It feels like Iran is exposing the traditional US military as a bit of a paper tiger unless you count nukes. I’m sure I’m at least kinda wrong, but that’s the vibe I’m getting
US seemingly watched russia get rekt by ukrainian drones and decided they’d like a punch in the face as well. But who am I to judge those masochistic tendencies.
I don’t know if this info is even available. But I would be extremely curious to see if trans soldiers were concentrated in any particular positions or areas of the military.
I imagine the military readiness of the average trans soldier was probably far above average. It’s not like the military or military culture was ever some utopia for trans people. I’m sure every trans soldier or sailor had to deal with a whole lot of shit related to their gender. To be willing to put up with that, they would have to really like and be passionate about their job. To rise in the ranks in the face of bigotry, they would have to be quite skilled at their job. Marginalized minority groups usually need to work twice as hard to produce the same career outcomes as their non-marginalized peers.
Iraq had mostly 70s tech, and the US did manage to break their army initially and topple the government. It was a disaster in strategic terms, but Iraqi regular army was no match for the US. This time around, Iran actually appears to have the upper hand. They’ve pushed out the US out of their bases across the region, destroyed billions if not trillions in the infrastructure that the US built up over many decades, and they’re eliminating American air power which was thought to be untouchable. This is truly unprecedented.
Your description of the differences between Iraq and Iran is good, as well as your explanation of the current situation.
However, it would change significantly if the U.S. decided to stop half-assing it. If the douchebags running the show decide they want to commit to a full-scale invasion with all available assets, I think you’d see a situation more similar to Iraq. We could absolutely roll Iran’s formal military if we committed to it.
But the subsequent occupation and attempt to maintain control would be doomed to the same failures as Iraq, Afghanistan, and all those before it, but on an even larger scale. All forward progress would stop once the Iranian military’s command and control falls. There’s no way we could win the asymmetric warfare that would follow, and I’m not at all saying we should even try. It’s all a pointless pile of shit that never should have been started.
That’s frankly delusional. Iran is a country of 90 million people. The US does not have the resources to, as you say, roll them. In fact, it’s pretty clear that US army isn’t even prepared for the realities of modern warfare like drones.
A population of 90 million people is irrelevant to the question of military capability. It is absolutely relevant to a discussion about the insurgency and guerilla warfare that would inevitably follow the conventional war, but I think you and I already agree that there’s no way for the U.S. to win that (nor should we try).
But I don’t think the bits of relatively small damage Iran has done to U.S. forces in the region is convincing evidence that they’re capable of taking on the full brunt of U.S. capabilities, even without going nuclear. Launch enough drones and missiles and a few will inevitably get through. But we’ve also been using our own drones for more than 20 years now, longer than most other countries. Most importantly though, we have significantly more resources poured into everything that would follow the drones in a full-scale invasion.
And just to reiterate: I don’t think any of this is a good idea, and I don’t support any of it. But when you’re talking about the significance of damage and casualties caused by Iran, you can’t ignore the fact that the U.S. is holding back so far.
But we’ve also been using our own drones for more than 20 years now, longer than most other countries.
The key is that due to our kleptocratic military industrial complex, we’re not able to produce these drones cheaply. Our military and its supply chains are built around producing very small numbers of very expensive weapons. We can’t even get Congress to pass a military right to repair. Contractors bilk the taxpayers for spare parts at a 10000% markup, and our system is too corrupt to end their thievery.
The hard truth is that our military isn’t actually built to win wars against competent peer or near-peer opponents. It’s built to line the pockets of defense contractors. Or, to use a car analogy, Iran is producing cheap $5k k trucks. Our military is running on $100,000 low margin, high profit SUVs.
The F35 for all purchasors, except Israel, but Including US military, requires Lockheed contractor repair services. No manual is provided with purchase.
capable of taking on the full brunt of U.S. capabilities
US strategic options made public are like 300 but instead of guarding a choke point, they rush into higher defense ratios.
But we’ve also been using our own drones for more than 20 years now, longer than most other countries.
US is not among the 4 drone superpowers. Iran is one of these. US tech is old, expensive, and not high volume production.
you can’t ignore the fact that the U.S. is holding back so far.
The option they have threatened is mutual assured destruction of global economy. US has avoided Iran oil, and unsanctioned them during this war. It’s hard to see why they would escalate more, even if Israel gets to veto.
Worse. The US actually just doesn’t have enough troops to occupy Iran. We literally don’t have enough people in uniform. The US would need to institute a draft to raise the number of soldiers necessary.
If the douchebags running the show decide they want to commit to a full-scale invasion with all available assets,
If you’ve played RTS/starcraft, zerging one unit at a time after you have started the campaign, is not effective. Zerging as a verb also refers to suiciding cheap units to overcome a big objective, and US is not playing the Zerg side. Putting entirety of US military forces in near proximity of Iran is going to continue the reported hospital filling Iran strikes on those gatherings from this weekend.
