Of course I only mean if the war was necessary to fight at all, I don't believe it was.
That's what the US tried to do. The problem is that they were unable to degrade the Iranian missile systems enough that they could drop gravity bombs with impunity. This also means that they had to pull the aircraft that they would use to do bombing runs back to bases in Jordan and Israel because anything on the tarmac in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE is very vulnerable to Iranian drone and missile strikes. All of this means that they're forcing the US to choose between pulling out of the region or accepting losses of personnel and airframes (that likely cannot be replaced in a timely manner) at a level that the post-Vietnam US military has never had to face.
I suspect an all-out war between the US and China would go the same way as this one, if not worse. The US military in its modern form has focused on procuring very complex, advanced, and featureful weapons in tiny numbers. The problem is that this means that the US is incapable of fighting a sustained campaign against an adversary that can withstand attacks from American weapons and has a higher production capacity.
The number of airplanes built in the US during WWII is greater than all the airplanes NOT in that category. Obviously we can't maintain that level of industry during peacetime, but we've fallen so far below that level and are so low on weapons that if another major war starts we won't even be able to rapidly scale up.
The reason we don't have industrial capacity dedicated to this war is because everyone knows we're fighting it for no reason, there's no plan, it stops and starts every 4 days, so on.
Simple consequences of having actual stupid people leading our government.
If the US got into a war that anyone actually cared about, it would almost certainly snap into action at incredible speed.
I'm gonna push back on "nobody cares." The United States is somewhat unique in that our doctrine calls for wars to be fought on distant shores, and that the main role of our military is to ensure that our ideology (liberal democracy) is protected across the world.
That's why we entered WWII, it's why we keep carrier groups around the world, and it's why Iran/Ukraine/Taiwan are so critical. The threat of an American response and the visible follow-through is a significant factor in deterring anyone who's even considering a war.
Yes, Trump is unspeakably stupid, he's managed to make the worst possible decision at every step of this nightmare, but the truth is that a conflict like this has only been getting more likely since the GOP killed the nuclear deal.
We need weapons for Ukraine. We need weapons for Iran. And, God forbid, but we need weapons for Taiwan.
The US entered World War II in the pacific after Pearl Harbor and in Europe after Germany declared war.
Before those 2 events, there was still a strong isolationist contingent in the US.
Yes, there were isolationists, but there weren't enough to change the fact that fascist/communist victories in Europe would be bad for America. The neoliberal thing where we support liberal democracies is an evolution of the Monroe doctrine, because we've recognized for a long time that the best path forward for America is free trade and interdependency with other like-minded countries.
We had friendly relations and supported many counties that weren’t liberal democracies before the war. We were friendly with Japan before they started expanding and threatening free trade/access to Asia.
the strait has been open for oil trade just a few months ago, what happened and whose fault is it ???
this is pure propaganda and is completely false statement, not grounded in reality. US has no problem protecting despotic autocracies like the Pinochet's junta in Chile or Saudi Arabian theocratic monarchy (a birthplace of islamic wahhabism).
The actual goal of military is to protect the status of USD as a global reserve currency and ensure all important nations are its vassals, fully subordinate to the US government.
The underlying reason is America is printing trillions of dollars out of thin air, not backed by anything, other than the threat from US military, so vassal states keep recycling their earned surplus currency into USD bonds and treasuries
No, it is not false. Geopolitics is about lesser evils and raw needs, not perfect ideological consistency. Any country stupid enough to care about that would not last very long, and so none of them do.
The US has spent an extraordinary amount of money protecting freedom of navigation, discouraging conquests, and in many cases halting genocide. I'm not providing citations, if you're confident enough in your opinions to call what I said "pure propaganda" surely you can name them.
> The actual goal of military is to protect the status of USD as a global reserve currency and ensure all important nations are its vassals, fully subordinate to the US government.
The goal of the military is to achieve American objectives by force, like every other military.
> The underlying reason is America is printing trillions of dollars out of thin air, not backed by anything, other than the threat from US military, so vassal states keep recycling their earned surplus currency into USD bonds and treasuries
...you know, good luck with that, I'm done here.
