Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike • Hacker News Board

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#91

Post by simonh » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 8:45 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #73

msabalau wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fundamentally a failure of political leadership. You don't try to achieve a goal when you don't have the military means to achieve at a cost you are willing to bear. There are endless numbers of military objectives that the US military that could have been sent on where they would have had no chance to succeed. That they generally weren't is a function other administrations, however bad, not being so embarras…

>at a cost you are willing to bear. It's pure greed. The IRGC relies heavily on oil money for funding the massive militia (hundreds of thousands of Basij) that allows it to stay in power; if that income collapsed then it would eventually lose control. Trump however not only refused to bomb Iran's oil infrastructure but even stopped the IDF from doing so, just because he thinks he'll somehow be able to take that oil f…

I don’t think that’s it. Iran has demonstrated an ability and willingness to strike the equivalent infra in the gulf states, including the very vulnerable gas liquefaction facilities in Qatar. If the US destroyed their oil infrastructure, all that infrastructure goes. Hormuz would be irrelevant, there’d be almost nothing to ship through it. Plus given the long term reductions in the gulf supply already from damage, the world now needs Iranian oil.

That’s why Trump has allowed Iranian oil already outside the gulf to be sold, was willing to drop oil sanctions on further Iranian shipments, and was so panicked when Israel hit an Iranian oil facility.

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#92

Post by Levitz » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

spiderfarmer wrote: post #15

pohl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of that traditional naval success has come from having presidents not stepping on their own dicks.

The US will never recover from the reputation damage they sustained by voting in a mindbogglingly stupid buffoon. Twice.

That's just not true. Most people forgot Bush by Obama's second year.

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#93

Post by energy123 » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

andriy_koval wrote: post #84

energy123 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would point you to Gen MacKenzie's interviews as the reference on that question, I would just be regurgitating his views. He says that a sustained coastal invasion is not necessary. Raids would be necessary to destroy any buried weapons, but these troops wouldn't need to stay there. Other than this you need more of what they were already doing, "shaping operations" as he calls it, which is ISR drones overhead and l…

> Raids would be necessary to destroy any buried weapons, but these troops wouldn't need to stay there. Shaheds can be launched from trucks from inside densely populated cities. Good luck with those raids. > Eventually, because they don't have an industrial base and cannot effectively replenish their stocks Modern drones are cheap and easy to assemble, Iran's allies (Russia, China) can easily smuggle them inside coun…

The win condition is not zero Shahed attacks, the win condition is to open the strait.

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#94

Post by simonh » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 8:50 PM UTC

Levitz wrote: post #92

spiderfarmer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US will never recover from the reputation damage they sustained by voting in a mindbogglingly stupid buffoon. Twice.

That's just not true. Most people forgot Bush by Obama's second year.

Bush was a paragon of informed, shrewd judgement compared to this clown show.

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#95

Post by ozim » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 8:51 PM UTC

bulbar wrote: post #85

ozim wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part where you are wrong is not that reaper or other highly sophisticated drones were available in 2011. In 2026 we have swarms of cheap drones that are fire and forget and they are cheap for mass production. That’s totally different game.

So you are saying the US just showed to the world that it is not prepared for modern warfare?

Huh me?

Nope I think that's nothing new and that was already in the news like months ago when countries started asking Ukraine to buy drone warfare know-how.

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#96

Post by 40four » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 8:52 PM UTC

the_snooze wrote: post #74

40four wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Controlling the straight was never one of their objectives. Decapitating the regime and degrading their military capabilities was the primary objective. As others have said, the US can “reopen” the straight at any time they want. It’s not an issue of capabilities. But it’s very resource intensive and very expensive. The logistics of escorting ships in and out of the straight isn’t trivial. I forget the name of the op…

>Decapitating the regime and degrading their military capabilities was the primary objective. Those are tactical objectives, not strategic aims. The US is very good at winning tactically, but losing strategically. This is yet another example.

Yeah that’s a good point. I don’t disagree with that. I just think the US administration’s strategy is something totally different than anyone is talking about.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence US aggression towards Venezuela, Cuba & Iran are all happening at the same time. These things are all connected and nobody’s really talking about it.

I don’t think regime change was the strategy, I think they were happy with just a “reset” of the top leaders, same as in Venezuela.

If they did get full regime change it would have just been a side effect. They were hoping the Iranians would seize the opportunity and rise up, but that didn’t happen. And I don’t blame them, that’s a big ask when they are getting gunned down in the streets or executed for dissent on a daily basis.

They were probably also riding off the “high” of how shockingly easy Venezuela went. But Iran is much more complex obviously

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#97

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 8:53 PM UTC

msabalau wrote: post #27

rayiner wrote: post #2

Nobody is talking about how big of a failure this has been on the part of the U.S. Navy. Controlling and securing shipping routes has been a fundamental function of a navy since Roman times. The U.S. Navy was unable to achieve that objective in this war. Ill-advised American wars often end up as losses because we fail to achieve our political objectives. But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to ach…

This is fundamentally a failure of political leadership. You don't try to achieve a goal when you don't have the military means to achieve at a cost you are willing to bear. There are endless numbers of military objectives that the US military that could have been sent on where they would have had no chance to succeed. That they generally weren't is a function other administrations, however bad, not being so embarras…

[deleted]

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#98

Post by petilon » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 8:54 PM UTC

Levitz wrote: post #87

petilon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doing it is slow and expensive, so there is insufficient political will to do it So the US Navy is unable to achieve the objective in a reasonable timeframe and cost. That's the same as failure.

You can call it a failure, it's just not a military one. Hell there's an argument to be made that the US should downsize its military because there's no universe in which exercising its full capability is not either the end of the world as we know it or absolute political suicide.

> You can call it a failure, it's just not a military one.

Would that work in corporate America? Try telling your boss, "I didn't actually fail because had you given me an unreasonable amount of time and resources I would have succeeded." Every project has an expectation of time and cost, and if you can't meet that expectation then you failed.

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#99

Post by simonh » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 8:56 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #47

drnick1 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to achieve a purely military objective. The U.S. has been secretly moving ships for months. And Iran no longer has any significant naval force, it's all been wiped out. What is difficult to completely stop, short of glassing the entire country, is harassment by drones or other forms of "asymmetric warfare."

[flagged]

It would triggering an apocalyptic conflagration deter a bunch of religious fanatics that are actively trying to bring about a prophesied apocalyptic conflagration?

Re: Ships keep moving through Hormuz despite strike

#100

Post by drnick1 » Sat, Jun 27, 2026, 8:57 PM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #47

drnick1 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to achieve a purely military objective. The U.S. has been secretly moving ships for months. And Iran no longer has any significant naval force, it's all been wiped out. What is difficult to completely stop, short of glassing the entire country, is harassment by drones or other forms of "asymmetric warfare."

[flagged]

> Then why is "glass the entire country" not an option?

It is an option, but civilians bear most of the cost of it. That being said, I do think more could have been done militarily. The U.S. should have continued combat operations for at least a few more weeks and taken what is left of ballistic missiles, drones and arms facilities, etc. Striking dual-use infrastructure such as bridges and railroads is also fair game.