won't know until everyone publishes their memoirs. I imagine absurd reasoning is entirely on the table. Given the administration's blind luck with its raid on Venezuela it assumed that scaling up the same plan would function, without realising how fortunate it was the first time. Reminiscient of Blair and Kosovo leading to hubris on Iraq.
I think they were extremely fortunate that their complex plan actually went off without a hitch. Its quite a lot of moving parts and hoping that certain people will react in certain ways.
> Maybe US also had people on the inside in Iran, but killed them by accident on the first strike with the "precision bombings".
Yeah but no. Iran isn't Venezuela by a long shot, extremely different properties all round. Its hubris to think what worked out well in one case would apply to a completely different one on the other side of the world.
The way this reads. I thought the analogy was "i'm frequently in a hot tub with dudes, with different names, the faces change, but i'm still in this hot tub with another set of dudes"
>The era of carrier-dominated airpower is fading, as cheap, unmanned anti-ship weapons reshape naval warfare, whether US planners are ready for it or not.
is not really backed up by reality. Pretty much the whole US operation so far, destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are.
Also straits being closed to shipping by whatever power controls the shores is not a new thing. The Bosphophorous has been closed on and off by the Ottomans or Turks since 1453 and the allies couldn't break through in WW1. They can send raiding ships, use canons, artillery, naval mines etc. You don't need the new tech.
> destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers
No. This is absurd claim that can't physically comport with sortie generation math.
CSIS report from first 3 weeks noted Israel did more than half of strikes on ~15,000 targets... all Israel's hits would be from land basing.
2xCSG at surge for 3 weeks = ~6k sorties, ~20% for kinetic strike (80% of sorties supportive, cap, tanking, ew etc). Optimistically carriers hit ~2000 targets when not standoff during first 3 weeks. Likely strike compositions: Israel from land, 50%, US from regional land ~35% (we know lots of none carrier aviation was involved), carriers ~15%.
The real kicker is CSGs since been pushed to standoff - kinetic strike ratio to dwindle to single digit % sorties at those distances, making carrier cost:strike ratio even more unfavourable. This something most expect from peer/near peer adversaries, not Iran, i.e. carriers seem vulnerable to lower tier of adversaries than originally thought.
The point is a country like Iran can, in 2026, force the US Navy to keep an large stand off distance. How much further could a country like China keep the Navy back? What about in 10 years?
Eventually you are beyond the range of being able to project force or risking losing billions invested in one asset to a $50k missile. That is where reality is heading.
Seems like USN can still do whatever it was made for from this large standoff distance, also seems like it wasn't made for chasing individual nondescript trucks in a hundreds-miles-long mountainous shoreline.
One of the primary functions of navies historically has been to secure vital shipping lanes. It’s a big deal that USN can’t seem to fulfill that function anymore.
I'm not sure that the USN would have been any more effective 30 years ago if it tried to make a narrow waterway that is off-shore from a medium-strength world power accessible for safe commercial ship traffic. Effective anti-ship missiles have been around for a long time. Given how understandably sensitive commercial ship crews and owners are to even slight danger, there's just no way to reduce the risk to the necessary near-zero without a prolonged air campaign and/or land invasion to support the naval effort.
A medium-strength world power that it Iran only figured out how to make anti-ship missiles only 25 years ago. They sure got their hands on Chinese ones a bit before that, but that quantity just didn't amount to strait-blocking capability.
> I'm not sure that the USN would have been any more effective 30 years ago if it tried to make a narrow waterway that is off-shore from a medium-strength world power accessible for safe commercial ship traffic.
Yeah I'm not too knowledgeable about this subject, I'm just theorizing.
My thesis is that the only ways that someone could control a waterway was through naval power, air power, or missile power. Air and naval power is negated by a stronger air force/navy, and 30 years ago missiles were only available to a small number of advanced economies nations. Now, high-quality (or at least credibly dangerous to shipping) missiles and drones can be manufactured cheaply by many nations.
The technology has changed. The navies used to be able to protect shipping.
Now the task is much more difficult.
Just as battleships replaced ships of the line, and were in turn replaced by carriers, all due to technology changes.
Maybe there will be drone swarms or some other future magitech being able to protect shipping.
Or maybe the civilization will collapse due to internal (income inequality, widespread employment of AI), external (ecological disasters) or other (demographics, nuclear WW3) pressures before such technologies are developed.
I think the point being made is that before Iranian drone doctrine (they were the originators of the long range drones, the FPV drones and sea drone which have dominated the Ukraine way too).
A US CSG could simply sit in the Hormuz strait shoot down any incoming missiles and keep it open.
Right now the US has 3 CSG in the middle east and nearly 50000 troops. After weeks of intensive bombing the strait remains closed and any associated asset in the region is at risk the loss of the E3 to drones is particularly shocking.
> A US CSG could simply sit in the Hormuz strait shoot down any incoming missiles and keep it open.
They can't even do that in their own bases. Most of US defenses have been severely overestimated due to propaganda. They hadn't been tested and when they were they've shown themselves lacking.
Guided missile means, metal airframe, jet engine, depending on targets thermal imaging or radar terminal guidance, radar altimeters, terrain imaging radars, 100 - 500 kilogram payload.
Remote guidance is a very hard problem, modern computers have made it much easier to solve.
Even an 80s missile, required hundred of thousands of dollars of equipment just for guidance. Now all you need is a simple computer, a cheap camera and a cheap accelerometer.
Drones are much easier to down than missiles, but they make it up in volume.
Do you mean stuff like FP-5 Flamingo? These are really cruise missiles. Why would you call it a suicide drone? Because it has wings? Tomahawks have wings. Because the design is based on a target drone, so what the capabilities are very much inline with munitions we call cruise missiles.
The drone/guided missile divide is really about dividing a continuum which on one end has foam wings and raspberry pie equivalents wrapped in tin foil and on the other million dollar tomahawks. The distinction is the price tag and the capabilities really.
Flamingo is pretty close to a cruise missile in many ways. You correctly observe that this is a continuum but most but not all drones have props whereas all missiles are either rocket based or jet engine based and missiles tend to be a lot faster and do not allow for a change of plan after launch.
So no. But the Lyutyi (sp?), the FP-1 and the Nynja all qualify as drones (and there are many, many more, it's a veritable zoo) if you make that distinction, as do all of the sea-borne gear.
The ones that are decimating the russian oil industry are a bit more impressive than that. The foam wing ones are mostly Shaheds, the Ukrainian ones tend to be made of various plastics and/or fibreglass or composites for the more specialized stuff.
Imo foam wings and low cost components is very impressive. Low cost easy production is an actual tangible benefit. If it destroys the target and is easy cheap to make, it is a better arm.
Yeah not so much for it's radars, or for the f35 parked on the flight deck, which may be you know loaded with thousands of gallons of fuel and hundreds of pounds of missiles and bombs.
Sure, it won't sink it, but operations may be disrupted, for hours to days.
Rocket engines are typically used for short range missiles like AGM-65, or ballistic missiles. All cruise missiles use jet engines to achieve long ranges.
Cheap as hell, doesn’t need a launchpad and can be launched from a pick up truck, super easy to make and can be scattered all over the country so there’s no central location to bomb to stop them, fly literally meters of the ground so they’re very hard to detect and you can make tens of thousands of them very quickly and very easily.
And one of them can't scratch the paint on a modern naval vessel. Anti-ship warheads alone weigh more than an entire Shahed-136 drone.
As has been demonstrated countless times in SINKEX training, it requires literal tons of deep penetrating explosives to severely damage a modern naval vessel. And even then they usually don't actually sink.
Nothing you can cheaply build in your garage will do meaningful damage to a large naval vessel. It will have neither the weight nor the penetration required.
You might need to consider lateral options. What if someone flew 1,000 drones at the windows on the bridge? How many BBs can hit that fancy radar before it is out of service?
Nothing/neither/cant when millions of dollars and hundreds of lives are on the line? 'Are you sure about that?' Defending against these types of threats is well worth considering.
It's the radars really for destroyers. The bridge is not actually where the ship is run during combat.
There is a room called the combat information center, that's where the ship is run from during combat, and that is behind armor, even in modern warships.
Additionally ships are separated into semi independent zones, that can take control of the ship, and continue fighting even if the rest of the ship is on fire.
The real liabilities are the radars, and the rest of the sensors in surface combat ships and the airplanes on deck in the case of aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers in general are heavily armored compared to other modern warships and it takes a significant amount of firepower to even disable them much less sink them.
That's great if you're in a shallow anchorage (average depth: 45 feet). Less so if you sink in the Arabian sea and you're under fire during the refloating process.
I also suspect modern ships are a little more sensitive to complete immersion.
> In May 2019, the Minister of Defense was presented with a report from Defense Material which concluded that a possible repair would cost 12–14 billion and take more than five years. The cost of purchasing a new corresponding vessel was estimated at NOK 11–13 billion, with a completion time of just over five years.
Your scenario imagines a naive and completely fictional concept of how modern naval systems actually work. That you can’t conceive of why what you are suggesting is effectively impossible means you truly don’t understand the domain.
The reason designed-for-purpose anti-ship missiles/drones are so expensive is they are literally designed to be somewhat effective at executing exactly the scenario you are laying out, while not being naive about the defenses that military ships actually have. Anybody that understands the capability space knows that your scenario wouldn’t survive contact with real defenses.
You are making an argument from fiction. Do you take the “hackers breaking cryptography” trope from Hollywood at face value?
Yup. There’s the concept of “mission kill”. It’s very difficult to sink a battleship with 5” guns. Use them to blast off all the range finders, radars, and secondary battery and that ship will be headed home after the battle.
The difference is strategic. A mission kill is a repairable loss. It is an order of magnitude easier to fix a battleship than to build a new one.
Of course, you can use boatloads of cheap drones to kill the radars and CIWS, destroy the planes on deck and other juicy targets.
Then launch a second wave of heavy anti-ship missiles (which you might have too few, due to their costs) to transform mission kills into really sunken ships.
If they're small - like quadcopter size - then how did you get them in range of a ship more then 10 miles off shore?
If they're large, like back of a pickup sized (which is roughly a Shahed[1] - link for scale) then how did you transport and move them without being noticed and interdicted?
For comparison one of Russia's largest drone attacks on Ukraine, and thus in the world, happened recently and included about 1000 Shaheds over a distributed area.
You're talking about flying a 1000 of something into exactly one target which has CIWS designed to track and kill supersonic missiles at close range (and is likely in a flotilla with data linked fire control).
You might get lucky I guess but I absolutely wouldn't bet on it.
They're also using their USVs as drone motherships.
> If they're large, like back of a pickup sized (which is roughly a Shahed - link for scale) then how did you transport and move them without being noticed and interdicted?
The Taliban moved pickup-sized loads around just fine.
> You're talking about flying a 1000 of something into exactly one target which has CIWS designed to track and kill supersonic missiles at close range (and is likely in a flotilla with data linked fire control).
Here's one failing to shoot a single Shahed in Baghdad down.
It takes a surprisingly small warhead to destroy a 100 million dollar radar array. A mission kill requires much less damage than actually sinking a ship. Take out an Arleigh Burkes radars and it's a 2 billion dollar container ship.
It's more like, through the combined use of drones, sea-drones, and anti-ship missiles, backed by the productive might and surveillance capability of NATO, against a weak Russian navy. Iran has much weaker capabilities and is fighting a much stronger enemy.
> Iran has much weaker capabilities and is fighting a much stronger enemy.
I mean yes thats true, but you also have to look at the capacity to renew what they are using to fight the war.
Iran appears to have a large supply of drones, enough to overwhelm US defences. Each drone is ~$50k and takes a few weeks to build, the anti-dorne missle (depending on what one it is) costs $4m and take longer.
If trump does decide to take Kharg island, then to stop the troops from being slamai sliced they'll need an efficient, cheap anti drone system, which I don't think the US has (apart from the Phalanx, but there arent enough of those)
To stop the drone threat, they'd have to clear roughly a 1500km circle. no small feat.
the bigger issue is that the goal if this war is poorly defined. It was supposedly to do a hit and run, and gain a captive client. Had they listened to any of the intelligence, rather than the ego, they would have known this would have happened. that has failed, now what, what do they need to achieve? There is no point committing troops if they are there for show. (there was no real point in this war either, well for the US at least.)
You can if you live in the US! It isn’t particularly expensive either, high explosives are industrial chemistry. A few dollars per kilo. Maybe a little bit more if you want something fancy.
Thanks to movies, people both seriously overestimate and underestimate the capabilities of highly engineered explosive devices, albeit in different dimensions. Generally speaking, sophisticated military targets are not susceptible to generic explosives. A drone with a hundred kilos of explosive will essentially bounce off a lot of targets. An enormous amount of engineering goes into designing an explosive device optimized to defeat that specific target. They use supercomputers to get this stuff right. Exotic engineered explosive devices are unreasonably capable.
TBH, once you realize the insane amount of engineering that goes into it, it kind of takes the fun out of it. A lot of high-leverage research goes into aspects an amateur would never think about.
This is in some ways a blessing. Amateurs with bad intentions almost always fail at the execution because it isn’t something you can learn by reading the Internet.
Amateurs who try to build their own explosives usually either fail to explode or explode killing the builder.
An older friend of mine at Boeing told me how when he was a teen, he had a teen friend who built a pipe bomb. They drove off to a field to set it off. It didn't explode, so his friend went to investigate. Then it went off, and my friend had the pleasure of driving his gutted friend to the hospital to die.
There's a selection process at work where smart people who know what they're doing don't try to assemble bombs in their garage for fun. If there's a legitimate reason like your country is fighting an existential war the kinds of people who can do things start doing things.
But it's just rare having a person smart enough to be able to do it be stupid enough to try. (and the people who do are nutjob terrorists like Timothy McVeigh)
FWIW, McVeigh got a lot of the technical details right, including many non-obvious ones. That was a sophisticated attempt by someone that actually knew what they were doing. It goes a long way toward explaining why that particular bombing was so effective.
That said, plenty of extremely smart people assemble bombs in their garage for fun. It is almost a rite of passage, at least in the US. The fact that historically you could just buy the common stuff incentivized smart people to attempt more technically difficult things for bragging rights. Most people have no concept for how available legal high explosives are in the US, even after 9/11 made it a bit more difficult.
Cost, I'd guess? There must be a reason why Russia and Ukraine are using more drones than missiles in their strikes. And while capabilities are somewhat different, if a ship carrying oil or LNG get hit by either one, it's going to have some consequences
This is delusional. Iran has thousands of ASM on the coastline. They need 1 to make it through to take out a tanker. Even the best anti missile systems we have aren’t 99.99% reliable. It was always a losing proposition. Iran has always been able to close the strait.
What I don’t get is why we need to take Kharg island. Can’t we just blockade ships selling Iranian oil?
I think the collective take might be too focused on the kinetic picture to see the underlying issue(s).
1) we want Iranian oil flowing and being bought elsewhere for the economy and to avoid hard decisions in Beijing, and as we’ve recently heard ad nausea money is fungible so… if one hasn’t thought to invade, dominate and occupy mountainous terrain filled with holy people, then ‘open’ means money to The Baddies.
2) it’ll only take a few wrecks to create navigation hazards, tankers are huge and that strait is shallow and narrow. The cleanup crews are slower, they also need massive ships.
3) let’s take a 0.01% reliability of missile attacks… drones, rpgs, suicide attacks, artillery, kamikaze plane attacks, mines, and trebuchets are also out there. So, again, unless we’re invading… fuhgeddabout 100%
And, fatally:
4) it’s not the missiles, it’s the threat, and who is insuring the massive money-boats. If your insurance company thought your car would, 0.01% of the time, be blown up resulting in a total wreck and complete loss of cargo and future revenue, your policy would not be what it is. You insure your oil boat for trips, and if not you don’t move it.
Trump doesn’t decide this, BigBoat Insurance brokers decide this, with their wallets and vibes. 0.01% x An Oil Tanker (slow, giant, vulnerable, + oil leak cleanup and ecosystem damage, loss of life) x totally foreseeable circumstances = a ‘closed’ straight on demand. Unless, again, the plan is invado-conquering.
> destroying much of Iran's military and leadership
Good at hitting targets, terrible at achieving goals. Same as Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc. Were the Taliban destroyed by killing their upper echelons several times over? In terms of resilience, the Iranians are similar, arguably much more so.
> Were the Taliban destroyed by killing their upper echelons several times over?
Of course not, because that wasn't the goal and would be impossible, because we were recreating the conditions that led to the Taliban taking control in the first place (corrupt and amoral warlords oppressing the populace). Afghanistan's strategic location and suitability for poppy farming and generating dark money flows is why we went in. It was the staging ground for the plans to overthrow "Iraq [...] Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan" (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/9/22/us-plans-to-attack-...). We're still involved in active conflicts in most of those countries.
The US state is so large, that there are different constituencies operating within it. There was certainly a group that wanted the new state to succeed. I don't disagree with much of what you said though.
You're very right, it's important not to forget that hindsight makes the cloudiest things clear. At the time, it seemed as if almost everyone supported the invasion and thought we were taking revenge for 9/11 and liberating the oppressed from a brutal theocracy. It was not until later, sometimes much later, that the facts became apparent. Very few people knew that the Taliban had offered to surrender Bin Laden and hand over Al Qaeda members before the invasion, and almost nobody outside the military knew about what kind of people we were supporting in their stead. Even today when the historical situation is relatively clear I don't think many people have really thought much about the many uncomfortable facts of the opiate/opiod "epidemic" and it's connection to that occupation.
Fort Bragg has been the transit point for most opiates imported to the US in the past 30 years. Cheap illegal opiates in addition to overprescription of opioids made the problem much worse.
I think it was achieved by two nuclear armed countries openly amassing their assets in the region for months. Any conflict between peer non-nuclear nations would have probably began with the country in Iran’s position sinking those carriers. Thanks to US and Israeli nukes, they were free to start killing people without fear of getting surprised.
It is unlikely that Iran decided to not sink US carriers because of fear of nuclear retaliation. It is much more likely that before the air attack started, Iran's leadership preferred not to do anything that could make an attack more likely, such as attacking carriers. And after the invasion started, they would have loved to attack carriers but did not have the military capability to do so.
They haven't "acknowledged any allegiances or biases" though, they just dismissed them because they're not of the right ideology. If they don't engage on the merits or offer substantive criticisms, there is no discussion, just a cheering contest.
This comment did catch my attention. While I am willing to accept some level of bias from various parties, I have an odd feeling that we about to argue that reality is in the eye of the beholder.
With that in mind, what do you think the reality is? I am not leading you on. I am genuinely curious.
> is not really backed up by reality. Pretty much the whole US operation so far, destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are.
The country with 0.3% of global spending in military is putting a noticeable dent in assets of country that has 35% of global spending in military and are begging allies for help coz they can't even stop the drones
With that level of difference you'd expect whole thing to end already and yet it is not. So any actor at even 10% scale of US going all in in drones would probably obliterate US navy without all that much. US is behind and frankly invested in wrong tech over the years.
That is not to say carriers are going away any time soon, you need to ship the firepower to the target somehow, but one filled to 3/4 with drones would probably be far more effective
The Chinese have drone carrier ships already in fleet and I think that is likely the future addition to fleets that is necessary. I am not sure how much the era of human controlled flight is coming to an end but certainly substantial drone capability and anti drone defence is urgently required.
I agree in general, but I quibble with the "noticeable dent" part. I think that Iran is doing well given the enormous difference in power between it and the US/Israeli/Gulf Arab coalition, but the only way in which it is putting a noticeable dent in that coalition's assets is economical. And it is only capable of doing that because it is next to a vital narrow waterway and not far from some of the Gulf Arabs' fossil fuel facilities. So I don't think the situation generalizes.
The issues the US faces are political and humanitarian (and economic) rather than military. I don't see any compelling evidence that the US couldn't open the straits if it really wanted to, it's just that the cost in lives and hardware would be unlike anything the US has seen since Vietnam, maybe even the second world war. And of course, once you open the strait, you have to keep it open. The whole thing is a lose-lose situation for everyone involved.
It should probably also be pointed out that doing nothing has a cost too, and it's probable that the bill for doing nothing over a long period of time has come due. I, like most people, never bought the WMD claims leading up to Iraq. I'm not sure what to think here. I certainly don't buy that Iran wasn't working towards getting the bomb after how well it worked out for North Korea. I can't claim to know the calculus involved in determining whether or not it's worth going to war with Iran to stop them from getting the bomb.
> I don't see any compelling evidence that the US couldn't open the straits if it really wanted to, it's just that the cost in lives and hardware would be unlike anything the US has seen since Vietnam, maybe even the second world war.
The second half of that sentence is literally explaining why the "impossible" you reject in the first part.
Apart from the oil, there is the fertiliser that isn't being shipped. That means that august crops are going to be down. Assuming its a good year. prices go up, which means we can expect a wave of overthrown governments (similar to the arab spring) in 12-24 months time.
For the USA that means inflation, along with a credit crunch (probably)
Given you compare the cost of a US operation to open the straits to the Vietnam War, it seems prudent to mention that the outcome of the Vietnam war, according to Wikipedia, was a North Vietnam victory.
> I don't see any compelling evidence that the US couldn't open the straits if it really wanted to, it's just that the cost in lives and hardware would be unlike anything the US has seen since Vietnam, maybe even the second world war
The US invaded Iraq and toppled its government; Iraqi militias are still firing drones and missiles at US bases. Tankers and oil infra are much softer targets… all it takes is hitting one or two tankers and folks will stop shipping.
The US wasn't doing nothing about Iran though. The JCPOA was a thing, before trump tore it up. This approach is about the dumbest way Iran could be handled, which makes sense given who is giving the orders.
>That is not to say carriers are going away any time soon, you need to ship the firepower to the target somehow, but one filled to 3/4 with drones would probably be far more effective
Why would you do it at the slow speed of a carrier though? Just load up a couple C17 or B1B and you can dump that payload anywhere in the world in under a day I expect. Better yet, engineer a minuteman to hold a drone swarm. Deliver that swarm anywhere in the world in 20 minutes.
To add to that, the current take that the US could just walk away from the conflict is incredibly naive - Iran will decide when this is over, and it won't be before the November elections. Before the US attacked, blocking the strait was only a potential, now Trump gave Iran the chance to prove that they are capable of doing it. And why on earth would Iran now give that away for free?
I agree that this conflict in Iran doesn’t really indicate that the aircraft carrier is any weaker now than it ever was.
Though I do worry about the possibility of a more sophisticated opponent being able to launch swarms of drones and missiles at aircraft carriers. More than any air defense could ever stop.
Carriers have been in question long before this conflict. There's been a big question as to how effective and/or survivable a carrier battle group will be in the South Pacific, especially given China's long range anti-ship missiles.
There's been a whole ramp up of very exquisite technology to try to get the upper hand here, but I don't expect we'll see the carrier be the force it has been over the last few generations. It's just too tempting a target.
Long-range anti-ship missiles of old are also obsolete, they and their launch problems are also too expensive for their vulnerability. A salvo Shahed-style drones launched from expendable unmanned vessels would overload a carrier group air defences way cheaper than old school ASMs from frigates.
New weaponry poses great challenges for these platforms. I don’t know if a swarm of very slow moving drones would be my biggest concern though.
You can afford to spend a few million when you’re taking down billions of dollars worth of hardware.
I would think a simultaneous barrage of maneuvering hypersonic missiles would pose a much bigger threat. A CIWS or three can take down a lot of slow drones.
but if you know there are 3 CIWS, you know they can move the pew-pew pipe at some radians per second this axis, and that axis, you put the drones in a formation to maximize the need for muzzle movement, estimate how many rounds are in them (or how long can they fire before getting overheated)
and send that number + 1 drone.
.
.
of course it's a bit oversimplified, but really with decoys, and putting cheap shaped charges on them ... they can fuck up the launch/landing surfaces, the AA capabilities, there's absolutely no way to jam them if they have the "last mile" set to automatic.
(yes, in theory a dumb and big fireball or good old flack can take out a lot of them, seems trivial, but in practice we don't see that, instead we see faster drones trying to intercept them)
I get the feeling you haven't read the article. The carrier is not in drone range precisely for that reason.
The reason so many tankers have been lost and that E3 sentry is that the carriers are having to stay out of the preferred range and rely on refueling for the bombing campaign.
If the CSG could move to the Iranian coast they wouldn't have to maintain a constant chain of refueling tankers which have become so vulnerable.
>The carrier is not in drone range precisely for that reason.
umm, you have no idea what you are talking about.
the Iranian Shahed drones typically have an operational travel distance of approximately 1,200 to 2,000 kilometers (roughly 750 to 1,250 miles).
and
>USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) CSG: As of March 30, 2026, this strike group is operating in the Arabian Sea supporting Operation Epic Fury. Satellite imagery from mid-February and March 2026 placed the Lincoln roughly 700 kilometers (approx. 430 miles) off the coast of Iran and Oman.
All right, they have the range. Let's say a carrier is 700 km away and the drone has a range of 1200 km. Great.
Now, does it have the kill chain to supply it with an accurate targeting fix and update it during the flight? Or, does it have a radar good enough to find the Lincoln on its own? If it doesn't, then it's a really big ocean. But sure, they've got the range.
Regarding drones they are, by definition, not very sturdy: for they're drones and not B52 bombers or bunkers.
What's very likely going to happen is that, just I can take a Browning B525 Sporter balltrap shotgun and shoot any civilian drone from afar because the gun shoots an expanding cloud of tiny, cheap, pellets, armies are now going to come up with systems to both defend and destroy drones.
I'm not saying the drones used in war are the same as DJI drones: what I'm saying is that with the proper tech, they're much less expensive to take down than, say, a ballistic missile or an aircraft carrier.
Anyone seeing this conflict and thinking that the militaro-industrial complex isn't hard at work working on solutions to take down drones is smoking heavy stuff.
Ukrainian and Russian did it already (although it's nothing serious, it's just an example): here we were talking about actual tiny drones, carrying explosives, and running towards vehicles. As a cheap defense measures, they started immediately adding metallic "spikes" (not unlike hairs) to the vehicles, so that the drone wouldn't reach the vehicle's body and instead explode when hitting the mettalic spikes.
War has always been about "tech x" / "anti tech x". This time is not going to be different.
> Though I do worry about the possibility of a more sophisticated opponent being able to launch swarms of drones and missiles at aircraft carriers.
China. They're demos of thousands of drones fully synchronized in the sky at night making nice 3D patterns with everybody on the ground going "aaaah" and "wooooow" is a display of military capability.
I'm not saying it's not a concern: but it's not as if the US (and others) were going to sit and think "oh drones exists, the concept of war is over".
Cheap drones are pretty useless against large naval vessels. Making a dent in those ships requires a heavy, specialized penetrating warheads. And even then you'll need to score several hits.
Just the warhead alone on a standard anti-ship weapon weighs more than an entire Shahed-136 drone.
I disagree: lots of cheap drones would be extremely effective against an aircraft carrier. They don't need to sink the ship; they just need to damage the jets or disrupt operations on the flight deck. Even a small drone is a serious threat to a jet. How can a carrier defend against a drone swarm? They only have so much ammunition for those CWIS guns, and defending against the swarm will probably cost a lot more than the swarm itself does.
Of course, this assumes the carrier is within range of the drone swarm, but that seems to be the assumption in this line of argument.
Eventually, I think they'll have more cost-effective defenses against small, cheap drones, but they don't have them yet.
Yes, but it is not certain that cheap drones have the range or navigational technology to reach and hit a carrier in the current circumstances. More expensive drones do, but that's a different matter.
The Shahed drones have more than enough range for this, easily. Whether they're "cheap" I guess depends on your perspective; they're certainly not as cheap as some handheld drone, but they're still pretty cheap compared to all the stuff the US is using now.
Seems likely to be even worse now. USS Ford out of action, removed from region due to "laundry fire" and some socks in the toilets. Also USN has far fewer carriers to deploy. Three or more were deployed continuously off Vietnam for years at a time.
Imagine trying to launch fighters when there are explosions on the deck from swarms of drones. And of course the fighters themselves could be hit and destroyed. An aircraft carrier that can't launch fighters is pretty much worthless.
It sounds like you agree vehemently with the article, modulo the reframe of what the military had to already as solely your personal worry, about a hypothetical, that could only occur with a more sophisticated opponent, in the future.
>destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are.
When you have a hammer that costs billions of dollars in budget you tend to find excuses to use it lest you lose that budget. Imagine if their were no carriers. US airpower just takes off from gulf state airbases and same thing happens to iran.
Unless the US is fighting an air battle in the middle of the ocean, they can probably get by without carriers.
Did you go to War College to learn this? I mean seriously, do you really think they would spend billions of dollars and millions of man hours training …. I mean, I’d it’s possible that maybe you just don’t understand the dynamics of war fighting and there is a reason for carriers to exist besides “fighting in the ocean?”
How many of the strikes in Iran were 100% organic Navy assets? Sure, f18's took off and landed on carriers, but they tanked a couple times before dropping their bombs. The CSG helps, but was it really the thing enabling strikes? We have a massive air base in Qatar and other capabilities in the region. We are using bases all over the place to support these operations. The CSG helps... but isn't crucial to what is going on here. Now, bring S-3 organic tanking back and maybe the CSG would have a -little- more legitimacy.
Yeah I don’t find this article particularly insightful. If we don’t have troops on the ground to prevent attacks in the straight, it would be always be vulnerable despite superiority. Shit if we don’t control the land, they could drop a bunch jet skis with bombs in the water in the middle of the night. The straight is only 21 miles wide at some points
Trita Parsi of RS had been saying weeks in advance that the Iranians would retaliate against gulf states collaborating with/supporting the US & Israel, would close the Strait of Hormuz, and would continue fighting until it established a pain threshold had been reached and acknowledged by its enemies, in order to prevent yet more "short wars". Iran's previous retaliations that were well choreographed and coordinated in advance with US & Israel would not be repeated. He was not alone in saying this, but he was one of the most prominent, connected, and learned people saying so.
Much of the administration and news media are only catching up to all of this long after the fact. Many still cling to the idea that this was unforeseen, or irrational on the part of the Iranians.
So he'd have a better idea of what the govt would want to do?
Keep in mind that a govt that feels (admittedly reasonably) that it has been backstabbed and has its head assassinated would not hesitate to call bluffs instead of acting cool. You've ever seen how a cornered wild animal behaves?
Whether or not professional military strategists and planners anticipated this shift in carrier-based projection of power in the era of low-cost drones, it is nearly certain that the Commander-in-Chief of the United States military has not. And if the Commander is involved in the either the day-to-day operations or the strategic level of planning, I can’t imagine that whatever reasoning about these shifts in power dynamics has taken place will influence U.S. operations.
An aerial drone capable of materially damaging a modern navy ship costs $1-2M a piece. Anything much cheaper doesn't have the range, survivability, or required warhead to do much more than scratch the paint.
A cheap drone is only useful against soft targets. It is the reason Ukraine is scaling up heavy cruise missile production even though they already have vast numbers of cheap long-range drones. Being "cheap" isn't of much value if it is incapable of doing meaningful damage to the desired target.
The US has been designing and building thousands of anti-ship drones since the 1970s. It isn't like they have no experience with the concept and those drones are far more capable than anything Iran has. The US Navy has assumed drone swarms as a threat model for half a century.
Do the Iranians have to win against a Navy ship or an oil tanker? Asymmetric warfare suggests they would ignore the well fortified ship and wreak havoc on commercial shipping to get the same result. The Strait of Hormuz is so shallow and narrow that they only really need to sink two or three tankers to shut the whole thing down.
That isn't really true. There are expensive and important bits on the outside-- radars, optical sensors, etc. that could be damaged by very small things.
Even $400 dollar drones would force some kind of defensive system to start shooting if the ship is to remain usable.
The ship would of course also become progressively more vulnerable as this goes on, so I don't agree that ships have some kind of D&D-style DR that means that anything costing below a million does nothing.
All large ships in the US Navy have automated weapons for killing swarms of small surface craft. They added that capability a few decades ago because they were regularly attacked by swarms of suicide speed boats packed with explosives. No one tries that anymore.
Surface drones are effectively indistinguishable from that threat.
Easier than avoiding torpedos, which are also long-range drones.
> Surface drones are effectively indistinguishable from that threat.
It's pretty hard to imagine a scenario from the nineties where there are so many speedboats in an attack that all four CIWS on a carrier use all their ammo at once. (that's an awful lot of suicidal jihadis, or whatever)
On the other hand, if the CIWS are targeting clouds of aerial drones and jetski drones at the same time, that could be a pretty bad scene. About fifteen seconds of fire per CIWS (1550 rounds), five minutes downtime to reload, between one and three seconds to service each target...
Interestingly, the problem the existing weapons had is that they had terrible engagement characteristics for things that were close and fast at sea level. CIWS wasn’t built for that. It wasn’t in the original threat model. They were designed for low planes and cruise missiles.
The boat swarms would close the distance fast, and the US Navy was reluctant to engage potentially stupid but non-hostile targets. By the time the threat was clear the defensive weapon systems were outside their design parameters. The alternative was killing everyone a long way out even if they weren’t a clear threat.
Not an issue today, they have loads of weapons purpose-engineered for that threat. But they had to learn that lesson the hard way.
> An aerial drone capable of materially damaging a modern navy ship costs $1-2M a piece. Anything much cheaper doesn't have the range, survivability, or required warhead to do much more than scratch the paint.
Problem isn't a single drone, it's the cost of intercepters. Iran could launch a swarm of 100s of drones with few antiship missiles mixed in to hone in at same time. CSG has to spend $million+ interceptors and will quickly run out of them. US hasn't taken anti drone defence seriously, or the cost of doing it seriously before going in.
As far as I know we have never seen that happen against a single target. I believe the reasons are operational not cost related. A single truck can fit like 5 shaheds. For 100 at the same target at the same time you need to coordinate 20 crews just to get them in the air all these drones need to be controlled to some degree as well. It's possible but we have not seen such an attack. We have seen hundreds of drones targeting hundreds of targets against an entire country. So it's definitely possible, but I wager it's harder than it sounds to send 100s of shaheds against a carrier strike group.
Shahed drones are very slow, and can thus be very easily distinguished from antiship missiles and can also be intercepted far befpre they reach the ships. You are thinking SM-2s. But the best way to deal with such a threat is a flight of f-18s with a bunch of laser guided rockets (like 50 or 70) and a targeting pod, intercepting the drones hundreds of miles from the target.
US has some laser system they don't talk about much. All that came out is it was used in el paso in friendly fire incident then the story seemed to be swept under the rug.
The cheap drones Iran makes get a GPS coordinate plugged into them and they fly there. Carriers rarely stay in the same place for long so they'd be effectively useless against them.
Fly thousands or tens of thousands of $400 drones at the carrier, Chinese light show style, while the carrier uses up all its anti-drone Defense ammunition.
Commander-In-Chief is not a career military post, it is an elected politician. Your barefaced assertion that he would have professional-level knowledge is resting on one an array of assumptions - that he has an interest in the details, that he respects and listens to professionals, that he has the attention span to read written briefings - that reporting indicated are false.
> this shift in carrier-based projection of power in the era of low-cost drones
Nothing in this war has suggested carriers are obsolete. A carrier that launches drones and fields an anti-drone strike group would be amazing. We don’t have that. (And even what we do have is great in the carrier department, it’s given us air parity to superiority from way offshore.)
If a carrier can launch fields of drones and missiles, then whatever land mass your attacking can launch more, given they obviously have a lot more space.
The change in dynamic here isn’t a function of carriers or their abilities. It’s a change in the cost of drones and missiles. The cost of a “good enough” drone and missile is now so low that opponents of the US can simply build the thing faster than the US can build and deliver them. In effect the technological advantage is that carriers represented for a long time has been completely neutralised.
> If a carrier can launch fields of drones and missiles, then whatever land mass your attacking can launch more
This is also true of airplanes. The point is you choose where you launch your drones from anywhere in the world.
> change in dynamic here isn’t a function of carriers or their abilities. It’s a change in the cost of drones and missiles
It's a return to battleship economics. Except instead of direct fire from and onto shores, you have indirect fire via drones. Unlike shells, however, we have anti-drone capabilities on the horizon.
It's silly to assume the current instability will persist for more than a few years. If the U.S. were paying any attention to Ukraine, it shouldn't have persisted until even now.
> the technological advantage is that carriers represented for a long time has been completely neutralised
Really not seeing the argument. Again, being able to build and launch and being able to field drones–alongside other weapons–is night and day. (Note that all of these arguments were made when missiles first dawned, too. Drones are, in many respects, a missile for area denial.)
The big lesson from the US/Israel war against Iran is that the power balance has shifted away from strike capability toward defense magazine depth.
You can't win with stand-off strike capability. You can't seize and control territory, you can't keep strategic choke-points open, you can't change regimes.
But you can definitely lose by spending two or three multi-million dollar air defense interceptors per incoming projectile that costs 10x to 100x less. Especially when your supply chain can only produce hundreds of interceptors per year and your adversary makes that many missiles per month and 10x that many drones per month.
> You can't win with stand-off strike capability. You can't seize and control territory, you can't keep strategic choke-points open, you can't change regimes
To be clear, there is zero historic evidence—going back to the Blitz—that strategic bombing has ever been able to do any of these things.
Except the one about choke points. That isn’t strategic. It’s tactical. And using artillery or airpower for shaping operations absolutely works.
> you can definitely lose by spending two or three multi-million dollar air defense interceptors per incoming projectile that costs 10x to 100x less
Agree. Fortunately, the MIC seems to have recognized this. None of it fundamentally changes the value of carriers. It just means they need to be defended differently from before. Sort of how you can’t sent lone carriers out into the ocean, they have to be escorted.
I agree with all of this except the notion that this is a recent change. Infantry being needed to seize and hold territory has been standard military doctrine around the world throughout history. Air power can tip the balance between opposing armies but has never been enough to settle a war alone. I'm confident that every person working in the Pentagon is aware of all this, aside from the SecDef.
I'm also not aware of a single case in history where a massive bombing campaign from a hostile country resulted in an immediate populist uprising and a regime change that favored that aggressor country. Having your city bombed for weeks on end tends to cause people to shelter where they can, worry solely about how they will survive the wreckage, and bond with their fellow citizens.
The fact that an air campaign and magical thinking was the complete game plan from trump and hegseth shows how utterly unqualified they are for the positions they have.
The real economics of battleships (and their precursor ships of the line) were:
Given expensive armaments (cannon), it is cheaper to concentrate these on a mobile platform that can geographically reposition itself than build / deploy / supply equivalent power everywhere, and the former allows for local overmatch.
Sufficiently cheap and powerful unmanned guided munitions (drones, cheap cruise/ballistic missiles, UAV/USV/UUVs) are a fundamentally different balance of power, especially with enough range.
What does make sense is a return to cheaper escort carriers, where the carrier should be as cheap as possible (preferably unmanned) as the platforms it hosts are no longer exquisite.
> This is also true of airplanes. The point is you choose where you launch your drones from anywhere in the world.
Not quite. It is hard to build an airplane, it is easy to build a drone. So if the battle comes to who is going to send more drones, then a big carrier will lose: it doesn't have a factory to build drones.
Both can be true - carriers and traditional air force are not obsolete but also western armies are unprepared to deal with the threat posed by a large number of cheap drones which can quickly deplete traditional air defense (based on SAM systems).
From what I see in news both the US and the UK are using expensive missiles to shut down Shahed drones and laser weapons are not mentioned at all - either they are too rare or not yet working reliably enough to risk letting a drone to get withing the range or laser weapons (which I assume is smaller than for missiles).
The news is outright wrong about that. Yes, as a last ditch measure patriots etc are used to shoot down leaker drones, but the primary weapon systems to take down the slow moving drones are APKWS rockets on fighters, and helicopter gunships using cannon fire.
There is definitely an argument to be made that even APKWS is too expensive due to the cost of flying a F16 per hour, but it’s not at the level of a few million dollar missile.
Obviously the US was in no way prepared for the Iranian response, but it’s not like zero development has happened in the last few years. It’s far too slow, but it’s deployed and in active use in combat. Hopefully this will be a wake up call that military procurement and domestic manufacturing needs to be wholesale reconfigured with breakneck speed. Doubtful though without much more pain felt directly by American citizens.
The US relies primarily on a weapon system called APKWS to shoot down drones. These guided missiles are cheaper than a Shahed. A single fighter jet can carry ~40 of them.
These weapons have been around since the early 2010s, they aren't new, and have been deployed in the Middle East for many years. They were literally designed for killing swarms of Shahed-style drones.
I dunno about what Israel is doing, but a ship usually has enough power to fire 1 or 2 lasers at a time. It takes 10s of seconds to destroy a drone, and each drone stays in range for 1 or 2 minutes.
Or, that is their advertised capabilities. Countries that buy them usually complain that they don't work as well on practice.
Well, assume the advertised capabilities are realistic. Assume it takes 15 seconds to destroy a drone, the drone stays in range for 2 minutes, and you can fire on 2 drones at a time.
You can destroy 16 drones every 2 minutes. If you get attacked by 50 drones, you'll get 16-20 of them. Did that help you?
If carriers would be designed for drones and missiles and guns instead of for manned aircraft, it is likely that it would be preferable to have a great number of small carriers, instead of a few vulnerable huge carriers.
The launch of drones and missiles could be completely automated and there would be no need for the complex maintenance of reusable airplanes, so such carriers would need only a much smaller crew.
Would it not be preferable to launch drones from less of a big target? The issue is that the carrier is clearly visible and targetable. You could go submersible or just spam much smaller ships with smaller payloads. In those cases you get the benefits of the same level of assault without the potential of a hugely expensive loss.
At a guess, I assume much of the scale of carriers is tied to the logistics of air power, which are considerably less relevant in drone warfare. Carriers will always remain useful for more accurate strikes and operating aircraft that work at higher altitudes, but this broadside idea of volume might work better on a platform that scales better instead of the huge and expensive carrier footprint.
Large aircraft are the cheapest and most scalable way to deliver a ton of explosive on target. That's why aircraft carriers exist. Everything else either is too expensive per unit of destruction or sacrifices too much lethality.
The size of the ship has little bearing on the visibility of it to sensors. You should also consider that it is much more difficult to sink a large ship than a small ship.
> Large aircraft are the cheapest and most scalable way to deliver a ton of explosive on target.
An important variable missing from your calculus is distance from munitions factory/supply depot. There are far cheaper and scalable ways to deliver tons of explosives if your supply lines are short, such as rail when you're defending your homeland. Carrier groups are both transport and FOBs
> You should also consider that it is much more difficult to sink a large ship than a small ship.
How did that turn out for the Russian Black Sea flagship, the Moskva?
sure but if we're simply delivering drones then it might be better to have 1,000 small platforms than one big one. You can then still use the carrier in its classical role from further back.
We can barely build FFGs, to say nothing of bigger drone carriers that would still be dwarfed by aircraft carriers.
So you'd say, OK, what drones can we launch from the tiny fiberglass-hulled small craft that we can build lots of, but the issue is that such drones will be very small and will necessarily have ineffectively small payloads to suit.
sure but America's ship building doesn't appear to be at the level of being able to cranking out carriers should they start losing them. Conversely I imagine it might have a better shot at cranking out a smaller blue print en-masse.
Lol carriers were already being overwhelmed by regular missiles, this now means a multi billion dollar ship can and will be destroyed by cheap drones if it's anywhere near its optimal deployment zone.
> carriers were already being overwhelmed by regular missiles
Where? When?
> if it's anywhere near its optimal deployment zone
What are you referring to? The entire modern carrier strike group is architected around using stand-off weapons to clear threats to make way for stand-in weapons. The relevant ranges are what your stand-in bombers can hit without re-fuelling versus with. The era of direct firing from ships passed ages ago–that doesn't make carriers less valuable, just changes their role.
Where? Any war games in the last 10 years. It’s a known issue with aircraft carriers agiants anti ship missiles. What’s protecting them right now is what would happen to a country if they attacked one of those. Retribution is not a great defensive capability in the long run.
Contrary to popular belief, an aircraft carrier does more than just launch airplane. Its optimal deployment zone will be defined by the range of its helicopters. So not as far as you think.
Take the helicopters out and you have easily 50% less missions this thing can launch per day.
> Did you ever hear the tragedy of USS Plagueis The Unsinkable?
The USS Plunkett? A destroyer, not a carrier, that sustained the best the Germans could throw at her and kept on going; earning 5 battle stars while participating in all the major allied invasions in europe. What part was the tragedy of her? That she was scrapped in 1975 instead of being turned into a museum?
You have any evidence for this? Because low cost drones can't fly very far, are easy to spot with radar, are slow as hell and can be shot down with cheap intercepters, or even lasers as the US is already deploying.
Traditional anti-shipping missiles are a bigger danger.
The optimal deployment zone is far off shore, and there its very hard to reach.
Is your point that you can put a huge carrier literally in the straits?
Also the standard Shahed-136 style drones carry less than 200 pounds of explosives, and deliver that to the surface of a target.
Antiship missiles carry larger warheads, often double the size, and deliver that warhead deep inside a warship where it is much more vulnerable. A shahed blowing up on a carrier deck will be upsetting but won't do much. With particularly egregious negligence of standard US Navy damage control methodology, you might cause a lot of damage by fire, like what happened to the Ford. Not that I'm suggesting it was hit by a Shahed.
You don't even need to say "lasers" : that's the future. CIWS is already a thing today and Ukrainians have downed Shaheds with ground fire from small arms.
There's a plethora of various low cost systems being developed for some defence, but the assumption I always see on HN and elsewhere is that for some reason cheap offensive drones will just never have a countermeasure...which isn't how any of this works (exhibit A: massed infantry assaults can sometimes work against emplaced machine guns, but in general the machine gun was the end of that tactic).
There is absolutely no reason that the current disruption drones are causing should lead to some sustained power imbalance: if you don't have the big laser today that's one thing, but if tomorrow you're scoring 100% intercept rates against the same threat then how cheap it is doesn't matter anymore. And there's no particular reason to think that won't be the case (if a cheap drone can be on the offensive, you'd have to present a very good case why the interceptor cannot be built in similar quantities at which point you're back to high end systems deciding the day).
You just need a radar controlled anti aircraft gun. Most militaries phased these out as they had been considered obsolete (dosn't help against e.g. modern fighter jets).
Sure, my point is just that lasers you can get the cost per 'kill' to literally a few $. So even the 'cheap drones are cheaper then other interceptor' argument doesn't work.
100% interception … drone interception is NP complete dude, there’s nothing you can do against 1000 drones like that, and they’ll get cheaper, faster, smaller, bigger, more manoeuvrable. So 10Million bucks to down an aircraft carrier. With 0 casualties to your side.
They're the only thing involved pretty much. The gulf nations have not allowed the US to launch from their bases in the region. Maybe that will change as they keep getting attacked but as of now the carriers (and now the base on Cyprus) are where the planes are coming from. The strategic bombers, prior to Cyprus, were taking off from the US and flying all the way to Iran and back.
> The gulf nations have not allowed the US to launch from their bases in the region.
This is a categorically false assertion that they have been putting to assuage their local populations - which are heavily opposed to the war and the US support. Maybe not all of them, but some of them, like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, are clearly hosting and allowing the US to prosecute the war from their soil. If they weren't, you wouldn't have had the AWACS aircraft getting turned to smithereens in Riyadh.
Doesn't matter. The internal messaging of the Gulf govts to their people initially was that "we're not hosting US forces, why is Iran attacking us??". Now that veneer is being peeled off.
The article is reflecting on the observed reality that US Navy operations in this war are taking Iran’s littoral combat power into account by operating its ships further from the Iranian coast…why can’t you imagine that they are operating this way under Trump?
sneaking weapons into some countries is harder than into others, making things that fly long distances gets exponentially harder as distance goes up linearly.
That's true, but when things get cheaper you can afford to lose a lot of them. Suddenly every container vessel is suspect. That trick has a lot of potential and harbors are relatively soft targets and easily accessible from just outside international waters. You could do a shitload of damage to most countries by just targeting a few key locations well within the reach of a basic drone and what sub $1000 drones can do is changing by the day.
Armor and artillery are basically useless against a fleet of seaborne drones.
you don't have to do a lot of damage to have a dramatic effect either. Imagine an airport near the coast, you don't have to destroy the airport but if one drone flattens the tires on one out of ever 50 planes on a runway the airport might as well be a smoldering crater. It's like a ddos attack and similar to what's happening in Iran today. All it takes is one drone to hit one tanker and a > 0% of it happening again and no one is sailing because their payload is uninsurable. In the same way, all it takes is one drone to disable one airliner and a credible threat it could happen again and no plane is taking off from that airport ever again.
Fair, it's not an aircraft carrier. But you can turn any container vessel into a cheap rough equivalent. Take the coastline, then maybe 30 km inland and see what installations you could reach. Pearl Harbor on a shoestring budget is a realistic threat now.
Keeping the strait of Hormuz open would be one of those functions, wouldn't it? Oh, wait...
Seriously, your question is borderline trolling, you know exactly which functions of a carrier group are and are not matched by drones flown from containers. The point is, in case it wasn't clear, that you can do a ton of destruction without necessarily opening yourself up to a counter attack, precisely the kind of advantage that parties that put carrier groups in distance places to project power tend to be looking for. The ability to destroy lots of stuff in a relatively short time without losing a lot of personnel or exposing yourself.
And that capability is now to a large extent available to states that before would not have been able to do meaningful damage to coastal cities and coastal infrastructure (think refineries and large scale shipping ports). And you can't even be sure that whoever operates the vessel is in on it.
It's not going to help you to stop China from invading Taiwan if they decide to. But it could put a very large dent in the economic capability of any country or bloc that came under a concerted attack. Also note that 'drone' is a pretty wide label that crosses over into what previously was territory reserved for cruise missiles and ICBMs for air power and on the water there are many developments as well.
So if you have to hide your carrier group at stand-off distance for fear of seeing it sunk then it is not all that different from that container full of drones. You can destroy stuff, and that's about it. And long term that just makes more enemies, it doesn't really solve anything.
This is just making the very common categorization error here: you're equating low performance drones, implied to be about DJI sized, with the performance of an F-35.
Now you're about to say "but I meant drones with better capability!" And they do exist: and they're no longer that cheap, nor compact because it turns out a drone with roughly the performance of an F-35 will need an airframe, engine and sensor suite...roughly as expensive as an F-35. And suddenly this is no longer a platform you can just crash into things. Nor will you be ordering them by the thousand. Nor do they fit in a cargo container.
I've seen the range of drones that is available and they are very impressive, the variety is precisely what makes them so powerful: you can adapt mix and match to whatever mission profile you have in mind and there most likely will be something that you can use unmodified. And if the task requires it modifications can be done on very short notice.
An F-35 is of course going to absolutely outclass any drone. But a hundred million (roughly) spent on drones is going to do more damage than that F-35 and is going to be more versatile.
The second that F-35 lands it is going to be at risk from a (low cost) drone attack. And some aicraft aren't even safe in the sky anymore:
Mix and match how? Your entire one-way arsenal is sitting in cargo containers off the coast of an enemy nation by definition within drone range.
At this point you've built a very slow, very short ranged undefended arsenal ship.
Your proposal is to put a large supply of systems closer to enemy forces and the you're implying that somehow this wouldn't be vulnerable to being attacked while landed?
Which is notably not going to be launching a drone the size of a even a Shahed, nor anything close to the same range.
It also cannot detect nor engage incoming air threats, like essentially every single in service submarine on the planet due to the whole "being underwater" thing.
> Keeping the strait of Hormuz open would be one of those functions, wouldn't it? Oh, wait...
Gottem! Not really though. I don't think anyone would claim a carrier group should be able to hold an adversary's coastal waters. Empty them from beyond visual range? Yes. Camp out in them? No.
That said, if and when Mango decides to land troops in Iran, the fleet will be an irreplaceable piece of that operation. That is global force projection.
> Seriously, your question is borderline trolling, you know exactly which functions of a carrier group are and are not matched by drones flown from containers.
I mean but it helps in coming to an understanding if you articulate them. Acknowledging them will suffice!
> The point is, in case it wasn't clear, that you can do a ton of destruction without necessarily opening yourself up to a counter attack
Agreed!
> So if you have to hide your carrier group at stand-off distance for fear of seeing it sunk then it is not all that different from that container full of drones. You can destroy stuff, and that's about it.
If I you can project power globally , but as soon as a human is put on the ground they're disintegrated by a 100 dollar drone, how important was your ability to get there?
This gives drones way too much credit. The USN knew that Iran could block the strait of Hormuz back in the 80s. Anti-ship missiles were already effective and plentiful enough to do it then and they’ve only gotten more lethal since. The long term solution here is to build pipelines that eliminate the need to sail up the strait. Why this wasn’t done already is beyond me.
Yes, but they are much cheaper and quicker to repair when damaged than large cargo ships are and they don't need crews, so with pipelines you don't face the situation you do with ships, where even a small chance of the ship being hit results in almost all companies deciding to not risk sending the ships into danger.
Pipelines would have to run through multiple countries, meaning you now not only have to share your income with someone else (transit fees etc) but it also means that you have to stay on good terms with these countries.
Well pipeline costs money and would be deeply provocative for Iran to lose this massive "kill the global economy" button they lord over today. They'd probably have their houthis or hezbollah try and sabotage construction until costs are too unaffordable relative to paying the bribe to IRGC to sail through freely.
"When whole squadrons of very long-range aircraft were operating out of bases in the Shetlands, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland (and, after mid-1943, the Azores), and when the Bay of Biscay could be patrolled all through the night by aircraft equipped with centimetric radar, Leigh Lights, depth charges, acoustic torpedoes, even rockets, Doenitz’s submarines knew no rest." [0]
[0] Kennedy, Paul. Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned The Tide in the Second World War, from the chapter 'How to Get Convoys Safely Across the Atlantic'
And not even British. For example most of the Enigma decryption was the genius work of a Polish man. Britain received the immigration of half the Nobel prices of the world in a couple years as the jews escaped nazism.
The original Bomba was the genius work of a Polish man, but was no use from 1938-1939 when the Enigma cipher was strengthened. At which point the Turing-Welchman Bombe was developed. The Battle of the Atlantic ran between 1939 and 1945.
For the much harder Lorenz cipher used by German High Command from 1940, the Colossus machine was developed by Tommy Flowers at the GPO and became operational in 1944.
None of which involved the US Navy, which was my original point.
The United States primary strategy against China, in the event of war around Taiwan or nearby, is the same:
China's coast is mostly enclosed by the 'First Island Chain', which extends from Japan to Taiwan, through the Philippines and Borneo (look up a map and the situation will be very clear). Imagine strings of islands along the US coasts controlled by Chinese allies and with Chinese and allied forces training intensively there.
The American plan is to keep the Chinese navy trapped (or under assault) along its own coast by putting Marines (and Army soldiers too, I think) on the islands with anti-ship missiles.
The northern tip of the Philippines is as close to Taiwan as the Chinese mainland is; the US and Philippines are conducting an essentially endless series of military exercises and the US is placing some of its most advanced missiles there.
Number 1 reason why I want to see the United States of America and its very loud citizens get a taste of humble pie in this self-inflicted crisis of idiocy with global ramifications.
Even when discussing a war that's obviously gone out of hand with no easy resolution in right, there's still this air, this attitude from American commenters that somehow the might and brilliance of the US military will prevail in the end and they can restore their position as leaders of the free world. Meanwhile the rest of the world has waited 50 years for this day.
Let me have a little schadenfreude with my €2.20+ litre of petrol.
> I want to see the United States of America and its very loud citizens get a taste of humble pie in this self-inflicted crisis of idiocy with global ramifications.
I sympathize with the sentiment even though I am American. The problem with this is that Americans are not a uniform cohort.
The people who deserve to eat humble pie in this scenario are neck deep in propaganda and their own inflated egos and will never learn any rational lesson from this despite how catastrophically it might go. The Americans who are paying attention and will understand the harm of this operation already know it's a fiasco and wish the country was doing anything but what it is doing.
> The people who deserve to eat humble pie in this scenario are neck deep in propaganda and their own inflated egos and will never learn any rational lesson from this
They will turn on someone or something they can blame.
a strong majority of the united states citizens are against the war, despite a full court propaganda press against the right and a no-kings distraction op against the left
It muddies the waters by focusing on divisive issues like immigration enforcement and de-emphasizing the war, preventing what could be a unified left-and-right antiwar movement.
Plain anti-war protests could draw significant support across the political spectrum, so divisive issues are inserted as wedges. Same thing that happened in the 60's, when the anti-war movement went from a coat-and-tie affair to a laurel canyon one.
So Indivisible, which planned the protest, knew the US was going to attack Iran months in advance and plotted this protest to distract from it? What strategic masterminds! What opsec! The left always seemed so fractious and disorganized, but they were just wily, biding their time. But, why?
Seriously, I'm sure you're smart enough to know this is absurd. Just sit down and think about it a bit.
If you think the No Kings movement is preventing a unified front against the war, you haven't been paying attention to the political discourse in the US since the rise of the Tea Party 15+ years ago.
Caring about others and wanting a fair, even handed and democratic government is not self-righteous you muppet. All you are doing is trying to justify your shitty ideals.
>Caring about others and wanting a fair, even handed and democratic government is not self-righteous you muppet
It's self-righteous to say they care about other people but want to help those people with other people's money, not their own. Statistically speaking leftists give far less to charity.
You'll notice it's about how it makes the poster feel.
Complaints against the right are usually about their actions, the terrible consequences and how they hurt people.
Complaints against the left are often how it makes the complainer feel, it's a mental struggle to not admit they like the result of right wing policies and not being able to embrace a left wing position despite knowing on some level that they should.
There is no anti-war movement on the right. The only time there is, is when a Right-winger is trying to win an election. Once said right winger inevitably starts a war, the pom poms come out.
Tucker Carlson is perhaps the most popular commentator on the right and has a significant following and he is adamantly anti-war.
There is a legitimate cross-ideology opportunity here that the war party (which spans both american political parties) is desperate to keep from materializing.
They don't even mention the country Iran or the war by name, because it's a DNC op and the DNC also supports war in Iran. They don't mention Israel or Gaza, because the main organizers and funders are Zionist. They have no concrete demands. It's a distraction, a release valve, controlled opposition.
The No Kings protests I saw were full of anti-war signs. I kinda assumed the whole protest was an anti-war protest primarily so I'm surprised to hear this take
It's an anti-Trump protest, so named because of how badly Trump wishes he was a king. The slogan (and organization, maybe?) dates back to at least the start of his current term.
Yes. I don't think that contradicts anything I said. It's the third major round in a series of protests and I believe this one was planned after Trump started a war against Iran. I don't think it's a stretch to say that opposition to war was a primary motivating factor for many that attended. I certainly would find that a reasonable conclusion from the signs I saw
Technically not contradictory, but it's pretty weird to call it an anti-war protest with no further qualification, when the overall emphasis, long term anyway, is clearly anti-Trump. Emphasis matters.
Every time someone criticises the USA for its atrocities and its ridiculous foreign policies I see this argument, that supposedly most people are supposedly against whatever bad thing is happening right now.
Yet, Americans elected Trump, twice even, and gave his party control over the other branches of government at the same time.
We'll see at the midterms how much the American populace really disagrees with what the government is doing.
This. Much of the most prevalent messaging on both the extreme left and the extreme right tends to be from other countries posing as Americans. It’s also difficult to even form opinions lately as the amount of lying by all outlets is nearly impossible to sift through. All we really know is that right, left, black, white, gay or straight, nobody is actually on our side anymore.
When I was a child, I was part of a team playing a game against a team which was stronger than us. Each player from one team had to take turns taking the attack to the opponent's team. Every player in our team put themselves forward thinking they can do better, only to be slapped down.
The current administration's approach is something similar. They think that because they have managed to take over American politics and do as they please in the US, they think they can do anything they want outside the US as well. Previous administrations had more awareness of their limitations - but I guess we are in the FA of the FAFO phase.
A war of what?
Do you really believe that states wage war because of "revenge"?
> Perhaps America isn't as dumb as you think
No, they are dumber.
If this presidency was in Europe - or any other 1st world country - it would have been obliterated immediately and the party wiped out in the next elections.
Some folks had to be in line for gas 50 years ago, and the revenge for that is killing children? I guess "dumb" doesn't describe this. "Insane" is a better fit.
Well, the US is still dependent on foreign heavy oil for their refineries as it mostly produces shale oil (for export). So it very much isn't independent even though it looks like it when you see the numbers.
Great, you can now help genocide defenseless children, and attack countries to cause massive disruptions to the rest of the world, without much worry. Sure great strategy to get HATED, as you should be.
One freedom denied to Americans is that we can not provide comfort to our enemies - this is punishable by death according our constitution, so we tend to err on unwavering support for our military always.
Many Americans may be absolutely against this horrible, barbaric, idiotic action in the Middle East, but they might wisely not want to talk about it.
So let me say "Thank you to all American troops for your service, God bless America. Our military is the only reason we have peace and freedom." - this is my official public opinion as an American and I would never have at least two witnesses catch me saying anything different.
I'm just going to throw some napkin pointers and rough guesstimate-arithmetics here.
-At the very minimum you would have to search and secure 130 000 square kilometers in a mountainous region, in a hostile country where you have no popular support, and where most of the male population has had somewhere around two years of military training. To be sure that Iranians couldn't lob anti-ship missiles into the strait, you'd probably need to double or triple that area.
-And that's because of anti-ship missiles, with distances ranging from few hundred kilometers to thousand or more. And only one missile needs to get through to cause a mass casualty event onboard of a warship involving hundreds of people.
So, assuming that troops get to the shore, then there's the slight peculiarity of modern warfighting. Drones. Cheap and plentiful, with FPV drones having the range varying from 30 to 60+km, you can be assured that visitors stay on shore or island(s) will be filled with plenty of activities such as listening to never ending buzzing of drones or trying to find cover from those drones. As good as US electronic warfare efforts might be, wire-guided FPV drones don't really care. So unless the US incursion is going to be anything but a short 30 minute visit to a largely meaningless Tump island we're probably going to be looking at hundreds of casualties if we are extremely lucky. If they really want to open and "secure" the Strait, I think we're going to be looking at Russo-Ukrainian war-tier butcher's bill.
And since that would be perfectly fine for Israel, I think that's exactly what we'll be getting. I hope I'm wrong though.
The US public discourse is so dehumanized today that anyone who is not "with them" is literally not a human anymore. Even within the country itself "the leftards" are considered an obstacle which can be removed if only enough force is applied.
Sending armed agents at protesters is seen as being the same thing as sending pest control to clear out beaver dams on the creek. Nobody cares what the beavers think, they are not human, they do not have feelings. They are simply a menace to be dealth with.
The supporters of imperialism all about nonviolent protest and democratic principles if it seems feasible it could bring about US foreign policy goals: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47111067
Or, if an anonymous and uncorroborated source claims tens of thousands of said protestors were allegedly massacred.
If it doesn't, and the strategy now involves blowing up desalinization plants ( https://apnews.com/article/trump-iran-threat-desalination-pl... ) and invoking a humanitarian crisis on the level of a nuclear catastrophe, well... then they're a bit less concerned about human rights.
There aren't a lot of alternatives - the amount of mass killing going on right now is unusually high. People can't spend all day frothing with moral outrage at the horror of it all. If something is routine there isn't much of an alternative than to discuss it as routine.
This article is actually unusually good, I wouldn't be surprised if the site was generally anti-war. It isn't unusual for the level of analysis to be "we're the in-group, we're morally right, they're the out-group, we can't imagine they're competent, lets kill them it'll be easy". The moment people start doing serious analysis they become well-armed pacifists. As a case study; this war is part of a trend of the US hurting itself in aid of ... nothing useful for the US. The only silver lining is I don't see the Trump presidency surviving this and that might be a lesson to the next guy about trying to start fights.
It’s really quite amazing how the US went in without seemingly an iota of planning beyond “kill ayatollah for regime change”, but at this rate we will see US regime change before Iranian.
It's really this simple. People seem so confused as to why this administration is doing this and why this administration is doing that, but it's clearly about personal enrichment of leaders. It's not some complex 5D chess game. If you want to know why Trump did this or why Hegseth did that or why Bondi did thus, just look at who placed bets, owns stock, owns companies, and/or will be personally enriched by the decision. That's all there is to it.
You can't. Iran only needs to be credible in their threats to make crossing the strait too risky. And for that you only need a few missiles, drones and mines every so often.
Asymetric warfare is a hell of a hole to dig oneself into, ain't it?
At the heart of this is the fact that America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale.
High tech interceptors and missiles and aircraft carriers are great, but with China's help these are outnumbered by three (soon to be four) orders of magnitude.
It's unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes, with not much in between.
Sorry, at the heart of this is that the Commander in Chief and Secretary of War are idiots. It's not clear how any of this situation would be any different if America had a dramatically higher production capacity.
Clausewitz would say they are the same: the stupid war is the continuation of stupid politics by other means. The objectives are unclear, which prevents them being achieved.
Correction: Hegseth is a crusader. He is a super zealous religious fanatic who very much wants to destroy as many Muslims as possible. He has a crusades tattoo and openly talks about killing heathens in his WEEKLY SERMON. He might be an idiot alcoholic, but he very much knows what he is doing.
I mean he's even not that great at his chosen profession which is a television news media personality, although I am sure he knows what he is apparently trying to do, in that regard.
One of the contracting things I turned down was someone who knew what they wanted to do was make Uber for aircraft.
I turned it down because they clearly didn't know enough about this goal to fill an elevator pitch, let alone a slide deck, and I think many of the current US Secretary of XYZ leaders are similarly unaware of how vast a chasm lay between what they wanted to do and a specific, measurable, realistic, and time-constrained plan to actually achieve anything.
English language ambiguity problem. "Knows what he is doing" has two potential meanings: it could mean competence, or it could mean clear intent. I think OP meant the latter.
> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America
I think the Ukranians are still unimpressed with the withdrawal of US support, especially from the shells which were being manufactured in the US (now moved to Rheinmetall), and the de-sanctioning of Russian oil: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2871wyz9ko
Not the stuff that matters (chips, electronics, metals, etc). We don't even have a primary lead smelter, which we would likely need if we got into a peer conflict.
It's also important to note that the US lacks the ability to quickly pivot and set up plants. Much of the knowledge to do so has been disappearing as employment in that sector has been steadily declining for decades. Sure we make stuff at scale using automation, but that automation can't be changed to significantly different stuff in a reasonable timeframe.
We suck at ultra-heavy industry that outputs commodities. We're great at light industry, or specialised heavy industry, which includes a lot of electronics. You're correct on inflexibility.
Yeah, even if we can produce them now, we don't have the pipeline to keep them running - steel for guns comes from other countries, we don't have a primary lead smelter in the country, medical devices that rely on electronics rely on foreign components, etc. The only reason pharma can operate here is because of the regulations, and even then many components chemicals are sourced internationally.
Worked as a chemical systems technician for a bit. Can confirm, lots of the chemicals we used (most, some of which were pharma grade but we weren't pharma), had to come from either China or Germany. And we really did try to source as much in the US as possible. So it wasn't even a question of cost, it was simply no one here wanted to make what we needed.
Now granted, I'm not naive enough to think we should be able to be self-sufficient and manufacture everything ourselves. I think it is fine to import stuff. My bigger concern is, for some things, there just isn't a lot of options. I think its fine to buy some of the raw materials from Germany and China, but I'd also like to see a few more countries that they could be bought from.
A quarter of steel used in the U.S. is imported, and of that quarter, 40% comes from Mexico and Canada; very little comes from China[0]. So, not only does your point fall flat, the people we get steel from are our neighbors so it'd make sense to not sour with relationships with them like the current admin is doing with chaotic trade policy and invasion threats.
I really don't understand the FUD around US manufacturing capability, you'd essentially need to craft the greatest conspiracy ever to think that every politician, defense agency, intelligence agency, etc. is asleep at the wheel to not recognize this supposed threat and do nothing about it.
China ships a rather large amount of stuff to these countries to take advantage of the trade agreements. So much that you can find satellite images of large yards in Mexico that are used for this purpose with barely any effort.
Okay, let's assume most of their steel is Chinese (I have my doubts because, yet again, more conspiracies), we only import a quarter of the steel we use. That would hurt losing it overnight, sure, but we wouldn't be absolutely toast like the autarkists are saying.
These takes are much more doomer than I'm willing to bet the supporters of "bring everything back" realize. Do you have no faith in the US economy / populace adapting to a hypothetical all out war with China?
Personally I have little to no faith in the adaptability of the US workforce for such things. It would be a generational shift. Exceedingly few people even have basic mechanical skills these days.
It’s not like WWII where you have a majority population that works on the farm or in a factory with their hands, and at home fixing stuff that breaks. That sort of population can be rapidly redeployed. We would need to start from the basics like “how to turn a screwdriver” for a huge portion of the workforce.
When you really start looking into things, nearly everything points back to China at some point. Pharmaceuticals? The APIs or at least important precursors largely originate there - even if they hit a middleman country first. Then you get into basic components and it’s the same story. That part from India or Mexico might not be available without China as a backstop.
It’s not an impossible problem, but it’s a problem that took decades and a generation or two to destroy. It’s far easier and quicker to destroy things than build them.
Have you heard about the great toilet paper scarcity of 2020 during covid? and facemasks? US couldn't make either toilet paper or facemasks or ventilators or build hospital beds or anything that matters when the entire economy was at risk of shutdown.
Maybe this video of a rather famous YouTuber trying to manufacture something as simple as a grill scrubber with a US supply chain would help you understand how bad it is?
One thing that struck me is seeing his months long struggle, where the only injection mold designer he could find was near retirement age and wouldn't be doing it for too much longer, the tool & die expert he talked to died between when he interviewed him and when he made the video, he had to deal with suppliers lying about where their parts came from, and some American suppliers could only provide low quantities without him paying to upgrade their tooling. Then there's a comment from someone in China saying that over there, he'd be able to bring his product to mass production in about 5 days in whatever quantity he wanted, and at a higher quality (more corrosion resistant metal, more durable silicone, etc).
I agree the situation is dire, but do not underestimate the US government’s ability to spend its way to gain a desired result. The first time a bullet hits US soil there will be 50 million people falling over themselves to manufacture shoes by hand if it helps “kill the bad guys”
I saw hints of this ~20 years ago. I was working on software for a consumer device. For manufacturing it, we chose Foxconn. One non-negotiable point from their end was that they had to write some of the software on the device. They didn't care which part or how small.
The device had a physical keyboard with a micocontroller that managed it and they ended up writing the code that ran on that micro as it was largely independent of the code we were writing, and easy for us to test. The first versions were not great, but they got better quickly.
As we talked amongst ourselves about why they were so emphatic about this, it became clear to us that they were taking a long term view of the importance of moving into the intellectual property side of things. Dustin points out that, in some areas, they are there.
There are multiple interesting bits, worth watching the whole thing at some point.
Something that stuck with me was that dude had an uncle that worked at a bolt factory down the road, and now there is literally no way to source domestically made bolts. And that they could find one retired guy after scouring multiple states who could help make an injection mold. I'm sure some of the larger defense contractors have a few guys who can do this, but that makes for a pretty low bus factor.
> Something that stuck with me was that dude had an uncle that worked at a bolt factory down the road, and now there is literally no way to source domestically made bolts.
US manufactured fasteners are available*, the Build America, Buy America Act created a market for them. You’re not going to find them at Home Depot or your local hardware store, professional supply houses will sell them to you.
Waivers are available if no US supplier is available, but there usually is a US supplier.
I assume bolt manufacturing is automated to the point where you load up a CNC machine with steel hex stock and get boxes of bolts on the other end, there’s not a ton of labor involved. The machine cuts the hex stock to length, then removes material to create a cylindrical shaft and then threads are cut.
* By US manufactured, I mean ‘compliant with BABAA requirements’, which is something like 55% of the materials and manufactured here.
That talks about how they couldn't find someone US side to make the injection moulding moulds. We used to have a manufacturing business in the UK and got quotes for some moulds in the 1980s. You could get it done in the UK but the cost to get it from China was 1/5 as much. I guess people just went with the cheaper option.
