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U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
261–270 of 769 posts
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
>fighting China would be a proper all-out war I figure it would probably be like the US backing Ukraine's defense against Russia but backing Taiwan's defense against China. It would probably be quite hard for China to take Taiwan. There's a lot of sea in between and you can see how well Russia's navy has done against Ukraine's drones and missiles.
I don't think so because China would not be sure what and how the US would be involved and because it would be incredibly risky to attack Taiwan without striking US forces in the area they'll likely attempt to strike US forces in Korea, Japan, Guam, the Philippines, and elsewhere. The best US strategy is to just arm Taiwan to the teeth by selling weapons to make the invasion as risky as possible. But China can (and t…
> is to just win Taiwan over politically over the long term.
That was their plan until Xi became ruler for life and decided that he wanted Taiwan sooner rather than later.
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are we even talking about here? Controlling the strait? This actually means controlling so much land around the strait that Iran can't launch missiles or drones at ships. Essentially conquering all of Iran by ground invasion. The USA could do this, sure, but we don't want to because its too stupid even for us.
Just like how US conquered all of Vietnam and Afghanistan. US would lose a land war with Iran. They’d lose it spectacularly too.
If the US were ruled by a dictator and had no market forces, the US could obviously conquer any of the above. It would just come at such immense cost and require such horrors that a voting public and a responsive market make it politically untenable to actually pursue. Which is good!
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
The health care issue in the USA isn't due to lack of funding, the US spends more on health care per person than any other country, double that of many European countries with single payer systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... The costs of medicare, medicaid and CHIP to tax payers are about what most Europeans pay in tax for universal health care, but then they also need to pay for…
Health insurance company margins are 3% to 5%. The book America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Back-Room Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System (2015) by journalist Steven Brill blames mostly wasteful practices in hospitals, pharma and device manufacturers, government and corporate health administration costs.
I think the most correct and probably most discouraging answer is that American healthcare costs about what it should.
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they can exhaust all their firepower in a couple weeks fighting Iran, China would have no reason to feel threatened in the first place. The reality is that fighting China would be a proper all-out war, not whatever this spitting match with Iran is.
The reality is that fighting any country with a decent military has to be all-out war. We should have plenty of precision missiles left today because they should have been used only to clear the way for runs with "dumb" bombs. A war with China would be the same, it can never be fought from a distance with primarily $1m+ precision surface to surface missiles. Of course I only mean if the war was necessary to fight at…
they should've just given Hegseth the Producer Button
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We should have plenty of precision missiles left today because they should have been used only to clear the way for runs with "dumb" bombs. That's what the US tried to do. The problem is that they were unable to degrade the Iranian missile systems enough that they could drop gravity bombs with impunity. This also means that they had to pull the aircraft that they would use to do bombing runs back to bases in Jordan…
China, in it's modern incarnation, and every living member of it's military, has never seen a single real battle. Nothing. No one has any rank that has bearing on any kind of combat. Just decades of self-congratulatory war games. China has tons of weapons and resources. But it would remain to be seen if they can actually fight when every single person along the entire chain is a total day one rookie.
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Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We should have plenty of precision missiles left today because they should have been used only to clear the way for runs with "dumb" bombs. That's what the US tried to do. The problem is that they were unable to degrade the Iranian missile systems enough that they could drop gravity bombs with impunity. This also means that they had to pull the aircraft that they would use to do bombing runs back to bases in Jordan…
China, in it's modern incarnation, and every living member of it's military, has never seen a single real battle. Nothing. No one has any rank that has bearing on any kind of combat. Just decades of self-congratulatory war games. China has tons of weapons and resources. But it would remain to be seen if they can actually fight when every single person along the entire chain is a total day one rookie.
This isn't WW1, not a lot of experience is necessary to point a missile or a drone towards the target.
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#2683 generations of wealth poured into the most expensive military in recorded history - the reason that we don't have health care, clean energy, decent social safety nets and so many other things... and they can't even control a small stretch of water. What a waste.
I think it's worth pointing out that the US almost certainly could have taken control of the strait. But it would have required boats in the water and boots on the ground. But that puts many more lives at risk, would have been very unpopular (much moreso then the current war situation), etc. You can't win a war purely through air superiority and bombs. That's not a new lesson but it's one the administration failed to…
> You can't win a war purely through air superiority and bombs. That's not a new lesson but it's one the administration failed to learn through history and is apparently now failing to learn through practice.
This is a lesson that conservative administrations have refused to learn for decades. I hope Curtis Lemay is experiencing a toasty afterlife for all of the suffering he has caused humanity due to a zealous conviction that aerial bombing campaigns win wars, and his lasting legacy in conservative war strategy.
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read the rest of my comment, I get there eventually.
Fair. And I agree with nearly everything in your comment. One thing about tRump, is that he is more blatantly obvious about the "bully" side of America. He is not the first bully; just the first un-subtle American bully. What I find disturbing is the others who enable him. I've long despised the Repugnant Party for their anti-worker ideology but under tRump 2.0 they've gone to a new low that I never thought possible.…
I think there's probably a "in a long time" missing from unsubtle bully. American diplomacy was a lot less subtle in the past.
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#270That's hard to believe. US with it's military spending should be able to join two large scale conflicts at the same time, not to have problem with a one minor conflict.
never underestimate the monetary inefficiency of the military industrial complex
And useless, prolonged wars are good for business.