This is going to leave a mark for centuries, history books are going to look back on this period in the US in complete dismay and horror for what this country continues to do.
As an American, and from my point of view, this is a headline moment where this country commits to its slide to just a middling country with "only" 380 million people mismanaged to inefficiency and un competitiveness and brain drain. The whole rest of the world has their own agency and is wising up to the fact that the US is limited to financial instruments and 5-13 functional aircraft carriers to project force. Soft power and goodwill is spent and we're just ignorant bullies who elected a rapist twice and can't be trusted
The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US
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Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US
#12It's hard to overstate how poorly this whole thing was thought out and executed. They obviously had no plan for what we'd do when Iran seized the strait. This is going to go down as the definitive beginning of the decline leading to the eventual end of US global hegemony. To think anyone ever mentioned defending Taiwan from China lol
Well, Iran is a huge mess, but in terms of strategic lessons, it actually tips the balance closer to "Taiwan, with US help and proper preparation, can deny China control of the strait of Taiwan" (and vice versa, of course). It's clear that asymmetric warfare is good now at denying access to ocean and turning it into no-man's-zone.
In a lot of ways, helping defending Taiwan (a very well-scoped objective, "do not let China land troops") would have been a lot easier than convincing a nation of 90 million to just roll over and give up rather than chucking drones across the gulf every so often.
Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US
#13I'm down for a good political rant as much as the next guy but I can't make an HN moment in this. Is it about department of war using AI instead of people to decide things? Or Amazon's material losses in DC assets?
It's about the slow acceptance of what many saw as an entirely predictable and already foreseen outcome before the US dropped the first bomb on Iran :/
Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US
#14Crazy idea: what if the US starts minding its own business and stops bombing countries just because it can?
That's what Trump told everyone during the campaign. Then, after he got elected, well, he changed his mind, I guess.
Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US
#15Crazy idea: what if the US starts minding its own business and stops bombing countries just because it can?
How many hours do you think our current President could stick to that strategy, if it didn't instantly - Poof! Magic! - make everything better?
Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US
#16It's hard to overstate how poorly this whole thing was thought out and executed. They obviously had no plan for what we'd do when Iran seized the strait. This is going to go down as the definitive beginning of the decline leading to the eventual end of US global hegemony. To think anyone ever mentioned defending Taiwan from China lol
Well, Iran is a huge mess, but in terms of strategic lessons, it actually tips the balance closer to "Taiwan, with US help and proper preparation, can deny China control of the strait of Taiwan" (and vice versa, of course). It's clear that asymmetric warfare is good now at denying access to ocean and turning it into no-man's-zone. In a lot of ways, helping defending Taiwan (a very well-scoped objective, "do not let C…
Is Taiwan going to construct a hundred secret underground missile and drone cities like Iran? It would take decades to make them in the best case.
Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US
#17Aaaaaand right on cue the flagging brigade promptly flagged this to get it off the front page.
What's stunning is that there doesn't seem to be a single way in which the United States has come out ahead on this conflict.
We have
* Established that US zero ability or will to protect it's 'allies' in region beyond Israel.
* Permanently ceded de facto control over the straits of Hormuz to Iran
* Significantly strengthened the hardliners in the Iranian regime and cleared the way for them to have absolute power by eliminating all moderates
* Spiked inflation at home and doubled down on pissing off pretty much every single country except Russia by heaping sky rocketing energy costs on them
* Exploded the myth of US military superiority with US warplanes unable to approach Iran and the carrier groups unable to go anywhere near the straits.
And to think we got this in exchange for spending more on our military than the next few countries combined, and the military is asking for 1.5 Trillion more to continue to fight this war.
All of this to get to a point where we are negotiating a deal which is worse than what we already had with the JCPOA.
I think we will look back on this as the US version of the Suez crisis, the beginning of the end of the US empire.
Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, Iran is a huge mess, but in terms of strategic lessons, it actually tips the balance closer to "Taiwan, with US help and proper preparation, can deny China control of the strait of Taiwan" (and vice versa, of course). It's clear that asymmetric warfare is good now at denying access to ocean and turning it into no-man's-zone. In a lot of ways, helping defending Taiwan (a very well-scoped objective, "do not let C…
Is Taiwan going to construct a hundred secret underground missile and drone cities like Iran? It would take decades to make them in the best case.
If anything, Iran has proved that is what they should be doing right now.
Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, Iran is a huge mess, but in terms of strategic lessons, it actually tips the balance closer to "Taiwan, with US help and proper preparation, can deny China control of the strait of Taiwan" (and vice versa, of course). It's clear that asymmetric warfare is good now at denying access to ocean and turning it into no-man's-zone. In a lot of ways, helping defending Taiwan (a very well-scoped objective, "do not let C…
Is Taiwan going to construct a hundred secret underground missile and drone cities like Iran? It would take decades to make them in the best case.
Yes — the US has helped Taiwan build them all over their mountains.
Re: The Iran War Is a Whole New Level of Quagmire for the US
#20Professor Robert Pape (University of Chicago) has 2 substacks where he have been discussing the exactly topic heavily, as well as having webinar/ live discussions with some heavy hitters about the topic. Unfortunately both of the substacks are both subscription-only https://professorrobertpape.substack.com/ https://escalationtrap.substack.com I would rather not paraphrasing or rewrite in my interpretation too much, a…
Robert Pape has been giving interviews on Mario Nawfal’s channel, among others.
I also appreciate his perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/@MarioNawfal/search?query=Robert+pap...