You can still get molds made in the USA, but they are indeed much more expensive than an equivalent one made in PRoC, and options/expertise are often more limited or specialized (depending on how you look at it). It is very difficult, but not impossible to make consumer products in the USA.
I’ve had them made and run in Canada (as well as the PRoC), and I’m speaking from experience. Getting molds made is not really something you'd do as an exercise, unless you've got a lot of time and money sitting around. A small mold might cost $20-30k in North America, or $5-10k in PRoC, and you need to run at least a few hundred parts (additional cost) to get any idea of the issues it might have.
Depends on the specific product, the mold maker, and the plastic injection facility. In general, it seems like North America is able to produce the regulated products (i.e. medical & military) at a high quality level, but with some limits as to the specific media (plastic types), colors, and tool designs, and at a high cost. PRoC has a wide spread of providers, and quality is not well-correlated with price, so it really depends on who you know, but you can get very good parts of all types at very appealing prices, but communication is terrible, delays are common, and quality can drop sharply from one run to another.
Overall, I've mostly given up on North American producers because I do pro-sumer products, and they're too expensive and inflexible for me, but we're also fairly low-volume, so it may just be that I don't haven't had access to the right providers.
I doubt that. If American soil was threatened I think you would see a mass mobilization. People like living in America and they won’t give it up easily. I know I would join. See how long Ukraine has lasted with far fewer resources.
Americans are fat and happy now but we are not always this way.
We (the US) probably spend too much per munition and do not have manufacturing capacity like China. We're not helpless, but i dont get the sense we have plenty of stock either. Both are problems.
(1) In this back and forth I'm surprised mines in the straight are not mentioned.
(2) im having difficulty seeing how cheap drones incapacitates a carrier. They are there to project force well into enemy territory for precise strikes. The carrier can be some distance from the shore. Now, the question turns to strike what? Surely drone manufacturing plants and barracks would have to be on list or ... they'd be less effective.
(3) if drones are sub-mach speeds why not shoot down with a glorified gattleling gun as opposed to expensive missiles or lasers?
The US is responsible for over 10% of world manufacturing, putting them in second place of all countries (after China).
>When people claim that America is losing manufacturing jobs
That percentage goes down every year due to reduced manufacturing but also jobs are lost to high-tech automation in manufacturing. But it's still a buttload.
The US is not an ally of Ukraine, it sees Ukraine as a nuisance that should have rolled over long ago but somehow refuses to and because the US still needs Europe for a bit longer (but maybe not that much longer) they're still playing ball as long as Europe pays (as it should, but that's besides the point).
Allies come to each others aid, the US has all but abandoned Ukraine after Trump came to power and did far less than it could have done early on. Why you would expect Ukraine to be generous after the numerous put downs and actions that were clearly organized to benefit Putin is a mystery to me.
This sentiment is very popular in Europe. From the perspective of the American, it's like, help was offered for 90% of the time in the Ukraine conflict, then we took a break and suddenly we are more an enemy than China. From my point of view, the pushing away is not one-sided like Europeans like to portray, but has been mutual for awhile.
I think when you start to threaten your former allies by wanting to attack/invade them you probably should be dinged in the trust department for that.
The same goes for when you try to strongarm a country into fabricating evidence to shore up your lies.
The USA was an ally in 1945 and has since steadily eroded that. In 2001 they briefly regained a lot of sympathy but squandered it just as fast and now we're at low tide. And I wonder how much lower it will go before people with common sense will be back at the helm and reparation of the relationship can begin, but I don't expect the aftershocks of this to be gone quickly.
And no, help was not offered '90% of the time'. Most of the time it was just business in disguise, altruism did not factor into it as far as I can see.
I would suggest that China are currently a more reliable partner than the US because of their predictability, given that I cannot be sure whether or not this statement alone might result in a change of tariffs for my nation at the whim of America's king. I'm still looking for congress in all of this (did they ever even approve this war in Iran?!?) but idk if the republic is a thing anymore or not.
Yeah I can see that. The other poster is right about it being multi-faceted. My question is intentionally somewhat provocative. It forces someone to pick between two bad options, and I always gain respect for people who decide to pick one instead of intentionally avoiding it and just saying "oh they're both bad, idk".
hopefully this will all start to settle down around the end of this year if congress gets its teeth back and hopefully by the end of 2028. If it doesn't.... well then I despair, as the world I once knew is over.
Already within the subreddits of my nation there is an increasingly dismissive attitude to the historic alliances that kept us safe for around the last hundred years and I can't blame them. Especially if Hormuz remains blocked and the US just walks away leaving this pile of sick of its own creation on the floor. I imagine a new rather loose coalition might rise of such a status quo and its possible that China becomes a major player in that, given its likely desire as a major manufacturer to keep trade open and shipping flowing, which is the opposite of what the US has been doing since 2025.
> It forces someone to pick between two bad options, and I always gain respect for people who decide to pick one instead of intentionally avoiding it
IDK, if someone sees that a question is bullshit and refuses to play along with it, you lose respect for them? This is not a heuristic that will help you in life.
Both China and the USA have made many moves that benefit Putin. I would say neither party is a friend of Ukraine. China plays its own long games and the USA is being run by madmen. Why do I have to prefer one over the other? I don't like the way either is behaving on the world stage, and each for different reasons.
>Why do I have to prefer one over the other? I don't like the way either is behaving on the world stage, and each for different reasons.
This is the perfect encapsulation of what I mean in my original response to you. This IS the popular European sentiment. And this is what is off-putting to many Americans. The weight of China and the US is not even worth preference, despite the US having contributed positively to the Ukrainian conflict and European defense. We are not even WORTHY of being placed above China, we're either just as bad or worse is the typical response I see.
You seem to be completely out of touch with the way the USA has been behaving towards the EU as of late, maybe get with the times and then report back.
Last I checked China hasn't threatened to take over either Canada or Greenland, has not started any major wars for which they expect the EU to pay for cleaning up their mess, has reasonably sane leadership and on top of that has been a fairly trustworthy business partner that does not engage in whim driven economic warfare. They also have a bunch of very dark sides that I am going to assume we are all familiar with.
I really wonder why you think that the USA should be given a free pass for what it has done in the last decade.
And that's before we get into human rights issues and other 'details'. Comparing yourself to China is not the flex you think it is.
Your bio says that "Farming negative karma is not trolling when you're expressing your honest views." and that's all fine, you have a right to your honest views but if they're indistinguishable from trolling to the point that you feel you need to pre-empt that classification then maybe HN is not the place for you?
I think that one of the reasons for this "popular European sentiment" is the purely emotional one - it's emotionally more affecting when someone who was a close friend starts behaving badly towards you, than when someone who was a colleague with no close relationship remains thus.
The the popular European sentiment is understandable and IMHO correct though. Saying "it's off-putting" is no in way a coherent argument that it's wrong.
Europe has oil crisis right now because of an illegal war USA started, not because of China. Also, China did not locked accounts of international court justices, it was USA.
One of these two countries is an unpredictable threat and danger right now. The other is predictable threat in the future.
> This IS the popular European sentiment. And this is what is off-putting to many Americans.
You're not saying that it's wrong though. Just that you don't like it. So what, that means nothing. It's not wrong. Rejecting reality because it's "off-putting" will not help you.
The reply chain got too long so I will respond here.
>You seem to be completely out of touch with the way the USA has been behaving towards the EU as of late, maybe get with the times and then report back.
Last I checked China hasn't threatened to take over either Canada or Greenland, has not started any major wars for which they expect the EU to pay for cleaning up their mess, has reasonably sane leadership and on top of that has been a fairly trustworthy business partner that does not engage in whim driven economic warfare. They also have a bunch of very dark sides that I am going to assume we are all familiar with.
I'm aware of everything you've said. What I've noticed is Europeans just like to bash on the US given any reason. My original point is (proven by the exact quote of your words) that this type of European sentiment is accelerating a two-sided voluntary parting. Nothing much more than that. I am not defending the US's actions.
>Comparing yourself to China is not the flex you think it is.
Once again you are proving my point. Europeans are typically not willing to place the US above China. Any attempt to get them to do so will provoke this type of response.
>Your bio says that "Farming negative karma is not trolling when you're expressing your honest views." and that's all fine, you have a right to your honest views but if they're indistinguishable from trolling to the point that you feel you need to pre-empt that classification then maybe HN is not the place for you?
Calling me a troll is just an attack on me and not my argument. That's ok though, no offense taken. The bio is provocation for people who dig into people's profiles. I don't like to do that. I just take the person's posts as is.
> Europeans are typically not willing to place the US above China.
This is not a scalar, it is a multi-dimensional array with tons of values that all individually can be ranked. One some of these the USA is better than China on others it is definitely not. You may want to collapse that all to a single 'but we're better' picture but that is just not how the world works.
> The bio is provocation for people who dig into people's profiles. I don't like to do that. I just take the person's posts as is.
And that's not true either because you clearly checked my account upthread to link it to Europe.
>This is not a scalar, it is a multi-dimensional array with tons of values that all individually can be ranked. One some of these the USA is better than China on others it is definitely not. You may want to collapse that all to a single 'but we're better' picture but that is just not how the world works.
This is correct... and like I said the common European sentiment. I think we've exhausted this dialogue. We're restating the same things in more words.
>And that's not true either because you clearly checked my account upthread to link it to Europe.
Your post I originally responded to says "Should have worn a suit." and also mentions Europe and Ukraine. That's basically the entire context of our back and forth. If you have many other posts about the US and Europe's relationship... well I have no knowledge of those posts.
> This is correct... and like I said the common European sentiment
It's actually the common *global* "sentiment", in that it is the natural conclusion of any rational actor regardless of location, and also in that most of the world feels this way.
Europe has nothing to do with it – all the countries being slighted by the USA, including non-European ones, are coming to grips with the same conclusion: the USA can no longer be relied upon*.
Let's not extend this beyond the European opinion, especially since it's obvious that East Asia does not share the same point of view. East Asia and Europe have very different threats that shape their opinion of the US fundamentally. Europe does not have China breathing down their neck, and with Russia bogged down they have even less to worry about. Europe can freely reject the US, which is what this chain of comments is about, the popular European sentiment. In contrast, if there's anti-US sentiment in Taiwan, it would be in a minority and publicly disagreed with as their nation's existence hinges on positive US sentiment. To a lesser degree, the same thing in other East Asian countries.
> Let's not extend this beyond the European opinion
Too late! You already did!
> it's obvious that East Asia does not share the same point of view
It's quite obvious that East Asia, and any other regions containing a country being slighted by the US, does share that point of view: that the US can no longer be relied upon. Countries around the world are diversifying their investments of time, effort, and favor, away from the USA.
This clearly surprises you. It is indeed shocking: that's how far the USA has fallen, *globally*, in only a year or so.
> In contrast, if there's anti-US sentiment in Taiwan
Nobody said anything about "anti-US". We're simply talking about trusting that a country can be relied upon [0]. After seeing USA's behavior over the last year, Taiwan is understandably increasingly concerned that the US cannot be relied upon to defend against a Chinese invasion.
And they're right! Based on the track record of the USA's ruler, they can expect:
1. To be coerced into falsifying information to help the ruler's political campaign, and/or
2. To be told to pay for the help (possibly by allowing the USA to annex some territory), making it not help, but a basic transaction, and/or
3. To be told they would be helped, but then left high and dry when the time comes to help, and/or
4. For the USA to themselves start a war between China and Taiwan, to distract from media coverage of said ruler's involvement with a human-trafficking/child-sex ring.
All of these things have already been done by the ruler. We can reasonably expect him to do them again.
> which is what this chain of comments is about, the popular European sentiment
Again, it's the common *global* sentiment. You are the only one seeming to claim it is limited to Europeans, which is an incorrect claim. Beyond that, are you simply observing that the common European sentiment over the last year (negative) reflects the common global sentiment over the last year (negative), or was there a deeper point?
>This clearly surprises you. It is indeed shocking: that's how far the USA has fallen, globally, in only a year or so.
No, I'm the one who brought up this topic of how Europeans have an increasing unpopular opinion about the US. How is this surprising to me? I literally brought it up. The reason I don't consider East Asia relevant, is because East Asia and Europe do not have the same existential issues. East Asia's dependency on the US is far greater than Europe, and from East Asia's political point of view, Europe may as well not exist at all. Its primary political relations are with the US, SEA, and China. European sentiment about the US holds no relevance there, as it is not Europe, and they are not Europeans. This may surprise you, but the world does not revolve around European sentiment.
> No, I'm the one who brought up this topic of how Europeans have an increasing unpopular opinion about the US
This may surprise you, but the world does not revolve around European sentiment. It should be no surprise, however, that a significant sample (Europe) of a population (the world) has a similar mean to that same population. And that's precisely what we see here: European trust in the USA is eroding, just like East Asia's trust in the USA is eroding, just like global trust in the USA is eroding.
> East Asia's dependency on the US is far greater than Europe
And yet, they still have lost trust in the US. Let that sink in.
> if there's anti-US sentiment in Taiwan
There is!
> it would be in a minority
It isn't!
> their nation's existence hinges on positive US sentiment
Their nation's existence actually hinges on the daily positive vibes of one greedy senile narcissist, which is part of why they have lost trust in the USA.
The world, including both Europe and East Asia, has an increasingly unpopular opinion about the USA. Are you simply observing that the common European sentiment over the last year (negative) reflects the common global sentiment over the last year (negative), or was there a deeper point?
The other poster mentioned the opinions about the US and China being multi-faceted, I like to see it with vectors. My question is, given all the vectors, can you provide an average magnitude and average direction of the vector? If the average vector points left the opinion favors China, if it points right the opinion favors the US.
The American point of view is, yes we did make a claim towards Greenland which is European territory, but we also helped with European security. These are two separate vectors, right? Now average them. And plot China's vectors. I imagine the vectors China produces is much lower in magnitude, and as such provokes a lower emotional response in terms of opinions.
> My question is, given all the vectors, can you provide an average magnitude and average direction of the vector?
It's an interesting question! Since you seem to have your finger on the pulse of Europeans, I'll toss it back your way to answer (with data, of course).
> yes we did make a claim towards Greenland which is European territory, but we also helped with European security.
"Yes, we did threaten to invade a sovereign European country for territorial conquest, but we also did good things in the past" is really weak. How has the US helped Europe's security over the last year?
Most of the work in that direction over several decades is being intentionally destroyed as of late by the USA's ruler as a signature policy position of his. We all understand that past performance is not a guarantee of future results, right? What happened recently outweighs what happened previously.
I make a distinction between the US and the Biden and Trump administrations. Biden was incompetent and timid, Trump is a greedy megalomaniac. The key problem is that the US system elected either of them. Both have savaged US interests in the name of putting America first, while actually acting for small vested interests, like cronies and the Israel lobby.
Pretending America has been a strong ally is foolish. The Biden policy yo-yo has resulted in thousands of dead Ukrainians, while Trump has actively sided with Russia in negotiations and cut off meaningful aid. But Ukraine is now essential for NATO security. It is fortunate they see EU membership as their future, because a Russia or China aligned Ukraine would be a huge problem.
America did not just "took break". It actively took Russian side in negotiations trying to make all the Russian wishes to happen. And now, after Europe bought missiles for Ukraine, USA is sending them to Iran despite them already being paid. And is easing sanctions on Russia.
Also, threatening Greenland was not just "taking a break". Lying about what allies did in Iraq and Afghanistan was not just "taking a break". Insulting Europe, quite grossly, was not just "taking a break". And tariffs were not just "taking a break" either.
For that matter, trying to make Europe more fascists is not "taking a break", it is "meddling in".
They have a working operational system and battle tested tactics, not only procurement.
It's not the rifle that distinguishes the special forces, but how it's used.
They built a network centric warefare with starlink and cheap android tablets down to the drone teams in the field.
They built a network of cheap acousting sensors (old phones) as passive sensors and using ML models to find the drones cheaply and increase the coverage. (Radars are expensive and easy to hit because they emit).
What they achieved is a "sensor fusion like" distributed system buid on cheap components and updated realtime. And all this is battle tested in the new environment of transparent battlefield (there is always a drone looking).
Also a lot of real-life electronic warfare stuff and drone applications.
This is what's missing in the US army. They are optimized for a symetrical 20th century warfare.
UKR = entire country of +40m is on the battlefront so they can do total war mobilized homefront distributed system... so can Iran. But it's very different for force projecting security guarantor US - can't convince paying protectorates to pivot total war defense posture in peacetime, that's what they bribe US not to do.
And ultimately whatever model of distributed lethality / survivability (which US planning foresaw) is less relevant that US global commitments requires high end hardware that has to be rotated / propositioned selectively, and sustainable only in limited numbers vs adversaries mobilized on total war.
But the fundamental problem is US adversaries are catching up on precision strike complex. Iran isn't asymmetric warfare, but restoration of symmetry. It's not so much US getting weaker as adversaries getting stronger, and without monopoly over mass precision strike (which naval / air superiority / supremacy is only delivery platform), US expeditionary mode simply on the losing side of many local attrition scenarios. Ultimately all US adversaries will gain commoditized local precision strike (even deadlier if bundled with high end ISR), at varying scales due to proliferation requiring persistence across global theatres US simply doesn't have numbers/logistics for.
TLDR: US expeditionary model is bunch of goons with rifles in trucks, driving around neighbourhood where everyone had knives that could not get in range. The second everyone else buys guns, then rifles, the expeditionary model breaks.
I think the majority of Americans are on Ukraine's side but of course the president has other ideas. The UK has some Ukranian drone manufacturing going on https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0dvjwygk1o
> I think the majority of Americans are on Ukraine's side but of course the president has other ideas.
I think that it's understood that when we use shorthand such as "US is not supporting Ukraine" that it is the respective governments that we are discussing. The point about the "majority of Americans" is true enough (though you might say that the majority of Americans care about the price of gasoline and groceries and little else politically) but it is rather irrelevant if the administration does the opposite.
In other words, "thoughts and prayers from people" is not enough to make you an ally. Money and policy is the real thing.
Yeah though most of the US government excluding Trump is pro Ukraine. Biden at least gave some weapons and Lindsey Graham pushed a tough sanctions package which was working quite well until stopped due to the Iran invasion.
>We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.
The soviet union collapsed as a result of military overspending and massive supply chain corruption in an attempt to keep up with an opponent with lower levels of corruption and a far more powerful industrial base.
Which is to say, inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons while showering them with cash would signal that that Christmas came early for Putin.
Reality of course is the other way around: the US defense industry gets to build gold toilets (for the White House ballroom built on the ruins of the East Wing), while the Ukranians absolutely must build stuff that works and is cheap or they get a missile on their heads.
The US survived spending a trillion dollars to achieve very little in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm sure they'll survive spending another trillion over a decade to achieve nothing in Iran other than hundreds of thousands dead.
The reality is that most of the Ukrainian leadership is like Timur Mindich - furiously stashing away cash for the day when they inevitably have to flee to the west like he did. For now they are generally safe in Ukraine as Russia avoids bombing leadership centers for strategic reasons.
The west tolerates nearly all of the corruption in Ukraine but keeps tight control of two political organs in Ukraine - NABU and SAPO.
These "anti corruption agencies" will mostly hear and see no evil until a politican in Ukraine deviates from western foreign policy goals. Then they "discover" how corrupt this one individual turned out to be and crack down on them until everybody is once again on the same page.
Twice they have threatened Zelensky (once when he tried to bring the agencies under his direct control) and twice he has backed down.
It's not about steamrolling, never was. The whole point of the exercise was to install a puppet government. In Ukraine, the TV actor installed by the Biden administration is currently the acting president. The moment funding runs out - so will he.
Being steamrolled requires Russia have the logistics to drive a steamroller more than a hundred yards. There is a reason it was intended to be a three day war.
Bombing a school is unconscionable but its a shadow of Russia's crimes in Ukraine.
Surely, Ukraine being such an awefully corrupt country, Putin was easily able to bribe his way to Kyiv and take it in three short days. Oh, wait... maybe someone is spewing russian propaganda here?
> inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons
Ukraine is a massive weapons manufacturer. It's a small country holding Russia's entire military-industrial complex at bay. We have a lot to learn from them, even if it's just tactics and industrial organisation. And those lessons don't only apply to fighting pisspot dictatorships like Putin's.
What would you manufacture at scale that would open the straits?
If you had an interceptor with a 99% rate of interception (even in such a tight space, and assuming it could intercept underwater as effectively as in air) then if the Iranians fired 50 drones at a ship, they’d have a about a 40% chance of getting at least 1 through (1 - 0.99^50).
So they would likely sink 4 in every 10. No sane insurer let alone captain or crew would take such a risk I think.
This is the issue with interceptors, you need phenomenally high reliability AND very large numbers AND very cheap prices per unit to make them workable.
As it is, I would argue this is a classic example of America trying to solve a POLITICAL problem with MILITARY force. This has never actually succeeded as far as I know. Certainly not on the last few decades.
is china helping ukraine also? The real "force multiplier" is basically the same as it was 100 years ago: fancy advanced tech works great to clear large, unoccupied spaces with no terrain costs; it still won't go into a jungle, climbmountains or fight in the streats.
Whats compounding existing reality, is how cheap it is to use commercial tech from any of these manufacturing hubs, china included, and turn it into a small but persistent offensive weapon.
So now Americas got billions of dollars worth of ammo up agains millions of dollars worth of fodder, and that won't clear the way to controlling a large, well defended plot of land.
America's leaders are drunk and high on their own propaganda, even while Ukraine has demonstrated just how useless the old, bulky and costly tech is.
As someone says, don’t interrupt a rival when they are making a mistake. China can gain quite a lot by just waiting on the side lines, contributing as much as they can get away with while still looking reasonable (which is quite easy, when the other protagonists are Putin, Trump, or Khamenei jr).
Irrespective of the political leadership, it's unlikely that USA military is completely oblivious about the new modes of wars - cheap drones, AI, rapid build-outs (e.g. in China). On the contrary, they are likely deeply aware of it. That being said, it is also likely true that USA has become more bureaucratic and there is a high chance of deer-in-headlights situation. USA remains the shining city on the hill, though probably not for long, unless we pull up socks and innovate, work, work, work and build, build and build.
There's no shortage of national security and military analysis talent in the US. There is a gigantic shortage of intestinal fortitude in the politicians.
The Army tried reducing the sizeof their tank force, and had to back down after screams from Congress because it would have meant job losses in some representative's district. The US poured money into the strike fighter and littoral ship projects, despite the brass telling them it was the wrong approach. And so on. (I suspect this is one reason why Anduril have been successful, since they have fewer sacred cows that must be fed.)
Now we are in a timeline where the top brass are being ejected unless they toe the Party line. I am not optimistic that this will lead to better outcomes in terms of our ability to win against adversaries.
Ultimately, it's an internal battle. A battle of bureaucracy+ignorance vs democracy+optimism+innovation. The side that weighs more wins. And the adversaries are hoping it's the former.
Sorry, are you suggesting that the US top brass wants less of something, but the politicians won't let them? That the US top brass would reform and modernize the military if only politicians wouldn't get in the way? Is this April Fools?
No,I'm not suggesting that at all. Some of the brass love spending the taxpayers money on new toys. I'm saying that one control mechanism for them not being able to do that, namely, an effective Congress, is totally AWOL and captured in that regard. And re: the policy/planning types that work with them, the good ones have been defenestrated in the last 15 months or are not in a position to do anything like their best work if there is any risk it will differ from the administration's preconceived worldview.
Brightest minds of US were too focused on displaying ads and making teenagers addicted to tik tokies-like stuff instead of working security, defense, etc
You couldve seen anti militsry industry sentiment on HN for years, which apparently worked for US adversaries, who knows who was behind that propaganda :)
The US no longer uses its army for defense. Nobody in their immediate region dares attack them, they're too powerful ("Godzilla", in the words of John Mearsheimer). All the wars that the US has fought since WWII are nothing to do with defense. Just look at the Wikipedia article on "power projection":
The leader image is ... a US aircraft carrier (the USS Nimitz). That's what the US uses its military power for, to influence events in lands far, far away from its territory.
But, now, tell me which one of the many wars that the US has fought in after WWII did not end in disaster. Afghanistan? Iraq? Korea?
There was a meme doing the rounds the other day: "Name a character who can defeat Captain America". The answer being "Captain Vietnam". The US has faced humiliating defeat after humiliating defeat while bringing death and destruction and immeasurable misery to millions around the world.
That is what HN users seem to have an "anti" sentiment for. If you watch the news you'll be able to tell that this goes far beyond HN. The whole of US society seems to be extremely tired with those "forever wars", those senseless excursions to faraway lands, that not only do not secure US interests but turn world opinion more and more against the US. Even the US' closest allies now fear the US: vide Greenland. Anyone with more than a video game or comic book understanding of how the real world works would do well to be concerned.
Edit: also from EU, btw. Greek but living in the UK.
>The whole of US society seems to be extremely tired with those "forever wars",
This is the main thing I would disagree with, as an American who rubs elbows with conservatives quite a bit.
A large amount of Republican and conservative Americans want war. They're primed for a war they haven't had this generation. There are a lot of relatively young conservatives who are eager for war. A weird number of Republicans don't think we lost Iraq or Afghanistan, or a few other wars, so they aren't tired of it yet.
Like 15-25% of Americans also believe in some form of the end times prophecy involving Israel. I'm not kidding about this. The number really is that high. A lot might not openly state that they believe in it, but they were raised under a religious teaching that says it will happen. Hegseth, literally, has a crusades tattoo and openly talks about eradicating Muslims on his weekly or monthly sermon.
But yes a majority of americans, like 60%, are extremely tired of ongoing wars. But I can also drive to towns in the western US where trump still has majority support and they will openly say they support the Iran war. America is really polarized and a lot of conservatives only talk about this stuff to family now.
I grew up super rural and have to deal/work with very religious conservative Americans often enough. There are a lot more of them than people think. They've just learned to self-segregate and keep to themselves and say things a certain way.
Yeah, I’m sure you are giving a very charitable interpretation of those conservatives. As far as you talking about a percentage of Americans “believing in some kind of end times,” do you have that same derision for Arabs that the Quran is true? I imagine not. There is a much a higher percentage there. It’s so ironic the condescension leftists have for Christians but not for more Muslims.
As an American, I think a better metric for outcomes of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq is: were we trading with the before the war and are we trading with them one generation after the war? The same is even true of WWII, a more important marker afterward is that we spent the rest of the 20th century trading prosperously with Japan and Germany.
Korea: the south became an economic powerhouse with whom we now trade for critical computer components and is a generally reliable ally in the region.
Vietnam: we now trade with them happily and enjoy generally productive relations, largely because they fought us for less than two decades but fought China for centuries and centuries.
Iraq: we aren't yet a generation past, but the government they have now is better than what they had under Saddam Hussein, even if it was almost immediately subverted by Iran. And jury is out on Iran because that hot war just started.
Afghanistan: we aren't yet a generation past, but very likely the most clear failure in this list. I remember thinking in high school (during the active phase of the war): "if we actually want to make a difference, we'd have to stay a century or more, and we don't have the will to do that the way the British or Russians tried to, and even they ultimately failed to make any local changes."
Europeans also need to realize that everyday Americans don't actually care about Europe very much and never truly have. It took the Lusitania to get us into World War I, Pearl Harbor (and Hitler's declaration of war) to get us into World War II, and the credible threat of the Soviet Union to keep us in Europe for decades after the war. The husk of Russia at the center of the Soviet skeleton isn't a credible threat to America, and the American reversion to the mean of isolationism began as the Cold War ended. That reversion completed sometime between 2010 and 2015. There is a new credible threat, but that is China, and even to well informed Americans Europe is slipping from their attention.
Most people in Trump's government probably don't care that much about reopening Hormuz quickly. Gas prices are only truly spiking in U.S. states where local environmental regulations have obstructed access to domestic and regional supply, and the largest of those states (i.e. California, New York) have broken against Republicans in every Presidential election (9 of them in a row) since the end of the Cold War.
> As an American, I think a better metric for outcomes of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq is: were we trading with the before the war and are we trading with them one generation after the war?
At least you're honest. Personally I can't believe someone would think it's OK to invade someone else's county and massacre civilians on the scale of Vietnam or Korea in order to establish profitable trading relations.
It’s easy when you worship money and consider people of other races or cultures as less than human. Not that I am advocating for this view of course but a lot of Americans do even if they won’t admit it.
> Personally I can't believe someone would think it's OK to invade someone else's county and massacre civilians on the scale of Vietnam or Korea in order to establish profitable trading relations.
Strange. I don't remember writing that trading relations afterward justify the initiation of a war. Instead, I only remember writing that it is a better metric to assess the outcomes.
It's stranger still that you read these things between the lines, when my comment specifically includes a recollection of my own disquiet with the Afghanistan War, probably the most justified war of the four enumerated, that I felt while the war was happening.
American reaction to the Cuban Revolution was deeply incompetent. The Bay of Pigs is up there with the Iran Hostage Crisis and the withdrawal from Afghanistan (and specifically from Bagram) in the list of stunning foreign policy blunders of the last hundred years.
We still don't trade with Cuba, and that is a clear sign of ongoing foreign policy failure. But who knows, in a year's time we may be trading with Cuba again. We're trading with Venezuela now.
Nominally, stopping the spread of communism in Asia. Actually, stopping the spread of Chinese and Russian influence in Asia.
Our politicians did then and do now frequently miss the trees for the forest when assessing foreign crises (and I'm inverting that saying deliberately). Ho Chi Min was a nationalist first and a communist second, but all our leaders could see was a monolithic, global communist bloc. In fairness to them, hindsight is 20/20 and the Sino-Soviet split wasn't obvious to outsiders until the late 60s or early 70s.
Consider the cost on local civilians of the Vietnam and Iraq wars (the GWB war likely killed more Iraqi civilians that Hussein did in 24 years). And the literal trillions of dollar these wars costed. And the real possibility that regime change could have occurred anyway by less horrific means. Are you getting at a tiny silver lining or do you actually think these wars were remotely a good idea?
> Are you getting at a tiny silver lining or do you actually think these wars were remotely a good idea?
I'm getting at outcomes, whether or not a war is a good idea in the first place. War is never a good choice, IMO, but can sometimes be a necessary choice or an inevitability.
It's perfectly reasonable to point out that a war initiated for the wrong reasons had good (or some good) outcomes, or that a war initiated for the right reasons had bad (or some bad) outcomes. And that all war is ultimately terrible.
Our own Civil War was initiated for the right reasons and yet it became the bloodiest war in our history. More Americans died during our Civil War than during all our other wars put together, and Britain was able to end slavery across their whole empire without any war at all, though at great national expense (continuing payments until 2015 or so) and with some bloodshed on the seas.
That tragedy of the Maven targeting system is very much something that could have been optimized away, so no! Ad-servers optimizing minds could have been better employed on that project. (nothing to do with Java's Maven, look it up)
Someone told me: "Think! Who were these girls' parents..." and that's BS it was really a big senseless mistake, now we're clearly in Vendettastan
This has definitely nothing to do with the subject at hand.
US Forces and Defence Complex have most of the talent they need.
Even with prevailing capabilities in many areas, it's not possible to do most things. Armies are not 'magic' - we're lulled into a false sense of understanding of capabilities by focusing to much on 'special forces' and other kinds of operations.
> You couldve seen anti militsry industry sentiment on HN for years, which apparently worked for US adversaries, who knows who was behind that propaganda
What makes you think what the US, most probably at the behest of occupiers of Palestine, is going to do wonders for sentiment of the general public towards the US military industry? The anti-military sentiment is justified and will probably grow as more people wake up to the terrorising and dual faced nature of the US.
Would those "brightest minds" want to work for the current US government? Even if they did out of patriotism to the country, the Trump administration would have pushed them out by now and replaced with yes-men.
The people I know leaving that sector have been steadily leaving for years due to the day to day bullshit/internal politics and poor leadership that they have to put up with, not the pay nor current administration.
Right but if you're a lifelong gov worker you are probably used to the pay, and it's hard to switch from gov work to startups or big tech (at least, I would see it as a thing to question). Whereas the GGP talks about people switching from the private sector (adtech, etc.) to public.
The first thing they are going to see is the salary and run a mile. That's partly why Palantir 'works'; they pay tech salaries and have a tech culture, but do gov work. Booz Allen et al were less advanced prototypes of that as well.
Not every war can be fought from air, there needs to be soldiers on the ground.
In fight against ISIS, the Iraqi amry, Shia Militias, Kurds and others were ground forces while Allies were in Air. In Afghanistan & Gulf War, US forces were on ground.
But in these "conflict", no party is ready to send ground forces, ground forces to stop the air drones, ship drones etc. So the "blockade" will probably continue.
The Gulf coastline is almost 1000 miles long, there would have to be a gigantic occupation of an area the size of a small country, at the same time as there would be 'all out war' with Iran, which would be backed by China and to a lesser extent Russia, and whereupon an invasion would provide them with millions of determined fighters.
We're talking 'Gulf War' scale of operation against a much bigger, more capable country, and of forces willing to fight.
And the US doesn't even have anywhere to do it from.
Assuming a Gulf country would host an invasion force - extremely unlikely - there's no magical way for US to cross the Gulf with large numbers of forces, as we can't get capitol ships in there in the first place.
There's no amphibious capability at the scale necessary on the Arabian Sea.
Literally just the logistics of large scale landings is almost impossible.
That leaves the Kuwait / Iran border, and maybe something a bit wider.
And then fight through the mountains across the Gulf?
The thought is absurd, it's a 'major campaign theatre' - of which US forces were theoretically capable of fighting in two at once, but that's not pragmatic. That's 'wartime economy' kind of thing.
It's possible but unlikely that 10K marines and paratroopers are going to be able to do much, because it's very risky and likely won't accomplish much.
> The Gulf coastline is almost 1000 miles long, there would have to be a gigantic occupation of an area the size of a small country
If you want to secure even 5 miles inland over 1000 miles, that's 50,000 square miles, or an area bigger than more than half the countries on earth, including North and South Korea,
> If you want to secure even 5 miles inland over 1000 miles, that's 50,000 square miles
If you want to secure the entire Strait, sure. My understanding is you'd only seek to hold the area around the Musandam Peninsula, along with a couple of the islands near it.
> if they are able to hit a few gas/oil carriers with drones there, nobody is going to use that body of water
It’s a lot more feasible to escort tankers after the Strait than it is before, when American warships have to come close to shore. Iran doesn’t have the resources to deny access to the entire Indian Ocean.
> Iran doesn’t have the resources to deny access to the entire Indian Ocean.
I have what may be a scale issue in my imagination, so bear with me if this is silly.
There are reports of international drug transport via seaborne drones in the 0.5-5 tonne range, and of these crossing the Pacific, and the cost of the vehicles is estimated to be around 2-4 million USD each. If drug dealers can do that, surely Iran (and basically everyone with a GDP at least the size of something like Andorra's) should be able to make credible threats to disrupt approximately as much non-military shipping as they want to worldwide?
> if drug dealers can do that, surely Iran (and basically everyone with a GDP at least the size of something like Andorra's) should be able to make credible threats to disrupt approximately as much non-military shipping as they want to worldwide?
Sure. Do you think that means worldwide shipping would shut down?
And the point isn't to take the risk to zero. But to a level where military escorts can feel safe.
> Do you think that means worldwide shipping would shut down?
I think there's a danger of that, at least if countermeasures are not easily available for normal shipping.
Even 1-on-1 rather than 1-v-everyone, there's too many players (not all of them nations) with too many conflicting goals and interests. If Cuba tried to do it, could they credibly threaten to sink all sea-based trade involving the USA? If not Cuba, who would be the smallest nation that could?
And the same applies to Taiwan and China, in both directions, either of which would be fairly dramatic on the world stage, even though China also has land options. Or North Korea putting up an effective anti-shipping blockade against Japan.
> But to a level where military escorts can feel safe.
Are there enough military ships to do the escorting?
> the US and Europe would be pretty fucked since we depend on it much more.
China could still get resources from russia and is much more self sustained
America would be fine. We have the Americas and Asia to trade with, and Iran can’t restrict those oceans in any meaningful way.
Europe, the Middle East, Africa and non-China Asia would get screwed.
? There's really not much discussion of Iran being a problem outside the Gulf.
Iran can control the Gulf and therefore 20% of global carbons.
This is enough to put the world economy into recession.
America is not 'isolated' from the global economy.
US carbon produces don't give smack about the nation generally - they will sell to the highest bidder.
If global Oil prices skyrocket - you will pay that at the pump.
US is net carbon exporter, but there is trade - the refineries in the south are designed for heavy crude from Venezuela and Canada etc.
Yes, some national policies could alter a bit, but only in emergency, and the current Administration does not give a * about national issues, other than populist blowback. They will prefer their oil buddies by default, but with a lot of leaway for 'gas prices' causing voting problems.
US companies sell abroad, a global recession affects everything.
Just google OPEC crisis - you can see what high oil prices do, they screw everything up.
There's 100% chance of global recession if Gulf stays closed.
Given the 'leverage' in US market that can come way down. US GDP is currently held up with AI spending - if that math falters, that AI investment slows down, the US drops into recession, that causes flight from equities etc etc.
I don't think we need to speculate about anything outside of the Gulf.
It's bad, it needs to be resolved.
You see this calamity in the daily statements from WH - they are 'in out in out in out' in the same day they say 'witdhdraw' and then 'we must open the strait'.
At some point, there's going to be a dumbenough general to try to paratrooper their way in. They've spent the past year trying to cull "dysloyal" troops, so at some point, the delusion will surface is an absurdly dumb attempt.
US forces are not partisan and not culled, they're mostly the same entity they were last year, but with a few Generals asked to retire.
(Edit: highly professional I might add. There are quirks, and obvious hints of 'nationalist bias' - but that's to be expected. They are not the 'cultural problem' we see on the news - at least not for now. They lean 'normal')
The current Joint Chiefs is a bit obsequious but he's not crazy.
These are very sane people, for the most part.
They may be pressed to do something risky, like land troops at Kharg island, but not completely suicidal.
That 'risk' may entail getting a number of soldiers captured, but that's not on the extreme side of military failure, it's mostly geopolitical failure. It would certainly end DJT as a popular movement.
Having a ship hit, or a few soldiers captured - and this sounds morose - is normal. That's why they exist. It's the political fallout that's deadly.
They won't do anything to crazy. The craziest thing they could do is 'full invasion' and Congress won't allow that. It's very unpopular and DJT has populist instinct as well - he's trying to 'find a way out'.
- So I meant militarily. Yes - you're right, they could totally do something as stupid as attack civilian infrastructure. I totally buy that.
- Congress is in charge. First - they need budget, and the GOP majority has zero appetiate for approving this.
Remember that most of the GOP dislike Trump, and they also don't like this war, it's risky to the US - and - their own jobs.
So the GOP finds ways to 'resit' Trump without sticking their neck out. They do this collectively by grumbling and not passing legislation.
The majority leaders tell Trump 'We just don't have the votes for it!' thereby not taking a position against Trump, more or less 'blaming the ghosts in the party' kind of thing.
That's very different than passing legislation that reels Trump in, that's 'active defiance'.
So by 'passive defiance' and not approving $, the majority holds the Admin back.
Remember that nobody wants this, not the VP, not Rubio. Hegseth is a 'TV Entertainer'. The Defence Establishment and Intelligence Establishment knows this is stupid. 80% of Congress wants it over now.
If DJT has 65% poularity and 75% for the war, the equation would tilt, but as it stands, there is not enough political momentum.
But anything could happen ...
The death or capture of US soldiers could strongly evoke people to move one way or the other.
I'm a former service member (of another country) and I have family members in the US forces.
I'm paying relatively close attention.
Just FYI, US forces are enormous, and with a very long and institutionalized history, and it would take at least decade to tilt them in such a manner, moreover, it's not even happening in the way you're insinuating.
Removing certain DEI polices will have a very marginal affect on anything but senior officer promotions, as US forces are very meritocratic in most ways already.
Removing transgender personnel etc. is arguably unfair in many ways - but will have absolutely zero effect on those institutions overall. None.
Nobody is getting 'retired' for not being sufficiently MAGA, other than a few select positions in Washington.
Your comment is uninformed and unwelcome; you'll have to do a bit better than consume Reddit in order to gain actual knowledge and perspective, and save yourself the embarrassment.
Military does as the Civilian leadership orders them to, there is no other way in the west, and if the civilian leadership demands that they want an ground invasion, then they'll get one, even if it's the most moronic waste of human life in the world.
It's true that 'civilians are in charge' but it would be an oversimplification to suggest that the military will just 'do what they are asked'.
Civilian leadership takes a few forms, there is a division between the powers of Executive and Congress. The military won't pursue anything long term without the backing of both.
There are a lot of legal thresholds, Congressional approval being just one of them.
There is institutional incumbency, and the military will push back extremely hard on things that it deems impossible, or excessively risky.
Populism etc. etc..
There are so many factors.
If they want to mount a risky 500 000 person invasion of Iran, they'll have to do a lot of 'convincing' and get a lot of buy in from stake holders. There is no chance that the Executive count mount that kind of operation without a lot of institutional buy in.
The part that makes the Strait weird is no belligerent wants it entirely closed. (Maybe Israel.) Iran wants to export. And America wants exports. So you get this weird stalemate where America doesn’t want to actually blockade Iran, while Iran seems to do just enough to keep America from actually shutting the Strait.
America isn't getting exports from Iran, until recently they were sanctioned. More of a problem is that the biggest buyer of Iranian oil is China. I don't think that getting out of the war with Iran by starting a war with China would be an improvement.
There was an article somewhere a few days ago, where the author raised the question: Why buy tanks in a world of drone warfare. Something like that. I see this as much the same "problem". Drones can't really take or hold territory, they can only deny access to it. At some point you need people and armoured vehicles on the ground.
The US is facing the same issue in Iran. You can bomb all you like, but a bomber, like a drone, can't hold land. Iran can launch drones and missiles towards the Strait of Hormuz from the entire country, denying anyone access, but also without being able to hold it.
Because they went in without a plan, or even a goal really, the US administration denied itself, and everyone else, access to the strait. The military leadership probably knew this. If not they could have asked Ukraine if this was a sound idea, given their knowledge and experience with Iranian drone technology.
In the movie Thirteen Days, JFK mentions a book titled March of Folly by Barbara Tuchmann. I bought the book on that tip and it has an interesting chapter on Vietnam. I don't think adding a chapter on this "special operation" would even be worth it as it would just be repetitive.
I believe they are mixing it up with The Guns of August (published in 1962, also by Tuchman), which JFK was fond of and supposedly drew on during the Cuban missile crisis.
Thank you. I heard about The Guns of August when I was looking for related books after reading A World Undone. Then I forgot about it. I never heard of March of Folly but I'll read them both.
I maintain hope that the US will declare some arbitrary victory condition "Iran's capacity to do XYZ has been critically degraded!" and will unilaterally disengage.
Unfortunately this will almost definitely occur after Israel has included it's invasion of Lebanon and annexed more territory, which is what this whole war seems to be a cover for.
The title should change 'won't' to 'shouldn't'. This administration doesn't do things because of deep understanding, it does them because of gut reaction. The US Military could, at an unknown cost, just blast away.
This article points out, rightfully, how scared we are to put our weapons in harms way because of how expensive they are. I made this argument many times to friends years ago. From a military strategic point of view we should be developing drone/cruise missile carriers (and upping our SSGN capabilities) and abandoning the carrier navy. They are only good for show at port visits and turn useful ships like DDGs into escorts instead of front line assets.
That being said, from a diplomatic strategic point of view, I really like a useless navy full of ships that are good for port visits and not real wars. If you build ships good for real wars you tend to get into wars. If you build ships good for visiting other countries you tend not to go to war with those countries.
The position of the article seems to me to be it 'won't' because it can't. And that is an accurate assessment.
It would take much more than the forces in the region, to secure the "strait". To actually secure the strait, you have to secure the entire Persian Gulf. It doesn't matter if tankers can pass through the strait only to be blown up just of Qatar. At it's widest the Gulf is about 360 kilometers, well within the range of most drones, aerial, surface and underwater. So they would have to protect every ship in the gulf, intercept all the drones all the time, or secure the entire coastline. It's simply a task air-power and naval power can't perform. Not without major casualties and without attacks going through.
The US navies ships are good for real wars, but for casualties to be accepted, there has to be a real purpose. Escorting a bunch of privately owned oil tankers to bring down the price of gas does not really cut it.
Nowadays it's about efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Sure, 99% of the time a Shahed-136 might "lose" against a Patriot, but a Patriot missile costs 200x what a Shahed does.
Laser and EWar approaches are going to be more successful long-term as the price per "shot" is dramatically less, but deployments are slow.
The US uses APKWS and similar against Shahed-136. These guided missiles are cheaper than the Shahed-136. Why would you assume the US uses Patriot missiles against a Shahed-136? That isn’t part of their doctrine and the flight profile is a poor fit.
These have been operational in the US military for almost 15 years now and are widely deployed in the Middle East. You may want to update your priors. The US military anticipated all of this.
While these are cheaper than the Shahed-136, lasers have the advantage of unlimited magazine depth, so it is obvious why the US would invest in that.
I can't read either of those because they are paywalled but ghe first paragraph of the first one doesn't seem to support your position.
In any case, almost everything i've read is that the majority of drones are shot down with APKWS, with a patriot sometimes used as a last resort if one gets through.
> In the statement, a Bahraini government spokesperson said the [Patriot] missile successfully intercepted an Iranian drone mid-air, saving lives.
> Wars in the Middle East and Ukraine have put a spotlight on how limited supplies of sophisticated missiles—including multimillion-dollar Patriot interceptors—are sometimes being used to defend against mass-produced drones that cost just a few thousand dollars.
> Gulf states are also spending big on the war. Nations including Saudi Arabia have launched multimillion-dollar Patriot interceptors and fired missiles from aircraft to take out Iranian drones.
The E-3 Sentry that got blown up was reportedly hit by drone. I'd guess they wish a Patriot had stopped that one.
Bahrain is not the usa. There are many reports that gulf states use patriot missiles much more freely than usa does.
> are sometimes being used to defend against mass-produced drones that cost just a few thousand dollars
"Sometimes" being the key word here. I think 1% of the time would technically constitute sometimes and changes the ecconomics considerably.
It should be noted the Shahed-136 drone that was mentioned above cost $100,000, not a couple thousand.
My position is not that it never happens, just that its relatively rare and a bit overblown in the media. Military does need to figure out better solutions, but the status quo is not use a patriot on every drone.
"“Often they [the US and its allies] were firing thoughtlessly,” the officer said. “For example, they used SM-6 missiles — from a ship, a very good anti-missile missile. This missile costs about $6 million, and they used it to shoot down a Shahed costing $70,000.”"
> It should be noted the Shahed-136 drone that was mentioned above cost $100,000, not a couple thousand.
> Sure, 99% of the time a Shahed-136 might "lose" against a Patriot, but a Patriot missile costs 200x what a Shahed does.
From what i understand, i think people use other systems than patriots to shoot down Shaheds except as a last resort. So the cost difference is bad, but its not nearly as bad as it would be if you were using something like a patriot for every drone.
Nonsense. Every military is built to counter certain types of enemies. Nations that win predict correctly, nations that lose predict incorrectly. History is littered with examples.
> Pretty sure anyone who fights the US military finds out pretty fast it’s a good military.
I am not sure about that. Iraq, Afghanistan, to name the new ones and Vietnam to name an old one.
Sure you can take an easy/undisciplined target like Maduro. But many armies in the world can also do that. Another thing that has to be recognized: alternative warfare (ie: terrorism) is a legitimate form of warfare regardless of its morality. You can't, in my opinion, claim military supremacy while not being able to contain these other risks.
Perhaps you're considering only the European theater, but even that would have been significantly more challenging for Russia without the U.S. tying up (and degrading) Axis resources and manpower throughout Europe and elsewhere (e.g. the Pacific). Japan could have very well opened an eastern front for Russia.
And, it was the U.S. that forced a two front war that prevented Germany's fuller focus on Russia's western front (millions fewer troops). Not to mention U.S. logistical and material support to the Soviet Union, which may well have prevented their industrial collapse.
Even with all of this support, the fatality rates for Russia were astronomical. To this day, it boggles my mind that one nation lost ~26 million people in a single war.
Hard to imagine how they would have succeeded without the U.S.
I think that says more about our political leaders than our military.
Politicians choose the war and our military fights the battles. We're very good at winning battles. But some wars can't be won. The problem then lies in their choosing.
I imagine Sisyphus became the best, most effective rock push in the world. Unfortunately despite his talents, the task he was assigned was insoluble.
I generally agree that Americans tend to downplay the impact of Russia in WW2 but there is zero chance Russia would have won the war without the US. Even Lend-Lease going away would have resulted in a loss. Both Stalin and Kruschev agreed there.
The British Commonwealth was the biggest factor in Africa, but it's questionable how quickly they could have won out and taken the Suez without the Americans coming in late in 42, which was critical for both vital supplies like oil and also invading Italy. Japan was already getting bogged down with China and even Burma so they wouldn't have suddenly been free to do much in the European theater but just getting Italy out of the fight and forcing Germany to replace their divisions elsewhere. Italy exiting the war removed 30+ divisions between the Balkans and France, while another 70 Axis divisions were being held down by Allied forces in the Mediterranean during D-Day, with there being 33 Axis divisions in Normandy for D-Day itself. A lack of US involvement also likely means that Germany is able to hold Caucasus for longer (and take more of the oil fields), solving a sizable portion of their oil shortage issues.
With Lend-Lease but no active participation in the war from a military deployment standpoint, the UK and USSR do likely eventually win but at much greater cost and not without risk of losing. Without Lend-Lease it is highly possible that the Axis wins, at least in the European theater. Japan had kind of set themselves up to lose from the start no matter what the US did.
Sure, they will find out it is a good military. No doubt about that. What the US has found out repeatedly but fails to acknowledge is that the opposition proves to be a match. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia have shown just how deep reserves of human resilience and arsenal of guerrilla tactics they have. This doesn't fit the US's mindset about how war is to be waged.
Meanwhile, the American public wants a quick skirmish and a bold "We WON" claim .. it has no appetite for body bags coming home and the price of oil rising.
Which is why if China makes a move on Taiwan, the US can do nothing.
I agree with your statement that human resilience can outlast a better army.
But then you go on to say:
> Which is why if China makes a move on Taiwan, the US can do nothing.
If your opening thesis is true, then it's strange you follow it up with that. Taiwan has just as much a chance of outlasting a stronger competitor as those other countries that resisted US dominance.
And with the US providing them weapons, intelligence, and support, maybe a better chance. See Ukraine.
You are right to some extent. But there are huge differences between all the wars the US has fought and is currently involved in, and a China-Taiwan war.
Taiwan is only a couple of miles from mainland China at its closest point. It is possible to land large numbers of boots on the ground. Next, unlike the US, the Chinese govt is not dependent on the approval of its citizens for waging a war. It exercises complete control of the media, and squelches dissent immediately. AndIt has the largest navy in the world and a relatively modern fleet, and the supply chain is very very short. The US has no leverage over China.
You’re describing all the advantages that Russia in theory had when it invaded Ukraine. That war remains in stalemate.
With US support and the resilience and ingenuity of their people, Ukraine has persisted.
> It is possible to land large numbers of boots on the ground.
I think you need to do more research on how challenging a Taiwan invasion would be. It is nowhere near as simple as “just cross the strait. Put those boots on the ground.”
There is a reason it has not happened. It would be incredibly logistically challenging.
It's not the first time that overwhelming force fails to deliver results for the US when they get bogged down in an asymmetric war. The Korean and Vietnam wars last century still involved air carriers parked off the coast of Korea and Vietnam. But in the end, those wars turned into messy grinds. And even with extensive navy and air support resulted in eventual withdrawal/cease fires on unfavorable terms. Vietnam especially was painful.
Asymmetric war fare against a determined enemy is just hard and it always has been. Cheap drones and missiles are part of wars like that now. You can stash them all over the place and dig in. The Russians learned that the hard way in Afghanistan. As did the British before them. And more recently the US of course. The withdrawal from Afghanistan rivaled that of the one in Vietnam. Complete with chaotic scenes of people desperately trying to get out. That's only a few years ago.
In the Gulf, the Houthis still pose a threat after years of determined efforts to take them out. In the same way, it took the Israeli's very long to neutralize Hamas in Gaza. And that's a few tens of miles away from their capital. Same with Hezbollah on their northern border. In Iraq, IEDs kept grinding away at the US forces long after victory was declared. And that was with massive amounts of boots on the ground and the country fully defeated and occupied.
Iran of course has been supplying weaponry for proxy wars like this for decades. Iran is much bigger than Iraq or Afghanistan and much better prepared for a land/guerilla war on their own territory. The country was built on asymmetric warfare like this and has had decades to prepare and dig in and lots of experience via the various proxy wars I mentioned. The unfortunate reality is that that straight is only going to open when Iran decides that is in their interest.
Sure, but keeping the straight open is not really important, sure gas, fertilizers and a few other commodities are going to get more expensive, but there is no need to put thousands of sailors in harms way.
The US navy ships, in this war have performed admirably, they have performed over 850 tomahawk strikes, and navy airplanes have performed thousands of sorties. And have had no casualties due to enemy action. I can't imagine a way they could have performed better.
If I were on the JTF staff I would point out that those are measures of performance, but not measures of effectiveness. The proof of utility is achieving the mission. That is not to take away from the sailors, or military members in navy or any branch. I wouldn't want to be out there right now. They are doing hard things. But the things they are doing aren't achieving the commander's objectives. I will concede that our objectives in this campaign have been less than clear or well thought out, but there is a truth to the idea that we have built our military for a different war than this. million dollar tlams fed by decade old targeting information and all decisions centralized in a slow, unreactive and ultimately counterproductive joint targeting cycle won't win this.
I mean, you can't blame them. It's not like there was any recent precedent for a large thundering superpower to start a conflict (not a "war", of course)--under the assumption that a quick decapitation strike would end things in a few days--with an underestimated asymmetric adversary (one supported by a larger enemy) that responds with cheap drones and the like, resulting in an increasing quagmire, not to mention one resulting in the loss of valuable and irreplaceable airborne command-and-control aircraft during the conflict
The USA military is subject to civilian control and whim and that's their contract. Gauging approaches to have best effect would involve coordination among the political, intelligence, and military glamorati, and that's something that could never happen in the environment of the past year.
You need to define some kind of objective to be able to say whether or not you've performed well or not. Nobody doubts that USA can destroy a significant chunk of the planet, but to what end?
The objective I am using, is the objective they were given. They were told to bomb a bunch of targets. And they did and without casualties. That means they performed their jobs well.
Clearly the strategy behind the "bomb a bunch of stuff" objective is muddled at best, but that does not reflect badly against the navy. But to the people that set their objectives.
I think the point is it's like the parable of the drunk looking for his keys under the streetlight, because that's where the light is.
The Navy is performing well at the things it's being tasked with because it's only being tasked with things it can do well! But I think the point of this thread is that it still reflects poorly on the Navy if those things aren't actually useful in this war. They say generals are always preparing for the previous war and perhaps that's happening here.
You are conflating execution capability and force protection with achievement.
Meanwhile, lots of innocent lives have been lost, the regime is still where it was before even if some of the faces have changed, there is an E2 that is missing a little piece of its tail, the price of oil has gone up considerably (that may have been an actual objective) and we've been distracted for a while from the Epstein files.
If you think there was an item in the above list that qualifies as an objective then that's fine by me but for me these do not cross that threshold.
> the price of oil has gone up considerably (that may have been an actual objective)
Even Trump isn't that dumb. There's a reason he dialed the tariffs back so much; price hikes lose elections.
If there's one highly visible product of whose price all Americans are keenly aware, it's gasoline. And on top of that, it affects the price of pretty much everything else too.
I thought the tariffs would be his undoing but jacking up the price of gas is even worse for him.
Why would he care? He's not going to be up for re-election anyway and besides he's not paying for his own gas. But the price of oil going up helps russia in a considerable way and that could well have been one of the drivers (and apparently carrying water for Netanyahu).
I would not assume that he won't try to run again, nor would I assume that his party would not support it if he did. Though I do agree with the rest of what you wrote.
(2) he has to overcome an absolutely massive approval deficit
(3) he has to be able to run a credible campaign
(4) he has to get around the term limits
(5) I would expect there to be a fairly large number of people to be very upset if he did
All in all I don't think his chances for re-election are > 0. But I agree with you that he might try, by hook - or by crook - to hold on to that chair.
I might be wrong (am not a geopolitical expert) but my guess is that if the US doesn't get this resolved by itself; most countries in the world are going to rage at it harder (like an order of magnitude harder) than during the tariffs war of last year.
Many countries ranging from advanced allies like Japan to random poor countries like the Philippines will see economic damages that are way worse than tariffs.
Iran was a hornet nest. A hornet nest is annoying and dangerous to have around. But it makes no sense to break it open with no plan on how to properly handle the fallout.
> Sure, but keeping the straight open is not really important, sure gas, fertilizers and a few other commodities are going to get more expensive, but there is no need to put thousands of sailors in harms way.
What is the point of having by far the worlds most expensive military if it can’t be used to at least ostensibly improve the lives of citizens?
> there has to be a real purpose. Escorting a bunch of privately owned oil tankers to bring down the price of gas does not really cut it.
While I agree with you in principle, if I have learned anything about politics it is that under whatever political system you care to invent, the people will definitely demand war and a navy to escort private oil tankers if it means they get to drive for $0.01 less per gallon.
Normally I wouldn't think the American public would be so shallow.
But just tonight, while getting gas just outside St. Louis, a young woman was having an absolute meltdown outside her car about the price of gas being $3.65 a gallon. Wild.
So, yeah, perhaps the price of gas is high enough that the public would tolerate some heavy collateral damage at this point.
The issue though is that this won't get us maritime supremacy. To get civilian tankers through the strait you need that. Iran will still take the occasional shot at these ships and who in their right mind would put their ship into a situation where there is even a 1 in 2000 chance you will be struck? At the end we will have boots on the ground, with real casualties, potentially a ship or two actually damaged and Iran unleashed and attacking everyone's critical oil infrastructure and water infrastructure. They will even probably find a way to hit a ship or two in the red sea just to spread the panic. My original point was that we could 'just blow things up' and get in there, not that we would succeed in achieving a great military objective.
Yes, i think the Trump admin has escalated itself into a situation that either involves ground troops or leaving without opening the strait.
The first is bad due to the losses that will be incurred and the difficulty of holding territory.. for unclear strategic reasons (I thought we destroyed their nuclear program last summer / what was the urgency / is this even our war?). The second is bad because the strait was open before this started, so things are worse than starting conditions.
That is not to say Iran is winning. Remember this is not a sports game, and no one needs to win. It is possible, and likely, for everyone to lose (be in a worse position than prior).
> either involves ground troops or leaving without opening the strait.
These options are not mutually exclusive.
> That is not to say Iran is winning.
They are though, the US administration has already lost it's patience, their strategic objectives (whatever they might have been have clearly not materialized), the talk about talks may very well be the administration preparing to make a bunch of concessions proclaim victory and walk away.
As it's possible for both parties to lose, a party can win all the battles and lose the war.
It is hard to game out the best scenario here. Wait, it really isn't. We should just stop. Make a deal with Iran, accept egg on our face and step back. Why? Because they are destabilized. They are likely to crumble. If we keep attacking then they stay alive. If we go away then they have to deal with their broken infra and deeply unhappy population. They were on the path until we hit them. Then, like nearly every country ever, it gave their government legitimacy. If we walk away and focus, hard, on helping the gulf nations that we just hurt badly it will stabilize the region and allow them to fall. But that will never happen because we went into this due to ego and we will stay due to ego.
What if Iran escalates when US decides to go? I don’t think US can go without leaving a power vacuum, which, given current forces positioning, would benefit Iran most probably. I don’t see a path to helping Gulf nations, which will pragmatically be inclined to work with Iran as neither of them can leave like US can.
>That is not to say Iran is winning. Remember this is not a sports game, and no one needs to win. It is possible, and likely, for everyone to lose (be in a worse position than prior).
As of right now, Iran looks likely to end the war with permanent control of the strait of Hormutz. They'll tax the gulf countries in perpetuity.
Gulf countries can't reasonably afford to go to war with Iran over this either, and it's even less likely that they could prevail in such a conflict. Gulf countries can't even afford to go to war with Iran now, with the US actively fighting there.
Iran can suffer terrible short-term and medium-term economic consequences while still establishing a whole new kind of dominance over the region.
> the people will definitely demand war and a navy to escort private oil tankers if it means they get to drive for $0.01 less per gallon.
This was more true in the 70s: the various fuel economy improvements mean that the impact is reportedly less than half this fine, and the millions of people who bought a hybrid or BEV don’t even notice. I think there’s less of an “war at any cost” bloc now, especially after the humiliating collapse of the last Republican president’s big Middle Eastern learning opportunity, and a lot of people would be willing to abandon Israel to fight Netanyahu’s war alone if it saved them money at the pump.
The issue is that the administration has kicked the bee hive, and is now claiming that securing passers by from angry bees has nothing to do with them.
Its a great way to diminish what lingering shreds of trust the (hopefully) former allies of the US may still have had.
The US has better ways to decrease oil prices internally that commit to losing boats in the strait.
We know the cost. We've conducted that type of warfare before. It's incredibly destructive and barbaric and requires huge amounts of human sacrifice to positively take control of territory after you've finished battering it with high explosives from every available angle. It looks really bad on TV.
> cruise missile carriers
You don't get very large payloads this way. It's fine if you want to pierce the armor of another ship or if you want to launch an "assassination missile" at a single unit but not awesome if you want to replace the capabilities of carriers and battleships and the literal BFGs they carry.
> If you build ships good for real wars you tend to get into wars.
It was meant to be a deterrent against other nation states and one particular form of naval warfare. In the modern world of terrorist cells and asymmetric warfare this may be a moot point.
I think our navy is mostly designed for prestige too, but it seems like you could use the current carriers to transport like a million disposable drones?
> it seems like you could use the current carriers to transport like a million disposable drones?
To what end? You can use them as an extremely expensive cargo ship, sure. But if you're talking about launching drones off of our carriers, you have the problem that whatever you are in drone range of is also in drone range of you.
Drones have limited range. Perhaps a submarine would be better: sneak close to your target, raise a pipe from the sub to the surface, then launch a bunch of drones from it.
Limited range? Shaheds have over 2000 kilometers more than tomahawks.
And btw, if you can get a submarince close to your target, torpedoes and missiles are going to be much more effective than drones.
Space is limited on platforms, a submarine might have space for 60 drones or 30 missiles, given the immense cost of the submarine, going with the missiles is the right call.
The trucks launching shaheds that iran is using can fit like 5 such drones, a similar truck could probably fit 2 to 4 cruise missiles the only reason they are using drones is the rapid production and cost associated with drones instead of the cruise missiles.
Driving your submarines into a narrow area with limited depth is driving right into a bottleneck trap.
It may be hard to locate a submarine out in the deep open sea, not so much if they are limited in escape routes. Some $50 microphones in the water will be able to pick up submarine activity and if the sub is in range of sending out drones it is in range of being detected by drones equipped with simple magnetic sensors. And that is assuming they can't put an active bit of sonar on two or three drones and drop them in the sea and triangulate it to within a few hundred feet to start with.
That still doesn't make them easy to take out, but the cost of potentially losing a submarine is so massive that it doesn't make sense to risk them to start with.
Straights have been impossible to force since Churchill tried to force the Bosphorus in 1915. Placing ships in a narrow target area that can be pre-sighted is a losing proposition, a single artillery gun could mission-kill a destroyer in hormuz - mines/torpedos/drones could sink a ship in a place where rescue may not be possible.
"Cruise missile carriers" are what the Burke class destroyers are.
It's also what Russia built their navy around. How'd that work out?
The US carriers have been involved in every naval action since WWII. They're hardly unused.
But attacking a country of 90 million people and a high level of military sophistication AND who's been expecting the attack and planning for it for many years was always going to be a tall order.
"They are only good for show at port visits..." This perfectly describes Trump's idea of battleships, in fact I think he's said more or less that himself. And he wants to help design them, because he's "aesthetic."
Good thing he's so good at respecting rules that say he can't do things. And good thing that he's had to face the punishment for breaking some of those rules. Imagine reading what you wrote if he were repeatedly allowed to break rules without any consequences.
He doesn't need to legally cancel the election. He simply needs to say it is and take action as if it was already. This allows him to combine interference before the election with the Republican insurrection tactics from 2020. Say he declares, through executive order, that the 2026 election is cancelled due to an emergency, and that the current Congress will stay in power until the emergency is over. This would allow, even if not actually legal, some combination of:
- Republican-led states voluntarily ending their elections.
- In the case where local election authorities refuse, allowing state governments to take action by arresting said local authorities.
- Ending all Federal assistance for states to run and secure elections.
- Posting ICE to all states who insist on having elections, to arbitrarily arrest people going to vote. By the time they can get in front of a judge the election is over. Even if they're released within a few hours they'd likely miss the vote.
- Having ICE seize all "illegally cast" ballots, and the voting machines, preventing counts from completing or being accurate.
- Declaring states who hold an election to be in rebellion, deploying the National Guard or standing military forces.
- Refusing to seat anyone elected from those states who refuse to go along with it. We could see something like Republican states are allowed to "elect" new representatives as long as they allow an ICE presence everywhere, along with the arbitrary arrest. Speaker Johnson then refuses to seat any newly elected officials from any other states.
- Arrest of newly elected officials as illegitimate, and the seating of Republican candidates instead, similar to the fake elector scheme from 2020.
We can insist that all of these things are illegal, or that people won't go along with it. We would likely see the start real, violent resistance, but that doesn't mean they won't try.
Edit: Looks like he's starting already, by trying control all mail in ballots. He's going to issue an executive order ordering the USPS to filter ballot mail according to a master list compiled by the administration. Obviously this why they wanted voter rolls and have been seizing ballots. Even if the court immediately rules it illegal, why would anyone trust mail in voting? He's essentially cancelled the election for those who vote by mail.
I think a lot of people struggle to imagine the kinds of dirty-deeds ("ratf***ing") that are both possible and effective, especially when the perpetrators don't (feel) constrained by an implicit baseline of plausible consistency or morality. Being unable to brainstorm them up is, perhaps, a kind of backhanded compliment.
Imagine trying to warn someone in 2010 that in a few years an outgoing President, stung at an election loss, could foment a violent mob that would break into the Capitol to hunt and chase legislators that were formalizing that loss, issue blanket pardons for everyone involved, and his party would still protect him from being impeached over it.
For that matter, some people are still surprised to learn about the "Brooks Brothers Riot" [0] of 2000, where a crowd of Republican campaign staffers threatened workers into stopping a recount of certain ballots.
Why would they need to arrest 150 million people? They'd let everyone in heavily Republican districts vote just fine, perhaps just a few random arrest at any precincts in Democratic areas. Their main focus would be urban areas, especially in blue states. And it wouldn't have to be everyone to get many, if not most people, to stay home. Early voting in your district? Great way to get ICE's arrests of people in line on the news before the big day, further driving down turnout. Filtering mail in ballots at the USPS not enough? Just happen to have some ICE agents drive by the drop boxes and oops, we saw an "illegal" voting, all these ballots are invalid, we'll be taking those. Local police try to step in (as if)? Insurrection Act, military deployed to all voting locations, ballots seized.
This shouldn't be hard to understand: there are any number of things an unfettered executive can do to turn the election that isn't simply cancelling them.
Right, Trump's ability to cancel the elections depends on whether the people running elections comply. It sounds prudent to compile a survey on who those people are and their propensity to break the law to accommodate the president.
>And what happens if the state level election workers are up against federal level gunpoint?
It's not like ICE can just roll into a state capitol and stop elections.
How many folks would be required for that at each polling place? Ten?
Fifty? There are 3500+ counties in the US, usually with multiple polling places. You'd need tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of troops for that.
And that's a lot of armed thugs. Likely the National Guard would need to be federalized, but I find it hard to believe that commanders would follow such illegal orders.
To swing Pennsylvania, they'd probably just need to send ICE into Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Tell them to ignore anybody with a MAGA hat. Big and blue cities in purple states are the only necessary targets.
I see a higher chance of him dropping a dirty nuke at home and pretending it’s Iran. Then he can nuke Iran and win the elections too by proving his point that the war was necessary if not delayed. I would be very worried if I were in any of the Democrat states, as one of them would be the chosen target in such a scenario.
To the people criticizing the comment above, think of all the other illegal things trump is already doing. It's not a matter of "can't", it's a matter of if he will and who will stop him (nobody, so far)
Regardless, Iran sinking an aircraft carrier does not excuse Trump to nuke Iran and cancel elections. Your point is that he does not care about having a justification.
Yes, I agree. My point is primarily that it is incorrect to say that his actions have an excuse, especially the hypothetical action of launching the first offensive nuke since the two in August 1945. (Secondarily, stating that he has an excuse is the first step to excusing him.) Nuclear powers collectively agree, and have for decades: the only excuse for launching a nuke at your adversary is them doing it first.
(As for elections, history has shown that there is no excuse for outright cancelling them; that is an autocratic ploy to become a despot.)
I hope somebody would stop him. Using nukes in a war is just too bonkers to contemplate. Sure they would be small, but the road to big starts with small.
Dropping the bomb will be a massive loss for the US as it’ll legitimatize nuclear warfare. Right out of the attack, the US ceases being the first firepower and becomes equal to the rest of the nuclear ones.
Next Russia takes Ukraine in a week and rich countries will buy nukes from North Korea and Pakistan.
Ever play Doom (2016)? It's about renewable energy.
Pesky little--very minor--side effect that it's extracted from Hell, and using it causes the denizens of Hell to spill over to our side. One would say they are "unleashed".
By raising the price of oil so much, our dear leader is trying his level best to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
This is a terrible idea. Assuming nothing bad happens (other than the mass death, of course), there would be shocked pikachu faces from half of Americans and then some, not to mention those in other nations. If something bad happens (edit: other than the initial mass death, of course), the faces would instead range anywhere from panicked to vaporized.
He has considered it. He's a psychopathic fantasist. No one sane would have started this war.
But the consequences would be catastrophic. Not least that Russia would very likely nuke Ukraine to try to force a surrender. And France would have to decide whether to respond in kind.
Trump would not - of course - nuke Russia. Likely not even if Russia launched a first strike.
And it's unlikely Iran would surrender, because Iran has set itself up as a patchwork of semi-independent forces. The immediate response would be a mass missile strike on desalination plants and oil installations in Israel and the Arab states.
The absolute best outcome would be plumes of smoke all over the Middle East.
The worst outcome would be all of the existing minor nuclear nations - North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel - deciding the safety was off, and why not?
This is the guy that ignored warnings that Iran would respond by closing the Strait of Hormuz. He was briefed on exactly this scenario and decided he knew better. That is to say he's been proved capable of making incredibly bad decisions, it's just a matter of who speaks to him directly before. One of these days it might be the wrong person.
> This administration doesn't do things because of deep understanding, it does them because of gut reaction.
Do you think that the overwhelming tactical success in Venezuela, or the basically flawless decapitation strikes in the opening weeks of the Iran conflict were gut reactions?
Because of that’s the case I’d be terrified to know what the Pentagon is capable of if they really put their mind to it.
In this instance, a flight of B-52's could wipe the concrete shielded missiles off the face of the Earth. Start off with F18s to secure the skies, then B52s to pound the missiles, then the Navy could stroll back in. It's just that no one has had the gumption to do it until now.
Your analysis of the war seems to hinge on a lack of "gumption", which is coincidentally the exact same thing I've heard conservative old boomers say about Vietnam. So I would say you're about equal in terms of adding to the discussion. It is, unfortunately, divorced from reality.
The critical thing about hidden missiles that you seem to be missing is: you can't bomb them if you don't know where they are.
We've already seen a 4 week bombing campaign that has included everything from a children's school to a chemotherapy company to bunkers under Tehran, so I don't think there's a lack of "bloodlust" or "gumption" from any of the so-called leaders at the DoD. Rather, it seems that they simply - don't know where the missiles and drones are. Which as I pointed out earlier, makes it rather hard to bomb them.
