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Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

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Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#221

Post by everdrive »

w29UiIm2Xz wrote: post #185
everdrive wrote: post #20

Much of the post-WW2 American-led world order was founded partially on the United States using its military to keep international waters open. It would be quite stunning Iran defeated the united states in this sense. The military might is there, but this administration clearly had no idea what they were getting themselves into and did not plan accordingly. (and does not have the will or public support to do so) The b…

The power wasn't there in the first place if the administration couldn't defend Hormuz. It's all the same capital and resources that prior administrations had. The actual blunder was exposing that weakness to the world. We could have done nothing and reputation would've carried the idea that we could.

Not necessarily. It's a matter of risk. How many resources do we want to commit? Are we comfortable putting a large number of troops in Iran? Are we comfortable with major losses as we try to enforce against drones and mines?

It's not that I think any of these things are wise, but this is part of the risk calculus you make when you decide to wage war. It's more like a debate: if you don't have a plan for uncomfortable questions you're a poor debater. The US has the physical means to prevent the closure, but I think it's quite clear that this administration ignored known risks and acted recklessly. And more importantly, apparently had very little contingency planning if things didn't go their way.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#222

Post by HWR_14 »

nradov wrote: post #194
mrandish wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know enough about the current state of naval warfare but I've assumed this is related to the asymmetry that's emerged around protecting capital warships, especially in the scenario of a very narrow strait and a long enemy-controlled coastline. They can shoot relatively low-cost, short-range guided missiles from anywhere along the coast. Even if a warship stops the vast majority of them, only one has to get th…

Modern US surface warships such as the DDG-52 Arleigh Burke class are pretty survivable. The Iranians (and their Houthi proxies) have made sustained attacks on them and don't seem to have hit anything. And a single hit would be highly unlikely to sink such as vessel: we're not talking about something like the Russian Moskva cruiser that was crewed by drunks and had inoperative defensive systems. The real problem is t…

Assisting the US with regard to Iran is phenomenally unpopular. The increase in energy prices isn't outweighing people's desire not to have their country assist.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#223

Post by xrd »

crossbody wrote: post #214
xrd wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anything about this but I am a software engineer. Stop laughing for a minute because I do have a point. As a software engineer, I typically build something and engineer it so I can iterate quickly and improve it. I know that the first version won't work. Isn't this a perfect opportunity for Iran to iterate on sinking cargo ships? I'm struggling to believe that a regime that is (allegedly) weeks away from…

Iterating on a rocket design is not like making a tweak to a line of code. It needs production line changes, manufacturing, testing, (repeat X times) where the process takes weeks, months or even years untill desired results can be achieved. And their manudacturing sites have been reduced to rubble, so that slows things down too.

As I said I'm only a software engineer but didn't Ukraine revolutionize the rules of asymetric warfare by drone iteration? Your statement rings true but I wonder if there are aspiring rocket engineers that really want to test their totally unproven new ideas without the constraint of a military hierarchy in peacetime.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#224

Post by BeetleB »

asdff wrote: post #171
throwaway27448 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the extent to which either Daesh or Andar Allah are formally operating in Somalia, but I apologize if I cast unfair aspersions. I don't believe there are any formal or uniform or centralized funding of the pirates at all, though—many were simply fisherman who could no longer make a living. This is just my understanding however. I'm also open to the idea that the pirates aren't just from Somalia.

The level of ordinance is enough evidence that there is significant outside support. RPG-7s do not grow on trees in Somalia. I hazard to guess an RPG on the black market is also a great expense to anyone who isn't being given one by one of these groups connected to the arms trade in effort to advance their goals or position in some way.

> The level of ordinance is enough evidence that there is significant outside support.

"I have no evidence, but I can't think of other scenarios so it must be true!"

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#225

Post by cyberax »

mrandish wrote: post #59
everdrive wrote: post #20

Much of the post-WW2 American-led world order was founded partially on the United States using its military to keep international waters open. It would be quite stunning Iran defeated the united states in this sense. The military might is there, but this administration clearly had no idea what they were getting themselves into and did not plan accordingly. (and does not have the will or public support to do so) The b…

I don't know enough about the current state of naval warfare but I've assumed this is related to the asymmetry that's emerged around protecting capital warships, especially in the scenario of a very narrow strait and a long enemy-controlled coastline. They can shoot relatively low-cost, short-range guided missiles from anywhere along the coast. Even if a warship stops the vast majority of them, only one has to get th…

> Even if a warship stops the vast majority of them, only one has to get through to sink a multi-billion dollar ship that takes a decade to replace.

