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Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

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Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#41

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

V__ wrote: post #24

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."

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#42

Post by citrin_ru »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12
kashunstva wrote: post #10

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 dy…

> 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.)

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).

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#43

Post by generic92034 »

bluegatty wrote: post #22
i67vw3 wrote: post #2

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 operat…

And this was all known for decades. Now everyone pays the price for the US leadership surrounding themselves with spineless yes-men.

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#44

Post by no_shadowban_5 »

lpapez wrote: post #31
poulpy123 wrote: post #19

I'm always perturbed to see people talk of mass killings so casually

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…

[flagged]

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#45

Post by 0x3f »

flohofwoe wrote: post #27
high_na_euv wrote: post #11

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

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.

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#46

Post by b345 »

high_na_euv wrote: post #11

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

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.

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#47

Post by giantg2 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #9
fooker wrote: post #6

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 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.

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#48

Post by arkensaw »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #8
i67vw3 wrote: post #2

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 "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.

> while Iran seems to do just enough to keep America from actually shutting the Strait.

Uhm, why would America shut the strait?

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#49

Post by petesergeant »

fooker wrote: post #6

At the heart of this is the fact that America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale. High tech interceptors and missiles and aircraft carriers are great, but with China's help these are outnumbered by three (soon to be four) orders of magnitude. It's unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes, with not much in between.

Sorry, at the heart of this is that the Commander in Chief and Secretary of War are idiots. It's not clear how any of this situation would be any different if America had a dramatically higher production capacity.

Re: Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

#50

Post by lnsru »

standardUser wrote: post #16

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.
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