Americans have been sold an image of the US being an omnipotent presence, due to its Navy. It is a legitimate question to wonder why a relatively weak, long embargoed country has the power to control the waters when the US has spent a pretty penny on all these warplanes and aircraft carriers.
If little Iran can prevent the US from being able to establish security in a little straight, it (ideally) shatters that image and causes some soul searching for what US taxpayers are buying with the military.
You can lose a game of chess to a guy with fewer and less powerful pieces than you if you play like a moron. The US has been playing the Iran situation like a gigantic moron.
Maybe I am misinformed, but I was under the impression that the US was so capable it is not even playing the same game as a country like Iran. As in they could brute force solutions due to superior technology and infrastructure, because that is how much more the US spends on it.
Brute forcing by spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year on a military is not analogous at all to brute forcing in a game of chess, whatever that means.
Regardless of the analogies, the reality is that even with all the resources the US spent on its military, after a whole month, it cannot guarantee safe passage through a body of water adjacent to a small time adversary. Which, as an American, is embarrassing in terms of ROI on tax dollars spent.
> And is basically the approach the U.S. took in Vietnam.
And just like the Vietnamese, Iran doesn’t have to win against the US. They only have to not lose. They control the straight, and at $1 per barrel toll, they’ll be making $1 Billion a week. Trump owned himself. This is going to suck.
Paid in yuan, of course, because that's the currency they're allowed to use, because of the US. And then oil companies decide it's annoying to use two different currencies, and they would rather buy the oil with yuan as well...
Well, regardless of technology, the space of things you can accomplish without risking your own troops' lives is very small. (Unless you're willing to go nuclear, which has the pesky downside of ending the world.)
To put it in perspective - in Vietnam, opposition forces lost over a million troops and continued to fight viciously. The US lost around 50,000 and gave up and left.
Democratic countries simply lack the stomach for this kind of thing (which is a good thing, really).
As opposed to democratic countries like the US or UK which would just lay down their arms after a few tens of thousands of their soldiers were killed in the event of a foreign military invasion on their territory?
That’s obvious but you seemed to be putting down foreigners for being able to stomach a million or more of them dying to protect their country from invasion unlike the enlightened democratic countries who couldn’t tolerate so many of their own dying for any reason. I think if tens or hundreds of thousands of soldiers from, say China, attacked the US, Americans would be very willing to fight to the last man to prevent becoming a vassal state of the CCP.
Perhaps the disconnect exists because some Americans have become too used to thinking from the perspective of invaders that they cannot possibly think from the perspective of the invaded?
You're reading something into my comment which isn't there. Hard to say what it is, but it's causing me to not really understand what you're talking about, at this point.
Maybe you thought I was disparaging Vietnam for defending their land? But in your own comment you indicate that you know I'm not talking about defense, that I'm talking about not having the stomach for loss of life as the invading force. So, IDK
I think being the "home team" makes swallowing those casualties easier (as easy as they can be, anyways); it's easy to perceive the situation as a fight for your life.
Obviously, there were other things going on in Vietnam (and Afghanistan and the larger War on Terror) to keep them fighting but it's much easier to muster up the manpower when a war seems existential because it's happening in your neighborhood.
You can lose in chess if you run out of time, even if you have an overwhelming piece advantage. US leadership has made some questionable decisions that effectively turned their game (and only their game) into ultrabullet kriegspiel.
Every time I try such strategies in Total War it results in an early success but long term failure. If you don't play every engagement like it could be your last you end up with multiple Pyrrhic victories and before long you are bogged down with loses and problems and start losing.
The situation is massively favourable to Iran, from a strategic point of view. The Gulf is narrow, bordered by Iran all the way and with mountains and rugged terrain nearby, which is very convenient to hide rockets. What a carrier brings is completely irrelevant in this configuration.
Iran does not 'control the waters', it is denying access; this is an importance difference. Lacking control means that Iran cannot make use of many of its naval assets, which they have invested in.
You over estimate the American publics capacity for critical thought and reflection. Most Americans will come away from this humiliation thinking we just need to increase the military budget
to quote: "in the Persian Gulf today, the Navy grasps the reality of the circumstances, recognizing that it simply can’t sail into the strait without risk getting blown to smithereens by Iran’s missiles. Today, its carriers are stationed well outside the Gulf and the ranges of Iranian missiles."
Iran's deep investment in asymmetric warfare is paying serious dividends. You wouldn't expect a nation that's being bombed day and night, essentially at will, to still hold so many cards. Not only is the US completely incapable of strong-arming the straight open, but the rate of missile and drone attacks out of Iran and its proxies has been accelerating the last few days, as has the rate of successful hits.
My Iranian ex colleague shares very interesting opinion. They trained during his army time to blow everything in the region up. So if things escalate badly the oil and gas importing countries will stay with a fraction of needed oil and gas for years. There is no backup infrastructure anywhere in the world. It will take years to rebuild the infrastructure. It will destroy world’s economy better than nukes.
Since 1979, every US president has known that the US can send a couple of aircraft carriers and bomb the shit out of Iran.
And yet none did. Because they listened to their security chiefs and advisors who would tell them, Iran is a highly complex multiethnic geographically complex country. If you can contain it with diplomacy, that’s preferable.
When listening to “experts” becomes taboo, there will be consequences.
The inhabitants of the Iranian plateau have been the subject of the ire of the military superpower of their era quite a few times. Alexander the Great conquered them and set their capital and their sacred books on fire and yet a mere 70 years later his Hellenic dynasty was gone. They were conquered by the Arabs and were forced to give up their religion but somehow, unlike Egypt and Syria/Lebanon and many other ancient places, these guys somehow kept their language and distinct culture intact. They were decimated (maybe even worse ) by Genghis Khan and followed quickly by Tamerlane and yet, it was their Turco-Mongol rulers who ended up adopting their language and culture.
The inhabitants of this land have deep memory of knowing how to suffer, to endure and to survive. It wasn’t that long ago that from Constantinople to New Delhi, the language of the Imperial Court was Persian.
Cheap airborne weapons have irreversibly changed warfare. IIRC a Patriot missile costs something like $4 million. Using them to shoot down $50k Shahed drone is a losing proposition. That's not only because of the price, but because the drones can be produced a lot faster. Even Iran's ballistic missiles are a lot cheaper and faster to produce than any defense system that can reliably destroy them.
Nobody is using Patriot to intercept Shaheds. PAC-2/3 are intended for ballistic missiles and fighter jets. In Ukraine, low-flying drones are primarily countered by FPV, MANPADS, drone-hunting aircraft and truck, and EW before point defense SAM and AA gun.
No one should use a Patriot to shoot down a drone, but they certainly have done so.
There are some pretty solid reasons why Ukraine offered consultation - unlike the US, they have actual combat experience against hordes of Shaheds. The US walked into a mess: they overestimated their ability to take out Iranian systems, and underestimated how hard it is to defend against them.
It's embarrassing. Now, the US seems to be looking for some way out, while preserving some dignity and pretending that they "won".
I did a quick search and could only found a missed missile having self destruction. Shaheds have a very distinct noise it shouldn't be too hard to id. While I don't doubt Americans had used patriot on drones, I believe it is because they were(and still are) unprepared and they panicked.
Actually they are using everything they have to combat these cheap drones. That includes Patriot and THAAD systems as well. Specially UAE, which got struck with more drones than Israel. That is how Iran was able to take out a THAAD radar, because it was deployed so close to them.
You can’t really deduce THAAD was used against drones based on this. As the number of US assets in the Middle East increases, it is logical to deploy more THAAD to protect them from Iranian ballistic missiles. Israel intercepted a few[0] at the beginning of the current conflict, so it is common sense to presume there are still some remaining.
The problem is that we need to adapt to the asymmetrical aspect of drone warfare, as Ukraine has done. The best description I saw of the current state is “flying IEDs”.
Drones and ballistic missiles make area denial asymmetrically cheap for a defending forces. This lesson needs to be incorporated because it would be the same tactic used by China to deny access to the South China Sea.
They are sarcastically mocking Trump's nonsensical back-and-forth statements about the war already being won and regime change already being accomplished
The U.S. can't win this war. John Kiriakou did a nice analysis on this on his recent podcasts. "Iran just has to prolong the war and survive it to win". Trump on the other hand needs a decisive win fast, or the economic and political fallout will be too big. As long as Iran can launch cheap drones and keep a small but steady pressure there is just no path out of this for the U.S. except to go home.
> This is the second sudden bombing campaign the country has suffered in as many years – they do not want there to be a third next year and a fourth the year after that. But promises not to bomb them don’t mean a whole lot: establishing deterrence here means inflicting quite a lot of pain. In practice, if Iran wants future presidents not to repeat this war, the precedent they want to set is "attacking Iran is a presidency-ending mistake." And to do that, well, they need to end a presidency or at least make clear they could have done.
Can they do that: yes, keep Hormuz shut until much closer to November, and "the economic and political fallout will be too big."
While it can very well be true, I wonder if we don't exagerate the will of the iranian regime and its ablity in the current time to think this far ahead. I see them more in survival mode, I'm not sure they fight for future deterence, maybe the goals align currently but seems to me to be happenstance. They seem resilient but I wonder how much they would be close of falling. Of course, I wouldn't have done this war, and I certainly would stop it now.
> They seem resilient but I wonder how much they would be close of falling
While neither of us have any special insight into that, and no-one has certainty, I urge you to read the essay linked, as this topic is in fact discussed with historic examples. "There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad ... There is a great deal of ruin in a nation."
You are right that the the Iranian regime's short and longer term goals align. But, happenstance or not, they are aligned and likely will stay that way.
> I wouldn't have done this war, and I certainly would stop it now.
That’s the thing there is no stopping it now. Trump walks away and Iran taxes every barrel that goes through the straight. There is no return to normal.
> That’s the thing there is no stopping it now. Trump walks away and ...
Right, Short of unconditional surrender, it is very hard for one party in a war to just end it without the other side also agreeing to cease. Otherwise, walking away just lets them target your back.
It has been obvious for decades that Americas beloved, insanely expensive, carrier groups were weapons of the past.
Every time this is mentioned the comments fill with naval fans pointing out that in fact carrier groups are invulnerable due to layered defenses and air support.
Whenever vulnerabilities are demonstrated, most famously by Sweden's cheap, quiet, diesel electric subs ability to sink carriers during war games so effectively the US begged to borrow one for training, the fans just return to their talking points.
YouTube has a library of videos like this.
Yet reality bites. The truth is the most aggressive administration in living memory is afraid to sail into troubled waters for fear of losing materiel.
The age of carriers is over. Dinosaurs in an age of mammals.
I don't get that "Strait" discussion. Where does the Strait begin and end? If somehow the US Navy "opens" the Strait, what stops Iran to attack every ship moving in the direction of the Strait? Where does the "protection zone" start and end?
Much further than that. At least 200nm using drone ISR to cue Shaheeds, 500nm with satellite ISR. (With a 90kg warhead.) There are also many fishing vessels in the region, originating from a number of countries (e.g. Oman, Iran, Pakistan) which can report sightings of VLCCs.
Once you have sighted the ship it is an undergrad project to implement target classification and recognition using off the shelf algorithms. It doesn't need a fast GPU because naval engagements are very slow, a cheap mobile phone can do it.
How many innocent fishermen are you willing to murder? And of course, the famine in Balochistan that would follow. Maybe not a great idea if you want an uprising of the Balochi against the Persians.
Oman is a regional ally, but they would not stand idly by while their citizens are killed.
Must be nice for western arm chair commentators to discuss this without once feeling the consequences of the actions of their elected government.
Where I live - we face a severe shortage of LPG fuel due to this. Quite a few restaurants have shut down temporarily. Migrant workers around the parts who have no access to a kitchen because they live in tiny quarters with a bedding and a common toilet are struggling to find sustainable food. Acquaintances who own workshop are running around trying to figure out food arrangements for their employees. And we are not even party to this shitty war!
We are making do with electric alternatives but thats also because we are in the top 5%. Our household staff are struggling to figure out the situation. Induction gas stoves are either stocked our or selling for 3-4x their regular price. Even if they get access to one - electric supply is unreliable and they are not sure how to pay the bill. Electricity usage is subsidized (its free upto 200 Kwh / month) but if it exceeds that they will have to pay full price which hurts their budget quite a lot.
I used an MSR international stove when I was homeless. 1L of some sort of fuel (it takes gasoline, white gas, kerosene, etc) would last me at least a week and at least one form of fuel it accepts can usually be obtained somehow from somewhere. If you can come up with 1 gal gas / person / month it will cook rice or boil some meat easy enough. Of course if there is not even enough gas for 1 ga / person / month I think you are in deeper shit because there's not enough to even transport basic needed supplies and you are probably using mules like in Cuba (in which case, hopefully you can chop down a tree for wood).
Blocking the strait is Iran's doing, not the US's.
The US attacked them yes, but they were the ones who responded by threatening to blow up the ships of innocent third parties. They couldn't hurt the US, so they decided to hurt you instead.
Why the world is tolerating this behavior as if it's a legitimate strategy and blaming it on the US is beyond me.
What do you mean its not the US's doing? They knew 100% before going in that the straight being closed would be the result of attacking Iran. If the US didn't attack Iran, there would be no blockade.
Its like going into a bar and you start beating people up and so the bar owner kicks everyone out and then you say "It's not my fault the bar closed, it's the bar owner's fault, I merely started the fight that caused the bar to close!"
Iran doesn't own the strait. They don't have a right to close the bar in the first place.
If one guy throws a punch and the other guy responds by throwing a molotov cocktail into the kitchen you don't charge the first guy with arson, even if he "should have known that second guy was crazy".
If the other guy is literally holding a molotov in his hand saying "If you attack me im going to throw this" and then you attack him anyways, then yes it is 50% your fault. You knew what would happen before you did it.
I disagree. Besides, if a guy is making threats like that you should have the police come in to remove him, or maybe even SWAT if it's a credible deadly threat. Threatening harm to uninvolved third parties is not a tactic that should be afforded any legitimacy, which capitulation certainly does.
There is nothing wrong with threatening harm against people who are threatening you with harm. Some might even say it is a moral imperative to fight back against those who will harm and kill you or your friends and family. Iran didn't start this off, the US did with an inept surprise attack.
On top of all that, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Again, the issue here is not threatening harm against those threatening them, it's with threatening (and indeed, actively perpetuating) harm against uninvolved third parties.
Punching back the guy who punched you? Understandable. Lobbing a molotov cocktail into the kitchen, pointing at the guy who punched you and declaring "Look what he made me do! You better stop him!" to onlookers? Completely unhinged.
I don't see Iran attacking Europe or anybody else that they aren't already in or have been in conflict with.
Is it inconvenient? Sure. But if don't want to block the hallway for everyone else you don't start a fight with a guy standing in the hallway. You think if Spain was attacked by a bigger and stronger adversary that they would just let the logistics traffic that feeds the enemy and the enemy's allies pass freely through the Gibraltar strait? Hell no.
Traffic through the strait is certainly not "logistics traffic that feeds the enemy", unless Iran considers the entire world its enemy. Certainly high global oil prices affect the US just as they affect everyone, but these are not US ships being blocked, nor are they bound for the US. The US gets almost all the oil it imports from Canada, South America, and Mexico: https://www.voronoiapp.com/energy/Visualizing-Global-Oil-Tra...
The "blocking the hallway" analogy also fails because this isn't just unavoidable collateral damage; Iran is actively threatening to target ships from these uninvolved third parties.
This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read on HN and I've been here for a while.
Iran was always going to blockade the strait of Hormuz if attacked, as would any other country in their position. What do you expect, to tell them to play by some imaginary set of rules while the US is setting the rulebook itself on fire?
It's almost as dumb as expecting Ukraine to allow russian oil to transit their territory.
I'm not sure what your point is. Everyone knew they were going to irrationally decide to threaten the ships of uninvolved third parties therefore it's not their fault for doing it?
Ukraine is blocking Russian oil, not the oil of random uninvolved neighboring countries. And the strait is in no way "Iran's territory" anymore than you could say it's the US's territory just because they could also theoretically block traffic through there if they wanted.
> Must be nice for western arm chair commentators to discuss this without once feeling the consequences of the actions of their elected government.
You're right. But you're also wrong. People who voted for this admin have been (and are being) deported. Or someone they know. Or their employees aren't showing up. Or, for some of us, we worry that someone close to us is at risk any day now.
I didn't vote for the asshole, but many are feeling the consequences. They can ignore some of them and they might have much more relief from the outcome, but a lot of people are suffering.
Meanwhile, rah-rah dumbasses think he can do no wrong and buy into propaganda that tells them why it's someone else's fault that they're worse off.
- Plenty of sources online about the LPG crisis, as the govt has invoked essential commodities act (gives govt extra powers to crush black market and force companies to prioritize distribution to domestic households over industrial use cases).
- E-commerce like amazon/flipkart have also run out of induction stoves (or selling at a premium like RAM).
- Electricity is a state subject, and two of the south India states (bangalore-KT/hyderabad-TG) offer free electricity up to 200 units for low-income households under "gruha jyothi scheme"
I think these articles are a bit rushed. The very objectives are the reason the US has not moved on the straight. Obviously Iran has built up an insane arsenal. Rushing the straight is poor strategy when you have freedom of skies to pick apart their capabilities. Everything's a narrative article nowadays. If aircraft carriers were so vulnerable we wouldn't even send them that close.
Given it is reported to be successfully targeting Israel with cluster ammunitions in warheads, I am curious what stops Iran from targeting US ships even far outside the strait? I would have thought if you could send multiple missiles with cluster bombs simultaneously at short notice it would be very difficult to counter and impose catastrophic cost.
Is anti-missile defense is just that good on ships that no amount of simultaneous missiles and decoys can overcome it?
The chances of a ballistic missile hitting a ship - a small, moving target in the middle of the sea - are negligible. And a 4kg bomblet wouldn't do much damage anyway.
Sinking a US ship would be a drastic escalation. Iran has done a lot of damage to US assets but inflicted few casualties, demonstrating both capability and restraint. If they destroyed the American boomers' few remaining illusions of supremacy by sinking a ship and potentially killing hundreds of crew, the loss of face would likely instigate a drastic response that could lead to a worst-case scenario. Much better for Iran to keep playing bloody knuckles and force the US and Israel to beg for peace when their missile defenses and appetite for war run dry.
Interesting to see three entirely different responses to my question - but I think I believe this one the most. Not necessarily that they could be successful in attacking (who knows), but that trying would escalate things on the wrong timeline for them. At this point, they actively want to drag this out.
My sense at the moment is they are pursuing a "humiliation" strategy where they will persuade Trump to withdraw by making it too embarrassing to continue. For that, all they have to do is make him look impotent, which they achieve by continuously provoking just enough to force a response (either military, or Trump to issue yet another TACO threat he can't carry through with) but then popping up a few days later with a new attack showing it didn't work.
It's a waste. Iran can't win against the US army. They'll win by being as disruptive as possible, for as long as possible. They'll keep seldomly launching rockets until they get what they want or the global economy collapses. This whole situation perfectly illustrates that wars are won with intelligence, and not by gung ho "warrior ethos" morons like Hegseth.
Are you saying Iran, a country that was just sanctioned to hell for almost half a century, with a defense budget of at most $30B is outsmarting our $2T/year military which we consider to be the greatest in the world? The can't be. That's literally the only thing that makes this nation "great". That would imply that our country is being led by morons
Who says they didn’t? Although not widely reported in mainstream US media, there are lots of claims online that US Navy ships were hit by missiles, including a clip from Trump himself. Why is the Ford and Lincoln so far away?
People don't seem to understand the level of strategic defeat that the US is facing. Not only is the strait closed, but the US Navy has been completely locked out of the Gulf. They do not have a single ship operating there. They cannot service their coastal bases, which now sit empty. The situation is completely unprecedented.
The calculus in Iran is that they have yet to play the card they've been investing most in: make boots on the ground untenable.
Until Iran feels that their best card is valued correctly - either by being played, or made unplayable - reports on "negotiations" are meaningless fluff.
Trying to protect the strait is a fools errand. Instead, you give them an ultimatum, like trump has done (twice now?). You don't just try to blow up the things that are attacking the strait, you blow up things that let the Iranians build and launch the stuff attacking the strait. Power plants, railroads, airports, highways, industrial sites, etc.
Typically american to argue that "blasting" people is bad because of tactics or economics or whatever. How about it's bad to kill random people that haven't done you anything just because it's evil to do so?
I guess that would involve admitting something about the morality of what the USA has been doing since the end of WWII though...
All establishment media, thinktanks and both parties are pro US imperialism in general which necessitates wars of aggression, you have to read this critique more like it's taking place within the pro-war group. Like everybody is agreeing with the Iran war in principle thats not even up to debate anywhere in the mainstream. It wouldn't even occur to most Americans that "no wars at all" is even an option to begin with. To most, their "freedom" and safety depends on wars thousands of miles away.
One example you can look for (it's everywhere) is in the way Chinese military capabilities are discussed by media like that, what is often brought up against them is "the lack of experience", without a hint of irony alongside the implicit view of china as the dangerous aggressor and rival. Imperialism is just the air they breathe, they don't notice it at all. Peaceful coexistence is not an option.
Very few Americans realize the scale of the defeat that the US military is facing in this war. Loss of CSG capabilities as well as anti missile radars, refueling planes, AWACS and ground bases all over the Middle East means this is the worst damage the US has taken since WW2.
In pure amoral military terms, the US military has barely suffered a scratch in this war, losing only a few soldiers and pieces of equipment. It has failed to subdue Iran, so in that sense so far at least it has not achieved a victory. However, it has also not suffered a defeat. If the Iranian government ends the war still in power and with the ability to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed whenever they want to, I will consider that a a US defeat. However, the defeat would not have been caused by any serious damage that Iran has done to the US military, it would have been caused by the combination of Iranian resilience to damage and its geographic advantage of being right next to the Strait of Hormuz.
The problem shown by Ukraine was that large, expensive solutions were not effective when cheap weapons were used. The solution, which will take time, is to recreate some of the cheap defensive solutions that used to be available - guns, radar-bearing weaponry, etc. these are quite boring to the high tech industry, who prefer things like lasers, rail guns, etc. but ww ii showed they worked, and I suspect the approach speed of drones is similar to kamikazes.
There are also fewer ships than in the 80’s, and everything costs too much. F-35’s vs. F16 birds, the gripen argument in Canada or Europe. How to get companies and staff to embrace low tech solutions in a rapid mapper.
Perhaps they can remember history and make planes that support ground operations rather than high tech birds. Having more, slower birds with cannons would help with drone warfare. Armour also helps.
And yeah, selling ads vs more interesting tech solutions was a cliche 10+ years ago.
The US Navy does not operate in a vacuum, it serves at the pleasure of the commander-in-chief. And when the current administration is hell bent on undermining and underestimating everyone and everything, you’d be a fool to believe any report or conclusion. While it may be completely true and reasonable, it does nothing to dictate the future outcome.
With the strait being that narrow, missiles aren't even needed. Just artillery is enough. That's the main problem here.
Forcible reopening is possible but it involves a lot of airpower, not ships. Make anything unable to approach Iranian shoreline and stay alive, to man even a tiniest rubber boat - including emptying all cities on the coast of people.
Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy. In particular, Red utilized old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network: Van Riper simulated using motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications in the model.
Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of Blue's six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.
wasn't one of the controversies, that the simulation didn't account for the fact that Red's boats couldn't actually/launch carry the cruise missiles that were used to sink these ships?
I haven’t read the article but what exactly are you going to blast? You can fire the Shahed drone from the back of a pick up truck. They could be scattered all over the country they’re cheap as hell to make and they could pump out hundreds of thousands of them.
This version of the "end of the power of the aircraft carrier" sounds like it will play out a lot like the end of the tank, the end of the helicopter, etc. Yeah, it's not going to have the same untouchable power it used to. But it's not going to stop being useful or go away either.
However, I doubt that the huge and vulnerable carriers of today have any future.
Carriers designed not for manned aircraft, but only for drones, missiles and guns would allow the use of a much greater number of small carriers instead of a few huge and expensive carriers.
Such carriers could be mostly automated and they would need much smaller crews, instead of being floating cities.
tumpy was/is/might be going to china in a week or so, and there is pretty much no way that can happen while WWIII is launching, and/or things are going mega bad for the marines, as there is no way they are not going find themselves in a real fight.
all those islands are owned and operated by the irainian military, who in fact have complete long range artilery superiority,and every square inch dialed in, dont see how it could be done except with a full and total invasion of the wholecountry, which would likely go worse and would require a much much larger force than the one on hand, but tumpy is crazy, so who knows
While that US law only says that USA should use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court", in reality USA has always used any means necessary for protecting their military personnel from suffering consequences from breaking the local laws not only in the cases of crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of ICC, but also for any common crimes, e.g. by smuggling out of the respective foreign country military personnel guilty of killing people while driving drunk, in order to escape trial and sentence.
So, when Trump says to US "allies" to "go get your own oil" he's literally inviting them into a shooting gallery that the even Hegseth is too smart to take on.
> Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine is willing to share its expertise in unblocking maritime trade routes with the naval drones.
> “We shared our experience with the Black Sea corridor and how it operates. They understand that our Armed Forces have been highly effective in unblocking the Black Sea corridor. We are sharing these details.”
I love the title. Responsible Statecraft has to explain god-fearing taxpayers that Captain America is not going to defeat aladdin witchcraft by using spiderman skills
I don't understand why Trump doesn't simply mine the strait of Hormuz, and make a simple statement - "no ships get through unless all ships get through". Sure, it would disrupt the world oil supply, but seems hard for Iran to counter.
I am very angry with Trump. He owes all of us money here.
The sooner the guy is gone, the better. Some folks compared
Trump to Lyndon B. Johnson, but as a lame duck from the get
go. I think Trump in his own category - a new label of
criminal and stupid. I want my money "back".
Id personally like to know why we are expending our taxes waging war on behalf of a sociopathic nation who just passed a law to legalize the death penalty for those specifically not a part of their special ethnoreligeous group? They are literally celebrating by carrying around NOOSES.
Stupidly, yes, with carpet bombing. Practically, no, that would be horrible. More horrible, possibly, than taking out the power and water infrastructure.
We can't carpet bomb to regime change. But we can probably depopulate critical areas around the coasts while ships transit. It's stupidly expensive, both in materiel and collateral cost. But it's feasible. Whether we have the bomb-production is a separate question to which I don't have the answer.
> probably depopulate critical areas around the coasts while ships transit.
(looks at map) the city of Bandar Abbas, population ~500k? It's already being hit as it contains the Iranian Navy HQ, but actually depopulating it is a much bigger project.
Depopulation won't stop the IRGC from digging up a Shahed buried in the sand and launching it. The range is so great you would have to pacify the entire east of Iran, an absolutely impossible task.
> Depopulation won't stop the IRGC from digging up a Shahed buried in the sand
Carpet bombing. You don’t get to bury things in the sand, much less unbury them. It’s an old tactic—shaping movement with artillery—except done with remote pieces.
> range is so great you would have to pacify the entire east of Iran
West. Also, I don’t think so. Just critical zones. Worst case, only U.S. escorted and Iran toll-paying ships get through. (Worst case for the world. Not the belligerents. Which…that might be the solution.)
“Operation Crimp began on January 7, 1966, with B-52 bombers dropping 30-ton loads of high explosive onto the region of Củ Chi, effectively turning the once lush jungle into a pockmarked moonscape. Eight thousand troops from the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (including an artillery battery of the Royal Regiment of New Zealand Artillery), and the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment combed the region looking for any clues of PLAF activity.
The operation did not bring about the desired success.
[…]
By 1969, B-52s were freed from bombing North Vietnam and started "carpet bombing" Củ Chi and the rest of the Iron Triangle. Towards the end of the war, some of the tunnels were so heavily bombed that some portions actually caved in, and other sections were exposed. But the bombings were not able to destroy most parts of those tunnels.”
Carpet bombing doesn't cover a large area. Besides which there is nowhere to stage so an enormous campaign that isn't also in reach of one way drones.
The vast areas in the East are where you can strike shipping. You would only strike the West if your intention was to kill Iranians rather than end the war.
Nor did WW2 England. Look, Churchill had like 24 approval rate after Dunkerque, and the 'british Hitler' had 18%. Bombing London moved those percentages _very_ fast. 'do nothing, win' people have a point most of the time.
Trump casually talks about destroying the energy infrastructure, power plants, desalination plants etc. This is one of the most controversial things that the Russians do in Ukraine - attack the grid when it's cold to try and freeze people to death. To willingly deprive a country of 100,000,000 people of water and power coming into summer would surely be a war-crime.
Different goals. Carpet bombing to deny Iran access to its coast is maneouvre warfare. It’s tactical. Carpet bombing to force Kyiv to capitulate is strategic bombing. It has never worked.
I don’t see how they’ll have different results, just because the aim is different. You just… take cover. Then come back once the planes fly away and continue what you were doing.
You can't deny access to a coast that large with carpet bombing, especially in a mountainous terrain. It has never worked. You'd need tens to hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground to do that.
If you wanted to try it with bombs, it would take continual re-dropping of hundreds of thousands of bombs every few hours to cover (1600km * 8km) to keep people out, even assuming they have 0 shelter or cover.
> can't deny access to a coast that large with carpet bombing, especially in a mountainous terrain. It has never worked. You'd need tens to hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground to do that
I think this is more an open question than “it has never worked.” Nobody has tried to area deny FPV-drone navigators. Bases on lines of sight and line channels, one could probably back out from transit paths to the places one would need to be to hit that target, and then ensure anything there is turned from psychology to biology before a critical moment. You couldn’t do this with smart munitions, and couldn’t along the entire Hormuz coast. But for critical junctures that our closest allies (minus Kuwait) need to export? The math seems feasible, if fundamentally untackled.
> I think this is more an open question than “it has never worked.”
I don't think so – we were talking about continually carpet bombing Iran to continually deny them access to a 1600km-long coastline. That simply has never worked. Not in Iran, not elsewhere to my knowledge.
> Bases on lines of sight and line channels, one could probably back out from transit paths to the places one would need to be to hit that target
That describes pretty much anywhere in the 7000+ square kilometers we're talking about. A drone doesn't need a runway. Anywhere you can fit a large pickup truck, you can launch a Shaheed drone.
> Nobody has tried to area deny FPV-drone navigators.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Deny the area to Iran's FPV drones? If so, how? Use FPV drones to deny the area? If so, how? We're talking about continually patrolling 7,000+ square kilometers. The USA has never fielded such a system, and has no publicly known capabilities to do so.
Iran already had severe water problems. Attacking the water infrastructure would definitely cause huge civilian casualties. Israel is used to that. Not clear whether America is ready to go into the midterms with an official policy of US-flagged genocide.
There has been (I think) relatively minor hits. And Iran has retaliated in kind (see the latest hit on Kuwaiti desalination plant).
The thing is that while Iran's water infrastructure is vulnerable, the Gulf states are much more reliant on desalination ... and hitting them hard there would be a total disaster ... which Iran is capable of doing, but has so far refrained.
> Attacking the water infrastructure would definitely cause huge civilian casualties
I personally think there is a wide barrier between electrical and water infrastructure. But given water infra has allegedly been hit already, it doesn’t feel like it’s off the table for both sides the way it once was.
That doesn’t work if a nation has strong institutions and hierarchies of command. Russia and Nazi Germany (and Iraq) were organized around a strong central leader who personally granted authority to his subordinates, but Iran’s rulers are given authority by a process. If the new supreme leader is killed, they will simply elect another one. Imagine that FDR was visiting Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. Would the US government have collapsed? How many politicians and generals would the Japanese have had to kill before the US surrendered?
I think Newt had the right idea, albeit in a more targeted fashion instead of just ‘nuking the Strait’. Given that Iran has now taken to directly threatening non-military US commercial and civilian enterprises and assets I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to justify using them in this instance.
I can't tell if this is tongue-in-cheek, but if it is not, the escalation of nuclear weapons at this point is an insane idea to accomolish the stated goals of the administracion.
I'm not a Trump fan, but this isn't just the Trump admin, is it. Every administration since Carter has had to deal with Iran, whose stated raison d'être is to eradicate both Israel and the US. That's been their position for 40 years.
My own view is that if you have the power to delete your enemy while he's weak, you do it. Why the fuck would you wait until he gets the nukes he promises to get, or uses them on you like he also promises to do? At least the Israelis seem to understand this.
The US has already alienated their allies anyway, and as we've seen with this fiasco, it isn't like those allies are particularly useful anyway, so if the US did use nukes to very quickly solve what has been an intergenerational problem, so what? Oh no, condemnation from the international community. Nobody cares.
A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years.
On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. That finally made it undeniable that sending naval vessels anywhere near a hostile shore is a thing of the past. Countermeasures can take out some attacking missiles, but not all of them.
This is a real problem for the U.S. Navy, because they've invested heavily in craft intended to operate near hostile shores. Littoral combat ships and amphibious assault ships are intended to operate offshore of trouble spots. This worked a lot better when the trouble spots couldn't do much to them.
The size of Iran means that knocking out drone and missile production for long won't work. Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now. Ukraine produced 4 million drones last year, and production continues to increase. Ukraine even exports drones now. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE have been making deals with Ukraine for air defense systems. Iran exports drones to Russia.
Mass-produced drones today are a simple airframe, a lawnmower engine, and the smarts of a cell phone. Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran.
The US can't just pull out, either. The enemy gets a vote on when it's over. Israel, Iran, and Yemen now all have to agree. Probably the best deal the US can get at this point is a cease fire with Iran collecting tolls on the Strait of Hormuz.
Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US.
> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia.
According to [0], in 2025 Iran had 86M people. Ukraine had 29M (~33%), Germany (highest in Europe) had 83M (~96%, uh?), Iraq had 46M (~53%), and Russia had 146M (~168% / ~59% reversed).
Wildly, wildly wrong about Germany but not too far off the rest[1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...
[1] Although if you include Turkey in "Europe", "more than any country in Europe" droops a little because Turkey's 86092168 (99.456%) is basically identical to Iran's 86563000 when it comes to projection and estimation errors.
Also half of the people in iran hate the government or even have a feud with it after it murderd their protesting relatives..
Presumably they meant WW2 Germany.
Germany's population in 1938 was higher. Around 86 million.
It was 78 Million
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS-Staat
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I think the comparisons were referring to land area, but I agree this is not that clear from from the comment
> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq
Sure, they're talking multiples of land area.
> Sure, they're talking multiples of land area.
But then don't say "people"? Because if you say "has N people" and then "more than 2x Y", no-one is going to go "yes, that's 2x land area" when it was NEVER MENTIONED IN ANY CONTEXT.
Sorry, my post was sarcastic. If they were talking about land area, there was no context clues.
I don't think they can be because "About 2/3 of Russia" -> Iran is (according to [0]) about 636k mi^2 whilst Russia is 6600k mi^2 or just over 10x the area.
(Iran is 4.5x the land area of Germany, 2.7x Ukraine, 3.7x Iraq - sure "2x" works but it's out enough that it doesn't fit with the "land area" claim.)
Also Denmark is in Europe and has a land area (including Greenland) 1.3x that of Iran which strictly breaks the "more than any country in Europe" claim.
In summary, if it's about land area, it's absolute gibberish. If it's about population, it's mostly accurate.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...
> Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US.
If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon. After 9/11, there's no world in which any attack on the US homeland, however small or local, is met with anything other than overwhelming retribution.
Having difficulty projecting force from the air with fighter bombers launched from air craft carriers and refueling caravans from the Indian Ocean or Mediterranean Sea against a determined enemy that has been preparing for this eventuality since 1979 is one thing. Being able to fly non-stop B-52 and B-2 sorties from home air bases with single-digit-hour flight times is a different thing entirely.
It is so rich hearing that America can attack anybody, but godforbid an attack on the "homeland" is an unforgivable act that will invoke nukes immediately.
That's how nukes work. When it comes to nuclear weapons, the world is divided into haves and have-nots. Anyone lacking effective nuclear response can be steamrolled by those who do with total impunity.
The USA has been attacked before but it has never been invaded and forced to fight a war on its own soil against foreign enemies. It's possible that they unconsciously believe war is something they bring to others, never something others bring to them. It's impossible to predict how traumatizing it would be for them if that belief is proven wrong. They could absolutely reach for nuclear weapons if that threshold is reached.
> the world is divided into haves and have-nots
Yes and the most important lesson of recent history is for have-nots to become haves ASAP.
and that is why as one of the haves (by virtue of you being on this website), it is important to prevent any have-nots from getting nukes.
If only we had non-violent means to do this! Man, what a revolution could be had if we explored those possibilities!
If thats important its counter intuitive to show that agreements about not getting any nuklear arms is worth nothing, and wont stop you getting invaded.
Yes, we tried that with the JCPOA but Trump blew that up because it was signed by Obama.
Now the Iran theocracy saw full well that nukes are the only way they can stay alive. What exactly is the leverage against it?
Basically, I think the most optimistic possible outcome from of this is returning to something like the nuclear deal, but with way better terms for Iran.
This was all so completely stupid
I don't see any realistic path for this fuck up to be unfucked. Aggressive foreign policy is seldom reversible, there is no way to get back to the previous save game.
The fundamental issue in dealing with Iranians was that they were strongly ideological and not very realpolitk - this is exactly what drove them into a conflict with US in the first place, a series of ruinous foreign policy moves - the hostages crisis, the Beirut bombing, proxy wars - that served no strategic long term purpose for Iran other than signaling ideological commitment within the regime.
So whatever you negotiated with Iran, you could only extract at gunpoint threatening their destruction (which even they understand is bad for their ideological goals), and you could never fully trust them to see their own-self interest and follow through. Their nuclear program was, in this context, more of a bargaining chip than an ideological regime goal, a way to put something on the table while maintaining their ideologically-mandated tools for power projection in the region, missiles and drones programs, various proxy fronts etc. This was a state of affairs that Israel was strongly opposed to, so they applied lobby pressure to kill the deal.
Well, having now actually attempted to destroy the regime and failed, whatever leverage you had for a non-nuclear Iran is gone. You have demonstrated to the Islamic republic that the only way to continue to exist is to obtain nuclear weapons, that no negotiated compromise can exist. You have also replaced the older, conservative, nuclear skeptic Ayatollah with his son, who's entire family was hit: father, wife, teenage son, sister and her toddler son and husband were all killed. Does he sound like a man who accepted to succeed his father's because he wants to correct the late Khamenei's mistakes and make a bid for peace?
The refreshed Islamic republic might sign various treaties or truces and accept nuclear deals, but they will surely break them because obtaining nukes has become existential. My expectation is that, if the regime does not collapse, either as a result of a ground invasion, internal uprising, or some combination (civil war etc.), then they will get nuclear weapons in the next decade. They are too easy to procure and the regime has now too little to lose.
No, Iran started helping the US against Taliban only to be put on the axis of evil list by Bush. Signed a deal with the US only to be torn and Trump placed maximum pressure.
US foreign policy in the Middle East is run by Israel.
Iran is foolish to have not yet built their nuke.
It was Obama's deal, so it had to go.
Nothing mattered more than that to this admin.
Last thing we need is an apocalyptic death cult having access to nukes.
Why would you assume anyone on this website is from or lives in a country which has nukes?
This is an english speaking tech forum, so it’s safe to assume most people here live in a country that has nukes like the US, UK, India, probably decent number of people who came from China and Russia too.
sure, nobody would ever speak English as a second language ;)
Lol not saying everyone here but most people here. Plus there's the whole ycombinator thing too.
Anyone lacking effective nuclear response can be steamrolled by those who do with total impunity.
Ukraine begs to differ.
Ukraine is different and did the reverse, giving up their nukes. They said it was too expensive to keep them, which is only partially true. Ukraine could have deconstructed them and created new Permissive Action Links (PALs) in Dnipro although this process would have taken years and carried a high risk of accidental detonation or radioactive mishaps during the reengineering phase.
And there’s also a small detail of Russia threatening invasion if Ukraine tried to decode those.
Well they always do, so threats by the bad boys are just noise
The US has allegedly said they will retaliate with nuclear strikes on Russia if Russia uses nuclear strikes on Ukraine.
Barring an attack on the US itself, the US under the current regime will never attack Russia. Whatever the kompromat happens to be, the President is completely bound by it.
The "kompromat" is the world's largest nuclear arsenal, some five thousand and change warheads, along with a delivery system that includes an HGV MIRV payload that can deliver a multi-megaton warhead at ~mach 20-something.
As if all their rusty crap still works.
Their video recordings of Trump doing God-only-knows-what, on the other hand, appear to be working great. Ditto, the unreleased files hacked from the Republican National Committee's email server in 2016.
> As if all their rusty crap still works.
It doesn't all have to work.
Like a beheaded snake, you can still get bit.
Why would Russia use nukes on Ukraine? It will make it even worse pariah than NK.
> pariah
Which recent foreign policy actions by Russia indicate that they care overmuch about soft power, or consider its loss to be a significant risk?
Honestly, I thought part of MAD was how, once a nuclear missile was launched, it would be better for other nuclear states to decimate the country of origin than to wait and figure out where it would hit.
Subs make that more difficult.
That'll never happen.
Doubt.
> It's possible that they unconsciously believe war is something they bring to others, never something others bring to them
Spot on. As an American who is quite critical of the imperialist dynamic, I still catch myself thinking this way. Like "what if Iran actually attacks something around me?" But it's war, shouldn't one expect that an enemy might attack at any point?! Except, we just don't think of war as something that might have direct repercussions for us personally, which is why most of us vote for chucklefuck leaders who start them so readily.
This is interesting. Even though its many years ago most of Europe have a big open wound from WWII. That might be a missing ingredient for the american people to be less trigger happy when it comes to bombing other countries. The act of bombing a school full of children would have turned everything on its head in my country.
Your "big open wound" is my country's stepping into what was still mostly an elective war, saving the day, coming out as the head of a global economic empire, and being lauded for all of it - including well after the war itself for being the alternative to the more direct-subjugation-based empire of the USSR.
I'm not saying this to brag or something, but to drive home how radically different the perspectives are. Even our stories that are fundamentally tragedies (eg Saving Private Ryan) are still tales of distant heroic sacrifice, rather than the nihilistic smothering of helpless humans that war actually is. And to that above-it-all entitlement, we've mixed a cocktail of religious fundamentalism to help with the rationalization.
Vietnam was seemingly the only time since that there has been serious society-wide anti-war sentiment, and that's because people were being forcibly conscripted against their individual will. They fixed that by (effectively) removing the draft, while the economic treadmill was turned up such that more people "volunteered".
The War of 1812 says "hello"
That was my first thought too, but I think it's overly pedantic. If we're reaching all the way back to 1812 then I think parents point is true in spirit if not letter
It was fought on US soil but did they really get invaded in that war? They declared war on Great Britain. They even invaded Canada themselves. It just doesn't seem to match the conflicts the USA brings upon other nations.
It might be mere semantics, but the 1814 burning of Washington has been depicted as an invasion.
https://archive.org/details/burningofwashing00pitc
Yes, they got invaded. Just because it happened after they invaded someone else doesn't make it any less an invasion.
What was 9/11 if not military actions on USA own soils? Like, sure it can be labelled terrorism rather than "conventional military intervention", but psyops apart, on practical level that’s typical asymmetric/guerrilla warfare.
"Military action", perhaps, but that is a very vague term. You replied to someone about "fighting foreign troops on own soil" which describes a ground invasion. 9/11 was something else.
It is USA did not respond with any military force. The response, if any, was behind closed doors and we may never know the details. The only thing we know is that relationships with the Saudis are closer than ever. Journalists aren't even allowed to question why they chop up their regime critics in small pieces and put them in a box because that is considered "impolite".
The public response was largely within domestic policy. New laws, new government agencies, more money spent on the military. It was also alluded to when fighting the continuation war with Iraq, but nothing was ever said explicitly about that.
9/11 was not a military action against the USA, and the invocation of article 5 by the USA was illegimate.
> 9/11 was not a military action against the USA
that's a surprising thing to hear. where do you draw the line between terrorism and war? I see a distinction without much of a difference.
The difference between war and terrorism is what language you use to say "God wills it"
If you say "Deus Vult", you are a war hero. If you say "Inshallah", you are a radical terrorist.
The rules are quite simple.
it's indeed a distinction without a real difference, but terrorism is specifically targeted at civilians to produce some political outcome.
It's wild to suggest that terrorism against the US should not be responded with by military action - it's only the degree and targets that should be under debate.
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Probably not a perfect line, but one way to differ both is wether the action was done by a Country (Nation) vs a "militant" group.
This is foolish nonsense. An organized foreign army directing improvised missiles against your cities is very definitely conducting 'military action' and is a valid target for a military response.
> never something others bring to them
Ever heard of the independence war?
Just like Ukraine is being steamrolled by Russia, right?
There are gun nut americans who truly believe gun owners would contribute an effective resistance to a modern invading army because they own an ar15. That country is deluded and everyone falls off eventually and trump may have actually accelerated the country out of it's golden age
> There are gun nut americans who truly believe gun owners would contribute an effective resistance to a modern invading army because they own an ar15.
It would depend on their patience.
The insurgency in Iraq was eventually suppressed (American COIN manuals were updated). The insurgency (?) in Afghanistan outlasted the patience of the invaders.
So how long do the 'gun nutters' want to keep at it compared to the opposing force?
Further, it's worth asking how effective, on average, is violent disobedience. Generally speaking a movement has about double the odds of success by not using violence:
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44096650-civil-resistanc...
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I don’t feel well educated in modern military actions- are you saying that civilian gun owners in America would contribute meaningfully to the national defense (maybe because of things like civil resistance in other modern conflicts?), or am I misunderstanding? Do you have any suggestions for how I could start to broach the topic? It’s so broad and fast-moving that it’s hard to know where to start.
Yes absolutely they would and insurgencies are not the same thing as two nations fighting each other. America has twice as many gun owners as there are people in Afghanistan, a large chunk of them have combat experience.
And nearly every soldier playing government side would very likely have relatives on the other side. Most likely great demotivator
Civil wars happen all of the time. Not only is propaganda effective, but militaries have ways to mitigate this, like moving soldiers far away from home to fight in places they don't have familial/cultural/economic/etc ties, which also makes it more likely that the propaganda will work.
The thing that makes the large quantity of American gun owners potentially useful in that sort of scenario is not that they possess guns. That matters a little, but usually most of the equipment a resistance uses is captured and/or supplied by allies. The thing that would be useful is these individuals' skills with firearms. It's theoretically kind of an alternate route to a similar (but lower) background proficiency level that some countries achieve with mandatory military service.
Note however that America is not only not unique in having that background proficiency -- but unlike mandatory military service, this approach has not really been tested. It's far from a certain proposition either way.
The hardware still matters because it lets you execute suspected collaborators and force the occupiers to incur cost hardening their logistics train (i.e. insurgency 101 type stuff) without waiting for the bureaucrats in whatever foreign country wants to fund your insurgency to prepare your arms shipments.
If you're in a situation where the thing you're doing can be meaningfully called an "execution", a firearm is a convenience, not a necessity. There are also plenty of effective attacks on logistics trains that don't involve firearms, though I will grant that they are at least sometimes a force multiplier there. Hence "that matters a little".
Ummhmm... and how you going to stop either a tank, artillery, drones or air strikes?
Exactly the type of gunnut I'm talking about. You lot couldn't handle being asked to wear a COVID mask, you wouldn't be able to handle actual war against a state armed with ya assault rifle and tinned food
I think you misunderstand me. I have never owned a gun, fired one exactly once more than 20 years ago (Boy Scouts), and advocate for more gun control (not less). I would be totally useless in any realistic fight. The argument has some merit though, in that it is as yet unclear how much it would matter.
I don't think that unclear merit outweighs the very clear and data-driven drawbacks. I just prefer to engage subjects like this in a charitable manner.
What makes you think the us army would unite against them? Sure a few nut militials would be suppressed, but if gun owners in mass are raising up that means a large controversy that the military will be aware of. The us military is not full of 'yes men' who will follow orders that blindly on home turf, a lot of them will follow.
i doubt we will see this in my lifetime
> What makes you think the us army would unite against them?
I'd turn that around and ask, "What makes you think the people would accept the gun nuts rebellion?"
Many would be celebrating in the streets if the military showed up with tanks and started blasting. Furthermore, there's enough people in the military from far, far outside whatever state is being threatened to care that much about the locals.
"Fuckin' Texas gun nuts" <starts shooting>
Again, you are assuming a small rebellion - of course those will be put down. Texas has enough gun owners to put down a small rebellion without the military (they would let the military/police do it). However if things got so far that the majority of gun owners were willing to go to war that implies the US is at least very divided and the military is going to at least partially be on the side of the rebellion.
The 2nd amendment types are a little too impressionable for their guns to be of much use. They were soundly defeated in 5th generation warfare without the need to fire nary a shot. Less gullible americans tend to not own guns, so they were also defeated without firing nary a shot. Now America is just a big dumb worm that Netanyahu has his hooks in and uses to cruise around the desert with.
> Less gullible americans tend to not own guns
Guns are not only for counter-insurgency on invasion/warfare. For most people I know who own guns, that's not even on their top 10 list of reasons. But if you don't think they'd be a factor, then you disagree with some of the top generals around the world.
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Civilian guns (armament generally, not just guns) aren't for going toe to toe with a trained military in the field.
They're for putting a bullet in you and/your your family if you act as a collaborator, taking potshots at the logistics train, and all the other nasty stuff you have to do to make occupation costly in terms of both life and dollars. Every cent spent on putting bullet proof glass in the camera installation van and drone cages on the police station and using those cameras and drones to track down the guy who shot you for collaborating is a cent that must be extracted from either the occupied population or the population that's financing the occupiers and not spent in direct pursuit of the political goal.
This comment isn't worthy of HN.
Then why did you make it?
All the more reasons for Iran to drop their self imposed fatwa on nuclear weapons and get a few, to put an end to interference.
Iran has been on the receiving end of weapons of mass destruction, that is, chemical weapons, by way of US sponsored Saddam Hussein and lost close to half a million of their people. Yet they never for once retaliated with such weapons which to them is against their Islam.
Those half a million dead are part of a still unhealed wound and that is felt and remembered in every city and town in Iran.
What a stupid thing to say. Are you suggesting America should let others attack their homeland for some reason?
That's the whole point of having nukes - so others won't attack you.
Except that it's a bit more complicated than that. Russia has nukes and is under attack from Ukraine, and while in the past they sabre-rattled that they would use tactical nukes if there was ever any incursion, they haven't done so because they know that would cause the whole world to retaliate.
Then there's nuclear defenses - if a country would have an effective anti-ICBM system (like Star Wars or whatever), it would make a nuclear counterstrike ineffective and end Mutually Assured Destruction. On paper anyway, in practice there are no perfect anti-ICBM systems, and they're effectively cluster bombs so in theory after the initial launch they can break up into half a dozen "dumb" nukes. Good luck hitting those.
> Russia has nukes and is under attack from Ukraine
I mean I guess that's one way to talk about a country that shoots back when it is invaded!
Eh, Russia is under attack by Ukraine?
In which universe is that? From mainland Europe, I have a different perspective who started to fight?
No, it is not. Russia was attacked by Ukraine multiple times and nukes are still not used. India, Pakistan and China are in various stages of conflicts with each other for decades and all of them are nuke-enabled super-powers.
There are three points of having nukes:
1. Deter other countries with nukes from using them against you, or your military ally.
2. Prevent total annihilation in the war. You can lose the war, but not too much.
3. Burn the world to ashes. Very few countries can do it. It effectively forces the whole world to make sure that this scenario does not happen. So you can be sure that scenario where Ukraine conquers Russia and completely destroys it - will be prevented by the very Ukraine supporters. They don't want to live in the nuclear post-apocalypse, because there are scenarios where Russia fires every single nuclear missile on every major city on the Earth. As Putin framed it: We will go to heaven as martyrs, and they will simply drop dead.
America lost several wars, recently they lost Afghanistan war and right now they're losing Iran war. They won't invoke nukes to overturn the table, they'll accept the lose.
> They won't invoke nukes to overturn the table
How do you know? Trump's frustration is on the rise; at some point he very well may threaten nuclear strikes.
Another scenario is, he tries to invade, an Iranian drone makes it through and sinks a big US ship, hundreds or even thousands of American soldiers die in a very short period of time. Now everyone's upset and the American public screams "revenge".
Then anything can happen, really.
> How do you know? Trump's frustration is on the rise; at some point he very well may threaten nuclear strikes.
Whole world will boycott USA if they use nukes.
Will they?
US can squeeze Europe/Japan as much as they want.
Just disable Microsoft/Google/AWS/Apple crap for them and they will be on their knees.
Although, I will give larger chances of Israel using nukes than then US.
> Just disable Microsoft/Google/AWS/Apple crap for them and they will be on their knees.
The dumb thing is that there are people in the US that actually believe this. Apparently including you. It would destroy the US as a trading partner and cause overnight implosion of the USD. If you thought brexit was an own goal this would be on another level entirely. But please, shout it around some more and prove the point that I've been making to every company that I've been involved with in the last decade: have a plan in case your cloud stuff isn't available anymore.
First, the US has recently done a lot of dumb shit and own goals. One never knows where is the boundary, especially if things escalate gradually.
Second, the spinelessness of 'the west' also seems unbounded (the failure to condemn Venezuela action, Iran war, or Israel's behaviour). Even after the Greenland fiasco. Carney's words at Davos seem very hollow, when one sees his reaction to Iran war. So, it might not even come to full stop of IT infrastructure, just 'a gentle warning'.
Third, the US has no problems screwing its partners, with those obediently bowing down; that is not a new phenomenon. Read on 1971 Connaly's statement "The dollar is our currency, but your problem."
Ah hahahaha. Yeah... No. Contrary to popular belief, the 2-300 year old upstart that is the United States doesn't have a magical lynchpin it can pull to get the other longstanding nations of the world to acquiesce entirely. If the U.S. really pushes things, it will soon find itself on the shit list of everyone else on whom we rely for implementing key links in the supply chain. I honestly do not understand where the gung ho America ooh rah comes from anymore these days. People, we sold out our industrial base. We sold out how to make things. We sold out everything that wasn't nailed down chasing cheaper payroll to undercut the American worker. This country is not as on it's own two feet as we like to believe. One need only look at the supply chain disruptions of the last decade to understand that.
So much goodwill. Just up in smoke. Smfh.
Well said.
Perhaps I should have formulated my post more precisely.
1) So much goodwill gone up in smoke. Yes.
a) Will the US stop wasting its goodwill? Well, that would be a new thing, so no. b) Will it exploit the dependence on its IT infrastructure muscle? Who knows? It exploited the dependence on it financial infrastructure, despite obvious long term consequences on trust in this financial infrastructure. c) Will it come to truly turning off IT infrastructure? Probably not, the threat of that is sufficient, plus see 2).
2) My main beef is not with the US (I am not from US), its with Europe, for its spinelessness and inability to break its US dependence.
> 2) My main beef is not with the US (I am not from US), its with Europe, for its spinelessness and inability to break its US dependence.
Silicon Valley has an 'unfair advantage' in terms of capital available and the talent pool (though the latter is changing). This means that if you're going to roll something out you have a very good shot at cleaning up the EU market besides your home market because you will have the ability to massively undercut any EU competitors to the point that it would have to be an existential risk (after all your other EU competitors can do the same) to not do business with the US tech giants.
That's not spinelessness, that's sheer survival in a world where the table is massively tilted.
Breaking US dependence means breaking SV dependence and that's not even something the other states in the US have been able to do (Seattle got a head start and still didn't manage).
The same goes for the rest of the world...
Now, as to whether or not the EU could do better: so far, not really, because the main reason the EU does what it does is because it is a strong subscriber to free market principles, both within and without (and for better or for worse). The US has now burned a number of bridges which for most people in the EU (present company apparently excluded) were beyond the pale not that long ago.
So the tide is finally shifting: doing business with the US for critical services is now seen as a massive liability. This opens the door to local competition but that local competition still has to deal with various realities: environmental laws, anti-competitive legislation (which is stronger than in the USA) and a fractured linguistic environment as well as a lack of available capital. Those are - each by themselves - massive challenges that will need to be overcome.
I'm too old to take the lead in any of this - assuming I even could - so I'm happy to stand back to see what is going to happen and to help people see what is to their advantage and what is not. But I'm going to reserve judgment because I think that if you want to solve a problem you're going to have to work with people rather than to blame them for any of the ruts they're in.
Well, yes, all is more obvious in hindsight.
The tilted table facing the Silicon Valley: Yes, definitively. The US is screaming murder regarding the others (China...) subsidizing their industries to gain monopoly advantage. That is exactly what US (via Venture Capital) is doing regarding the SV startups -- the whole model there is burning cash to scale quickly to market dominance.
If China and Russia have been able to (at least somehow) insulate themselves from US IT dominance, so should had Europe, at least for the most critical things. Hiding behind 'free market' ideology when the other (stronger!) side is not playing by the same rules is sheer stupidity.
Yeah, yeah, nobody could have foreseen the level US would abuse its power... if you wholeheartedly believed the spiel about the common values and interests. In reality, the US has always been very transactional and aggressive. Its just that with Trump the mask has come off.
So, here you are with your successful EU startup. This time you'll do things right. So you go and raise some EU VC in order to be able to fight off the SV competition. And miracle: it works, you are successful. You consolidate your EU presence and get to the point where even the SV competitors can no longer compete.
So they buy out your investors and fire you.
Critical infrastructure is not for sale to potentially hostile foreigners.
Oh nice, tell me what legal basis you will use to stop a takeover bid. Have a look at NXP and a whole raft of other absolutely critical companies whose shares eventually wound up in the hands of countries hostile to Europe.
We have a whole department in the EU that would like nothing better than to be able to stop these kind of things from happening but time and again the business world finds a way around it. That's one of the main issues with the EU: we play by the rules even if the rest of the world does not. But that's a very expensive principle to let go and I for one am happy that so far they have not, even if you think it is 'spineless' it actually is the opposite.
Not all rules are created equal.
You are fool to play by the rules designed by the others to prey on you.
US/China/Russia would not let their critical infrastructure get in the hands of potential adversary.
If EU does, that just means it has resigned to the role of vassal. In such case it is fair to call them spineless.
passes him a german beer, silently nods
This applies to incumbents (well maybe until it does not). Smaller countries facing destruction of their regime might actually use the nukes. Probably do the test first along with the warning
> they're losing Iran war.
What criteria are you using for this assessment?
> What criteria are you using for this assessment?
We lost the moment we started because we went on a whim and without a cohesive strategy. This was a stupid stupid thing to do, and the longer it goes on the more obvious it becomes that this administration has no idea what it is doing.
Pool's closed.
If we look at the stated goals (as inconsistent as they have been):
Unconditional surrender -> nope Regime change via popular uprising -> nope Destruction or removal of enriched uranium -> nope Destruction of drones and ballistic missile capability -> nope
Final goal of getting back to the pre-war state (which is admitting loss in itself):
Reopen in the straight of Hormuz -> nope
So no objectives have been achieved, and although you could argue they will be in the future, this seems increasingly unlikely in the short timeline the Trump admin has given themselves. It any of them were possible at all, which seems doubtful.
America has lost every war in the recent past.
Has anyone “won” a war in the recent past? In the old fashioned sense that they conquered something and used the newly acquired resources to make their own citizens lives better?
The problem with the post ww2 world is that the old definition of winning a war no longer holds. You just don’t see wars of conquest very often and they don’t seem to work when they happen.
The closest I can think to winning off hand is a few of the colonial civil wars. Vietnam for instance won in the sense that they outlasted the US and have a nominally communist government but it is not an outpost of the Soviet Union and it’s a major trading and tourist partner of the US.
Iraq is not led by a belligerent to the US dictator and Afghanistan isn’t home to training camps for terrorists dedicated to attacking the US (yet).
These were all extremely stupid, expensive and inhumane military actions. But the US never went into them to hold territory. So “there until we got tired of it” is as close to winning as it was ever going to be.
Yes, winning a war means achieving your political objectives. For example Iran wins this war even if they maintain the status quo. And they are on track to get even more, like obtaining ownership over the strait.
Then by the stated aims going in the US “won” both wars in Iraq.
Some of them. These were the stated objectives as per general Tommy Franks:
* Depose's Saddam government
Accomplished.
* Identify, isolate, and eliminate Iraqi WMDs
Failed. They were never there.
* Find, capture, and drive out terrorists from Iraq
Failed. Iraqi-based terrorism increased in the aftermath.
* Collect intelligence related to terrorist networks, and to "the global network" of WMDs
Failed. North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006, years after the invasion. The US accuses Iran of trying for them to this day. Chemical weapons were used by ISIS.
* End sanctions
Accomplished.
* Deliver humanitarian support to the Iraqi people, including the displaced
Failed. There were more displaced people due to the war than before and a higher need for humanitarian support which took years to complete.
* Secure Iraq's oil fields and resources, "which belong to the Iraqi people"
Accomplished. Somewhat, US and UK based companies, plus China, now runs a lot of their oil fields. Iraqi GDP per capita is one of the lowest in the region.
* Help the Iraqi people "create conditions for a transition to a representative self-government"
Arguable. Parts of the country want to secede and have armed groups. Representation and turnout is not amazing, but I guess not even in Western countries it is.
> Secure Iraq's oil fields and resources, "which belong to the Iraqi people"
The cynical read of this statement (extract resources from the invaded countries in order to enrich the American capital class) is the primary aim for all these conflicts.
That's not cynical. Trump has done the world a great benefit by transparently saying out loud what was hidden US policy for decades.
The notion of owning or monetizing an international waterway is fundamentally incompatible with customary international law. Iran can try it anyway if they're not worried about international law, but that was always an option for them, war or not. The timing of performing this extortion now seems to be mainly about scoring war propaganda points.
Panama Canal and Suez Canal require tolls, granted not exactly the same thing.
> fundamentally incompatible with customary international law
So is bombing countries on a whim.
If you want to take the high ground you have to make sure you don't first poison it with your own stupid mistakes. Iran can make a pretty credible play for reparations, and if the belligerents are unable or unwilling to pay up then Iran can selectively blockade the strait for their vessels and cargo. It is one of those little details that was 100% predictable going into this.
Not exactly "on a whim" after Israel has been attacked by at least a hundred thousand Iranian rockets and drones.
Yes, and before you know it we're at the Balfour declaration. But none of that matters in the context of the situation on the ground (and, crucially, in the water) today which was entirely predictable (except by Trump, Hegseth & co). You either plan for that eventuality or you don't start the war.
Note that we're talking about the US and Iran, not about Israel, though obviously they are a massive factor here it is the US that is in the hot seat, both Israel and Iran were doing what they've been doing for many years.
Why would we look back to the Balfour declaration? Israel has been attacked by tens of thousands of Iranian rockets and drones just since Oct 7.
After all their aggression, it seems absurd to paint the Iranian regime as a victim that was attacked "on a whim" and is owed reparations.
I can't find sources for "tens of thousands of rockets just since oct 7", can you help me? I see a few thousand as parts of exchanges after the Israel-initiated "12 Days War", and then a few thousand more after the (also Israel-initiated) current conflagration. Notably, the rocket attacks stopped during peace talks that US and Israel entered after starting the wars, only to resume after those peace talks were betrayed with bombing.
Not sure what the best data source is, but one data point is that just in the month or so since Oct 7, the number of rocket/drone attacks against Israel was already around 9,500: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-fires-rocket...
The above claim was that Iran had attacked with thousands of rockets. These are from Hamas.
The 9,500 figure was for all fronts, not just Gaza. But true, it does include some Hamas rockets, most of which are not exactly "Iranian" (although Iran helped with training and smuggling some parts).
Another data point - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/one-year-war-israe...
> Since the start of the war, 13,200 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza. Another 12,400 were fired from Lebanon, while 60 came from Syria, 180 from Yemen and 400 from Iran, the military said.
So 12,400 rockets fired at Israel by Hezbollah, the vast majority of which are supplied by Iran at no cost. That's just in one year and doesn't include drones.
> except by Trump, Hegseth & co
Do not underestimate the current administration. They have other reasons for this conflict, and so does Netanyahu.
Azerbaijan invaded Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023 and now all their enemies are gone (disarmed and Armenians expelled) which presumably makes their citizens better off once they move into the empty territory.
Yeah and I suppose Sri Lanka won against the Timor rebellion.
So I shouldn’t say it never happens.
And the left didn’t make a peep about 100K+ people being ethnically cleansed from their historical homeland. Contrast with Palestine.
Two things to note there. One, many did make a peep; I have friends, coworkers who both ardently discussed and even pointlessly protested in small groups with signs.
The other - I don't pay taxes to the Azeris, every moment of my productive life doesn't support the genocide there, and my soul is in some way not as blackened by the atrocities there. I think people care about Palestine because they rightly feel complicity. Maybe Russian citizens - whose labor indirectly goes to supporting Azeri atrocities - are up in arms?
Well, given that the Azeris are armed by Israel, there might be some indirect US complicity…
The Gulf War was a decisive victory, if you consider that recent.
It hasn’t. There hasn’t been a war in centuries where America didn’t obliterate its opponent. It loses politically because its people don’t want war, but it’s defeated militarily everyone it’s engaged with.
If you can not win a war because your population is unwilling to bear the cost, then you are still unable to win (that is in fact a very typical way for a war to end).
Nobody is disputing the fact that the US spends more money on arms than anyone else and has the shiniest of toys as a result, but "winning" in war is about effecting the outcomes that you want, not about whether your weapon systems are superior.
The US military has clearly failed to deliver the outcome that Americans wanted in many recent conflicts (Vietnam, Taliban); counting those wars as "lost" makes a lot of sense.
One of the reasons to do a war is to simply show the enemy that you are able and crazy enough to go to war with them over whatever grievances you had. This is called strategic deterrence.
You are making the folly of thinking of war like lawsuits, where one side wins and the other side loses, and the losing side goes home with nothing. This is not so.
If you're walking home from work and some person tries to mug you, even if they are unsuccessful, that will permanently change your behavior as if they had successfully robbed you anyway. Maybe you'll change your route. Maybe you won't walk and drive instead.
Yes but if you spend some billions of dollars to replace the Taliban with the Taliban, you have only demonstrated that you are willing to make your own citizens suffer with diminished resources for no outcome.
>If you're walking home from work and some person tries to mug you, even if they are unsuccessful, that will permanently change your behavior as if they had successfully robbed you anyway. Maybe you'll change your route. Maybe you won't walk and drive instead.
In global politics, this tends to make you want to increase your defenses so it doesn't happen again, and find local partners for that defense. This usually comes at the cost of US influence, not its increase.
Like Iran is looking at its current situation and going "The literal only deterrence we could have to prevent this is to develop a nuclear capability. The US cannot be trusted to deal with, and it is pointless to try."
A nuclear Iran can now only be avoided by scorched earth. Scorched earth will now just cause an already partly US hating population to hate them more and create matyrs. Theres no possible upside to this conflict.
With Afghanistan, I think people fixate on the fact that the Taliban is still there and while that's true, Al Qaeda has completely been wiped out (except fringe groups that have adopted the name) and OBL, the person most responsible for 9/11, was successfully killed by an attack launched out of Afghanistan. The current Taliban and whatever terrorist groups remain in that region no longer have an interest in hurting the US directly. The current Taliban is also very different from the one in 2001, almost geopolitically flipped in some ways (allied with India instead of Pakistan, and almost certainly responsible for majorly disrupting China's OBOR project in that region, another win for the US.
Not to mention, 20 years of no Taliban. An entire generation of Afghans grew up without being under a Taliban government.
You can both "win" or both "lose" if your goals are not in direct conflict (rare).
I'd argue that the most important thing when trying to win wars is to aim for realistic outcomes.
The first gulf war was arguably a win because of realistic goals (get Iraq out of Kuwait and stop them from invading it again), while most other interventions in the region were basically "designed to fail", and unsurprisingly never achieved anything of note (and the problem was not lack of military capability).
“A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. Predictable law-abiding behavior lulls drivers. They mentally assign you to a little box in the lane, assume you will stay there, can't handle it when you leave that little box.” - Snow Crash
Is it strategic deterrence, or just being so unreliably and inconsistent that insider information becomes more valuable?
Is it strategic to demonstrate a lack of planning or that you are a poor ally incapable of garnering support (either domestically or abroad)?
The term of art for losing politically is “losing”.
https://www.worldatlas.com/us-history/wars-the-united-states...
War is fought to achieve political objectives. If those objectives are not achieved then it is only fair to say you lost the war.
that is what it means to be a superpower.
Don't be naive and think that there's natural justice and the world is fair.
> When Us attacks Cuba
> Cuba might drone strike US homeland
> Cuba gets flattened
Being a superpower means being free of ethics or reason. 'We are the good' sufficently summarizes a regular US-born worldview.
You also shouldnt be too naive to think, US citizens would bring up ethics or reason when choosing their leaders or commenting on their own countrys aggression.
Why do you think, the world is unfair? Some decades ago, we had a world police.
How is this not just common sense? Why would we care more about foreigners' interests than our own? You're trying to apply a moral frame to a discussion of self interest and geopolitics. "The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must".
No one said nukes, that a giant leap even from the most crazy non nuclear attack.
No one said the US is acting smartly, either, but it should not be surprising that the US would react harshly to a neighbor sending rockets.
To an otherwise defenceless country, it's really the same thing. Indiscriminately flattening buildings without notifying civilians to move, destroying industries, stealing their resources and reserves.
Who can recover from this, especially a small nation? You might as well declare everything to be radioactive.
So they'd react harshly even when they started it.
> Indiscriminately flattening buildings without notifying civilians to move
Boy they've really normalised this, haven't they?
No, it's not okay to destroy civilian infrastructure and make people homeless just because you dropped a pamphlet 30 minutes before you did do
Nothing happened to Israel for doing it. Have any level headed countries imposed any sanctions on them? Just condemning the leadership doesn’t count.
Korea. The US bombed every building they could and at the end were dumping bombs because they'd run out of targets.
> Korea.
What are you talking about?
The US never bombed (South) Korea and they certainly didn't win the air war against North Korea.
Back when North and South Korea were Korea, the US killed more than 10% of the civilian population and razed every building of what is now North Korea.
I would suggest that should be a little less acceptable in the era of precision weaponry.
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"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must"
I don’t know what rich means here or why homeland is in scare quotes but that’s the way it is. An attack on the US will be met with unrelenting and unstoppable force. I see a lot of delusional posts that seem to indicate people think the US military capability is weak but I assure you it is not. Also, you do realize the Iranian people were pleading for the US to attack. All these people holding vigils are fir the Ayatollah are just embarrassing themselves.
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It is so rich you assume an account created in 2013 having no karma is indeed American.
Don’t forget this is the internet where 12 year old girls turn out to be 40 yo men.
what are you talking about?
> If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon.
Yes that would be a typical US solution. Let's liberate the Cuban people! By flattening them.
Americans sure love their war crimes! Indiscriminately killing civilians is how they've gotten past, present and future terrorist attacks. I can't imagine the parents of the children they keep on killing (or maiming, or otherwise) standing by and watching. People wouldn't necessarily need to wait for their country's army to do something when they've got nothing significant left to lose.
To be fair, Iran is not pretentious either, killing a few thousand people because they dared to protest.
There are no good guys in this conflict.
What was the reason for those protests? Was it perhaps economic hardship brought about by US sanctions? How much is the US liable for the suffering of the Iranian people?
(A lot, is the answer)
That doesn't excuse the Iranian regime, but the US is not exactly helping, is it.
It was hardship brought on by not attempting to address the problems. Sanctions made things a bit worse but if Iran put effort into ensuring there was fresh water instead of funding terrorists and building missles things would have been a lot better for the people. (And likely no senctions for those things)
A bit worse? The sanctions directly brought about this. Scott Bessent admitted -- unprompted -- that the purpose of the sanctions was to destroy the Iranian economy.
I'm not saying the regime is good. It's not. It's terrible. But that does not change what the US has done.
The US has consistently made the suffering in Iran worse over the years. And let's not forget that the US and the British caused the Islamic revolutionaries to come into power by installing a puppet Shah that was deeply unpopular.
