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Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz

• i67vw3 6mo ago
  Not every war can be fought from air, there needs to be soldiers on the ground. In fight against ISIS, the Iraqi amry, Shia Militias, Kurds and others were ground forces while Allies were in Air. In Afghanistan & Gulf War, US forces were on ground. But in these "conflict", no party is ready to send ground forces, ground forces to stop the air drones, ship drones etc. So the "blockade" will probably continue.
  • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
    > the "blockade" will probably continue The part that makes the Strait weird is no belligerent wants it entirely closed. (Maybe Israel.) Iran wants to export. And America wants exports. So you get this weird stalemate where America doesn’t want to actually blockade Iran, while Iran seems to do just enough to keep America from actually shutting the Strait.
    • average_r_user 6mo ago
      [dead]
    • arkensaw 6mo ago
      > while Iran seems to do just enough to keep America from actually shutting the Strait. Uhm, why would America shut the strait?
      • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
        > why would America shut the strait? To deny Iran oil revenue.
    • pjc50 6mo ago
      America isn't getting exports from Iran, until recently they were sanctioned. More of a problem is that the biggest buyer of Iranian oil is China. I don't think that getting out of the war with Iran by starting a war with China would be an improvement.
      • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
        > America isn't getting exports from Iran Single market. Every barrel China buys from Iran is a barrel it doesn’t scour the global markets for.
      • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
        > America isn't getting exports from Iran Single market. Every barrel China buys from Iran is a barrel it doesn’t scour the global markets for. > getting out of the war with Iran by starting a war with China China isn’t getting into a war with America over the Strait.
        • stale2002 6mo ago
          > Single market. Not really, they were getting discounted oil prices previously that they are no longer able to get. Also, they are a large importer of oil compared to the US, which is an exporter. They have much more to lose from high oil prices than we do.
  • mrweasel 6mo ago
    There was an article somewhere a few days ago, where the author raised the question: Why buy tanks in a world of drone warfare. Something like that. I see this as much the same "problem". Drones can't really take or hold territory, they can only deny access to it. At some point you need people and armoured vehicles on the ground. The US is facing the same issue in Iran. You can bomb all you like, but a bomber, like a drone, can't hold land. Iran can launch drones and missiles towards the Strait of Hormuz from the entire country, denying anyone access, but also without being able to hold it. Because they went in without a plan, or even a goal really, the US administration denied itself, and everyone else, access to the strait. The military leadership probably knew this. If not they could have asked Ukraine if this was a sound idea, given their knowledge and experience with Iranian drone technology.
    • deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
  • bluegatty 6mo ago
    There is no party even capable of doing it. The Gulf coastline is almost 1000 miles long, there would have to be a gigantic occupation of an area the size of a small country, at the same time as there would be 'all out war' with Iran, which would be backed by China and to a lesser extent Russia, and whereupon an invasion would provide them with millions of determined fighters. We're talking 'Gulf War' scale of operation against a much bigger, more capable country, and of forces willing to fight. And the US doesn't even have anywhere to do it from. Assuming a Gulf country would host an invasion force - extremely unlikely - there's no magical way for US to cross the Gulf with large numbers of forces, as we can't get capitol ships in there in the first place. There's no amphibious capability at the scale necessary on the Arabian Sea. Literally just the logistics of large scale landings is almost impossible. That leaves the Kuwait / Iran border, and maybe something a bit wider. And then fight through the mountains across the Gulf? The thought is absurd, it's a 'major campaign theatre' - of which US forces were theoretically capable of fighting in two at once, but that's not pragmatic. That's 'wartime economy' kind of thing. It's possible but unlikely that 10K marines and paratroopers are going to be able to do much, because it's very risky and likely won't accomplish much.
    • cyanydeez 6mo ago
      At some point, there's going to be a dumbenough general to try to paratrooper their way in. They've spent the past year trying to cull "dysloyal" troops, so at some point, the delusion will surface is an absurdly dumb attempt. Hard to see it any other way.
      • bluegatty 6mo ago
        US forces are not partisan and not culled, they're mostly the same entity they were last year, but with a few Generals asked to retire. (Edit: highly professional I might add. There are quirks, and obvious hints of 'nationalist bias' - but that's to be expected. They are not the 'cultural problem' we see on the news - at least not for now. They lean 'normal') The current Joint Chiefs is a bit obsequious but he's not crazy. These are very sane people, for the most part. They may be pressed to do something risky, like land troops at Kharg island, but not completely suicidal. That 'risk' may entail getting a number of soldiers captured, but that's not on the extreme side of military failure, it's mostly geopolitical failure. It would certainly end DJT as a popular movement. Having a ship hit, or a few soldiers captured - and this sounds morose - is normal. That's why they exist. It's the political fallout that's deadly. They won't do anything to crazy. The craziest thing they could do is 'full invasion' and Congress won't allow that. It's very unpopular and DJT has populist instinct as well - he's trying to 'find a way out'.
• pjc50 6mo ago
  TLDR: not going to put the navy within range of shore attacks + have not yet been able to degrade the Iranian strike capabilites.
• deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
• bluegatty 6mo ago
  "Why the the US Navy Can't Blast the Iranians and 'Open' the Strait of Hormuz"
• kashunstva 6mo ago
  Whether or not professional military strategists and planners anticipated this shift in carrier-based projection of power in the era of low-cost drones, it is nearly certain that the Commander-in-Chief of the United States military has not. And if the Commander is involved in the either the day-to-day operations or the strategic level of planning, I can’t imagine that whatever reasoning about these shifts in power dynamics has taken place will influence U.S. operations.
  • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
    > this shift in carrier-based projection of power in the era of low-cost drones Nothing in this war has suggested carriers are obsolete. A carrier that launches drones and fields an anti-drone strike group would be amazing. We don’t have that. (And even what we do have is great in the carrier department, it’s given us air parity to superiority from way offshore.)
    • khalic 6mo ago
      Lol carriers were already being overwhelmed by regular missiles, this now means a multi billion dollar ship can and will be destroyed by cheap drones if it's anywhere near its optimal deployment zone.
      • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
        > carriers were already being overwhelmed by regular missiles Where? When? > if it's anywhere near its optimal deployment zone What are you referring to? The entire modern carrier strike group is architected around using stand-off weapons to clear threats to make way for stand-in weapons. The relevant ranges are what your stand-in bombers can hit without re-fuelling versus with. The era of direct firing from ships passed ages ago–that doesn't make carriers less valuable, just changes their role.
