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U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
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Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#672Now they'll exhaust interceptors and other long range missiles like tomahawks and whatnot. And then China gets frisky with Taiwan and the US will totally not abandon them and tell them to just give up pressured by the lack of firepower to defend them, the risks of China getting back into bidding oil in international markets and the mess the treasury would be in if China raises capital by selling bonds (they just told…
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.
Fighting China would be over before it began. They'd stop shipping stuff to the USA and that would be that. The degree to which the USA depends on China should not be underestimated when talking loosely about starting major wars. That's exactly the kind of thinking that got the strait of Hormuz closed.
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#673Earlier 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…
> That's what the US tried to do. Yes but with the caveat that they wanted the lowest risk to US service members during the bombing. This means using up the fire and forget stuff rather than the guided munitions attached to planes. They have good air superiority, but poor logistical options to do that. The traditional way to do this is to park two carrier groups within 500 miles of the target and convey tonnes of che…
An undersold embarrassment of this fiasco is the Marine Corps has 10 (ten!) amphibious assault carriers that are more capable than most nations' flagships and we didn't see one of them even talked about. Why have we been floating these things for decades?
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#674Earlier 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.
>not whatever this spitting match with Iran is. Are you openly saying the president and the secretary of war are lying when they say they have done "massive" bombings of Iran?
"massive bombing" is irrelevant. They either have the capacity to achieve their war goals or they don't and the bombing is not achieving US goals. We're apparently up to "asking around for creative solutions"[1] which means Trump started the war with no credible plan of victory. Which means he was ignoring the 'deep state' experts and listening to yes men and Israel, yet again.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/03/politics/us-military-iran...
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#675Earlier quoted context omitted.
> China, in it's modern incarnation, and every living member of it's military, has never seen a single real battle. I wish people would take a short stop here and contemplate a bit on this sentence.
The PLA has engaged in many battles over the last few decades. There were some as recent as 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army#Eng...
All of the recent stuff on that link is UN peacekeeping missions, with the exception of unarmed fistfights in the Himalayas.
I guess one could litigate the definition of "battle", but come on.
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#676Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#677Earlier quoted context omitted.
The delusion is somewhat over a century old now. It originates from factions within the military community (vs. politicians) and there's nothing particularly conservative about it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell#Post-war_advoca... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_Mafia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_hawk Big picture, I'd categorize the problem as human nature and "sounds too good to be false…
I'd personally label the factions within the military that view aerial bombing as an effective strategy as "conservative", especially the ones that follow in the footsteps of Henry Kissinger and Curtis LeMay. It's hard not to see the direct line to Pete Hegseth's leadership, as well. Notably, one of the largest "Liberal hawks", LBJ, often disagreed head on with Curtis LeMay because LeMay was too insane in his villain…
> I'd personally label the factions within the military that view aerial bombing as an effective strategy as "conservative"...
If "aerial bombing as an effective strategy" still means "you can win wars just by dropping enough bombs", I'll disagree. Because that use of "conservative" (simplistic maximum macho force) is equally applicable to Army leaders who want to occupy every square inch of the enemy's territory, or to Navy leaders who want to sink everything associated with the enemy and establish a water-tight blockade.
There's nothing liberal about a political leader reining in a nut case like LeMay. George Wallace quickly regretted his selection of LeMay as his '68 running mate. Or look at America's military actions during President Reagan's terms - for all the big talk and military build-ups, actual military actions were very carefully limited.
But in a very different sense of the word "Conservative", aerial bombing is often extremely Conservative. That sense is minimizing political commitment to a conflict. A leader (with effective air superiority) can drop some bombs or launch some missiles, talk tough about having "delivered a message" - then quietly drop the whole thing, having risked fairly little, and without giving the impression of having failed or retreated. From the PoV of a political leader managing risks, putting boots on the ground would be far less conservative.
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#678The title does not follow from the stated facts. At most one could say that the US Army has used "virtually all" of its long-range munitions. But the war in Iran is mainly prosecuted by the US Air Force and the US Navy, not by the US Army. Is it possible that the USAF and US Navy also used most of their long range munitions? Maybe, but on that the Reuters report does not have anything new compared to guesses by every…
Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
#679Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is absurd. This war is being waged for the benefit of Israel. Even the pussyfooting of the on and off strikes is to force the Arabs to sign on the so called Abraham Accords. Once this misadventure is over, Israel goes to be the dominant power in the area, controlling the energy resources, with Arabs on the leash, US out of the area, and all potential regional rivals destroyed or neutered. note they are now shift…
I don't think anyone is that "in control", it was definitely an Israeli plan to start but they got awfully shy after Iron Dome was exhausted.
Theyre not shy in lebanon. Theyre invading with no regard for any agreement iran and the US sign