The plan you speak of is completely different than surprise assassination of ayatollah followed by quick air campaign hoping for surrender. It is something that has to be in place before the air campaign, and not one unit at a time that has 2 week lag time before it is in position.
Iraq was nothing like Iran. Iraq is a small country, with a small population and a small military industry. Iran is far more advanced and capable, and it also had more time to prepare both strategically and technologically.
They’re one of a handful of nations that are able to put a satellite in orbit and they have hypersonic weapons that burgerland is still isn’t able to procedure, but do go on.
Yeah they are. They’re a theocracy, yes, but the theocracy made a point to maintain the scientific and engineering capacity they had prior. They’ve got women with barely any freedoms with PhDs and jobs using them. If you can’t understand that you can’t really assess their capabilities. What they lack is allies, water, and freedoms
We may just be in an era where things swing in the direction of cheap mass armies rather than expensive elite fighting units. Think knights vs longbows. Sometimes the technology of the day favors small numbers of very expensive fighters, vehicles, and weapons. Sometimes the tech favors large numbers of cheap weapons. Cheap longbowman beat out expensive elite armored knights. Elite gun-toting marksmen and mercenaries eventually replaced the longbow armies. The mass gunpowder armies of the Napoleonic era replaced the elite mercenary armies that came before that. In the twentieth century, tanks, machine guns, and aircraft overcame masses of soldiers charging trenches with cheap rifles.
It’s not necessarily some moral failing of the nations involved. We may simply be seeing the technology evolve. Expensive aircraft that cost hundreds of millions are the modern day equivalent of knights, while cheap drones are the equivalent of the hoards of English longbowmen. An individual knight could easily defeat a single longbowman in combat. But bows were so cheap you could deploy them by the thousands. A modern fighter jet will laugh in the face of a cheap drone. But if the jet costs as much as a thousand drones put together, spamming drones becomes the winning tactic.
It feels like Iran is exposing the traditional US military as a bit of a paper tiger unless you count nukes. I’m sure I’m at least kinda wrong, but that’s the vibe I’m getting
US seemingly watched russia get rekt by ukrainian drones and decided they’d like a punch in the face as well. But who am I to judge those masochistic tendencies.
The US military did a Tobias Funke “but maybe it’ll work for us”
As one of the ones paying for it that’s who I am criticizing it
I think the last year of officer purges also has something to do with.
They didn’t stop with the officers. They also purged a ton of their most competent enlisted personnel.
They got rid of their best damn F35 wrench in the marines I can tell you that for sure
he left back in 2015. he was republican, but he didn’t want to reup to serve under trump for some reason.
I don’t know if this info is even available. But I would be extremely curious to see if trans soldiers were concentrated in any particular positions or areas of the military.
I imagine the military readiness of the average trans soldier was probably far above average. It’s not like the military or military culture was ever some utopia for trans people. I’m sure every trans soldier or sailor had to deal with a whole lot of shit related to their gender. To be willing to put up with that, they would have to really like and be passionate about their job. To rise in the ranks in the face of bigotry, they would have to be quite skilled at their job. Marginalized minority groups usually need to work twice as hard to produce the same career outcomes as their non-marginalized peers.
This is the first time the US actually tried to fight a technologically advanced army since WW2, and the results are frankly embarrassing.
So we’re forgetting about Iraq then?
Iraq had mostly 70s tech, and the US did manage to break their army initially and topple the government. It was a disaster in strategic terms, but Iraqi regular army was no match for the US. This time around, Iran actually appears to have the upper hand. They’ve pushed out the US out of their bases across the region, destroyed billions if not trillions in the infrastructure that the US built up over many decades, and they’re eliminating American air power which was thought to be untouchable. This is truly unprecedented.
Your description of the differences between Iraq and Iran is good, as well as your explanation of the current situation.
However, it would change significantly if the U.S. decided to stop half-assing it. If the douchebags running the show decide they want to commit to a full-scale invasion with all available assets, I think you’d see a situation more similar to Iraq. We could absolutely roll Iran’s formal military if we committed to it.
But the subsequent occupation and attempt to maintain control would be doomed to the same failures as Iraq, Afghanistan, and all those before it, but on an even larger scale. All forward progress would stop once the Iranian military’s command and control falls. There’s no way we could win the asymmetric warfare that would follow, and I’m not at all saying we should even try. It’s all a pointless pile of shit that never should have been started.
That’s frankly delusional. Iran is a country of 90 million people. The US does not have the resources to, as you say, roll them. In fact, it’s pretty clear that US army isn’t even prepared for the realities of modern warfare like drones.