        • cosmicgadget 6mo ago
          Did you ever hear the tragedy of USS Plagueis The Unsinkable?
• fooker 6mo ago
  At the heart of this is the fact that America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale. High tech interceptors and missiles and aircraft carriers are great, but with China's help these are outnumbered by three (soon to be four) orders of magnitude. It's unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes, with not much in between.
  • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
    > America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale We make plenty of stuff at scale. We just haven’t designed any of military around it since WWII. > unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.
    • generic92034 6mo ago
      > We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America. But Putin would not like that! /s
    • giantg2 6mo ago
      "We make plenty of stuff at scale." Not the stuff that matters (chips, electronics, metals, etc). We don't even have a primary lead smelter, which we would likely need if we got into a peer conflict. It's also important to note that the US lacks the ability to quickly pivot and set up plants. Much of the knowledge to do so has been disappearing as employment in that sector has been steadily declining for decades. Sure we make stuff at scale using automation, but that automation can't be changed to significantly different stuff in a reasonable timeframe.
      • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
        We suck at ultra-heavy industry that outputs commodities. We're great at light industry, or specialised heavy industry, which includes a lot of electronics. You're correct on inflexibility.
• meindnoch 6mo ago
  Could they?
  • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
    Stupidly, yes, with carpet bombing. Practically, no, that would be horrible. More horrible, possibly, than taking out the power and water infrastructure.
    • deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    • arkensaw 6mo ago
      Trump casually talks about destroying the energy infrastructure, power plants, desalination plants etc. This is one of the most controversial things that the Russians do in Ukraine - attack the grid when it's cold to try and freeze people to death. To willingly deprive a country of 100,000,000 people of water and power coming into summer would surely be a war-crime.
      • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
        > This is one of the most controversial things that the Russians do in Ukraine - attack the grid when it's cold to try and freeze people to death But the Russians have been doing it. Iran may have targeted an Israeli power plant. The precedent, unfortunately, is set.
        • scott_w 6mo ago
          They have and Ukraine haven’t surrendered (nor do they look like they will any time soon), so I don’t see how it wit k a in Iran.
          • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
            > and Ukraine haven’t surrendered Different goals. Carpet bombing to deny Iran access to its coast is maneouvre warfare. It’s tactical. Carpet bombing to force Kyiv to capitulate is strategic bombing. It has never worked.
• high_na_euv 6mo ago
  Brightest minds of US were too focused on displaying ads and making teenagers addicted to tik tokies-like stuff instead of working security, defense, etc You couldve seen anti militsry industry sentiment on HN for years, which apparently worked for US adversaries, who knows who was behind that propaganda :) Inb4: im from eu
  • cicko 6mo ago
    > im from eu Yeah, the ultimate place of military preparedness.
    • raincole 6mo ago
      It's not "look I'm doing better than you," it's "please don't repeat our mistakes."
  • cyanydeez 6mo ago
    The brightest minds were systematically bullied out of position, called DEI hires or accused of random crimes. They might not have been the best, but lets not pretend we're sending our brightest minds herw.
    • no_shadowban_5 6mo ago
      [flagged]
    • throwawaypath 6mo ago
      The brightest minds were systematically bullied out of position, called racists/transphobes or accused of random crimes.
  • leoc 6mo ago
    To be fair, it was bright Chinese minds at ByteDance which worked on getting US teenagers addicted to TikTok videos.
    • 6mo ago
• KingOfCoders 6mo ago
  I don't get that "Strait" discussion. Where does the Strait begin and end? If somehow the US Navy "opens" the Strait, what stops Iran to attack every ship moving in the direction of the Strait? Where does the "protection zone" start and end?
  • j_maffe 6mo ago
    at a range where short-range anti-ship missiles can reach ships from Iranian territory.
    • marcosdumay 6mo ago
      So, the entire gulf? Actual short-range weapons can't cross the strait. The ones that can don't care much about the difference on the rest of the place.
    • Terr_ 6mo ago
      And boats, amd submerged drones, and mines...
    • angry_octet 6mo ago
      Not even short range. With a sensor feed from an ally they can project into the Gulf of Oman, and via Yemen the entire BaM. Doubtful China would provide that because they want oil, but likely Russia would, because they want high oil prices and American humiliation.
  • thebeardredis 6mo ago
    [flagged]
  • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
    > Where does the Strait begin and end? Practically speaking, the Musandam Peninsula [1]. Open that to the sea and you make everyone except Iraq and Kuwait happy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musandam_Peninsula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musandam_Peninsula
• standardUser 6mo ago
  Iran's deep investment in asymmetric warfare is paying serious dividends. You wouldn't expect a nation that's being bombed day and night, essentially at will, to still hold so many cards. Not only is the US completely incapable of strong-arming the straight open, but the rate of missile and drone attacks out of Iran and its proxies has been accelerating the last few days, as has the rate of successful hits.
  • lnsru 6mo ago
    My Iranian ex colleague shares very interesting opinion. They trained during his army time to blow everything in the region up. So if things escalate badly the oil and gas importing countries will stay with a fraction of needed oil and gas for years. There is no backup infrastructure anywhere in the world. It will take years to rebuild the infrastructure. It will destroy world’s economy better than nukes.
    • guzfip 6mo ago
      I kinda expected scorched earth from Iran, or any oil producing state tbh, didn’t Saddam do this retreating from Kuwait?
  • aryonoco 6mo ago
    Since 1979, every US president has known that the US can send a couple of aircraft carriers and bomb the shit out of Iran. And yet none did. Because they listened to their security chiefs and advisors who would tell them, Iran is a highly complex multiethnic geographically complex country. If you can contain it with diplomacy, that’s preferable. When listening to “experts” becomes taboo, there will be consequences. The inhabitants of the Iranian plateau have been the subject of the ire of the military superpower of their era quite a few times. Alexander the Great conquered them and set their capital and their sacred books on fire and yet a mere 70 years later his Hellenic dynasty was gone. They were conquered by the Arabs and were forced to give up their religion but somehow, unlike Egypt and Syria/Lebanon and many other ancient places, these guys somehow kept their language and distinct culture intact. They were decimated (maybe even worse ) by Genghis Khan and followed quickly by Tamerlane and yet, it was their Turco-Mongol rulers who ended up adopting their language and culture. The inhabitants of this land have deep memory of knowing how to suffer, to endure and to survive. It wasn’t that long ago that from Constantinople to New Delhi, the language of the Imperial Court was Persian.