I am fully aware that SK and Taiwan were ruled brutally for many years. It doesn't change my statement.
How is US defending liberal democracy?
So far they've killed 3,000+ Iranians. 110k+ causalities in IRAQ and Afghanistan.. don't even get me started on Vietnam.
Iran was funding terror attacks on Israel (and has been for decades) which for all its many faults is a liberal democracy which grants citizenship to millions of Palestinians who get to vote. Trump is a moron who picked a fight he could not possibly win, but fundamentally this was not a war that got declared out of the blue.
Iraq II was an unjustifiable experiment in nation-building, but Iraq I was a military intervention to protect Kuwait (a constitutional monarchy) from an invading dictatorship.
The US also intervened in Kosovo, Grenada, Panama, and Korea. You look those up and tell me how they went.
It is very, very trendy to pretend like the US is an evil empire. It is not. I'm not in the mood to have lots of people reply to me going "but what about!" because it's not productive and I don't feel like it's constructive conversation.
Believe whatever you want. If you care about actually being right, please go and at least read the Wikipedia pages about these conflicts. In war, armies go to KILL people. There are rarely good or bad guys, just evils of greater or lesser degree.
Iran had a democratically elected government that the US helped overthrow and that is why the current regime is in power.
Before Iraq 1 it was the most modern middle eastern state, US deliberately destroyed civilian infrastructure. This was after propping up Saddam as a dictator for two decades as they fought Iran, also selling chemical weapons precursors to Iraq while knowing they would create those weapons.
Iraq 2 was a lot more than that. Prime example of blowback as it led to ISIS.
US carpet bombed north korea and killed 20% of its population, looked the other way as south Korea executed civilians. Then it turned into a military dictatorship for decades. This is not the win you think it is even if turned out okay decades later.
While the US, or more correctly the UN, has done some peace keeping missions with decent results it pales in comparison to the chaos the US has created. From overthrowing democracies, installing and supporting dictators and terrorist groups, ignoring and fueling genocides, etc.
Americas superpower is its ability to ignore its own hypocrisy, and you certainly embody that with a hefty sprinkle of willful ignorance.
I'm fully aware of how SK and Taiwan were military dictatorships, and how the US supported a coup in Iran. I'm not saying the US has never done horrible things, or even that the US doesn't have blood on its hands. I'm saying that geopolitics is a terrible thing, war is a terrible thing, but considering how this stuff normally works for powerful countries the US is remarkably restrained (or at least it was, until this second Trump term) and the Pax Americana seems to work out pretty well for most people around the world.
> Before Iraq 1 it was the most modern middle eastern state, US deliberately destroyed civilian infrastructure. This was after propping up Saddam as a dictator for two decades as they fought Iran, also selling chemical weapons precursors to Iraq while knowing they would create those weapons.
So what would be less hypocritical in your opinion? Should the US have intervened earlier to remove Saddam? Should the US have ignored its other allies and allowed Iran to do as it pleased with impunity? Should it have issued an embargo, preventing "the most modern middle eastern state" from ever achieving that title? Should it have ignored the appeals from Kuwaitis to intervene to protect their homes?
The US did not and does not habitually target civilian infrastructure, only dual-use stuff.
> Prime example of blowback as it led to ISIS.
ISIS is an outgrowth of al-Qaeda, which was founded in Pakistan as an outgrowth of the Mujahideen who were US-sponsored rebels in Afghanistan against the Soviet-backed government. They were also sponsored by China, Pakistan, the UK, Iran, and the Arab world. This was half a century ago. ISIS then got big as part of the Syrian revolution which was... not sponsored by the US, and was brutally put down by Russia.
But please, tell me more about how this is all America's fault. Clearly nobody else has any agency, right?
> While the US, or more correctly the UN, has done some peace keeping missions with decent results it pales in comparison to the chaos the US has created
No, the US has intervened outside of the UN with good results too. Funny you mention the UN while saying that hypocrisy is a uniquely American superpower - do you think that the other member states of the UN are bastions of morality?
We're not going to agree on this. I think that compared to similarly-sized and powerful countries like China or the USSR, the US has not acted that poorly.