Why, that's why you don't do genocide half-heartedly, you need to go all in, roll up your sleeves and really get down to work! Can't get a swarm of radicalized people if there is no people left to get radicalized.
The secret to understanding it all is that "liberate" really means "lynch"
I'm not sure that you can have the moral high ground in a hypothetical scenario where Cuba conspires with Iran to attack the US. At that point both parties are banking on "might makes right".
Well, in this hypothetical scenario you can just as well say that Cuba is defending from the future threat from USA, the same way USA is now defending from future threat from Iran.
Not future threat though what US has put Cuba through the last 70 years any aggressive military from Cuba is probably justified. And no any attack from Cuba on US will still be morally ok if they attack US military and US banks etc.
I was replying to OP who sketched the scenario
> Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba ..
As you probably know POTUS was announcing already that Cuba would be next.
If Cuba is attacked they are by international law allowed to strike military targets inside the US.
The US isn't magically off limits.
Cuba's government is not the Cuban people, that's part of the whole point isn't it?
> After 9/11, there's no world in which any attack on the US homeland, however small or local, is met with anything other than overwhelming retribution.
Yes remember when they invaded Saudi Arabia? That taught everyone an important lesson on the consequences of terrorism on American soil.
The suggestion that Cuba would risk that for no obvious benefit is weird. Some wildcards in Cuba might be doing this unsanctioned. But any Cuban sanctioned/sponsored attack is very unrealistic.
Cuba is the easiest target the US could have. It's very close to the US and very far from any potential ally. The US has never shied away from committing acts of extreme cruelty, well into terrorist or war crime territory. From dropping nuclear bombs on civilians, phosphorus bombs, drone bombing innocent people, schools, hospitals, institutionalized torture, etc. even with far weaker reasons.
There is no scenario where a direct attack on the US wouldn't lead to an extremely violent response in complete disregard of Cuban lives. And get away with it.
The hijackers were Saudi nationals, but the operation was in no way sponsored by the Saudi state, which is a staunch US ally. Which is why the US proceeded to (attempt to) flatten Afghanistan instead.
> the operation was in no way sponsored by the Saudi state,
We do not know this. There are plentiful evidence to suggest direct involvement of the state itself, and the bin Ladin family is certainly hard to untangle from the Saudi state. That is just from what we can know from unclassified sources.
There wasn’t anything to flatten in Afghanistan. They were coming off a 20 yr civil war.
Proxy war. And that's an awful lot of years and billions spent on flattening nothing, don't you think?
Donating fuel to terrorists on the other side of the planet isn't cheap
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/05/september-...
> Which is why the US proceeded to (attempt to) flatten Afghanistan instead.
It seems to have made things better for the Taliban.
The current Taliban are an almost completely different organization despite there being continuity from then to now. A good comparison point is the church of England in 1520 vs 1620.
It is a very different taliban
USA is good at bombing places. It just so happen that it usually looses the wars after that and usually creates a lot more probpems for itself in the long run.
Taliban is back in power, having stronger grap on power then before. Meanwhile, everybody knows what happens to those who cooperate with USA - they get abandoned and betrayed.
All this does in the long run is set the stage for another 9/11.
Literally. The US is run by people who can't see past their fucking noses.
There are no incentive structures (besides possibly "posterity") to encourage anyone to see past their noses. In fact, hardly anyone at any level of any organization, public or private, is able to operate with a real longterm, sustainable outlook. They'd get shitcanned for trying to plan ahead, even if they were intellectually equipped for that.
Correct but not in the way you think
With respect, this is such a terrible position. This view basically says that we should accept terrorists regimes to do what they want because if they don’t, they will commit terrorisk against us. That is not the right way to deal with bad actors.
Sounds more like he's saying killing civilians naturally makes people mad at you. We shouldn't avoid talking about this because of this fear of terrorism. In fact some would say when army kils someones family, they will look at us as the terrorists and demand it not be accepted like you
With respect, this is such a terrible position. This view basically suggests you should bomb civilians in terrorist countries, because that reduces terrorism somehow. Despite the whole GWOT making that lie obvious to everyone.
Wait, are you talking about the US government now?
You should live up to your nick and do some of that thinking. I never said we should accept 'terrorist[s] regimes'. But there is a massive difference between actually doing something about terrorism and bombing large numbers of civilians in the hope that the problem goes away. That only results in more terrorists as has been amply borne out by history to date.
You don't deal with bad actors by becoming a bad actor yourself. If the US really wanted to deal with 'the terrorists' (by your definition) then they should start with ensuring that there is no risk of increasing their numbers as a result of the operations performed. Failing at that is an automatic own goal because now you've turned a problem into a larger problem.
Terrorism is the typical response of any group that isn't able to wage war in the preferred manner of the perceived enemy. But nicely declared wars between nation states are an imaginary thing, every nation that ever went to war pretended they had the moral high ground, brought a suitcase full of fig leaves and usually some holy scripture or some other book to prove that theirs was the just cause. Solving that takes unity, time, massive amounts of money and the ability to introspect. If you don't bring all of those (or even none of those) to the table then the only thing you will achieve is that you will end up in a (possibly much) worse place than where you were before.
Lumping everybody in Iran under the 'terrorists' banner is just as stupid as lumping everybody in Israel under the 'zionists' banner. Neither is going to lead to a resolution, all you will end up achieving is more war, more people dead and another century or so added to this conflict. But I'm not surprised. Trump & Co are categorically incapable of planning anything that takes longer than a news cycle, whether it is making changes to the White House or trying to grab some more oil.
The real thought experiment is ~600m people in central/south American within ~6000km, i.e. IRBM range of US gulf coast, where ~50% of US oil refinery and LNG plant production are. Now that Iran has validated mid tier power can cobble together precision strike complex, it's only going to be matter of time before relatively wealthier countries realize only way out of M/Donroe is to build conventional strike against US strategic infra. This stuff going to get commoditized sooner than later with competing mega constellation ISR. It's pretty clear building up conventional airforce/navy etc will simply get overmatched vs US projection and only credible deterrence is PRC style rocket force. There's a fuckload of places to hide 8x8 missile launchers in the Americas.
E: 50% of PRODUCTION, not plants, as in a few plants responsible for 50% of US refinery / LNG production.
> 50% of PRODUCTION, not plants, as in a few plants responsible for 50% of US refinery / LNG production.
This is making a pretty big assumption that the long-term US energy mix is going to stay the way it is.
The primary historical impediment to electric vehicles was high up-front cost, in turn driven by high battery costs. However:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-pric...
We're soon to have electric cars (and trucks) that cost less ICE ones, on top of the lower operating costs. Which in turn cost even less when more solar and wind are added to the grid because the "charge more when power is cheap and less when it's expensive" thing lowers their operating cost even further and reduces the amount of natural gas you need in the grid because periods of lower renewable generation can be offset by deferred charging instead of natural gas peaker plants.
Even without any purposeful efforts to do anything about climate change, the economics point to fossil fuels declining over time as a proportion of energy. Meanwhile the US administration flips parties every four to eight years and the next time they're Democrats they'll be trying to hasten that result rather than impede it. Which makes a long-term strategy of building the capacity to target petroleum infrastructure something that could plausibly be increasingly irrelevant by the time it would take to implement it.
Yes, refinery mismatch vulnerability something that can be built around, ~10-15 year horizon. US can also bring down oil as % of energy mix and distribute renewables. If US smart they would do this.
But at same time, extend IRBM range by 1000km, and replace refineries with hyperscalers, or whatever targets that worth deterrent value (energy at top of list). Refineries just most immediately very high value targets that happens to be closest to missile range.
But the assumption is less about US adaptability/smartness, as the way commodity conventional strikes is trending, CONUS _ will _ be vulnerable eventually. Fortress America is as much function of geography as technology. Just like how 20 years ago Iran couldn't hit Israel or many GCC companies even if it wanted to... now it can. The natural outcome of longer and longer range strikes is at some point US becomes in range of Monroe neighbours who doesnt want to be Monroed.
> But at same time, extend IRBM range by 1000km, and replace refineries with hyperscalers, or whatever targets that worth deterrent value (energy at top of list).
Hyperscalers are probably not a great example because a) they don't really benefit that much from being physically centralized (especially at the building level rather than the regional level) and b) data is one of the easiest things to keep redundant, and then even if you destroy a large facility, backups get restored to another facility or distributed set of facilities with no downtime at all if the target is well-prepared and only a short period of time if they've done even minimum diligence.
The critical ones can also do the "build it on the inside of a mountain" thing and then your capacity to take down grandpa's WordPress is mainly useful to the target for rallying opposition against you.
> whatever targets that worth deterrent value (energy at top of list).
If "energy" turns into solar panels on the roof of every house and widely distributed low density wind farms etc., that's pretty hard to target.
In general centralization is often done because it has economies of scale, but those same economies of scale have diminishing returns. One huge facility reduces certain fixed costs by a million to one (i.e. 99.9999%) over having a million small facilities, but a thousand medium facilities are much harder to target while still reducing them by 99.9% and the remaining 0.0999% is negligible because you're long since already dominated by unit costs. The target can also choose where to take the trade off based on how likely they expect to be targeted. And that's a broadly applicable principle rather than something that only applies to any specific industry.
Hyperscale/data just one example, f35 manufacturing, specialty feed stock production, transformers, gas compression etc, the list of currently centralized (as in have large target profiles) that will remain soft for decades is long with varying degree of disruption/dislocation, i.e. you don't restore hardware with multi year lead times.
Those are ridiculous / absurd economies of scale numbers, splitting piles up 20-50% per duplication inefficiency, especially in US context (expensive regulatory/physical buildout), splitting 1 hyper to 1000 medium is not marginal more cost, it's magnitudes / 1000%s more cost - costs private or public will not go for, and is prematurely self defeating because others can always build cheaper missiles than US can build infra (hence goldendome theatrics).
In principle, US can preempt CONUS physical vulnerabilities, where 100+ years of built up over assumption of CONUS not being vulnerable. In practice the chance of that happening approaches 0. Didn't even harden CENTCOM air shelters and planners have been noting vulnerability for years. Not just economies scale, but JIT and all other aggregate downstream optimizations US likes to make in name of efficiency. US simply not culturally PRC who does not mind (and is optimized for) some extra concrete for physical security. Not that PRC does not have huge vulnerabilities, just development has been made with mainland strikes in mind.
> splitting 1 hyper to 1000 medium is not marginal more cost, it's magnitudes / 1000%s more cost
It isn't. The primary costs of both the medium and enormous facility are the same: Server hardware and electricity, and server equipment and electricity don't have significantly lower unit costs when you're buying a million instead of a thousand. Also, you can still buy a million servers and then put them in a thousand different buildings.
It's only when you get down to very small facilities that things like staffing start to become significantly different, because amortizing tens of thousands of employees over millions of servers results in a similar unit cost as amortizing tens of employees over thousands of servers. It's only when you get to the point that you have only tens or hundreds of physical servers that you get scale problems, because it's hard to hire one tenth of one employee and on top of that you want to have more than one so the one person doesn't have to be on call 24/7/365. Although even there you could split the facilities up and then have multiple employees who spend different days in different locations.
> especially in US context (expensive regulatory/physical buildout)
This is another reason that "hyper economies of scale" don't actually do you any good. Which costs less, having dozens or hundreds of suppliers for the various parts of an aircraft, or one single Lockheed that should nominally capture all of these great economies of scale from being a single company?
It's the first one, because then it's a competitive market and the competitive pressure is dramatically more effective at keeping costs under control than a single hyper-scale monopolist that should be able to do it more efficiently on paper until the reality arrives that they then have no incentive to, because a monopoly is the only one who can actually bid on the contract and a duopoly or similarly concentrated market can too easily explicitly or implicitly coordinate to divide up the market. At which point they can be as inefficient as they like with no consequences.
This does mean you have to address the regulatory environment that tends to produce concentrated markets, but we need to fix that anyway because it's a huge problem even outside of this context.
> where 100+ years of built up over assumption of CONUS not being vulnerable
That's not true, there was a significant push during the Cold War to decentralize things to make them less vulnerable to nuclear strikes. The government pushed people into the suburbs on purpose:
https://www.wagingpeace.org/nuclear-weapons-and-american-urb...
There are obviously significant costs to that but Americans were willing pay them when there was a reason to and much of the landscape is still shaped by those decisions even now.
You also see this in the design of the internet, which came out of the same era and has a design that facilitates the elimination of single points of failure, and that sort of thing is as close as we've seen to an unmitigated good.
When I say hyper, I'm referring to hyper size vs distributed, not limited to data centers. It generalized reply to your insinuation of economies of scale is broadly applicable when it is absolutely not, i.e. 99.9999,99.9%,0.0999% which fantasy figures. The general economics of economies of scale is you split 1 facility in 2 you add 20-50% overhead due to duplication. The immediate cost of redundancy/resiliency is adding double digit overhead. The point is duplication doesn't happen when "only when you get down to very small facilities", it happens when you go from 1 to 2, incremental distribution increase cost disproportionately. Breaking economies of scale of 1 hyper facility int to 2,5,10,100 smaller facilities is possible on paper, but no one doing it in practice.
>don't actually do you any good.
Sure, economy of scale good for consolidator being net bad is valid, but this wasn't discussion on optimal macroeconomics, this discussion on what US politically able to do. There are things US should do, but systemically can't.
> Cold War to decentralize
Cold war dispersion for nuclear math and precise conventional strike math is different. Spreading 2 factories apart so they draw 2 nukes vs 2 factories get 2 conventional packages regardless of spatial separation.Circle back to feasibility, what is required for distributed / dispersed survivability. Is US going to dismantle gulf oil infra and move it inland. Most physical infra processes are not fragmentable or self healing like internet. How much are Americans willing to pay, coldwar was eating 15% of GDP. All this ultimately secondary to the point that doing all this costs US more (because everything in US costs more) vs adversaries simply getting more missiles, it's economically/strategically self defeating. Let's not forget Soviet answer to US disbursement was building more missiles while US still pays inefficiency tax on suburbs.
> The general economics of economies of scale is you split 1 facility in 2 you add 20-50% overhead due to duplication.
There is no general figure for this, it depends both on the type of facility and the size of it to begin with. At hyper-scale the incremental efficiency gains are much smaller because a medium-sized facility is large enough to have captured most of them already. Where you get 20-50% is where you have a single small facility and try to split it in two.
The general premise of economies of scale is that there are costs that don't depend much on scale, so at increased scale, the amortization of those costs over all units contributes less to the cost per unit.
However, at very large scales, three things happen.
First, many of those costs look like "you need this piece of equipment that can handle 1000 units per year" and then the facility that produces 1000 units can amortize it over 1000 units but the facility that only produces 100 units has to amortize it over 100 units. However, the facility that produces 100,000 units then has no advantage over the one that produces 1000 because they then need a hundred of those pieces of equipment and have no advantage in unit cost.
Second, some costs only have to be paid once regardless of the number of units. If you sell each unit for $1000 and have a fixed overhead of $10,000, at 100 units the over per-unit overhead is $100 (i.e. 10%), but at 1000 units it's already down to 1%, at 10,000 units it's 0.1%, etc. The incremental advantage of doing millions of units instead of thousands is thereby negligible because it was already under 1% of the unit cost by the time you were doing thousands. The number of industries where you need to be producing some double digit percentage of the entire national capacity of some product before those costs get down to a manageable percentage of the unit cost is extremely uncommon, to the point that it may well not even exist for a country the size of the US. Especially when you're talking about costs that specifically can't be amortized over more than one facility.
And third, some costs actually increase with scale, e.g. coordination costs. So once you pass the point that those costs exceed the diminishing incremental benefit from amortizing costs of the second type over more units, increased scale reduces efficiency even before you consider the consequences of reduced competitive pressure on incentives.
> Sure, economy of scale good for consolidator being net bad is valid, but this wasn't discussion on optimal macroeconomics, this discussion on what US politically able to do. There are things US should do, but systemically can't.
"Systemic" means that in order fix problem A, you first have to fix problem B. That is not a formal proof that A is permanently unsolvable, it's a just a dependency graph for the order in which they have to happen.
> Cold war dispersion for nuclear math and precise conventional strike math is different. Spreading 2 factories apart so they draw 2 nukes vs 2 factories get 2 conventional packages regardless of spatial separation.
Sure, but the first is the stricter requirement because "2" is an insufficient number in both cases. The USSR definitely had more than two nukes. And if you need 100+ facilities, in the second case it's fine to have multiple facilities in each of a handful of cities, whereas in the first case you need them to be in 100+ different cities, which is harder to do but effective against both.
> Is US going to dismantle gulf oil infra and move it inland.
The original premise was it would rely less on petroleum, so in that sense, yes.
> Most physical infra processes are not fragmentable or self healing like internet.
That's not actually that uncommon. Transportation networks, power transmission, etc. map to the same sorts of designs where in the common case the multiple independent paths increase capacity and efficiency and in the damage case they keep the system running for critical infrastructure by redirecting critical uses from the damaged route to the operating one.
Meanwhile most infrastructure is inherently fragmented. There is no single water treatment plant in DC that runs the whole country because you need them to be closer to the point of use.
> How much are Americans willing to pay, coldwar was eating 15% of GDP.
Starting from the status quo, getting to the scenario where there are a larger number of competing suppliers for various things would lower the costs people are paying.
> All this ultimately secondary to the point that doing all this costs US more (because everything in US costs more)
Which brings us back to, that's the real problem we need to solve. If your problem is that it's now easier for someone to blow stuff up and you've made it excessively expensive to build another one, the solution is to focus on lowering the cost of building things in the US, which would benefit people independently of this anyway.
> This is making a pretty big assumption that the long-term US energy mix is going to stay the way it is.
It's the stated goal of one of the parties to keep or increase fossil fuel usage, isn't it?
> Meanwhile the US administration flips parties every four to eight years
Magic 8 Ball says "yeah, in the past, 2028 isn't looking good though"
> next time they're Democrats they'll be trying to hasten that result
Which will be blocked and/or immediately overturned by the current/next Republic Congress/Senate/SCOTUS/President.
It might be the goal - but there are a lot of other factors than just one party.
> It's the stated goal of one of the parties to keep or increase fossil fuel usage, isn't it?
The stated goal of the same party is to have "cheap energy" and the way voters judge is by things like how much they're paying for electricity. Which means their incentive is to make a lot of noise about how much they hate windmills and love coal while not actually preventing data center companies from building new solar farms to power them. One of their most significant benefactors is also the CEO of the largest domestic electric car company.
> Magic 8 Ball says "yeah, in the past, 2028 isn't looking good though"
Two years is forever in politics. We also have the leader of the Republican party doing all the pandering he can right now because he's trying to sustain a majority in the midterms, whereas in 2028 he can't run, and what's Trump going to do in the intervening two years during which he has no personal stake in the next election?
> Which will be blocked and/or immediately overturned by the current/next Republic Congress/Senate/SCOTUS/President.
That's not what happened last time. The electric car subsidies were introduced in 2008 and sustained until 2025.
We're also at the point where these things are going to get rapidly adopted during any period without active resistance to them.
How many years of the majority of new vehicles being electric or plug-in hybrids would it take before there are enough in the installed base to cause a long-term reduction in petroleum demand, and in turn a reduction in the economic and political power of the oil companies? Also notice that this still happens if Asia and Europe adopt electric vehicles regardless of whether or to what extent the US does, since it's a global commodity market.
The problem for a would be attacker is that the US still has enough military power to give almost any country on the planet a very bad day every day for as long as the US cares to. Historically, the way to win against the US is to survive long enough for the US to get bored and leave. The last time that happened, it took us 2 decades to get bored.
The problem is they are not would be attackers, they're countries building up domestic defense that US would have to preempt ala Cuban missile crisis, and sustain preemption over entire continent, with each preemption legitimizing rational for more build up.
Of course US can try to coerce INF for conventional in Americas, but commoditized conventional precision strike are conventional... and commoditized, it's the kind of product where specialized dual use components may need to be sourced... among millions of TEU traffic, but otherwise local industries can build, like Iran.
There's also no global pariah status for proliferating conventional missiles for self defense and hence accessible to many players, coercion / enforcement would require trying to mow grass to keep capabilities out of 600m people...in perpetuity... tall task even for even US. Especially considering form factor of missiles... i.e. sheltered / hidden, they are not major battlefield assets like ships and planes that needs to be out to have wheels turned.
Ultimately it's not about winning vs US, it's about deterring US from historic backyard shenanigans by making sure some future time when US is tempted, and US always tempted, it would risk half of CONUS running out of energy in 2 weeks.
Like the Iran logic is extremely clear now, no amount of defense survives offensive overmatch, the only thing left is to pursue some counter offensive ability that can have disproportionate deterrence value. The thing about US being richest country is US has a lot of valuable things.
I think you underestimate how much of that 50% is just exports. And how much other plants can be scaled up quickly. And how the US can temporarily nationalize things, and ensure all the output goes domestic. Just a backroom threat of emergency, temporary nationalization, would ensure CEOs give the US priority.
IE, they'd get to retain higher profits.
What I think would really happen, is the rest of the world would suffer and run out of energy. Not the US.
There's no think, this is know territory.
Gulf coast PADD3 refineries = disproportionate production of diesel, aviation, bunker fuel for CONUS use. Something like 70% of all refined products used in US comes from PADD3, other refineries cannot replace PADD3 complexity/production levels (think specialty fuels for military aviation, missiles etc). US economic nervous system is EXTRA exposed to gulf coast refinery disruptions. PADD3 refineries (or hubs / pipelines serving east/west coast which more singular point failure) itself enough to cripple US with shortages even if all exports stopped. Gulf gas terminal is for export i.e. doesn't materially impact CONUS, it's deterrence conventional counter-value target. There's also offshore terminals. The broader point being gulf coast has host of targets along escalation/deterrence ladder.
Yes, I'm not disagreeing that there are lots of interesting things to hit on the Gulf coast. PADD3 is just another way to say "gulf" refineries, it's a location not a technical specification.
Other refineries can indeed take up the slack. Especially if the US stops exporting. Trains can deliver fuel, trucks. The US military would not be crippled, most certainly, and the domestic US would see primary production kept in-nation, not exported.
I'm not sure why you think that only Gulf refineries can make jet fuel.
NOTE: I'm not saying it wouldn't be a key attack vector, or non-disruptive. I'm just saying the US would do what it always has done, as any nation would do, it would ensure survival first, and so the rest of the world would suffer far more.
It's location, it's also recognizing refineries in PADD3 are, in fact, technically specific and different from other regional refineries which cannot pickup the slack. Light/sweet vs heavy/sour geographic refinery mismatch are not interchangeable, some products other refineries can produce with low yield, some can't be produced at all. Hence specific highlighting their complexity AND productive/yield levels. US has never tried to survive this level of disruption, which is not to say it couldn't, simply it will be at levels that will significantly degrade CONUS beyond any historic comparison, enough to potentially constrain/deter US adventurism in Americas.
Some specific products like SPECIFIC mixes of aviation fuel, only some PADD3 refineries are setup to produce or produce significant % i.e. IIRC something like 90%+ of military JP5/JP10 come from PADD3. That's why I said "specialty" aviation fuel, not just general aviation fuel. Or taking out out Colonial pipeline which ~2.5m barrels - US doesn't have 10,000k extra tankers or 5000 extra rail carts in reserve for that contingency. Turning off export has nothing to do with this, there isn't enough to keep in-nation due to refinery mismatch, or not enough hardware to move it in event of pipeline disruption.
Of course predicated on timeline/execution, i.e. US can potentially fix refinery mismatch and harden/redundant over next 10 years. We don't know if/when Monroe countries will start adopting their own rocket force. Just pointing out after Iran has demonstrated defense is useless for midtier powers and mediocre offense can penetrate the most advanced defense, the only rational strategic plan is go hard on offense for conventional counter-value deterrence. The logic like Iran, it matters less RoW suffers more, only specifically that US suffers as well, the harder the more deterrent value. And due to sheer economic disparity, could be trillions for US vs billions for others, even if trillions for US is relatively less.
> it would ensure survival first
The US was ensuring survival just fine when it was big on soft power. If you let go of soft power your remaining choices are diplomacy (which takes skill) and hard power (which takes a different kind of skill). If you go down the hard power road (which the US seems to be doing) you will end up with a very long list of eventually very capable enemies. It's a madman's trajectory and historically speaking it has never worked. I suspect it also will not work for the US.
The biggest effects would be economic, and would drive any sensible country away from a reliance on Gulf Oil.
The US is essentially a military/petro-oligarchy wrapped inside a republic pretending to be a democracy.
If the global oil economy is badly damaged, the US will be badly damaged with it.
This isn't about who can blow the most shit up. It's about global standing in the economic pecking order, which is defined in part by threat credibility, but also by control over key resources.
If some of those resources stop being key, that's a serious problem for any hegemon.
We're seeing a swing towards global decarbonisation, and this war is an ironically unintentional turning point in that process. The US has had decades of notice that this is inevitable, but has failed to understand this.
A petro-oligarchy? With all due respect, all this is so Internet-brained. Where do you all come up with this stuff. Many other posts are in heavy need of grass-touching as well but still. The US is not pretending to be a democracy. It’s a constitutional republic. So, if I understand this right, all this is about something called “decarbonisation” and the US has been unable to realize this apparent but, of course, I’m sure any EU citizen is totally aware of all this right? I definitely give points for originality and not making it all about the people from that other small country.
>What I think would really happen, is the rest of the world would suffer and run out of energy. Not the US.
Then why is it the US that is crying about opening the Strait? You know there are oil produsers outside of the US?
"Bored", is that what you call thousands killed, a massive national debt and a political minefield?
Afghanistan took only 18 years.
For the 20 years war you are probably talking about: I wouldn't call significant civil unrest in opposition of the war "getting bored"
Downvoting a description of a technical solution for smaller nations based on actual evidence from existing conflicts is silly. You might not like the politics you perceive from someone using particular vocabulary, but the proof is there. The USA's supremacy has been challenged in a meaningful way (along with every other major military power). The strategies of the large powers will have to evolve.
You think the lesson from recent events is that these countries can challenge the IS militarily? Is this real?
People way underestimate what kind of mental fortitude you have to have to fight an overwhelming enemy. That's not something a tourism oriented country like Cuba has. At least I massively doubt that.
It lacks the ideology to fight such a war, since you have to be ready to die. That's why Yemen and Vietnam won, while Venezuela folded. This is also why US "culture" is so much more powerful as a weapon than the aircraft carriers.
The willingness to fight until the end, whatever the cost, is not something you rate a priori.
The thing with war is that once you have it for a certain amount of time, you create a generation of people whose kids died, wife died, neighbors and family died, you have nothing to loose anymore.
There is a critical mass of casualties upon which you effectively create a population whose sole purpose, for generations, will be to resist and harm you, and that is not dependent on culture or whatever "tourism orientation" a country is labeled.
>The thing with war is that once you have it for a certain amount of time, you create a generation of people whose kids died, wife died, neighbors and family died, you have nothing to loose anymore.
You... didn't learn history from before 1945 did you?
Guns, radio and widespread literacy change things. We're not talking about the harrying of the north here.
Yes, but if they can annihilate or get you to surrender from the beginning, there won't be such a generation.
With incongruous premisses, one can conclude anything. How many cases of such a total annihilation/surrender goal have been attempted in human history, and how many actually achieved it?
I mean, the GP example about Venezuela and Cuba was totally on point. They are not at any degree comparable to the sentiment against the US and the west in general of some Middle-East countries. I mean, Palestinian are bound to hate to death Israel and the US for a couple generations more (and for good reasons). The same does not apply to Venezuela, even with all the Chavez/Maduro propaganda against the Evil Empire.
Probably have to be quite strong to live in Cuba in the first place.
Russia pre-invasion of Ukraine probably said something very similar.
I don’t know if you are hiding a reasonable point underneath a misuse of the term “ideology”, but the idea that the fine differences between the Cuban and Vietnamese flavors of Marxist-Leninist ideology are critical differences on this point seems unconvincing without some argument clearly articulating the relevant ideological differences an how they produce the described divergence in capacity.
>If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon.
I sort of think it maybe is an exaggeration, you're evidently of the opinion that the U.S happens to have enough battle ready troops with the requisite hardware positioned within a few hours of Cuba so that they can invade and flatten in the time it takes to fly from Miami to Havana?
I don't know, but a Destroyer would take about 10 hours to get from Florida to Cuba.
It seems your definition of invade and flatten is just dropping bombs, but that definitely does not handle the invade part of things, and it remains to be seen as to whether, with drones, being able to fly non-stop is the great technological advantage it once was.
Some preliminary evidence from around the world suggests in a drone led conflict it confers the ability to have expensive hardware destroyed and pilots killed non-stop.
Assuming the scenario happened the first bombing runs would be over after 2h and would continue for the next 48h until amphibious assault fast response finishes landing, by which time it’s safe to assume there isn’t much left to defend (though rubble makes a horrible war zone for the attacking side).
Cuba simply isn’t Iran. They’re a blockaded island with not much military experience. Iran is a huge mountainous country preparing for war for the last 40 years with first hand experience of getting blown up from above and from the inside by USA allies and surviving just fine.
Yes, and then they will be welcomed with open arms, right?
By at least some. The Americans I know who have traveled to Cuba (policy changes, it was possible a few years ago at least) report the people love Americans. Of course what you see as a tourist isn't reality but at least some is true.
Tourists visiting NL also think we love tourists here.
I don't think they'd be welcomed at all is the point...
USA “flattened” and invaded Afghanistan but decades after Taliban is just back again.
I don’t know, maybe it’s time for USA to just stop getting involved in wars.
For any country, really; wars cannot be won anymore unless you exterminate its inhabitants completely. At best you can force a regime change, but as Afghanistan showed, that's fragile and tenuous at best if it's not fully backed by the population.
Afghanistan and Iran are not the same. Afghanistan is filled with people that don’t know the Earth is round. Iranians or Persians are educated and largely do not support this regime at all.
Doesn’t matter. Once bombs start hitting next to you, you rally around the flag
Do they support the governments that started this by blowing up 100s of children at their school? Give me a break, even the left-wing Iranians who hate the theocracy also hate Israel. Hell nearly all left-wing young people in the U.S. despise the Israeli government's actions and U.S. support of said actions and that's only for things that have happened in the last year.
Yes, they do actually.
Please provide your source for opinions that are not generally accepted except among those with politically self-serving bias. A few seconds of research demonstrates that's false. https://mei.edu/publication/new-polling-highlights-iranians-... 67 percent opposed to even normalizing relations with Israel. 61 percent of support Iranian proxies or Axis of Resistance. 70 percent agreed their military presence makes them safer at home. We have no reason to believe any of these have decreased since the bombing campaigns have begun. While there are significant numbers of people who would protest the government and maybe attempt to overthrow it, there is no where near enough evidence to suggest it possible and the last half century has demonstrated this.
We already supported a major ground campaign against Iran with the Iran-Iraq war that caused millions of deaths and ended in Iranian victory after 8 years.
Or at least stop starting wars.
In this case it's especially depressing that the war's rationale exists only because Trump wanted to tank the deal made by Obama. Which was not a perfect deal but better than the status quo back then, and much better than any likely outcome of this war.
War is one manifestation of politics.
Politics will exist for as long as there are people.
Any country not able to or interested in waging occasional war will be destroyed by countries that can and do.
Simple as that.
But please I'm interested in hearing any utopia arguments that claim we can/should deprecate war. And remember - you have to convince your country along with every other country.
You haven't really made an argument of your own. You've just made a claim and presented no evidence. "Simple as that" is neither argument nor evidence nor rationale. This is no better than the people who fall back on "war is hell" to justify when they've fucked up and caused the deaths and suffering of a bunch of civilians for no good purpose.
You could at least say something like "we have to bomb the people so they can be free" or "don't you know the Iranians were seconds away from nuking new York, because they have no regard for their own survival".
We should "deprecate" offensive wars of choice based on lies because the opportunity cost is enormous (what could we have bought with the 200+ billion they're already looking to spend here?).
Every time we do this we create more terrorists (see the blowback incidents weve already had from this war), which results in more egregious government overreach on the domestic population (see patriot act and the experience of commercial flight in today's world).
And those are just some of the basic reasons. I don't have time to write them all.
> Having difficulty projecting force from the air with fighter bombers launched from air craft carriers and refueling caravans from the Indian Ocean or Mediterranean Sea
This is not to be underestimated. It is very rare to be able to project military power far from one's capital. That the US is able to do it at all is remarkable. We should not expect it to be easy.
This is in large part because the US relies on their bases in allied countries at their grace.
We can remove them and do the isolationist thing as many have been clamoring for. Then we have no need for bases in Europe or the Middle East. Gulf States can figure out how to live with a nuclear armed Iran or one that has a repository of thousands of missiles to blow up gulf state infrastructure when they misbehave. We can remove the bases in Europe too, and when Russia invades Lithuania the Spanish and Germans can take care of it.
Or perhaps these bases aren’t just in allied countries “at their grace”. These alliance systems don’t just solely benefit America.
I mean, theres meant to be intangibles, and some financial support. Most of the financial support got cut by doge and the rest would go with leaving NATO. The intangibles literally never eventuate. Australia tried to invoke ANZUS with East Timor and got brushed off, despite the various US facilities in Aus being sold to the australian voter as insurance that the US would help if requested.
Honestly the US as a strategic partner is just a joke. its nothing but sigint.
Lets not even start on AUKUS.
I don't disagree with you, but just pushing back on this high-and-mighty "we let you be here" sensibility from the OP. For some reason folks seem to have become convinced the opposite way from MAGA that these bases only serve American interests which is certainly not the case. Likewise the bases also don't only serve the interest of others, they allow us to have more flexibility in our objectives and responses to issues that we see.
Its equally misleading to pretend like the bases have just a couple small benefits for the US. Come on, please. You dont believe it either. Ah yes, the post world war doctrine has been so that the us can have more flexibility. Sure thing. What a waste it has been for European Nations to have sacrificed lives for Americas wars the last decades.
I agree with you, it is misleading. But there are two sides who are both being misleading - that's all I'm calling out here.
> What a waste it has been for European Nations to have sacrificed lives for Americas wars the last decades.
I personally don't support any comment suggesting that Europe hasn't at times been there for us in these conflicts or that their sacrifices weren't meaningful. But that's only part of the equation. We're in a different world from where we were in 2001 and things change and so you can't just hang your hat on this one thing, else we (Americans) get to hang our hat on any time period we want to as well where Americans sacrificed for Europe.
The whole "we did this then" is driving a lot of folks into lunacy, but there does seem to be material differences and that is concerning if you believe in these alliance systems which I generally do.
You have folks on this website who would tell you the US is actively working with Russia against Ukraine, and then in the same breath defend Iran from the US blowing up drone factories that Iran is using to manufacture drones for Russia to use to go murder Ukrainians! Kind of hard to have a conversation or an alliance if a population is being convinced of absolutely crazy things like this.
The uk, what the USA refers to as the unsinkable aircraft carrier
Their grace? Who powers NATO? People need to realize that just because you don’t like something like America, it doesn’t mean beliefs that are divorced from reality about it are true.
> Being able to fly non-stop B-52 and B-2 sorties from home air bases with single-digit-hour flight times is a different thing entirely.
I agree with you in principle, but I worry that the United States hasn't been stockpiling enough ordinance to keep that up for very long at all. We don't keep many munitions factories on a hot standby either.
Of all the shortages the US military has, this is not one of them. They have an almost unlimited capacity to destroy fixed targets.
> If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland,
Cuba is not stupid. They will attack the infamous Conquistador Torture Base on their soil and US ships that carry out high piracy of their trade vessels.
If Cuba bombed the US, the US would bomb shakes dice Antigua in retaliation.
I read shakes dice as a Latin term and had a good laugh. "Ah, if they bomb us, we will retaliate on Ecuador shakes dice."
So you are saying the US has no problems with killing civilians; women and children?
Why would they do that? They won't have any nukes (not after the Cuban missile crisis), and the island isn't big enough (plus closely monitored) to house any significant amount of weaponry. What would they shoot them at? It'd be superficial damage and / or civilian casualties at best, and the retaliation would be immediate and devastating.
>it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon.
The bay of communism needs to be regularly watered with the blood of pigs or something.
> After 9/11, there's no world in which any attack on the US homeland, however small or local, is met with anything other than overwhelming retribution.
Unless it's by a right-wing white male, obvs., in which case they get promoted / lauded / re-elected / etc.
"After 9/11, there's no world in which any attack on the US homeland, however small or local, is met with anything other than overwhelming retribution."
Ok, just follow through with the logic.
If the US 'flatteNed' Cuba (like Gaza) in response to a few drones - it would 100% make the US 'The Evil Empire' and turn the world 100% against America as a neo fascist entity.
The costs would be unthinkable, and probably the demise of the nation as a having a 'historical special place'.
It would not ever fully recover, and the 'New World Order' would be something really hard to imagine.
In reality - something else would play out ..
I think the response would be disproportionate, but probably focused, but it depends on the 'populist effect' aka what exactly Cuba attacked, and how it was provoked.
If the US attacked Cuba first, and responded with drones on a US military installation - I'll bet there is populist resistance to escalation.
Event that tussle alone would look really bad on US, would guarantee the DJT regime probably 'last place' for all US presidents, people would be calling for 25th Amendment and for new leadership, even at the same time as they might even support strikes in response.
It'll mean total political chaos until the Admin steps away, probably Congress/Institutions trying to put a 'bubble' around WH Admin.
> If the US 'flatteNed' Cuba (like Gaza) in response to a few drones - it would 100% make the US 'The Evil Empire' and turn the world 100% against America as a neo fascist entity.
It has already happened. Even in west Europe politicians are discussing how to protect their nations from US imperialism. Every remaining alliance the US has is strictly quid pro quo, there's no trust left anywhere (Israel being the singular exception). Meanwhile 50% of the planet is completely fed up and can't wait to have China take over as leader of the international order.
The whole thing is stupid. The US wouldn’t flatten Cuba. Only leftists think the Cuban people support the communists. It’s like that Hasab Piker saying “the good Cubans are still in Cuba but the ones in the US that don’t like communism are crazy.” The reality is we would decapitate their regime, kill all their top brass, blow up their military installations, probably gave some collateral damages, and then in a year there would be reports, modern vehicles, and commerce.
"The reality is we would decapitate their regime, kill all their top brass, blow up their military installations, probably gave some collateral damages, and then in a year there would be reports, modern vehicles, and commerce."
I couldn't imagine a delusional statement, considering we are literally at the moment, failing to 'change a regime' in an active war, once again!
The lack of self awareness here is ... scary.
Iran? Afghanistan? Iraq? Vietnam? Venezuela?
How many more lessons do you need, beyond than the one literally on your TV set right now ?
Here are some historical realities:
Nobody thinks of 'Castro Inc' as 'Communist' other than young folks on Reddit, or people listening to Joe Rogan.
Every adult - those living there, here, and elsewhere - know that Castro Inc. are ruthless authoritarians - their 'nominal communism' is barely relevant. Ideology is barely cover for anything as it is with all regimes.
If they have any residual popularity at all - it's for 'Standing up to America!' and those who held up the ancien regime in Cuba that 'Kept the people down!' - which has at least some historic resonance.
Nobody liked Saddam, nobody likes the Taliban, and the Communists in Vietnam were not popular in the South, and unlikely in the North as well.
Chavizmo had popular support, but that waned, and nobody likes the current regime.
And yet - where is all of this 'modern vehicles and commerce' in all these places?
The lack of self awareness is shocking.
The US ended up killing 100's of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Almost 1 million peopled died in Saddam's US-supported invasion of Iran.
The Israeli government has now admitted that up to 70K Arabs were killed in Gaza.
Many in the US have no problem bombing the smithereens out of civilians, so long as there can be some kind of populist cover for it even if it's totally disproportional.
If Castro Inc. were so irresponsible that they sent drones into a US base, it's entirely plausible that Trump Inc. bombs Cuba with enormous civilian collateral damage.
Whatever happens, the regime will not fall, thinking as much is a dangerous insult to reality.
The only way Cuba could be liberated by force is a 'full invasion', which is technically very feasible but completely unlikely, or, a long, protracted movement towards detente. That's it.
> it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon
But it is, the US is no position to flatten anything.
Afghanistan? Lost Vietnam? Lost Ukraine? Lost Iran? will be lost
And these are heavily embargoed 3rd world countries.
In the first days of the Israeli-US war in Iran (a country under decades of embargo by the way) the US, Israel and vassals lost 60+ planes (plus who knows what else they are not reporting.
Trump is not coming out of this, if he makes the grave mistake of sending troops to their demise this administration is done.
> But it is, the US is no position to flatten anything.
The US is certainly in a position to flatten (with conventional force) anything in the Carribean, whatever failures it had in long counterinsurgencies where the logistics tail wrapped nearly halfway around the world. (And however badly it would probably fail in occupation in many of the places it could easily flatten close by, for that matter; flattening is much easier than occupying.)
> Afghanistan? Lost Vietnam? Lost Ukraine? Lost Iran?
Lost Ukraine? Ukraine hasn't lost and the US was never a direct belligerent in that conflict.
60+ planes !? Not disputing, just interested to learn more.
It seems Iran offered little to no defense against bombing raids. This may have changed recently.
I can only find references to 16 US planes lost (0 Israeli planes)
This is pure propaganda. It should be flagged as misinformation. There is no true to this complete nonsense that 60+ planes were lost. You can hate the US or have any opinion you want like the Ayatollah was great or whatever but don’t spread pure social media propaganda, please. Do you know how big of a deal losing 60 actual planes for the US would be? I would just say, if you are quite sure about all this then I think you might hit it big on polynarket.
> flattened
How will the Americans do that? Nuclear bombs? Because it doesn't seem to me that they have the conventional arsenal to flatten a country like Cuba.
Cuba is a relatively small island, and (by area) it's mostly agrarian. Conventional bombing campaign on the industrial and urban centres would send them back to the Iron Age in a matter of days. Which is why this whole scenario is absurd, Cuban leaders aren't about to start a war.
That’s MAD. It’s much more likely that we just blockade and invade Cuba than we nuke it. Even Trump isn’t crazy enough to start a nuclear war (I hope).
Whose homeland is the US?
> it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon
With what? The UK has already said we're not saving you this time. You're on your own now.
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The big mistake was underestimating the appetite for rebellion despite 70%-80% wholesale opposition to the regime.[0] I personally know many, many Iranians who welcome the attacks along with their families. All of the high-profile assassinations involve intelligence from Iranians.
However, no one has guns, and government-backed militias roam the streets to maintain order.[1] There is no possibility of military coup. Many officers lives and livelihoods are at stake post-revolution, and they will go to great lengths to protect it. Remember, they killed 30K of their own to quell an uprising.[2] Surveillance is everywhere online and in person.[3] One spy in ten can ruin a revolutionary group. To make things worse, there is no unification around a leader or what should come next.
If anything, this war demonstrates the tyranny and tentacles of the modern state. The well seems forever poisoned once power is lost to despots.
[0]: https://gamaan.org/2025/08/20/analytical-report-on-iranians-...
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/19/g-s1-114144/iran-voices-war
[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/27/i...
[3]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/iran-built-a-vast-camera-...
> I personally know many, many Iranians who welcome the attacks along with their families.
Yeah florida is filled with former cubans who want the USA to destroy cuba. The issue is what do actual iranians think? What people who used to live in iran or never lived in iran think is not that relevant really.
I know actual Iranians--not just expats, and I know even more people who hold Iranian passports.
The NPR article also quotes people on the ground who have managed to get messages out.
It’s quite possible everyone is right.
90 million people is a lot and actually polling them is impossible if the state of Iran doesn’t allow it.
> I personally know many, many Iranians who welcome the attacks along with their families
Does anybody else remember "we will be greeted as liberators" from a previous debacle in the region?
> The big mistake was underestimating the appetite for rebellion
I'd frame it as the biggest mistake was underestimating the work required to facilitate a successful rebellion - you have to be ready to go to support the people rebelling. Form support networks ahead of time, airdrop supplies, supplement with small but crucial boots on the ground, etc - all things the domain experts of the "deep state" would classically do [0] before it got smashed under the banner of doggie, anti-woke, juche, or whatever the rallying cry is this month. These chuds thought success and praise would just automatically occur by virtue of them having some innate special quality, like every one of their "plans".
[0] note that I'm having to suppress a bit of a gag here writing sympathetically about the military-industrial complex that foments regime change in other countries. but if we're being honest about what it took to pull off the American-exceptionalist thing we've become accustomed to, this is what it took.
Let's be fair, they're being attacked by a foreign superpower, if something "brings the people together" is having a common external enemy.
I assume you don't live in iran and don't converse with iranians who live in iran and have bombs fall on their homes. If you asked yugoslav people in argentina in 1945, they'd be very anti-communist too... the situation in yugoslavia was a lot different (just giving an example from home).
The statistics are well... just statistics, if you collected the stats on trump support in san francisco near colleges, you'd get a drastically different result then on the elections. Same thing is happening in eg. serbia, where "everyone hates vucic", but the second you leave urban areas or ask anyone above 50yo, the situation is much different.
> If anything, this war demonstrates the tyranny and tentacles of the modern state. The well seems forever poisoned once power is lost to despots.
Didn’t we just see in Syria that’s not the case. It is supremely hard to nation build a large failing state no matter who’s attempting it. Having the guns to challenge the internal security forces seems like a necessary first step.
Syria project was to topple a secular Iran allied government with any other alternative which ended up being ISIS because Israel wanted it and they control the government, mainstream media and have passed laws at state and federal levels so you can’t even criticize them
Did you not see how long it took in Syria? Did you miss ISIS? the massive number of groups splintered off? Sure people hated Assad but what it took to get rid of him was horrid. If any thing the Iranians are probably scared that this is what will become of them I know I would be.
This is perhaps the endgame for Israel: a fractured, warlording Iran that will never become a cohesive threat again.
They did it in Libya
Libya is and always was a small tribal state that Gadhafi held together by using the revenue from oil to devise a system of alliance that gave a semblance of stability. It never had strong foundations to begin with. Libya and the states in the Arabian peninsula will always be played over because they're stuck in Bedu culture.
This. It also fails to understand that the vast majority of the Iranians that are capable of change have actively left over the rule of the regime - that's why there are huge Persian diasporas in LA, Paris, London, NYC, etc. Those who have the money or smarts to leave, do so.
Also, a good majority of Iranian people might despise the regime, but also have long enough memories (or their parents do) of what happened the last time the West tried to intervene in their internal affairs.
Forget the guns, they don't even have internet access. How can they coordinate without internet? Source: NetBlocks
> Remember, they killed 30K of their own to quell an uprising.[2]
There is absolutely no way to know if it's true or not
There are ample indepentant sources for that estimate. We don't know an exact number but we know it is close to that.
To be charitable, it is prima facie weird that that this seems to be the one thing we do know for sure. Literally every other detail here seems to be trapped in a black box or uncertainty, except for this. First the US blew up all the nuclear last year, then it turns they were days away. They were out of missiles a week ago, and then they werent at all. We were so sure about "the appetite for rebellion" among the people, until we weren't.
I guess you just have to reflect on how nice it is that the one thing we know for sure aligns with an ongoing justification for all the bad stuff that needs to happen! It's funny how it works like that, but we have to take their word for it.
I remember seeing those maps pointing to the WMDs in Iraq on NYT. I remember when it was unspeakable to be critical of the narrative. All you can do, I guess, is hope that they wouldn't do that again, believe that this time its different.
Obviously its a lie.
But making outrageous claims then replying with " why are you defending Iran " is the gimmick.
Its like a psyop meme mash-up of reddit arguments, ad infinitum
What Trump said is not what independent experts said.
Iran likely was weeks away from a nuclear bomb - they had all the parts, materials and know-how. They just needed the final steps of enrichment, and hand assembly a bomb. They had been in this position of a long time without taking the final steps, but at any time they only needed a few weeks to the first working bomb if they wanted to take those steps. (if they wanted to do mass production that would take longer)
I'd feel safer if iran did have a nuclear bomb. Then USA wouldn't just start wars.
No, there aren't independent sources for that estimate, and we do not even know if it is close to that.
That number was simply made up and comes from Iran International, a Mossad-funded Pahlavist site.
Additionally, the Iranian government states that 2-3,000 were killed, mostly from Mossad-armed insurrectionists killing Iranian police.
So who are you going to believe? Israel, or Iran?
The vast majority of people trust the Iranian government over the Israeli regime.
> he vast majority of people trust the Iranian government
Right... Nobody sane would trust an authoritarian regime which suppresses any type of free speech and and even banned the internet regardless of everything else.
Mistrusting Israel is understandable but that seems tangential.
You'd ban the internet too if you had a foreign military using it to communicate with armed insurrectionists.
Yes, specifically you. YOU would do that too.
War changes rules of a country.
I don't think I have the skillset and personality that would me allow to rise to the top of the hierarchy in a brutal totalitarian regime built on religious fanaticism. So no I would not do that.
> armed insurrectionists
Unfortunately not even remotely armed enough to make a difference...
> War changes rules of a country.
Oh so the Iranian regime was not murdering its own peacefully protesting citizens (regardless of the existence of these "armed insurrectionists") for many years now?
>I don't think I have the skillset and personality that would me allow to rise to the top of the hierarchy in a brutal totalitarian regime built on religious fanaticism.
This is about whether you would shut down the internet or not, not whether you would rise to the top of the hierarchy on a brutal totalitarian regime built on religious fanaticism... like Israel. You know, a country with strict limits on media, including shutting down media outlets it deems critical of the state.
Yes, you would shut down the internet in a war. Yes, specifically you. Just like how you would just down media companies and plane flights in wartime, since you, yes you specifically, do not believe in Democracy.
>Oh so the Iranian regime was not murdering its own peacefully protesting citizens (regardless of the existence of these "armed insurrectionists") for many years now?
So then for how many years do you think Mossad armed the insurrectionists that you are trying to call "peaceful protesters"?
> brutal totalitarian regime
"Brutal apartheid state"? Well perhaps... certainly not a totalitarian regime, though.
> many years do you think Mossad armed the insurrectionists
Sadly and unfortunately either not long enough and/or didn't provide them with enough weapons. But yeah I agree with your sentiment that Mossad should have done a much better job if they were serious about overthrowing the regime.
Also, please go back to reddit.
Great. Glad you agree that it was Mossad that was responsible for all the civilian deaths during the violent Iranian insurrection, and not the Iranian government.
I think we can all agree that the Iranian government are the good guys and the Israeli regime are the bad guys. That's not in dispute. What IS in dispute is how we work together on removing the Israeli government. I think we should support the Iranian government, since they are already well on their in the process of removing the Israeli regime from power and replacing them with the good Hamas government.
Shouldn't you stop using the internet with solidarity with the Iranian people.
Or just in case Mossad doesn't radicalize you?
You’ve taken the quote out of context. It’s a comparison with Israel rather than a stand alone statement.
I’m not sure I agree with it - I completely trust Israel, but only so far as that it’ll do what suits it. Human rights, and everyone else be dammed.
> It’s a comparison with Israel rather than a stand alone statement
Yes, I understood that and still it makes no sense to me, I mean extremely untrustworthy and very untrustworthy seems about the same since you can't trust anything either source says.
Israel at least have a free(ish) media and is less likely to hang someone leaking information from a construction crane.
Completely agree.
Related: special laws to allow execution of Palestinians being debated now.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-law-to-execute-...
And then you have illegal Israeli settlers who behave like terrorist extremist facing zero consequences.
This completely insane and sounds like Iranian propaganda. You can hate Israel but spreading propaganda is really terrible. You find it hard to believe that the regime that hangs women from a crane in the square for not wearing the hijab would not do this? There are videos of IRGC shooting into crowds and apartments but your view is just “Israel Bad”. Be seious. You can be against the war and still live in reality with everyone else.
> You find it hard to believe that the regime that hangs women from a crane in the square for not wearing the hijab would not do this?
When you just make things up like this, it causes people to ignore everything else you say.
I think there is ample independent consensus that the estimate came from israel?
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Yes, true, but the IDF took 2 years, the IRGC/Basij did their work in a few weeks.
Hamas is a few thousand people and the IDF are still fighting them after 2 years. There are about a million in the IRGC/Basij/Army in Iran.
Also the israelians did it for real while iran we have mossad's word for it.
We have the testimony of many eye witnesses in Iran, and at least dozens that have come out of Iran.
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Because they verifiably killed 70,000, while for the 30,000, as horrible as it is, you have to trust the Mossad pitch ?
Idk they are pretty major player here..
"Can you explain how?"
>don't feed trolls
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It's true. The real numbers are most likely 80-90k.
> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine
Population size is relevant but not the most important factor. Russia has 146,000,000, more than 4x than Ukraine. It doesn't guarantee that Russia will win the war.
> On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles.
Ukraine also had Bayraktar TB2 overhead which distracted Moskva's crew and provided targeting information. Russia probably didn't sent a fighter to down it because skies around Ukraine are contested. Skies not only around but over Iran are not reallty contested. Having said that Iran could sink an american ship if the navy will become complaicent and will assume there are no threats.
> The size of Iran means that knocking out drone and missile production for long won't work. Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now.
Russia cannot fly planes over Ukranian territory. The US can fly not only F-35 but even B-52. That's a big difference. The only thing which could prevent the US from knowking out missile and drone production is insufficient intellegence.
Russia is the aggressor, Iran is a defender. That’s a huge difference.
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>The US can fly not only F-35 but even B-52
There is, at this point in time, literally 0 evidence B-52s are flying over Iran with JDAMs. Every single photo we saw of B-52s literally shows them with AGM-158, which means they are launching outside Iran aerospace.
The biggest evidence for B-52s not flying over Iran is that there have still not been any losses. Go look at attrition rates in Linebacker 2 for comparison.
OSINTechinical literally had one yesterday
https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/2038625975332692466
The linked tweet says this:
> USAF B-52H refueling from a KC-135 tanker on its way to strike Iran.
with emphasis on "on its way", so not "over" Iran. So not sure your link proves your original point (which, if I understood right, was that these Americans are flying these bombers over Iran itself).
It's also telling that the Americans haven't managed to gain their much desired air supremacy, lots of Dohuet fanboys in the US Military, hopefully this war will bring their Air Power ambitions a notch or two down (even though I have my doubts).
Gee, you guys really couldn’t infer what the picture means and had to rely on words? The B-52 is a high-altitude aircraft, a truck-mounted SAM couldn’t hit it, you’d need at least something like a Pantsir(Buk is more realistic, but Pantsir had hit airliner). It implies the US has combat air patrol in the area, ready to conduct SEAD/DEAD while B52 dumps its short range JDAM.
There is literally nothing in this image suggesting they are flying over Iran with this loadout except the account just saying it.
GBU-38 JDAM has very short range.
Where is the actual OSINT though? No geolocation where the refueling is taking place, no timestamp on photo, no suggestion where the bomb is dropped.
By your logic an OSINT account can show a picture of a SU-34 in the air with 4 UMPK bombs, write "On its way to Odessa" and people will think Russia has air supremacy over Odessa.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We know that Russian air force is actively using gliding bombs to attack objects on the front line while flying over the territory controlled by Russia. One would need strong evidence to convince us that they have started to use gliding bombs differently.
The US on other hand is flying over the Iran for a month so the claim that they started to use B-52 in addition to smaller jets is not extraordinary. It would be strange to deploy B-52 with GBU only to strike something on/near the Iranian border (where there are not many targets which would justify GBU usage) so it's a logical conclusion from the posted photo that B-52 can fly over the Iran (at altitude beyond MANPADS reach).
Dude, the geolocation and sources are all in the comment. CENTCOM posted this picture, you’re better off spending your effort questioning them.
...also, Germany has 84,000,000 people, so definitely not half of Iran.
> Having said that Iran could sink an american ship if the navy will become complaicent and will assume there are no threats.
Also, this is an election year in the US, and the war is already hugely unpopular, so despite all of Hegseth's posturing, they're probably playing it extra extra safe. That's also the reason why Trump is so angry that other countries aren't willing to take the risk in their place...
> ...also, Germany has 84,000,000 people, so definitely not half of Iran.
I think OP meant land mass not people with the country comparison.
They also write that Iran is "2/3 of Russia", when surface-wise it's not even one tenth, so I doubt that they meant that...
> The US can fly not only F-35 but even B-52.
Well, looking at the news, it turns out they can't because every time they've put something up it's ended in a horrific crash.
The US is militarily weak, and is utterly reliant on its NATO allies, who don't want to get involved in the current round of war crimes.
Are you delusional? The US militarily weak? Based on what? What in your view is an example of a strong military? And the US is reliant on NATO allies? HN has really become massively under America Derangement Syndrome. This is like a fever dream.
Well, what should people infer from Trump either pleading og trying to threaten for help every other day?
Germany has 80+ mil inhabitants. Also 90,000,000 people doesn't mean 90,000,000 soldiers, especially when a large part of them hate their own regime.
> Also 90,000,000 people doesn't mean 90,000,000 soldiers, especially when a large part of them hate their own regime.
You know what engenders nationalism? Attack on your way of life and the murder of someone you know by said attack.
If my countrymen were killed by my government by the thousands, I'd not be super happy about defending that government.
If the enemy does the same kind of mindless killing to the civilians, then I would have different ideas.
> If the enemy does the same kind of mindless killing to the civilians, then I would have different ideas.
You mean like bombing a school and killing about 150 schoolgirls?
The USA had a lot of local support and goodwill in Afghanistan, and turned it into support for the Taliban, because they kept killing civilians in their attempts to beat the Taliban with bombs, because they wanted to limit the unpopular ground troop deloyments. The chance that the same will happen in Iran is precisely 100%
> You mean like bombing a school and killing about 150 schoolgirls?
Even Hamas knows western powers don’t do this on purpose - which is why they take up arms inside of civilian facilities. The Iranian people know the US doesn’t intentionally kill little girls.
Meanwhile the Iranian government quite literally has killed upwards of 30,000 people (maybe some were little girls even) and is hanging people in the public square for protesting.
Not to mention Iran intentionally targeting apartment complexes and other civilian targets throughout the region. Why are we even talking about the US accidentally blowing up a school? We should be talking about Iran and their revolting crimes instead.
The US attacked Iran because Israel was going to do so anyway. If they didn't attack, that missile wouldn't have killed 150 schoolgirls. Sure, the target was a mistake, but mistakes happen when you shoot thousands of missiles and drop thousands of bombs. If they had not attacked, the girls would be alive.
If Iran hadn't funded and supplied Hamas who then attacked and killed how many people (how many were little girls who were murdered and raped by Hamas?) then Israel wouldn't have had to bomb Iran.
You can go back and forth on who did what first but it ultimately accomplishes nothing in this scenario.
If Israel wants to bomb Iran, whatever, that's Israel's problem. The fact that we (the United States) continue to give unquestioning support to Israel is the problem. If Israel want's America's help, they should need to heel to America's interests, and I completely fail to see how fucking up the global oil trade benefits us.
I don't think it's quite that simple. Of course you know the isolationist point of view goes many directions. If Russia wants to bomb Ukraine, whatever, that's Ukraine and Russia's problem, &c. (I believe in engagement in both conflicts myself). Israel alone can't really stop Iran anyway besides their "mowing the grass" strategy but how long will that work?
But you have to think about the future state. What does an Iran that continues to:
.... look like?Well, if they have 1,000 missiles today and that's giving us a problem (I'm not sure the true extent to which it is a problem really) and then they have 5,000 missiles tomorrow maybe sprinkle in some Chinese hypersonic missiles just to see if they can take out an American aircraft carrier or other sensitive military equipment, and now when Iran decides to close the Straight or tax the Gulf States or whatever other crazy idea they get in their heads we're facing a much, much bigger problem. It's like having a North Korea in the Middle East. We can't have that. We have seen that movie already and it does not turn out great.
And that's excluding nuclear weapons or an arms race in the Middle East. You can certainly see how easy it would be for the Gulf States to decide Iran is such a threat that they start loading up on missiles and maybe everyone decides they need a nuclear deterrent and now we've got maybe 2-3 countries including Iran with nuclear weapons and there's nothing we can do about it.
Folks like to paint this as an Israel problem, and yea they've done some bad stuff too but this isn't just an Israel problem nor is it just an America problem. It's just that unfortunately the United States is the one that yet again has to go be involved to try and deal with some chaos now to prevent an untenable situation later.
I think it's certainly worthwhile to debate various assumptions, capabilities, &c. but at the end of the day it's important to actually take a look at many aspects of this situation and to try peace together what's really driving this conflict. If your frame of reference is just "what are we doing there?" I'm afraid it puts you at a real disadvantage in terms of understanding the conflict and its repercussions.
I firmly believe a nuclear-armed Iran would be a net positive for world stability. It's not an ideal state of being, but with the existence of a nuclear armed Israel destabilizing the entire region, there needs to be a check against them. But that's besides the point, because by all accounts except on odd-numbered days the Whitehouse's, Iran was responsibly following the non-proliferation agreements that we had made with them under the Obama administration. Either way "Iran might make nukes" is bad reason to start a war.
If "Iran is aiding Russia against Ukraine" was a good reason to start this war, then we should be a lot less wishy-washy about our support of Ukraine themselves. The fact that we keep playing "will they won't they" with ongoing support to Ukraine is in no small part why that war is still ongoing.
And Israel is, absolutely, unequivocally, America's problem. They exist because we decided they should exist, we armed them to keep them existing, and we get involved in absolute quagmires in the Middle East every time that they do something stupid. Every time Israel does some fucked up shit, the UN goes "wow, we should acknowledge that was some fucked up shit", and the only country that consistently backs Israel is the United States.
I am not an isolationist. I fully recognize, and appreciate, the US's (potentially soon to be former) place as global hegemon. But we achieved that position by leveraging soft power, while maintaining the capability to absolute smite parties that won't play ball. And that worked. It worked great. It's why backing Ukraine was a great play: No American lives at risk, we pay a few bucks, Ukraine damages Russia, we remind our allies just how great it is to be under America's umbrella.
But Israel bombing Iran is not the same thing. Israel and the United States are the aggressors in this conflict, plain and simple. We had half-normal relations with Iran, then because Israel decided they weren't content being one of two regional powers, we decided to kick off another damn war in the Middle East.
> Either way "Iran might make nukes" is bad reason to start a war.
I think we disagree here, but that's because I believe in nuclear non-proliferation. More countries have them, more likely they are to be used. If Iran gets them, well maybe South Korea, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Brazil... the list goes on. Is that a better and safer world? I doubt it. Not only are arms races probably bad, they take up resources that could be used for making the lives of everyone better.
> If "Iran is aiding Russia against Ukraine" was a good reason to start this war, then we should be a lot less wishy-washy about our support of Ukraine themselves.
I think it's a contributing factor, but not the sole reason to start (or depending on your perspective, continue) a war here.
> And Israel is, absolutely, unequivocally, America's problem. They exist because we decided they should exist, we armed them to keep them existing, and we get involved in absolute quagmires in the Middle East every time that they do something stupid.
I don't follow this line of reasoning. Israel has existed long before the United States. Admittedly the modern state of Israel as we know it today was carved out in the last century, but the fault there lies primarily with European countries who created empires and then failed to maintain them. But you sort of seem to be justifying things like October 7th or other aggressive actions perpetrated by Iran and its proxies as though Israel existing is just somehow a problem. Last I checked Iran is its own country. What justification does it have to bomb Israel in any way?
> But Israel bombing Iran is not the same thing. Israel and the United States are the aggressors in this conflict, plain and simple. We had half-normal relations with Iran, then because Israel decided they weren't content being one of two regional powers, we decided to kick off another damn war in the Middle East.
Don't recall the US being in a state of war prior to October 7th. Iran overplayed their hand, Israel absolutely fucked up Hamas and Hezbollah with little effort, and then we found out Iran was pretty weak and so we did something about it before they accumulate so much military power that stopping them from effectively taking over the Middle East is untenable. I'm not sure your cause-effect reasoning here makes a lot of sense. We haven't had half-normal or normal relations with Iran for a long time - like 50 years.
> I am not an isolationist. I fully recognize, and appreciate, the US's (potentially soon to be former) place as global hegemon. But we achieved that position by leveraging soft power, while maintaining the capability to absolute smite parties that won't play ball. And that worked. It worked great.
It seems that you're cherry-picking here. The US attacking Iran can just be another case of smiting parties that won't play ball. Same with Iraq, or Vietnam, or Korea.
> It's why backing Ukraine was a great play: No American lives at risk, we pay a few bucks, Ukraine damages Russia, we remind our allies just how great it is to be under America's umbrella.
I generally agree and watching Russia's military be absolutely humiliated was exhilarating, but providing money alone isn't enough to win or stop that war it seems.
The US is still helping, but for some reason when it comes to Iran actually selling and supplying drones that kill Ukrainians it's all of a sudden well that's not a good reason to go to war, Iran isn't the aggressor, Trump is bad, how dare the US stop Venezuela from evading US and EU sanctions, blah blah blah. You're twisting yourself into circles trying to defend Iran for some reason when they're murdering their own population for protesting, helping Russia bomb Ukrainians, and starting wars and destabilizing Yemen, Lebanon, and more. Speaking of the UN, weren't they supposed to stop Hezbollah from indiscriminately launching rockets into Israel? Now Israel is there cleaning house and all of a sudden well that's Americans problem, Israel is America's problem, how can Israel do this? Who cares about the UN in today's world?
> how many were little girls who were murdered and raped by Hamas?
That'd be news to me, can you share some sources?
Are you unfamiliar with the October 7th attack? This alone proves the point, never mind we can get into details of the Middle East slave trade, general violence perpetrated by Hamas, and well, of course Hezbollah, Iran, &c.
https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20241007-hamas-terro...So I guess October 7th wasn't actually tragic enough for you and should be embellished with claims about "little girls who were murdered and raped"?
Not an embellishment, though you are right that the tragedy alone proves my point.
Anyway back to Iran - those are the bad guys.
Their regime killed by many estimates 30,000 of their own people for peacefully protesting already. They're conscripting child soldiers [1], attacking apartment buildings in neighboring Gulf States, and are hanging people as young as 19 for protesting [2]. They're actively helping Russia prosecute their war against Ukraine by selling drones and other technology. They're responsible for funding and inciting terrorist groups as recognized by the United States and European Union (Hezbollah, Hamas, and more) which have indiscriminately attacked civilians in many countries and continue to threaten international shipping even prior to American attacks on their military infrastructure. They're doing all of this while pursuing a nuclear weapon, which will of course be a catastrophe for nuclear non-proliferation as the Gulf States will certainly work to acquire their own, and they've been ramping up and deploying extensive missile capabilities so that they can force Gulf States to acquiesce to any of their demands, else they attack and shut down oil shipments. Tehran ran out of water because the money the regime has was spent on military forces and funding destabilizing proxy military groups for no good reason.
[1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/03/30/iran-military-stepping-u...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/20/middleeast/tehran-sends-clear...
You're spreading debunked Israeli lies.
How 2 debunked accounts of sexual violence on Oct. 7 fueled a global dispute over Israel-Hamas war [0]
As Israel continues to use debunked claims of sexual violence to justify genocide, feminist movements must push back [1]
Screams Without Words [2]
0. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/how-2-debunked-accounts-o...
1. https://prismreports.org/2024/10/09/feminist-movements-push-...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screams_Without_Words
Ok I'm "spreading debunked Israeli lies" - they were only murdered, not raped and murdered. At least what the US did was an accident, unlike what Hamas did.
What point are you trying to make here? We're talking about the atrocities that Iran has committed and how it is responsible for so much death and destruction.
You're blindly believing the propaganda from two truly evil governments (Israel, USA) about a country that they absolutely want to destroy. Why don't you question the legitimacy of what they tell us.
Iran murdered at least 30,000 of its own civilians. This is verified by "non-evil" governments around the world.
So what does the US have to do with this?
What does the US have to do with what?
I said that if the US hadn’t intervened in the war then the school wouldn’t have been bombed, and you switched to Hamas and Israel.
How can you have a conversation about the US bombing a building in Iran without talking about how we arrived here in the first place?
Why should the US intervene in a bombing campaign against Iran if the problem is between Hamas and Israel?
Why should Iran fund and supply Hamas if the problem is between Israel and Palestine?
Their problem, not Americans
Their problem, not Iranians.
Not an American problem. Its a problem between Iranians, Palestinians, Israelis and other relevant middle eastern countries. If they want to fight and kill each other, it's their right to do so.
Not an Iranian problem. Iran doesn't have anything to do with Israel or Palestine. You're just drawing an arbitrary line and saying "these countries get to be involved". But if you want to say Iran gets to be involved than so does the US since Israel is our ally.
> Even Hamas knows western powers don’t do this on purpose - which is why they take up arms inside of civilian facilities. The Iranian people know the US doesn’t intentionally kill little girls.
You really think someone who just had to bury the mangled, burned corpse of their daughter cares whether it was intentional, or because the US military couldn't be arsed to update the data their targeting system operates on?
And it's not going to end with that one "accident". The war hasn't even really started, and the US military is led by a vaguely human-shaped lump of feces who absolutely will start ordering the intentional bombing of civilian targets and gleefully boast about it once he's starting to feel personally offended by the continued failure of "the Iranians" to submit to his will.
> Why are we even talking about the US accidentally blowing up a school?
Asking that question puts you outside the boundaries of polite conversation, so I'll end with a hearty "may you get what you deserve".
Do you really think someone who just had to bury the mangled, broken-necked corpse of their son cares whether it was intention.... oh right it was intentional by their own government.
> Asking that question puts you outside the boundaries of polite conversation, so I'll end with a hearty "may you get what you deserve".
Please stop the pearl-clutching.
If you don't want to talk about intentional Iranian atrocities because you're fixated on the United States making a mistake, then I don't think there's much for either of us to talk about.
> Not to mention Iran intentionally targeting apartment complexes and other civilian targets throughout the region. Why are we even talking about the US accidentally blowing up a school? We should be talking about Iran and their revolting crimes instead.
My family are in the GCC, and my parents live near the coast. Iran has not once targeted a civilian infrastructure there directly, except for specific landmarks (Burj al Arab, the Palm, etc.). Whenever Iran prepares a barrage, they usually announce it on state TV, which is then picked up by local authorities or by social media channels. All the attacks that have resulted in deaths in civilian settings are due to intercepted debris falling on civilians. If Iran wanted to destroy Dubai and kill civilians, they could've easily done that by just swarming the skies with drones and exact maximum damage - but they haven't done that. It also doesn't help their case either - most civilians in the GCC are foreign expats, and the backlash against Iran from most countries like Russia, India, China and Pakistan would be severe. Iran isn't stupid, as much as you'd want to believe that.
Civilian life in the GCC is still pretty normal, except for the downturn in business and the lack of tourists during the season. People are losing jobs and Airbnbs are turning into long-term stays. But otherwise civilian life is still pedestrian - heck, my younger brother is going to the Atlantis water park tomorrow because they offered him free tickets.
Israel is obviously a different story, being directly responsible for attacking civilian targets in Iran.
> My family are in the GCC, and my parents live near the coast. Iran has not once targeted a civilian infrastructure there directly, except for specific landmarks (Burj al Arab, the Palm, etc.).
That's still not ok, still targeting civilian settlements and infrastructure which is of no military value. Stop making excuses.
> But otherwise civilian life is still pedestrian - heck, my younger brother is going to the Atlantis water park tomorrow because they offered him free tickets.
That's really cool. Life is pretty normal here in the US too. In Israel from what I understand most folks just have to go to the air raid shelters once in a while but life is otherwise pretty normal.
> Israel is obviously a different story, being directly responsible for attacking civilian targets in Iran.
Likewise Iran is directly responsible for attacking civilian targets in Israel and other gulf states. I'm not sure life in Iran is really all that normal though. Tehran ran out of water in part because Iran instead spent money on offensive war capabilities and funding terrorist groups, and then they murdered around 30k of their own people. Sounds like most everyone else is living normal lives (Israel, Gulf states, US) but things are not great in Iran under the current leadership and their mismanagement of the country.