• poulpy123 6mo ago
  I'm always perturbed to see people talk of mass killings so casually
  • lpapez 6mo ago
    The US public discourse is so dehumanized today that anyone who is not "with them" is literally not a human anymore. Even within the country itself "the leftards" are considered an obstacle which can be removed if only enough force is applied. Sending armed agents at protesters is seen as being the same thing as sending pest control to clear out beaver dams on the creek. Nobody cares what the beavers think, they are not human, they do not have feelings. They are simply a menace to be dealth with.
    • no_shadowban_5 6mo ago
      [flagged]
      • orwin 6mo ago
        It took 8 years the last time.
    • smitty1e 6mo ago
      [flagged]
      • no_shadowban_5 6mo ago
        [flagged]
      • comrade1234 6mo ago
        > The conservatives, when they protest (Tea Parties) leave public spaces in fine shape. As long as you ignore the feces smeared on the walls and the injured police.
      • JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
        > The conservatives, when they protest (Tea Parties) leave public spaces in fine shape We're just skipping Charlottesville and the Capitol? We have idiots on both of our fringes. But only one of them is in power right now.
• V__ 6mo ago
  The U.S. can't win this war. John Kiriakou did a nice analysis on this on his recent podcasts. "Iran just has to prolong the war and survive it to win". Trump on the other hand needs a decisive win fast, or the economic and political fallout will be too big. As long as Iran can launch cheap drones and keep a small but steady pressure there is just no path out of this for the U.S. except to go home.
  • SideburnsOfDoom 6mo ago
    I have seen the same from other sources https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/ https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/ > This is the second sudden bombing campaign the country has suffered in as many years – they do not want there to be a third next year and a fourth the year after that. But promises not to bomb them don’t mean a whole lot: establishing deterrence here means inflicting quite a lot of pain. In practice, if Iran wants future presidents not to repeat this war, the precedent they want to set is "attacking Iran is a presidency-ending mistake." And to do that, well, they need to end a presidency or at least make clear they could have done. Can they do that: yes, keep Hormuz shut until much closer to November, and "the economic and political fallout will be too big."
    • doe88 6mo ago
      While it can very well be true, I wonder if we don't exagerate the will of the iranian regime and its ablity in the current time to think this far ahead. I see them more in survival mode, I'm not sure they fight for future deterence, maybe the goals align currently but seems to me to be happenstance. They seem resilient but I wonder how much they would be close of falling. Of course, I wouldn't have done this war, and I certainly would stop it now.
      • SideburnsOfDoom 6mo ago
        > They seem resilient but I wonder how much they would be close of falling While neither of us have any special insight into that, and no-one has certainty, I urge you to read the essay linked, as this topic is in fact discussed with historic examples. "There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad ... There is a great deal of ruin in a nation." You are right that the the Iranian regime's short and longer term goals align. But, happenstance or not, they are aligned and likely will stay that way.
• juliusceasar 6mo ago
  What people do to distract the focus from Epstein list. 2nd Epstein war.
  • helterskelter 6mo ago
    Operation Epstein Fury
  • actionfromafar 6mo ago
    Hey, don't knock what works!
• jleyank 6mo ago
  The problem shown by Ukraine was that large, expensive solutions were not effective when cheap weapons were used. The solution, which will take time, is to recreate some of the cheap defensive solutions that used to be available - guns, radar-bearing weaponry, etc. these are quite boring to the high tech industry, who prefer things like lasers, rail guns, etc. but ww ii showed they worked, and I suspect the approach speed of drones is similar to kamikazes. There are also fewer ships than in the 80’s, and everything costs too much. F-35’s vs. F16 birds, the gripen argument in Canada or Europe. How to get companies and staff to embrace low tech solutions in a rapid mapper. Perhaps they can remember history and make planes that support ground operations rather than high tech birds. Having more, slower birds with cannons would help with drone warfare. Armour also helps. And yeah, selling ads vs more interesting tech solutions was a cliche 10+ years ago.
• deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
• leoc 6mo ago
  https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/30/what-are-ukraines-new-gulf-defence-deals-here-is-what-zelenskyy-signed https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/30/what-are-ukraines-new-gu... > Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine is willing to share its expertise in unblocking maritime trade routes with the naval drones. > “We shared our experience with the Black Sea corridor and how it operates. They understand that our Armed Forces have been highly effective in unblocking the Black Sea corridor. We are sharing these details.”
• Balgair 6mo ago
  In chapter 11 of All Quiet on the Western Front Paul and his unit find an abandoned food cache in the middle of no mans land. Instead of secreting away the food back to their lines where they will have to share it, they decide to just cook and eat it right then and there. But a spotter plane from the allies sees the smoke and then begins shelling their position. Cue a terrifying, if hilarious, scene where the soldiers try and cook pancakes as shells explode around them. Paul, as the last to leave, takes his pancakes on a plate and dashes out, timing his escape between bursts, and just barely making it back to the German trenches. Its a rare comic scene in an otherwise horrific and very real look at WW1. The scene in the book is just so familiar to the lines in Ukraine these days, nearly a hundred years later. Instead of spotter planes near the dawn of aviation, we have satellites and drones (similarly quite new in the role). Instead of just shells and fuzing experts, we have FPV drones and much more sophisticated shells. Instead of buddies from the same towns all huddled together in cold muddy holes, we have deracinated units spread far and wide in laying in fear of thermal imaging. This results in a no mans land again, but a dozen kilometers wide instead of a few hundred meters wide, and somehow more psychologically damaging. My point is that absent any tech that will miraculously be invented and deployed widely in the new few weeks, the Iran war, if it should be a ground one, is going to be just like Ukraine is today, which is somehow a worse version of trench warfare. Even casual Victoria II players know that WW1 is essentially the final boss of the game. And the 'lesson' of Vicky II is essentialy: Do not fight WW1, it ruins Everything. To be clear: The US is choosing to fight a worse version of WW1 without even a stated (or likely even known) condition of victory. We're about to send many thousands boys to suffer and die for not 'literally nothing', but actually literally nothing.
