441–450 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
It isn’t perfect. It has flaws. War is hard to get right in every dimension.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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 poi…
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 th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Laser and EWar approaches are going to be more successful long-term as the price per "shot" is dramatically less, but deployments are slow.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The US navies ships are good for real wars This is a real war.
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…
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.
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 i…
Trita Parsi is an Iranian government lobbyist. Of course he would say that.
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 poi…
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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?