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.
> 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.
> 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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The US has not been able to devise effective military strategies for at least the last 50 years.
If the US were to decisively flatten Cuba in the course of a day, obviously they would need to use nuclear strikes. It's idiotic to suggest otherwise and your comment is in bad faith.
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
>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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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 is 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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).
> 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.
...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...
> 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%
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
> 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
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.
> 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!
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 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.
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.
God created war so that Americans would learn geography. Like Trump's obsession with Greenland because he does not understand the Mercator projection...
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.
> 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:
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.
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.
> 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.
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.)
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.
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?
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.
> 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?
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.
> 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?
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
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
> 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??)
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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 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)
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
> 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.
> 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
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.
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.
> 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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).
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.
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?
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.
> 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).
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.
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).
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?
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> Meanwhile the rest of the world has waited 50 years for this day.
50 years ago America got brought to its knees by a Middle East oil crisis. There was mass fuel rationing, nationwide laws passed for mileage and speed limits, and everyday citizens felt the pain acutely. In response, America developed a massive oil industry with cutting-edge technology and is now the largest oil producer in the world, by far. Now, 50 years later, America wages a war of revenge but they know they aren't going to feel the same pain they felt 50 years ago because of their strategic preparation.
Perhaps America isn't as dumb as you think. Perhaps it was the rest of the world that didn't make plans for the future?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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."
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.
> 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...
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.
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).
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
> 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?
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”
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 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 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
"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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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
> You couldve seen anti militsry industry sentiment on HN for years, which apparently worked for US adversaries, who knows who was behind that propaganda
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.
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.
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.
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.
They are sarcastically mocking Trump's nonsensical back-and-forth statements about the war already being won and regime change already being accomplished
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.”
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...
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.
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.
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?
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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
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".
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.
Presumably they meant WW2 Germany.
> 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.
> 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 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.
> Which is why the US proceeded to (attempt to) flatten Afghanistan instead.
It seems to have made things better for the Taliban.
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?
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.
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 War of 1812 says "hello"
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.
9/11 was not a military action against the USA, and the invocation of article 5 by the USA was illegimate.
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...
I think you need to read up not only American history but also modern military actions.
This is the typical comment you expect from reddit.
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.
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.
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.
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.
America has lost every war in the recent past.
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.
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.
The US has not been able to devise effective military strategies for at least the last 50 years.
If the US were to decisively flatten Cuba in the course of a day, obviously they would need to use nuclear strikes. It's idiotic to suggest otherwise and your comment is in bad faith.
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.
> 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.
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?
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.
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?
>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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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 is 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
>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.
> 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 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."
> 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.
Whose homeland is the US?
> 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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
>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
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.
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.
...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.
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%
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.
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.
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?
Just rhetoric coming from nowhere?
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.
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...
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 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
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?
its always that, and absolutely nobody cares
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.
Wait, wasn't the Iranian military obliterated? What do they have left?
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.
> 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
Sorry, irrelevant to what you‘re saying, but Germany has 85 mio inhabitants. You might mistake it for Poland.
> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany.
Germany has 83.000.000 people
"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
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.
> 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!
90M > 2x Germany? You might wanna check your math on that...
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
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
> 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.
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.
> 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".
Germany has a population of ~87,000,000 though.
Germany has over 83M people.
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
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.
God created war so that Americans would learn geography. Like Trump's obsession with Greenland because he does not understand the Mercator projection...
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.
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.
Germany has 80M people.
it's not 2x Germany. Germany is ~83.5M.
Just to note, Germany has 83 million people, so not 2x Germany.
> 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
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.
Bush and his son in one gulf, Bobby and his in another. Crisis after crisis.
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.
> 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.
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.)
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.
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?
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.
> 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?
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.
> 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?
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
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.
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?
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.
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 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.
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...
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks is largely about WWI, including trench warfare. And it's an excellent book, very moving & vivid.
You can read about it, or watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackadder_Goes_Forth
> 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...
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
>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.