  • chneu 6mo ago
    This just came up yesterday in the sauna with a bunch of dudes. Everything feels unique and special, but we're just repeating history again. Nothing about this situation is actually unique. Change a few names, a few numbers like the year or GPS coords, but most everything today is just history repeating itself. Don't let capitalism convince us to do bad stuff cuz it makes us feel like the moment is special. It isn't. There is a tomorrow. It will be yesterday soon enough.
• hn_throw2025 6mo ago
  “during WWII, the US Navy… winning the U-boat war in the Atlantic” Sounds like typical US revisionist history. They developed ASDIC? HF/DF? Hedgehog? Even the depth charge? No, that was all the British. I would say technological development plus the Enigma decrypts were the biggest factor.
  • pjmorris 6mo ago
    Yes. "When whole squadrons of very long-range aircraft were operating out of bases in the Shetlands, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland (and, after mid-1943, the Azores), and when the Bay of Biscay could be patrolled all through the night by aircraft equipped with centimetric radar, Leigh Lights, depth charges, acoustic torpedoes, even rockets, Doenitz’s submarines knew no rest." [0] [0] Kennedy, Paul. Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned The Tide in the Second World War, from the chapter 'How to Get Convoys Safely Across the Atlantic'
    • grvdrm 6mo ago
      Fascinating book. I think I finished it!
  • cladopa 6mo ago
    >No, that was all the British. And not even British. For example most of the Enigma decryption was the genius work of a Polish man. Britain received the immigration of half the Nobel prices of the world in a couple years as the jews escaped nazism.
    • argsnd 6mo ago
      The technologies listed aside from the Enigma were largely actually British (I say largely because Canadians were deeply involved in some cases)
    • hn_throw2025 6mo ago
      The original Bomba was the genius work of a Polish man, but was no use from 1938-1939 when the Enigma cipher was strengthened. At which point the Turing-Welchman Bombe was developed. The Battle of the Atlantic ran between 1939 and 1945. For the much harder Lorenz cipher used by German High Command from 1940, the Colossus machine was developed by Tommy Flowers at the GPO and became operational in 1944. None of which involved the US Navy, which was my original point.
• forinti 6mo ago
  In the movie Thirteen Days, JFK mentions a book titled March of Folly by Barbara Tuchmann. I bought the book on that tip and it has an interesting chapter on Vietnam. I don't think adding a chapter on this "special operation" would even be worth it as it would just be repetitive.
  • trevithick 6mo ago
    How does that book fit in the timeline? It was published in 1984.
    • pfedak 6mo ago
      I believe they are mixing it up with The Guns of August (published in 1962, also by Tuchman), which JFK was fond of and supposedly drew on during the Cuban missile crisis.
      • forinti 6mo ago
        You are absolutely right. My mistake. I read them both and certainly recommend them.
        • trevithick 6mo ago
          Thank you. I heard about The Guns of August when I was looking for related books after reading A World Undone. Then I forgot about it. I never heard of March of Folly but I'll read them both.
  • deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
• phyzome 6mo ago
  Ooh, ooh, is it because it would be mindnumbingly stupid? [reads article] Yep, got it in one!
  • lotsofpulp 6mo ago
    Americans have been sold an image of the US being an omnipotent presence, due to its Navy. It is a legitimate question to wonder why a relatively weak, long embargoed country has the power to control the waters when the US has spent a pretty penny on all these warplanes and aircraft carriers. If little Iran can prevent the US from being able to establish security in a little straight, it (ideally) shatters that image and causes some soul searching for what US taxpayers are buying with the military.
    • b00ty4breakfast 6mo ago
      You can lose a game of chess to a guy with fewer and less powerful pieces than you if you play like a moron. The US has been playing the Iran situation like a gigantic moron.
      • lotsofpulp 6mo ago
        Maybe I am misinformed, but I was under the impression that the US was so capable it is not even playing the same game as a country like Iran. As in they could brute force solutions due to superior technology and infrastructure, because that is how much more the US spends on it.
        • deleted 6mo ago
          [deleted]
        • isleyaardvark 6mo ago
          Brute forcing things is the kind of thinking that leads to the moron losing the game of chess. And is basically the approach the U.S. took in Vietnam.
• mmooss 6mo ago
  The United States primary strategy against China, in the event of war around Taiwan or nearby, is the same: China's coast is mostly enclosed by the 'First Island Chain', which extends from Japan to Taiwan, through the Philippines and Borneo (look up a map and the situation will be very clear). Imagine strings of islands along the US coasts controlled by Chinese allies and with Chinese and allied forces training intensively there. The American plan is to keep the Chinese navy trapped (or under assault) along its own coast by putting Marines (and Army soldiers too, I think) on the islands with anti-ship missiles. The northern tip of the Philippines is as close to Taiwan as the Chinese mainland is; the US and Philippines are conducting an essentially endless series of military exercises and the US is placing some of its most advanced missiles there.
• metalman 6mo ago
  tumpy was/is/might be going to china in a week or so, and there is pretty much no way that can happen while WWIII is launching, and/or things are going mega bad for the marines, as there is no way they are not going find themselves in a real fight. all those islands are owned and operated by the irainian military, who in fact have complete long range artilery superiority,and every square inch dialed in, dont see how it could be done except with a full and total invasion of the wholecountry, which would likely go worse and would require a much much larger force than the one on hand, but tumpy is crazy, so who knows
• tim333 6mo ago
  >The era of carrier-dominated airpower is fading, as cheap, unmanned anti-ship weapons reshape naval warfare, whether US planners are ready for it or not. is not really backed up by reality. Pretty much the whole US operation so far, destroying much of Iran's military and leadership was done from US carriers. If anything it demonstrates how powerful they are. Also straits being closed to shipping by whatever power controls the shores is not a new thing. The Bosphophorous has been closed on and off by the Ottomans or Turks since 1453 and the allies couldn't break through in WW1. They can send raiding ships, use canons, artillery, naval mines etc. You don't need the new tech.
  • brokencode 6mo ago
    I agree that this conflict in Iran doesn’t really indicate that the aircraft carrier is any weaker now than it ever was. Though I do worry about the possibility of a more sophisticated opponent being able to launch swarms of drones and missiles at aircraft carriers. More than any air defense could ever stop.
    • rustyhancock 6mo ago
      I get the feeling you haven't read the article. The carrier is not in drone range precisely for that reason. The reason so many tankers have been lost and that E3 sentry is that the carriers are having to stay out of the preferred range and rely on refueling for the bombing campaign. If the CSG could move to the Iranian coast they wouldn't have to maintain a constant chain of refueling tankers which have become so vulnerable.
