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Comment by kulahan | Hacker News Reader

This entire statement relies on the idea that world leaders are highly rational actors, which they absolutely are not.

It does not, because it imposes extrinsic constraints on what is possible. Iran is imposing a severe cost on the US. It doesn't matter what the US wants to do. When such a relatively minor power is able to extract such a high price, it limits what we can do. Ukraine was probably a big mistake, because it's the first time in modern history that the US got involved in a relatively large scale conflict against a peer level power. That severely damaged the perception of Western weaponry, training, and technology as being superhuman in capability. The US was obviously banking on Iran not counter-attacking out of fear, and that might have indeed been the outcome prior to Ukraine.

What little rational justification for Iran there was, probably rested in some part on trying to undo the perceptual damage to the US military tech by scoring a quick victory over a minor power. But the catastrophe that has unfolded there has essentially nailed the coffin shut on any concept of military superiority, let alone dominance. This doesn't mean that the US will just completely surrender Taiwan or whatever, but rather that it's clear to every single world power that such claims of protection are now just empty rhetoric. And that's almost certainly going to be acknowledged frankly between nations in private discussions going forward.

Those intrinsic costs are still muddled within digital payment systems which represent nothing tangible. You can take loans out from world banks, you can run your country into slavery, or you can do a million other things you want which are irrational but still overcome these nonexistent constraints. Do you think the US is printing out a dollar for every single bill they pay? Do you not understand that the US is currently trillions of dollars in debt? Do you not see how constraints are, at best, suggestions enforced only when the majority agrees something is not worth profiting off of?

What do you mean it doesn't matter what the US wants to do? The US doesn't want to go into another war. One man at the top forcing his army against their will and advice to do something is simply obedience, not a sign of what a country wants anyways.

Nobody wants this in the US, and it's why even traditionally extremely neutral outlets like Reuters and AP News are willing to state that Trump is currently deeply unpopular with Republicans.

Pay attention, and let go of your strawmen, I beg of you.

You're not seeing the big picture. The US is losing in Iran. How can that change? It would require a ground invasion. The losses there would easily be in the tens of thousands, and very likely order(s) of magnitude higher. And at the end, it's reasonably doubtful that even that would be successful.

So on the cost the constraint is not just in dollars, but blood. Although even in dollars - I'd also observe another issue. Inflation and money printing is making money increasingly meaningless, but 'things' are not. You can fart a quadrillion dollars into existence, but you can't fart a trillion artillery shells into existence. During WW2 certain metals became so scarce that we started making nickels out of silver and pennies out of steel to have more copper and nickel for war purposes.

The US is already blowing through massive resources against Iran, and we'd likely need orders of magnitude more for a ground war. These sort of resources simply do not exist, and arguably cannot exist. The defender has always had an easier time in war, but drones have bumped up this power by orders of magnitude. Decentralize your drone production, organize your military to prepare for assassinations, ensure significant decentralized under-ground logistics and production facilities, and you're basically good to go.

I don't really understand what you think I'm straw manning. We're disagreeing while agreeing in a way that's slightly bemusing to me.

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