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

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

#941

Post by gcanyon »

ef3dfd wrote: post #832
gcanyon wrote: post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a military expert, but the US theory of war has for a long time started with and was based on airspace dominance/control, and drones/cheap missiles put a serious dent in achieving that. Maybe laser weapons put the balance back toward the side that has them?

" airspace dominance/control," Lmao re-writing the history books? That plan of attack can be attributable to the Nazis. "Maybe laser weapons put the balance back toward the side that has them?" Thats more fiction than reality.

I didn’t say it was original with the U.S., just that it has been their strategy for some time.

And the U.S. has been prepping/testing lasers on boats for some time. Combine rapid fire/quick kill with good radar and you have (airborne) drone defense.

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

#942

Post by sfRattan »

cbolton wrote: post #798
sfRattan wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, I think a better metric for outcomes of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq is: were we trading with the before the war and are we trading with them one generation after the war ? The same is even true of WWII, a more important marker afterward is that we spent the rest of the 20th century trading prosperously with Japan and Germany. Korea: the south became an economic powerhouse with whom we now tr…

Consider the cost on local civilians of the Vietnam and Iraq wars (the GWB war likely killed more Iraqi civilians that Hussein did in 24 years). And the literal trillions of dollar these wars costed. And the real possibility that regime change could have occurred anyway by less horrific means. Are you getting at a tiny silver lining or do you actually think these wars were remotely a good idea?

> Are you getting at a tiny silver lining or do you actually think these wars were remotely a good idea?

I'm getting at outcomes, whether or not a war is a good idea in the first place. War is never a good choice, IMO, but can sometimes be a necessary choice or an inevitability.

It's perfectly reasonable to point out that a war initiated for the wrong reasons had good (or some good) outcomes, or that a war initiated for the right reasons had bad (or some bad) outcomes. And that all war is ultimately terrible.

Our own Civil War was initiated for the right reasons and yet it became the bloodiest war in our history. More Americans died during our Civil War than during all our other wars put together, and Britain was able to end slavery across their whole empire without any war at all, though at great national expense (continuing payments until 2015 or so) and with some bloodshed on the seas.

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

#943

Post by sfRattan »

MyHonestOpinon wrote: post #896
sfRattan wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, I think a better metric for outcomes of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq is: were we trading with the before the war and are we trading with them one generation after the war ? The same is even true of WWII, a more important marker afterward is that we spent the rest of the 20th century trading prosperously with Japan and Germany. Korea: the south became an economic powerhouse with whom we now tr…

Interesting idea. You are missing Cuba from that list. There was not a war but we haven't reestablished commerce with them.

American reaction to the Cuban Revolution was deeply incompetent. The Bay of Pigs is up there with the Iran Hostage Crisis and the withdrawal from Afghanistan (and specifically from Bagram) in the list of stunning foreign policy blunders of the last hundred years.

We still don't trade with Cuba, and that is a clear sign of ongoing foreign policy failure. But who knows, in a year's time we may be trading with Cuba again. We're trading with Venezuela now.

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

#944

Post by sfRattan »

pjc50 wrote: post #786
sfRattan wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, I think a better metric for outcomes of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq is: were we trading with the before the war and are we trading with them one generation after the war ? The same is even true of WWII, a more important marker afterward is that we spent the rest of the 20th century trading prosperously with Japan and Germany. Korea: the south became an economic powerhouse with whom we now tr…

> Vietnam: we now trade with them happily and enjoy generally productive relations Yes, but .. what was the actual objective again?

Nominally, stopping the spread of communism in Asia. Actually, stopping the spread of Chinese and Russian influence in Asia.

Our politicians did then and do now frequently miss the trees for the forest when assessing foreign crises (and I'm inverting that saying deliberately). Ho Chi Min was a nationalist first and a communist second, but all our leaders could see was a monolithic, global communist bloc. In fairness to them, hindsight is 20/20 and the Sino-Soviet split wasn't obvious to outsiders until the late 60s or early 70s.

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

#945

Post by dinkumthinkum »

jacquesm wrote: post #657
watwut wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA is good at bombing places. It just so happen that it usually looses the wars after that and usually creates a lot more probpems for itself in the long run. Taliban is back in power, having stronger grap on power then before. Meanwhile, everybody knows what happens to those who cooperate with USA - they get abandoned and betrayed.