      • edm0nd 6mo ago
        >The carrier is not in drone range precisely for that reason. umm, you have no idea what you are talking about. the Iranian Shahed drones typically have an operational travel distance of approximately 1,200 to 2,000 kilometers (roughly 750 to 1,250 miles). and >USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) CSG: As of March 30, 2026, this strike group is operating in the Arabian Sea supporting Operation Epic Fury. Satellite imagery from mid-February and March 2026 placed the Lincoln roughly 700 kilometers (approx. 430 miles) off the coast of Iran and Oman.
• shevy-java 6mo ago
  I am very angry with Trump. He owes all of us money here. The sooner the guy is gone, the better. Some folks compared Trump to Lyndon B. Johnson, but as a lame duck from the get go. I think Trump in his own category - a new label of criminal and stupid. I want my money "back".
  • randomNumber7 6mo ago
    He was always very clear about Iran long before the election.
    • AnimalMuppet 6mo ago
      He was also very clear about "no new wars".
• andrewflnr 6mo ago
  This version of the "end of the power of the aircraft carrier" sounds like it will play out a lot like the end of the tank, the end of the helicopter, etc. Yeah, it's not going to have the same untouchable power it used to. But it's not going to stop being useful or go away either.
  • adrian_b 6mo ago
    Aircraft carriers will always be needed. However, I doubt that the huge and vulnerable carriers of today have any future. Carriers designed not for manned aircraft, but only for drones, missiles and guns would allow the use of a much greater number of small carriers instead of a few huge and expensive carriers. Such carriers could be mostly automated and they would need much smaller crews, instead of being floating cities.
• jmward01 6mo ago
  The title should change 'won't' to 'shouldn't'. This administration doesn't do things because of deep understanding, it does them because of gut reaction. The US Military could, at an unknown cost, just blast away. This article points out, rightfully, how scared we are to put our weapons in harms way because of how expensive they are. I made this argument many times to friends years ago. From a military strategic point of view we should be developing drone/cruise missile carriers (and upping our SSGN capabilities) and abandoning the carrier navy. They are only good for show at port visits and turn useful ships like DDGs into escorts instead of front line assets. That being said, from a diplomatic strategic point of view, I really like a useless navy full of ships that are good for port visits and not real wars. If you build ships good for real wars you tend to get into wars. If you build ships good for visiting other countries you tend not to go to war with those countries.
  • testing22321 6mo ago
    Losing just one carrier would give Trump all the excuse he needs to drop a nuke, declare a monster emergency and cancel elections…
    • wheelerwj 6mo ago
      He can’t cancel elections. Stop fear mongering about that. He can 100% drop a nuke though, so thats probably worth fear mongering about.
      • CodeMage 6mo ago
        Good thing he's so good at respecting rules that say he can't do things. And good thing that he's had to face the punishment for breaking some of those rules. Imagine reading what you wrote if he were repeatedly allowed to break rules without any consequences.
      • duxup 6mo ago
        What is the “can’t” aspect here? The law? He doesn’t care about that…
• JohnnyLarue 6mo ago
  [dead]
• streetfighter64 6mo ago
  Typically american to argue that "blasting" people is bad because of tactics or economics or whatever. How about it's bad to kill random people that haven't done you anything just because it's evil to do so? I guess that would involve admitting something about the morality of what the USA has been doing since the end of WWII though...
  • lyu07282 6mo ago
    All establishment media, thinktanks and both parties are pro US imperialism in general which necessitates wars of aggression, you have to read this critique more like it's taking place within the pro-war group. Like everybody is agreeing with the Iran war in principle thats not even up to debate anywhere in the mainstream. It wouldn't even occur to most Americans that "no wars at all" is even an option to begin with. To most, their "freedom" and safety depends on wars thousands of miles away. One example you can look for (it's everywhere) is in the way Chinese military capabilities are discussed by media like that, what is often brought up against them is "the lack of experience", without a hint of irony alongside the implicit view of china as the dangerous aggressor and rival. Imperialism is just the air they breathe, they don't notice it at all. Peaceful coexistence is not an option.
• shadowtree 6mo ago
  Which is why taking out the political leadership is the better tactic. You don't need to fight armies - just make it suicide to command them. Decapitation strikes work. "What if you had a time machine and could go back to kill Hitler?" Well yeah, no need to fight all of Germany. Would the Ukraine war still be going without Putin at the helm? The logical conclusion of drone war is take out whoever controls the drones.
  • Starman_Jones 6mo ago
    That doesn’t work if a nation has strong institutions and hierarchies of command. Russia and Nazi Germany (and Iraq) were organized around a strong central leader who personally granted authority to his subordinates, but Iran’s rulers are given authority by a process. If the new supreme leader is killed, they will simply elect another one. Imagine that FDR was visiting Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. Would the US government have collapsed? How many politicians and generals would the Japanese have had to kill before the US surrendered?
  • venzaspa 6mo ago
    But that approach has demonstrably not worked in this instance because Iran has been planning for this exact scenario.
  • TheCoelacanth 6mo ago
    Decapitation strikes work well in highly personalist regimes (e.g. Russia). They work poorly in institutionalist regimes. Iran is extremely institutionalist. You could keep killing leaders for years and they will just be replaced with similar ones.
• steveBK123 6mo ago
  The problem is that we need to adapt to the asymmetrical aspect of drone warfare, as Ukraine has done. The best description I saw of the current state is “flying IEDs”. Drones and ballistic missiles make area denial asymmetrically cheap for a defending forces. This lesson needs to be incorporated because it would be the same tactic used by China to deny access to the South China Sea.
• nntwozz 6mo ago
  This is just a PSYOP to get us onto renewables quicker. Trump is secretly an environmentalist but can't say it aloud because of his political base. I want to believe. — The X-Files
• shmerl 6mo ago
  Who stops using a mosquito or drone fleet to do clear it?
• thelastgallon 6mo ago
  Also Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) was a major war game exercise conducted by the United States Armed Forces under United States Joint Forces Command in mid-2002: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy. In particular, Red utilized old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network: Van Riper simulated using motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications in the model. Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of Blue's six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.
  • CamperBob2 6mo ago
    But van Riper's attack didn't count, for reasons such as and therefore.