This is why the US military is partnered with all the Middle East democracies, like the one in Bahrain, or the one in UAE, or the one in Qatar…
Would you prefer democracy be delivered to those countries by force? If not, then accept the lesser evil.
Just don't pretend you can convince us that you are actually doing the former when all we see is you doing the later. We are not retarded. You are the retard for thinking we will fall for your rhetorics.
Every single manufacturer in the US stated plainly that they did not feel safe scaling up production, because the demand was always going to be temporary, and they didn't want to be left with unusable factories.
A competent admin could have worked with them to arrange for financial help to temporarily expand and not leave them hanging.
That's what happens when "The free market is the only one allowed to make resource distribution choices" hits reality. Sometimes all rational actors making rational choices will leave you fucked.
Ethanol did not have that fear, as the infrastructure for it shares a lot with other industries, and we scaled that production quickly.
It's just more examples of, again, the way the free market will respond to changes in demand is not always a good thing, and sometimes you do have to nudge the market or buoy producers to keep things running well and quickly respond.
The admin could also have, you know, not stolen the critical stockpile of PPE, given it to a business spun up by his family, and let them sell it for personal profit.
But one incredible bright spot was production for the mRNA vaccines, which was technical enough that Trump couldn't get his tiny little paws on it, and the US then produced enough to vaccinate large chunks of the world.
[0] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2026/05/11/by-one-m... (no paywall: https://archive.ph/X9zzc)
China has tons of weapons and resources. But it would remain to be seen if they can actually fight when every single person along the entire chain is a total day one rookie.
Nothing to do with "validity." Your lived experience (or whoever's you're defending) is valid.
You should do some reading from the people who fought in GWOT and are now volunteering in Ukraine. Obviously combat experience is better than no combat experience, but we absolutely should not assume much beyond that.
You don't need to fight China to get experience fighting. The skills and experience translate. Plus America is getting direct experience with Chinese and Russian made systems.
Even the simple act of organizing and deploying the military is incredibly valuable as I've already explained to you in another post.
“Especially American foreign fighters. It’s not Afghanistan. It’s not Iraq. You’re taking the side of Vietnam versus the U.S. over here. You are the underdog, and with no air superiority or anything. And so they just assume they were being used as cannon fodder. But that’s just the way this war is. It’s a nightmare.”
Yes, obviously having experience deploying the military, or driving cars, or fixing tanks, or evacuating casualties, is all far better than no experience doing those things.
Do you think someone is disagreeing with you on this point?
> The claim above is that neither side has experience that's all that relevant to the type of conflict we'd expect in a China/US conflict.
This is a factually incorrect statement. I'm not sure why you're confused about what you are agreeing or disagreeing with at this point.
Here's a question:
When someone says that you have no experience being a professional baseball player, do you say "errrhhmm ackshually, I brush my teeth every morning just like an MLB player does. I put on my pants every morning. I have even held a baseball bat!"
Obviously a phrase like of "limited relevant experience" is constrained to a semantically meaningful set of things
This doesn't make any sense. I've already explained to you the value of combined arms operations and combat experience. Here's a link for you to read through to help improve your understanding: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49174680
A smash and grab in Venezuela is not Iran and Iran is not China.
The closest analog we have to war with China is Ukraine/Russia. All evidence from NATO exercises and investigations is that Ukr/Rus conflict has virtually no relevance to OEF, OIF, or The Caracas Kidnapping.
Iran is a little taste of what's going in Ukr/Rus, but obviously China would be able to wield the same type of war at orders of magnitude greater intensity.
My comment was quite specific on my claim. You have provided zero evidence against it, and instead are just doing this weird presumptive ad hominem thing?
If you were paying attention to what's actually going on in modern battlefields, you'd know that in fact you're right: "dropping bombs and evading AA fire" is actually of limited applicability! Great examples! There are no bombs being dropped. Virtually no humans are being shot at with anti-aircraft fire. That's what I'm pointing out.
Militaries need to train in order to test systems, test weapons, gain experience, and be able to generally perform better and accomplish any given objective. In the modern era, militaries need to engage in what is called Combined Arms exercises. These exercises, as the name alludes to, coordinate activities across different branches of the military. So it might be the army coordinating with the navy to attack a target or capture some piece of land or objective. Maybe the army is on the ground directing fire from naval ships off the coast, or it could be the Air Force providing drone coverage as special forces achieve some mission.