A population of 90 million people is irrelevant to the question of military capability. It is absolutely relevant to a discussion about the insurgency and guerilla warfare that would inevitably follow the conventional war, but I think you and I already agree that there’s no way for the U.S. to win that (nor should we try).
But I don’t think the bits of relatively small damage Iran has done to U.S. forces in the region is convincing evidence that they’re capable of taking on the full brunt of U.S. capabilities, even without going nuclear. Launch enough drones and missiles and a few will inevitably get through. But we’ve also been using our own drones for more than 20 years now, longer than most other countries. Most importantly though, we have significantly more resources poured into everything that would follow the drones in a full-scale invasion.
And just to reiterate: I don’t think any of this is a good idea, and I don’t support any of it. But when you’re talking about the significance of damage and casualties caused by Iran, you can’t ignore the fact that the U.S. is holding back so far.
The key is that due to our kleptocratic military industrial complex, we’re not able to produce these drones cheaply. Our military and its supply chains are built around producing very small numbers of very expensive weapons. We can’t even get Congress to pass a military right to repair. Contractors bilk the taxpayers for spare parts at a 10000% markup, and our system is too corrupt to end their thievery.
The hard truth is that our military isn’t actually built to win wars against competent peer or near-peer opponents. It’s built to line the pockets of defense contractors. Or, to use a car analogy, Iran is producing cheap $5k k trucks. Our military is running on $100,000 low margin, high profit SUVs.
The F35 for all purchasors, except Israel, but Including US military, requires Lockheed contractor repair services. No manual is provided with purchase.
US strategic options made public are like 300 but instead of guarding a choke point, they rush into higher defense ratios.
US is not among the 4 drone superpowers. Iran is one of these. US tech is old, expensive, and not high volume production.
The option they have threatened is mutual assured destruction of global economy. US has avoided Iran oil, and unsanctioned them during this war. It’s hard to see why they would escalate more, even if Israel gets to veto.
They don’t need to take on the full brunt of the US, they just need to keep the Strait closed to US-friendly traffic until the US economy collapses.
I don’t see any evidence to suggest that Tue US has superior military capability to Iran.
Worse. The US actually just doesn’t have enough troops to occupy Iran. We literally don’t have enough people in uniform. The US would need to institute a draft to raise the number of soldiers necessary.
If you’ve played RTS/starcraft, zerging one unit at a time after you have started the campaign, is not effective. Zerging as a verb also refers to suiciding cheap units to overcome a big objective, and US is not playing the Zerg side. Putting entirety of US military forces in near proximity of Iran is going to continue the reported hospital filling Iran strikes on those gatherings from this weekend.
The plan you speak of is completely different than surprise assassination of ayatollah followed by quick air campaign hoping for surrender. It is something that has to be in place before the air campaign, and not one unit at a time that has 2 week lag time before it is in position.
Iraq was nothing like Iran. Iraq is a small country, with a small population and a small military industry. Iran is far more advanced and capable, and it also had more time to prepare both strategically and technologically.
The Iranians are not well advsnced, not at all. No offense, it is a whole thing.
They’re one of a handful of nations that are able to put a satellite in orbit and they have hypersonic weapons that burgerland is still isn’t able to procedure, but do go on.
Yeah they are. They’re a theocracy, yes, but the theocracy made a point to maintain the scientific and engineering capacity they had prior. They’ve got women with barely any freedoms with PhDs and jobs using them. If you can’t understand that you can’t really assess their capabilities. What they lack is allies, water, and freedoms
The US military is shit, always was, always knew.
Only difference is they can’t hide it in this case.
We may just be in an era where things swing in the direction of cheap mass armies rather than expensive elite fighting units. Think knights vs longbows. Sometimes the technology of the day favors small numbers of very expensive fighters, vehicles, and weapons. Sometimes the tech favors large numbers of cheap weapons. Cheap longbowman beat out expensive elite armored knights. Elite gun-toting marksmen and mercenaries eventually replaced the longbow armies. The mass gunpowder armies of the Napoleonic era replaced the elite mercenary armies that came before that. In the twentieth century, tanks, machine guns, and aircraft overcame masses of soldiers charging trenches with cheap rifles.
It’s not necessarily some moral failing of the nations involved. We may simply be seeing the technology evolve. Expensive aircraft that cost hundreds of millions are the modern day equivalent of knights, while cheap drones are the equivalent of the hoards of English longbowmen. An individual knight could easily defeat a single longbowman in combat. But bows were so cheap you could deploy them by the thousands. A modern fighter jet will laugh in the face of a cheap drone. But if the jet costs as much as a thousand drones put together, spamming drones becomes the winning tactic.
Whatever the case, I am sure it will be short lived. Assuming the adults are put back in control.