  • xarope 6mo ago
    wasn't one of the controversies, that the simulation didn't account for the fact that Red's boats couldn't actually/launch carry the cruise missiles that were used to sink these ships? be that as it may, the lesson still stands
• LAC-Tech 6mo ago
  I maintain hope that the US will declare some arbitrary victory condition "Iran's capacity to do XYZ has been critically degraded!" and will unilaterally disengage. Unfortunately this will almost definitely occur after Israel has included it's invasion of Lebanon and annexed more territory, which is what this whole war seems to be a cover for.
• dundarious 6mo ago
  Trita Parsi of RS had been saying weeks in advance that the Iranians would retaliate against gulf states collaborating with/supporting the US & Israel, would close the Strait of Hormuz, and would continue fighting until it established a pain threshold had been reached and acknowledged by its enemies, in order to prevent yet more "short wars". Iran's previous retaliations that were well choreographed and coordinated in advance with US & Israel would not be repeated. He was not alone in saying this, but he was one of the most prominent, connected, and learned people saying so. Much of the administration and news media are only catching up to all of this long after the fact. Many still cling to the idea that this was unforeseen, or irrational on the part of the Iranians.
  • Kurd 6mo ago
    Trita Parsi is an Iranian government lobbyist. Of course he would say that.
    • dundarious 6mo ago
      Does the fact that he was right enter into your thinking at all by the way? But go on, tell us the basis for your claim, treat us like adults.
    • user_7832 6mo ago
      So he'd have a better idea of what the govt would want to do? Keep in mind that a govt that feels (admittedly reasonably) that it has been backstabbed and has its head assassinated would not hesitate to call bluffs instead of acting cool. You've ever seen how a cornered wild animal behaves?
• IncreasePosts 6mo ago
  Trying to protect the strait is a fools errand. Instead, you give them an ultimatum, like trump has done (twice now?). You don't just try to blow up the things that are attacking the strait, you blow up things that let the Iranians build and launch the stuff attacking the strait. Power plants, railroads, airports, highways, industrial sites, etc.
• postsantum 6mo ago
  I love the title. Responsible Statecraft has to explain god-fearing taxpayers that Captain America is not going to defeat aladdin witchcraft by using spiderman skills
• vgchh 6mo ago
  Irrespective of the political leadership, it's unlikely that USA military is completely oblivious about the new modes of wars - cheap drones, AI, rapid build-outs (e.g. in China). On the contrary, they are likely deeply aware of it. That being said, it is also likely true that USA has become more bureaucratic and there is a high chance of deer-in-headlights situation. USA remains the shining city on the hill, though probably not for long, unless we pull up socks and innovate, work, work, work and build, build and build.
  • kjellsbells 6mo ago
    There's no shortage of national security and military analysis talent in the US. There is a gigantic shortage of intestinal fortitude in the politicians. The Army tried reducing the sizeof their tank force, and had to back down after screams from Congress because it would have meant job losses in some representative's district. The US poured money into the strike fighter and littoral ship projects, despite the brass telling them it was the wrong approach. And so on. (I suspect this is one reason why Anduril have been successful, since they have fewer sacred cows that must be fed.) Now we are in a timeline where the top brass are being ejected unless they toe the Party line. I am not optimistic that this will lead to better outcomes in terms of our ability to win against adversaries.
    • vgchh 6mo ago
      Ultimately, it's an internal battle. A battle of bureaucracy+ignorance vs democracy+optimism+innovation. The side that weighs more wins. And the adversaries are hoping it's the former.
    • torlok 6mo ago
      Sorry, are you suggesting that the US top brass wants less of something, but the politicians won't let them? That the US top brass would reform and modernize the military if only politicians wouldn't get in the way? Is this April Fools?
      • kjellsbells 6mo ago
• woeirua 6mo ago
  This gives drones way too much credit. The USN knew that Iran could block the strait of Hormuz back in the 80s. Anti-ship missiles were already effective and plentiful enough to do it then and they’ve only gotten more lethal since. The long term solution here is to build pipelines that eliminate the need to sail up the strait. Why this wasn’t done already is beyond me.
  • neerajsi 6mo ago
    Aren't pipelines even easier to target and destroy than boats?
    • hax0ron3 6mo ago
      Yes, but they are much cheaper and quicker to repair when damaged than large cargo ships are and they don't need crews, so with pipelines you don't face the situation you do with ships, where even a small chance of the ship being hit results in almost all companies deciding to not risk sending the ships into danger.
    • pas 6mo ago
      also easier to put some soil over them. MBS for example loves moving lots of sand in a nice straight line!
  • bKHjNaz23wJ 6mo ago
    [dead]
  • fundatus 6mo ago
    > Why this wasn’t done already is beyond me. Pipelines would have to run through multiple countries, meaning you now not only have to share your income with someone else (transit fees etc) but it also means that you have to stay on good terms with these countries.
  • chii 6mo ago
    how do you pipeline fertilizers?
• Animats 6mo ago
  A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years. On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. That finally made it undeniable that sending naval vessels anywhere near a hostile shore is a thing of the past. Countermeasures can take out some attacking missiles, but not all of them. This is a real problem for the U.S. Navy, because they've invested heavily in craft intended to operate near hostile shores. Littoral combat ships and amphibious assault ships are intended to operate offshore of trouble spots. This worked a lot better when the trouble spots couldn't do much to them. The size of Iran means that knocking out drone and missile production for long won't work. Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now. Ukraine produced 4 million drones last year, and production continues to increase. Ukraine even exports drones now. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE have been making deals with Ukraine for air defense systems. Iran exports drones to Russia. Mass-produced drones today are a simple airframe, a lawnmower engine, and the smarts of a cell phone. Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran. The US can't just pull out, either. The enemy gets a vote on when it's over. Israel, Iran, and Yemen now all have to agree. Probably the best deal the US can get at this point is a cease fire with Iran collecting tolls on the Strait of Hormuz. Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US.
  • IlikeMadison 6mo ago
    Germany has 80+ mil inhabitants. Also 90,000,000 people doesn't mean 90,000,000 soldiers, especially when a large part of them hate their own regime.
    • Animats 6mo ago
      Right re 80 million in Germany. After a bombing campaign, most of the people tend to hate whoever bombed them.
• yanhangyhy 6mo ago
  intresting.. looks like that USA also wont go well on the taiwan strait..whats the last time USA pick a enemy of it's own size and won?