1.) Iran warns civilians days in advance with the exact date and time - establishments are warned beforehand. Pray tell, when did the US or Israel warn Iranian civilians in Tehran about the same? This is about equivalence, not whataboutism.
2.) Unlike for the privileged West, this is Iran's last stand for survival. What started as a "regime change" operation has turned into a "send Iran to the Stone Ages" operation. While I don't condone their regime's actions, I can understand them applying pressure on the GCC countries, especially the ones that goaded the US into the war. More importantly, it's telling when citizens of said GCC countries are on the Iranian side in spite of being attacked. Just check Al Jazeera (the most popular Arabic media outlet) and their coverage in spite of being an Iranian target. Check all the open criticism coming from business circles of the wealthy magnates in the GCC.
3.) Unlike Israel, the GCC countries don't have air raid shelters, but because of the above, casualties have been much lower. Again, that's because of Iran's early warnings and the respective countries' countermeasures. Iran has a vested interest in preventing civilian deaths in the GCC, unlike the US and Israel have in Iran.
4.) Iran's attack on Al Minhad airbase (which is close to where some family live), showed that they can inflict casualties and turn any GCC country to glass if they wanted to, just by concentrating force.
5.) Life in Iran isn't normal, precisely because Israel and USA are intent on bombing it to smithereens. Your arguments otherwise about water in Tehran and protests are pre-war tangential arguments. As mentioned above, Iran could make life in the GCC "abnormal" if they wanted to - they just haven't yet because they haven't been pushed to the brink.
> Pray tell, when did the US or Israel warn Iranian civilians in Tehran about the same? This is about equivalence, not whataboutism.
Why would they warn them when they don't intentionally target civilian infrastructure?
> Unlike for the privileged West, this is Iran's last stand for survival.
We're privileged because we generally don't do really dumb and awful things like what Iran is doing. If they spent their wealth improving the lives of their citizens instead of on missiles Iran would be in a much better state. The responsibility for that failure and lack of "privilege" falls squarely on the shoulders of the regime running Iran.
> Unlike Israel, the GCC countries don't have air raid shelters, but because of the above, casualties have been much lower. Again, that's because of Iran's early warnings and the respective countries' countermeasures. Iran has a vested interest in preventing civilian deaths in the GCC, unlike the US and Israel have in Iran.
I'm not interested in excuses like this for targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. The United States and Israel have done much more than Iran has to protect civilians and it shows in the way that the United States and Israel only target military infrastructure which Iran is using to lob missiles at... civilians in other countries!
> Iran's attack on Al Minhad airbase (which is close to where some family live), showed that they can inflict casualties and turn any GCC country to glass if they wanted to, just by concentrating force.
Likewise the United States can turn Iran into "glass" if they'd like.
> Life in Iran isn't normal, precisely because Israel and USA are intent on bombing it to smithereens.
Factually incorrect statement. Life in Iran isn't normal because of the actions of their government.
> Your arguments otherwise about water in Tehran and protests are pre-war tangential arguments.
It's a common theme and actions pre-war are related to actions during-war as well. It's a bad government that has mismanaged itself into the situation it is in now and that mismanagement falls squarely on their shoulders.
> As mentioned above, Iran could make life in the GCC "abnormal" if they wanted to - they just haven't yet because they haven't been pushed to the brink.
"I'd kill you but you just haven't made me mad enough yet". Sounds like an unhinged viewpoint to me. That's no way to run a country or treat your neighbors.
> Not to mention Iran intentionally targeting apartment complexes and other civilian targets throughout the region.
You realize that Iran provided 24h notice about attacks that were upcoming today advising people to evacuate and Israel bombs hospitals without warning, right?
What does that have to do with Iran indiscriminately bombing apartment complexes and high rises and civilian infrastructure in countries like the United Arab Emirates? What does that have to do with Iran massacring 30,000 of its own citizens and hanging 19 years old kids for protesting as recently as yesterday?
If Israel or the United States bomb a working hospital (and even then it depends) I stand against that. Though of course even your premise is generally questionable because terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and others (as recognized by the European Union and United States) know that Western forces do not on purpose bomb or attack civilians or civilian infrastructure and have a difficult time when Hamas/Hezbollah fighters lodge themselves in mosques, elementary schools, hospitals, which is why they do it - they understand we are culturally against such practices.
But if they bombed a hospital they'll have to bomb a lot of hospitals before they approach the death totals that the Iranian government has already inflicted on its own people.
> What does that have to do with Iran indiscriminately bombing apartment complexes and high rises and civilian infrastructure in countries like the United Arab Emirates?
USA soldiers were in those buildings because they'd been moved off-base. But at this point, you're not arguing in good faith. You wouldn't know about that without the part about our people being the targets so I don't trust you to be forthcoming at all.
> USA soldiers were in those buildings because they'd been moved off-base.
Source please.
> You wouldn't know about that without the part about our people being the targets so I don't trust you to be forthcoming at all.
Iran launched 2500 missiles at the UAE alone, and those missiles hit obvious civilian infrastructure including where US soldiers weren't, airports, &c. and has threatened unprovoked to blow up desalination plants to cause mass famine and destruction. No excuse for that. Sorry, Iran is the bad guy here and their actions prove that without question.
Most Israelis are IDF members due to the requirement for mandatory military service so almost all areas in Israel are valid military targets.
Ok by that same logic almost all areas of Iran are valid military targets because IRGC soldiers are spread throughout the country. Nevermind that they're recruiting children now. [1]
By that same rationale you'd justify blowing up schools. I don't find that to be a good enough argument to deliberately target civilian infrastructure. But if you do, then it justifies the US and Israel too.
[1] https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20260403-iran-guards...
I am not saying this. Israel is saying this. Israel bombs schools and hospitals claiming they are housing military. So I say why not then, most of Israel is a valid military target too by their own rules of engagement. Israel even fired missile into a residential building in Qatar to hit someone that was not a combatant or military officer. So clearly civilian buildings are anyways valid targets too. Israel has murdered civilian Iranian scientists. So likewise Israeli scientists and intelligence agents are valid military targets too.
Ok that's fine if that's your justification, but then the US and Israel get to target civilian targets just like Iran. So morally they're the same when it comes to targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure and now I won't be concerned if the US or Israel bomb apartment complexes in Tehran. Everyone is a combatant!. Though Iran has obviously killed a lot more civilians including over 30,000 of their own so they're doing quite a lot of damage to themselves without anyone else's help.
[dead]
Who cares if you are super happy, you get force-drafted with alternative either harsh deadly jail or firing squad. You have 10 seconds to decide. Good luck on having strong opinions in such case.
That seems a bit dramatic - do you have sources for the things you mentioned? I'd like to learn more.
The truth barely matters anymore. People believe whatever they want to believe, or whatever they are told to believe. You can be sure that Iranians are being blasted with propaganda just the same as Americans are being blasted with propaganda, except that currently Iran is cut off from the internet so the effect is much stronger.
You can't say for sure that you wouldn't wilfully join up if you were in that kind of information environment.
Information does go around even without the internet - doubt that iranians do not know about the things their government is doing in those mass executions.
Knowing is not the same as believing. ICE shoot innocent people in the street but there's still enough Fox News watching idiots who believe the victims somehow had it coming. Now take that and add no Internet access, no independent media, living under sanctions, etc.
If the Fox news watching Americans can be broadly supportive of this war, you'd best believe that there's an equally large contingent of Iranians who feel an equal and opposite antipathy towards the US.
German geography makes it much easier to invade (most of the country except for the far south is a relatively flat plain). And it still wasn't much fun for the troops who had to do it in 1944 and 1945 even against a significantly weakened force fighting on multiple fronts at once
Right re 80 million in Germany.
After a bombing campaign, most of the people tend to hate whoever bombed them.
I don't believe you understand how modern bombs work.
Like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack
They seem to work not very well, considering the number civilians they've killed in Iran.
Supposedly the issue was less bomb accuracy and more bad intel
Weird that we can afford how many hundreds of thousands per bomb but can't be bothered to pay entry level wages to manually verify each site. I'm sure the DoD has access to something even better than Google Maps.
Does it matter, at this point? If you go and tell someone who’s lost their home and half their family in a strike, "oops, it was just bad intel", do they hate you less?
Oh no, if anything I think bad intel is probably worse
The issue was starting an unnecessary war. When you did, then all the deaths are on you.
Yeah, but… I think if you’re bombing a child’s school because of bad intel, the deaths are on you either way. We’re not going to be like “oh, this war was necessary, which means it’s no biggie that you accidentally killed two hundred children because you didn’t do your DD”
Ostensibly, it wasn't unnecessary to those who started it.
its always that, and absolutely nobody cares
I sometimes wonder if our modern philosophy of requiring intentionality for crimes is the wrong way. You can launder intentionality be not trying too hard. If you try really weakly, it's called negligence but even that isn't as morally bad as intentionality. Perhaps we should forget about trying to read the mind of a state or criminal and only judge them by their actions.
In my country, punishments for killing people with deliberate violence varies from 8 months home detention (bus driver punched a passenger in the face, knocking him out so he fell backward and cracked his head on the ground), to several decades (man grabbed scissors from the kitchen, ran to his ex girlfriend's room, and stabbed her repeatedly). Both victims are equally dead but the courts decided that the perpetrators' feelings mattered far more than what they did. Perhaps if the bus driver had been weaker and needed a weapon, he'd be in prison for 10 years instead of free? Perhaps if the ex-boyfriend had used his fists outdoors on a concrete pavement, he'd be free? Seems grossly unfair.
Was it true for Japan and Germany post WWII? Or between European nations after the same said war?
On the other hand, until a couple of years ago, Iranians and Israeli never directly exchanged even a bullet between them and yet Iran was dedicated to the destruction of Israel, so YMMV.
The threat of Japanese people all waging guerrilla warfare was considered real enough that the US decided to keep the Japanese Emperor as figurehead (even though the US had enough power to sentence or even execute him for war crimes), just so that the Emperor could order his people to surrender and obey US forces.
Something the current US regime might have forgotten.
> Something the current US regime might have forgotten.
Nah, it wouldn't have worked with Khamenei after a few decades of destroy America and Israel rhetoric. It was a good decision to eliminate him and most of Iran's hardliner senior leadership. Now maybe they can make a "deal" with whoever they're replaced with, but I doubt it. The trouble was going all in without a clear plan. Or maybe they have one but they keep it to themselves?
First, new leadership is MORE hardline.
Second, Khamenei in fact presided over Iran who exercised restrain in their responses to attacks and was willing to enter international agreements. And followed them to reasonable level. They did cause destabilization by proxis, they were still regime they were. But like, what Iran regime learned was that restraint makes them look weak and makes them be bombed every couple of months. And that negotiation and international agreements mean nothing.
Third, frankly, as evil regime was, American history and role in Iran was destructive one. You cant take down elected president, put cruel monarchy in power and then play victim when revolution happens. And yes, who ends up winning bloody revolution does not tend to be nice pro-democratic side either. It tends to be the side willing to kill and risk more.
The real problem here is Israel.
The zionists do not want an economically prosperous Iran. They actually want Iran to descend into civil war and starvation. Also the reason why Europeans hate this war- we all know were the refugees will end up.
Maybe it's related to the fact that every missile, drone, bullet or bomb used to attack Israel over the past two decades came from, was paid by, and operated in behalf of Iran.
Had Israel treated Palestinians better and remained within their territorial limits afforded by UN that may not have come to pass. Recall Iran was one of the very few ME countries that supported the UN charter for creation of Israel. Israel then became the long arm of the forces that wanted to turn Iran into a vassal. Not surprised why they did not like it much.
Until the Islamic revolution Israel and Iran were the best friends in the Middle East, long after Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza (1967 vs 1979). It's not the Palestinians that are the issue here, rather an excuse by Iran to constantly attack Israel and rally their population around a cause.
Irani people's relations soured when Israel was recognized as the long arm of US and Britain's meddlesome interest, and if course the treatment of the Palestinians. Shah's personal feelings was a different matter.
You're talking as if hating Israelis is the normal course of action and it's just because of the Shah that the populations tolerated each other. That's a very grim world view.
Not taking anything just describing when and why the hating started.
That the revolution was and is against Jews is a lie.
Tehran hosts Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center, a Jewish charity hospital, the largest charity among the religious minorities in Iran. It is doing well, thank you.
Ayatollah Khomeini himself wrote a personal note thanking the hospital for its help after the revolution succeeded.
Synagogues in Tehran are doing very well in the Islamic regime, thank you.
In fact Irani Jews have often criticized Israel when Israel has acted against Palestinians. Chief Rabbi of Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehuda_Gerami has denunciated Zionist and Israeli policies.
https://www.csmonitor.com/1998/0203/020398.intl.intl.3.html
""" It comes as a surprise to many visitors to discover that Iran, a country so hostile to Israel and with a reputation for intolerance, is home to a small but vibrant Jewish community that is an officially recognized religious minority under Iran's 1979 Islamic Constitution.
"Khomeini didn't mix up our community with Israel and Zionism - he saw us as Iranians," says Haroun Yashyaei, a film producer and chairman of the Central Jewish Community in Iran. """
1967 is Iran ruled by monarchy forced on it by USA and UK. Hated by general population as something forced on them from abroad.
Shah stance being aligned with the people who put him in for their own benefit is like Venezuela paying oil to trump now.
At this point, Israel does not get to play victim anymore. It was not an innocent victim for a long time now. You dont really get to misplace and kill as many people and expect they will be nice to you back.
And that includes killings of journalists and doctors. That includes tolerance and celebration of settlers violence ... or the fact that settlers should not even be a thing.
Israel is not the only one engaging in those, Saudi and UAE and murderous too. But, like, common, most of what Israel does is ethical cleansing, expansion and intentional destabilization of other countries.
Israel is not a victim. It's a winner. It completely decimated the Iranian plan of encircling it with violent radicalized proxies, despite that plan being decades and many billions of dollars in the making. It is a country that since October 7th has decided that enough is enough and just dismantled its enemies one by one.
The countries Israel fight are declared enemies. Israel is a very convenient ally to countries that struck peace with it, but it's a really nasty enemy to have for those who have not.
Just rhetoric coming from nowhere?
Yes, hence the continued US occupation after WWII, among other countermeasures.
Israel has been killing iranians for quite some time. Here are some notable examples from the last twenty years or so:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassinations_of_Iranian_nucl...
Israel didn't take responsibility for those until October 7th. Now clandestine operations happen all the time, like the Iranian bombing on Jewish center in Argentina in 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMIA_bombing
While I understand why Israel would want to target Iranian nuclear scientists, I find it much harder to comprehend why Iran would go out of their way to bomb a Jewish community center in South America.
Germans were salty about being bombed and Germany destroyed. They were also occupied for years and also victory forces made sure the victory was absolute - no peace agreement but armies everywhere. There were other aspects too - like nazi doing a lot of destruction of the Germany by themselves. Germans back then seen the whole thing as a tragedy for Germany and Germans.
The rebuild phase where allies put a lot of effort and money into rebuilding Germany did a lot to ensure good result there. And you still see fascists being popular in Germany, especially in former easter block. It is just that everyone else is still traumatized by the past, school system make sure everyone knows past and nazi propagation is literally illegal.
I bet that "large part" isn't thrilled about the US bombing civilians, including children, either.
Indeed it’s an odd argument. The regime is immensely unpopular. If it weren’t for the murderous crackdown they would have been overthrown long ago.
There is a good case to be made that if it weren't for the consistent pressure, sanctions and assassinations from US/Israel, the moderates would have prevailed in Iran.
Saddam was immensely unpopular. The Taliban was immensely unpopular.
It doesn't mean that people like America- or Israel.
Every country has it's own elite who have their agenda independent from whatever the White House wants.
Don't forget the coastal geography. Iran's coastline in the Persian gulf is longer than California's coastline, and they can do drone attacks anywhere in the Gulf, not just the narrow strait portion that everyone seems to focus on.
Cuba allying with Iran is pure fantasy though. There's no logistical connection between the two nations. It would be as irrelevant as Greenland allying with Antarctica.
> Countermeasures can take out some attacking missiles, but not all of them.
Exactly. On asymmetrical warfare, one side needs to get lucky all the time while the other only needs to get lucky once.
> Mass-produced drones today are a simple airframe, a lawnmower engine, and the smarts of a cell phone. Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran.
Their cheap and simple nature allows them to easily swarm targets and saturate their defenses. You can defend from a dozen incoming drones, but a hundred is significantly more difficult.
Also, consider the massive quadcopter shows in China as an example of how a well placed shipping container can swarm a target and make a devastating attack. Ukraine demonstrated one and disabled a significant part of the Russian bomber fleet.
> Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US.
Cuba would be foolish not to do that at the first opportunity, not to attack the US, but to neutralize any offensive from the US. Without a navy, a land invasion, or an effective blockade, is impossible.
Cuba would be foolish not to “neutralize” the US? You think Cuba has the capability to destroy the US Navy? Where did you learn all this?
Attacking a navy has proven easy and cheap. Right now they lack any significant military capability but that will not last forever.
> The US can't just pull out, either.
Watch orange man pull that one out. There are no rules of behavior anymore, he can do whatever the fuck he wants, laws, treaties, morals, future and so on be damned, ego whims dominate the decision chain. Who is going to do anything. The only exception is israel, they seem to have a massive leverage on him and utilize it to the fullest.
Also he and his clan are heavily gaining from insider trading on those huge swings, we talk about billions here on just closest circle and everybody knows this. Also, US is gaining on big oil prices, another reason to sow more chaos. Not happy times ahead.
> The only exception is israel, they seem to have a massive leverage on him and utilize it to the fullest.
That's a funny way to spell "kompromat".
> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany.
Germany has 83.000.000 people
This is a fairly well trod argument. It also requires a fairly long series of strawman arguments to come together. Yes, there are challenges, but ...
The reality of Hormuz was well known decades ago - even in 2002 Millenium exercise a bunch of speedboats and motorcycles stopped the US Navy from opening hormuz. [1]
Moskva was taken down by a well coordinated strike that distracted its one (1!) fire control radar. It was also alone. Those are important factors. [2]
A blanket comparison of Russia's attempts to eliminate Ukraine's industry with US Navy's ability to eliminate Iran's is ... questionable. We've flown 1000s of uncontested sorties over Ukraine, and Russia has been relegated to knocking down apartment buildings with Iran's own drones.
It is entirely possible that the US Navy is commanded by myopic idiots who fall for those tricks, but I doubt it.
Finally, it's not entirely clear that the large population won't, itself, become at least partially an asset of the resistance.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
[2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2022/04/14/ukrain...
> A blanket comparison of Russia's attempts to eliminate Ukraine's industry with US Navy's ability to eliminate Iran's is ... questionable. We've flown 1000s of uncontested sorties over Ukraine, and Russia has been relegated to knocking down apartment buildings with Iran's own drones.
Russia has literally taken over the industrial heart of Ukraine in the east and southeast regions. With boots on the ground, tanks, everything. They claim it as their land. And yet they can't stop Ukraine from building drones.
That's far more than the US/Israel have done or are willing to do. It's extremely realistic that they do not have the capacity to destroy Iran's drone making capabilities, ever.
Think about it this way - if Russia had the US Navy's task force near Ukraine, and the level of air dominance that US has in Iran, do you think Russia would do anything differently? Would they, for example, be making 100s - 1000s of daily aerial strikes anywhere in Ukraine?
Because US _does_ have that, and so it _does_ significantly change the calculus. Unless you think it doesn't. In which case, we just disagree.
In the matter of drone production, which was my point, it doesn’t change the calculus. It is evident that short of regime change or popular upheaval Iran can produce or import drones indefinitely and the only thing that can stop it is a ground invasion.
The US Navy or any navy can’t destroy that production from the air.
The evidence is pretty clear on that. We see that is already the case in Ukraine or with Hezbollah and Ansar Allah.
Option b - we just disagree then
Sorry, irrelevant to what you‘re saying, but Germany has 85 mio inhabitants. You might mistake it for Poland.
I agree with some of your points, but I'm not sure about the drones. I don't think the kind of drone you can build with a lawnmower engine would be likely to do any significant damage to any but the smallest ship. And the US/Israel coalition has a much greater airpower advantage enabling them to target drone production than Russia does.
Cuba is in no shape to do anything. Even if they had drones, the leadership there is very unlikely to use them since doing so would result with almost 100% probability in the US killing or capturing them.
> I don't think the kind of drone you can build with a lawnmower engine would be likely to do any significant damage to any but the smallest ship
It's not really a lawnmower engine, but the L550E clones used in the Shahed drone are roughly the same scale as a big lawnmower engine (higher power/weight, but similar horsepower), and they've successfully taken out $100 million radar installations.
> Mass-produced drones today are a simple airframe, a lawnmower engine, and the smarts of a cell phone. Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran.
The ships the LCS are intended to replace are significantly more capable at absorbing damage from this type of threat. If you are willing to go up to destroyer class, you are probably approaching immunity for this scenario.
> Former CIA intelligence officer Robert Finke said the blast appeared to be caused by C4 explosives molded into a shaped charge against the hull of the boat.[6] More than 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of explosive were used.[7] Much of the blast entered a mechanical space below the ship's galley, violently pushing up the deck, thereby killing crew members who were lining up for lunch.[8] The crew fought flooding in the engineering spaces and had the damage under control after three days. Divers inspected the hull and determined that the keel had not been damaged.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing
"Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. " >Germany's population is approximately 83.5 to 84.1 million as of early 2026
agree with analysis of iran industry etc, cant see cuba happening. usmil could roll over cuba in a few months and the local population probably wouldnt be hostile
Underestimation requires estimation. There was no thought put into the decision to start this war. These are people who have thoroughly bought into their own propaganda. Can the US win a war against Iran? The answer is “America, fuck yeah.” They think we’re omnipotent and literally favored by their god. They think the reason we’ve had military problems in the past is because lefty bedwetters insist on stupid rules like “no bombing schools.” You’ve put more thought into this operation in this comment than our top leadership has.
The global Shia’s population is even larger than Russia’s population, and more willing to fight the US/Israel. Russia is of course superior to Iran technologically but Iran has the larger support worldwide.
Russia is a buyer of Iranian drone tech. Iran has also done a very good job marketing their maneuvering reentry vehicles in the last couple weeks.
Agreed. Minus the nuclear and air defence, Iran is more advanced than US and Russia in many other weapons capabilities.
Russian military technology has not evolved since the 90s
The point still stands.
I’m not sure I agree with your argument but all of it made sense until you started talking about Cuba.
Iran knows that the US population really really doesn’t want a ground invasion. Right now, we have lost a handful of lives from missiles hitting US bases, but it’s not the same as a ground war.
Cuba, however, would very much get a ground invasion if they start striking the US with missiles. It’s not even a question. And I also assume their leaders are not religious fanatics with any interest in martyrdom.
Iran also knows that Americans don't want high gas prices so they targeted Americans' wallets from the outset. If even a half-assed invasion attempt existed that so much as involved a single dock being damaged, the psychological damage to America would be intense. America hasn't really been invading in, what, 2 centuries? War is a thing that happens "over there", never at home. It's easy to dissociate and pretend it doesn't affect you. Once people realize they've poked a bear, regret sinks in fast.
> The US can't just pull out, either. The enemy gets a vote on when it's over. Israel, Iran, and Yemen now all have to agree
Is that really true? Just claim that Iran's Nuclear ambitions have been destroyed, and anyone who needs oil can "Buy it from the US or get it themselves from Hormuz" - mission accomplished!
With the US withdrawing (or atleast not attacking), Iran can stop the drone attacks and open Hormuz - collecting fees from passing ships, call it reparations and a win!
How to get Israel to back down in that scenario? They seem pretty committed to keeping this going.
This is what everyone misses.
Bibi has been found guilty by his own court system of gross corruption. Bibi tried to neuter his country's court system as a result, which pissed off a lot of Israel's population. Everything from 10/7 onward has been done to encourage Israelis to rally 'round the flag and keep fighting the enemy. Bibi goes to jail if the perma-war stops. Bibi does not want to go to jail.
He can just move to the US and order the senate to take turns kissing his feet.
I live in SoFLA and have seen one of his kids around town a few times. The kid is 110% all-in on the "chosen people" mantra and seems to think everyone is beneath him. Miami Beach's jewish population loves him.
Ironically enough, I do business frequently with a secular Israeli dude who has introduced me into some of the circles he runs in (mainly other secular Israelis), and they all seem to despise Benjamin "Nutty-Yahoo" Mielekowski and his ilk.
Why would Iran stop attacking the GCC and Israel?
TIL: Germany (85m) has almost the same population as Iran (90m)
> Iran has 90,000,000 people. [..] More than 2x Germany.
TIL: Germany has less than 45m inhabitants. Less than Spain! /s
I like the size and population take, but the industry perspective is bad: Russia doesn't have air superiority. US and Israel do. Cuba becoming a base for Shaed drones? You are out of touch with how much industry you need for that. They are cheap, but they are not FPVs or off-the-shelf Mavics.
90M > 2x Germany? You might wanna check your math on that...
> A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years.
I think you're missing the point.
I am sure Israel did not underestimate the scale of Iran.
That is why Netanyahu dedicated 40 years of his life to the famous "40 years 2-weeks away from a bomb" one-man stand-up comedy show when visiting the US or the UN.
For 40 years Netanyahu waited for a stupid enough President to take a seat in the Oval Office.
For 40 years, consecutive US presidents asked their advisors before going back to Netanyahu with a polite but firm "Thanks, but no thanks".
Then along came the Donny.
Advisors ? What advisors ?
Cabinet of yes-men ? Yes please !
Netenyahu's birthday and christmas both came at once.
The big mistake was attacking a state in violation of international law.
Any country that can veto a UN resolution is, effectively, immune to international law.
So is everyone with enough power, every law requires enforcement. But even without enforcement or with the ability to outright block laws, being in violation of international law still matters. It informs others whether you truly belief in a rule-based order or whether you only use it as a tool if it benefits you and they will adjust their behavior accordingly. Also if you want support from others, if you are in violation of international law, the others will think twice if they should support you.
> This is a real problem for the U.S. Navy, because they've invested heavily in craft intended to operate near hostile shores.
It's a great sign for the US military as a whole: That is the primary American tactic to defeat China, using land forces hidden on the First Island Chain with anti-ship missiles, to control the seas around China. More here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47584795
US can pull out and probably should.
The impetus for the blockade on the Strait goes away when the US pulls out. Even the UAE said as much as which is why they are currently trying to pass a UN Security Council Resolution stating as much and get the RoW to show enough teeth to get Iran to back down.
I am not a military expert, but the US theory of war has for a long time started with and was based on airspace dominance/control, and drones/cheap missiles put a serious dent in achieving that. Maybe laser weapons put the balance back toward the side that has them?
" airspace dominance/control,"
Lmao re-writing the history books? That plan of attack can be attributable to the Nazis.
"Maybe laser weapons put the balance back toward the side that has them?" Thats more fiction than reality.
I didn’t say it was original with the U.S., just that it has been their strategy for some time.
And the U.S. has been prepping/testing lasers on boats for some time. Combine rapid fire/quick kill with good radar and you have (airborne) drone defense.
I saw a teardown of an Ukrainian drone a while ago and I was surprised how similar the setup was to the IoT project I worked on. I could be setting up a good chunk of the software part of a similar system myself and I am not that specialized of an engineer.
> A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany.
Not necessarily disagreeing with your other points, but Germany has a population of ~84 million, so comparable size.
Wait, wasn't the Iranian military obliterated? What do they have left?
You think the pentagon was like "shit, Iran is bigger than we thought"?
Pentagon, absolutely not.
The current USA leadership, I’m afraid it isn’t impossible.
Of course not, but it's very believable that the current administration ignored what the pentagon told them.
If you've been paying attention you'd understand that (1) the US military brass has been almost entirely replaced by MAGA stooges who think the rapture is real and (2) Trump and co 100% thought they could Maduro-esque behead the IRGC and this would be over in a week. The military officials who (correctly) dare not attack Iran aren't in any positions of power any longer.
God created war so that Americans would learn geography. Like Trump's obsession with Greenland because he does not understand the Mercator projection...
I am certain that Hegseth is facing several, "shit!" moments, at least one of them along those limes, yes.
He doesn’t show any signs of that kind of introspection. The simple answer as to how he is conducting this war is the best one.
He’s a fucking moron.
I'm sure the Pentagon did not come up with this idiotic plan. I doubt the current admin is utilizing their frontal lobe.
Not sure where you get your numbers from but 80*2 is more than 90. Germany has about 80 million inhabitants.
Just to note, Germany has 83 million people, so not 2x Germany.
Cuba would be bombed off the map if that happened.
Germany has a population of ~87,000,000 though.
Cuba can barely keep electricity on amid fuel shortages and ancient infrastructure. They are in no position to fight a war, and don't really have a strong ideological force like IRGC in Iran. The ruling elites are way more likely to make a deal that allows them to keep their heads.
The "fuel shortages" are caused by the blockade started by USA a few months ago, which has also threatened with an actual unprovoked attack against Cuba.
Even just the blockade cannot be considered as anything else but an act of war, even if, as usual, USA does not declare the wars it starts.
In the past, USA at least made attempts to appear that it follows the international laws, but today it makes great efforts to perfectly match the stereotype of the lawless "Imperialist Americans" that was used in the past in the propaganda of the former communist countries.
Any act of war that Cuba would ever do against USA would be perfectly justified by the already done actions of USA, which make random Cubans suffer from serious shortages.
I figure the US was aware of the scale of Iran. It seems the US were talking with about three possible people in the Iranian government who could take over like what happened in Venezuela but their initial strikes killed them all which was a bit of a screw up. (Trump vid https://youtu.be/Zokz9DJ0KhI)
And the expectation was that IRGC and Islamists just accepts that and Israel stops bombing Iran at that point? Why would Israel find that sufficient considering that would give them nothing?
And the other thing is that I just dont understand how that can be called a regime change. Venezuela was not regime change either - Venezuelan regime stayed exactly the same as before, but now USA is co-responsible for the abuses.
Germany has over 83M people.
Germany has 80M people.
it's not 2x Germany. Germany is ~83.5M.
Sorry but if Cuba starting launching drones at Florida, especially Mar-a-Lago, Cuba will be carpet bombed. Americans would simply not put up with that. It would be sad days in history imho.
Can we just appreciate that if we’re at a place where anyone “makes mistakes appreciating scale” in the space age, we have much bigger problems
Bush and his son in one gulf, Bobby and his in another. Crisis after crisis.
> More than 2x Germany.
Nope, your numbers are way off.
>Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now.
To be fair this is basically a weakness of modern kid gloves warfare not really due to any asymmetric advantage. If the year were say 1941, Kiev and the rest of Ukraine would have been reduced to rubble and conquered years ago by now and not thanks to technology but the state of what is seen as politically acceptable. Really, Putin could do this today if he really wanted to waste a couple million ukrainians. There is no technological moat protecting kiev from destruction today. People claim if he did something like that then western nations would rally to arms and prevent that, but they said the same before he invaded ukraine in the manner they did, too. Maybe Putin doesn't even realize the bluff is a bluff, or maybe he does have a bit of a conscious unlike Stalin.
Why do you think the number of people in Iran matters?
I think most of what you said is just speculation, not founded on reality. The only thing that would stop the US from invading Iran in under 3 months is political will.
Russia doesn't have the scale and power of the US airforce, or the ability to project that power using the US navy and all the bases in the middle-east. Any comparison with russia at all makes me question your entire analysis.
Iran is big and geographically challenging, Afghanistan is notorious in the same sense as well, even more so by their infamous defeat and expelling of Russia in the 80's. The US invaded afghanistan in a matter of 1-2 months and held on to the country for 20 years.
Establishing a FOB initially will be challenging but with Kuwait and KSA eagerly cooperating, it won't be a challenge.
Drones are effective when your enemy is nearby and you can project it against them. Iran can threaten just about any US interest in the region but not the US homeland itself. They can't attack Europe because that would risk drawing them into the conflict, so their only option is to attack existing enemies in the region and do their best to inflate the price of oil.
And therein is their strategy that might win the war, it isn't all the reasons you listed, but political will as a result of economic pressure. The US lost in Afghanistan, Vietnam, and even arguably in Iraq because of loss of political will to continue the conflict. But then again, the current administration will not be deterred by pesky things such as the will of the american people, they'll use it to declare emergencies and attempt to hold on to power instead. The only thing that can defeat the US right now is the republican party in the US willing to turn on their beloved dictator.
> Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran.
The US has bunker-busters.
Even though your analysis is full of many technical flaws the most critical flaw in my opinion is how you aren't considering aerial advantage for the US, but yet you seem to think drones are an advantage. Drones are only useful at attacking pre-determined regional targets to influence political will. For the US however, unlike Russia, the US doesn't have a decrepit airforce, and doesn't flinch at launching $70~M/launch tomahawks. The ukrainain army right now isn't withstanding a constant barrage of bomber jets dropping on them. Russia is several decades behind US equivalent fleets from what I understand.
The US military hasn't been sitting on their hands watching the Russia-Ukraine conflict either. They've been testing all kinds of anti-drone tech in the desert for a while now, but this is the real opportunity for them to battle-test different techniques. No one is sanctioning the US either (more like sanctioning itself), and there is no real or practical shortage of war-chest funds (unlike Russia), and having a big war every two decades means the US military-industrial complex far more capable to meet the supply-chain logistics demands.
The US military certainly is the biggest in the world, dwarfing all other countries' militaries combined. But the thing most people don't realize is that is not what makes it the most capable invading force in the world, it is the sheer efficiency of the logistical effectiveness unseen the history of war before, backed by the ability to fund years-long wars without so much as flinching on the domestic economy front.
I would argue that the if the political will existed, the US can invade the entire region, from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas in less time than how long Russia has been at war with Ukraine. Even if the US couldn't use the bases and airspace in Europe at all, the calculus remains the same.
> This worked a lot better when the trouble spots couldn't do much to them.
Huh? what do you mean? They're entirely designed to address hostilities, they're not designed establish access in a non-hostile littoral, this goes back to WW2 beachead establishments (like normandy). The carrier ships are never meant to be close to land to where they're a target, but the carrier group itself is entirely designed to establish a beachead and deploy an expeditionary force under hostile conditions. I admit, maybe my history recall is lacking, do you know of any post-WW2 conflicts where the US navy established a beach head as part of an invading force that didn't face both aerial and naval resistance? Iran and Afghanistan didn't require it, neither did Korea or Vietnam as far as I know.
Ufff, just to be clear: Are you saying that invading and conquering Iran won't be much more difficult than doing the same for Afghanistan?
I want some of the good stuff you are using!
The non-war obsessed normies are something to behold, that's for sure. Most probably the GP has never looked at the FPV videos coming out of Ukraine, or maybe he somehow thinks that US soldiers are Terminator-like machines who would have nothing to fear from aerial drones.
whooptie doo, you're special and those who disagree with you are normies. that doesn't make a good argument, neither does misrepresenting what I said. and all your speculation about me there is wrong (your argument shouldn't be about me but about the topic anyways?).
I'm sure US troops will be plenty terrified, and there will be lots of casualties, you just made that argument on my behalf so you could have something to win. The amount of fear or the level of sheer human carnage on either side does not affect the outcome. Like I said in my post, if these factors affect political will in the US, Iran will win, if not then US military will not take very long, despite the costs, to achieve victory. It will not be defeated on grounds of "drones", terrain, Iran being well prepared, or oil prices.
I never claimed that, I only made the argument that the terrain and population won't be the hard part. Iran is well prepared for this invasion, so it will be harder, but the US military is also the most well-practiced, well-armed, and well-funded military in history, so harder is kind of relative. I doubt it will take a year, and I don't think it will take a month, that's as accurate as I think my educated guess can be.
Israel's army is on par with US, if not better, regarding practice and armament. Have a look at the kind of problems they have in South Lebanon. Against supposedly destroyed Hezbollah.
Now imagine the same, just on a much larger scale...
The new technology (drones) changes the game quite a bit.
> Iran can threaten just about any US interest in the region but not the US homeland itself.
Much thanks to the impenetrable Mexico border, through which no foul thing has ever slipped past... /s
Iran can very much sneak drones into the US and do an Operation Spiderweb-style attack. Won't happen next week, but Russia thought they were done in 3 weeks.
Are you claiming Iran has the logistics and capability to constantly deliver drone attacks against the US homeland persistently? Or were you thinking of more like a one time flurry of drones? I mean, even if Mexico joined the war and Iran managed to provide them with unlimited drones, what changes? US border cities will be affected and there will be civlian casualties. Do you know why Ukraine is avoiding attacking civilian targets when Russia is doing just that? Because that is the exact opposite of their objective!
Read what i said again, even with Russia, the one thing that can defeat them the most is loss of political will, just like with the US. If Iran attacks even one civilian US target, that's the ammunition Trump needs to keep fighting, and to get his war fund approved all he wants. Why would Iran want that? If you said Ramestien (within their reach), that would be more reasonable, but even then, that draws in NATO. Ukraine is attacking Russian soldiers and military targets by drones, Iran doesn't have much US military targets other than the ones that are specifically there to engage with it as part of the conflict. If a serious enough attack on US soil took place, that is the exact worst scenario where the circus in the whitehouse will be talking about nukes (and that's why I suppose the WHO is preparing for a nuclear disaster).
> Or were you thinking of more like a one time flurry of drones?
No continuously, but enough to do serious damage to important assets.
Not sure if they'd go for civilian assets, new leader is supposedly more extreme than the previous (funny how that's often the case), but so far their responses seems measured.
But if they could take out a bunch of B-52s and whatnot sitting parked in the open, like that drone scare last year...
If they did want to go after civilians, they could however easily do a 9/11 level of attack against airlines or similar targets that are not prepared.
This is, as you allude to, likely not a good move for Iran. However, Israel said they'd prefer a failed state over the current regime, and in that case I could see some fanatics thinking that's a play to make, not unlike 9/11. So if Israel continues without direct US support, and the regime falls...
A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran.
There is value in much of what you're saying in your post, even though I don't necessarily agree 100% with all of it. However, no one involved in planning or starting this attack, underestimated the size of Iran at all. All of that would have been covered by all briefings. The US admin and military knew all of this, and frankly has planned all of this.
The US has some of the most capable spy networks, knowledge, and military experience on the planet. And yes, even the current admin takes advantage of this.
So the real question is, what is the end goal? None of the noise we hear from mouthpieces is really it. I suspect that causing trillions in damage to Iran is likely simply it. A bloody nose. I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this.
The US military, and daily briefings have all covered every aspect of what's been happening in the Ukraine war. They know. They've been studying it. They're not surprised by it. They 100% knew that Iran has been supplying drones to Russia in vast quantities.
What I strongly suspect is that Iran is being given a message. One it didn't listen to when it was bombed months ago. Don't help Russia. Don't align with China. Don't sell oil to China. And also?
Right now, all those drones made-in-Iran? All the munitions. All the missiles. All the tech they've been shipping Russia? It's ground to a complete halt. So whether or not Iran was stubbornly going to continue to export these things to Russia, it can't, as it needs them domestically now.
Russia is now cut off from that supply chain, because Iran needs it for itself.
If you look at what's happening, Russia has been forced to withdraw from the world stage as it is bled dry by the Ukraine war. It first pulled back from Syria, and it (Assad) fell. It pulled out of Cuba, out of Venezuela, all troops and aircraft and support. Russia has ceased to be a world power, it's literally done. It's become nothing but a regional power, incapable of projecting any power on the world stage.
The Ukraine war is serving its purpose. The West and the US are only supplying enough weaponry to keep Russia bleeding. Never enough weaponry for the Ukraine to win, never enough support, the US just trickles weaponry to them. The Ukraine just serves one purpose -- keep Russia fighting, keep it off the world stage, keep it bleeding all its power and might until it's a complete empty husk.
Yet as Russia has pulled back, China has attempted to moved to fill that vacuum. It's been buying oil from places like Venezuela, and Iran. It was extending soft power into Cuba. The US cannot tolerate this, and back to the start, I suspect that this is also a secondary message being given. A message to China. "Don't do this".
Cutting Russia and China off, each for different reasons, could be viewed as a good success for the US. My thoughts are -- what's next? What other thing does the US want to cut off from China, and Russia?
Because I suspect that's where things will pivot to.
--
(One thought here is, about exit strategies, is that just walking away and leaving the straight Hormuz a mess, will literally force Western allies to police that straight with their navies. The US has been pulling back from policing shipping lanes world wide over the last 20 years, and unhappy with its allies for not taking up the slack, or what it deems a "fair share". With Hormuz, US allies will be forced to take up the slack, an interesting outcome. This too would be an immense success for the US.)
You have it backward, Iran is not shipping shahed drones to russia anymore its not 2022, the trend reversed and russians are teaching iranians about their mods that improve penetration chances. russians are now fully self-sufficient with shaheds.
The rest I fully agree with, although its a half-assed effort that will likely backfire long term.
> will literally force Western allies to police that straight with their navies
If it can't be done by the US navy, it can't be done by Western navies either. What will actually happen is the Eastern countries (including Australia for this purpose!) will just pay the toll. Much cheaper than a military operation.
Iran has already achieved an important objective: getting un-sanctioned.
All this "message" stuff? That's not coming in the public messaging.
> If you look at what's happening, Russia has been forced to withdraw from the world stage as it is bled dry by the Ukraine war. It first pulled back from Syria, and it (Assad) fell. It pulled out of Cuba, out of Venezuela, all troops and aircraft and support. Russia has ceased to be a world power, it's literally done. It's become nothing but a regional power, incapable of projecting any power on the world stage.
This has certainly happened, but Russia can stop at any time. It's their Afghanistan (again) or Vietnam. Your analysis also completely leaves out the EU and rNATO role.
> It's been buying oil from places like Venezuela, and Iran. It was extending soft power into Cuba. The US cannot tolerate this, and back to the start, I suspect that this is also a secondary message being given. A message to China. "Don't do this".
Intercepting international trade on the seas is just piracy. China may get the message but they're under no obligation to respect it.
The US didn't refill it's own strategic oil reserve before it attacked and raised its own oil prices, there is no foreseeable exit strategy where Iran doesn't now effectively own and charge usage for the straight, and Russia (and Iran but I digress) are now more able to sell their oil than before, bolstering their economy and helping them continue to attack Ukraine.
This reads as a Tom Clancy wet dream of American Machiavellian geopolitical maneuvering and not (what it is) yet another historic military intervention blunder - the likes of which we've seen multiple times in just our lifetimes alone (Vietnam/Iraq) - lead by some of the dumbest people to ever grace the highest positions of our military apparatus.
Not only is China still receiving oil from Iran but Russias oil revenues have spiked significantly because of the conflict with the FT considering Russia the biggest winners of this conflict so far.
Hard to really analyze your post because you look at geopolitics through the lens of Jack Bauer
Yeah this should be a citation in the sanewashing wikipedia article.
> Don't sell oil to China.
And what happens if Iran doesn't fold like Venezuela? Then the gates are open to trade in whatever is not dollars. Which means that the US economy will die.
> The US has some of the most capable spy networks, knowledge, and military experience on the planet.
Oh how cute, we are dusting off the cover on the greatest hits! I remember hearing this one back in the early 2000's! Unrelated, how many WMDs did they find in Iraq again? You know what, never mind, i'm sure it was just LOADS obviously!
> The US knows how to exit this.
Oh yeah, how's that? They gonna spend twenty years and $2.3 trillion dollars there?
Re: I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this.
Isn't this just wishfull thinking?
I mean, more mature administrations than Trump's have blundered into Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan without real exit strategies...
Re: Iranian drones to Russia:
Russians now (for quite some time) have their own production and development of Shahed derivatives, I doubt there are shipments from Iran to Russia.
Re: policing Hormuz:
Europe won't do it, for the same reason US is not doing it (it is an impossible task).
Re: the overall aim:
deny China the access to the Gulf oil, succeeding so far, but ultimately pointless (China will be lifted by greatly increased demand for its renewables and battery tech, as well as their electric cars)
It's not just drones, but parts for drones. It's also munitions, shells, missiles. It's about production volume. The Ukraine is also getting large supplies of the same from the West. No side can produce domestically, what the other can product domestically + import. The imports matter.
It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however?
In terms of oil, the US has recently cut China off from Venezuela as well. Short term supplies are important, "the future", a cloud of probabilities about oil shortags helping China, is not immediately apparent. It's suffering shipment halts from two lead suppliers now, both which were non-open market shipments, and volumes are unclear.
I wonder, what if the Ukraine suddenly stepped up and crippled deliveries of Russian oil to China? Or what if Saudi Arabia was told "don't do that". From where I sit, it's China that's being most directly affected by these actions in terms of energy supply.
> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. > Is this accurate, however?
Note that as long as there is a risk (even 1 to 20, maybe 1 to 100) that your tanker will be attacked, you just won't sail. (The logic of commercial shipping.)
Hence, blocking Hormuz does not mean total blockage, just a credible threat.
How do you propose to stop such a threat?
Adding warships to the mix, to shoot down incoming drones, simply adds those warships to the risked assets. What happens if a couple of escorts are hit/sunk?
We were not able to stop Houtis. What makes you think we can stop Iranians?
I do not understand this whole "Cripple China" thing. What do you think will happen if China decides that US is REALLY GOING AFTER IT NOW?
Maybe it will be enough for them to just stop shipping crap to US. What will the US do if suddenly the shop shelves become empty, CCCP-style?
> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however?
There have been plenty of analyses pretty much all concluding the same thing. How do you propose to do it? In normal times there were > 150 per day travelling through the gulf. Remember the coastline of Iran along the Gulf is about 2000km, all allowing them to launch strikes against ships (and they don't need to be sophisticated). So would you put a warship with every cargo ship? Occupy the whole coast? I don't see any feasible solution to police it.
> Re: I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this.
> Isn't this just wishfull thinking?
The administration could have asked their favorite LLM to plan 1000 exit strategies, kind of like how, if you asked an LLM to make up a reciprocal tariff formula, you would have gotten approximately the administration’s formula.
None of this means that the results are at all useful.
I doubt this admin is playing 4d chess with Iran. The more likely scenario is that Trump was given all information about Iran and was given several plans for a more indirect way to deal with them but he simply did not listen. He'd rather listen to lies fed to him by Netanyahu then his own staff.
In chapter 11 of All Quiet on the Western Front Paul and his unit find an abandoned food cache in the middle of no mans land. Instead of secreting away the food back to their lines where they will have to share it, they decide to just cook and eat it right then and there. But a spotter plane from the allies sees the smoke and then begins shelling their position. Cue a terrifying, if hilarious, scene where the soldiers try and cook pancakes as shells explode around them. Paul, as the last to leave, takes his pancakes on a plate and dashes out, timing his escape between bursts, and just barely making it back to the German trenches. Its a rare comic scene in an otherwise horrific and very real look at WW1.
The scene in the book is just so familiar to the lines in Ukraine these days, nearly a hundred years later. Instead of spotter planes near the dawn of aviation, we have satellites and drones (similarly quite new in the role). Instead of just shells and fuzing experts, we have FPV drones and much more sophisticated shells. Instead of buddies from the same towns all huddled together in cold muddy holes, we have deracinated units spread far and wide in laying in fear of thermal imaging. This results in a no mans land again, but a dozen kilometers wide instead of a few hundred meters wide, and somehow more psychologically damaging.
My point is that absent any tech that will miraculously be invented and deployed widely in the new few weeks, the Iran war, if it should be a ground one, is going to be just like Ukraine is today, which is somehow a worse version of trench warfare.
Even casual Victoria II players know that WW1 is essentially the final boss of the game. And the 'lesson' of Vicky II is essentialy: Do not fight WW1, it ruins Everything.
To be clear: The US is choosing to fight a worse version of WW1 without even a stated (or likely even known) condition of victory. We're about to send many thousands boys to suffer and die for not 'literally nothing', but actually literally nothing.
Ukrainian war is the way it is because neither side has a decisive advantage in air. There's barely any CAS - there are, however, lightweight drones.
If Iran were to become a major ground war, one of the sides would have air dominance, and we know which one. How that would change things remains to be seen. But it wouldn't be the same exact trench war, that's certain enough.
I don’t think air dominance will hold up for long if a plane costs billions and a drone a couple thousand. Any interceptor rocket the US uses will set them back millions versus literal peanuts on the other side. Add that Iran is basically a mountain fortress and they’ll run out of money very quickly; disregarding that prolonging the war will be __very__ unpopular in the US. They really got themselves into an unwinnable bind
How does a drone costing "a couple thousand" take out a plane? It doesn't.
Shaheds and quads offer no threat to US air superiority. Iran can fling them at the ground targets willy-nilly, sure, and that will inflict causalities on FOBs and ground forces. There's no ready-made solution to low end attack drones. But the sky is going to remain with the US. This allows US to dispense JDAMs at anything that pops its nose out into the open. Which doesn't play well with the notion of "positional trench warfare". Any "position" like this is a liability when the kill loops are tight and the sky speaks precision munitions.
If a major ground operation happens, I expect it to look closer to "2024 Gaza urban warfare hell" than to "2024 Ukraine open field war of attrition". Defending forces hiding from the air power in urban formations, causalities and collateral damage from the attackers trying to flush them out, humanitarian consequences from supply lines interdictions.
I very much agree that "the war is unpopular in the US" is a severe pressure on how much US can accomplish in practice. But what US sets out to do, how hard the US commits and how much can US actually accomplish there all remain to be seen. They could well purge the regime, destroy the key weapon facilities or grab-and-hold the oil fields before the domestic audience runs out of patience and pressures the politicians, or votes the decision-makers out.
Keep in mind: Iran isn't running off a pool of limitless resources either. The regime was already struggling a lot before US and Israel declared open season on the leaders - and the external pressure only buys you this much cohesion. Iran's military infrastructure is not in a tip-top shape, their income streams are dubious, they don't have many allies left after the proxy purges, they don't have reliable weapon suppliers overseas, and their own weapon stockpiles and production are unlikely to be sustainable in any way. They can sustain much more manpower losses and tolerate more hardship, sure - but there is no limitless tolerance. A regime that purges protestors by the thousands can't rely on its population being willing to suffer and die for it.
So there's nothing inherently "unwinnable" about this. It's a horrid mess of unknown war goals, questionable decision-making and dubious war sustainability, on both sides. Outcomes are very hard to estimate without some damn good intel.
This war is unwinnable because there is no possible benefit that will outweigh the cost.
You don't win a war when you cause the most destruction to your enemy. You win when you achieve a political objective.
Since when do wars have to be profitable?
This isn't middle ages. Most modern wars have dubious cost-benefit at best. Doesn't stop them from being fought and occasionally even won, no.
If US sets its war goal at "secure the strait and the oil fields" or "dismantle the regime" or "dismantle the nuclear program" and pulls that off, doesn't matter how many billions they would have sunk into the affair and how much they would actually have gained from it. From a military standpoint: a war goal was set and accomplished.
Whether US can actually set such a goal and then accomplish it is debatable, but it is not in any way impossible.
> If US sets its war goal at "secure the strait and the oil fields"
You mean the strait that was perfectly secure before this war? Amazing objective.
"Dismantle the regime" is the only objective that is coherent with what the US did and it's very unlikely they'll achieve it at this point.
Given that Iran was able to close it? Definitely not "secure" then, no. Let alone now.
If US has a goal of keeping the global oil prices low, then those specific goals make sense.
"Dismantle the regime" can be accomplished with both direct action, and with a more long term "destroy the regime's income streams and supply chains and let it implode". Both are on the table, and the latter can overlap with "seize the strait and the oil infrastructure".
> Given that Iran was able to close it? Definitely not "secure" then, no. Let alone now.
They were able to yet didn't because doing it was sure to provoke a response. In fact if Iran acted first to close the strait it would surely have pulled in all of the European powers.
The only reason they clode the strait is because the US struck first so they had nothing to lose anymore.
"Securing the strait" is completely incoherent as an objective for this war.
You're just demonstrating that most modern wars have no winner.
If you didn't achieve a political objective, you didn't win.
"Drag Israel into a long protracted attritional conflict in Gaza" was a political objective, and that was achieved. Did Hamas win?
It's a really stupid stick to measure things by, in my eyes.
Does the value of that political objective outweigh the costs? Considering that it resulted in mass starvation among their own people, I doubt it.
A war that doesn't achieve a political objective has no benefit, so any cost outweighs that and it is not a victory; it is just pointless destruction.
> How does a drone costing "a couple thousand" take out a plane?
Well when the plane is landed you fly a cheap drone into it and it’s wrecked, simple as that.
Of course you can’t intercept it in the air but it has to land sometime
Americans do not have the stomach to eat losses like Russia does. This is not een existential war for America. Having daily drone footage of American soldiers getting their face blown off won't do well at home. Casualties will be much higher than Iraq and Afghanistan.
Well, no, the goal is very clear - try to somehow make reps not lose next election and take focus away from PDF files
Moving focus from PDF files has been achieved - at least for now. But how do you make reps not lose next election with this war lingering on the news?
Realistically another attack on the scale of 9/11. Republicans were in power throughout the majority of the 00s.
Rig the election? You could pass a law that makes 1/3 of the country ineligible to vote, but makes sure they won't find out until they're at the polling booth. You could also prepare your allied goons to defend polling stations.
That won't work.
I think it's extremely likely that we'll see ICE assaulting polling station lines in Democrat areas. I also think it won't be enough.
Watch and learn.
I'm not sure it will last long once we see a few videos of drone kill of US soldiers on /r/dronecombat
Ukraine must defend itself against an authoritarian Russia where nobody can publicly complain about what's happening.
This is not the case in the US, unless they go full dictatorship.
The people of the USA will just have to voice their complaints through the free media. The entirety of which is owned by 2-3 rich guys.
It's not quite that bad yet. Public media still love, for now.
> if it should be a ground one, is going to be just like Ukraine is today
I do not think this is correct. The problem in Ukraine is that anti-air defenses control the skies, so the only accurate long range fires are expensive missiles in short supply.
This seems to not be a problem in Iran. US forces can fly relatively cheap bomb trucks anywhere and drop ordinance on anything. Stealth aircraft and NATO doctrine apparently work.
I'm not advocating for a ground invasion, but there's no reason to believe it would go the way of Ukraine.
It depends a lot on the kind of campaign that is fought.
The US had complete air superiority in Iraq and Afghanistan and while it helped it is unclear how it would play out in a drone-heavy battlefield.
In Afghanistan for example the assault on Shah-i-Kot Valley and the ineffectiveness of air support is instructive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Anaconda#TF_Rakkasan
It's worth noting that the US lost both those wars - the Taliban rules again in Afghanistan and Iran is more influential in Iraq after the fall of Saddam than it was before, eg: https://www.cfr.org/articles/how-much-influence-does-iran-ha...
Iran is a large country, just getting to Tehran with large-enough force is logistically enormous task.
Complicated by the fact that the logistic convoys can nowadays be trivially decimated by FPVs.
Air superiority is not going to help you much against small dispersed resistance groups with FPVs (ideally fiber optics, so not detectable by emissions from afar).
There is a chance that there will be similar democratization with AA (you will need proper AA missiles, the physics of reaching a fast jet flying high simply demands it), but the distributed passive targeting is made much simpler with current commodity computing and optics.
Achieving AA Denial is difficult, but forcing the attacker to use standoff munitions instead of gravity bombs/close-in air support not so much: shifting the risk of losing an aircraft from 1 in 100000 to 1 in 100 will do it.
> The problem in Ukraine is that anti-air defenses control the skies... <snip> ...US forces can fly relatively cheap bomb trucks anywhere and drop ordinance on anything. Stealth aircraft and NATO doctrine apparently work.
In Ukraine, neither side has access to the air weaponry (in capabilities or volume) that the US does - so the battlefield has evolved into one of drone superiority.
So yes, the US could (logistics willing) pummel Iran with B52s, B2s, and the like, maybe largely unopposed. However, this would only achieve so much: "winning" would be very different, especially when it's likely to turn into into a grinding resistance/insurgency ground war. A better analogy than Ukraine may be the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, only Iran has far more trained fighters and weaponry from the start. Or Vietnam, of course.
Maybe the US could "win", but it would depend on the strength of the political will to continue losing soldiers and spending huge amounts of money; and it would certainty be seen as a "forever war". And of course (as noted elsewhere) the US' more recent forays into Iraq and Afghanistan show how difficult regime change by force is.
There is no political will in the US to spend billions of dollars and institute a national draft and have tens of thousands of soldiers dieing. That would probably cause Vietnam War-style protests if not an outright civil war
It’s difficult to imagine something more psychologically damaging than WWI trenches. Where can we read more about this?
I think the poster's point is that FPV drones & accurate/advanced shells mean that you get all the downsides of WW1 trenches and no-man's land, PLUS new downsides of trenches not helping so you're constantly under threat of death no matter where you are. Plus: the more people huddle together the better the target they are, so you get to hide in small groups (or solo) in the hopes that the economics of killing just you doesn't pencil out and the drones will kill someone else while _they're_ sleeping, instead of you.
If you're looking for more reading maybe start with WW1 trenches, then look for YouTube videos about Ukraine drone usage? The drone stuff may be too new for lots of writing about it, but you'll get an oblique view of it by looking at how the Russians put those roll cages / turtle shells over their tanks, etc.
If you find anything and wanted to share it that would be interesting (if morbid)!
Technically, they'd be sleeping in a dugout where the entrance is covered by tarps and has ideally at least 2 turns to avoid the blast traveling inside (and potentially to make non-fiber-optic drones lose signal as they try to maneuver inside in case they get past the tarps).
You're most likely to get droned when on watch or carrying supplies.
I don't know about places to read more about it, but if you want to be psychologically damaged yourself without even being a participant there is a lot of drone footage from the Ukraine war floating around on the internet.
These clips highlight lots of incredibly disturbing events like Russian soldiers having exploding drones blow up close enough to them to cause eventually-fatal injuries without actually killing them, forcing them to kill themselves (and in some cases, their friends) with their own guns.
Its horrific to see on a human level regardless of the political circumstances of the war and who is or isn't in the right.
Written by protagonists:
"The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston" by Siegfried Sassoon. (Ignore the title, it's actually his autobiography, and you could probably skip the first book in the trilogy).
"Goodbye to all that" by Robert Graves.
Two of the best writers in the English language recounting their times in the trenches.
“Storm of Steel” by Ernst Jünger, for one view from the German side. It has been variously perceived as pro- and anti-war.
Try Peter Cawdron's book "The Anatomy of Courage" which is a sci-fi retelling of a ww1 report.
Here's a revview: https://www.zeppjamiesonfiction.com/a-remarque-able-read-a-r...
You can read about it, or watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackadder_Goes_Forth
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks is largely about WWI, including trench warfare. And it's an excellent book, very moving & vivid.
> Cue a terrifying, if hilarious, scene where the soldiers try and cook pancakes as shells explode around them.
In the 1974 movie The Four Musketeers, Athos needs to find a private place in which to impart some information to d'Artagnan. The musketeers are currently deployed battling some French rebels.
The solution he finds is to place a bet with another soldier that he and his friends will have breakfast inside a fortress that is being bombarded by the rebels. We see a similar comedy scene of five people attempting to cook and eat a meal while under attack. (Athos also struggles to get his information across, since the constant attacks understandably pull a lot of attention.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aezX4lxCaCw
Movie? That happens in the original book.
Does it not also happen in the movie?
You usually cite the original story
You also usually cite what you know. Maybe OP has not read the book.
Well, I've read a translation of the book. If that scene was present, it made no impression.
It's not very comedic in the book. You can see for yourself: it is the entirety of chapter 47, here: https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1257/pg1257-images.html#cha... .
(Interestingly, I would have said that the translation I read came from Project Gutenberg, but it wasn't the one I just linked and no other is currently available there. Does Project Gutenberg take down existing versions of out-of-copyright books sometimes??)
If the book is out of copyright is the translation also out of copyright?
Edit: apparently not. So Gutenberg is hosting whatever they legally can, which is older translations.
There are multiple older translations, but Project Gutenberg only has one at the moment. I'm conjecturing that they used to have a different one (also out of copyright; that's their whole thing), but have taken it down for unclear reasons.
It's also possible that I found a free translation of The Three Musketeers somewhere else, or that I read the same version PG has now and have misidentified it as being different.
Ah, okie dokes.
Trump already said he was just going to bomb all their infrastructure so the economy of the country couldn't function if they didn't negotiate and then it's just going to be a mass refugee crisis. It would be a mass refugee crisis anyway with a protracted ground invasion, but more Americans would die, so Trump is choosing to get it over with the easy way for America at least if they won't negotiate.
IMHO, This is pretty much the strategy the Khans used in the 13th century when they encountered arrogant Islamist Sultans emboldened with the bravery of their faith who refused to capitulate. They killed all the islamic people in Baghdad and then proceeded to fill all their canals and burn all their books. This decisively ended the Islamic golden age and Europe was able to survive after a very difficult 14th century where it would probably have been easily crushed by Islamists from the East had the Khans not set them back at least a few centuries. Truly one of the big turning points in World History.
Oh yeah, we can't do this to Russia because they have nukes, but the Ukrainians are trying to do it piecemeal.
What this current administration is doing speaks much more of a lack of strategy than what the Khans did in the 13th century.
Not having any sort of counterplay to Iran's one big move (the blocking of the straight), in a nation of some of the brighest minds on the planet, speaks volumes of how advisors are clearly not being listened to. The powers of the once mighty Republic have seemingly been vested in the hands of a bunch of incompetent nepo babies.
> a nation of some of the brighest minds on the planet
The brightest minds we had working in government have all quit or been fired in the last year.
To wit: Hegseth immediately demanded the loyalty or resignation of the entire officer corps upon taking office. Anyone who would’ve been the voice of reason likely resigned a year ago.
>in a nation of some of the brighest minds on the planet
Found the assumption that caused the issue.
Its not a false assumption. The world today is full of innovative products built with American capital and mostly American minds. If Americans want to do something then they have an rich pool of talent to do it well.
Sure on average, the population of the US is stupid, but that's true of everywhere.
> built with American capital and mostly American minds.
I would say "built with American agency and commercial spirit", not minds.
Most of the things that we have were first built elsewhere (Germany being a prime supplier here with the mp3 or the Zuse), but turning them commercial was the input that came from America.
More "American minds": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartmut_Esslinger
Chief designer at Apple war German.
Bright minds in America aren't working for Trump.
I think this works well with his original point.
Just because you sold your soul to an economic superspreader meme that allows your products and inventions to percolate with the rapidity of an influenza-herpes-ebola hybrid doesnt mean that the minds behind it are brighter than the rest of the world.
I never said that. You're reading what you wanted to hear, not what i wrote. Second time someone has intentionally misread it that wrong way.
We do have very bright minds. It's a shame they don't get voted into policy.
they're not on HackerNews
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> in a nation of some of the brighest minds on the planet
You mean the people who voted for trump or those who voted for the democrats?
Are there some causal reasons you think americans are smarter than people in other countries?
> You mean the people who voted for trump or those who voted for the democrats?
I'm not talking about plebs, I'm talking about people who know their shit and work at government level. We could just look at the invention of the past century and pluck out relevant events like the moon landing, electronic computer, transistor or ARPANET. Clearly there are smart people living in that nation. They have the talent to draw from to get good advice about stuff like: what Iran's first response might be to an aerial assault.
> Are there some causal reasons you think americans are smarter than people in other countries?
I never said that. I said America is home to SOME of the brightest minds in the world. That sentence does not apportion all the brightest minds to that nation. What you read is clearly something different from what I wrote. Do you have a chip on your shoulder?
Your argument was that you could use your bright minds to win against the iranians. That implies they are brighter than the iranians.
I think america clearly had better opportunities for bright people in the past. Maybe some moved also there so the proportion is a little higher than in other places.
that wasn't my argument. My argument is that the US has enough intelligent people to wargame what would happen in response to their initial strikes on Iran. That they seemingly have no available counter-play to the blocking of the straight of hormuz implies that they have dismissed any experts from the decision making process and are just winging it. Because... why would you start a war when you're weak to your opponent's first obvious countermove?
So yea, you misread that to assume that I was making some quasi-racist statement about Iran. So my question to you, is why do you think you made that intentional misinterpretation?
Sorry. It's currently late were I live.
I agree that what the US did seems like they didn't ask anyone with expertise and brain to make a plan.
I think I filtered that out since I don't wonder about such things anymore. I live in Germany and what our government did in the last decades was so beyond stupid (like blowing up our nuclear power plants and going out of coal at the same time) that I try to ignore these kinds of things.
> the US has enough intelligent people
'intelligent', yes, big scary performative navy/gear, very very costly, here take most of the tax dollars. This is whats going on since WW2, where are these intelligent people who couldn't understand this?
We don't have to infer that they dismissed the experts. It is a documented fact.
Exactly one year ago, Laura Loomer presented Trump with a "traitor" list, all of whom were fired. That included members of the National Security Council, including director for Iran, Nate Swanson. He has since been writing articles staying exactly what would happen in the event of a conflict.
There are dumb democrats and smart republicans.
We don't have all the intelligence but we do have many institutions to promote such talent. As well as formerly having policy which let other bright minds immigrate into the US.
IQ testing?
Inbreeding as a cultural norm?
Not smarter than the Japanese.
> he was just going to bomb all their infrastructure
That's usually the idea ever since bombs were a thing. It just so happens that it's harder to actually pull off than to say it.
and nor does it result in victory without the follow up of a ground assault.
I'm legit baffled by the US engaging in a war that suffers exactly the same negative properties as the Saudi's war in Yemen. You don't even have to learn from history, the Saudi/Yemeni conflict is still active today. Air campaigns alone are entirely insufficient, especially if your enemy has mountains.
Are we just going to ignore the fact that targeting civilian infrastructure is yet another war crime?
Not according to FIFA
I’m not saying you’re wrong. But man haves lots of people who don’t know what a war crime is really devalued the accusation. So much so I read yours and I just assume it isn’t.(again idk)
Will you take the ICRC's word for it? https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/civilian-objects
We'll make Hegseth regret it deeply when the time comes for his trial, but right now I don't know that there's much to do about that fact.
Many said the same thing during the G.W Bush years. Nothing happened.
I and a lot of other centrist-leaning folks are radicalized now in a way we weren't then. Perhaps it still won't happen, I don't have a crystal ball, but right now I will only vote for primary candidates who promise to prosecute Trump's goons and plan to reject the legitimacy of any future government that does not follow through.
>plan to reject the legitimacy of any future government that does not follow through.
How might you do this?
This line of thinking did not end very well for the Roman Republic.
Indeed it did not. But Trump and the members of his administration have announced, repeatedly and explicitly, that they hate me and wish me harm. So I can't accept being governed by them or by a system that tolerates them. If they decide they'd like to apologize, and offer some explanation for how I can be sure they won't return to their misdeeds, perhaps we can hear them out.
> If they decide they'd like to apologize, and offer some explanation for how I can be sure they won't return to their misdeeds, perhaps we can hear them out.
Nothing short of life in prison for the ones that plead guilty will accomplish that.
So America can put other countries' leaders on trial - like the Nazis in Nuremberg, or Saddam Hussein - but not their own, for war crimes.
Why should a president have this much power?
Shouldn't. But the checks and balances are not checking him.
That's dual use infrastructure. Its also used for military and goverment purposes, right? The same as China providing weapons components to Russia, masking them as "civilian".
"The Russians did it as well" is not a fantastic excuse for a war crime… You might want to think this through a bit more.
What's the problem. The Russians do stuff that you say are "war crimes", and what happens to them? Nothing. So why should anyone care if some person on the internet says these are war crimes? There's obviously no penalty against doing them, so they're not really war crimes.
Not being punished for something doesn't mean it isn't a crime, and doesn't mean it isn't wrong.
Children have a more developed sense of ethics than that.
Remember that war crimes were defined to protect civilians. It's usually better for a civilian to be on the losing side in a war with no war crimes, than the winning side of a war with many war crimes.
> So why should anyone care if some person on the internet says these are war crimes?
Attacking civilian infrastructure is defined as a war crime by the Geneva Conventions. It's not something a person on the internet made up.
That's all nice and well, but what exactly is the point if it's not going to be enforced *at all*? So we can feel smug and superior?
>"That's dual use infrastructure. "
Especially desalination plants (your sunshine promised to bomb those as well).
That was standard practice for much of recorded history. Surrender now or we will kill you all. Alexander the Great did it to Tyre and Sidon. The Romans did it to Jerusalem. The Israelis did it to Gaza. The orange madman and his henchmen have made it very clear that they don't give a shit about the rules of warfare.
> Oh yeah, we can't do this to Russia because they have nukes
Why would the US want to bomb an ally?
It's not an alliance - the Russians are supplying Iran with intelligence and material.
It's just that Trump is Putin's biggest fan for some reason.
Ability to recognize sarcasm is missing
In Ukraine, the USA and Russia are definitely allied. So sarcasm misplaced, I think.
Cut the BS please. The only ally US has is itself. The rest are either vassals or adversaries.
True enough, if only recently
Wtf are you naive?
The states have played a clever game post WW2. But the mask has slipped under Trump.
> Trump is choosing to get it over with the easy way for America at least if they won't negotiate
That is… not the easy way. That’s how you get a nightmare for decades to come, endless waves of refugees and a limitless supply of terrorists.
Though, to be fair, there is no easy way of doing what Trump claims he wants to do. Which is why it’s spectacularly stupid to do it in the first place. I mean, they did not expect retaliation in the strait of Hormuz. Amateur hour does not even begin to describe it. Spectacularly stupid is probably way too kind.
If you must learn from the Khans, you’ll find that decapitation is not enough. You need people to put in place of the former leadership, and enforcers so that the underlying power structure stays in place to serve the new masters. The reason why is that, as the US learnt in Iraq and Afghanistan, it takes a bloody lot of soldiers to keep a whole population in check. Trump does not want to do the former and does not have the latter.
He could use nukes but it would likely create a fallout.
the firebombings of japan were much more destructive and killed more civilians than the nukes did.
there's no reason to think nuking would do anything more than the existing bombing campaign.
what changed in japan was the soviet army arriving
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This just came up yesterday in the sauna with a bunch of dudes. Everything feels unique and special, but we're just repeating history again. Nothing about this situation is actually unique. Change a few names, a few numbers like the year or GPS coords, but most everything today is just history repeating itself.
Don't let capitalism convince us to do bad stuff cuz it makes us feel like the moment is special. It isn't. There is a tomorrow. It will be yesterday soon enough.
How is capitalism in the wrong here? Resource warfare is universal trough the history in any society.
The check and balances of the US President that can start an offensive war is more a political problem, not "capitalism" problem.
Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?
To the extent it's a money making scheme, well, capitalism gets blamed for all money making schemes even if it's supposed to be a specific subset of them which is useful for the feedback one can get from open markets.
(As that's a caveat inside a caveat, I'm mostly agreeing with you).
It's all of those, yet none are the real root reason.
For that, you must look at the main beneficiary. Which country stands to gain the most from a completely dilapidated Iran? Which country stands to gain more when all the regional powers that could stand up to it have been destroyed?
I think the answer should be blindingly obvious.
It shouldn't take a genius to figure out that Christians and Jews don't like Muslims and Muslims don't like Christians or Jews.
Just look at the Sudanese conflict.
> Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?
Or because America is filled with demented cultists who think a two thousand year old property dispute is the key to triggering the Apocalypse so they can all be whisked away to paradise.
It's not a 2,000 year old dispute. Zionism began in around 1900. It was spearheaded until recently by "secular" Jews, who were borderline atheist. The Jewish religious texts themselves make wishing for a "return to Zion and Jerusalem" sound like wishing for a utopia or world peace. It pretty much reads like a metaphor, not like a political programme. Finally, most highly devout Jews were strongly opposed to Zionism, at least until after WW2.
That comment accurately described what American evangelicals believe.
American evangelicals don't care about 1900, differences between secular and religious Jews or their disputes. They don't care at all. They actually agree with a lot of what loosing side of WWII said and thought. And they in fact do believe the end of times prophecy and their duty to speed it up.
If you are unaware of that, maybe you should not be so arrogant when comment on politics. Because the radical American religious leaders are literally talking to the troops now as minister of war is their disciple.
