This is a real war.
Laser and EWar approaches are going to be more successful long-term as the price per "shot" is dramatically less, but deployments are slow.
These have been operational in the US military for almost 15 years now and are widely deployed in the Middle East. You may want to update your priors. The US military anticipated all of this.
While these are cheaper than the Shahed-136, lasers have the advantage of unlimited magazine depth, so it is obvious why the US would invest in that.
From what i understand, i think people use other systems than patriots to shoot down Shaheds except as a last resort. So the cost difference is bad, but its not nearly as bad as it would be if you were using something like a patriot for every drone.
No reason to use unproven technology when there's a practical means available.
It isn’t perfect. It has flaws. War is hard to get right in every dimension.
Politicians choose the war and our military fights the battles. We're very good at winning battles. But some wars can't be won. The problem then lies in their choosing.
I imagine Sisyphus became the best, most effective rock push in the world. Unfortunately despite his talents, the task he was assigned was insoluble.
The British Commonwealth was the biggest factor in Africa, but it's questionable how quickly they could have won out and taken the Suez without the Americans coming in late in 42, which was critical for both vital supplies like oil and also invading Italy. Japan was already getting bogged down with China and even Burma so they wouldn't have suddenly been free to do much in the European theater but just getting Italy out of the fight and forcing Germany to replace their divisions elsewhere. Italy exiting the war removed 30+ divisions between the Balkans and France, while another 70 Axis divisions were being held down by Allied forces in the Mediterranean during D-Day, with there being 33 Axis divisions in Normandy for D-Day itself. A lack of US involvement also likely means that Germany is able to hold Caucasus for longer (and take more of the oil fields), solving a sizable portion of their oil shortage issues.
With Lend-Lease but no active participation in the war from a military deployment standpoint, the UK and USSR do likely eventually win but at much greater cost and not without risk of losing. Without Lend-Lease it is highly possible that the Axis wins, at least in the European theater. Japan had kind of set themselves up to lose from the start no matter what the US did.
Perhaps you're considering only the European theater, but even that would have been significantly more challenging for Russia without the U.S. tying up (and degrading) Axis resources and manpower throughout Europe and elsewhere (e.g. the Pacific). Japan could have very well opened an eastern front for Russia.
And, it was the U.S. that forced a two front war that prevented Germany's fuller focus on Russia's western front (millions fewer troops). Not to mention U.S. logistical and material support to the Soviet Union, which may well have prevented their industrial collapse.
Even with all of this support, the fatality rates for Russia were astronomical. To this day, it boggles my mind that one nation lost ~26 million people in a single war.
Hard to imagine how they would have succeeded without the U.S.
Meanwhile, the American public wants a quick skirmish and a bold "We WON" claim .. it has no appetite for body bags coming home and the price of oil rising.
Which is why if China makes a move on Taiwan, the US can do nothing.
But then you go on to say:
> Which is why if China makes a move on Taiwan, the US can do nothing.
If your opening thesis is true, then it's strange you follow it up with that. Taiwan has just as much a chance of outlasting a stronger competitor as those other countries that resisted US dominance.
And with the US providing them weapons, intelligence, and support, maybe a better chance. See Ukraine.
That's what diplomacy is for.
I am not sure about that. Iraq, Afghanistan, to name the new ones and Vietnam to name an old one.
Sure you can take an easy/undisciplined target like Maduro. But many armies in the world can also do that. Another thing that has to be recognized: alternative warfare (ie: terrorism) is a legitimate form of warfare regardless of its morality. You can't, in my opinion, claim military supremacy while not being able to contain these other risks.
Another upcoming one: cyber-warfare.
Asymmetric war fare against a determined enemy is just hard and it always has been. Cheap drones and missiles are part of wars like that now. You can stash them all over the place and dig in. The Russians learned that the hard way in Afghanistan. As did the British before them. And more recently the US of course. The withdrawal from Afghanistan rivaled that of the one in Vietnam. Complete with chaotic scenes of people desperately trying to get out. That's only a few years ago.
In the Gulf, the Houthis still pose a threat after years of determined efforts to take them out. In the same way, it took the Israeli's very long to neutralize Hamas in Gaza. And that's a few tens of miles away from their capital. Same with Hezbollah on their northern border. In Iraq, IEDs kept grinding away at the US forces long after victory was declared. And that was with massive amounts of boots on the ground and the country fully defeated and occupied.