• zmmmmm 6mo ago
  Given it is reported to be successfully targeting Israel with cluster ammunitions in warheads, I am curious what stops Iran from targeting US ships even far outside the strait? I would have thought if you could send multiple missiles with cluster bombs simultaneously at short notice it would be very difficult to counter and impose catastrophic cost. Is anti-missile defense is just that good on ships that no amount of simultaneous missiles and decoys can overcome it?
  • danmaz74 6mo ago
    The chances of a ballistic missile hitting a ship - a small, moving target in the middle of the sea - are negligible. And a 4kg bomblet wouldn't do much damage anyway.
    • jacquesm 6mo ago
      Have you seen the 'no smoking' signs on those vessels?
  • znnajdla 6mo ago
    Who says they didn’t? Although not widely reported in mainstream US media, there are lots of claims online that US Navy ships were hit by missiles, including a clip from Trump himself. Why is the Ford and Lincoln so far away?
  • t-3 6mo ago
    Sinking a US ship would be a drastic escalation. Iran has done a lot of damage to US assets but inflicted few casualties, demonstrating both capability and restraint. If they destroyed the American boomers' few remaining illusions of supremacy by sinking a ship and potentially killing hundreds of crew, the loss of face would likely instigate a drastic response that could lead to a worst-case scenario. Much better for Iran to keep playing bloody knuckles and force the US and Israel to beg for peace when their missile defenses and appetite for war run dry.
    • zmmmmm 6mo ago
      Interesting to see three entirely different responses to my question - but I think I believe this one the most. Not necessarily that they could be successful in attacking (who knows), but that trying would escalate things on the wrong timeline for them. At this point, they actively want to drag this out. My sense at the moment is they are pursuing a "humiliation" strategy where they will persuade Trump to withdraw by making it too embarrassing to continue. For that, all they have to do is make him look impotent, which they achieve by continuously provoking just enough to force a response (either military, or Trump to issue yet another TACO threat he can't carry through with) but then popping up a few days later with a new attack showing it didn't work.
• ajewhere 6mo ago
  Your military and whoever directs them are criminals, and are guilty of horrible crimes. And those who back them are accomplices.
  • martin-t 6mo ago
    This is true for most militaries, of course, some more than others - see the Hague Invasion Act[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Prot...
    • adrian_b 6mo ago
      While that US law only says that USA should use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court", in reality USA has always used any means necessary for protecting their military personnel from suffering consequences from breaking the local laws not only in the cases of crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of ICC, but also for any common crimes, e.g. by smuggling out of the respective foreign country military personnel guilty of killing people while driving drunk, in order to escape trial and sentence.
• znnajdla 6mo ago
  Very few Americans realize the scale of the defeat that the US military is facing in this war. Loss of CSG capabilities as well as anti missile radars, refueling planes, AWACS and ground bases all over the Middle East means this is the worst damage the US has taken since WW2.
  • deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  • hax0ron3 6mo ago
    In pure amoral military terms, the US military has barely suffered a scratch in this war, losing only a few soldiers and pieces of equipment. It has failed to subdue Iran, so in that sense so far at least it has not achieved a victory. However, it has also not suffered a defeat. If the Iranian government ends the war still in power and with the ability to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed whenever they want to, I will consider that a a US defeat. However, the defeat would not have been caused by any serious damage that Iran has done to the US military, it would have been caused by the combination of Iranian resilience to damage and its geographic advantage of being right next to the Strait of Hormuz.
• curiousElf 6mo ago
  Must be nice for western arm chair commentators to discuss this without once feeling the consequences of the actions of their elected government. Where I live - we face a severe shortage of LPG fuel due to this. Quite a few restaurants have shut down temporarily. Migrant workers around the parts who have no access to a kitchen because they live in tiny quarters with a bedding and a common toilet are struggling to find sustainable food. Acquaintances who own workshop are running around trying to figure out food arrangements for their employees. And we are not even party to this shitty war! We are making do with electric alternatives but thats also because we are in the top 5%. Our household staff are struggling to figure out the situation. Induction gas stoves are either stocked our or selling for 3-4x their regular price. Even if they get access to one - electric supply is unreliable and they are not sure how to pay the bill. Electricity usage is subsidized (its free upto 200 Kwh / month) but if it exceeds that they will have to pay full price which hurts their budget quite a lot.
  • alsetmusic 6mo ago
    > Must be nice for western arm chair commentators to discuss this without once feeling the consequences of the actions of their elected government. You're right. But you're also wrong. People who voted for this admin have been (and are being) deported. Or someone they know. Or their employees aren't showing up. Or, for some of us, we worry that someone close to us is at risk any day now. I didn't vote for the asshole, but many are feeling the consequences. They can ignore some of them and they might have much more relief from the outcome, but a lot of people are suffering. Meanwhile, rah-rah dumbasses think he can do no wrong and buy into propaganda that tells them why it's someone else's fault that they're worse off.
  • foo12bar 6mo ago
    Solar cooker?
  • pjc50 6mo ago
    Which country is this?
    • coderedart 6mo ago
• dyauspitr 6mo ago
  I haven’t read the article but what exactly are you going to blast? You can fire the Shahed drone from the back of a pick up truck. They could be scattered all over the country they’re cheap as hell to make and they could pump out hundreds of thousands of them.
  • deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
• jmpman 6mo ago
  I don't understand why Trump doesn't simply mine the strait of Hormuz, and make a simple statement - "no ships get through unless all ships get through". Sure, it would disrupt the world oil supply, but seems hard for Iran to counter.
  • Synaesthesia 6mo ago
    Because as the article explains the US ships cannot even approach the straits due to the threat of anti-ship missiles.
    • jmpman 6mo ago
      You can mine from the air.
• avazhi 6mo ago
  I think Newt had the right idea, albeit in a more targeted fashion instead of just ‘nuking the Strait’. Given that Iran has now taken to directly threatening non-military US commercial and civilian enterprises and assets I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to justify using them in this instance.
  • yuppiepuppie 6mo ago
    I can't tell if this is tongue-in-cheek, but if it is not, the escalation of nuclear weapons at this point is an insane idea to accomolish the stated goals of the administracion.