I can't say I'm surprised about the downvotes but it is odd, this isn't really a secret
There's something darkly funny about the reality being so demented that just describing it on HN gathers downvotes because it objectively sounds so awful.
The really crazy thing is just how few death cultists it really takes. The smallest minority of them have been busy radicalizing teenagers and biding their time for the past 20 years and this is what it’s come to.
It's so bizarre how OP was downvoted. It's a truth. History repeats itself. It's not the first war. It's not the last war. Maybe his (or her) tirade on capitalism annoyed the HN downvoting shoggoth.
> Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?
I don’t think we should look too far for reasons. He got all excited with the adventure in Venezuela and wanted to do it again, but with bombs and his pal Bibi. He’s itching to do the same thing to Cuba, and he’s not subtle about it.
Someone should tell him there is no such thing as Nobel War Price and he was pranked
> Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?
We won't know until everyone publishes their memoirs. I imagine absurd reasoning is entirely on the table. Given the administration's blind luck with its raid on Venezuela it assumed that scaling up the same plan would function, without realising how fortunate it was the first time. Reminiscient of Blair and Kosovo leading to hubris on Iraq.
Not sure this was blind luck.
They had a few people on the inside, who handed over Maduro to the US. May have been internal conflict in Venuzuela using US to get rid of Maduro.
Maybe US also had people on the inside in Iran, but killed them by accident on the first strike with the "precision bombings".
I think they were extremely fortunate that their complex plan actually went off without a hitch. Its quite a lot of moving parts and hoping that certain people will react in certain ways.
> Maybe US also had people on the inside in Iran, but killed them by accident on the first strike with the "precision bombings".
Yeah but no. Iran isn't Venezuela by a long shot, extremely different properties all round. Its hubris to think what worked out well in one case would apply to a completely different one on the other side of the world.
Rubio is the neocon mole responsible for these wars.
It's a contributor factor through the usual pro-war think tanks funded by weapons companies.
But, yeah the choice of Iran now isn't at all explained by "capitalism".
"Everything I don't like is woke." - Right
"Everything I don't like is capitalism." - Left
Global wildlife populations have dropped 69% since 1970.
Virtually all climate scientists agree human activity is destabilizing the climate, the oceans, and entire biospheres.
Military spending is at record highs while housing, healthcare, and clean water remain out of reach for billions.
These are some things people "don't like", which share a common thread...
Keep on raging, I guess
I don't think my tone was 'raging'. Very strange takeaway - but also interesting...
"Keep raging" is a good example of what's known as a "thought terminating cliche". You might not want to terminate your thoughts so easily.
That, or just a way to save face: when you can't argue the point, argue the tone... If that's what you were going for - do you feel like it worked?
Didn't you hear? Capitalism is the root of all evil :) At least among English speaking "smart people of America and Europe".
"in the sauna with a bunch of dudes"
The way this reads.
I thought the analogy was "i'm frequently in a hot tub with dudes with different names, the faces change, but i'm still in this hot tub"
"in the sauna with a bunch of dudes"
The way this reads. I thought the analogy was "i'm frequently in a hot tub with dudes, with different names, the faces change, but i'm still in this hot tub with another set of dudes"
>The era of carrier-dominated airpower is fading, as cheap, unmanned anti-ship weapons reshape naval warfare, whether US planners are ready for it or not.
is not really backed up by reality. Pretty much the whole US operation so far, destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are.
Also straits being closed to shipping by whatever power controls the shores is not a new thing. The Bosphophorous has been closed on and off by the Ottomans or Turks since 1453 and the allies couldn't break through in WW1. They can send raiding ships, use canons, artillery, naval mines etc. You don't need the new tech.
> destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers
No. This is absurd claim that can't physically comport with sortie generation math.
CSIS report from first 3 weeks noted Israel did more than half of strikes on ~15,000 targets... all Israel's hits would be from land basing.
2xCSG at surge for 3 weeks = ~6k sorties, ~20% for kinetic strike (80% of sorties supportive, cap, tanking, ew etc). Optimistically carriers hit ~2000 targets when not standoff during first 3 weeks. Likely strike compositions: Israel from land, 50%, US from regional land ~35% (we know lots of none carrier aviation was involved), carriers ~15%.
The real kicker is CSGs since been pushed to standoff - kinetic strike ratio to dwindle to single digit % sorties at those distances, making carrier cost:strike ratio even more unfavourable. This something most expect from peer/near peer adversaries, not Iran, i.e. carriers seem vulnerable to lower tier of adversaries than originally thought.
The point is a country like Iran can, in 2026, force the US Navy to keep an large stand off distance. How much further could a country like China keep the Navy back? What about in 10 years?
Eventually you are beyond the range of being able to project force or risking losing billions invested in one asset to a $50k missile. That is where reality is heading.
Seems like USN can still do whatever it was made for from this large standoff distance, also seems like it wasn't made for chasing individual nondescript trucks in a hundreds-miles-long mountainous shoreline.
> USN can still do whatever it was made for
One of the primary functions of navies historically has been to secure vital shipping lanes. It’s a big deal that USN can’t seem to fulfill that function anymore.
I'm not sure that the USN would have been any more effective 30 years ago if it tried to make a narrow waterway that is off-shore from a medium-strength world power accessible for safe commercial ship traffic. Effective anti-ship missiles have been around for a long time. Given how understandably sensitive commercial ship crews and owners are to even slight danger, there's just no way to reduce the risk to the necessary near-zero without a prolonged air campaign and/or land invasion to support the naval effort.
A medium-strength world power that it Iran only figured out how to make anti-ship missiles only 25 years ago. They sure got their hands on Chinese ones a bit before that, but that quantity just didn't amount to strait-blocking capability.
> I'm not sure that the USN would have been any more effective 30 years ago if it tried to make a narrow waterway that is off-shore from a medium-strength world power accessible for safe commercial ship traffic.
Yeah I'm not too knowledgeable about this subject, I'm just theorizing.
My thesis is that the only ways that someone could control a waterway was through naval power, air power, or missile power. Air and naval power is negated by a stronger air force/navy, and 30 years ago missiles were only available to a small number of advanced economies nations. Now, high-quality (or at least credibly dangerous to shipping) missiles and drones can be manufactured cheaply by many nations.
It can be safely said that current carrier groups were not built for that, they were built for power projection on land.
The problem is that nowadays essentially nothing can really secure vital shipping lines ...
Ergo navies don't exists.
??
The technology has changed. The navies used to be able to protect shipping. Now the task is much more difficult.
Just as battleships replaced ships of the line, and were in turn replaced by carriers, all due to technology changes.
Maybe there will be drone swarms or some other future magitech being able to protect shipping.
Or maybe the civilization will collapse due to internal (income inequality, widespread employment of AI), external (ecological disasters) or other (demographics, nuclear WW3) pressures before such technologies are developed.
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I think the point being made is that before Iranian drone doctrine (they were the originators of the long range drones, the FPV drones and sea drone which have dominated the Ukraine way too).
A US CSG could simply sit in the Hormuz strait shoot down any incoming missiles and keep it open.
Right now the US has 3 CSG in the middle east and nearly 50000 troops. After weeks of intensive bombing the strait remains closed and any associated asset in the region is at risk the loss of the E3 to drones is particularly shocking.
> A US CSG could simply sit in the Hormuz strait shoot down any incoming missiles and keep it open.
They can't even do that in their own bases. Most of US defenses have been severely overestimated due to propaganda. They hadn't been tested and when they were they've shown themselves lacking.
Quick, what's the difference between a suicide drone and a guided missile?
the good guys bomb is a guided missile, the bad guys bomb is a suicide drone
cruise missiles in the hands of a bad guy is a suicide drone and a suicide drone in the hands of a good guy is a guided missile
a guided missile would never be used against a civilian target! oh wait..
Cost, production capacity, radar cross section, speed, range, payload.
Drone means foam wings, plastic body, propellers, cheap camera, simple inertial navigation, maybe GPS, maybe 10-30 kilogram payload.
Guided missile means, metal airframe, jet engine, depending on targets thermal imaging or radar terminal guidance, radar altimeters, terrain imaging radars, 100 - 500 kilogram payload.
Remote guidance is a very hard problem, modern computers have made it much easier to solve.
Even an 80s missile, required hundred of thousands of dollars of equipment just for guidance. Now all you need is a simple computer, a cheap camera and a cheap accelerometer.
Drones are much easier to down than missiles, but they make it up in volume.
> Drone means foam wings, plastic body, propellers, cheap camera, simple inertial navigation, maybe GPS, maybe 10-30 kilogram payload.
You need to seriously upgrade your level of knowledge about what is available in terms of drones today.
Do you mean stuff like FP-5 Flamingo? These are really cruise missiles. Why would you call it a suicide drone? Because it has wings? Tomahawks have wings. Because the design is based on a target drone, so what the capabilities are very much inline with munitions we call cruise missiles.
The drone/guided missile divide is really about dividing a continuum which on one end has foam wings and raspberry pie equivalents wrapped in tin foil and on the other million dollar tomahawks. The distinction is the price tag and the capabilities really.
Otherwise both are long range guided munitions.
Flamingo is pretty close to a cruise missile in many ways. You correctly observe that this is a continuum but most but not all drones have props whereas all missiles are either rocket based or jet engine based and missiles tend to be a lot faster and do not allow for a change of plan after launch.
So no. But the Lyutyi (sp?), the FP-1 and the Nynja all qualify as drones (and there are many, many more, it's a veritable zoo) if you make that distinction, as do all of the sea-borne gear.
I didn't take it as exhaustive.
While you're alluding to high-end reapers/etc., the majority of drones in the Ukraine-Russia conflict have foam wings and low cost components.
The ones that are decimating the russian oil industry are a bit more impressive than that. The foam wing ones are mostly Shaheds, the Ukrainian ones tend to be made of various plastics and/or fibreglass or composites for the more specialized stuff.
Imo foam wings and low cost components is very impressive. Low cost easy production is an actual tangible benefit. If it destroys the target and is easy cheap to make, it is a better arm.
>"10-30 kilogram payload" - for carrier it is probably a moscito bite
Yeah not so much for it's radars, or for the f35 parked on the flight deck, which may be you know loaded with thousands of gallons of fuel and hundreds of pounds of missiles and bombs.
Sure, it won't sink it, but operations may be disrupted, for hours to days.
Days? If a laundry fire can take out a carrier for weeks, how long do you think a flight deck repair takes?
It was a laundry fire on a ballistic trajectory ;)
depending on how much you trust Trump's ramblings, he told a large audience that the "laundry fire" was actually an iranian attack last week
Depends on whether they can bullseye the laundry chute.
I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than two meters. ;-)
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> A missile with a jet engine?
Yes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_F107
> Who makes such things.
Everyone.
> You mean a rocket engine.
Rocket engines are typically used for short range missiles like AGM-65, or ballistic missiles. All cruise missiles use jet engines to achieve long ranges.
Tomahawk missiles are jet engine powered. It’s hard to make a discussion with individuals who cannot get basic vocabulary correct.
Please go back to reddit.
Cheap as hell, doesn’t need a launchpad and can be launched from a pick up truck, super easy to make and can be scattered all over the country so there’s no central location to bomb to stop them, fly literally meters of the ground so they’re very hard to detect and you can make tens of thousands of them very quickly and very easily.
- 2-4 orders of magnitude in cost.
- One of them I could reliably build a factory for in my garage.
And one of them can't scratch the paint on a modern naval vessel. Anti-ship warheads alone weigh more than an entire Shahed-136 drone.
As has been demonstrated countless times in SINKEX training, it requires literal tons of deep penetrating explosives to severely damage a modern naval vessel. And even then they usually don't actually sink.
Nothing you can cheaply build in your garage will do meaningful damage to a large naval vessel. It will have neither the weight nor the penetration required.
You might need to consider lateral options. What if someone flew 1,000 drones at the windows on the bridge? How many BBs can hit that fancy radar before it is out of service?
Nothing/neither/cant when millions of dollars and hundreds of lives are on the line? 'Are you sure about that?' Defending against these types of threats is well worth considering.
It's the radars really for destroyers. The bridge is not actually where the ship is run during combat.
There is a room called the combat information center, that's where the ship is run from during combat, and that is behind armor, even in modern warships.
Additionally ships are separated into semi independent zones, that can take control of the ship, and continue fighting even if the rest of the ship is on fire.
The real liabilities are the radars, and the rest of the sensors in surface combat ships and the airplanes on deck in the case of aircraft carriers. Aircraft carriers in general are heavily armored compared to other modern warships and it takes a significant amount of firepower to even disable them much less sink them.
It proved nearly impossible to sink the Bismarck and Yamato battleships in WW2 just by shelling them.
Both were rendered useless hulks long before they went under, though.
Considering how the sunk ships at Pearl Harbor were refloated, refitted, and put back into service suggests otherwise.
That's great if you're in a shallow anchorage (average depth: 45 feet). Less so if you sink in the Arabian sea and you're under fire during the refloating process.
I also suspect modern ships are a little more sensitive to complete immersion.
Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helge_Ingstad_collision
> In May 2019, the Minister of Defense was presented with a report from Defense Material which concluded that a possible repair would cost 12–14 billion and take more than five years. The cost of purchasing a new corresponding vessel was estimated at NOK 11–13 billion, with a completion time of just over five years.
And it didn't even go all the way under.
Your scenario imagines a naive and completely fictional concept of how modern naval systems actually work. That you can’t conceive of why what you are suggesting is effectively impossible means you truly don’t understand the domain.
The reason designed-for-purpose anti-ship missiles/drones are so expensive is they are literally designed to be somewhat effective at executing exactly the scenario you are laying out, while not being naive about the defenses that military ships actually have. Anybody that understands the capability space knows that your scenario wouldn’t survive contact with real defenses.
You are making an argument from fiction. Do you take the “hackers breaking cryptography” trope from Hollywood at face value?
> You are making an argument from fiction.
Much of what we see in Ukraine drone warfare today was squarely in the fiction world a few years ago.
Histroically, this sort of overconfidence is what turns great powers into not so great powers.
Yup. There’s the concept of “mission kill”. It’s very difficult to sink a battleship with 5” guns. Use them to blast off all the range finders, radars, and secondary battery and that ship will be headed home after the battle.
The difference is strategic. A mission kill is a repairable loss. It is an order of magnitude easier to fix a battleship than to build a new one.
Of course, you can use boatloads of cheap drones to kill the radars and CIWS, destroy the planes on deck and other juicy targets.
Then launch a second wave of heavy anti-ship missiles (which you might have too few, due to their costs) to transform mission kills into really sunken ships.
Assuming the opponent will be dumb is .. dumb.
1000 drones of what size?
If they're small - like quadcopter size - then how did you get them in range of a ship more then 10 miles off shore?
If they're large, like back of a pickup sized (which is roughly a Shahed[1] - link for scale) then how did you transport and move them without being noticed and interdicted?
For comparison one of Russia's largest drone attacks on Ukraine, and thus in the world, happened recently and included about 1000 Shaheds over a distributed area.
You're talking about flying a 1000 of something into exactly one target which has CIWS designed to track and kill supersonic missiles at close range (and is likely in a flotilla with data linked fire control).
You might get lucky I guess but I absolutely wouldn't bet on it.
[1] https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/russias-new-jet-pow...
> If they're small - like quadcopter size - then how did you get them in range of a ship more then 10 miles off shore?
Ukraine's up to ~40. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-war-drones-relay-sys...
They're also using their USVs as drone motherships.
> If they're large, like back of a pickup sized (which is roughly a Shahed - link for scale) then how did you transport and move them without being noticed and interdicted?
The Taliban moved pickup-sized loads around just fine.
> You're talking about flying a 1000 of something into exactly one target which has CIWS designed to track and kill supersonic missiles at close range (and is likely in a flotilla with data linked fire control).
Here's one failing to shoot a single Shahed in Baghdad down.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1rwen7b/cram...
They're weapons of last resort, and they're nowhere near perfect.
It takes a surprisingly small warhead to destroy a 100 million dollar radar array. A mission kill requires much less damage than actually sinking a ship. Take out an Arleigh Burkes radars and it's a 2 billion dollar container ship.
This is no longer true.
As the article says, the Ukrainians have effectively denied the Black Sea to the Russian navy through use of drones.
It's more like, through the combined use of drones, sea-drones, and anti-ship missiles, backed by the productive might and surveillance capability of NATO, against a weak Russian navy. Iran has much weaker capabilities and is fighting a much stronger enemy.
> Iran has much weaker capabilities and is fighting a much stronger enemy.
I mean yes thats true, but you also have to look at the capacity to renew what they are using to fight the war.
Iran appears to have a large supply of drones, enough to overwhelm US defences. Each drone is ~$50k and takes a few weeks to build, the anti-dorne missle (depending on what one it is) costs $4m and take longer.
If trump does decide to take Kharg island, then to stop the troops from being slamai sliced they'll need an efficient, cheap anti drone system, which I don't think the US has (apart from the Phalanx, but there arent enough of those)
To stop the drone threat, they'd have to clear roughly a 1500km circle. no small feat.
the bigger issue is that the goal if this war is poorly defined. It was supposedly to do a hit and run, and gain a captive client. Had they listened to any of the intelligence, rather than the ego, they would have known this would have happened. that has failed, now what, what do they need to achieve? There is no point committing troops if they are there for show. (there was no real point in this war either, well for the US at least.)
> it requires literal tons of deep penetrating explosives to severely damage a modern naval vessel
you don't need to damage it severely. Some holes in radar, on board aircrafts and missiles containers will reduce capability by 80%
Oh I wish I had the money to test your theory. And a garage too.
You can if you live in the US! It isn’t particularly expensive either, high explosives are industrial chemistry. A few dollars per kilo. Maybe a little bit more if you want something fancy.
Thanks to movies, people both seriously overestimate and underestimate the capabilities of highly engineered explosive devices, albeit in different dimensions. Generally speaking, sophisticated military targets are not susceptible to generic explosives. A drone with a hundred kilos of explosive will essentially bounce off a lot of targets. An enormous amount of engineering goes into designing an explosive device optimized to defeat that specific target. They use supercomputers to get this stuff right. Exotic engineered explosive devices are unreasonably capable.
TBH, once you realize the insane amount of engineering that goes into it, it kind of takes the fun out of it. A lot of high-leverage research goes into aspects an amateur would never think about.
This is in some ways a blessing. Amateurs with bad intentions almost always fail at the execution because it isn’t something you can learn by reading the Internet.
Amateurs who try to build their own explosives usually either fail to explode or explode killing the builder.
An older friend of mine at Boeing told me how when he was a teen, he had a teen friend who built a pipe bomb. They drove off to a field to set it off. It didn't explode, so his friend went to investigate. Then it went off, and my friend had the pleasure of driving his gutted friend to the hospital to die.
There's a selection process at work where smart people who know what they're doing don't try to assemble bombs in their garage for fun. If there's a legitimate reason like your country is fighting an existential war the kinds of people who can do things start doing things.
But it's just rare having a person smart enough to be able to do it be stupid enough to try. (and the people who do are nutjob terrorists like Timothy McVeigh)
FWIW, McVeigh got a lot of the technical details right, including many non-obvious ones. That was a sophisticated attempt by someone that actually knew what they were doing. It goes a long way toward explaining why that particular bombing was so effective.
That said, plenty of extremely smart people assemble bombs in their garage for fun. It is almost a rite of passage, at least in the US. The fact that historically you could just buy the common stuff incentivized smart people to attempt more technically difficult things for bragging rights. Most people have no concept for how available legal high explosives are in the US, even after 9/11 made it a bit more difficult.
https://x.com/mitchellvii/status/2039141950993940595
At the moment, cruise speed and manufacturing price.
Everyone is saying cost but I thought the defining factor was whether it can loiter
Cost, I'd guess? There must be a reason why Russia and Ukraine are using more drones than missiles in their strikes. And while capabilities are somewhat different, if a ship carrying oil or LNG get hit by either one, it's going to have some consequences
It's a pretty fun categorization task but guided missile is too broad that could include rocket artillery!
Let's say cruise missiles Vs suicide drone.
The factors that make it a guided missile are presence of a rocket motor (or even turbine).
Suicide drones like the ones were talking about use piston motors.
Cost.
This is delusional. Iran has thousands of ASM on the coastline. They need 1 to make it through to take out a tanker. Even the best anti missile systems we have aren’t 99.99% reliable. It was always a losing proposition. Iran has always been able to close the strait.
What I don’t get is why we need to take Kharg island. Can’t we just blockade ships selling Iranian oil?
I think the collective take might be too focused on the kinetic picture to see the underlying issue(s).
1) we want Iranian oil flowing and being bought elsewhere for the economy and to avoid hard decisions in Beijing, and as we’ve recently heard ad nausea money is fungible so… if one hasn’t thought to invade, dominate and occupy mountainous terrain filled with holy people, then ‘open’ means money to The Baddies.
2) it’ll only take a few wrecks to create navigation hazards, tankers are huge and that strait is shallow and narrow. The cleanup crews are slower, they also need massive ships.
3) let’s take a 0.01% reliability of missile attacks… drones, rpgs, suicide attacks, artillery, kamikaze plane attacks, mines, and trebuchets are also out there. So, again, unless we’re invading… fuhgeddabout 100%
And, fatally:
4) it’s not the missiles, it’s the threat, and who is insuring the massive money-boats. If your insurance company thought your car would, 0.01% of the time, be blown up resulting in a total wreck and complete loss of cargo and future revenue, your policy would not be what it is. You insure your oil boat for trips, and if not you don’t move it.
Trump doesn’t decide this, BigBoat Insurance brokers decide this, with their wallets and vibes. 0.01% x An Oil Tanker (slow, giant, vulnerable, + oil leak cleanup and ecosystem damage, loss of life) x totally foreseeable circumstances = a ‘closed’ straight on demand. Unless, again, the plan is invado-conquering.
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Look at who's buying the oil for the answer to your question.
> destroying much of Iran's military and leadership
Good at hitting targets, terrible at achieving goals. Same as Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc. Were the Taliban destroyed by killing their upper echelons several times over? In terms of resilience, the Iranians are similar, arguably much more so.
> Were the Taliban destroyed by killing their upper echelons several times over?
Of course not, because that wasn't the goal and would be impossible, because we were recreating the conditions that led to the Taliban taking control in the first place (corrupt and amoral warlords oppressing the populace). Afghanistan's strategic location and suitability for poppy farming and generating dark money flows is why we went in. It was the staging ground for the plans to overthrow "Iraq [...] Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan" (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/9/22/us-plans-to-attack-...). We're still involved in active conflicts in most of those countries.
The US state is so large, that there are different constituencies operating within it. There was certainly a group that wanted the new state to succeed. I don't disagree with much of what you said though.
You're very right, it's important not to forget that hindsight makes the cloudiest things clear. At the time, it seemed as if almost everyone supported the invasion and thought we were taking revenge for 9/11 and liberating the oppressed from a brutal theocracy. It was not until later, sometimes much later, that the facts became apparent. Very few people knew that the Taliban had offered to surrender Bin Laden and hand over Al Qaeda members before the invasion, and almost nobody outside the military knew about what kind of people we were supporting in their stead. Even today when the historical situation is relatively clear I don't think many people have really thought much about the many uncomfortable facts of the opiate/opiod "epidemic" and it's connection to that occupation.
what's the connection to the opioid epidemic?
Fort Bragg has been the transit point for most opiates imported to the US in the past 30 years. Cheap illegal opiates in addition to overprescription of opioids made the problem much worse.
> Afghanistan
Mullah omar died of tuberculosis in 2013. Have to say, pashtunwali meant US found no insiders to assasinate Talibani leadership.
I think it was achieved by two nuclear armed countries openly amassing their assets in the region for months. Any conflict between peer non-nuclear nations would have probably began with the country in Iran’s position sinking those carriers. Thanks to US and Israeli nukes, they were free to start killing people without fear of getting surprised.
It is unlikely that Iran decided to not sink US carriers because of fear of nuclear retaliation. It is much more likely that before the air attack started, Iran's leadership preferred not to do anything that could make an attack more likely, such as attacking carriers. And after the invasion started, they would have loved to attack carriers but did not have the military capability to do so.
The Quincy Institute exists to push their "restraint/realpolitic" agenda, not to accurately describe reality.
> The Quincy Institute exists to push their "restraint/realpolitic" agenda
Every think tank exist to further their agenda… do you have a more substantive critique?
It’s not a bad critique on its own! Yea, good to engage on the merits, but also good to acknowledge the messenger’s allegiances and biases.
They haven't "acknowledged any allegiances or biases" though, they just dismissed them because they're not of the right ideology. If they don't engage on the merits or offer substantive criticisms, there is no discussion, just a cheering contest.
This comment did catch my attention. While I am willing to accept some level of bias from various parties, I have an odd feeling that we about to argue that reality is in the eye of the beholder.
With that in mind, what do you think the reality is? I am not leading you on. I am genuinely curious.
> is not really backed up by reality. Pretty much the whole US operation so far, destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are.
The country with 0.3% of global spending in military is putting a noticeable dent in assets of country that has 35% of global spending in military and are begging allies for help coz they can't even stop the drones
With that level of difference you'd expect whole thing to end already and yet it is not. So any actor at even 10% scale of US going all in in drones would probably obliterate US navy without all that much. US is behind and frankly invested in wrong tech over the years.
That is not to say carriers are going away any time soon, you need to ship the firepower to the target somehow, but one filled to 3/4 with drones would probably be far more effective
The Chinese have drone carrier ships already in fleet and I think that is likely the future addition to fleets that is necessary. I am not sure how much the era of human controlled flight is coming to an end but certainly substantial drone capability and anti drone defence is urgently required.
I agree in general, but I quibble with the "noticeable dent" part. I think that Iran is doing well given the enormous difference in power between it and the US/Israeli/Gulf Arab coalition, but the only way in which it is putting a noticeable dent in that coalition's assets is economical. And it is only capable of doing that because it is next to a vital narrow waterway and not far from some of the Gulf Arabs' fossil fuel facilities. So I don't think the situation generalizes.
The issues the US faces are political and humanitarian (and economic) rather than military. I don't see any compelling evidence that the US couldn't open the straits if it really wanted to, it's just that the cost in lives and hardware would be unlike anything the US has seen since Vietnam, maybe even the second world war. And of course, once you open the strait, you have to keep it open. The whole thing is a lose-lose situation for everyone involved.
It should probably also be pointed out that doing nothing has a cost too, and it's probable that the bill for doing nothing over a long period of time has come due. I, like most people, never bought the WMD claims leading up to Iraq. I'm not sure what to think here. I certainly don't buy that Iran wasn't working towards getting the bomb after how well it worked out for North Korea. I can't claim to know the calculus involved in determining whether or not it's worth going to war with Iran to stop them from getting the bomb.
> I don't see any compelling evidence that the US couldn't open the straits if it really wanted to, it's just that the cost in lives and hardware would be unlike anything the US has seen since Vietnam, maybe even the second world war.
The second half of that sentence is literally explaining why the "impossible" you reject in the first part.
The cost of doing nothing is going to be large.
Apart from the oil, there is the fertiliser that isn't being shipped. That means that august crops are going to be down. Assuming its a good year. prices go up, which means we can expect a wave of overthrown governments (similar to the arab spring) in 12-24 months time.
For the USA that means inflation, along with a credit crunch (probably)
Given you compare the cost of a US operation to open the straits to the Vietnam War, it seems prudent to mention that the outcome of the Vietnam war, according to Wikipedia, was a North Vietnam victory.
The victory was due to the people at home who protest and is politically against the war.
> I don't see any compelling evidence that the US couldn't open the straits if it really wanted to, it's just that the cost in lives and hardware would be unlike anything the US has seen since Vietnam, maybe even the second world war
The US invaded Iraq and toppled its government; Iraqi militias are still firing drones and missiles at US bases. Tankers and oil infra are much softer targets… all it takes is hitting one or two tankers and folks will stop shipping.
The US wasn't doing nothing about Iran though. The JCPOA was a thing, before trump tore it up. This approach is about the dumbest way Iran could be handled, which makes sense given who is giving the orders.
>That is not to say carriers are going away any time soon, you need to ship the firepower to the target somehow, but one filled to 3/4 with drones would probably be far more effective
Why would you do it at the slow speed of a carrier though? Just load up a couple C17 or B1B and you can dump that payload anywhere in the world in under a day I expect. Better yet, engineer a minuteman to hold a drone swarm. Deliver that swarm anywhere in the world in 20 minutes.
> you need to ship the firepower to the target somehow
The same thing with battleship in WWII.
The writing is on the wall for massive carriers. much smaller, cheaper and quicker to produce ships are probably the way its going.
To add to that, the current take that the US could just walk away from the conflict is incredibly naive - Iran will decide when this is over, and it won't be before the November elections. Before the US attacked, blocking the strait was only a potential, now Trump gave Iran the chance to prove that they are capable of doing it. And why on earth would Iran now give that away for free?
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This would be more effective as criticism if you demonstrated the superior knowledge you imply having. Maybe point to some primary sources?
Nah it’s pretty convincing simply by itself. Reddit is a slur.
A strong and convincing rebuttal!
I agree that this conflict in Iran doesn’t really indicate that the aircraft carrier is any weaker now than it ever was.
Though I do worry about the possibility of a more sophisticated opponent being able to launch swarms of drones and missiles at aircraft carriers. More than any air defense could ever stop.
Carriers have been in question long before this conflict. There's been a big question as to how effective and/or survivable a carrier battle group will be in the South Pacific, especially given China's long range anti-ship missiles.
There's been a whole ramp up of very exquisite technology to try to get the upper hand here, but I don't expect we'll see the carrier be the force it has been over the last few generations. It's just too tempting a target.
Long-range anti-ship missiles of old are also obsolete, they and their launch problems are also too expensive for their vulnerability. A salvo Shahed-style drones launched from expendable unmanned vessels would overload a carrier group air defences way cheaper than old school ASMs from frigates.
New weaponry poses great challenges for these platforms. I don’t know if a swarm of very slow moving drones would be my biggest concern though.
You can afford to spend a few million when you’re taking down billions of dollars worth of hardware.
I would think a simultaneous barrage of maneuvering hypersonic missiles would pose a much bigger threat. A CIWS or three can take down a lot of slow drones.
but if you know there are 3 CIWS, you know they can move the pew-pew pipe at some radians per second this axis, and that axis, you put the drones in a formation to maximize the need for muzzle movement, estimate how many rounds are in them (or how long can they fire before getting overheated)
and send that number + 1 drone.
.
.
of course it's a bit oversimplified, but really with decoys, and putting cheap shaped charges on them ... they can fuck up the launch/landing surfaces, the AA capabilities, there's absolutely no way to jam them if they have the "last mile" set to automatic.
(yes, in theory a dumb and big fireball or good old flack can take out a lot of them, seems trivial, but in practice we don't see that, instead we see faster drones trying to intercept them)
In theory sure, in practice nobody ever tried to defend a carrier group from 500 Shaheds.
I get the feeling you haven't read the article. The carrier is not in drone range precisely for that reason.
The reason so many tankers have been lost and that E3 sentry is that the carriers are having to stay out of the preferred range and rely on refueling for the bombing campaign.
If the CSG could move to the Iranian coast they wouldn't have to maintain a constant chain of refueling tankers which have become so vulnerable.
>The carrier is not in drone range precisely for that reason.
umm, you have no idea what you are talking about.
the Iranian Shahed drones typically have an operational travel distance of approximately 1,200 to 2,000 kilometers (roughly 750 to 1,250 miles).
and
>USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) CSG: As of March 30, 2026, this strike group is operating in the Arabian Sea supporting Operation Epic Fury. Satellite imagery from mid-February and March 2026 placed the Lincoln roughly 700 kilometers (approx. 430 miles) off the coast of Iran and Oman.
All right, they have the range. Let's say a carrier is 700 km away and the drone has a range of 1200 km. Great.
Now, does it have the kill chain to supply it with an accurate targeting fix and update it during the flight? Or, does it have a radar good enough to find the Lincoln on its own? If it doesn't, then it's a really big ocean. But sure, they've got the range.
I was just correcting the dude and letting them know they 100% have the range and they are wrong.
Of course the CSG and its advanced weaponry are going to obliterate them before they have a chance to do anything.
The Shahed-136 could 100% find the ship if Iran had the intel on the CSG location.
> ... drones
Regarding drones they are, by definition, not very sturdy: for they're drones and not B52 bombers or bunkers.
What's very likely going to happen is that, just I can take a Browning B525 Sporter balltrap shotgun and shoot any civilian drone from afar because the gun shoots an expanding cloud of tiny, cheap, pellets, armies are now going to come up with systems to both defend and destroy drones.
I'm not saying the drones used in war are the same as DJI drones: what I'm saying is that with the proper tech, they're much less expensive to take down than, say, a ballistic missile or an aircraft carrier.
Anyone seeing this conflict and thinking that the militaro-industrial complex isn't hard at work working on solutions to take down drones is smoking heavy stuff.
Ukrainian and Russian did it already (although it's nothing serious, it's just an example): here we were talking about actual tiny drones, carrying explosives, and running towards vehicles. As a cheap defense measures, they started immediately adding metallic "spikes" (not unlike hairs) to the vehicles, so that the drone wouldn't reach the vehicle's body and instead explode when hitting the mettalic spikes.
War has always been about "tech x" / "anti tech x". This time is not going to be different.
> Though I do worry about the possibility of a more sophisticated opponent being able to launch swarms of drones and missiles at aircraft carriers.
China. They're demos of thousands of drones fully synchronized in the sky at night making nice 3D patterns with everybody on the ground going "aaaah" and "wooooow" is a display of military capability.
I'm not saying it's not a concern: but it's not as if the US (and others) were going to sit and think "oh drones exists, the concept of war is over".
Cheap drones are pretty useless against large naval vessels. Making a dent in those ships requires a heavy, specialized penetrating warheads. And even then you'll need to score several hits.
Just the warhead alone on a standard anti-ship weapon weighs more than an entire Shahed-136 drone.
To sink it, yes.
To render it useless for a while is easier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_fire
All from a little drone-sized warhead.
I disagree: lots of cheap drones would be extremely effective against an aircraft carrier. They don't need to sink the ship; they just need to damage the jets or disrupt operations on the flight deck. Even a small drone is a serious threat to a jet. How can a carrier defend against a drone swarm? They only have so much ammunition for those CWIS guns, and defending against the swarm will probably cost a lot more than the swarm itself does.
Of course, this assumes the carrier is within range of the drone swarm, but that seems to be the assumption in this line of argument.
Eventually, I think they'll have more cost-effective defenses against small, cheap drones, but they don't have them yet.
Yes, but it is not certain that cheap drones have the range or navigational technology to reach and hit a carrier in the current circumstances. More expensive drones do, but that's a different matter.
The Shahed drones have more than enough range for this, easily. Whether they're "cheap" I guess depends on your perspective; they're certainly not as cheap as some handheld drone, but they're still pretty cheap compared to all the stuff the US is using now.
Shaheds are $20-50k; F-35s are $100M-ish.
You can use a thousand and break pretty even if you get even one good hit in.
Aircraft carriers are part of a strike group so the other ships would be responsible for defending it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire
(~20kg warhead)
That was over half a century ago. Completely irrelevant.
Seems likely to be even worse now. USS Ford out of action, removed from region due to "laundry fire" and some socks in the toilets. Also USN has far fewer carriers to deploy. Three or more were deployed continuously off Vietnam for years at a time.
> That was over half a century ago. Completely irrelevant.
This is Trump's America, brother, we don't learn from the past here!
You could fly an FPV drone into the hangar and smash a plane full of ordinance if you get lucky.
Unfortunately warships have a lot of flammables and explosives aboard.
Imagine trying to launch fighters when there are explosions on the deck from swarms of drones. And of course the fighters themselves could be hit and destroyed. An aircraft carrier that can't launch fighters is pretty much worthless.
Carriers aren’t going away because there’s nothing else that does what they do.
Many nations can blow stuff up but to actually project power, you need a mobile air base.
It sounds like you agree vehemently with the article, modulo the reframe of what the military had to already as solely your personal worry, about a hypothetical, that could only occur with a more sophisticated opponent, in the future.
>destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are.
When you have a hammer that costs billions of dollars in budget you tend to find excuses to use it lest you lose that budget. Imagine if their were no carriers. US airpower just takes off from gulf state airbases and same thing happens to iran.
Unless the US is fighting an air battle in the middle of the ocean, they can probably get by without carriers.
Did you go to War College to learn this? I mean seriously, do you really think they would spend billions of dollars and millions of man hours training …. I mean, I’d it’s possible that maybe you just don’t understand the dynamics of war fighting and there is a reason for carriers to exist besides “fighting in the ocean?”
What are they for beyond a platform for landing planes?
How many of the strikes in Iran were 100% organic Navy assets? Sure, f18's took off and landed on carriers, but they tanked a couple times before dropping their bombs. The CSG helps, but was it really the thing enabling strikes? We have a massive air base in Qatar and other capabilities in the region. We are using bases all over the place to support these operations. The CSG helps... but isn't crucial to what is going on here. Now, bring S-3 organic tanking back and maybe the CSG would have a -little- more legitimacy.
>How many of the strikes in Iran were 100% organic Navy assets?
Not sure if they're organic, but they sure are free range.
Yeah I don’t find this article particularly insightful. If we don’t have troops on the ground to prevent attacks in the straight, it would be always be vulnerable despite superiority. Shit if we don’t control the land, they could drop a bunch jet skis with bombs in the water in the middle of the night. The straight is only 21 miles wide at some points
Carriers are OP against middle powers, but they would be toast against another major power.
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Trita Parsi of RS had been saying weeks in advance that the Iranians would retaliate against gulf states collaborating with/supporting the US & Israel, would close the Strait of Hormuz, and would continue fighting until it established a pain threshold had been reached and acknowledged by its enemies, in order to prevent yet more "short wars". Iran's previous retaliations that were well choreographed and coordinated in advance with US & Israel would not be repeated. He was not alone in saying this, but he was one of the most prominent, connected, and learned people saying so.
Much of the administration and news media are only catching up to all of this long after the fact. Many still cling to the idea that this was unforeseen, or irrational on the part of the Iranians.
Trita Parsi is an Iranian government lobbyist. Of course he would say that.
Does the fact that he was right enter into your thinking at all by the way? But go on, tell us the basis for your claim, treat us like adults.
So he'd have a better idea of what the govt would want to do?
Keep in mind that a govt that feels (admittedly reasonably) that it has been backstabbed and has its head assassinated would not hesitate to call bluffs instead of acting cool. You've ever seen how a cornered wild animal behaves?
Whether or not professional military strategists and planners anticipated this shift in carrier-based projection of power in the era of low-cost drones, it is nearly certain that the Commander-in-Chief of the United States military has not. And if the Commander is involved in the either the day-to-day operations or the strategic level of planning, I can’t imagine that whatever reasoning about these shifts in power dynamics has taken place will influence U.S. operations.
An aerial drone capable of materially damaging a modern navy ship costs $1-2M a piece. Anything much cheaper doesn't have the range, survivability, or required warhead to do much more than scratch the paint.
A cheap drone is only useful against soft targets. It is the reason Ukraine is scaling up heavy cruise missile production even though they already have vast numbers of cheap long-range drones. Being "cheap" isn't of much value if it is incapable of doing meaningful damage to the desired target.
The US has been designing and building thousands of anti-ship drones since the 1970s. It isn't like they have no experience with the concept and those drones are far more capable than anything Iran has. The US Navy has assumed drone swarms as a threat model for half a century.
Do the Iranians have to win against a Navy ship or an oil tanker? Asymmetric warfare suggests they would ignore the well fortified ship and wreak havoc on commercial shipping to get the same result. The Strait of Hormuz is so shallow and narrow that they only really need to sink two or three tankers to shut the whole thing down.
> sink two or three tankers to shut the whole thing down.
How so? The narrowest point is still 20 miles wide. Is there a deepwater lane that's narrower than that, but still impacted with a wreck?
You shut it down by making the next ship go "lol fuck no".
That isn't really true. There are expensive and important bits on the outside-- radars, optical sensors, etc. that could be damaged by very small things.
Even $400 dollar drones would force some kind of defensive system to start shooting if the ship is to remain usable.
The ship would of course also become progressively more vulnerable as this goes on, so I don't agree that ships have some kind of D&D-style DR that means that anything costing below a million does nothing.
These boat drones ukraine used to sink some russian ships seem to be very hard to avoid.
All large ships in the US Navy have automated weapons for killing swarms of small surface craft. They added that capability a few decades ago because they were regularly attacked by swarms of suicide speed boats packed with explosives. No one tries that anymore.
Surface drones are effectively indistinguishable from that threat.
Easier than avoiding torpedos, which are also long-range drones.
> Surface drones are effectively indistinguishable from that threat.
It's pretty hard to imagine a scenario from the nineties where there are so many speedboats in an attack that all four CIWS on a carrier use all their ammo at once. (that's an awful lot of suicidal jihadis, or whatever)
On the other hand, if the CIWS are targeting clouds of aerial drones and jetski drones at the same time, that could be a pretty bad scene. About fifteen seconds of fire per CIWS (1550 rounds), five minutes downtime to reload, between one and three seconds to service each target...
Interestingly, the problem the existing weapons had is that they had terrible engagement characteristics for things that were close and fast at sea level. CIWS wasn’t built for that. It wasn’t in the original threat model. They were designed for low planes and cruise missiles.
The boat swarms would close the distance fast, and the US Navy was reluctant to engage potentially stupid but non-hostile targets. By the time the threat was clear the defensive weapon systems were outside their design parameters. The alternative was killing everyone a long way out even if they weren’t a clear threat.
Not an issue today, they have loads of weapons purpose-engineered for that threat. But they had to learn that lesson the hard way.
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> An aerial drone capable of materially damaging a modern navy ship costs $1-2M a piece. Anything much cheaper doesn't have the range, survivability, or required warhead to do much more than scratch the paint.
Problem isn't a single drone, it's the cost of intercepters. Iran could launch a swarm of 100s of drones with few antiship missiles mixed in to hone in at same time. CSG has to spend $million+ interceptors and will quickly run out of them. US hasn't taken anti drone defence seriously, or the cost of doing it seriously before going in.
> Could launch a swarm of 100s of drones.
As far as I know we have never seen that happen against a single target. I believe the reasons are operational not cost related. A single truck can fit like 5 shaheds. For 100 at the same target at the same time you need to coordinate 20 crews just to get them in the air all these drones need to be controlled to some degree as well. It's possible but we have not seen such an attack. We have seen hundreds of drones targeting hundreds of targets against an entire country. So it's definitely possible, but I wager it's harder than it sounds to send 100s of shaheds against a carrier strike group.
Shahed drones are very slow, and can thus be very easily distinguished from antiship missiles and can also be intercepted far befpre they reach the ships. You are thinking SM-2s. But the best way to deal with such a threat is a flight of f-18s with a bunch of laser guided rockets (like 50 or 70) and a targeting pod, intercepting the drones hundreds of miles from the target.
Have you seen all the Chinese light show drone videos?
See them fly in massive coordinated swarms with precision?
See them automatically land in charging docks in waves by the thousand?
Those videos are not showing the world just a pretty light show.
US has some laser system they don't talk about much. All that came out is it was used in el paso in friendly fire incident then the story seemed to be swept under the rug.
The cheap drones Iran makes get a GPS coordinate plugged into them and they fly there. Carriers rarely stay in the same place for long so they'd be effectively useless against them.
The immediate counters and questions raised are:
* cost of adding encrypted mobile comms to receive target location update,
* turn about time on russian sat intell on carrier positions,
* observed carrier path patterns wrt drone flight times ( or fractions of flight time if mid air updates can occur )
* numbers and timings of drones that can be launched with alt coords to play predictive battleships with.
> It isn't like they have no experience with the concept and those drones are far more capable than anything Iran has.
Unless Iran bought some CM-302 missiles from China, the mere threat of which appears to mean that China and Iran now control the oil in the gulf.
But ELI5 me maybe I don't understand realpolitik
Fly thousands or tens of thousands of $400 drones at the carrier, Chinese light show style, while the carrier uses up all its anti-drone Defense ammunition.
Then fly in the high explosives.
Commander-In-Chief is not a career military post, it is an elected politician. Your barefaced assertion that he would have professional-level knowledge is resting on one an array of assumptions - that he has an interest in the details, that he respects and listens to professionals, that he has the attention span to read written briefings - that reporting indicated are false.
> this shift in carrier-based projection of power in the era of low-cost drones
Nothing in this war has suggested carriers are obsolete. A carrier that launches drones and fields an anti-drone strike group would be amazing. We don’t have that. (And even what we do have is great in the carrier department, it’s given us air parity to superiority from way offshore.)
If a carrier can launch fields of drones and missiles, then whatever land mass your attacking can launch more, given they obviously have a lot more space.
The change in dynamic here isn’t a function of carriers or their abilities. It’s a change in the cost of drones and missiles. The cost of a “good enough” drone and missile is now so low that opponents of the US can simply build the thing faster than the US can build and deliver them. In effect the technological advantage is that carriers represented for a long time has been completely neutralised.
> If a carrier can launch fields of drones and missiles, then whatever land mass your attacking can launch more
This is also true of airplanes. The point is you choose where you launch your drones from anywhere in the world.
> change in dynamic here isn’t a function of carriers or their abilities. It’s a change in the cost of drones and missiles
It's a return to battleship economics. Except instead of direct fire from and onto shores, you have indirect fire via drones. Unlike shells, however, we have anti-drone capabilities on the horizon.
It's silly to assume the current instability will persist for more than a few years. If the U.S. were paying any attention to Ukraine, it shouldn't have persisted until even now.
> the technological advantage is that carriers represented for a long time has been completely neutralised
Really not seeing the argument. Again, being able to build and launch and being able to field drones–alongside other weapons–is night and day. (Note that all of these arguments were made when missiles first dawned, too. Drones are, in many respects, a missile for area denial.)
The big lesson from the US/Israel war against Iran is that the power balance has shifted away from strike capability toward defense magazine depth.
You can't win with stand-off strike capability. You can't seize and control territory, you can't keep strategic choke-points open, you can't change regimes.
But you can definitely lose by spending two or three multi-million dollar air defense interceptors per incoming projectile that costs 10x to 100x less. Especially when your supply chain can only produce hundreds of interceptors per year and your adversary makes that many missiles per month and 10x that many drones per month.
> You can't win with stand-off strike capability. You can't seize and control territory, you can't keep strategic choke-points open, you can't change regimes
To be clear, there is zero historic evidence—going back to the Blitz—that strategic bombing has ever been able to do any of these things.
Except the one about choke points. That isn’t strategic. It’s tactical. And using artillery or airpower for shaping operations absolutely works.
> you can definitely lose by spending two or three multi-million dollar air defense interceptors per incoming projectile that costs 10x to 100x less
Agree. Fortunately, the MIC seems to have recognized this. None of it fundamentally changes the value of carriers. It just means they need to be defended differently from before. Sort of how you can’t sent lone carriers out into the ocean, they have to be escorted.
I agree with all of this except the notion that this is a recent change. Infantry being needed to seize and hold territory has been standard military doctrine around the world throughout history. Air power can tip the balance between opposing armies but has never been enough to settle a war alone. I'm confident that every person working in the Pentagon is aware of all this, aside from the SecDef.
I'm also not aware of a single case in history where a massive bombing campaign from a hostile country resulted in an immediate populist uprising and a regime change that favored that aggressor country. Having your city bombed for weeks on end tends to cause people to shelter where they can, worry solely about how they will survive the wreckage, and bond with their fellow citizens.
The fact that an air campaign and magical thinking was the complete game plan from trump and hegseth shows how utterly unqualified they are for the positions they have.
> It's a return to battleship economics.
The real economics of battleships (and their precursor ships of the line) were:
Given expensive armaments (cannon), it is cheaper to concentrate these on a mobile platform that can geographically reposition itself than build / deploy / supply equivalent power everywhere, and the former allows for local overmatch.
Sufficiently cheap and powerful unmanned guided munitions (drones, cheap cruise/ballistic missiles, UAV/USV/UUVs) are a fundamentally different balance of power, especially with enough range.
What does make sense is a return to cheaper escort carriers, where the carrier should be as cheap as possible (preferably unmanned) as the platforms it hosts are no longer exquisite.
Cheap and covert, Operation Spiderweb changed the game
The more worrisome thing is when that's applied to naval peer states.
Someone uses a container ship, suddenly all container ships become targets, goodbye global economy for a few years.
> This is also true of airplanes. The point is you choose where you launch your drones from anywhere in the world.
Not quite. It is hard to build an airplane, it is easy to build a drone. So if the battle comes to who is going to send more drones, then a big carrier will lose: it doesn't have a factory to build drones.
Both can be true - carriers and traditional air force are not obsolete but also western armies are unprepared to deal with the threat posed by a large number of cheap drones which can quickly deplete traditional air defense (based on SAM systems).
Wasn’t this the exact sort of reason we were developing laser weapons? I thought at least one US Navy ship was equipped with one now.
From what I see in news both the US and the UK are using expensive missiles to shut down Shahed drones and laser weapons are not mentioned at all - either they are too rare or not yet working reliably enough to risk letting a drone to get withing the range or laser weapons (which I assume is smaller than for missiles).
The news is outright wrong about that. Yes, as a last ditch measure patriots etc are used to shoot down leaker drones, but the primary weapon systems to take down the slow moving drones are APKWS rockets on fighters, and helicopter gunships using cannon fire.
There is definitely an argument to be made that even APKWS is too expensive due to the cost of flying a F16 per hour, but it’s not at the level of a few million dollar missile.
Obviously the US was in no way prepared for the Iranian response, but it’s not like zero development has happened in the last few years. It’s far too slow, but it’s deployed and in active use in combat. Hopefully this will be a wake up call that military procurement and domestic manufacturing needs to be wholesale reconfigured with breakneck speed. Doubtful though without much more pain felt directly by American citizens.
The US relies primarily on a weapon system called APKWS to shoot down drones. These guided missiles are cheaper than a Shahed. A single fighter jet can carry ~40 of them.
These weapons have been around since the early 2010s, they aren't new, and have been deployed in the Middle East for many years. They were literally designed for killing swarms of Shahed-style drones.
I dunno about what Israel is doing, but a ship usually has enough power to fire 1 or 2 lasers at a time. It takes 10s of seconds to destroy a drone, and each drone stays in range for 1 or 2 minutes.
Or, that is their advertised capabilities. Countries that buy them usually complain that they don't work as well on practice.
Well, assume the advertised capabilities are realistic. Assume it takes 15 seconds to destroy a drone, the drone stays in range for 2 minutes, and you can fire on 2 drones at a time.
You can destroy 16 drones every 2 minutes. If you get attacked by 50 drones, you'll get 16-20 of them. Did that help you?
Yes, the scenario makes it clearer.
I mean, they are helpful (if they work as well as the marketing material says). Just not transformative or sufficient.
The US Navy has been experimenting with laser weapons but none of them are really operational for air defense yet.
https://www.militarytimes.com/industry/techwatch/2026/03/31/...
If carriers would be designed for drones and missiles and guns instead of for manned aircraft, it is likely that it would be preferable to have a great number of small carriers, instead of a few vulnerable huge carriers.
The launch of drones and missiles could be completely automated and there would be no need for the complex maintenance of reusable airplanes, so such carriers would need only a much smaller crew.
Would it not be preferable to launch drones from less of a big target? The issue is that the carrier is clearly visible and targetable. You could go submersible or just spam much smaller ships with smaller payloads. In those cases you get the benefits of the same level of assault without the potential of a hugely expensive loss.
At a guess, I assume much of the scale of carriers is tied to the logistics of air power, which are considerably less relevant in drone warfare. Carriers will always remain useful for more accurate strikes and operating aircraft that work at higher altitudes, but this broadside idea of volume might work better on a platform that scales better instead of the huge and expensive carrier footprint.
Large aircraft are the cheapest and most scalable way to deliver a ton of explosive on target. That's why aircraft carriers exist. Everything else either is too expensive per unit of destruction or sacrifices too much lethality.
The size of the ship has little bearing on the visibility of it to sensors. You should also consider that it is much more difficult to sink a large ship than a small ship.
> Large aircraft are the cheapest and most scalable way to deliver a ton of explosive on target.
An important variable missing from your calculus is distance from munitions factory/supply depot. There are far cheaper and scalable ways to deliver tons of explosives if your supply lines are short, such as rail when you're defending your homeland. Carrier groups are both transport and FOBs
> You should also consider that it is much more difficult to sink a large ship than a small ship.
How did that turn out for the Russian Black Sea flagship, the Moskva?
sure but if we're simply delivering drones then it might be better to have 1,000 small platforms than one big one. You can then still use the carrier in its classical role from further back.
We can barely build FFGs, to say nothing of bigger drone carriers that would still be dwarfed by aircraft carriers.
So you'd say, OK, what drones can we launch from the tiny fiberglass-hulled small craft that we can build lots of, but the issue is that such drones will be very small and will necessarily have ineffectively small payloads to suit.
sure but that's the purpose of most drones. If you want big ordinance then that's why you have the carriers and the planes and missiles.
I'm just saying that a carrier is probably the wrong footprint for something that serves up drones.
I think this strategy is effective for Ukraine and Iran because they fight an enemy that is superior in terms of weapon capabilities.
If you are the big boy with the bigger gun you don't necessarily need that.
PS: I will take that back when someone manages to hit a carrier with a low cost drone boat.
sure but America's ship building doesn't appear to be at the level of being able to cranking out carriers should they start losing them. Conversely I imagine it might have a better shot at cranking out a smaller blue print en-masse.
That would change if there was any perception that a carrier could be lost. At the moment such things are theoretical
Lol carriers were already being overwhelmed by regular missiles, this now means a multi billion dollar ship can and will be destroyed by cheap drones if it's anywhere near its optimal deployment zone.
> carriers were already being overwhelmed by regular missiles
Where? When?
> if it's anywhere near its optimal deployment zone
What are you referring to? The entire modern carrier strike group is architected around using stand-off weapons to clear threats to make way for stand-in weapons. The relevant ranges are what your stand-in bombers can hit without re-fuelling versus with. The era of direct firing from ships passed ages ago–that doesn't make carriers less valuable, just changes their role.
Where? Any war games in the last 10 years. It’s a known issue with aircraft carriers agiants anti ship missiles. What’s protecting them right now is what would happen to a country if they attacked one of those. Retribution is not a great defensive capability in the long run.
Contrary to popular belief, an aircraft carrier does more than just launch airplane. Its optimal deployment zone will be defined by the range of its helicopters. So not as far as you think.
Take the helicopters out and you have easily 50% less missions this thing can launch per day.
Did you ever hear the tragedy of USS Plagueis The Unsinkable?
> Did you ever hear the tragedy of USS Plagueis The Unsinkable?
The USS Plunkett? A destroyer, not a carrier, that sustained the best the Germans could throw at her and kept on going; earning 5 battle stars while participating in all the major allied invasions in europe. What part was the tragedy of her? That she was scrapped in 1975 instead of being turned into a museum?
You have any evidence for this? Because low cost drones can't fly very far, are easy to spot with radar, are slow as hell and can be shot down with cheap intercepters, or even lasers as the US is already deploying.
Traditional anti-shipping missiles are a bigger danger.
The optimal deployment zone is far off shore, and there its very hard to reach.
Is your point that you can put a huge carrier literally in the straits?
Also the standard Shahed-136 style drones carry less than 200 pounds of explosives, and deliver that to the surface of a target.
Antiship missiles carry larger warheads, often double the size, and deliver that warhead deep inside a warship where it is much more vulnerable. A shahed blowing up on a carrier deck will be upsetting but won't do much. With particularly egregious negligence of standard US Navy damage control methodology, you might cause a lot of damage by fire, like what happened to the Ford. Not that I'm suggesting it was hit by a Shahed.
You don't even need to say "lasers" : that's the future. CIWS is already a thing today and Ukrainians have downed Shaheds with ground fire from small arms.
There's a plethora of various low cost systems being developed for some defence, but the assumption I always see on HN and elsewhere is that for some reason cheap offensive drones will just never have a countermeasure...which isn't how any of this works (exhibit A: massed infantry assaults can sometimes work against emplaced machine guns, but in general the machine gun was the end of that tactic).
There is absolutely no reason that the current disruption drones are causing should lead to some sustained power imbalance: if you don't have the big laser today that's one thing, but if tomorrow you're scoring 100% intercept rates against the same threat then how cheap it is doesn't matter anymore. And there's no particular reason to think that won't be the case (if a cheap drone can be on the offensive, you'd have to present a very good case why the interceptor cannot be built in similar quantities at which point you're back to high end systems deciding the day).
You just need a radar controlled anti aircraft gun. Most militaries phased these out as they had been considered obsolete (dosn't help against e.g. modern fighter jets).
Sure, my point is just that lasers you can get the cost per 'kill' to literally a few $. So even the 'cheap drones are cheaper then other interceptor' argument doesn't work.
100% interception … drone interception is NP complete dude, there’s nothing you can do against 1000 drones like that, and they’ll get cheaper, faster, smaller, bigger, more manoeuvrable. So 10Million bucks to down an aircraft carrier. With 0 casualties to your side.
> Nothing in this war has suggested carriers are obsolete.
What are ours doing during this war?
Adding 70+ strike and AEW aircraft apiece, individually more than most national air forces could muster.
Are you joking? Sending F-18s into the air.
No, just asking—I know they're staying out of the gulf, but I don't know how involved they are, and I figured someone here did.
They're the only thing involved pretty much. The gulf nations have not allowed the US to launch from their bases in the region. Maybe that will change as they keep getting attacked but as of now the carriers (and now the base on Cyprus) are where the planes are coming from. The strategic bombers, prior to Cyprus, were taking off from the US and flying all the way to Iran and back.
> The gulf nations have not allowed the US to launch from their bases in the region.
This is a categorically false assertion that they have been putting to assuage their local populations - which are heavily opposed to the war and the US support. Maybe not all of them, but some of them, like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, are clearly hosting and allowing the US to prosecute the war from their soil. If they weren't, you wouldn't have had the AWACS aircraft getting turned to smithereens in Riyadh.
AWACS and tankers don’t fire missiles or drop bombs.
It’s perhaps a distinction without a difference but it’s the line that appears to have been currently drawn.
Doesn't matter. The internal messaging of the Gulf govts to their people initially was that "we're not hosting US forces, why is Iran attacking us??". Now that veneer is being peeled off.
The article is reflecting on the observed reality that US Navy operations in this war are taking Iran’s littoral combat power into account by operating its ships further from the Iranian coast…why can’t you imagine that they are operating this way under Trump?
How exactly do drones project power globally?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spiderweb
>> How exactly do drones project power globally?
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spiderweb
"The next country over" != Worldwide
You could do this anywhere in the world for a very small amount of money.
The implications of the Ukrainian war have changed the balance of power for ever. No airport will ever be safe again.
sneaking weapons into some countries is harder than into others, making things that fly long distances gets exponentially harder as distance goes up linearly.
That's true, but when things get cheaper you can afford to lose a lot of them. Suddenly every container vessel is suspect. That trick has a lot of potential and harbors are relatively soft targets and easily accessible from just outside international waters. You could do a shitload of damage to most countries by just targeting a few key locations well within the reach of a basic drone and what sub $1000 drones can do is changing by the day.
Armor and artillery are basically useless against a fleet of seaborne drones.
you don't have to do a lot of damage to have a dramatic effect either. Imagine an airport near the coast, you don't have to destroy the airport but if one drone flattens the tires on one out of ever 50 planes on a runway the airport might as well be a smoldering crater. It's like a ddos attack and similar to what's happening in Iran today. All it takes is one drone to hit one tanker and a > 0% of it happening again and no one is sailing because their payload is uninsurable. In the same way, all it takes is one drone to disable one airliner and a credible threat it could happen again and no plane is taking off from that airport ever again.
Clandestine power projection. Neat!
Somewhere in the next decade we'll wake up to a large military base, port or airport utterly wrecked by some party spending << $100k.
Operation Spiderweb was not a power projection exercise though, it was an espionage mission.
This is like arguing you don't need a military because you'll just have 1 spy turn the enemies own weapons on them.
Sure...its not that it can't work, but there's more then a few issues with the strategic plan.
Fair, it's not an aircraft carrier. But you can turn any container vessel into a cheap rough equivalent. Take the coastline, then maybe 30 km inland and see what installations you could reach. Pearl Harbor on a shoestring budget is a realistic threat now.
Would you mind listing the major functions of a carrier group and explain why a container ship full of drones is a "rough equivalent".
Keeping the strait of Hormuz open would be one of those functions, wouldn't it? Oh, wait...
Seriously, your question is borderline trolling, you know exactly which functions of a carrier group are and are not matched by drones flown from containers. The point is, in case it wasn't clear, that you can do a ton of destruction without necessarily opening yourself up to a counter attack, precisely the kind of advantage that parties that put carrier groups in distance places to project power tend to be looking for. The ability to destroy lots of stuff in a relatively short time without losing a lot of personnel or exposing yourself.
And that capability is now to a large extent available to states that before would not have been able to do meaningful damage to coastal cities and coastal infrastructure (think refineries and large scale shipping ports). And you can't even be sure that whoever operates the vessel is in on it.
It's not going to help you to stop China from invading Taiwan if they decide to. But it could put a very large dent in the economic capability of any country or bloc that came under a concerted attack. Also note that 'drone' is a pretty wide label that crosses over into what previously was territory reserved for cruise missiles and ICBMs for air power and on the water there are many developments as well.
So if you have to hide your carrier group at stand-off distance for fear of seeing it sunk then it is not all that different from that container full of drones. You can destroy stuff, and that's about it. And long term that just makes more enemies, it doesn't really solve anything.
This is just making the very common categorization error here: you're equating low performance drones, implied to be about DJI sized, with the performance of an F-35.
Now you're about to say "but I meant drones with better capability!" And they do exist: and they're no longer that cheap, nor compact because it turns out a drone with roughly the performance of an F-35 will need an airframe, engine and sensor suite...roughly as expensive as an F-35. And suddenly this is no longer a platform you can just crash into things. Nor will you be ordering them by the thousand. Nor do they fit in a cargo container.
I've seen the range of drones that is available and they are very impressive, the variety is precisely what makes them so powerful: you can adapt mix and match to whatever mission profile you have in mind and there most likely will be something that you can use unmodified. And if the task requires it modifications can be done on very short notice.
An F-35 is of course going to absolutely outclass any drone. But a hundred million (roughly) spent on drones is going to do more damage than that F-35 and is going to be more versatile.
The second that F-35 lands it is going to be at risk from a (low cost) drone attack. And some aicraft aren't even safe in the sky anymore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACjCP-Dt3GY
Speaking of Aircraft Carriers, how is the Ford doing?
Mix and match how? Your entire one-way arsenal is sitting in cargo containers off the coast of an enemy nation by definition within drone range.
At this point you've built a very slow, very short ranged undefended arsenal ship.
Your proposal is to put a large supply of systems closer to enemy forces and the you're implying that somehow this wouldn't be vulnerable to being attacked while landed?
Check out the 'Toloka' family for one sample of what drones are like. They've been used in strikes already.
That's a submarine.
Which is notably not going to be launching a drone the size of a even a Shahed, nor anything close to the same range.
It also cannot detect nor engage incoming air threats, like essentially every single in service submarine on the planet due to the whole "being underwater" thing.
Yes, it's is a submersible, but it is also a drone.
> Which is notably not going to be launching a drone the size of a even a Shahed, nor anything close to the same range.
It doesn't need to. It is its own munition with a anywhere from 500 to a couple of tons of explosives on board. And a very impressive range.
Why might the US be using air power to strike targets which are inland in Iran?
What characteristics of a submarine might be considerably problematic to doing that?
Would these problems perhaps also effect a defensive mission to prevent air strikes on ships in the Strait of Hormuz?
> Keeping the strait of Hormuz open would be one of those functions, wouldn't it? Oh, wait...
Gottem! Not really though. I don't think anyone would claim a carrier group should be able to hold an adversary's coastal waters. Empty them from beyond visual range? Yes. Camp out in them? No.
That said, if and when Mango decides to land troops in Iran, the fleet will be an irreplaceable piece of that operation. That is global force projection.
> Seriously, your question is borderline trolling, you know exactly which functions of a carrier group are and are not matched by drones flown from containers.
I mean but it helps in coming to an understanding if you articulate them. Acknowledging them will suffice!
> The point is, in case it wasn't clear, that you can do a ton of destruction without necessarily opening yourself up to a counter attack
Agreed!
> So if you have to hide your carrier group at stand-off distance for fear of seeing it sunk then it is not all that different from that container full of drones. You can destroy stuff, and that's about it.
Disagree!
> That said, if and when Mango decides to land troops in Iran, the fleet will be an irreplaceable piece of that operation.
Against all available evidence I still hope he's not that stupid.
> That is global force projection.
I think I'll withhold judgment on that until the dust settles.
If I you can project power globally , but as soon as a human is put on the ground they're disintegrated by a 100 dollar drone, how important was your ability to get there?
This gives drones way too much credit. The USN knew that Iran could block the strait of Hormuz back in the 80s. Anti-ship missiles were already effective and plentiful enough to do it then and they’ve only gotten more lethal since. The long term solution here is to build pipelines that eliminate the need to sail up the strait. Why this wasn’t done already is beyond me.
Aren't pipelines even easier to target and destroy than boats?
Yes, but they are much cheaper and quicker to repair when damaged than large cargo ships are and they don't need crews, so with pipelines you don't face the situation you do with ships, where even a small chance of the ship being hit results in almost all companies deciding to not risk sending the ships into danger.
also easier to put some soil over them. MBS for example loves moving lots of sand in a nice straight line!
> Why this wasn’t done already is beyond me.
Pipelines would have to run through multiple countries, meaning you now not only have to share your income with someone else (transit fees etc) but it also means that you have to stay on good terms with these countries.
Well pipeline costs money and would be deeply provocative for Iran to lose this massive "kill the global economy" button they lord over today. They'd probably have their houthis or hezbollah try and sabotage construction until costs are too unaffordable relative to paying the bribe to IRGC to sail through freely.
how do you pipeline fertilizers?
ask any Factorio aficionado! the rookie answer is a conveyor belt, the better answer is a railway.
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“during WWII, the US Navy… winning the U-boat war in the Atlantic”
Sounds like typical US revisionist history.
They developed ASDIC? HF/DF? Hedgehog? Even the depth charge?
No, that was all the British.
I would say technological development plus the Enigma decrypts were the biggest factor.
Yes.
"When whole squadrons of very long-range aircraft were operating out of bases in the Shetlands, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland (and, after mid-1943, the Azores), and when the Bay of Biscay could be patrolled all through the night by aircraft equipped with centimetric radar, Leigh Lights, depth charges, acoustic torpedoes, even rockets, Doenitz’s submarines knew no rest." [0]
[0] Kennedy, Paul. Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned The Tide in the Second World War, from the chapter 'How to Get Convoys Safely Across the Atlantic'
Fascinating book. I think I finished it!
>No, that was all the British.
And not even British. For example most of the Enigma decryption was the genius work of a Polish man. Britain received the immigration of half the Nobel prices of the world in a couple years as the jews escaped nazism.
The technologies listed aside from the Enigma were largely actually British (I say largely because Canadians were deeply involved in some cases)
The original Bomba was the genius work of a Polish man, but was no use from 1938-1939 when the Enigma cipher was strengthened. At which point the Turing-Welchman Bombe was developed. The Battle of the Atlantic ran between 1939 and 1945.
For the much harder Lorenz cipher used by German High Command from 1940, the Colossus machine was developed by Tommy Flowers at the GPO and became operational in 1944.
None of which involved the US Navy, which was my original point.
Also consider the simple fact that, you know, the US was sending entire convoys UNGUARDED for years.
And only when significant losses mounted did they decide to send some escorts.
The United States primary strategy against China, in the event of war around Taiwan or nearby, is the same:
China's coast is mostly enclosed by the 'First Island Chain', which extends from Japan to Taiwan, through the Philippines and Borneo (look up a map and the situation will be very clear). Imagine strings of islands along the US coasts controlled by Chinese allies and with Chinese and allied forces training intensively there.
The American plan is to keep the Chinese navy trapped (or under assault) along its own coast by putting Marines (and Army soldiers too, I think) on the islands with anti-ship missiles.
The northern tip of the Philippines is as close to Taiwan as the Chinese mainland is; the US and Philippines are conducting an essentially endless series of military exercises and the US is placing some of its most advanced missiles there.
I'm always perturbed to see people talk of mass killings so casually
Number 1 reason why I want to see the United States of America and its very loud citizens get a taste of humble pie in this self-inflicted crisis of idiocy with global ramifications.
Even when discussing a war that's obviously gone out of hand with no easy resolution in right, there's still this air, this attitude from American commenters that somehow the might and brilliance of the US military will prevail in the end and they can restore their position as leaders of the free world. Meanwhile the rest of the world has waited 50 years for this day.
Let me have a little schadenfreude with my €2.20+ litre of petrol.
> I want to see the United States of America and its very loud citizens get a taste of humble pie in this self-inflicted crisis of idiocy with global ramifications.
I sympathize with the sentiment even though I am American. The problem with this is that Americans are not a uniform cohort.
The people who deserve to eat humble pie in this scenario are neck deep in propaganda and their own inflated egos and will never learn any rational lesson from this despite how catastrophically it might go. The Americans who are paying attention and will understand the harm of this operation already know it's a fiasco and wish the country was doing anything but what it is doing.
> The people who deserve to eat humble pie in this scenario are neck deep in propaganda and their own inflated egos and will never learn any rational lesson from this
They will turn on someone or something they can blame.
100%. Scapegoating is a key pillar in the authoritarian playbook.
a strong majority of the united states citizens are against the war, despite a full court propaganda press against the right and a no-kings distraction op against the left
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2026/03/25/americans-br...
don't confuse american citizens with the bought-and-paid talking & tweeting heads we are forced to live with
"No Kings" isn't a distraction, it's very tangible popular opposition, and they're certainly not in favor of the war?
It muddies the waters by focusing on divisive issues like immigration enforcement and de-emphasizing the war, preventing what could be a unified left-and-right antiwar movement.
Plain anti-war protests could draw significant support across the political spectrum, so divisive issues are inserted as wedges. Same thing that happened in the 60's, when the anti-war movement went from a coat-and-tie affair to a laurel canyon one.
So Indivisible, which planned the protest, knew the US was going to attack Iran months in advance and plotted this protest to distract from it? What strategic masterminds! What opsec! The left always seemed so fractious and disorganized, but they were just wily, biding their time. But, why?
Seriously, I'm sure you're smart enough to know this is absurd. Just sit down and think about it a bit.
would you expect dr evil to give a good "mwahahaha" and a bow?
If you think the No Kings movement is preventing a unified front against the war, you haven't been paying attention to the political discourse in the US since the rise of the Tea Party 15+ years ago.
man
There will be no public rapprochement between the right and the left pretty much anywhere in the world.
They are fed by entirely different media machines.
If you like, its a coordination problem where the various groups no longer have the commons of a shared reality to coordinate through.
It's not just the "media machines". These two sides have completely different moral values.
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Caring about others and wanting a fair, even handed and democratic government is not self-righteous you muppet. All you are doing is trying to justify your shitty ideals.
>Caring about others and wanting a fair, even handed and democratic government is not self-righteous you muppet
It's self-righteous to say they care about other people but want to help those people with other people's money, not their own. Statistically speaking leftists give far less to charity.
Statistically speaking, Right wingers have all of the money, even if they started off as liberals. This is silly Capitalist propaganda.
You'll notice it's about how it makes the poster feel.
Complaints against the right are usually about their actions, the terrible consequences and how they hurt people.
Complaints against the left are often how it makes the complainer feel, it's a mental struggle to not admit they like the result of right wing policies and not being able to embrace a left wing position despite knowing on some level that they should.
Your reply proves me right.
From the Pew Research poll you linked above:
> Among those who consider themselves Republicans, 79% say they approve of how Trump is handling the conflict.
71% of Republicans say the decision to use military force in Iran was correct.
88% of Democrats say the U.S. made the wrong decision to use military force in Iran.