Iran of course has been supplying weaponry for proxy wars like this for decades. Iran is much bigger than Iraq or Afghanistan and much better prepared for a land/guerilla war on their own territory. The country was built on asymmetric warfare like this and has had decades to prepare and dig in and lots of experience via the various proxy wars I mentioned. The unfortunate reality is that that straight is only going to open when Iran decides that is in their interest.
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't imagine a way they could have performed better.
Clearly the strategy behind the "bomb a bunch of stuff" objective is muddled at best, but that does not reflect badly against the navy. But to the people that set their objectives.
The Navy is performing well at the things it's being tasked with because it's only being tasked with things it can do well! But I think the point of this thread is that it still reflects poorly on the Navy if those things aren't actually useful in this war. They say generals are always preparing for the previous war and perhaps that's happening here.
Meanwhile, lots of innocent lives have been lost, the regime is still where it was before even if some of the faces have changed, there is an E2 that is missing a little piece of its tail, the price of oil has gone up considerably (that may have been an actual objective) and we've been distracted for a while from the Epstein files.
If you think there was an item in the above list that qualifies as an objective then that's fine by me but for me these do not cross that threshold.
Even Trump isn't that dumb. There's a reason he dialed the tariffs back so much; price hikes lose elections.
If there's one highly visible product of whose price all Americans are keenly aware, it's gasoline. And on top of that, it affects the price of pretty much everything else too.
I thought the tariffs would be his undoing but jacking up the price of gas is even worse for him.
Many countries ranging from advanced allies like Japan to random poor countries like the Philippines will see economic damages that are way worse than tariffs.
Iran was a hornet nest. A hornet nest is annoying and dangerous to have around. But it makes no sense to break it open with no plan on how to properly handle the fallout.
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?
While I agree with you in principle, if I have learned anything about politics it is that under whatever political system you care to invent, the people will definitely demand war and a navy to escort private oil tankers if it means they get to drive for $0.01 less per gallon.
The first is bad due to the losses that will be incurred and the difficulty of holding territory.. for unclear strategic reasons (I thought we destroyed their nuclear program last summer / what was the urgency / is this even our war?). The second is bad because the strait was open before this started, so things are worse than starting conditions.
That is not to say Iran is winning. Remember this is not a sports game, and no one needs to win. It is possible, and likely, for everyone to lose (be in a worse position than prior).
These options are not mutually exclusive.
> That is not to say Iran is winning.
They are though, the US administration has already lost it's patience, their strategic objectives (whatever they might have been have clearly not materialized), the talk about talks may very well be the administration preparing to make a bunch of concessions proclaim victory and walk away.
As it's possible for both parties to lose, a party can win all the battles and lose the war.
A counterpoint is that perhaps we may have just radicalized a large portion of that unhappy population
As of right now, Iran looks likely to end the war with permanent control of the strait of Hormutz. They'll tax the gulf countries in perpetuity.
Gulf countries can't reasonably afford to go to war with Iran over this either, and it's even less likely that they could prevail in such a conflict. Gulf countries can't even afford to go to war with Iran now, with the US actively fighting there.
Iran can suffer terrible short-term and medium-term economic consequences while still establishing a whole new kind of dominance over the region.
This will sure warm one's heart when that one can no longer afford things.
But just tonight, while getting gas just outside St. Louis, a young woman was having an absolute meltdown outside her car about the price of gas being $3.65 a gallon. Wild.
So, yeah, perhaps the price of gas is high enough that the public would tolerate some heavy collateral damage at this point.
Or realize who had caused the whole thing.
- Reddit Ralph
Not sure I hold much hope for this one.
Trump once posted "THE BIDEN FBI PLACED 274 AGENTS INTO THE CROWD ON JANUARY 6".
It was, of course, still his FBI on that date.
"Did Biden drop out?"
Informed electorate, this is not.
Its a great way to diminish what lingering shreds of trust the (hopefully) former allies of the US may still have had.
The US has better ways to decrease oil prices internally that commit to losing boats in the strait.
This was more true in the 70s: the various fuel economy improvements mean that the impact is reportedly less than half this fine, and the millions of people who bought a hybrid or BEV don’t even notice. I think there’s less of an “war at any cost” bloc now, especially after the humiliating collapse of the last Republican president’s big Middle Eastern learning opportunity, and a lot of people would be willing to abandon Israel to fight Netanyahu’s war alone if it saved them money at the pump.