Even worse. They don't need to attack _warships_. They can just attack civilian vessels, especially tanker ships, that don't have any defenses.

A hit on a tanker and the subsequent oil spill would be catastrophic.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#226

Post by DoctorOetker »

mrandish wrote: post #59
everdrive wrote: post #20

Much of the post-WW2 American-led world order was founded partially on the United States using its military to keep international waters open. It would be quite stunning Iran defeated the united states in this sense. The military might is there, but this administration clearly had no idea what they were getting themselves into and did not plan accordingly. (and does not have the will or public support to do so) The b…

I don't know enough about the current state of naval warfare but I've assumed this is related to the asymmetry that's emerged around protecting capital warships, especially in the scenario of a very narrow strait and a long enemy-controlled coastline. They can shoot relatively low-cost, short-range guided missiles from anywhere along the coast. Even if a warship stops the vast majority of them, only one has to get th…

suppose one has N independently developed interception systems (from detection till physical interception attempt), each with an intercept success rate of 90%.

a rudimentary calculation then gives the probability of hitting (not sinking) the ship as 0.1^N per launched missile; so it seems that given enough budget to spend on independently developed missile interception systems allows to drive down the penetration success rate arbitrarily.

Multi-billion sounds like $ 10^10; so assuming an attacker can launch say a million missile attempts then the statistical loss would be 0.1^N * 10^10 * 10^6; so the statistical loss can be driven down arbitrarily say to $ 1 by developing ~ 16 independent interception systems.

16 independently developed intercept systems doesn't sound like unobtainium for a vested nuclear power.

furthermore, the development cost of 16 independent intercept systems can be amortized over many more installations than a single ship, it can be amortized over multiple ships, multiple bases, multiple strategic assets across the globe.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#227

Post by throwaway27448 »

asdff wrote: post #171
throwaway27448 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the extent to which either Daesh or Andar Allah are formally operating in Somalia, but I apologize if I cast unfair aspersions. I don't believe there are any formal or uniform or centralized funding of the pirates at all, though—many were simply fisherman who could no longer make a living. This is just my understanding however. I'm also open to the idea that the pirates aren't just from Somalia.

The level of ordinance is enough evidence that there is significant outside support. RPG-7s do not grow on trees in Somalia. I hazard to guess an RPG on the black market is also a great expense to anyone who isn't being given one by one of these groups connected to the arms trade in effort to advance their goals or position in some way.

Well why do you think they want to raid these ships? To buy more RPG-7s, of course!

But seriously, if they were being funded by other groups, why pirate in the first place?

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#228

Post by tmnvix »

elzbardico wrote: post #207

Let’s be frank. Iran could have built at least crude gun type fission bombs since they reached industrial scale for enrichment. And this being very dismissing of Iranian scientific and technological capabilities. Given modern computer consumer hardware, I don’t see why they couldn’t even have built implosion lens based fission devices without testing. DPRK would probably provide them with all the data they needed for…

Exactly.

Which, when you think about it, shows that the 'Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb' argument for this war is not exactly the true motivation (not to say that the US and Israel really don't want them to have a bomb).

This war is about trashing Iran. Adding it to the string of other failed states in the area. It would be more honest for Trump and Netanyahu to say that the motivation for this war is to ensure that Iran becomes a state that is incapable of developing the bomb (i.e. a failed and fractured, or weak and compliant).

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#229

Post by chrisco255 »

danbruc wrote: post #197

The US should be happy about this. Maybe. Iran seeking reparations is a reasonable demand, this gives the US a way to satisfy a demand without having to pay themselves - which certainly would not be popular, to say the least - making an exit easier. There is of course the risk of setting an undesirable precedent and it is not clear what the consequences of that would be.

Iran has been funding terrorists for decades and the IRGC has murdered tens of thousands of Iranians. There are no reparations for terrorists getting their comeuppance.

Re: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

#230

Post by runako »

dylan604 wrote: post #203
w29UiIm2Xz wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The power wasn't there in the first place if the administration couldn't defend Hormuz. It's all the same capital and resources that prior administrations had. The actual blunder was exposing that weakness to the world. We could have done nothing and reputation would've carried the idea that we could.

> It's all the same capital and resources that prior administrations had. Is it? Depending on how far back into "prior administrations" you go, the modern US Navy is a shadow of itself.

This leads to an interesting thought experiment.

Using conventional weapons only, what prior year's US Navy could beat the 2026 US Navy in combat?

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