There is no anti-war movement on the right. The only time there is, is when a Right-winger is trying to win an election. Once said right winger inevitably starts a war, the pom poms come out.
Tucker Carlson is perhaps the most popular commentator on the right and has a significant following and he is adamantly anti-war.
There is a legitimate cross-ideology opportunity here that the war party (which spans both american political parties) is desperate to keep from materializing.
I think you are ignorant about the nuances of the US right. It is not a monolithic block anymore than the US left is.
Prominent right-wing figures who are against this war:
- Tucker Carlson
- Thomas Massie
- Candace Owens
- Marjorie Taylor Greene
- Rand Paul
- Steve Bannon
- Nick Fuentes
- Matt Gaetz
Honourable mentions:
- Joe Rogan (I know many people on HN would consider him right wing)
- Charlie Kirk (in the months leading up to his death he said it would be a "catastrophic mistake")
Trump's approval rating has dropped -16.7 points: this represents many of his core supporters bleeding away.
If everyone just noticed that they have to vote left the world would be a paradise /S
You can't vote left in the US, there are no left parties and no left politicians.
They don't even mention the country Iran or the war by name, because it's a DNC op and the DNC also supports war in Iran. They don't mention Israel or Gaza, because the main organizers and funders are Zionist. They have no concrete demands. It's a distraction, a release valve, controlled opposition.
Imagine being king of a gulf monarchy watching the "no kings" protests. Probably censored.
Will the citizens of said country do anything to prevent their government from doing this?
If no, then why does their disposition matter?
The No Kings protests I saw were full of anti-war signs. I kinda assumed the whole protest was an anti-war protest primarily so I'm surprised to hear this take
It's an anti-Trump protest, so named because of how badly Trump wishes he was a king. The slogan (and organization, maybe?) dates back to at least the start of his current term.
Yes. I don't think that contradicts anything I said. It's the third major round in a series of protests and I believe this one was planned after Trump started a war against Iran. I don't think it's a stretch to say that opposition to war was a primary motivating factor for many that attended. I certainly would find that a reasonable conclusion from the signs I saw
Technically not contradictory, but it's pretty weird to call it an anti-war protest with no further qualification, when the overall emphasis, long term anyway, is clearly anti-Trump. Emphasis matters.
Every time someone criticises the USA for its atrocities and its ridiculous foreign policies I see this argument, that supposedly most people are supposedly against whatever bad thing is happening right now.
Yet, Americans elected Trump, twice even, and gave his party control over the other branches of government at the same time.
We'll see at the midterms how much the American populace really disagrees with what the government is doing.
If there is a midterm election
This. Much of the most prevalent messaging on both the extreme left and the extreme right tends to be from other countries posing as Americans. It’s also difficult to even form opinions lately as the amount of lying by all outlets is nearly impossible to sift through. All we really know is that right, left, black, white, gay or straight, nobody is actually on our side anymore.
You'd think after 9/11 that the US would approach all of this with more forethought but the opposite seems to be the case.
When I was a child, I was part of a team playing a game against a team which was stronger than us. Each player from one team had to take turns taking the attack to the opponent's team. Every player in our team put themselves forward thinking they can do better, only to be slapped down.
The current administration's approach is something similar. They think that because they have managed to take over American politics and do as they please in the US, they think they can do anything they want outside the US as well. Previous administrations had more awareness of their limitations - but I guess we are in the FA of the FAFO phase.
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> America wages a war of revenge
A war of what? Do you really believe that states wage war because of "revenge"?
> Perhaps America isn't as dumb as you think
No, they are dumber.
If this presidency was in Europe - or any other 1st world country - it would have been obliterated immediately and the party wiped out in the next elections.
> because of their strategic preparation.
lol to that.
Some folks had to be in line for gas 50 years ago, and the revenge for that is killing children? I guess "dumb" doesn't describe this. "Insane" is a better fit.
Well, the US is still dependent on foreign heavy oil for their refineries as it mostly produces shale oil (for export). So it very much isn't independent even though it looks like it when you see the numbers.
Right, like when they didn't refill the oil reserves, brilliant 4d chess.
That is partially due to damage from the previous reserve drawdown.
Great, you can now help genocide defenseless children, and attack countries to cause massive disruptions to the rest of the world, without much worry. Sure great strategy to get HATED, as you should be.
One freedom denied to Americans is that we can not provide comfort to our enemies - this is punishable by death according our constitution, so we tend to err on unwavering support for our military always.
Many Americans may be absolutely against this horrible, barbaric, idiotic action in the Middle East, but they might wisely not want to talk about it.
So let me say "Thank you to all American troops for your service, God bless America. Our military is the only reason we have peace and freedom." - this is my official public opinion as an American and I would never have at least two witnesses catch me saying anything different.
> perturbed to see people talk of mass killings so casually
I'm almost perturbed to not see it discussed at all. What are the casualty estimates of blasting open the Strait?
I'm just going to throw some napkin pointers and rough guesstimate-arithmetics here.
-At the very minimum you would have to search and secure 130 000 square kilometers in a mountainous region, in a hostile country where you have no popular support, and where most of the male population has had somewhere around two years of military training. To be sure that Iranians couldn't lob anti-ship missiles into the strait, you'd probably need to double or triple that area. -And that's because of anti-ship missiles, with distances ranging from few hundred kilometers to thousand or more. And only one missile needs to get through to cause a mass casualty event onboard of a warship involving hundreds of people.
So, assuming that troops get to the shore, then there's the slight peculiarity of modern warfighting. Drones. Cheap and plentiful, with FPV drones having the range varying from 30 to 60+km, you can be assured that visitors stay on shore or island(s) will be filled with plenty of activities such as listening to never ending buzzing of drones or trying to find cover from those drones. As good as US electronic warfare efforts might be, wire-guided FPV drones don't really care. So unless the US incursion is going to be anything but a short 30 minute visit to a largely meaningless Tump island we're probably going to be looking at hundreds of casualties if we are extremely lucky. If they really want to open and "secure" the Strait, I think we're going to be looking at Russo-Ukrainian war-tier butcher's bill.
And since that would be perfectly fine for Israel, I think that's exactly what we'll be getting. I hope I'm wrong though.
The US public discourse is so dehumanized today that anyone who is not "with them" is literally not a human anymore. Even within the country itself "the leftards" are considered an obstacle which can be removed if only enough force is applied.
Sending armed agents at protesters is seen as being the same thing as sending pest control to clear out beaver dams on the creek. Nobody cares what the beavers think, they are not human, they do not have feelings. They are simply a menace to be dealth with.
The supporters of imperialism all about nonviolent protest and democratic principles if it seems feasible it could bring about US foreign policy goals: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47111067
Or, if an anonymous and uncorroborated source claims tens of thousands of said protestors were allegedly massacred.
If it doesn't, and the strategy now involves blowing up desalinization plants ( https://apnews.com/article/trump-iran-threat-desalination-pl... ) and invoking a humanitarian crisis on the level of a nuclear catastrophe, well... then they're a bit less concerned about human rights.
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It took 8 years the last time.
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> The conservatives, when they protest (Tea Parties) leave public spaces in fine shape
We're just skipping Charlottesville and the Capitol? We have idiots on both of our fringes. But only one of them is in power right now.
Jan 6th.
Even the example you gave is incorrect. Lol. It's so obvious when conservatives cherry pick information to placate their views.
Pelosi's Folly? Give the other leg a pull too, please.
> The conservatives, when they protest (Tea Parties) leave public spaces in fine shape.
As long as you ignore the feces smeared on the walls and the injured police.
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There aren't a lot of alternatives - the amount of mass killing going on right now is unusually high. People can't spend all day frothing with moral outrage at the horror of it all. If something is routine there isn't much of an alternative than to discuss it as routine.
This article is actually unusually good, I wouldn't be surprised if the site was generally anti-war. It isn't unusual for the level of analysis to be "we're the in-group, we're morally right, they're the out-group, we can't imagine they're competent, lets kill them it'll be easy". The moment people start doing serious analysis they become well-armed pacifists. As a case study; this war is part of a trend of the US hurting itself in aid of ... nothing useful for the US. The only silver lining is I don't see the Trump presidency surviving this and that might be a lesson to the next guy about trying to start fights.
It’s really quite amazing how the US went in without seemingly an iota of planning beyond “kill ayatollah for regime change”, but at this rate we will see US regime change before Iranian.
Enough planning for the Secretary of War to buy defense stocks and the son of the president to own a drone manufacturing company.
Just not planning for anything that might help "make America great again".
It's really this simple. People seem so confused as to why this administration is doing this and why this administration is doing that, but it's clearly about personal enrichment of leaders. It's not some complex 5D chess game. If you want to know why Trump did this or why Hegseth did that or why Bondi did thus, just look at who placed bets, owns stock, owns companies, and/or will be personally enriched by the decision. That's all there is to it.
Trump asks the Oracle at Delphi what will occur if he invades Iran.
"This war will surely bring about regime change," says the Oracle.
"Good," thinks Trump as he heads into the defense meeting.
> “…getting blown to smithereens…”
Looney Tunes language like this projects an aura of un-reality further in the article, which I like even less.
Didn't you read the URL?
It's not mass killing, it's statecraft.
It's not casual, it's responsible.
James Cameron in Avatar: Fire and Ash makes fun of these Big Picture guys (so called ThinkTank people) towards the end.
That's a movie. This is about reality.
ThinkTank guys have been around since centuries. This movie was released in Dec 2025. Do you think there could be a causal link? Art imitates life.
It's not this, it's that! And a green account no less.
"Responsible Statecraft" they call themselves.
You can't. Iran only needs to be credible in their threats to make crossing the strait too risky. And for that you only need a few missiles, drones and mines every so often.
Asymetric warfare is a hell of a hole to dig oneself into, ain't it?
Please figure out a way to communicate this to our completely inept leadership. We tried. They're too stupid and rich to care.
At the heart of this is the fact that America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale.
High tech interceptors and missiles and aircraft carriers are great, but with China's help these are outnumbered by three (soon to be four) orders of magnitude.
It's unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes, with not much in between.
Sorry, at the heart of this is that the Commander in Chief and Secretary of War are idiots. It's not clear how any of this situation would be any different if America had a dramatically higher production capacity.
These are orthogonal problems.
Getting into this war was stupid.
Being unable to win it is also pretty bad.
Clausewitz would say they are the same: the stupid war is the continuation of stupid politics by other means. The objectives are unclear, which prevents them being achieved.
These are the same problem. Getting into this war was stupid because it's virtually impossible to win it.
Correction: Hegseth is a crusader. He is a super zealous religious fanatic who very much wants to destroy as many Muslims as possible. He has a crusades tattoo and openly talks about killing heathens in his WEEKLY SERMON. He might be an idiot alcoholic, but he very much knows what he is doing.
> he very much knows what he is doing
Nothing about how this war is going suggests he has any idea what he’s doing as SecWar
> Nothing about how this war is going suggests he has any idea what he’s doing as SecWar
For instance, he doesn't realize his title isn't SecWar. It's SecDef.
I mean he's even not that great at his chosen profession which is a television news media personality, although I am sure he knows what he is apparently trying to do, in that regard.
> Correction: Hegseth is a crusader. [...SNIP...] He might be an idiot alcoholic, but he very much knows what he is doing.
That sound like he knows what he wants to do, but that's not the same as knowing what he is doing.
Indeed.
One of the contracting things I turned down was someone who knew what they wanted to do was make Uber for aircraft.
I turned it down because they clearly didn't know enough about this goal to fill an elevator pitch, let alone a slide deck, and I think many of the current US Secretary of XYZ leaders are similarly unaware of how vast a chasm lay between what they wanted to do and a specific, measurable, realistic, and time-constrained plan to actually achieve anything.
English language ambiguity problem. "Knows what he is doing" has two potential meanings: it could mean competence, or it could mean clear intent. I think OP meant the latter.
> America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale
We make plenty of stuff at scale. We just haven’t designed any of military around it since WWII.
> unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes
We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.
> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America
I think the Ukranians are still unimpressed with the withdrawal of US support, especially from the shells which were being manufactured in the US (now moved to Rheinmetall), and the de-sanctioning of Russian oil: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2871wyz9ko
Ukrainians are unimpressed that US no longer supports war to exhaustion. US in unimpressed that Ukraine supported other side in elections
Problem is that US wants to distance itself instead of ending the conflict
> US in unimpressed that Ukraine supported other side in elections
Sorry, what is "the other side" exactly?
Did I miss something? When did Ukraine support any side in elections?
US doesn't actually have a way to end the Ukraine war. It doesn't have a way to end the Iran war either. Other than unconditional surrender.
US in unimpressed that Ukraine supported other side in elections
Considering that Trump literally tried to blackmail Zelenskyy in his first term, why on earth would they have supported him in 2020?
"We make plenty of stuff at scale."
Not the stuff that matters (chips, electronics, metals, etc). We don't even have a primary lead smelter, which we would likely need if we got into a peer conflict.
It's also important to note that the US lacks the ability to quickly pivot and set up plants. Much of the knowledge to do so has been disappearing as employment in that sector has been steadily declining for decades. Sure we make stuff at scale using automation, but that automation can't be changed to significantly different stuff in a reasonable timeframe.
We suck at ultra-heavy industry that outputs commodities. We're great at light industry, or specialised heavy industry, which includes a lot of electronics. You're correct on inflexibility.
Can you give some specific examples of what light industry we are great at?
Pharmaceuticals, medical devices and craft food and beverage products come to mind. Guns and ammo, too.
Yeah, even if we can produce them now, we don't have the pipeline to keep them running - steel for guns comes from other countries, we don't have a primary lead smelter in the country, medical devices that rely on electronics rely on foreign components, etc. The only reason pharma can operate here is because of the regulations, and even then many components chemicals are sourced internationally.
Worked as a chemical systems technician for a bit. Can confirm, lots of the chemicals we used (most, some of which were pharma grade but we weren't pharma), had to come from either China or Germany. And we really did try to source as much in the US as possible. So it wasn't even a question of cost, it was simply no one here wanted to make what we needed.
Now granted, I'm not naive enough to think we should be able to be self-sufficient and manufacture everything ourselves. I think it is fine to import stuff. My bigger concern is, for some things, there just isn't a lot of options. I think its fine to buy some of the raw materials from Germany and China, but I'd also like to see a few more countries that they could be bought from.
We don't even produce things like bolts, screws, and springs.
If we suddenly had to, it would take billions of dollars and several months to spin up any real capacity.
More like years. Perhaps decades if you needed to do it at scale across entire supply chains all at once.
All this stuff requires people. And we simply don’t have them. The folks who could be trained to build such stuff are still in primary school.
The folks who could be trained to build such stuff are being either deported or harassed for daring to come to the US for studying.
A quarter of steel used in the U.S. is imported, and of that quarter, 40% comes from Mexico and Canada; very little comes from China[0]. So, not only does your point fall flat, the people we get steel from are our neighbors so it'd make sense to not sour with relationships with them like the current admin is doing with chaotic trade policy and invasion threats.
I really don't understand the FUD around US manufacturing capability, you'd essentially need to craft the greatest conspiracy ever to think that every politician, defense agency, intelligence agency, etc. is asleep at the wheel to not recognize this supposed threat and do nothing about it.
0: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/where-does-us-ge...
> 40% comes from Mexico and Canada
Where do you think this originates from?
China ships a rather large amount of stuff to these countries to take advantage of the trade agreements. So much that you can find satellite images of large yards in Mexico that are used for this purpose with barely any effort.
Okay, let's assume most of their steel is Chinese (I have my doubts because, yet again, more conspiracies), we only import a quarter of the steel we use. That would hurt losing it overnight, sure, but we wouldn't be absolutely toast like the autarkists are saying.
These takes are much more doomer than I'm willing to bet the supporters of "bring everything back" realize. Do you have no faith in the US economy / populace adapting to a hypothetical all out war with China?
Personally I have little to no faith in the adaptability of the US workforce for such things. It would be a generational shift. Exceedingly few people even have basic mechanical skills these days.
It’s not like WWII where you have a majority population that works on the farm or in a factory with their hands, and at home fixing stuff that breaks. That sort of population can be rapidly redeployed. We would need to start from the basics like “how to turn a screwdriver” for a huge portion of the workforce.
When you really start looking into things, nearly everything points back to China at some point. Pharmaceuticals? The APIs or at least important precursors largely originate there - even if they hit a middleman country first. Then you get into basic components and it’s the same story. That part from India or Mexico might not be available without China as a backstop.
It’s not an impossible problem, but it’s a problem that took decades and a generation or two to destroy. It’s far easier and quicker to destroy things than build them.
Have you heard about the great toilet paper scarcity of 2020 during covid? and facemasks? US couldn't make either toilet paper or facemasks or ventilators or build hospital beds or anything that matters when the entire economy was at risk of shutdown.
I have a feeling that China doesn't export much steel. They more likely export their steel in the form of finished products.
I don't think there's a ton of strategic value in on-shoring commodities unless your goal is to be able to take on the entire world at once.
Commodities are commodities, you can get them almost anywhere so you're not dependent on any one nation.
> We make plenty of stuff at scale
Maybe this video of a rather famous YouTuber trying to manufacture something as simple as a grill scrubber with a US supply chain would help you understand how bad it is?
https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY
One thing that struck me is seeing his months long struggle, where the only injection mold designer he could find was near retirement age and wouldn't be doing it for too much longer, the tool & die expert he talked to died between when he interviewed him and when he made the video, he had to deal with suppliers lying about where their parts came from, and some American suppliers could only provide low quantities without him paying to upgrade their tooling. Then there's a comment from someone in China saying that over there, he'd be able to bring his product to mass production in about 5 days in whatever quantity he wanted, and at a higher quality (more corrosion resistant metal, more durable silicone, etc).
I agree the situation is dire, but do not underestimate the US government’s ability to spend its way to gain a desired result. The first time a bullet hits US soil there will be 50 million people falling over themselves to manufacture shoes by hand if it helps “kill the bad guys”
Does this somehow not apply for cartel violence that spills over the border, the same cartels that have been declared as terrorist organizations ?
I am finding it difficult to imagine it'll be any different for terrorists of a different ethnicity.
TL;DW: skip to 17m55s for the important bit
[1] https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY?t=1075
I saw hints of this ~20 years ago. I was working on software for a consumer device. For manufacturing it, we chose Foxconn. One non-negotiable point from their end was that they had to write some of the software on the device. They didn't care which part or how small.
The device had a physical keyboard with a micocontroller that managed it and they ended up writing the code that ran on that micro as it was largely independent of the code we were writing, and easy for us to test. The first versions were not great, but they got better quickly.
As we talked amongst ourselves about why they were so emphatic about this, it became clear to us that they were taking a long term view of the importance of moving into the intellectual property side of things. Dustin points out that, in some areas, they are there.
There are multiple interesting bits, worth watching the whole thing at some point.
Something that stuck with me was that dude had an uncle that worked at a bolt factory down the road, and now there is literally no way to source domestically made bolts. And that they could find one retired guy after scouring multiple states who could help make an injection mold. I'm sure some of the larger defense contractors have a few guys who can do this, but that makes for a pretty low bus factor.
> Something that stuck with me was that dude had an uncle that worked at a bolt factory down the road, and now there is literally no way to source domestically made bolts.
US manufactured fasteners are available*, the Build America, Buy America Act created a market for them. You’re not going to find them at Home Depot or your local hardware store, professional supply houses will sell them to you.
Waivers are available if no US supplier is available, but there usually is a US supplier.
I assume bolt manufacturing is automated to the point where you load up a CNC machine with steel hex stock and get boxes of bolts on the other end, there’s not a ton of labor involved. The machine cuts the hex stock to length, then removes material to create a cylindrical shaft and then threads are cut.
* By US manufactured, I mean ‘compliant with BABAA requirements’, which is something like 55% of the materials and manufactured here.
> I assume bolt manufacturing is automated to the point where you load up a CNC machine
I'd be shocked if bolts worth a damn weren't forged
Only extremely specialized fasteners are CnC-milled or machined. Here is a video of how one American company makes screws: https://youtu.be/Z8siZfGmnjQ?si=24aAFhk87RRKdPt4
That talks about how they couldn't find someone US side to make the injection moulding moulds. We used to have a manufacturing business in the UK and got quotes for some moulds in the 1980s. You could get it done in the UK but the cost to get it from China was 1/5 as much. I guess people just went with the cheaper option.
You can still get molds made in the USA, but they are indeed much more expensive than an equivalent one made in PRoC, and options/expertise are often more limited or specialized (depending on how you look at it). It is very difficult, but not impossible to make consumer products in the USA.
As an exercise, please try to do this at some point and report back!
I’ve had them made and run in Canada (as well as the PRoC), and I’m speaking from experience. Getting molds made is not really something you'd do as an exercise, unless you've got a lot of time and money sitting around. A small mold might cost $20-30k in North America, or $5-10k in PRoC, and you need to run at least a few hundred parts (additional cost) to get any idea of the issues it might have.
What's the quality comparison between US/CA/PRoC?
Depends on the specific product, the mold maker, and the plastic injection facility. In general, it seems like North America is able to produce the regulated products (i.e. medical & military) at a high quality level, but with some limits as to the specific media (plastic types), colors, and tool designs, and at a high cost. PRoC has a wide spread of providers, and quality is not well-correlated with price, so it really depends on who you know, but you can get very good parts of all types at very appealing prices, but communication is terrible, delays are common, and quality can drop sharply from one run to another.
Overall, I've mostly given up on North American producers because I do pro-sumer products, and they're too expensive and inflexible for me, but we're also fairly low-volume, so it may just be that I don't haven't had access to the right providers.
Very interesting, thank you very much for the detailed answer.
No thanks. Watched the whole thing since its a great channel with great content.
I doubt that. If American soil was threatened I think you would see a mass mobilization. People like living in America and they won’t give it up easily. I know I would join. See how long Ukraine has lasted with far fewer resources.
Americans are fat and happy now but we are not always this way.
We (the US) probably spend too much per munition and do not have manufacturing capacity like China. We're not helpless, but i dont get the sense we have plenty of stock either. Both are problems.
(1) In this back and forth I'm surprised mines in the straight are not mentioned.
(2) im having difficulty seeing how cheap drones incapacitates a carrier. They are there to project force well into enemy territory for precise strikes. The carrier can be some distance from the shore. Now, the question turns to strike what? Surely drone manufacturing plants and barracks would have to be on list or ... they'd be less effective.
(3) if drones are sub-mach speeds why not shoot down with a glorified gattleling gun as opposed to expensive missiles or lasers?
> We make plenty of stuff at scale. We just haven’t designed any of military around it since WWII.
When people claim that America is losing manufacturing jobs, you get the "Oh we produce high value products, mostly military".
Then you get posts like this. How is one to reconcile these ideas? Is Lockheed Martin the Ferrari of weapons?
The US is responsible for over 10% of world manufacturing, putting them in second place of all countries (after China).
>When people claim that America is losing manufacturing jobs
That percentage goes down every year due to reduced manufacturing but also jobs are lost to high-tech automation in manufacturing. But it's still a buttload.
The 10% in value does not account about the fraction of a final American product that consists of parts or raw materials imported from elsewhere.
Many of the best known American products, e.g. computers, are only assembled in USA from imported parts.
If the imports from certain countries would be completely interrupted, it is unknown how much of that US manufacturing would be able to continue.
> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine.
Should have worn a suit.
The US is not an ally of Ukraine, it sees Ukraine as a nuisance that should have rolled over long ago but somehow refuses to and because the US still needs Europe for a bit longer (but maybe not that much longer) they're still playing ball as long as Europe pays (as it should, but that's besides the point).
Allies come to each others aid, the US has all but abandoned Ukraine after Trump came to power and did far less than it could have done early on. Why you would expect Ukraine to be generous after the numerous put downs and actions that were clearly organized to benefit Putin is a mystery to me.
This sentiment is very popular in Europe. From the perspective of the American, it's like, help was offered for 90% of the time in the Ukraine conflict, then we took a break and suddenly we are more an enemy than China. From my point of view, the pushing away is not one-sided like Europeans like to portray, but has been mutual for awhile.
I think when you start to threaten your former allies by wanting to attack/invade them you probably should be dinged in the trust department for that.
The same goes for when you try to strongarm a country into fabricating evidence to shore up your lies.
The USA was an ally in 1945 and has since steadily eroded that. In 2001 they briefly regained a lot of sympathy but squandered it just as fast and now we're at low tide. And I wonder how much lower it will go before people with common sense will be back at the helm and reparation of the relationship can begin, but I don't expect the aftershocks of this to be gone quickly.
And no, help was not offered '90% of the time'. Most of the time it was just business in disguise, altruism did not factor into it as far as I can see.
Would you say we're worse than China these days (if so, what % of the time did China help Ukraine in the conflict)?
I would suggest that China are currently a more reliable partner than the US because of their predictability, given that I cannot be sure whether or not this statement alone might result in a change of tariffs for my nation at the whim of America's king. I'm still looking for congress in all of this (did they ever even approve this war in Iran?!?) but idk if the republic is a thing anymore or not.
Yeah I can see that. The other poster is right about it being multi-faceted. My question is intentionally somewhat provocative. It forces someone to pick between two bad options, and I always gain respect for people who decide to pick one instead of intentionally avoiding it and just saying "oh they're both bad, idk".
hopefully this will all start to settle down around the end of this year if congress gets its teeth back and hopefully by the end of 2028. If it doesn't.... well then I despair, as the world I once knew is over.
Already within the subreddits of my nation there is an increasingly dismissive attitude to the historic alliances that kept us safe for around the last hundred years and I can't blame them. Especially if Hormuz remains blocked and the US just walks away leaving this pile of sick of its own creation on the floor. I imagine a new rather loose coalition might rise of such a status quo and its possible that China becomes a major player in that, given its likely desire as a major manufacturer to keep trade open and shipping flowing, which is the opposite of what the US has been doing since 2025.
> It forces someone to pick between two bad options, and I always gain respect for people who decide to pick one instead of intentionally avoiding it
IDK, if someone sees that a question is bullshit and refuses to play along with it, you lose respect for them? This is not a heuristic that will help you in life.
Both China and the USA have made many moves that benefit Putin. I would say neither party is a friend of Ukraine. China plays its own long games and the USA is being run by madmen. Why do I have to prefer one over the other? I don't like the way either is behaving on the world stage, and each for different reasons.
>Why do I have to prefer one over the other? I don't like the way either is behaving on the world stage, and each for different reasons.
This is the perfect encapsulation of what I mean in my original response to you. This IS the popular European sentiment. And this is what is off-putting to many Americans. The weight of China and the US is not even worth preference, despite the US having contributed positively to the Ukrainian conflict and European defense. We are not even WORTHY of being placed above China, we're either just as bad or worse is the typical response I see.
You seem to be completely out of touch with the way the USA has been behaving towards the EU as of late, maybe get with the times and then report back.
Last I checked China hasn't threatened to take over either Canada or Greenland, has not started any major wars for which they expect the EU to pay for cleaning up their mess, has reasonably sane leadership and on top of that has been a fairly trustworthy business partner that does not engage in whim driven economic warfare. They also have a bunch of very dark sides that I am going to assume we are all familiar with.
I really wonder why you think that the USA should be given a free pass for what it has done in the last decade.
And that's before we get into human rights issues and other 'details'. Comparing yourself to China is not the flex you think it is.
Your bio says that "Farming negative karma is not trolling when you're expressing your honest views." and that's all fine, you have a right to your honest views but if they're indistinguishable from trolling to the point that you feel you need to pre-empt that classification then maybe HN is not the place for you?
I think that one of the reasons for this "popular European sentiment" is the purely emotional one - it's emotionally more affecting when someone who was a close friend starts behaving badly towards you, than when someone who was a colleague with no close relationship remains thus.
The the popular European sentiment is understandable and IMHO correct though. Saying "it's off-putting" is no in way a coherent argument that it's wrong.
Indeed, it is breaking trust.
Europe has oil crisis right now because of an illegal war USA started, not because of China. Also, China did not locked accounts of international court justices, it was USA.
One of these two countries is an unpredictable threat and danger right now. The other is predictable threat in the future.
>illegal war
LOL
Yes, international law exists and this war is illegal. Simple as that.
EU is so high on bureaucracy they unironically believe their "international" facade organizations legitimate mass killings.
> This IS the popular European sentiment. And this is what is off-putting to many Americans.
You're not saying that it's wrong though. Just that you don't like it. So what, that means nothing. It's not wrong. Rejecting reality because it's "off-putting" will not help you.
The reply chain got too long so I will respond here.
>You seem to be completely out of touch with the way the USA has been behaving towards the EU as of late, maybe get with the times and then report back. Last I checked China hasn't threatened to take over either Canada or Greenland, has not started any major wars for which they expect the EU to pay for cleaning up their mess, has reasonably sane leadership and on top of that has been a fairly trustworthy business partner that does not engage in whim driven economic warfare. They also have a bunch of very dark sides that I am going to assume we are all familiar with.
I'm aware of everything you've said. What I've noticed is Europeans just like to bash on the US given any reason. My original point is (proven by the exact quote of your words) that this type of European sentiment is accelerating a two-sided voluntary parting. Nothing much more than that. I am not defending the US's actions.
>Comparing yourself to China is not the flex you think it is.
Once again you are proving my point. Europeans are typically not willing to place the US above China. Any attempt to get them to do so will provoke this type of response.
>Your bio says that "Farming negative karma is not trolling when you're expressing your honest views." and that's all fine, you have a right to your honest views but if they're indistinguishable from trolling to the point that you feel you need to pre-empt that classification then maybe HN is not the place for you?
Calling me a troll is just an attack on me and not my argument. That's ok though, no offense taken. The bio is provocation for people who dig into people's profiles. I don't like to do that. I just take the person's posts as is.
> Europeans are typically not willing to place the US above China.
This is not a scalar, it is a multi-dimensional array with tons of values that all individually can be ranked. One some of these the USA is better than China on others it is definitely not. You may want to collapse that all to a single 'but we're better' picture but that is just not how the world works.
> The bio is provocation for people who dig into people's profiles. I don't like to do that. I just take the person's posts as is.
And that's not true either because you clearly checked my account upthread to link it to Europe.
>This is not a scalar, it is a multi-dimensional array with tons of values that all individually can be ranked. One some of these the USA is better than China on others it is definitely not. You may want to collapse that all to a single 'but we're better' picture but that is just not how the world works.
This is correct... and like I said the common European sentiment. I think we've exhausted this dialogue. We're restating the same things in more words.
>And that's not true either because you clearly checked my account upthread to link it to Europe.
Your post I originally responded to says "Should have worn a suit." and also mentions Europe and Ukraine. That's basically the entire context of our back and forth. If you have many other posts about the US and Europe's relationship... well I have no knowledge of those posts.
> This is correct... and like I said the common European sentiment
It's actually the common *global* "sentiment", in that it is the natural conclusion of any rational actor regardless of location, and also in that most of the world feels this way.
Europe has nothing to do with it – all the countries being slighted by the USA, including non-European ones, are coming to grips with the same conclusion: the USA can no longer be relied upon*.
* – except when israel asks
Let's not extend this beyond the European opinion, especially since it's obvious that East Asia does not share the same point of view. East Asia and Europe have very different threats that shape their opinion of the US fundamentally. Europe does not have China breathing down their neck, and with Russia bogged down they have even less to worry about. Europe can freely reject the US, which is what this chain of comments is about, the popular European sentiment. In contrast, if there's anti-US sentiment in Taiwan, it would be in a minority and publicly disagreed with as their nation's existence hinges on positive US sentiment. To a lesser degree, the same thing in other East Asian countries.
> Let's not extend this beyond the European opinion
Too late! You already did!
> it's obvious that East Asia does not share the same point of view
It's quite obvious that East Asia, and any other regions containing a country being slighted by the US, does share that point of view: that the US can no longer be relied upon. Countries around the world are diversifying their investments of time, effort, and favor, away from the USA.
This clearly surprises you. It is indeed shocking: that's how far the USA has fallen, *globally*, in only a year or so.
> In contrast, if there's anti-US sentiment in Taiwan
Nobody said anything about "anti-US". We're simply talking about trusting that a country can be relied upon [0]. After seeing USA's behavior over the last year, Taiwan is understandably increasingly concerned that the US cannot be relied upon to defend against a Chinese invasion.
And they're right! Based on the track record of the USA's ruler, they can expect:
1. To be coerced into falsifying information to help the ruler's political campaign, and/or
2. To be told to pay for the help (possibly by allowing the USA to annex some territory), making it not help, but a basic transaction, and/or
3. To be told they would be helped, but then left high and dry when the time comes to help, and/or
4. For the USA to themselves start a war between China and Taiwan, to distract from media coverage of said ruler's involvement with a human-trafficking/child-sex ring.
All of these things have already been done by the ruler. We can reasonably expect him to do them again.
> which is what this chain of comments is about, the popular European sentiment
Again, it's the common *global* sentiment. You are the only one seeming to claim it is limited to Europeans, which is an incorrect claim. Beyond that, are you simply observing that the common European sentiment over the last year (negative) reflects the common global sentiment over the last year (negative), or was there a deeper point?
0 –https://www.gmfus.org/news/taiwans-growing-distrust-united-s...
>This clearly surprises you. It is indeed shocking: that's how far the USA has fallen, globally, in only a year or so.
No, I'm the one who brought up this topic of how Europeans have an increasing unpopular opinion about the US. How is this surprising to me? I literally brought it up. The reason I don't consider East Asia relevant, is because East Asia and Europe do not have the same existential issues. East Asia's dependency on the US is far greater than Europe, and from East Asia's political point of view, Europe may as well not exist at all. Its primary political relations are with the US, SEA, and China. European sentiment about the US holds no relevance there, as it is not Europe, and they are not Europeans. This may surprise you, but the world does not revolve around European sentiment.
> No, I'm the one who brought up this topic of how Europeans have an increasing unpopular opinion about the US
This may surprise you, but the world does not revolve around European sentiment. It should be no surprise, however, that a significant sample (Europe) of a population (the world) has a similar mean to that same population. And that's precisely what we see here: European trust in the USA is eroding, just like East Asia's trust in the USA is eroding, just like global trust in the USA is eroding.
> East Asia's dependency on the US is far greater than Europe
And yet, they still have lost trust in the US. Let that sink in.
> if there's anti-US sentiment in Taiwan
There is!
> it would be in a minority
It isn't!
> their nation's existence hinges on positive US sentiment
Their nation's existence actually hinges on the daily positive vibes of one greedy senile narcissist, which is part of why they have lost trust in the USA.
The world, including both Europe and East Asia, has an increasingly unpopular opinion about the USA. Are you simply observing that the common European sentiment over the last year (negative) reflects the common global sentiment over the last year (negative), or was there a deeper point?
> Europeans are typically not willing to place the US above China.
You keep saying this as if it's not a totally reasonable position given the behavior of the USA towards others over the past year or so.
The other poster mentioned the opinions about the US and China being multi-faceted, I like to see it with vectors. My question is, given all the vectors, can you provide an average magnitude and average direction of the vector? If the average vector points left the opinion favors China, if it points right the opinion favors the US.
The American point of view is, yes we did make a claim towards Greenland which is European territory, but we also helped with European security. These are two separate vectors, right? Now average them. And plot China's vectors. I imagine the vectors China produces is much lower in magnitude, and as such provokes a lower emotional response in terms of opinions.
> My question is, given all the vectors, can you provide an average magnitude and average direction of the vector?
It's an interesting question! Since you seem to have your finger on the pulse of Europeans, I'll toss it back your way to answer (with data, of course).
> yes we did make a claim towards Greenland which is European territory, but we also helped with European security.
"Yes, we did threaten to invade a sovereign European country for territorial conquest, but we also did good things in the past" is really weak. How has the US helped Europe's security over the last year?
Most of the work in that direction over several decades is being intentionally destroyed as of late by the USA's ruler as a signature policy position of his. We all understand that past performance is not a guarantee of future results, right? What happened recently outweighs what happened previously.
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> suddenly we are more an enemy than China
That’s a straw man. Nobody argued that before you mentioned it.
This is absurdist Russian disinfo. If you're not Russian, your information sources are poisoned.
Does this mean the person I'm responding to is a Russian disinfo agent?
I make a distinction between the US and the Biden and Trump administrations. Biden was incompetent and timid, Trump is a greedy megalomaniac. The key problem is that the US system elected either of them. Both have savaged US interests in the name of putting America first, while actually acting for small vested interests, like cronies and the Israel lobby.
Pretending America has been a strong ally is foolish. The Biden policy yo-yo has resulted in thousands of dead Ukrainians, while Trump has actively sided with Russia in negotiations and cut off meaningful aid. But Ukraine is now essential for NATO security. It is fortunate they see EU membership as their future, because a Russia or China aligned Ukraine would be a huge problem.
America did not just "took break". It actively took Russian side in negotiations trying to make all the Russian wishes to happen. And now, after Europe bought missiles for Ukraine, USA is sending them to Iran despite them already being paid. And is easing sanctions on Russia.
Also, threatening Greenland was not just "taking a break". Lying about what allies did in Iraq and Afghanistan was not just "taking a break". Insulting Europe, quite grossly, was not just "taking a break". And tariffs were not just "taking a break" either.
For that matter, trying to make Europe more fascists is not "taking a break", it is "meddling in".
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I think there's very little to be learned from Ukrainian technology. They dont have unprecedented servos, software, or manufacturing.
What they have is a dire situation that drives efficient and pragmatic proucurement. This is much harder to export.
They have a working operational system and battle tested tactics, not only procurement. It's not the rifle that distinguishes the special forces, but how it's used.
They built a network centric warefare with starlink and cheap android tablets down to the drone teams in the field.
They built a network of cheap acousting sensors (old phones) as passive sensors and using ML models to find the drones cheaply and increase the coverage. (Radars are expensive and easy to hit because they emit).
What they achieved is a "sensor fusion like" distributed system buid on cheap components and updated realtime. And all this is battle tested in the new environment of transparent battlefield (there is always a drone looking).
Also a lot of real-life electronic warfare stuff and drone applications.
This is what's missing in the US army. They are optimized for a symetrical 20th century warfare.
UKR = entire country of +40m is on the battlefront so they can do total war mobilized homefront distributed system... so can Iran. But it's very different for force projecting security guarantor US - can't convince paying protectorates to pivot total war defense posture in peacetime, that's what they bribe US not to do.
And ultimately whatever model of distributed lethality / survivability (which US planning foresaw) is less relevant that US global commitments requires high end hardware that has to be rotated / propositioned selectively, and sustainable only in limited numbers vs adversaries mobilized on total war.
But the fundamental problem is US adversaries are catching up on precision strike complex. Iran isn't asymmetric warfare, but restoration of symmetry. It's not so much US getting weaker as adversaries getting stronger, and without monopoly over mass precision strike (which naval / air superiority / supremacy is only delivery platform), US expeditionary mode simply on the losing side of many local attrition scenarios. Ultimately all US adversaries will gain commoditized local precision strike (even deadlier if bundled with high end ISR), at varying scales due to proliferation requiring persistence across global theatres US simply doesn't have numbers/logistics for.
TLDR: US expeditionary model is bunch of goons with rifles in trucks, driving around neighbourhood where everyone had knives that could not get in range. The second everyone else buys guns, then rifles, the expeditionary model breaks.
That is all orthogonal to my point. It is fit for purpose and effective, but isn't cold fusion.
US manufacturers dont make cheap effective solutions because there is little profit in it when they can upsell expensive options.
The US has little motivation to optimize.
> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.
That is happening, only with "EU" not "America". Because the EU are Ukraine's allies.
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-to-open-10-weapons-expor...
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-to-open-arms-factory...
https://euobserver.com/209049/eu-signs-off-on-e260m-grant-fo...
As for the US being Ukrainian allies as compared to EU, well: https://kyivindependent.com/us-military-aid-to-ukraine-dropp...
I think the majority of Americans are on Ukraine's side but of course the president has other ideas. The UK has some Ukranian drone manufacturing going on https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0dvjwygk1o
> I think the majority of Americans are on Ukraine's side but of course the president has other ideas.
I think that it's understood that when we use shorthand such as "US is not supporting Ukraine" that it is the respective governments that we are discussing. The point about the "majority of Americans" is true enough (though you might say that the majority of Americans care about the price of gasoline and groceries and little else politically) but it is rather irrelevant if the administration does the opposite.
In other words, "thoughts and prayers from people" is not enough to make you an ally. Money and policy is the real thing.
Yeah though most of the US government excluding Trump is pro Ukraine. Biden at least gave some weapons and Lindsey Graham pushed a tough sanctions package which was working quite well until stopped due to the Iran invasion.
> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.
But Putin would not like that! /s
>We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.
The soviet union collapsed as a result of military overspending and massive supply chain corruption in an attempt to keep up with an opponent with lower levels of corruption and a far more powerful industrial base.
Which is to say, inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons while showering them with cash would signal that that Christmas came early for Putin.
Reality of course is the other way around: the US defense industry gets to build gold toilets (for the White House ballroom built on the ruins of the East Wing), while the Ukranians absolutely must build stuff that works and is cheap or they get a missile on their heads.
The US survived spending a trillion dollars to achieve very little in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm sure they'll survive spending another trillion over a decade to achieve nothing in Iran other than hundreds of thousands dead.
The reality is that most of the Ukrainian leadership is like Timur Mindich - furiously stashing away cash for the day when they inevitably have to flee to the west like he did. For now they are generally safe in Ukraine as Russia avoids bombing leadership centers for strategic reasons.
The west tolerates nearly all of the corruption in Ukraine but keeps tight control of two political organs in Ukraine - NABU and SAPO.
These "anti corruption agencies" will mostly hear and see no evil until a politican in Ukraine deviates from western foreign policy goals. Then they "discover" how corrupt this one individual turned out to be and crack down on them until everybody is once again on the same page.
Twice they have threatened Zelensky (once when he tried to bring the agencies under his direct control) and twice he has backed down.
Leaders being corrupt is not a great reason to let a country get steamrolled by the russian war machine
It's not about steamrolling, never was. The whole point of the exercise was to install a puppet government. In Ukraine, the TV actor installed by the Biden administration is currently the acting president. The moment funding runs out - so will he.
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Being steamrolled requires Russia have the logistics to drive a steamroller more than a hundred yards. There is a reason it was intended to be a three day war.
Bombing a school is unconscionable but its a shadow of Russia's crimes in Ukraine.
It has been inevitable for more that three years, I'm sure you'll be proven right any day now!
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Surely, Ukraine being such an awefully corrupt country, Putin was easily able to bribe his way to Kyiv and take it in three short days. Oh, wait... maybe someone is spewing russian propaganda here?
What do you mean "achieve very little"? A lot of American oligarchs made boatloads of money!
> inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons
Ukraine is a massive weapons manufacturer. It's a small country holding Russia's entire military-industrial complex at bay. We have a lot to learn from them, even if it's just tactics and industrial organisation. And those lessons don't only apply to fighting pisspot dictatorships like Putin's.
What would you manufacture at scale that would open the straits?
If you had an interceptor with a 99% rate of interception (even in such a tight space, and assuming it could intercept underwater as effectively as in air) then if the Iranians fired 50 drones at a ship, they’d have a about a 40% chance of getting at least 1 through (1 - 0.99^50).
So they would likely sink 4 in every 10. No sane insurer let alone captain or crew would take such a risk I think.
This is the issue with interceptors, you need phenomenally high reliability AND very large numbers AND very cheap prices per unit to make them workable.
As it is, I would argue this is a classic example of America trying to solve a POLITICAL problem with MILITARY force. This has never actually succeeded as far as I know. Certainly not on the last few decades.
is china helping ukraine also? The real "force multiplier" is basically the same as it was 100 years ago: fancy advanced tech works great to clear large, unoccupied spaces with no terrain costs; it still won't go into a jungle, climbmountains or fight in the streats.
Whats compounding existing reality, is how cheap it is to use commercial tech from any of these manufacturing hubs, china included, and turn it into a small but persistent offensive weapon.
So now Americas got billions of dollars worth of ammo up agains millions of dollars worth of fodder, and that won't clear the way to controlling a large, well defended plot of land.
America's leaders are drunk and high on their own propaganda, even while Ukraine has demonstrated just how useless the old, bulky and costly tech is.
My theory is that China is playing wait-and-see. Likely futures:
Russia survives; business as usual, if much poorer. China doesn't want to poison that relationship.
Russia falls; China helpfully "adopts" the orphaned Asian lands.
Iran falls; turmoil follows; the USA as usual (since WWII) has no plans for afterwards. Do nothing until opportunity presents itself.
Iran survives; the US falters; wait and benefit from the opening that creates.
I can't see a path where China picking sides in UKR/RUS nor USA/IRAN benefits China at all.
As someone says, don’t interrupt a rival when they are making a mistake. China can gain quite a lot by just waiting on the side lines, contributing as much as they can get away with while still looking reasonable (which is quite easy, when the other protagonists are Putin, Trump, or Khamenei jr).
not sure if anybody notices, after the war, russia opens a lot of markets to chinese companys.
China has been cutting off Ukraine from direct drone supplies, they have to use front companies and middlemen.
Irrespective of the political leadership, it's unlikely that USA military is completely oblivious about the new modes of wars - cheap drones, AI, rapid build-outs (e.g. in China). On the contrary, they are likely deeply aware of it. That being said, it is also likely true that USA has become more bureaucratic and there is a high chance of deer-in-headlights situation. USA remains the shining city on the hill, though probably not for long, unless we pull up socks and innovate, work, work, work and build, build and build.
There's no shortage of national security and military analysis talent in the US. There is a gigantic shortage of intestinal fortitude in the politicians.
The Army tried reducing the sizeof their tank force, and had to back down after screams from Congress because it would have meant job losses in some representative's district. The US poured money into the strike fighter and littoral ship projects, despite the brass telling them it was the wrong approach. And so on. (I suspect this is one reason why Anduril have been successful, since they have fewer sacred cows that must be fed.)
Now we are in a timeline where the top brass are being ejected unless they toe the Party line. I am not optimistic that this will lead to better outcomes in terms of our ability to win against adversaries.
Ultimately, it's an internal battle. A battle of bureaucracy+ignorance vs democracy+optimism+innovation. The side that weighs more wins. And the adversaries are hoping it's the former.
Sorry, are you suggesting that the US top brass wants less of something, but the politicians won't let them? That the US top brass would reform and modernize the military if only politicians wouldn't get in the way? Is this April Fools?
No,I'm not suggesting that at all. Some of the brass love spending the taxpayers money on new toys. I'm saying that one control mechanism for them not being able to do that, namely, an effective Congress, is totally AWOL and captured in that regard. And re: the policy/planning types that work with them, the good ones have been defenestrated in the last 15 months or are not in a position to do anything like their best work if there is any risk it will differ from the administration's preconceived worldview.
The USA military is losing equipment sitting unprotected on the tarmac 4 years since Russia invaded Ukraine. Your shining city is a polished turd.
> unless we pull up socks and innovate, work, work, work and build, build and build.
These days I usually just get AI to do it!
Much more innovative, much more efficient!
Its A LOT EASIER to project machismo manliness than it is to actually carry it out.
> cheap drones, AI, rapid build-outs
Yet the USA military pay $10,000 for the toilet seat on a cargo plane.
> unless we pull up socks and innovate, work, work, work and build, build and build.
So you can find new way to terrorise the world? Right attitude but wrong application.
Brightest minds of US were too focused on displaying ads and making teenagers addicted to tik tokies-like stuff instead of working security, defense, etc
You couldve seen anti militsry industry sentiment on HN for years, which apparently worked for US adversaries, who knows who was behind that propaganda :)
Inb4: im from eu
The US no longer uses its army for defense. Nobody in their immediate region dares attack them, they're too powerful ("Godzilla", in the words of John Mearsheimer). All the wars that the US has fought since WWII are nothing to do with defense. Just look at the Wikipedia article on "power projection":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_projection
The leader image is ... a US aircraft carrier (the USS Nimitz). That's what the US uses its military power for, to influence events in lands far, far away from its territory.
But, now, tell me which one of the many wars that the US has fought in after WWII did not end in disaster. Afghanistan? Iraq? Korea?
There was a meme doing the rounds the other day: "Name a character who can defeat Captain America". The answer being "Captain Vietnam". The US has faced humiliating defeat after humiliating defeat while bringing death and destruction and immeasurable misery to millions around the world.
That is what HN users seem to have an "anti" sentiment for. If you watch the news you'll be able to tell that this goes far beyond HN. The whole of US society seems to be extremely tired with those "forever wars", those senseless excursions to faraway lands, that not only do not secure US interests but turn world opinion more and more against the US. Even the US' closest allies now fear the US: vide Greenland. Anyone with more than a video game or comic book understanding of how the real world works would do well to be concerned.
Edit: also from EU, btw. Greek but living in the UK.
>The whole of US society seems to be extremely tired with those "forever wars",
This is the main thing I would disagree with, as an American who rubs elbows with conservatives quite a bit.
A large amount of Republican and conservative Americans want war. They're primed for a war they haven't had this generation. There are a lot of relatively young conservatives who are eager for war. A weird number of Republicans don't think we lost Iraq or Afghanistan, or a few other wars, so they aren't tired of it yet.
Like 15-25% of Americans also believe in some form of the end times prophecy involving Israel. I'm not kidding about this. The number really is that high. A lot might not openly state that they believe in it, but they were raised under a religious teaching that says it will happen. Hegseth, literally, has a crusades tattoo and openly talks about eradicating Muslims on his weekly or monthly sermon.
But yes a majority of americans, like 60%, are extremely tired of ongoing wars. But I can also drive to towns in the western US where trump still has majority support and they will openly say they support the Iran war. America is really polarized and a lot of conservatives only talk about this stuff to family now.
I grew up super rural and have to deal/work with very religious conservative Americans often enough. There are a lot more of them than people think. They've just learned to self-segregate and keep to themselves and say things a certain way.
Yeah, I’m sure you are giving a very charitable interpretation of those conservatives. As far as you talking about a percentage of Americans “believing in some kind of end times,” do you have that same derision for Arabs that the Quran is true? I imagine not. There is a much a higher percentage there. It’s so ironic the condescension leftists have for Christians but not for more Muslims.
As an American, I think a better metric for outcomes of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq is: were we trading with the before the war and are we trading with them one generation after the war? The same is even true of WWII, a more important marker afterward is that we spent the rest of the 20th century trading prosperously with Japan and Germany.
Korea: the south became an economic powerhouse with whom we now trade for critical computer components and is a generally reliable ally in the region.
Vietnam: we now trade with them happily and enjoy generally productive relations, largely because they fought us for less than two decades but fought China for centuries and centuries.
Iraq: we aren't yet a generation past, but the government they have now is better than what they had under Saddam Hussein, even if it was almost immediately subverted by Iran. And jury is out on Iran because that hot war just started.
Afghanistan: we aren't yet a generation past, but very likely the most clear failure in this list. I remember thinking in high school (during the active phase of the war): "if we actually want to make a difference, we'd have to stay a century or more, and we don't have the will to do that the way the British or Russians tried to, and even they ultimately failed to make any local changes."
Europeans also need to realize that everyday Americans don't actually care about Europe very much and never truly have. It took the Lusitania to get us into World War I, Pearl Harbor (and Hitler's declaration of war) to get us into World War II, and the credible threat of the Soviet Union to keep us in Europe for decades after the war. The husk of Russia at the center of the Soviet skeleton isn't a credible threat to America, and the American reversion to the mean of isolationism began as the Cold War ended. That reversion completed sometime between 2010 and 2015. There is a new credible threat, but that is China, and even to well informed Americans Europe is slipping from their attention.
Most people in Trump's government probably don't care that much about reopening Hormuz quickly. Gas prices are only truly spiking in U.S. states where local environmental regulations have obstructed access to domestic and regional supply, and the largest of those states (i.e. California, New York) have broken against Republicans in every Presidential election (9 of them in a row) since the end of the Cold War.
> As an American, I think a better metric for outcomes of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq is: were we trading with the before the war and are we trading with them one generation after the war?
At least you're honest. Personally I can't believe someone would think it's OK to invade someone else's county and massacre civilians on the scale of Vietnam or Korea in order to establish profitable trading relations.
It’s easy when you worship money and consider people of other races or cultures as less than human. Not that I am advocating for this view of course but a lot of Americans do even if they won’t admit it.
And what do people from Arab countries think of non-Muslims? This passe anti-Americanism on here is so boring.
> Personally I can't believe someone would think it's OK to invade someone else's county and massacre civilians on the scale of Vietnam or Korea in order to establish profitable trading relations.
Strange. I don't remember writing that trading relations afterward justify the initiation of a war. Instead, I only remember writing that it is a better metric to assess the outcomes.
It's stranger still that you read these things between the lines, when my comment specifically includes a recollection of my own disquiet with the Afghanistan War, probably the most justified war of the four enumerated, that I felt while the war was happening.
Interesting idea. You are missing Cuba from that list. There was not a war but we haven't reestablished commerce with them.
American reaction to the Cuban Revolution was deeply incompetent. The Bay of Pigs is up there with the Iran Hostage Crisis and the withdrawal from Afghanistan (and specifically from Bagram) in the list of stunning foreign policy blunders of the last hundred years.
We still don't trade with Cuba, and that is a clear sign of ongoing foreign policy failure. But who knows, in a year's time we may be trading with Cuba again. We're trading with Venezuela now.
> Vietnam: we now trade with them happily and enjoy generally productive relations
Yes, but .. what was the actual objective again?
Nominally, stopping the spread of communism in Asia. Actually, stopping the spread of Chinese and Russian influence in Asia.
Our politicians did then and do now frequently miss the trees for the forest when assessing foreign crises (and I'm inverting that saying deliberately). Ho Chi Min was a nationalist first and a communist second, but all our leaders could see was a monolithic, global communist bloc. In fairness to them, hindsight is 20/20 and the Sino-Soviet split wasn't obvious to outsiders until the late 60s or early 70s.
Consider the cost on local civilians of the Vietnam and Iraq wars (the GWB war likely killed more Iraqi civilians that Hussein did in 24 years). And the literal trillions of dollar these wars costed. And the real possibility that regime change could have occurred anyway by less horrific means. Are you getting at a tiny silver lining or do you actually think these wars were remotely a good idea?
> Are you getting at a tiny silver lining or do you actually think these wars were remotely a good idea?
I'm getting at outcomes, whether or not a war is a good idea in the first place. War is never a good choice, IMO, but can sometimes be a necessary choice or an inevitability.
It's perfectly reasonable to point out that a war initiated for the wrong reasons had good (or some good) outcomes, or that a war initiated for the right reasons had bad (or some bad) outcomes. And that all war is ultimately terrible.
Our own Civil War was initiated for the right reasons and yet it became the bloodiest war in our history. More Americans died during our Civil War than during all our other wars put together, and Britain was able to end slavery across their whole empire without any war at all, though at great national expense (continuing payments until 2015 or so) and with some bloodshed on the seas.
To be fair, it was bright Chinese minds at ByteDance which worked on getting US teenagers addicted to TikTok videos.
Meta, Google did their parts too
I prefer having those minds focused on optimizing ad serving than on optimizing school bombings.
That tragedy of the Maven targeting system is very much something that could have been optimized away, so no! Ad-servers optimizing minds could have been better employed on that project. (nothing to do with Java's Maven, look it up) Someone told me: "Think! Who were these girls' parents..." and that's BS it was really a big senseless mistake, now we're clearly in Vendettastan
I meant intercepting missiles, drones, etc
Having those minds eliminate targeting mistakes wouldn't make a difference?
Sure, "mistakes"
This has definitely nothing to do with the subject at hand.
US Forces and Defence Complex have most of the talent they need.
Even with prevailing capabilities in many areas, it's not possible to do most things. Armies are not 'magic' - we're lulled into a false sense of understanding of capabilities by focusing to much on 'special forces' and other kinds of operations.
If you have an innovative idea, it's fairly easy to sell to the public, and extremely difficult to sell to the Pentagon.
People are just making the obvious choice most of the time. Why risk your business success unnecessarily?
> You couldve seen anti militsry industry sentiment on HN for years, which apparently worked for US adversaries, who knows who was behind that propaganda
Me.
What makes you think what the US, most probably at the behest of occupiers of Palestine, is going to do wonders for sentiment of the general public towards the US military industry? The anti-military sentiment is justified and will probably grow as more people wake up to the terrorising and dual faced nature of the US.
The brightest minds were systematically bullied out of position, called DEI hires or accused of random crimes.
They might not have been the best, but lets not pretend we're sending our brightest minds herw.
The brightest minds were systematically bullied out of position, called racists/transphobes or accused of random crimes.
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What are you talking about? Better missiles dont stop Iran from closing a tiny waterway in their border.
US weapons are pretty damn good for the most part. But trade protection is just not something fancy advanced weapons can solve.
Military planners have known this for a long time.
If anything, if you were serious you would say that the US didnt pay enough tradesmen and technician to build enough of the needed weapons.
Would those "brightest minds" want to work for the current US government? Even if they did out of patriotism to the country, the Trump administration would have pushed them out by now and replaced with yes-men.
The pay levels seem more of an inherent problem than the political winds.
The people I know leaving that sector have been steadily leaving for years due to the day to day bullshit/internal politics and poor leadership that they have to put up with, not the pay nor current administration.
Right but if you're a lifelong gov worker you are probably used to the pay, and it's hard to switch from gov work to startups or big tech (at least, I would see it as a thing to question). Whereas the GGP talks about people switching from the private sector (adtech, etc.) to public.
The first thing they are going to see is the salary and run a mile. That's partly why Palantir 'works'; they pay tech salaries and have a tech culture, but do gov work. Booz Allen et al were less advanced prototypes of that as well.
I know people who have switched to gov work despite the pay. Then they left due to the bullshit, without anything lined up.
They also didn't work under Biden and Obama.
> im from eu
Yeah, the ultimate place of military preparedness.
It's not "look I'm doing better than you," it's "please don't repeat our mistakes."
Not every war can be fought from air, there needs to be soldiers on the ground.
In fight against ISIS, the Iraqi amry, Shia Militias, Kurds and others were ground forces while Allies were in Air. In Afghanistan & Gulf War, US forces were on ground.
But in these "conflict", no party is ready to send ground forces, ground forces to stop the air drones, ship drones etc. So the "blockade" will probably continue.
There is no party even capable of doing it.
The Gulf coastline is almost 1000 miles long, there would have to be a gigantic occupation of an area the size of a small country, at the same time as there would be 'all out war' with Iran, which would be backed by China and to a lesser extent Russia, and whereupon an invasion would provide them with millions of determined fighters.
We're talking 'Gulf War' scale of operation against a much bigger, more capable country, and of forces willing to fight.
And the US doesn't even have anywhere to do it from.
Assuming a Gulf country would host an invasion force - extremely unlikely - there's no magical way for US to cross the Gulf with large numbers of forces, as we can't get capitol ships in there in the first place.
There's no amphibious capability at the scale necessary on the Arabian Sea.
Literally just the logistics of large scale landings is almost impossible.
That leaves the Kuwait / Iran border, and maybe something a bit wider.
And then fight through the mountains across the Gulf?
The thought is absurd, it's a 'major campaign theatre' - of which US forces were theoretically capable of fighting in two at once, but that's not pragmatic. That's 'wartime economy' kind of thing.
It's possible but unlikely that 10K marines and paratroopers are going to be able to do much, because it's very risky and likely won't accomplish much.
> The Gulf coastline is almost 1000 miles long, there would have to be a gigantic occupation of an area the size of a small country
If you want to secure even 5 miles inland over 1000 miles, that's 50,000 square miles, or an area bigger than more than half the countries on earth, including North and South Korea,
Iran is the 18th largest country in the world
> If you want to secure even 5 miles inland over 1000 miles, that's 50,000 square miles
If you want to secure the entire Strait, sure. My understanding is you'd only seek to hold the area around the Musandam Peninsula, along with a couple of the islands near it.
The entire gulf is at risk. Iran can interdict and cause problems from almost anywhere.
Granted it may not have to be 'the whole thing' but something like it.
> entire gulf is at risk. Iran can interdict and cause problems from almost anywhere
Sure, but its effect is far more dilute. In the Strait–in particular, around the Musandam Peninsula–it has unique geostrategic leverage.
'matsup' is correct.
Iran only needs to score 'one point' to win the whole game.
If they can threaten tankers, then the gulf will remain closed, and that's that.
It's really debatable if the US really has the capability to play 'whack a mole' and get all the moles.
However dilute the effect is, if they are able to hit a few gas/oil carriers with drones there, nobody is going to use that body of water.
> if they are able to hit a few gas/oil carriers with drones there, nobody is going to use that body of water
It’s a lot more feasible to escort tankers after the Strait than it is before, when American warships have to come close to shore. Iran doesn’t have the resources to deny access to the entire Indian Ocean.
> Iran doesn’t have the resources to deny access to the entire Indian Ocean.
I have what may be a scale issue in my imagination, so bear with me if this is silly.
There are reports of international drug transport via seaborne drones in the 0.5-5 tonne range, and of these crossing the Pacific, and the cost of the vehicles is estimated to be around 2-4 million USD each. If drug dealers can do that, surely Iran (and basically everyone with a GDP at least the size of something like Andorra's) should be able to make credible threats to disrupt approximately as much non-military shipping as they want to worldwide?
> if drug dealers can do that, surely Iran (and basically everyone with a GDP at least the size of something like Andorra's) should be able to make credible threats to disrupt approximately as much non-military shipping as they want to worldwide?
Sure. Do you think that means worldwide shipping would shut down?
And the point isn't to take the risk to zero. But to a level where military escorts can feel safe.
> Do you think that means worldwide shipping would shut down?
I think there's a danger of that, at least if countermeasures are not easily available for normal shipping.
Even 1-on-1 rather than 1-v-everyone, there's too many players (not all of them nations) with too many conflicting goals and interests. If Cuba tried to do it, could they credibly threaten to sink all sea-based trade involving the USA? If not Cuba, who would be the smallest nation that could?
And the same applies to Taiwan and China, in both directions, either of which would be fairly dramatic on the world stage, even though China also has land options. Or North Korea putting up an effective anti-shipping blockade against Japan.
> But to a level where military escorts can feel safe.
Are there enough military ships to do the escorting?
> I think there's a danger of that, at least if countermeasures are not easily available
Note that the era of free navigation is recent and short. Countermeasures would certainly emerge. But shipping wouldn’t stop.
> Are there enough military ships to do the escorting?
For critical passage, yes. If Iran is just taking pot shots at any ships anywhere, you basically have to actually blockade it.
The current situation is very dangerous. A global disruption in shipping would lead to an economic crisis that could start WW3 (imo).
Also the US and Europe would be pretty fucked since we depend on it much more.
China could still get resources from russia and is much more self sustained.
Also China and Russia want to break the us hegemony.
> the US and Europe would be pretty fucked since we depend on it much more. China could still get resources from russia and is much more self sustained
America would be fine. We have the Americas and Asia to trade with, and Iran can’t restrict those oceans in any meaningful way.
Europe, the Middle East, Africa and non-China Asia would get screwed.
If drug shippers can make drones cross the Pacific for a few million a time, why can't Iran reach the Pacific shipping lanes?
I think the main limit on them interfering with that shipping would be that China becomes unhappy with them, not that this is infeasible?
(Also, at these prices I don't think it will be limited to Iran, or even to nations, so countermeasures will need to be invented).
? There's really not much discussion of Iran being a problem outside the Gulf.
Iran can control the Gulf and therefore 20% of global carbons.
This is enough to put the world economy into recession.
America is not 'isolated' from the global economy.
US carbon produces don't give smack about the nation generally - they will sell to the highest bidder.
If global Oil prices skyrocket - you will pay that at the pump.
US is net carbon exporter, but there is trade - the refineries in the south are designed for heavy crude from Venezuela and Canada etc.
Yes, some national policies could alter a bit, but only in emergency, and the current Administration does not give a * about national issues, other than populist blowback. They will prefer their oil buddies by default, but with a lot of leaway for 'gas prices' causing voting problems.
US companies sell abroad, a global recession affects everything.
Just google OPEC crisis - you can see what high oil prices do, they screw everything up.
There's 100% chance of global recession if Gulf stays closed.
Given the 'leverage' in US market that can come way down. US GDP is currently held up with AI spending - if that math falters, that AI investment slows down, the US drops into recession, that causes flight from equities etc etc.
I don't think we need to speculate about anything outside of the Gulf.
It's bad, it needs to be resolved.
You see this calamity in the daily statements from WH - they are 'in out in out in out' in the same day they say 'witdhdraw' and then 'we must open the strait'.
They meant the Gulf. You cross the straight into the Gulf, then what?
Iran hit an E-3's antenna in an airport in Riyadh with a precision strike. Was it not worth defending?
How many tankers inside the Gulf do they need to hit before the rest of the world decides it's a bad idea to send new tankers to the Gulf?
And if new tankers don't go into the Gulf, then it's simply not open for business. That's their leverage.
And then what? Find any insurance company that is willing to insure your ship while it tries to travel the Strait. Or the gulf. Twice for each cargo.
Wow, amazing perspective on proportionality there.
And this was all known for decades. Now everyone pays the price for the US leadership surrounding themselves with spineless yes-men.
At some point, there's going to be a dumbenough general to try to paratrooper their way in. They've spent the past year trying to cull "dysloyal" troops, so at some point, the delusion will surface is an absurdly dumb attempt.
Hard to see it any other way.
US forces are not partisan and not culled, they're mostly the same entity they were last year, but with a few Generals asked to retire.
(Edit: highly professional I might add. There are quirks, and obvious hints of 'nationalist bias' - but that's to be expected. They are not the 'cultural problem' we see on the news - at least not for now. They lean 'normal')
The current Joint Chiefs is a bit obsequious but he's not crazy.
These are very sane people, for the most part.
They may be pressed to do something risky, like land troops at Kharg island, but not completely suicidal.
That 'risk' may entail getting a number of soldiers captured, but that's not on the extreme side of military failure, it's mostly geopolitical failure. It would certainly end DJT as a popular movement.
Having a ship hit, or a few soldiers captured - and this sounds morose - is normal. That's why they exist. It's the political fallout that's deadly.
They won't do anything to crazy. The craziest thing they could do is 'full invasion' and Congress won't allow that. It's very unpopular and DJT has populist instinct as well - he's trying to 'find a way out'.
> They won't do anything to crazy.
I don't know, they've been talking up a lot of crazy stuff, like strikes on desalination facilities and the power grid.
> The craziest thing they could do is 'full invasion' and Congress won't allow that.
Genuninely unclear to me whether Congress has control here; don't they currently have a Republican majority who will agree to anything anyway?
- So I meant militarily. Yes - you're right, they could totally do something as stupid as attack civilian infrastructure. I totally buy that.
- Congress is in charge. First - they need budget, and the GOP majority has zero appetiate for approving this.
Remember that most of the GOP dislike Trump, and they also don't like this war, it's risky to the US - and - their own jobs.
So the GOP finds ways to 'resit' Trump without sticking their neck out. They do this collectively by grumbling and not passing legislation.
The majority leaders tell Trump 'We just don't have the votes for it!' thereby not taking a position against Trump, more or less 'blaming the ghosts in the party' kind of thing.
That's very different than passing legislation that reels Trump in, that's 'active defiance'.
So by 'passive defiance' and not approving $, the majority holds the Admin back.
Remember that nobody wants this, not the VP, not Rubio. Hegseth is a 'TV Entertainer'. The Defence Establishment and Intelligence Establishment knows this is stupid. 80% of Congress wants it over now.
If DJT has 65% poularity and 75% for the war, the equation would tilt, but as it stands, there is not enough political momentum.
But anything could happen ...
The death or capture of US soldiers could strongly evoke people to move one way or the other.
Theyre culling all branches for loyalty. You arnt paying attention or you thinl those who arnt being promoted are more DEI.
THE rest of your screed follows from inattentive disorder.
I'm a former service member (of another country) and I have family members in the US forces.
I'm paying relatively close attention.
Just FYI, US forces are enormous, and with a very long and institutionalized history, and it would take at least decade to tilt them in such a manner, moreover, it's not even happening in the way you're insinuating.
Removing certain DEI polices will have a very marginal affect on anything but senior officer promotions, as US forces are very meritocratic in most ways already.
Removing transgender personnel etc. is arguably unfair in many ways - but will have absolutely zero effect on those institutions overall. None.
Nobody is getting 'retired' for not being sufficiently MAGA, other than a few select positions in Washington.
Your comment is uninformed and unwelcome; you'll have to do a bit better than consume Reddit in order to gain actual knowledge and perspective, and save yourself the embarrassment.
Military does as the Civilian leadership orders them to, there is no other way in the west, and if the civilian leadership demands that they want an ground invasion, then they'll get one, even if it's the most moronic waste of human life in the world.
It's true that 'civilians are in charge' but it would be an oversimplification to suggest that the military will just 'do what they are asked'.
Civilian leadership takes a few forms, there is a division between the powers of Executive and Congress. The military won't pursue anything long term without the backing of both.
There are a lot of legal thresholds, Congressional approval being just one of them.
There is institutional incumbency, and the military will push back extremely hard on things that it deems impossible, or excessively risky.
Populism etc. etc..
There are so many factors.
If they want to mount a risky 500 000 person invasion of Iran, they'll have to do a lot of 'convincing' and get a lot of buy in from stake holders. There is no chance that the Executive count mount that kind of operation without a lot of institutional buy in.
> the "blockade" will probably continue
The part that makes the Strait weird is no belligerent wants it entirely closed. (Maybe Israel.) Iran wants to export. And America wants exports. So you get this weird stalemate where America doesn’t want to actually blockade Iran, while Iran seems to do just enough to keep America from actually shutting the Strait.
America isn't getting exports from Iran, until recently they were sanctioned. More of a problem is that the biggest buyer of Iranian oil is China. I don't think that getting out of the war with Iran by starting a war with China would be an improvement.
> America isn't getting exports from Iran
Single market. Every barrel China buys from Iran is a barrel it doesn’t scour the global markets for.
> getting out of the war with Iran by starting a war with China
China isn’t getting into a war with America over the Strait.
> Single market.
Not really, they were getting discounted oil prices previously that they are no longer able to get.
Also, they are a large importer of oil compared to the US, which is an exporter. They have much more to lose from high oil prices than we do.
> America isn't getting exports from Iran
Single market. Every barrel China buys from Iran is a barrel it doesn’t scour the global markets for.
> while Iran seems to do just enough to keep America from actually shutting the Strait.
Uhm, why would America shut the strait?
> why would America shut the strait?
To deny Iran oil revenue.
[dead]
There was an article somewhere a few days ago, where the author raised the question: Why buy tanks in a world of drone warfare. Something like that. I see this as much the same "problem". Drones can't really take or hold territory, they can only deny access to it. At some point you need people and armoured vehicles on the ground.
The US is facing the same issue in Iran. You can bomb all you like, but a bomber, like a drone, can't hold land. Iran can launch drones and missiles towards the Strait of Hormuz from the entire country, denying anyone access, but also without being able to hold it.
Because they went in without a plan, or even a goal really, the US administration denied itself, and everyone else, access to the strait. The military leadership probably knew this. If not they could have asked Ukraine if this was a sound idea, given their knowledge and experience with Iranian drone technology.
In the movie Thirteen Days, JFK mentions a book titled March of Folly by Barbara Tuchmann. I bought the book on that tip and it has an interesting chapter on Vietnam. I don't think adding a chapter on this "special operation" would even be worth it as it would just be repetitive.
How does that book fit in the timeline? It was published in 1984.
I believe they are mixing it up with The Guns of August (published in 1962, also by Tuchman), which JFK was fond of and supposedly drew on during the Cuban missile crisis.
You are absolutely right. My mistake. I read them both and certainly recommend them.
Thank you. I heard about The Guns of August when I was looking for related books after reading A World Undone. Then I forgot about it. I never heard of March of Folly but I'll read them both.
I maintain hope that the US will declare some arbitrary victory condition "Iran's capacity to do XYZ has been critically degraded!" and will unilaterally disengage.