    • avazhi 6mo ago
      I'm not a Trump fan, but this isn't just the Trump admin, is it. Every administration since Carter has had to deal with Iran, whose stated raison d'être is to eradicate both Israel and the US. That's been their position for 40 years. My own view is that if you have the power to delete your enemy while he's weak, you do it. Why the fuck would you wait until he gets the nukes he promises to get, or uses them on you like he also promises to do? At least the Israelis seem to understand this. The US has already alienated their allies anyway, and as we've seen with this fiasco, it isn't like those allies are particularly useful anyway, so if the US did use nukes to very quickly solve what has been an intergenerational problem, so what? Oh no, condemnation from the international community. Nobody cares.
    • jacquesm 6mo ago
      They have goals? That's news to me.
• bitwank 6mo ago
  We don’t need to. We already won at least a half dozen times already. We’ll have won a few more times before it’s over in two or three more weeks.
  • Eufrat 6mo ago
    What did we win?
    • culi 6mo ago
      They are sarcastically mocking Trump's nonsensical back-and-forth statements about the war already being won and regime change already being accomplished
  • poisonarena 6mo ago
    [flagged]
• WalterBright 6mo ago
  Laser cannons should be a cheap way to shoot them down.
• coolThingsFirst 6mo ago
  Why though? Iranian missiles aren’t new and they seem to be the only threat to the aircraft carriers.
• bradley13 6mo ago
  Cheap airborne weapons have irreversibly changed warfare. IIRC a Patriot missile costs something like $4 million. Using them to shoot down $50k Shahed drone is a losing proposition. That's not only because of the price, but because the drones can be produced a lot faster. Even Iran's ballistic missiles are a lot cheaper and faster to produce than any defense system that can reliably destroy them.
  • bwv848 6mo ago
    Nobody is using Patriot to intercept Shaheds. PAC-2/3 are intended for ballistic missiles and fighter jets. In Ukraine, low-flying drones are primarily countered by FPV, MANPADS, drone-hunting aircraft and truck, and EW before point defense SAM and AA gun.
    • lawgimenez 6mo ago
      There are videos on r/combatfootage in the early weeks, patriot missiles shooting down drones.
      • bwv848 6mo ago
        I did a quick search and could only found a missed missile having self destruction. Shaheds have a very distinct noise it shouldn't be too hard to id. While I don't doubt Americans had used patriot on drones, I believe it is because they were(and still are) unprepared and they panicked.
        • deleted 6mo ago
          [deleted]
        • nromiun 6mo ago
          Actually they are using everything they have to combat these cheap drones. That includes Patriot and THAAD systems as well. Specially UAE, which got struck with more drones than Israel. That is how Iran was able to take out a THAAD radar, because it was deployed so close to them. https://www.dw.com/en/south-korea-uneasy-as-us-moves-air-defenses-to-middle-east/a-76378551 https://www.dw.com/en/south-korea-uneasy-as-us-moves-air-def... https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/05/middleeast/radar-bases-us-missile-defense-iran-war-intl-invs https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/05/middleeast/radar-bases-us...
• BLKNSLVR 6mo ago
  So, when Trump says to US "allies" to "go get your own oil" he's literally inviting them into a shooting gallery that the even Hegseth is too smart to take on. Nice. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-01/trump-rages-at-allies-go-get-your-own-oil-/106519326 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-01/trump-rages-at-allies...
• cultofmetatron 6mo ago
  Id personally like to know why we are expending our taxes waging war on behalf of a sociopathic nation who just passed a law to legalize the death penalty for those specifically not a part of their special ethnoreligeous group? They are literally celebrating by carrying around NOOSES.
• PowerElectronix 6mo ago
  You can't. Iran only needs to be credible in their threats to make crossing the strait too risky. And for that you only need a few missiles, drones and mines every so often. Asymetric warfare is a hell of a hole to dig oneself into, ain't it?
  • superxpro12 6mo ago
    Please figure out a way to communicate this to our completely inept leadership. We tried. They're too stupid and rich to care.
• anovikov 6mo ago
  With the strait being that narrow, missiles aren't even needed. Just artillery is enough. That's the main problem here. Forcible reopening is possible but it involves a lot of airpower, not ships. Make anything unable to approach Iranian shoreline and stay alive, to man even a tiniest rubber boat - including emptying all cities on the coast of people.
• deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
• arrty88 6mo ago
  Why can’t we bomb the missile bunkers that guard the strait?
  • johanvts 6mo ago
    I think both missiles and drones can launch from trucks.
• sheepscreek 6mo ago
  The US Navy does not operate in a vacuum, it serves at the pleasure of the commander-in-chief. And when the current administration is hell bent on undermining and underestimating everyone and everything, you’d be a fool to believe any report or conclusion. While it may be completely true and reasonable, it does nothing to dictate the future outcome.
  • marcusverus 6mo ago
    > the current administration is hell bent on undermining and underestimating everyone and everything Welp, that's enough reddit for today.
• lazyguythugman 6mo ago
  I think these articles are a bit rushed. The very objectives are the reason the US has not moved on the straight. Obviously Iran has built up an insane arsenal. Rushing the straight is poor strategy when you have freedom of skies to pick apart their capabilities. Everything's a narrative article nowadays. If aircraft carriers were so vulnerable we wouldn't even send them that close.
• bparsons 6mo ago
  People don't seem to understand the level of strategic defeat that the US is facing. Not only is the strait closed, but the US Navy has been completely locked out of the Gulf. They do not have a single ship operating there. They cannot service their coastal bases, which now sit empty. The situation is completely unprecedented.
  • mdni007 6mo ago
    Hopefully the beginning of the end for this Epstein regime in the ME
• athrowaway3z 6mo ago
  The calculus in Iran is that they have yet to play the card they've been investing most in: make boots on the ground untenable. Until Iran feels that their best card is valued correctly - either by being played, or made unplayable - reports on "negotiations" are meaningless fluff.
• MrSkelter 6mo ago
  It has been obvious for decades that Americas beloved, insanely expensive, carrier groups were weapons of the past. Every time this is mentioned the comments fill with naval fans pointing out that in fact carrier groups are invulnerable due to layered defenses and air support. Whenever vulnerabilities are demonstrated, most famously by Sweden's cheap, quiet, diesel electric subs ability to sink carriers during war games so effectively the US begged to borrow one for training, the fans just return to their talking points. YouTube has a library of videos like this. Yet reality bites. The truth is the most aggressive administration in living memory is afraid to sail into troubled waters for fear of losing materiel. The age of carriers is over. Dinosaurs in an age of mammals.