Coordinating these activities during peace time is a key function of successful militaries. It is incredibly important to align these activities to be effective. Because of this, not only do you have militaries that work on combined arms and other trainings internally, but in the case of NATO, or perhaps the US with alliances in the Pacific we also engage in combined arms exercises with other militaries to further enhance and integrate those capabilities so that when it comes time to fight, forces have been trained how to respond and can do so more effectively. A great example of this is KATUSA - Korean Augmentation to the United States Army where Korean soldiers are actually assigned to and reporting to American military command and train alongside the United States.
The reason Venezuela is important, for example, is because it was an exercise demonstrating combined arms coordination and execution. It shows what the US military is actually capable when air, sea, and land forces engage to accomplish some objective.
So why is this important re: Iran (and Ukraine certainly). Because it's combined arms activities except that it's the real thing. Real equipment failures might happen, real lessons are learned, you are actually getting shot at. Lives are at stake. The military is actually battle tested, even if the opponent is hopelessly outmatched.
So when you write something like this:
> All evidence from NATO exercises and investigations is that Ukr/Rus conflict has virtually no relevance to OEF, OIF, or The Caracas Criminal Apprehension.
Those exercises, the lessons learned from the wars such as OEF, OIF, and even how Ukraine is today using and testing American military equipment in battle, matter a whole lot. And that's one of Xi Jingping's primary concerns with his military. They have done 0 of this. They've never really been shot at. They haven't tested their equipment in any sort of real battle. For the software-minded, it's like they've always been in development and haven't even touched a preview environment, let alone production. And worrying enough the US has demonstrated the capability to bypass and/or destroy Chinese and Russian military equipment including air defense and radar arrays - this is worrisome for those countries. If it comes time for a real war, well the only evidence you have so far is your state of the art equipment or close enough to it was absolutely fucking useless when it came to operations involving the US. Whooops.
They may start a war and find out they made a lot of bad assumptions and didn't train well enough and then what?
I'd encourage you to think about this a little more than you are here.
Unfortunately it turns out different wars are very different.
You’re acting like I’ve argued that I would prefer China over the US. That’s absolutely not true, and partially for the reasons you mention. However, we should absolutely not rest on our more expansive direct experience in very different combat to presume anything.
We especially shouldn’t presume that when Iran, as a China-lite adversary, is teaching us lessons that we apparently have been unwilling to learn indirectly in Ukraine.
By the way, Mr Military Strategy Buff, “combined arms” is not (necessarily) multiple branches working together. It’s multiple functions working together. Aviation, armor, artillery, infantry, etc. Nothing to do with different branches.
They didn't have more combat experience than Ukraine though, never mind the additional problems that the Russian military faced at the time of the invasion which are too numerous to list here but include corruption, lack of equipment, a lack of understanding of the will of the Ukrainian people, and more.
Fast forward to 2026 and I'd argue there are probably only 4-5 militaries in the world who have any meaningful combat experience: the United States, Israel, Ukraine, Russia, and Iran to a lesser extent and perhaps the United Kingdom though they're falling more and more behind in that respect.
> We especially shouldn’t presume that when Iran, as a China-lite adversary, is teaching us lessons that we apparently have been unwilling to learn indirectly in Ukraine.
You're just wrong. We're learning lessons in Ukraine, actively testing western and US-specific equipment, and more. We had real-time experience in deploying our capabilities in logistics and intelligence too. Today we're actively seeing how American combat systems perform in real combat operations against an enemy deploying combat systems developed by our adversaries in Iran and throughout the Middle East. You might not be learning anything, but don't presume your ignorance extends to the Pentagon.
> By the way, Mr Military Strategy Buff, “combined arms” is not (necessarily) multiple branches working together. It’s multiple functions working together. Aviation, armor, artillery, infantry, etc. Nothing to do with different branches.
The branches are just where those capabilities generally rest. For example the Air Force does not employ artillery or infantry, those are functions of the army. My point was demonstrated.