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.
Bright minds in America aren't working for Trump.
I think this works well with his original point.
We do have very bright minds. It's a shame they don't get voted into policy.
they're not on HackerNews
> 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
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?
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?
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)
Not according to FIFA
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.
>"That's dual use infrastructure. "
Especially desalination plants (your sunshine promised to bomb those as well).
Why should a president have this much power?
Shouldn't. But the checks and balances are not checking him.
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.
This line of thinking did not end very well for the Roman Republic.
So America can put other countries' leaders on trial - like the Nazis in Nuremberg, or Saddam Hussein - but not their own, for war crimes.
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.
> 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
> 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.
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.
> To be clear: The US is choosing to fight a worse version of WW1
The mental gymnastics required to be this specific and wrong and still believe this nonsense is truly incredible.
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.
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".
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.
"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.
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.
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 ;)
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. ;-)
At the moment, cruise speed and manufacturing price.
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
- 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.
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.
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?
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...
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Look at who's buying the oil for the answer to your question.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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
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.
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.
> 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 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.
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.
Your knowledge is too reddit based.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire
(~20kg warhead)
That was over half a century ago. Completely irrelevant.
> That was over half a century ago. Completely irrelevant.
This is Trump's America, brother, we don't learn from the past here!
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.
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.
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.
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.
> ... 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".
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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
> 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.
> 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.
> 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
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).
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.
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.
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/...
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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).
> 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
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.
> 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.
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?
>> 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.
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?
“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'
>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 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 technologies listed aside from the Enigma were largely actually British (I say largely because Canadians were deeply involved in some cases)
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.
> 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!
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> Meanwhile the rest of the world has waited 50 years for this day.
50 years ago America got brought to its knees by a Middle East oil crisis. There was mass fuel rationing, nationwide laws passed for mileage and speed limits, and everyday citizens felt the pain acutely. In response, America developed a massive oil industry with cutting-edge technology and is now the largest oil producer in the world, by far. Now, 50 years later, America wages a war of revenge but they know they aren't going to feel the same pain they felt 50 years ago because of their strategic preparation.
Perhaps America isn't as dumb as you think. Perhaps it was the rest of the world that didn't make plans for the future?
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
Will the citizens of said country do anything to prevent their government from doing this?
If no, then why does their disposition matter?
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.
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.
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.
"Responsible Statecraft" they call themselves.
Didn't you read the URL?
It's not mass killing, it's statecraft.
It's not casual, it's responsible.
It's not this, it's that! And a green account no less.
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.
Ooh, ooh, is it because it would be mindnumbingly stupid?
[reads article]
Yep, got it in one!
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."
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.
> 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...
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.
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).
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
> 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?
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.
Did I miss something? When did Ukraine support any side in elections?
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.
> 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
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.
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).
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.
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
> 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
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!
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.
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?
> 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. It's not wrong.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
What do you mean "achieve very little"? A lot of American oligarchs made boatloads of money!
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
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
We win battles and lose wars. Haven't won a war since WW2 and arguably Russia would have won without us.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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).
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?
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.
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.
>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.
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 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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 ...
"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.
> 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.
"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…
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.
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.
It depends on what you mean by "win".
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.
Considering that Trump models are Hitler and Putin, how surprising...
He has openly talked about doing so
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.
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 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.
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
Solar cooker?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
And boats, amd submerged drones, and mines...
Laser cannons should be a cheap way to shoot them down.
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
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
What people do to distract the focus from Epstein list.
2nd Epstein war.
Hey, don't knock what works!
Operation Epstein Fury
Why though? Iranian missiles aren’t new and they seem to be the only threat to the aircraft carriers.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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?
"Why the the US Navy Can't Blast the Iranians and 'Open' the Strait of Hormuz"
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 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.
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.
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.
Who stops using a mosquito or drone fleet to do clear it?
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
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
TLDR: not going to put the navy within range of shore attacks + have not yet been able to degrade the Iranian strike capabilites.
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".