All this does in the long run is set the stage for another 9/11.

With respect, this is such a terrible position. This view basically says that we should accept terrorists regimes to do what they want because if they don’t, they will commit terrorisk against us. That is not the right way to deal with bad actors.

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

#946

Post by dinkumthinkum »

bluegatty wrote: post #863
asa400 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US. If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon. After 9/11, there's no world in which an…

"After 9/11, there's no world in which any attack on the US homeland, however small or local, is met with anything other than overwhelming retribution." Ok, just follow through with the logic. If the US 'flatteNed' Cuba (like Gaza) in response to a few drones - it would 100% make the US 'The Evil Empire' and turn the world 100% against America as a neo fascist entity. The costs would be unthinkable, and probably the…

The whole thing is stupid. The US wouldn’t flatten Cuba. Only leftists think the Cuban people support the communists. It’s like that Hasab Piker saying “the good Cubans are still in Cuba but the ones in the US that don’t like communism are crazy.” The reality is we would decapitate their regime, kill all their top brass, blow up their military installations, probably gave some collateral damages, and then in a year there would be reports, modern vehicles, and commerce.

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

#947

Post by dinkumthinkum »

stein1946 wrote: post #650
asa400 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US. If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon. After 9/11, there's no world in which an…

> it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon But it is, the US is no position to flatten anything. Afghanistan? Lost Vietnam? Lost Ukraine? Lost Iran? will be lost And these are heavily embargoed 3rd world countries. In the first days of the Israeli-US war in Iran (a country under decades of embargo by the way) the US, Israel and vassals lost 60+ planes (plus who knows what…

This is pure propaganda. It should be flagged as misinformation. There is no true to this complete nonsense that 60+ planes were lost. You can hate the US or have any opinion you want like the Ayatollah was great or whatever but don’t spread pure social media propaganda, please. Do you know how big of a deal losing 60 actual planes for the US would be? I would just say, if you are quite sure about all this then I think you might hit it big on polynarket.

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

#948

Post by dinkumthinkum »

readitalready wrote: post #847
bluGill wrote: post #779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ample indepentant sources for that estimate. We don't know an exact number but we know it is close to that.

No, there aren't independent sources for that estimate, and we do not even know if it is close to that. That number was simply made up and comes from Iran International, a Mossad-funded Pahlavist site. Additionally, the Iranian government states that 2-3,000 were killed, mostly from Mossad-armed insurrectionists killing Iranian police. So who are you going to believe? Israel, or Iran? The vast majority of people trus…

This completely insane and sounds like Iranian propaganda. You can hate Israel but spreading propaganda is really terrible. You find it hard to believe that the regime that hangs women from a crane in the square for not wearing the hijab would not do this? There are videos of IRGC shooting into crowds and apartments but your view is just “Israel Bad”. Be seious. You can be against the war and still live in reality with everyone else.

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

#949

Post by dinkumthinkum »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #643
citrin_ru wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine Population size is relevant but not the most important factor. Russia has 146,000,000, more than 4x than Ukraine. It doesn't guarantee that Russia will win the war. > On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. Ukraine also had Bayraktar TB2 overhead which distracted Moskva's crew and provided targeting information. Russia probably…

> The US can fly not only F-35 but even B-52. Well, looking at the news, it turns out they can't because every time they've put something up it's ended in a horrific crash. The US is militarily weak, and is utterly reliant on its NATO allies, who don't want to get involved in the current round of war crimes.

Are you delusional? The US militarily weak? Based on what? What in your view is an example of a strong military? And the US is reliant on NATO allies? HN has really become massively under America Derangement Syndrome. This is like a fever dream.

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

#950

Post by dinkumthinkum »

rbanffy wrote: post #805
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…

> Countermeasures can take out some attacking missiles, but not all of them. Exactly. On asymmetrical warfare, one side needs to get lucky all the time while the other only needs to get lucky once. > Mass-produced drones today are a simple airframe, a lawnmower engine, and the smarts of a cell phone. Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran. Their cheap and simple nature allows them to ea…

Cuba would be foolish not to “neutralize” the US? You think Cuba has the capability to destroy the US Navy? Where did you learn all this?
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