Uh yes they did
> never mind the additional problems that the Russian military faced at the time of the invasion which are too numerous to list here but include corruption, lack of equipment, a lack of understanding of the will of the Ukrainian people, and more.
In other words, there are other relevant variables than just combat experience...?
> You're just wrong...
"We're actively learning lessons in Ukraine" → Yet somehow our Patriot batteries were taken offline by Shaheds lmao. Sure, obviously we're learning some lessons. But so are our enemies. And what cost to each party? Iran learns lessons "for free" while it defends itself. China learns lessons for free because it's uninvolved. The US learns lessons because it's risking lives and equipment for a war with, so far, deeply negative strategic value.
The degree of single-dimensional thinking you're exhibiting is frankly bizarre.
> The branches are just where those capabilities generally rest... My point was demonstrated.
No lol. It's extremely discrediting actually.
Not really
> In other words, there are other relevant variables than just combat experience...?
Yes? Nobody argued otherwise.
> "We're actively learning lessons in Ukraine" → Yet somehow our Patriot batteries were taken offline by Shaheds lmao.
Learning a lesson second-hand is different than learning a lesson first-hand. The fact that Iran was able to perhaps attack some equipment or position shows us where we are weak and gives us, albeit unfortunate, an opportunity to learn a lesson and improve.
> But so are our enemies. And what cost to each party? Iran learns lessons "for free" while it defends itself.
No Iran doesn't learn lessons for free unless everyone else is too. Of course enemies are going to learn and adapt too, but we're smarter, stronger, our civilization is a lot better at war, have more money, and better equipment and so when we learn lessons they're more effective and important.
> China learns lessons for free because it's uninvolved. The US learns lessons because it's risking lives and equipment for a war with, so far, deeply negative strategic value.
Again you're just confusing your mistaken view of the Iran war here as I mentioned in my OP.
Happy to answer any questions you have though
It's clear you're quite emotionally wrapped up in this topic for some reason.
In the US at least and western militaries as far as I'm aware, combined arms operations are coordinated between branches. The Air Force doesn't have infantry, they call the Army to coordinate and so on. That coordination and ability to execute is extremely important. Trying to suggest that what I wrote wasn't correct is being needlessly argumentative and is a poor reflection on your ability to discuss this issue.
The only reason we don't have $6 gas right now is because of a ton of financially engineering. I don't know how anyone could convince the American public that $10 gas and war time rations is worth defending Taiwan.
I see you are not in California.
I've been trying to understand why gas is still comparatively cheap given the war and the best I've landed on so far is that the spread between feedstock (crude oil) and output (diesel, gas, jet fuel, etc) widened in large part die to flooding the market with strategic oil reserves.
We keep crude prices low, which is what many indicators track, while we couldn't keep final product prices low as easily because we can't quickly increase refinery capacity.
How did they financially suppress fuel prices?
With the reduction in demand, prices didn't skyrocket. This is what OPEC does (cut supply to increase prices), but on the demand side.
If you google for the "oil price today" you will find something like $75. However, if you look closely, it's the price of oil futures for September. Futures are not oil, they are contracts. If you need to buy oil in September and you expect the price to be higher than $75 you can buy such a contract and guarantee your price to be $75 now. However, you can also buy such a contract even if you don't need to buy oil ever, hoping its price will go up and you can sell it at profit (you can also do it on margin i.e. only put enough money to cover daily price change). And a whole lot of people do exactly this (likewise, they also can sell these contracts even though they don't have a drop of oil to sell).
Normally, the large volume of these speculative contracts cancel each other before the expiration date and no oil changes hands. However, because most of these traders don't have oil or the ability to take delivery on oil, a "squeeze" is possible. Say, you bought $75 oil futures for September today, hoping to sell them at premium sometime before today and the last trading day at the end of August. As that day approaches you see that the price is still $75 or even lower. Oil spot price (the actual price) can be anything (it was about $100 last week), maybe $100, maybe $200 but nobody is buying futures at this price, because someone is selling them at $68. If you had a refinery with storage to take few thousand barrels, you'd be happy as you got a great deal on oil. However, if you are just a dude at a computer in a NYC apartment, you are now in big trouble - you have to pay $75K for each contract you hold and take delivery on 1000 barrels of oil. Either or both might be impossible for you so, instead, you just sell yours at $67.99 and take $7K loss on each contract, which 10x less money than you'd have to pay for the oil you can't take delivery on. This is a "long squeeze", as more people find themselves in such a situation they sell at lower and lower price causing the futures price to tank even more.
