Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

responsiblestatecraft.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

721–730 of 1001 posts

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

#721

Post by watwut »

tim333 wrote: post #718
Animats wrote: post #426

A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years. On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. That finally made it u…

I figure the US was aware of the scale of Iran. It seems the US were talking with about three possible people in the Iranian government who could take over like what happened in Venezuela but their initial strikes killed them all which was a bit of a screw up. (Trump vid https://youtu.be/Zokz9DJ0KhI )

And the expectation was that IRGC and Islamists just accepts that and Israel stops bombing Iran at that point? Why would Israel find that sufficient considering that would give them nothing?

And the other thing is that I just dont understand how that can be called a regime change. Venezuela was not regime change either - Venezuelan regime stayed exactly the same as before, but now USA is co-responsible for the abuses.

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

#722

Post by ogogmad »

mikkupikku wrote: post #163
ben_w wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'? To the extent it's a money making scheme, well, capitalism gets blamed for all money making schemes even if it's supposed to be a specific subset of them which is useful for the feedback one can get from open markets…

> Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'? Or because America is filled with demented cultists who think a two thousand year old property dispute is the key to triggering the Apocalypse so they can all be whisked away to paradise.

It's not a 2,000 year old dispute. Zionism began in around 1900. It was spearheaded until recently by "secular" Jews, who were borderline atheist. The Jewish religious texts themselves make wishing for a "return to Zion and Jerusalem" sound like wishing for a utopia or world peace. It pretty much reads like a metaphor, not like a political programme. Finally, most highly devout Jews were strongly opposed to Zionism, at least until after WW2.

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

#723

Post by cycomanic »

b112 wrote: post #605
don_esteban wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this. Isn't this just wishfull thinking? I mean, more mature administrations than Trump's have blundered into Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan without real exit strategies... Re: Iranian drones to Russia: Russians now (for quite some time) have their own…

It's not just drones, but parts for drones. It's also munitions, shells, missiles. It's about production volume. The Ukraine is also getting large supplies of the same from the West. No side can produce domestically, what the other can product domestically + import. The imports matter. It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however? In terms of oil, the US has…

> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however?

There have been plenty of analyses pretty much all concluding the same thing. How do you propose to do it? In normal times there were > 150 per day travelling through the gulf. Remember the coastline of Iran along the Gulf is about 2000km, all allowing them to launch strikes against ships (and they don't need to be sophisticated). So would you put a warship with every cargo ship? Occupy the whole coast? I don't see any feasible solution to police it.

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

#724

Post by jacquesm »

yuppiepuppie wrote: post #527
avazhi wrote: post #510

I think Newt had the right idea, albeit in a more targeted fashion instead of just ‘nuking the Strait’. Given that Iran has now taken to directly threatening non-military US commercial and civilian enterprises and assets I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to justify using them in this instance.

I can't tell if this is tongue-in-cheek, but if it is not, the escalation of nuclear weapons at this point is an insane idea to accomolish the stated goals of the administracion.

They have goals? That's news to me.

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

#725

Post by fransje26 »

finnjohnsen2 wrote: post #497
Animats wrote: post #426

A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years. On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. That finally made it u…

TIL: Germany (85m) has almost the same population as Iran (90m)

> Iran has 90,000,000 people. [..] More than 2x Germany.

TIL: Germany has less than 45m inhabitants. Less than Spain! /s

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

#726

Post by fransje26 »

chistev wrote: post #691
gzread wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rig the election? You could pass a law that makes 1/3 of the country ineligible to vote, but makes sure they won't find out until they're at the polling booth. You could also prepare your allied goons to defend polling stations.

That won't work.

Watch and learn.

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

#727

Post by chadash »

Animats wrote: post #426

A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years. On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. That finally made it u…

I’m not sure I agree with your argument but all of it made sense until you started talking about Cuba.

Iran knows that the US population really really doesn’t want a ground invasion. Right now, we have lost a handful of lives from missiles hitting US bases, but it’s not the same as a ground war.

Cuba, however, would very much get a ground invasion if they start striking the US with missiles. It’s not even a question. And I also assume their leaders are not religious fanatics with any interest in martyrdom.

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

#728

Post by cherryteastain »

zimpenfish wrote: post #648
Animats wrote: post #426

A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years. On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. That finally made it u…

> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. According to [0], in 2025 Iran had 86M people. Ukraine had 29M (~33%), Germany (highest in Europe) had 83M (~96%, uh?), Iraq had 46M (~53%), and Russia had 146M (~168% / ~59% reversed). Wildly, wildly wrong about Germany but not too far off the rest[1]. [0] https://en.wiki…

Presumably they meant WW2 Germany.

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

#729

Post by throw0101c »

bcjdjsndon wrote: post #693
matheusmoreira wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how nukes work. When it comes to nuclear weapons, the world is divided into haves and have-nots. Anyone lacking effective nuclear response can be steamrolled by those who do with total impunity. The USA has been attacked before but it has never been invaded and forced to fight a war on its own soil against foreign enemies. It's possible that they unconsciously believe war is something they bring to others, nev…

There are gun nut americans who truly believe gun owners would contribute an effective resistance to a modern invading army because they own an ar15. That country is deluded and everyone falls off eventually and trump may have actually accelerated the country out of it's golden age

> There are gun nut americans who truly believe gun owners would contribute an effective resistance to a modern invading army because they own an ar15.

It would depend on their patience.

The insurgency in Iraq was eventually suppressed (American COIN manuals were updated). The insurgency (?) in Afghanistan outlasted the patience of the invaders.

So how long do the 'gun nutters' want to keep at it compared to the opposing force?

Further, it's worth asking how effective, on average, is violent disobedience. Generally speaking a movement has about double the odds of success by not using violence:

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44096650-civil-resistanc...

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

#730

Post by temp8830 »

whynotmaybe wrote: post #387
Balgair wrote: post #113

In chapter 11 of All Quiet on the Western Front Paul and his unit find an abandoned food cache in the middle of no mans land. Instead of secreting away the food back to their lines where they will have to share it, they decide to just cook and eat it right then and there. But a spotter plane from the allies sees the smoke and then begins shelling their position. Cue a terrifying, if hilarious, scene where the soldier…

I'm not sure it will last long once we see a few videos of drone kill of US soldiers on /r/dronecombat Ukraine must defend itself against an authoritarian Russia where nobody can publicly complain about what's happening. This is not the case in the US, unless they go full dictatorship.

The people of the USA will just have to voice their complaints through the free media. The entirety of which is owned by 2-3 rich guys.
Post reply on HN