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Comment by ben_w | Hacker News Reader

I was already thinking how the Iran situation is to the USA what Ukraine is to Russia.

Manly men (in their own heads at least) try to use testosterone to remove the thorn in their side, find things out the hard way. But although the finding out period is expensive, other people pay for it, so they are very slow learners.

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There is an academic difference.

Russia is trying to occupy land using ground troops and failing. Right tool for the job, but the tool is rotten.

The US is trying to enact strategic change by (competent) airpower, which in 100 years of airpower has never worked. No matter how potent that tool, it is the wrong one for the job.

The dynamic is completely different though. Russian has a culture and acceptance of sacrifice, sometimes in huge number. America is far more transactional and has increasingly treated sacrifice as unacceptable or even contemptable. There is an element of machismo in the way that the politicians talk and behave, but more in terms of executing on a transaction. But in general both sets of leadership are very protected from consequences of war (very unlikely to suffer violence to themselves or their family) so it must all be a bit abstract.

Not that Trump would have an ounce of good intentions but those wars are quite different in important ways:

- The greatest enemy of Iranian regime are the Iranian people. They want to get rid of that government. Unlike the Ukrainians. Thousands of Iranian protesters were gunned down by their own government in December/January.

- Iran is not "winning" by holding the line in conventional warfare (like Ukraine). They would not stand a chance. They're winning because they're pain tolerance for collateral damage is higher than the US tolerance for high oil prices.

- Ukraine was attacked completely unprovoked, while Iran is a terror state and the single biggest reason for instability in the middle east.

Broadly agree; while I don't see these as important to the kinds of similarity, the things I am focusing on are essentially arbitrary.

> - Iran is not "winning" by holding the line in conventional warfare (like Ukraine). They would not stand a chance. They're winning because they're pain tolerance for collateral damage is higher than the US tolerance for high oil prices.

I'd push back a bit on that. I agree the Iranian government is extremely pain tolerant; my understanding is that the terrain and strategic considerations mean an actual invasion would take around 1/3 to 1/2 of the current US army, marines, and airforce, 1/5 to 1/3 of the navy, for 6-12 months.

This is the other half of the pain tolerance question: the US, isn't. Despite the bombast of the Executive.

This is a western take on the situation. Another take would be that the US/Israel are the largest force for destabilization in the middle east (see also Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and Iran itself from 1953-onward).

> They would not stand a chance

The west would absolutely lose a ground war in Iran. Iran has been preparing for an invasion for 50 years, the terrain isn't like other countries in the region and is incredibly hostile to a ground invasion, and the IRGC will fight to the bloody end (see also the Iran-Iraq war).

How is the USA making any of that any better?

they're fighting the right war for the wrong reasons. Russia is fighting the wrong war for the wrong reasons.

A Russian slave army is exactly what Hegseth wants.

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