Someone causing a long squeeze is, obviously, taking a loss as some legitimate buyers will buy the cheap futures and take delivery but because of the sheer volume of the speculators, a long squeeze is not nearly as expensive as a direct undercutting the spot price and can be maintained for a long time with relatively small capital.
I wish people would take a short stop here and contemplate a bit on this sentence.
The Ukraine war is 4+ years old, and they are still making significant improvements on their tactics. This is with support and advice from experienced militaries like US and France.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army#Eng...
I guess one could litigate the definition of "battle", but come on.
That said, they have been tempted by the juiciest prey right off their coast.
Ukraine wasn't really wearing the war crown either and they managed to redefine the face of war to the point where countries with trillion dollar militaries are taking notes.
Your jab isn't totally unwarranted, China like most countries has no battle tested military. But your correct premise suggests a conclusion which just isn't there. If I say "China hasn't lost a war in decades, while the US is successfully losing to an enemy that's been strangled from all sides for decades" the premise is true but the conclusion is still up for being written.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pro-American all the way. I just am not sure which is better: to defer and not be in war or to be in war and lose due to economics vs brute firepower/manpower/superiority.
I don't think soldiers survive any meaningful amount of combat to get experience in combat. Pooping without WC is what they get good at which you can do in exerciss too.
Logistics and support staff might get experience maybe ...
While we're going to have lots of officers who've been to war for a while yet, turnover eventually evens the playing field.
The people who would be doing the actual fighting in a war today have never been to war.
And as we've seen in Ukraine, warfare is always evolving, making some subset of past war experience less valuable.
Its the difference between having a CEO who was a competent engineer for years before becoming the CEO, and having a CEO who went to business school and played software dev tycoon for 10 years before walking in the door to be CEO on the first day of their first real job.
An invasion of Taiwan would entail a large naval component, though, and China really has zero experience in naval warfare even if you accept my assertion that there would be some value in having admirals trained by admirals trained by admirals with experience in a proper war.
How I wish for a world where the same could be said for every other army!
Looks a lot like the US went into this war assuming it's a rerun of the Iraq war where they could build a mountain of supplies in Saudi Arabia where they were effectively unreachable for the enemy, and take advantage or the friendly skies just across Iraq's border to support their air superiority, and keep the long and lengthening logistics lines protected.
It wasn't a rerun. They can't stock up and just stay beyond Iran's border to be safe, now everything they care about has to stay far, far away, out of drone or missile reach. Any supply lines can be hit far behind the front line so they were non-existent.
Yes but with the caveat that they wanted the lowest risk to US service members during the bombing. This means using up the fire and forget stuff rather than the guided munitions attached to planes. They have good air superiority, but poor logistical options to do that.
The traditional way to do this is to park two carrier groups within 500 miles of the target and convey tonnes of cheap munitions to the targets (as in iraq, Libya & kosovo) the problem for the US is that it means parking a carrier within drone range. You'd then establish a land base and move forward. Again all of the logistics of doing that are vulnerable to drone.
So this is the route they chose.
Until the US have something to counter drones cheaply, then they'll get stuck like this.
They would have known going into this war the plan was fundamentally flawed before we even committed to firing a single munition.
Maybe they could have been part of the landing but I'm sure as hell glad they didn't follow through with an invasion. The geography, supply line issues, and drone warfare would have been an absolute nightmare.
These Marine amphibious assault carriers are highly vulnerable to swarm tactics by fast Iranian assault boats. Iran has a few thousand of them which can be deployed fast.
You need a full strike group to support the assault. And that means those ships are in range of Iranian mass-drone strikes and missiles. And Iran has a lot of hidden missile cities that they are yet to reveal.
There is no way to achieve territorial supremacy without tens of thousands of casualties. It will make Vietnam look like a papercut.