Unfortunately this will almost definitely occur after Israel has included it's invasion of Lebanon and annexed more territory, which is what this whole war seems to be a cover for.
The title should change 'won't' to 'shouldn't'. This administration doesn't do things because of deep understanding, it does them because of gut reaction. The US Military could, at an unknown cost, just blast away.
This article points out, rightfully, how scared we are to put our weapons in harms way because of how expensive they are. I made this argument many times to friends years ago. From a military strategic point of view we should be developing drone/cruise missile carriers (and upping our SSGN capabilities) and abandoning the carrier navy. They are only good for show at port visits and turn useful ships like DDGs into escorts instead of front line assets.
That being said, from a diplomatic strategic point of view, I really like a useless navy full of ships that are good for port visits and not real wars. If you build ships good for real wars you tend to get into wars. If you build ships good for visiting other countries you tend not to go to war with those countries.
The position of the article seems to me to be it 'won't' because it can't. And that is an accurate assessment.
It would take much more than the forces in the region, to secure the "strait". To actually secure the strait, you have to secure the entire Persian Gulf. It doesn't matter if tankers can pass through the strait only to be blown up just of Qatar. At it's widest the Gulf is about 360 kilometers, well within the range of most drones, aerial, surface and underwater. So they would have to protect every ship in the gulf, intercept all the drones all the time, or secure the entire coastline. It's simply a task air-power and naval power can't perform. Not without major casualties and without attacks going through.
The US navies ships are good for real wars, but for casualties to be accepted, there has to be a real purpose. Escorting a bunch of privately owned oil tankers to bring down the price of gas does not really cut it.
> The US navies ships are good for real wars
This is a real war.
More to the point, if your military is only good when enemies attack you the way you want them to, you don't have a good military.
Nowadays it's about efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Sure, 99% of the time a Shahed-136 might "lose" against a Patriot, but a Patriot missile costs 200x what a Shahed does.
Laser and EWar approaches are going to be more successful long-term as the price per "shot" is dramatically less, but deployments are slow.
The US uses APKWS and similar against Shahed-136. These guided missiles are cheaper than the Shahed-136. Why would you assume the US uses Patriot missiles against a Shahed-136? That isn’t part of their doctrine and the flight profile is a poor fit.
These have been operational in the US military for almost 15 years now and are widely deployed in the Middle East. You may want to update your priors. The US military anticipated all of this.
While these are cheaper than the Shahed-136, lasers have the advantage of unlimited magazine depth, so it is obvious why the US would invest in that.
> Why would you assume the US uses Patriot missiles against a Shahed-136?
It's a demonstrable fact they're using them against drones.
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/patriot-missile-invol...
https://www.wsj.com/world/america-downs-cheap-drones-with-mi...
I can't read either of those because they are paywalled but ghe first paragraph of the first one doesn't seem to support your position.
In any case, almost everything i've read is that the majority of drones are shot down with APKWS, with a patriot sometimes used as a last resort if one gets through.
Selected excerpts:
> In the statement, a Bahraini government spokesperson said the [Patriot] missile successfully intercepted an Iranian drone mid-air, saving lives.
> Wars in the Middle East and Ukraine have put a spotlight on how limited supplies of sophisticated missiles—including multimillion-dollar Patriot interceptors—are sometimes being used to defend against mass-produced drones that cost just a few thousand dollars.
> Gulf states are also spending big on the war. Nations including Saudi Arabia have launched multimillion-dollar Patriot interceptors and fired missiles from aircraft to take out Iranian drones.
The E-3 Sentry that got blown up was reportedly hit by drone. I'd guess they wish a Patriot had stopped that one.
> Bahraini
Bahrain is not the usa. There are many reports that gulf states use patriot missiles much more freely than usa does.
> are sometimes being used to defend against mass-produced drones that cost just a few thousand dollars
"Sometimes" being the key word here. I think 1% of the time would technically constitute sometimes and changes the ecconomics considerably.
It should be noted the Shahed-136 drone that was mentioned above cost $100,000, not a couple thousand.
My position is not that it never happens, just that its relatively rare and a bit overblown in the media. Military does need to figure out better solutions, but the status quo is not use a patriot on every drone.
> There are many reports that gulf states use patriot missiles much more freely than usa does.
I've seen the opposite claimed; that the US is surprisingly wasteful with their expensive ammo.
https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/us...
"“Often they [the US and its allies] were firing thoughtlessly,” the officer said. “For example, they used SM-6 missiles — from a ship, a very good anti-missile missile. This missile costs about $6 million, and they used it to shoot down a Shahed costing $70,000.”"
> It should be noted the Shahed-136 drone that was mentioned above cost $100,000, not a couple thousand.
That's the marked-up export cost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136
"various estimates for domestic production cost range from $10,000 to $50,000"
> Sure, 99% of the time a Shahed-136 might "lose" against a Patriot, but a Patriot missile costs 200x what a Shahed does.
From what i understand, i think people use other systems than patriots to shoot down Shaheds except as a last resort. So the cost difference is bad, but its not nearly as bad as it would be if you were using something like a patriot for every drone.
Working electronic counter measures are deployed right now.
Anti air guns work, that includes the 5-inch guns on all warships that can engage the drones at over 10 kilometers.
Laser guided rockets work as well, a single F-16 can carry at least 42 laser guided rockets and the pod it needs for targeting.
Ukraine has been striking down Shaheds with even cheaper drones for several years now.
No reason to use unproven technology when there's a practical means available.
Nonsense. Every military is built to counter certain types of enemies. Nations that win predict correctly, nations that lose predict incorrectly. History is littered with examples.
Pretty sure anyone who fights the US military finds out pretty fast it’s a good military.
It isn’t perfect. It has flaws. War is hard to get right in every dimension.
> Pretty sure anyone who fights the US military finds out pretty fast it’s a good military.
I am not sure about that. Iraq, Afghanistan, to name the new ones and Vietnam to name an old one.
Sure you can take an easy/undisciplined target like Maduro. But many armies in the world can also do that. Another thing that has to be recognized: alternative warfare (ie: terrorism) is a legitimate form of warfare regardless of its morality. You can't, in my opinion, claim military supremacy while not being able to contain these other risks.
Another upcoming one: cyber-warfare.
> Sure you can take an easy/undisciplined target like Maduro.
You think what the US military did there was easy? lol. Lmao, even.
We win battles and lose wars. Haven't won a war since WW2 and arguably Russia would have won without us.
Arguably is an understatement.
Perhaps you're considering only the European theater, but even that would have been significantly more challenging for Russia without the U.S. tying up (and degrading) Axis resources and manpower throughout Europe and elsewhere (e.g. the Pacific). Japan could have very well opened an eastern front for Russia.
And, it was the U.S. that forced a two front war that prevented Germany's fuller focus on Russia's western front (millions fewer troops). Not to mention U.S. logistical and material support to the Soviet Union, which may well have prevented their industrial collapse.
Even with all of this support, the fatality rates for Russia were astronomical. To this day, it boggles my mind that one nation lost ~26 million people in a single war.
Hard to imagine how they would have succeeded without the U.S.
I think that says more about our political leaders than our military.
Politicians choose the war and our military fights the battles. We're very good at winning battles. But some wars can't be won. The problem then lies in their choosing.
I imagine Sisyphus became the best, most effective rock push in the world. Unfortunately despite his talents, the task he was assigned was insoluble.
I generally agree that Americans tend to downplay the impact of Russia in WW2 but there is zero chance Russia would have won the war without the US. Even Lend-Lease going away would have resulted in a loss. Both Stalin and Kruschev agreed there.
The British Commonwealth was the biggest factor in Africa, but it's questionable how quickly they could have won out and taken the Suez without the Americans coming in late in 42, which was critical for both vital supplies like oil and also invading Italy. Japan was already getting bogged down with China and even Burma so they wouldn't have suddenly been free to do much in the European theater but just getting Italy out of the fight and forcing Germany to replace their divisions elsewhere. Italy exiting the war removed 30+ divisions between the Balkans and France, while another 70 Axis divisions were being held down by Allied forces in the Mediterranean during D-Day, with there being 33 Axis divisions in Normandy for D-Day itself. A lack of US involvement also likely means that Germany is able to hold Caucasus for longer (and take more of the oil fields), solving a sizable portion of their oil shortage issues.
With Lend-Lease but no active participation in the war from a military deployment standpoint, the UK and USSR do likely eventually win but at much greater cost and not without risk of losing. Without Lend-Lease it is highly possible that the Axis wins, at least in the European theater. Japan had kind of set themselves up to lose from the start no matter what the US did.
The US military is extremely good at doing specific objectives. All militaries are garbage at changing hearts and minds.
That's what diplomacy is for.
Sure, they will find out it is a good military. No doubt about that. What the US has found out repeatedly but fails to acknowledge is that the opposition proves to be a match. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia have shown just how deep reserves of human resilience and arsenal of guerrilla tactics they have. This doesn't fit the US's mindset about how war is to be waged.
Meanwhile, the American public wants a quick skirmish and a bold "We WON" claim .. it has no appetite for body bags coming home and the price of oil rising.
Which is why if China makes a move on Taiwan, the US can do nothing.
I agree with your statement that human resilience can outlast a better army.
But then you go on to say:
> Which is why if China makes a move on Taiwan, the US can do nothing.
If your opening thesis is true, then it's strange you follow it up with that. Taiwan has just as much a chance of outlasting a stronger competitor as those other countries that resisted US dominance.
And with the US providing them weapons, intelligence, and support, maybe a better chance. See Ukraine.
You are right to some extent. But there are huge differences between all the wars the US has fought and is currently involved in, and a China-Taiwan war.
Taiwan is only a couple of miles from mainland China at its closest point. It is possible to land large numbers of boots on the ground. Next, unlike the US, the Chinese govt is not dependent on the approval of its citizens for waging a war. It exercises complete control of the media, and squelches dissent immediately. AndIt has the largest navy in the world and a relatively modern fleet, and the supply chain is very very short. The US has no leverage over China.
You’re describing all the advantages that Russia in theory had when it invaded Ukraine. That war remains in stalemate.
With US support and the resilience and ingenuity of their people, Ukraine has persisted.
> It is possible to land large numbers of boots on the ground.
I think you need to do more research on how challenging a Taiwan invasion would be. It is nowhere near as simple as “just cross the strait. Put those boots on the ground.”
There is a reason it has not happened. It would be incredibly logistically challenging.
It's not the first time that overwhelming force fails to deliver results for the US when they get bogged down in an asymmetric war. The Korean and Vietnam wars last century still involved air carriers parked off the coast of Korea and Vietnam. But in the end, those wars turned into messy grinds. And even with extensive navy and air support resulted in eventual withdrawal/cease fires on unfavorable terms. Vietnam especially was painful.
Asymmetric war fare against a determined enemy is just hard and it always has been. Cheap drones and missiles are part of wars like that now. You can stash them all over the place and dig in. The Russians learned that the hard way in Afghanistan. As did the British before them. And more recently the US of course. The withdrawal from Afghanistan rivaled that of the one in Vietnam. Complete with chaotic scenes of people desperately trying to get out. That's only a few years ago.
In the Gulf, the Houthis still pose a threat after years of determined efforts to take them out. In the same way, it took the Israeli's very long to neutralize Hamas in Gaza. And that's a few tens of miles away from their capital. Same with Hezbollah on their northern border. In Iraq, IEDs kept grinding away at the US forces long after victory was declared. And that was with massive amounts of boots on the ground and the country fully defeated and occupied.
Iran of course has been supplying weaponry for proxy wars like this for decades. Iran is much bigger than Iraq or Afghanistan and much better prepared for a land/guerilla war on their own territory. The country was built on asymmetric warfare like this and has had decades to prepare and dig in and lots of experience via the various proxy wars I mentioned. The unfortunate reality is that that straight is only going to open when Iran decides that is in their interest.
Sure, but keeping the straight open is not really important, sure gas, fertilizers and a few other commodities are going to get more expensive, but there is no need to put thousands of sailors in harms way.
The US navy ships, in this war have performed admirably, they have performed over 850 tomahawk strikes, and navy airplanes have performed thousands of sorties. And have had no casualties due to enemy action. I can't imagine a way they could have performed better.
If I were on the JTF staff I would point out that those are measures of performance, but not measures of effectiveness. The proof of utility is achieving the mission. That is not to take away from the sailors, or military members in navy or any branch. I wouldn't want to be out there right now. They are doing hard things. But the things they are doing aren't achieving the commander's objectives. I will concede that our objectives in this campaign have been less than clear or well thought out, but there is a truth to the idea that we have built our military for a different war than this. million dollar tlams fed by decade old targeting information and all decisions centralized in a slow, unreactive and ultimately counterproductive joint targeting cycle won't win this.
I mean, you can't blame them. It's not like there was any recent precedent for a large thundering superpower to start a conflict (not a "war", of course)--under the assumption that a quick decapitation strike would end things in a few days--with an underestimated asymmetric adversary (one supported by a larger enemy) that responds with cheap drones and the like, resulting in an increasing quagmire, not to mention one resulting in the loss of valuable and irreplaceable airborne command-and-control aircraft during the conflict
You had me for at least 10 seconds.
The USA military is subject to civilian control and whim and that's their contract. Gauging approaches to have best effect would involve coordination among the political, intelligence, and military glamorati, and that's something that could never happen in the environment of the past year.
You need to define some kind of objective to be able to say whether or not you've performed well or not. Nobody doubts that USA can destroy a significant chunk of the planet, but to what end?
The objective I am using, is the objective they were given. They were told to bomb a bunch of targets. And they did and without casualties. That means they performed their jobs well.
Clearly the strategy behind the "bomb a bunch of stuff" objective is muddled at best, but that does not reflect badly against the navy. But to the people that set their objectives.
I think the point is it's like the parable of the drunk looking for his keys under the streetlight, because that's where the light is.
The Navy is performing well at the things it's being tasked with because it's only being tasked with things it can do well! But I think the point of this thread is that it still reflects poorly on the Navy if those things aren't actually useful in this war. They say generals are always preparing for the previous war and perhaps that's happening here.
You are conflating execution capability and force protection with achievement.
Meanwhile, lots of innocent lives have been lost, the regime is still where it was before even if some of the faces have changed, there is an E2 that is missing a little piece of its tail, the price of oil has gone up considerably (that may have been an actual objective) and we've been distracted for a while from the Epstein files.
If you think there was an item in the above list that qualifies as an objective then that's fine by me but for me these do not cross that threshold.
> the price of oil has gone up considerably (that may have been an actual objective)
Even Trump isn't that dumb. There's a reason he dialed the tariffs back so much; price hikes lose elections.
If there's one highly visible product of whose price all Americans are keenly aware, it's gasoline. And on top of that, it affects the price of pretty much everything else too.
I thought the tariffs would be his undoing but jacking up the price of gas is even worse for him.
Why would he care? He's not going to be up for re-election anyway and besides he's not paying for his own gas. But the price of oil going up helps russia in a considerable way and that could well have been one of the drivers (and apparently carrying water for Netanyahu).
> He's not going to be up for re-election anyway
I would not assume that he won't try to run again, nor would I assume that his party would not support it if he did. Though I do agree with the rest of what you wrote.
(1) he has to stay alive until then
(2) he has to overcome an absolutely massive approval deficit
(3) he has to be able to run a credible campaign
(4) he has to get around the term limits
(5) I would expect there to be a fairly large number of people to be very upset if he did
All in all I don't think his chances for re-election are > 0. But I agree with you that he might try, by hook - or by crook - to hold on to that chair.
I might be wrong (am not a geopolitical expert) but my guess is that if the US doesn't get this resolved by itself; most countries in the world are going to rage at it harder (like an order of magnitude harder) than during the tariffs war of last year.
Many countries ranging from advanced allies like Japan to random poor countries like the Philippines will see economic damages that are way worse than tariffs.
Iran was a hornet nest. A hornet nest is annoying and dangerous to have around. But it makes no sense to break it open with no plan on how to properly handle the fallout.
> Sure, but keeping the straight open is not really important, sure gas, fertilizers and a few other commodities are going to get more expensive, but there is no need to put thousands of sailors in harms way.
What is the point of having by far the worlds most expensive military if it can’t be used to at least ostensibly improve the lives of citizens?
It’s a giant money pit that does… nothing?
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You mean Special Military Operation, comrade.
Right and also mines that could be (maybe have already been) dropped off by small craft.
> there has to be a real purpose. Escorting a bunch of privately owned oil tankers to bring down the price of gas does not really cut it.
While I agree with you in principle, if I have learned anything about politics it is that under whatever political system you care to invent, the people will definitely demand war and a navy to escort private oil tankers if it means they get to drive for $0.01 less per gallon.
Normally I wouldn't think the American public would be so shallow.
But just tonight, while getting gas just outside St. Louis, a young woman was having an absolute meltdown outside her car about the price of gas being $3.65 a gallon. Wild.
So, yeah, perhaps the price of gas is high enough that the public would tolerate some heavy collateral damage at this point.
>"So, yeah, perhaps the price of gas is high enough that the public would tolerate some heavy collateral damage at this point"
Or realize who had caused the whole thing.
That might require thinking instead of feeling.
Adding this to my #owned compilation.
- Reddit Ralph
> Or realize who had caused the whole thing.
Not sure I hold much hope for this one.
Trump once posted "THE BIDEN FBI PLACED 274 AGENTS INTO THE CROWD ON JANUARY 6".
It was, of course, still his FBI on that date.
Number one Google search on our last Election Day:
"Did Biden drop out?"
Informed electorate, this is not.
The issue though is that this won't get us maritime supremacy. To get civilian tankers through the strait you need that. Iran will still take the occasional shot at these ships and who in their right mind would put their ship into a situation where there is even a 1 in 2000 chance you will be struck? At the end we will have boots on the ground, with real casualties, potentially a ship or two actually damaged and Iran unleashed and attacking everyone's critical oil infrastructure and water infrastructure. They will even probably find a way to hit a ship or two in the red sea just to spread the panic. My original point was that we could 'just blow things up' and get in there, not that we would succeed in achieving a great military objective.
Yes, i think the Trump admin has escalated itself into a situation that either involves ground troops or leaving without opening the strait.
The first is bad due to the losses that will be incurred and the difficulty of holding territory.. for unclear strategic reasons (I thought we destroyed their nuclear program last summer / what was the urgency / is this even our war?). The second is bad because the strait was open before this started, so things are worse than starting conditions.
That is not to say Iran is winning. Remember this is not a sports game, and no one needs to win. It is possible, and likely, for everyone to lose (be in a worse position than prior).
> either involves ground troops or leaving without opening the strait.
These options are not mutually exclusive.
> That is not to say Iran is winning.
They are though, the US administration has already lost it's patience, their strategic objectives (whatever they might have been have clearly not materialized), the talk about talks may very well be the administration preparing to make a bunch of concessions proclaim victory and walk away.
As it's possible for both parties to lose, a party can win all the battles and lose the war.
Correct - we can send in ground troops and fail to open the strait
In fact, that's the most likely outcome.
It is hard to game out the best scenario here. Wait, it really isn't. We should just stop. Make a deal with Iran, accept egg on our face and step back. Why? Because they are destabilized. They are likely to crumble. If we keep attacking then they stay alive. If we go away then they have to deal with their broken infra and deeply unhappy population. They were on the path until we hit them. Then, like nearly every country ever, it gave their government legitimacy. If we walk away and focus, hard, on helping the gulf nations that we just hurt badly it will stabilize the region and allow them to fall. But that will never happen because we went into this due to ego and we will stay due to ego.
What if Iran escalates when US decides to go? I don’t think US can go without leaving a power vacuum, which, given current forces positioning, would benefit Iran most probably. I don’t see a path to helping Gulf nations, which will pragmatically be inclined to work with Iran as neither of them can leave like US can.
> deeply unhappy population
A counterpoint is that perhaps we may have just radicalized a large portion of that unhappy population
>That is not to say Iran is winning. Remember this is not a sports game, and no one needs to win. It is possible, and likely, for everyone to lose (be in a worse position than prior).
As of right now, Iran looks likely to end the war with permanent control of the strait of Hormutz. They'll tax the gulf countries in perpetuity.
Gulf countries can't reasonably afford to go to war with Iran over this either, and it's even less likely that they could prevail in such a conflict. Gulf countries can't even afford to go to war with Iran now, with the US actively fighting there.
Iran can suffer terrible short-term and medium-term economic consequences while still establishing a whole new kind of dominance over the region.
>"That is not to say Iran is winning"
This will sure warm one's heart when that one can no longer afford things.
> the people will definitely demand war and a navy to escort private oil tankers if it means they get to drive for $0.01 less per gallon.
This was more true in the 70s: the various fuel economy improvements mean that the impact is reportedly less than half this fine, and the millions of people who bought a hybrid or BEV don’t even notice. I think there’s less of an “war at any cost” bloc now, especially after the humiliating collapse of the last Republican president’s big Middle Eastern learning opportunity, and a lot of people would be willing to abandon Israel to fight Netanyahu’s war alone if it saved them money at the pump.
The issue is that the administration has kicked the bee hive, and is now claiming that securing passers by from angry bees has nothing to do with them.
Its a great way to diminish what lingering shreds of trust the (hopefully) former allies of the US may still have had.
The US has better ways to decrease oil prices internally that commit to losing boats in the strait.
> at an unknown cost
We know the cost. We've conducted that type of warfare before. It's incredibly destructive and barbaric and requires huge amounts of human sacrifice to positively take control of territory after you've finished battering it with high explosives from every available angle. It looks really bad on TV.
> cruise missile carriers
You don't get very large payloads this way. It's fine if you want to pierce the armor of another ship or if you want to launch an "assassination missile" at a single unit but not awesome if you want to replace the capabilities of carriers and battleships and the literal BFGs they carry.
> If you build ships good for real wars you tend to get into wars.
It was meant to be a deterrent against other nation states and one particular form of naval warfare. In the modern world of terrorist cells and asymmetric warfare this may be a moot point.
I think our navy is mostly designed for prestige too, but it seems like you could use the current carriers to transport like a million disposable drones?
> it seems like you could use the current carriers to transport like a million disposable drones?
To what end? You can use them as an extremely expensive cargo ship, sure. But if you're talking about launching drones off of our carriers, you have the problem that whatever you are in drone range of is also in drone range of you.
Not a lot of prestige in that.
Drones have limited range. Perhaps a submarine would be better: sneak close to your target, raise a pipe from the sub to the surface, then launch a bunch of drones from it.
Limited range? Shaheds have over 2000 kilometers more than tomahawks.
And btw, if you can get a submarince close to your target, torpedoes and missiles are going to be much more effective than drones.
Space is limited on platforms, a submarine might have space for 60 drones or 30 missiles, given the immense cost of the submarine, going with the missiles is the right call.
The trucks launching shaheds that iran is using can fit like 5 such drones, a similar truck could probably fit 2 to 4 cruise missiles the only reason they are using drones is the rapid production and cost associated with drones instead of the cruise missiles.
Driving your submarines into a narrow area with limited depth is driving right into a bottleneck trap.
It may be hard to locate a submarine out in the deep open sea, not so much if they are limited in escape routes. Some $50 microphones in the water will be able to pick up submarine activity and if the sub is in range of sending out drones it is in range of being detected by drones equipped with simple magnetic sensors. And that is assuming they can't put an active bit of sonar on two or three drones and drop them in the sea and triangulate it to within a few hundred feet to start with.
That still doesn't make them easy to take out, but the cost of potentially losing a submarine is so massive that it doesn't make sense to risk them to start with.
Look at SSGNs. Not drone carriers, but TLAM is pretty close to drone warfare from the US's point of view.
Ehm, there is the tiny issue of cost and overall inventory size ...
Straights have been impossible to force since Churchill tried to force the Bosphorus in 1915. Placing ships in a narrow target area that can be pre-sighted is a losing proposition, a single artillery gun could mission-kill a destroyer in hormuz - mines/torpedos/drones could sink a ship in a place where rescue may not be possible.
"Cruise missile carriers" are what the Burke class destroyers are.
It's also what Russia built their navy around. How'd that work out?
The US carriers have been involved in every naval action since WWII. They're hardly unused.
But attacking a country of 90 million people and a high level of military sophistication AND who's been expecting the attack and planning for it for many years was always going to be a tall order.
"They are only good for show at port visits..." This perfectly describes Trump's idea of battleships, in fact I think he's said more or less that himself. And he wants to help design them, because he's "aesthetic."
Losing just one carrier would give Trump all the excuse he needs to drop a nuke, declare a monster emergency and cancel elections…
He can’t cancel elections. Stop fear mongering about that. He can 100% drop a nuke though, so thats probably worth fear mongering about.
Good thing he's so good at respecting rules that say he can't do things. And good thing that he's had to face the punishment for breaking some of those rules. Imagine reading what you wrote if he were repeatedly allowed to break rules without any consequences.
He doesn't need to legally cancel the election. He simply needs to say it is and take action as if it was already. This allows him to combine interference before the election with the Republican insurrection tactics from 2020. Say he declares, through executive order, that the 2026 election is cancelled due to an emergency, and that the current Congress will stay in power until the emergency is over. This would allow, even if not actually legal, some combination of:
- Republican-led states voluntarily ending their elections.
- In the case where local election authorities refuse, allowing state governments to take action by arresting said local authorities.
- Ending all Federal assistance for states to run and secure elections.
- Posting ICE to all states who insist on having elections, to arbitrarily arrest people going to vote. By the time they can get in front of a judge the election is over. Even if they're released within a few hours they'd likely miss the vote.
- Having ICE seize all "illegally cast" ballots, and the voting machines, preventing counts from completing or being accurate.
- Declaring states who hold an election to be in rebellion, deploying the National Guard or standing military forces.
- Refusing to seat anyone elected from those states who refuse to go along with it. We could see something like Republican states are allowed to "elect" new representatives as long as they allow an ICE presence everywhere, along with the arbitrary arrest. Speaker Johnson then refuses to seat any newly elected officials from any other states.
- Arrest of newly elected officials as illegitimate, and the seating of Republican candidates instead, similar to the fake elector scheme from 2020.
We can insist that all of these things are illegal, or that people won't go along with it. We would likely see the start real, violent resistance, but that doesn't mean they won't try.
Edit: Looks like he's starting already, by trying control all mail in ballots. He's going to issue an executive order ordering the USPS to filter ballot mail according to a master list compiled by the administration. Obviously this why they wanted voter rolls and have been seizing ballots. Even if the court immediately rules it illegal, why would anyone trust mail in voting? He's essentially cancelled the election for those who vote by mail.
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/31/trump-mail-in-voting-executi...
> He simply needs to
I think a lot of people struggle to imagine the kinds of dirty-deeds ("ratf***ing") that are both possible and effective, especially when the perpetrators don't (feel) constrained by an implicit baseline of plausible consistency or morality. Being unable to brainstorm them up is, perhaps, a kind of backhanded compliment.
Imagine trying to warn someone in 2010 that in a few years an outgoing President, stung at an election loss, could foment a violent mob that would break into the Capitol to hunt and chase legislators that were formalizing that loss, issue blanket pardons for everyone involved, and his party would still protect him from being impeached over it.
For that matter, some people are still surprised to learn about the "Brooks Brothers Riot" [0] of 2000, where a crowd of Republican campaign staffers threatened workers into stopping a recount of certain ballots.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/24/us-elections...
they're going to arrest 150 million people?
Why would they need to arrest 150 million people? They'd let everyone in heavily Republican districts vote just fine, perhaps just a few random arrest at any precincts in Democratic areas. Their main focus would be urban areas, especially in blue states. And it wouldn't have to be everyone to get many, if not most people, to stay home. Early voting in your district? Great way to get ICE's arrests of people in line on the news before the big day, further driving down turnout. Filtering mail in ballots at the USPS not enough? Just happen to have some ICE agents drive by the drop boxes and oops, we saw an "illegal" voting, all these ballots are invalid, we'll be taking those. Local police try to step in (as if)? Insurrection Act, military deployed to all voting locations, ballots seized.
This shouldn't be hard to understand: there are any number of things an unfettered executive can do to turn the election that isn't simply cancelling them.
What is the “can’t” aspect here?
The law?
He doesn’t care about that…
Right, Trump's ability to cancel the elections depends on whether the people running elections comply. It sounds prudent to compile a survey on who those people are and their propensity to break the law to accommodate the president.
Luckily, for now, those people are at the state level, though republicans are trying to change that.
And what happens if the state level election workers are up against federal level gunpoint?
>And what happens if the state level election workers are up against federal level gunpoint?
It's not like ICE can just roll into a state capitol and stop elections.
How many folks would be required for that at each polling place? Ten? Fifty? There are 3500+ counties in the US, usually with multiple polling places. You'd need tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of troops for that.
And that's a lot of armed thugs. Likely the National Guard would need to be federalized, but I find it hard to believe that commanders would follow such illegal orders.
To swing Pennsylvania, they'd probably just need to send ICE into Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Tell them to ignore anybody with a MAGA hat. Big and blue cities in purple states are the only necessary targets.
Hell just use ICE to arrest them all. Even if they’re out on a week, the election will have passed by then
I see a higher chance of him dropping a dirty nuke at home and pretending it’s Iran. Then he can nuke Iran and win the elections too by proving his point that the war was necessary if not delayed. I would be very worried if I were in any of the Democrat states, as one of them would be the chosen target in such a scenario.
No, it wouldn't.
To the people criticizing the comment above, think of all the other illegal things trump is already doing. It's not a matter of "can't", it's a matter of if he will and who will stop him (nobody, so far)
Regardless, Iran sinking an aircraft carrier does not excuse Trump to nuke Iran and cancel elections. Your point is that he does not care about having a justification.
There's no good excuse for countless bad and stupid things Trump has done, but he did them anyway and no one has bothered to stop him.
Yes, I agree. My point is primarily that it is incorrect to say that his actions have an excuse, especially the hypothetical action of launching the first offensive nuke since the two in August 1945. (Secondarily, stating that he has an excuse is the first step to excusing him.) Nuclear powers collectively agree, and have for decades: the only excuse for launching a nuke at your adversary is them doing it first.
(As for elections, history has shown that there is no excuse for outright cancelling them; that is an autocratic ploy to become a despot.)
I'm surprised he hasn't considered dropping The Bomb. No one will stop him, and it could actually garner a win.
> and it could actually garner a win
No, it could not. It would be a massive loss. For those that lose their lives, for the rest of the world.
I hope somebody would stop him. Using nukes in a war is just too bonkers to contemplate. Sure they would be small, but the road to big starts with small.
Unfortunately there are more than enough idiots in the current line of command.
Dropping the bomb will be a massive loss for the US as it’ll legitimatize nuclear warfare. Right out of the attack, the US ceases being the first firepower and becomes equal to the rest of the nuclear ones.
Next Russia takes Ukraine in a week and rich countries will buy nukes from North Korea and Pakistan.
Well... one wonders and speculates what exactly is meant by his statement of: "unleash hell"
Ever play Doom (2016)? It's about renewable energy.
Pesky little--very minor--side effect that it's extracted from Hell, and using it causes the denizens of Hell to spill over to our side. One would say they are "unleashed".
By raising the price of oil so much, our dear leader is trying his level best to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
This is a terrible idea. Assuming nothing bad happens (other than the mass death, of course), there would be shocked pikachu faces from half of Americans and then some, not to mention those in other nations. If something bad happens (edit: other than the initial mass death, of course), the faces would instead range anywhere from panicked to vaporized.
It depends on what you mean by "win".
He has openly talked about doing so
He has considered it. He's a psychopathic fantasist. No one sane would have started this war.
But the consequences would be catastrophic. Not least that Russia would very likely nuke Ukraine to try to force a surrender. And France would have to decide whether to respond in kind.
Trump would not - of course - nuke Russia. Likely not even if Russia launched a first strike.
And it's unlikely Iran would surrender, because Iran has set itself up as a patchwork of semi-independent forces. The immediate response would be a mass missile strike on desalination plants and oil installations in Israel and the Arab states.
The absolute best outcome would be plumes of smoke all over the Middle East.
The worst outcome would be all of the existing minor nuclear nations - North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel - deciding the safety was off, and why not?
This is the guy that ignored warnings that Iran would respond by closing the Strait of Hormuz. He was briefed on exactly this scenario and decided he knew better. That is to say he's been proved capable of making incredibly bad decisions, it's just a matter of who speaks to him directly before. One of these days it might be the wrong person.
Didn't he famously stated that he knows more than his generals ?
Considering that Trump models are Hitler and Putin, how surprising...
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have you considered that if you can’t keep your guns away from “gut driven” administrations, maybe you shouldn’t make them at all?
> This administration doesn't do things because of deep understanding, it does them because of gut reaction.
Do you think that the overwhelming tactical success in Venezuela, or the basically flawless decapitation strikes in the opening weeks of the Iran conflict were gut reactions?
Because of that’s the case I’d be terrified to know what the Pentagon is capable of if they really put their mind to it.
> the basically flawless decapitation strikes in the opening weeks of the Iran conflict
Ah, the flawless decapitation strikes that have shown Iran we truly mean business. Remind me, how quickly did they surrender after those strikes?
Oh, they didn't?
Maybe they weren't "flawless", hmm?
In this instance, a flight of B-52's could wipe the concrete shielded missiles off the face of the Earth. Start off with F18s to secure the skies, then B52s to pound the missiles, then the Navy could stroll back in. It's just that no one has had the gumption to do it until now.
The US military did exactly that two weeks ago:
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5789279-strait-hormuz-oil...
If it was as effective as you presume, the strait would have been open by now.
That was step one. The article doesn't even state the results of the bombing
isn't it obvious?
some rearranged concrete, maybe mixed with missile parts
does not change anything
unless you know you have eliminated ALL threads
which you would never know
and probably never achieve anyway
We’ve tried the “just air power” approach a number of times. It never works by itself.
Ok general, the armchair is that way
Awesome content. Added a lot to the discussion
Your analysis of the war seems to hinge on a lack of "gumption", which is coincidentally the exact same thing I've heard conservative old boomers say about Vietnam. So I would say you're about equal in terms of adding to the discussion. It is, unfortunately, divorced from reality.
The critical thing about hidden missiles that you seem to be missing is: you can't bomb them if you don't know where they are.
We've already seen a 4 week bombing campaign that has included everything from a children's school to a chemotherapy company to bunkers under Tehran, so I don't think there's a lack of "bloodlust" or "gumption" from any of the so-called leaders at the DoD. Rather, it seems that they simply - don't know where the missiles and drones are. Which as I pointed out earlier, makes it rather hard to bomb them.
Are we really still pushing bomber mafia nonsense 80 years later?
But sir, how do we stop an old guy on the bow of a rusty fishing boat firing a $50 rpg at the oil tanker?
Ooh, ooh, is it because it would be mindnumbingly stupid?
[reads article]
Yep, got it in one!
Americans have been sold an image of the US being an omnipotent presence, due to its Navy. It is a legitimate question to wonder why a relatively weak, long embargoed country has the power to control the waters when the US has spent a pretty penny on all these warplanes and aircraft carriers.
If little Iran can prevent the US from being able to establish security in a little straight, it (ideally) shatters that image and causes some soul searching for what US taxpayers are buying with the military.
You can lose a game of chess to a guy with fewer and less powerful pieces than you if you play like a moron. The US has been playing the Iran situation like a gigantic moron.
Maybe I am misinformed, but I was under the impression that the US was so capable it is not even playing the same game as a country like Iran. As in they could brute force solutions due to superior technology and infrastructure, because that is how much more the US spends on it.
Brute forcing things is the kind of thinking that leads to the moron losing the game of chess. And is basically the approach the U.S. took in Vietnam.
Brute forcing by spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year on a military is not analogous at all to brute forcing in a game of chess, whatever that means.
Regardless of the analogies, the reality is that even with all the resources the US spent on its military, after a whole month, it cannot guarantee safe passage through a body of water adjacent to a small time adversary. Which, as an American, is embarrassing in terms of ROI on tax dollars spent.
> And is basically the approach the U.S. took in Vietnam.
And just like the Vietnamese, Iran doesn’t have to win against the US. They only have to not lose. They control the straight, and at $1 per barrel toll, they’ll be making $1 Billion a week. Trump owned himself. This is going to suck.
Paid in yuan, of course, because that's the currency they're allowed to use, because of the US. And then oil companies decide it's annoying to use two different currencies, and they would rather buy the oil with yuan as well...
Well, regardless of technology, the space of things you can accomplish without risking your own troops' lives is very small. (Unless you're willing to go nuclear, which has the pesky downside of ending the world.)
To put it in perspective - in Vietnam, opposition forces lost over a million troops and continued to fight viciously. The US lost around 50,000 and gave up and left.
Democratic countries simply lack the stomach for this kind of thing (which is a good thing, really).
As opposed to democratic countries like the US or UK which would just lay down their arms after a few tens of thousands of their soldiers were killed in the event of a foreign military invasion on their territory?
I'm not talking about a foreign invasion on us, I'm talking about invading the foreigners (in this case, Iran).
That’s obvious but you seemed to be putting down foreigners for being able to stomach a million or more of them dying to protect their country from invasion unlike the enlightened democratic countries who couldn’t tolerate so many of their own dying for any reason. I think if tens or hundreds of thousands of soldiers from, say China, attacked the US, Americans would be very willing to fight to the last man to prevent becoming a vassal state of the CCP.
Perhaps the disconnect exists because some Americans have become too used to thinking from the perspective of invaders that they cannot possibly think from the perspective of the invaded?
You're reading something into my comment which isn't there. Hard to say what it is, but it's causing me to not really understand what you're talking about, at this point.
Maybe you thought I was disparaging Vietnam for defending their land? But in your own comment you indicate that you know I'm not talking about defense, that I'm talking about not having the stomach for loss of life as the invading force. So, IDK
I think being the "home team" makes swallowing those casualties easier (as easy as they can be, anyways); it's easy to perceive the situation as a fight for your life.
Obviously, there were other things going on in Vietnam (and Afghanistan and the larger War on Terror) to keep them fighting but it's much easier to muster up the manpower when a war seems existential because it's happening in your neighborhood.
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You can lose in chess if you run out of time, even if you have an overwhelming piece advantage. US leadership has made some questionable decisions that effectively turned their game (and only their game) into ultrabullet kriegspiel.
Every time I try such strategies in Total War it results in an early success but long term failure. If you don't play every engagement like it could be your last you end up with multiple Pyrrhic victories and before long you are bogged down with loses and problems and start losing.
The situation is massively favourable to Iran, from a strategic point of view. The Gulf is narrow, bordered by Iran all the way and with mountains and rugged terrain nearby, which is very convenient to hide rockets. What a carrier brings is completely irrelevant in this configuration.
Iran does not 'control the waters', it is denying access; this is an importance difference. Lacking control means that Iran cannot make use of many of its naval assets, which they have invested in.
You over estimate the American publics capacity for critical thought and reflection. Most Americans will come away from this humiliation thinking we just need to increase the military budget
to quote: "in the Persian Gulf today, the Navy grasps the reality of the circumstances, recognizing that it simply can’t sail into the strait without risk getting blown to smithereens by Iran’s missiles. Today, its carriers are stationed well outside the Gulf and the ranges of Iranian missiles."
Iran's deep investment in asymmetric warfare is paying serious dividends. You wouldn't expect a nation that's being bombed day and night, essentially at will, to still hold so many cards. Not only is the US completely incapable of strong-arming the straight open, but the rate of missile and drone attacks out of Iran and its proxies has been accelerating the last few days, as has the rate of successful hits.
My Iranian ex colleague shares very interesting opinion. They trained during his army time to blow everything in the region up. So if things escalate badly the oil and gas importing countries will stay with a fraction of needed oil and gas for years. There is no backup infrastructure anywhere in the world. It will take years to rebuild the infrastructure. It will destroy world’s economy better than nukes.
I kinda expected scorched earth from Iran, or any oil producing state tbh, didn’t Saddam do this retreating from Kuwait?
Since 1979, every US president has known that the US can send a couple of aircraft carriers and bomb the shit out of Iran.
And yet none did. Because they listened to their security chiefs and advisors who would tell them, Iran is a highly complex multiethnic geographically complex country. If you can contain it with diplomacy, that’s preferable.
When listening to “experts” becomes taboo, there will be consequences.
The inhabitants of the Iranian plateau have been the subject of the ire of the military superpower of their era quite a few times. Alexander the Great conquered them and set their capital and their sacred books on fire and yet a mere 70 years later his Hellenic dynasty was gone. They were conquered by the Arabs and were forced to give up their religion but somehow, unlike Egypt and Syria/Lebanon and many other ancient places, these guys somehow kept their language and distinct culture intact. They were decimated (maybe even worse ) by Genghis Khan and followed quickly by Tamerlane and yet, it was their Turco-Mongol rulers who ended up adopting their language and culture.
The inhabitants of this land have deep memory of knowing how to suffer, to endure and to survive. It wasn’t that long ago that from Constantinople to New Delhi, the language of the Imperial Court was Persian.
Cheap airborne weapons have irreversibly changed warfare. IIRC a Patriot missile costs something like $4 million. Using them to shoot down $50k Shahed drone is a losing proposition. That's not only because of the price, but because the drones can be produced a lot faster. Even Iran's ballistic missiles are a lot cheaper and faster to produce than any defense system that can reliably destroy them.
Nobody is using Patriot to intercept Shaheds. PAC-2/3 are intended for ballistic missiles and fighter jets. In Ukraine, low-flying drones are primarily countered by FPV, MANPADS, drone-hunting aircraft and truck, and EW before point defense SAM and AA gun.
No one should use a Patriot to shoot down a drone, but they certainly have done so.
There are some pretty solid reasons why Ukraine offered consultation - unlike the US, they have actual combat experience against hordes of Shaheds. The US walked into a mess: they overestimated their ability to take out Iranian systems, and underestimated how hard it is to defend against them.
It's embarrassing. Now, the US seems to be looking for some way out, while preserving some dignity and pretending that they "won".
There are videos on r/combatfootage in the early weeks, patriot missiles shooting down drones.
I did a quick search and could only found a missed missile having self destruction. Shaheds have a very distinct noise it shouldn't be too hard to id. While I don't doubt Americans had used patriot on drones, I believe it is because they were(and still are) unprepared and they panicked.
Actually they are using everything they have to combat these cheap drones. That includes Patriot and THAAD systems as well. Specially UAE, which got struck with more drones than Israel. That is how Iran was able to take out a THAAD radar, because it was deployed so close to them.
https://www.dw.com/en/south-korea-uneasy-as-us-moves-air-def...
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/05/middleeast/radar-bases-us...
You can’t really deduce THAAD was used against drones based on this. As the number of US assets in the Middle East increases, it is logical to deploy more THAAD to protect them from Iranian ballistic missiles. Israel intercepted a few[0] at the beginning of the current conflict, so it is common sense to presume there are still some remaining.
[0] https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/2035762512147128344
The problem is that we need to adapt to the asymmetrical aspect of drone warfare, as Ukraine has done. The best description I saw of the current state is “flying IEDs”.
Drones and ballistic missiles make area denial asymmetrically cheap for a defending forces. This lesson needs to be incorporated because it would be the same tactic used by China to deny access to the South China Sea.
We don’t need to. We already won at least a half dozen times already. We’ll have won a few more times before it’s over in two or three more weeks.
What did we win?
They are sarcastically mocking Trump's nonsensical back-and-forth statements about the war already being won and regime change already being accomplished
the reddit /r/worldnewsification of hackernews continues
The U.S. can't win this war. John Kiriakou did a nice analysis on this on his recent podcasts. "Iran just has to prolong the war and survive it to win". Trump on the other hand needs a decisive win fast, or the economic and political fallout will be too big. As long as Iran can launch cheap drones and keep a small but steady pressure there is just no path out of this for the U.S. except to go home.
I have seen the same from other sources
https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/
> This is the second sudden bombing campaign the country has suffered in as many years – they do not want there to be a third next year and a fourth the year after that. But promises not to bomb them don’t mean a whole lot: establishing deterrence here means inflicting quite a lot of pain. In practice, if Iran wants future presidents not to repeat this war, the precedent they want to set is "attacking Iran is a presidency-ending mistake." And to do that, well, they need to end a presidency or at least make clear they could have done.
Can they do that: yes, keep Hormuz shut until much closer to November, and "the economic and political fallout will be too big."
While it can very well be true, I wonder if we don't exagerate the will of the iranian regime and its ablity in the current time to think this far ahead. I see them more in survival mode, I'm not sure they fight for future deterence, maybe the goals align currently but seems to me to be happenstance. They seem resilient but I wonder how much they would be close of falling. Of course, I wouldn't have done this war, and I certainly would stop it now.
> They seem resilient but I wonder how much they would be close of falling
While neither of us have any special insight into that, and no-one has certainty, I urge you to read the essay linked, as this topic is in fact discussed with historic examples. "There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad ... There is a great deal of ruin in a nation."
You are right that the the Iranian regime's short and longer term goals align. But, happenstance or not, they are aligned and likely will stay that way.
> I wouldn't have done this war, and I certainly would stop it now.
That’s the thing there is no stopping it now. Trump walks away and Iran taxes every barrel that goes through the straight. There is no return to normal.
> That’s the thing there is no stopping it now. Trump walks away and ...
Right, Short of unconditional surrender, it is very hard for one party in a war to just end it without the other side also agreeing to cease. Otherwise, walking away just lets them target your back.
It has been obvious for decades that Americas beloved, insanely expensive, carrier groups were weapons of the past.
Every time this is mentioned the comments fill with naval fans pointing out that in fact carrier groups are invulnerable due to layered defenses and air support.
Whenever vulnerabilities are demonstrated, most famously by Sweden's cheap, quiet, diesel electric subs ability to sink carriers during war games so effectively the US begged to borrow one for training, the fans just return to their talking points.
YouTube has a library of videos like this.
Yet reality bites. The truth is the most aggressive administration in living memory is afraid to sail into troubled waters for fear of losing materiel.
The age of carriers is over. Dinosaurs in an age of mammals.
I don't get that "Strait" discussion. Where does the Strait begin and end? If somehow the US Navy "opens" the Strait, what stops Iran to attack every ship moving in the direction of the Strait? Where does the "protection zone" start and end?
That's exactly why the tanker escort promises were quickly abandoned.
> Where does the Strait begin and end?
Practically speaking, the Musandam Peninsula [1]. Open that to the sea and you make everyone except Iraq and Kuwait happy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musandam_Peninsula
Much further than that. At least 200nm using drone ISR to cue Shaheeds, 500nm with satellite ISR. (With a 90kg warhead.) There are also many fishing vessels in the region, originating from a number of countries (e.g. Oman, Iran, Pakistan) which can report sightings of VLCCs.
Once you have sighted the ship it is an undergrad project to implement target classification and recognition using off the shelf algorithms. It doesn't need a fast GPU because naval engagements are very slow, a cheap mobile phone can do it.
Is a no-fishing-boat zone feasible? Like a no-fly zone? Or do you need a partner to pot innocent fishermen?
How many innocent fishermen are you willing to murder? And of course, the famine in Balochistan that would follow. Maybe not a great idea if you want an uprising of the Balochi against the Persians.
Oman is a regional ally, but they would not stand idly by while their citizens are killed.
at a range where short-range anti-ship missiles can reach ships from Iranian territory.
So, the entire gulf?
Actual short-range weapons can't cross the strait. The ones that can don't care much about the difference on the rest of the place.
And boats, amd submerged drones, and mines...
Not even short range. With a sensor feed from an ally they can project into the Gulf of Oman, and via Yemen the entire BaM.
Doubtful China would provide that because they want oil, but likely Russia would, because they want high oil prices and American humiliation.
[flagged]
Must be nice for western arm chair commentators to discuss this without once feeling the consequences of the actions of their elected government.
Where I live - we face a severe shortage of LPG fuel due to this. Quite a few restaurants have shut down temporarily. Migrant workers around the parts who have no access to a kitchen because they live in tiny quarters with a bedding and a common toilet are struggling to find sustainable food. Acquaintances who own workshop are running around trying to figure out food arrangements for their employees. And we are not even party to this shitty war!
We are making do with electric alternatives but thats also because we are in the top 5%. Our household staff are struggling to figure out the situation. Induction gas stoves are either stocked our or selling for 3-4x their regular price. Even if they get access to one - electric supply is unreliable and they are not sure how to pay the bill. Electricity usage is subsidized (its free upto 200 Kwh / month) but if it exceeds that they will have to pay full price which hurts their budget quite a lot.
I used an MSR international stove when I was homeless. 1L of some sort of fuel (it takes gasoline, white gas, kerosene, etc) would last me at least a week and at least one form of fuel it accepts can usually be obtained somehow from somewhere. If you can come up with 1 gal gas / person / month it will cook rice or boil some meat easy enough. Of course if there is not even enough gas for 1 ga / person / month I think you are in deeper shit because there's not enough to even transport basic needed supplies and you are probably using mules like in Cuba (in which case, hopefully you can chop down a tree for wood).
Blocking the strait is Iran's doing, not the US's.
The US attacked them yes, but they were the ones who responded by threatening to blow up the ships of innocent third parties. They couldn't hurt the US, so they decided to hurt you instead.
Why the world is tolerating this behavior as if it's a legitimate strategy and blaming it on the US is beyond me.
What do you mean its not the US's doing? They knew 100% before going in that the straight being closed would be the result of attacking Iran. If the US didn't attack Iran, there would be no blockade.
Its like going into a bar and you start beating people up and so the bar owner kicks everyone out and then you say "It's not my fault the bar closed, it's the bar owner's fault, I merely started the fight that caused the bar to close!"
Iran doesn't own the strait. They don't have a right to close the bar in the first place.
If one guy throws a punch and the other guy responds by throwing a molotov cocktail into the kitchen you don't charge the first guy with arson, even if he "should have known that second guy was crazy".
If the other guy is literally holding a molotov in his hand saying "If you attack me im going to throw this" and then you attack him anyways, then yes it is 50% your fault. You knew what would happen before you did it.
I disagree. Besides, if a guy is making threats like that you should have the police come in to remove him, or maybe even SWAT if it's a credible deadly threat. Threatening harm to uninvolved third parties is not a tactic that should be afforded any legitimacy, which capitulation certainly does.
There is nothing wrong with threatening harm against people who are threatening you with harm. Some might even say it is a moral imperative to fight back against those who will harm and kill you or your friends and family. Iran didn't start this off, the US did with an inept surprise attack.
On top of all that, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Again, the issue here is not threatening harm against those threatening them, it's with threatening (and indeed, actively perpetuating) harm against uninvolved third parties.
Punching back the guy who punched you? Understandable. Lobbing a molotov cocktail into the kitchen, pointing at the guy who punched you and declaring "Look what he made me do! You better stop him!" to onlookers? Completely unhinged.
I don't see Iran attacking Europe or anybody else that they aren't already in or have been in conflict with.
Is it inconvenient? Sure. But if don't want to block the hallway for everyone else you don't start a fight with a guy standing in the hallway. You think if Spain was attacked by a bigger and stronger adversary that they would just let the logistics traffic that feeds the enemy and the enemy's allies pass freely through the Gibraltar strait? Hell no.
Traffic through the strait is certainly not "logistics traffic that feeds the enemy", unless Iran considers the entire world its enemy. Certainly high global oil prices affect the US just as they affect everyone, but these are not US ships being blocked, nor are they bound for the US. The US gets almost all the oil it imports from Canada, South America, and Mexico: https://www.voronoiapp.com/energy/Visualizing-Global-Oil-Tra...
The "blocking the hallway" analogy also fails because this isn't just unavoidable collateral damage; Iran is actively threatening to target ships from these uninvolved third parties.
This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read on HN and I've been here for a while.
Iran was always going to blockade the strait of Hormuz if attacked, as would any other country in their position. What do you expect, to tell them to play by some imaginary set of rules while the US is setting the rulebook itself on fire?
It's almost as dumb as expecting Ukraine to allow russian oil to transit their territory.
I'm not sure what your point is. Everyone knew they were going to irrationally decide to threaten the ships of uninvolved third parties therefore it's not their fault for doing it?
Ukraine is blocking Russian oil, not the oil of random uninvolved neighboring countries. And the strait is in no way "Iran's territory" anymore than you could say it's the US's territory just because they could also theoretically block traffic through there if they wanted.
> Must be nice for western arm chair commentators to discuss this without once feeling the consequences of the actions of their elected government.
You're right. But you're also wrong. People who voted for this admin have been (and are being) deported. Or someone they know. Or their employees aren't showing up. Or, for some of us, we worry that someone close to us is at risk any day now.
I didn't vote for the asshole, but many are feeling the consequences. They can ignore some of them and they might have much more relief from the outcome, but a lot of people are suffering.
Meanwhile, rah-rah dumbasses think he can do no wrong and buy into propaganda that tells them why it's someone else's fault that they're worse off.
Which country is this?
very likely to be India.
- Plenty of sources online about the LPG crisis, as the govt has invoked essential commodities act (gives govt extra powers to crush black market and force companies to prioritize distribution to domestic households over industrial use cases).
- E-commerce like amazon/flipkart have also run out of induction stoves (or selling at a premium like RAM).
- Electricity is a state subject, and two of the south India states (bangalore-KT/hyderabad-TG) offer free electricity up to 200 units for low-income households under "gruha jyothi scheme"
Solar cooker?
I think these articles are a bit rushed. The very objectives are the reason the US has not moved on the straight. Obviously Iran has built up an insane arsenal. Rushing the straight is poor strategy when you have freedom of skies to pick apart their capabilities. Everything's a narrative article nowadays. If aircraft carriers were so vulnerable we wouldn't even send them that close.
Given it is reported to be successfully targeting Israel with cluster ammunitions in warheads, I am curious what stops Iran from targeting US ships even far outside the strait? I would have thought if you could send multiple missiles with cluster bombs simultaneously at short notice it would be very difficult to counter and impose catastrophic cost.
Is anti-missile defense is just that good on ships that no amount of simultaneous missiles and decoys can overcome it?
The chances of a ballistic missile hitting a ship - a small, moving target in the middle of the sea - are negligible. And a 4kg bomblet wouldn't do much damage anyway.
Have you seen the 'no smoking' signs on those vessels?
Sinking a US ship would be a drastic escalation. Iran has done a lot of damage to US assets but inflicted few casualties, demonstrating both capability and restraint. If they destroyed the American boomers' few remaining illusions of supremacy by sinking a ship and potentially killing hundreds of crew, the loss of face would likely instigate a drastic response that could lead to a worst-case scenario. Much better for Iran to keep playing bloody knuckles and force the US and Israel to beg for peace when their missile defenses and appetite for war run dry.
Interesting to see three entirely different responses to my question - but I think I believe this one the most. Not necessarily that they could be successful in attacking (who knows), but that trying would escalate things on the wrong timeline for them. At this point, they actively want to drag this out.
My sense at the moment is they are pursuing a "humiliation" strategy where they will persuade Trump to withdraw by making it too embarrassing to continue. For that, all they have to do is make him look impotent, which they achieve by continuously provoking just enough to force a response (either military, or Trump to issue yet another TACO threat he can't carry through with) but then popping up a few days later with a new attack showing it didn't work.
It's a waste. Iran can't win against the US army. They'll win by being as disruptive as possible, for as long as possible. They'll keep seldomly launching rockets until they get what they want or the global economy collapses. This whole situation perfectly illustrates that wars are won with intelligence, and not by gung ho "warrior ethos" morons like Hegseth.
Are you saying Iran, a country that was just sanctioned to hell for almost half a century, with a defense budget of at most $30B is outsmarting our $2T/year military which we consider to be the greatest in the world? The can't be. That's literally the only thing that makes this nation "great". That would imply that our country is being led by morons
Who says they didn’t? Although not widely reported in mainstream US media, there are lots of claims online that US Navy ships were hit by missiles, including a clip from Trump himself. Why is the Ford and Lincoln so far away?
People don't seem to understand the level of strategic defeat that the US is facing. Not only is the strait closed, but the US Navy has been completely locked out of the Gulf. They do not have a single ship operating there. They cannot service their coastal bases, which now sit empty. The situation is completely unprecedented.
Hopefully the beginning of the end for this Epstein regime in the ME
The calculus in Iran is that they have yet to play the card they've been investing most in: make boots on the ground untenable.
Until Iran feels that their best card is valued correctly - either by being played, or made unplayable - reports on "negotiations" are meaningless fluff.
Trying to protect the strait is a fools errand. Instead, you give them an ultimatum, like trump has done (twice now?). You don't just try to blow up the things that are attacking the strait, you blow up things that let the Iranians build and launch the stuff attacking the strait. Power plants, railroads, airports, highways, industrial sites, etc.
Typically american to argue that "blasting" people is bad because of tactics or economics or whatever. How about it's bad to kill random people that haven't done you anything just because it's evil to do so?
I guess that would involve admitting something about the morality of what the USA has been doing since the end of WWII though...
All establishment media, thinktanks and both parties are pro US imperialism in general which necessitates wars of aggression, you have to read this critique more like it's taking place within the pro-war group. Like everybody is agreeing with the Iran war in principle thats not even up to debate anywhere in the mainstream. It wouldn't even occur to most Americans that "no wars at all" is even an option to begin with. To most, their "freedom" and safety depends on wars thousands of miles away.
One example you can look for (it's everywhere) is in the way Chinese military capabilities are discussed by media like that, what is often brought up against them is "the lack of experience", without a hint of irony alongside the implicit view of china as the dangerous aggressor and rival. Imperialism is just the air they breathe, they don't notice it at all. Peaceful coexistence is not an option.
Very few Americans realize the scale of the defeat that the US military is facing in this war. Loss of CSG capabilities as well as anti missile radars, refueling planes, AWACS and ground bases all over the Middle East means this is the worst damage the US has taken since WW2.
In pure amoral military terms, the US military has barely suffered a scratch in this war, losing only a few soldiers and pieces of equipment. It has failed to subdue Iran, so in that sense so far at least it has not achieved a victory. However, it has also not suffered a defeat. If the Iranian government ends the war still in power and with the ability to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed whenever they want to, I will consider that a a US defeat. However, the defeat would not have been caused by any serious damage that Iran has done to the US military, it would have been caused by the combination of Iranian resilience to damage and its geographic advantage of being right next to the Strait of Hormuz.
The problem shown by Ukraine was that large, expensive solutions were not effective when cheap weapons were used. The solution, which will take time, is to recreate some of the cheap defensive solutions that used to be available - guns, radar-bearing weaponry, etc. these are quite boring to the high tech industry, who prefer things like lasers, rail guns, etc. but ww ii showed they worked, and I suspect the approach speed of drones is similar to kamikazes.
There are also fewer ships than in the 80’s, and everything costs too much. F-35’s vs. F16 birds, the gripen argument in Canada or Europe. How to get companies and staff to embrace low tech solutions in a rapid mapper.
Perhaps they can remember history and make planes that support ground operations rather than high tech birds. Having more, slower birds with cannons would help with drone warfare. Armour also helps.
And yeah, selling ads vs more interesting tech solutions was a cliche 10+ years ago.
The US Navy does not operate in a vacuum, it serves at the pleasure of the commander-in-chief. And when the current administration is hell bent on undermining and underestimating everyone and everything, you’d be a fool to believe any report or conclusion. While it may be completely true and reasonable, it does nothing to dictate the future outcome.
> the current administration is hell bent on undermining and underestimating everyone and everything
Welp, that's enough reddit for today.
With the strait being that narrow, missiles aren't even needed. Just artillery is enough. That's the main problem here.
Forcible reopening is possible but it involves a lot of airpower, not ships. Make anything unable to approach Iranian shoreline and stay alive, to man even a tiniest rubber boat - including emptying all cities on the coast of people.
Also
Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) was a major war game exercise conducted by the United States Armed Forces under United States Joint Forces Command in mid-2002: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy. In particular, Red utilized old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network: Van Riper simulated using motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications in the model.
Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of Blue's six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.
wasn't one of the controversies, that the simulation didn't account for the fact that Red's boats couldn't actually/launch carry the cruise missiles that were used to sink these ships?
be that as it may, the lesson still stands
But van Riper's attack didn't count, for reasons such as and therefore.
I haven’t read the article but what exactly are you going to blast? You can fire the Shahed drone from the back of a pick up truck. They could be scattered all over the country they’re cheap as hell to make and they could pump out hundreds of thousands of them.
This version of the "end of the power of the aircraft carrier" sounds like it will play out a lot like the end of the tank, the end of the helicopter, etc. Yeah, it's not going to have the same untouchable power it used to. But it's not going to stop being useful or go away either.
Aircraft carriers will always be needed.
However, I doubt that the huge and vulnerable carriers of today have any future.
Carriers designed not for manned aircraft, but only for drones, missiles and guns would allow the use of a much greater number of small carriers instead of a few huge and expensive carriers.
Such carriers could be mostly automated and they would need much smaller crews, instead of being floating cities.
tumpy was/is/might be going to china in a week or so, and there is pretty much no way that can happen while WWIII is launching, and/or things are going mega bad for the marines, as there is no way they are not going find themselves in a real fight. all those islands are owned and operated by the irainian military, who in fact have complete long range artilery superiority,and every square inch dialed in, dont see how it could be done except with a full and total invasion of the wholecountry, which would likely go worse and would require a much much larger force than the one on hand, but tumpy is crazy, so who knows
What people do to distract the focus from Epstein list.
2nd Epstein war.
Hey, don't knock what works!
Operation Epstein Fury
Your military and whoever directs them are criminals, and are guilty of horrible crimes. And those who back them are accomplices.
This is true for most militaries, of course, some more than others - see the Hague Invasion Act[0].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Prot...
While that US law only says that USA should use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court", in reality USA has always used any means necessary for protecting their military personnel from suffering consequences from breaking the local laws not only in the cases of crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of ICC, but also for any common crimes, e.g. by smuggling out of the respective foreign country military personnel guilty of killing people while driving drunk, in order to escape trial and sentence.
Why though? Iranian missiles aren’t new and they seem to be the only threat to the aircraft carriers.
So, when Trump says to US "allies" to "go get your own oil" he's literally inviting them into a shooting gallery that the even Hegseth is too smart to take on.
Nice.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-01/trump-rages-at-allies...
https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/30/what-are-ukraines-new-gu...
> Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine is willing to share its expertise in unblocking maritime trade routes with the naval drones.
> “We shared our experience with the Black Sea corridor and how it operates. They understand that our Armed Forces have been highly effective in unblocking the Black Sea corridor. We are sharing these details.”
Why can’t we bomb the missile bunkers that guard the strait?
I think both missiles and drones can launch from trucks.
intresting.. looks like that USA also wont go well on the taiwan strait..whats the last time USA pick a enemy of it's own size and won?
I love the title. Responsible Statecraft has to explain god-fearing taxpayers that Captain America is not going to defeat aladdin witchcraft by using spiderman skills
I don't understand why Trump doesn't simply mine the strait of Hormuz, and make a simple statement - "no ships get through unless all ships get through". Sure, it would disrupt the world oil supply, but seems hard for Iran to counter.
Because as the article explains the US ships cannot even approach the straits due to the threat of anti-ship missiles.
You can mine from the air.
I am very angry with Trump. He owes all of us money here.
The sooner the guy is gone, the better. Some folks compared Trump to Lyndon B. Johnson, but as a lame duck from the get go. I think Trump in his own category - a new label of criminal and stupid. I want my money "back".
He was always very clear about Iran long before the election.
He was also very clear about "no new wars".
Laser cannons should be a cheap way to shoot them down.
Who stops using a mosquito or drone fleet to do clear it?
"Why the the US Navy Can't Blast the Iranians and 'Open' the Strait of Hormuz"
Id personally like to know why we are expending our taxes waging war on behalf of a sociopathic nation who just passed a law to legalize the death penalty for those specifically not a part of their special ethnoreligeous group? They are literally celebrating by carrying around NOOSES.
Could they?
Stupidly, yes, with carpet bombing. Practically, no, that would be horrible. More horrible, possibly, than taking out the power and water infrastructure.
: Stupidly, yes, with carpet bombing. Practically, no, that would be horrible.
Could that work? It didn’t end well in Vietnam, which is about a fifth of the land area, and, in 1970, half the current population of Iran.
Also, they’ll pack a bigger punch, but I think the USA has way fewer bombers now.
> Could that work? It didn’t end well in Vietnam
We can't carpet bomb to regime change. But we can probably depopulate critical areas around the coasts while ships transit. It's stupidly expensive, both in materiel and collateral cost. But it's feasible. Whether we have the bomb-production is a separate question to which I don't have the answer.
> probably depopulate critical areas around the coasts while ships transit.
(looks at map) the city of Bandar Abbas, population ~500k? It's already being hit as it contains the Iranian Navy HQ, but actually depopulating it is a much bigger project.
Depopulation won't stop the IRGC from digging up a Shahed buried in the sand and launching it. The range is so great you would have to pacify the entire east of Iran, an absolutely impossible task.
> Depopulation won't stop the IRGC from digging up a Shahed buried in the sand
Carpet bombing. You don’t get to bury things in the sand, much less unbury them. It’s an old tactic—shaping movement with artillery—except done with remote pieces.
> range is so great you would have to pacify the entire east of Iran
West. Also, I don’t think so. Just critical zones. Worst case, only U.S. escorted and Iran toll-paying ships get through. (Worst case for the world. Not the belligerents. Which…that might be the solution.)
> Carpet bombing. You don’t get to bury things in the sand, much less unbury them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Củ_Chi_tunnels#U.S._campaigns_...:
“Operation Crimp began on January 7, 1966, with B-52 bombers dropping 30-ton loads of high explosive onto the region of Củ Chi, effectively turning the once lush jungle into a pockmarked moonscape. Eight thousand troops from the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (including an artillery battery of the Royal Regiment of New Zealand Artillery), and the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment combed the region looking for any clues of PLAF activity.
The operation did not bring about the desired success. […]
By 1969, B-52s were freed from bombing North Vietnam and started "carpet bombing" Củ Chi and the rest of the Iron Triangle. Towards the end of the war, some of the tunnels were so heavily bombed that some portions actually caved in, and other sections were exposed. But the bombings were not able to destroy most parts of those tunnels.”
Carpet bombing doesn't cover a large area. Besides which there is nowhere to stage so an enormous campaign that isn't also in reach of one way drones.
The vast areas in the East are where you can strike shipping. You would only strike the West if your intention was to kill Iranians rather than end the war.
Carpet bombing didn't even break Vietnam. It didn't break WWII Germany either.
Nor did WW2 England. Look, Churchill had like 24 approval rate after Dunkerque, and the 'british Hitler' had 18%. Bombing London moved those percentages _very_ fast. 'do nothing, win' people have a point most of the time.
Trump casually talks about destroying the energy infrastructure, power plants, desalination plants etc. This is one of the most controversial things that the Russians do in Ukraine - attack the grid when it's cold to try and freeze people to death. To willingly deprive a country of 100,000,000 people of water and power coming into summer would surely be a war-crime.
> This is one of the most controversial things that the Russians do in Ukraine - attack the grid when it's cold to try and freeze people to death
But the Russians have been doing it. Iran may have targeted an Israeli power plant. The precedent, unfortunately, is set.
They have and Ukraine haven’t surrendered (nor do they look like they will any time soon), so I don’t see how it wit k a in Iran.
> and Ukraine haven’t surrendered
Different goals. Carpet bombing to deny Iran access to its coast is maneouvre warfare. It’s tactical. Carpet bombing to force Kyiv to capitulate is strategic bombing. It has never worked.
I don’t see how they’ll have different results, just because the aim is different. You just… take cover. Then come back once the planes fly away and continue what you were doing.
You can't deny access to a coast that large with carpet bombing, especially in a mountainous terrain. It has never worked. You'd need tens to hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground to do that.
If you wanted to try it with bombs, it would take continual re-dropping of hundreds of thousands of bombs every few hours to cover (1600km * 8km) to keep people out, even assuming they have 0 shelter or cover.
> can't deny access to a coast that large with carpet bombing, especially in a mountainous terrain. It has never worked. You'd need tens to hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground to do that
I think this is more an open question than “it has never worked.” Nobody has tried to area deny FPV-drone navigators. Bases on lines of sight and line channels, one could probably back out from transit paths to the places one would need to be to hit that target, and then ensure anything there is turned from psychology to biology before a critical moment. You couldn’t do this with smart munitions, and couldn’t along the entire Hormuz coast. But for critical junctures that our closest allies (minus Kuwait) need to export? The math seems feasible, if fundamentally untackled.
> I think this is more an open question than “it has never worked.”
I don't think so – we were talking about continually carpet bombing Iran to continually deny them access to a 1600km-long coastline. That simply has never worked. Not in Iran, not elsewhere to my knowledge.
> Bases on lines of sight and line channels, one could probably back out from transit paths to the places one would need to be to hit that target
That describes pretty much anywhere in the 7000+ square kilometers we're talking about. A drone doesn't need a runway. Anywhere you can fit a large pickup truck, you can launch a Shaheed drone.
> Nobody has tried to area deny FPV-drone navigators.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Deny the area to Iran's FPV drones? If so, how? Use FPV drones to deny the area? If so, how? We're talking about continually patrolling 7,000+ square kilometers. The USA has never fielded such a system, and has no publicly known capabilities to do so.
Iran already had severe water problems. Attacking the water infrastructure would definitely cause huge civilian casualties. Israel is used to that. Not clear whether America is ready to go into the midterms with an official policy of US-flagged genocide.
There has been (I think) relatively minor hits. And Iran has retaliated in kind (see the latest hit on Kuwaiti desalination plant).
The thing is that while Iran's water infrastructure is vulnerable, the Gulf states are much more reliant on desalination ... and hitting them hard there would be a total disaster ... which Iran is capable of doing, but has so far refrained.
> Attacking the water infrastructure would definitely cause huge civilian casualties
I personally think there is a wide barrier between electrical and water infrastructure. But given water infra has allegedly been hit already, it doesn’t feel like it’s off the table for both sides the way it once was.
Which is why taking out the political leadership is the better tactic.
You don't need to fight armies - just make it suicide to command them. Decapitation strikes work.
"What if you had a time machine and could go back to kill Hitler?" Well yeah, no need to fight all of Germany.
Would the Ukraine war still be going without Putin at the helm?
The logical conclusion of drone war is take out whoever controls the drones.
Decapitation strikes work well in highly personalist regimes (e.g. Russia). They work poorly in institutionalist regimes.
Iran is extremely institutionalist. You could keep killing leaders for years and they will just be replaced with similar ones.
That doesn’t work if a nation has strong institutions and hierarchies of command. Russia and Nazi Germany (and Iraq) were organized around a strong central leader who personally granted authority to his subordinates, but Iran’s rulers are given authority by a process. If the new supreme leader is killed, they will simply elect another one. Imagine that FDR was visiting Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. Would the US government have collapsed? How many politicians and generals would the Japanese have had to kill before the US surrendered?
But that approach has demonstrably not worked in this instance because Iran has been planning for this exact scenario.
This is just a PSYOP to get us onto renewables quicker.
Trump is secretly an environmentalist but can't say it aloud because of his political base.
I want to believe.
— The X-Files
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TLDR: not going to put the navy within range of shore attacks + have not yet been able to degrade the Iranian strike capabilites.
I think Newt had the right idea, albeit in a more targeted fashion instead of just ‘nuking the Strait’. Given that Iran has now taken to directly threatening non-military US commercial and civilian enterprises and assets I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to justify using them in this instance.
I can't tell if this is tongue-in-cheek, but if it is not, the escalation of nuclear weapons at this point is an insane idea to accomolish the stated goals of the administracion.
They have goals? That's news to me.
I'm not a Trump fan, but this isn't just the Trump admin, is it. Every administration since Carter has had to deal with Iran, whose stated raison d'être is to eradicate both Israel and the US. That's been their position for 40 years.
My own view is that if you have the power to delete your enemy while he's weak, you do it. Why the fuck would you wait until he gets the nukes he promises to get, or uses them on you like he also promises to do? At least the Israelis seem to understand this.
The US has already alienated their allies anyway, and as we've seen with this fiasco, it isn't like those allies are particularly useful anyway, so if the US did use nukes to very quickly solve what has been an intergenerational problem, so what? Oh no, condemnation from the international community. Nobody cares.