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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

#701

Post by corimaith »

Galanwe wrote: post #623
rjzzleep wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

>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?

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

#702

Post by jacquesm »

ghywertelling wrote: post #38
no_shadowban_5 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't you read the URL? It's not mass killing, it's statecraft. It's not casual, it's responsible.

James Cameron in Avatar: Fire and Ash makes fun of these Big Picture guys (so called ThinkTank people) towards the end.

That's a movie. This is about reality.

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

#703

Post by expedition32 »

refurb wrote: post #551
IlikeMadison wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#704

Post by tommica »

kakacik wrote: post #596
tommica wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#705

Post by tommica »

zarzavat wrote: post #609
tommica wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 in…

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.

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

#706

Post by mft_ »

stickfigure wrote: post #262
Balgair wrote: post #113

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 soldier…

> 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 appar…

> The problem in Ukraine is that anti-air defenses control the skies... ...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.

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

#707

Post by tommica »

brazzy wrote: post #656
tommica wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tro…

[dead]

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

#708

Post by mortarion »

psychoslave wrote: post #685
matheusmoreira wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, nev…

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.

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

#709

Post by ap99 »

lawgimenez wrote: post #634
asa400 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 an…

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.

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

#710

Post by psychoslave »

darkwater wrote: post #625
Galanwe wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?
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