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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

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 7mo 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 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- isleyaardvark 7mo 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.
  - lotsofpulp 7mo ago
    Brute forcing by spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year on a military is not analogous at all to brute forcing in a game of chess, whatever that means. Regardless of the analogies, the reality is that even with all the resources the US spent on its military, after a whole month, it cannot guarantee safe passage through a body of water adjacent to a small time adversary. Which, as an American, is embarrassing in terms of ROI on tax dollars spent.
  - le-mark 7mo ago
    > And is basically the approach the U.S. took in Vietnam. And just like the Vietnamese, Iran doesn’t have to win against the US. They only have to not lose. They control the straight, and at $1 per barrel toll, they’ll be making $1 Billion a week. Trump owned himself. This is going to suck.
    - gzread 7mo ago
      Paid in yuan, of course, because that's the currency they're allowed to use, because of the US. And then oil companies decide it's annoying to use two different currencies, and they would rather buy the oil with yuan as well...
- wavemode 7mo ago
  Well, regardless of technology, the space of things you can accomplish without risking your own troops' lives is very small. (Unless you're willing to go nuclear, which has the pesky downside of ending the world.) To put it in perspective - in Vietnam, opposition forces lost over a million troops and continued to fight viciously. The US lost around 50,000 and gave up and left. Democratic countries simply lack the stomach for this kind of thing (which is a good thing, really).
  - Revanche1367 7mo ago
    As opposed to democratic countries like the US or UK which would just lay down their arms after a few tens of thousands of their soldiers were killed in the event of a foreign military invasion on their territory?
    - wavemode 7mo ago
      I'm not talking about a foreign invasion on us, I'm talking about invading the foreigners (in this case, Iran).
      - Revanche1367 7mo ago
        That’s obvious but you seemed to be putting down foreigners for being able to stomach a million or more of them dying to protect their country from invasion unlike the enlightened democratic countries who couldn’t tolerate so many of their own dying for any reason. I think if tens or hundreds of thousands of soldiers from, say China, attacked the US, Americans would be very willing to fight to the last man to prevent becoming a vassal state of the CCP. Perhaps the disconnect exists because some Americans have become too used to thinking from the perspective of invaders that they cannot possibly think from the perspective of the invaded?
        wavemode 7mo ago
        You're reading something into my comment which isn't there. Hard to say what it is, but it's causing me to not really understand what you're talking about, at this point. Maybe you thought I was disparaging Vietnam for defending their land? But in your own comment you indicate that you know I'm not talking about defense, that I'm talking about not having the stomach for loss of life as the invading force. So, IDK
- Starman_Jones 7mo ago
  You can lose in chess if you run out of time, even if you have an overwhelming piece advantage. US leadership has made some questionable decisions that effectively turned their game (and only their game) into ultrabullet kriegspiel.
- AngryData 7mo ago
  Every time I try such strategies in Total War it results in an early success but long term failure. If you don't play every engagement like it could be your last you end up with multiple Pyrrhic victories and before long you are bogged down with loses and problems and start losing.

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 7mo 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 7mo ago
[deleted]
isleyaardvark 7mo 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.
- lotsofpulp 7mo ago
  Brute forcing by spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year on a military is not analogous at all to brute forcing in a game of chess, whatever that means. Regardless of the analogies, the reality is that even with all the resources the US spent on its military, after a whole month, it cannot guarantee safe passage through a body of water adjacent to a small time adversary. Which, as an American, is embarrassing in terms of ROI on tax dollars spent.
- le-mark 7mo ago
  > And is basically the approach the U.S. took in Vietnam. And just like the Vietnamese, Iran doesn’t have to win against the US. They only have to not lose. They control the straight, and at $1 per barrel toll, they’ll be making $1 Billion a week. Trump owned himself. This is going to suck.
  - gzread 7mo ago
    Paid in yuan, of course, because that's the currency they're allowed to use, because of the US. And then oil companies decide it's annoying to use two different currencies, and they would rather buy the oil with yuan as well...
wavemode 7mo ago
Well, regardless of technology, the space of things you can accomplish without risking your own troops' lives is very small. (Unless you're willing to go nuclear, which has the pesky downside of ending the world.) To put it in perspective - in Vietnam, opposition forces lost over a million troops and continued to fight viciously. The US lost around 50,000 and gave up and left. Democratic countries simply lack the stomach for this kind of thing (which is a good thing, really).
- Revanche1367 7mo ago
  As opposed to democratic countries like the US or UK which would just lay down their arms after a few tens of thousands of their soldiers were killed in the event of a foreign military invasion on their territory?
  - wavemode 7mo ago
    I'm not talking about a foreign invasion on us, I'm talking about invading the foreigners (in this case, Iran).
    - Revanche1367 7mo ago
      That’s obvious but you seemed to be putting down foreigners for being able to stomach a million or more of them dying to protect their country from invasion unlike the enlightened democratic countries who couldn’t tolerate so many of their own dying for any reason. I think if tens or hundreds of thousands of soldiers from, say China, attacked the US, Americans would be very willing to fight to the last man to prevent becoming a vassal state of the CCP. Perhaps the disconnect exists because some Americans have become too used to thinking from the perspective of invaders that they cannot possibly think from the perspective of the invaded?
      - wavemode 7mo ago
        You're reading something into my comment which isn't there. Hard to say what it is, but it's causing me to not really understand what you're talking about, at this point. Maybe you thought I was disparaging Vietnam for defending their land? But in your own comment you indicate that you know I'm not talking about defense, that I'm talking about not having the stomach for loss of life as the invading force. So, IDK
Starman_Jones 7mo ago
You can lose in chess if you run out of time, even if you have an overwhelming piece advantage. US leadership has made some questionable decisions that effectively turned their game (and only their game) into ultrabullet kriegspiel.
AngryData 7mo ago
Every time I try such strategies in Total War it results in an early success but long term failure. If you don't play every engagement like it could be your last you end up with multiple Pyrrhic victories and before long you are bogged down with loses and problems and start losing.