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

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391–400 of 1001 posts

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

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US navies ships are good for real wars This is a real war.

Sure, but keeping the straight open is not really important, sure gas, fertilizers and a few other commodities are going to get more expensive, but there is no need to put thousands of sailors in harms way. The US navy ships, in this war have performed admirably, they have performed over 850 tomahawk strikes, and navy airplanes have performed thousands of sorties. And have had no casualties due to enemy action. I can…

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

#392

Whether or not professional military strategists and planners anticipated this shift in carrier-based projection of power in the era of low-cost drones, it is nearly certain that the Commander-in-Chief of the United States military has not. And if the Commander is involved in the either the day-to-day operations or the strategic level of planning, I can’t imagine that whatever reasoning about these shifts in power dy…

An aerial drone capable of materially damaging a modern navy ship costs $1-2M a piece. Anything much cheaper doesn't have the range, survivability, or required warhead to do much more than scratch the paint. A cheap drone is only useful against soft targets. It is the reason Ukraine is scaling up heavy cruise missile production even though they already have vast numbers of cheap long-range drones. Being "cheap" isn't…

> An aerial drone capable of materially damaging a modern navy ship costs $1-2M a piece. Anything much cheaper doesn't have the range, survivability, or required warhead to do much more than scratch the paint.

Problem isn't a single drone, it's the cost of intercepters. Iran could launch a swarm of 100s of drones with few antiship missiles mixed in to hone in at same time. CSG has to spend $million+ interceptors and will quickly run out of them. US hasn't taken anti drone defence seriously, or the cost of doing it seriously before going in.

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

#393
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they are mixing it up with The Guns of August (published in 1962, also by Tuchman), which JFK was fond of and supposedly drew on during the Cuban missile crisis.

You are absolutely right. My mistake. I read them both and certainly recommend them.

Thank you. I heard about The Guns of August when I was looking for related books after reading A World Undone. Then I forgot about it. I never heard of March of Folly but I'll read them both.

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

#394
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He can’t cancel elections. Stop fear mongering about that. He can 100% drop a nuke though, so thats probably worth fear mongering about.

He doesn't need to legally cancel the election. He simply needs to say it is and take action as if it was already. This allows him to combine interference before the election with the Republican insurrection tactics from 2020. Say he declares, through executive order, that the 2026 election is cancelled due to an emergency, and that the current Congress will stay in power until the emergency is over. This would allow…

> He simply needs to

I think a lot of people struggle to imagine the kinds of dirty-deeds ("ratf***ing") that are both possible and effective, especially when the perpetrators don't (feel) constrained by an implicit baseline of plausible consistency or morality. Being unable to brainstorm them up is, perhaps, a kind of backhanded compliment.

Imagine trying to warn someone in 2010 that in a few years an outgoing President, stung at an election loss, could foment a violent mob that would break into the Capitol to hunt and chase legislators that were formalizing that loss, issue blanket pardons for everyone involved, and his party would still protect him from being impeached over it.

For that matter, some people are still surprised to learn about the "Brooks Brothers Riot" [0] of 2000, where a crowd of Republican campaign staffers threatened workers into stopping a recount of certain ballots.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/24/us-elections...

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

#395
post #346
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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This would be more effective as criticism if you demonstrated the superior knowledge you imply having. Maybe point to some primary sources?

Nah it’s pretty convincing simply by itself. Reddit is a slur.

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

#396
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He can’t cancel elections. Stop fear mongering about that. He can 100% drop a nuke though, so thats probably worth fear mongering about.

He doesn't need to legally cancel the election. He simply needs to say it is and take action as if it was already. This allows him to combine interference before the election with the Republican insurrection tactics from 2020. Say he declares, through executive order, that the 2026 election is cancelled due to an emergency, and that the current Congress will stay in power until the emergency is over. This would allow…

they're going to arrest 150 million people?

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

#397

Also Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) was a major war game exercise conducted by the United States Armed Forces under United States Joint Forces Command in mid-2002: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy. In particular, Red utilized old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveill…

But van Riper's attack didn't count, for reasons such as and therefore.

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

#398
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale We make plenty of stuff at scale. We just haven’t designed any of military around it since WWII. > unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.

> We make plenty of stuff at scale Maybe this video of a rather famous YouTuber trying to manufacture something as simple as a grill scrubber with a US supply chain would help you understand how bad it is? https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY

One thing that struck me is seeing his months long struggle, where the only injection mold designer he could find was near retirement age and wouldn't be doing it for too much longer, the tool & die expert he talked to died between when he interviewed him and when he made the video, he had to deal with suppliers lying about where their parts came from, and some American suppliers could only provide low quantities without him paying to upgrade their tooling. Then there's a comment from someone in China saying that over there, he'd be able to bring his product to mass production in about 5 days in whatever quantity he wanted, and at a higher quality (more corrosion resistant metal, more durable silicone, etc).

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

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can lose a game of chess to a guy with fewer and less powerful pieces than you if you play like a moron. The US has been playing the Iran situation like a gigantic moron.

Maybe I am misinformed, but I was under the impression that the US was so capable it is not even playing the same game as a country like Iran. As in they could brute force solutions due to superior technology and infrastructure, because that is how much more the US spends on it.

You can lose in chess if you run out of time, even if you have an overwhelming piece advantage. US leadership has made some questionable decisions that effectively turned their game (and only their game) into ultrabullet kriegspiel.

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

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US navies ships are good for real wars This is a real war.

Sure, but keeping the straight open is not really important, sure gas, fertilizers and a few other commodities are going to get more expensive, but there is no need to put thousands of sailors in harms way. The US navy ships, in this war have performed admirably, they have performed over 850 tomahawk strikes, and navy airplanes have performed thousands of sorties. And have had no casualties due to enemy action. I can…

> Sure, but keeping the straight open is not really important, sure gas, fertilizers and a few other commodities are going to get more expensive, but there is no need to put thousands of sailors in harms way.

What is the point of having by far the worlds most expensive military if it can’t be used to at least ostensibly improve the lives of citizens?

It’s a giant money pit that does… nothing?

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