4 ms·

The real thought experiment is ~600m people in central/south American within ~6000km, i.e. IRBM range of US gulf coast, where ~50% of US oil refinery and LNG pl

The real thought experiment is ~600m people in central/south American within ~6000km, i.e. IRBM range of US gulf coast, where ~50% of US oil refinery and LNG plant production are. Now that Iran has validated mid tier power can cobble together precision strike complex, it's only going to be matter of time before relatively wealthier countries realize only way out of M/Donroe is to build conventional strike against US strategic infra. This stuff going to get commoditized sooner than later with competing mega constellation ISR. It's pretty clear building up conventional airforce/navy etc will simply get overmatched vs US projection and only credible deterrence is PRC style rocket force. There's a fuckload of places to hide 8x8 missile launchers in the Americas. E: 50% of PRODUCTION, not plants, as in a few plants responsible for 50% of US refinery / LNG production.

alsetmusic 7mo ago
Downvoting a description of a technical solution for smaller nations based on actual evidence from existing conflicts is silly. You might not like the politics you perceive from someone using particular vocabulary, but the proof is there. The USA's supremacy has been challenged in a meaningful way (along with every other major military power). The strategies of the large powers will have to evolve.
gizmo686 7mo ago
The problem for a would be attacker is that the US still has enough military power to give almost any country on the planet a very bad day every day for as long as the US cares to. Historically, the way to win against the US is to survive long enough for the US to get bored and leave. The last time that happened, it took us 2 decades to get bored.
- maxglute 7mo ago
  The problem is they are not would be attackers, they're countries building up domestic defense that US would have to preempt ala Cuban missile crisis, and sustain preemption over entire continent, with each preemption legitimizing rational for more build up. Of course US can try to coerce INF for conventional in Americas, but commoditized conventional precision strike are conventional... and commoditized, it's the kind of product where specialized dual use components may need to be sourced... among millions of TEU traffic, but otherwise local industries can build, like Iran. There's also no global pariah status for proliferating conventional missiles for self defense and hence accessible to many players, coercion / enforcement would require trying to mow grass to keep capabilities out of 600m people...in perpetuity... tall task even for even US. Especially considering form factor of missiles... i.e. sheltered / hidden, they are not major battlefield assets like ships and planes that needs to be out to have wheels turned. Ultimately it's not about winning vs US, it's about deterring US from historic backyard shenanigans by making sure some future time when US is tempted, and US always tempted, it would risk half of CONUS running out of energy in 2 weeks. Like the Iran logic is extremely clear now, no amount of defense survives offensive overmatch, the only thing left is to pursue some counter offensive ability that can have disproportionate deterrence value. The thing about US being richest country is US has a lot of valuable things.
  - b112 7mo ago
    I think you underestimate how much of that 50% is just exports. And how much other plants can be scaled up quickly. And how the US can temporarily nationalize things, and ensure all the output goes domestic. Just a backroom threat of emergency, temporary nationalization, would ensure CEOs give the US priority. IE, they'd get to retain higher profits. What I think would really happen, is the rest of the world would suffer and run out of energy. Not the US.
    - maxglute 7mo ago
      There's no think, this is know territory. Gulf coast PADD3 refineries = disproportionate production of diesel, aviation, bunker fuel for CONUS use. Something like 70% of all refined products used in US comes from PADD3, other refineries cannot replace PADD3 complexity/production levels (think specialty fuels for military aviation, missiles etc). US economic nervous system is EXTRA exposed to gulf coast refinery disruptions. PADD3 refineries (or hubs / pipelines serving east/west coast which more singular point failure) itself enough to cripple US with shortages even if all exports stopped. Gulf gas terminal is for export i.e. doesn't materially impact CONUS, it's deterrence conventional counter-value target. There's also offshore terminals. The broader point being gulf coast has host of targets along escalation/deterrence ladder.
      - b112 7mo ago
        Yes, I'm not disagreeing that there are lots of interesting things to hit on the Gulf coast. PADD3 is just another way to say "gulf" refineries, it's a location not a technical specification. Other refineries can indeed take up the slack. Especially if the US stops exporting. Trains can deliver fuel, trucks. The US military would not be crippled, most certainly, and the domestic US would see primary production kept in-nation, not exported. I'm not sure why you think that only Gulf refineries can make jet fuel. NOTE: I'm not saying it wouldn't be a key attack vector, or non-disruptive. I'm just saying the US would do what it always has done, as any nation would do, it would ensure survival first, and so the rest of the world would suffer far more.
- jcattle 7mo ago
  Afghanistan took only 18 years. For the 20 years war you are probably talking about: I wouldn't call significant civil unrest in opposition of the war "getting bored"
- fastasucan 7mo ago
  "Bored", is that what you call thousands killed, a massive national debt and a political minefield?
AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
> 50% of PRODUCTION, not plants, as in a few plants responsible for 50% of US refinery / LNG production. This is making a pretty big assumption that the long-term US energy mix is going to stay the way it is. The primary historical impediment to electric vehicles was high up-front cost, in turn driven by high battery costs. However: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-price https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-pric... We're soon to have electric cars (and trucks) that cost less ICE ones, on top of the lower operating costs. Which in turn cost even less when more solar and wind are added to the grid because the "charge more when power is cheap and less when it's expensive" thing lowers their operating cost even further and reduces the amount of natural gas you need in the grid because periods of lower renewable generation can be offset by deferred charging instead of natural gas peaker plants. Even without any purposeful efforts to do anything about climate change, the economics point to fossil fuels declining over time as a proportion of energy. Meanwhile the US administration flips parties every four to eight years and the next time they're Democrats they'll be trying to hasten that result rather than impede it. Which makes a long-term strategy of building the capacity to target petroleum infrastructure something that could plausibly be increasingly irrelevant by the time it would take to implement it.
- zimpenfish 7mo ago
  > This is making a pretty big assumption that the long-term US energy mix is going to stay the way it is. It's the stated goal of one of the parties to keep or increase fossil fuel usage, isn't it? > Meanwhile the US administration flips parties every four to eight years Magic 8 Ball says "yeah, in the past, 2028 isn't looking good though" > next time they're Democrats they'll be trying to hasten that result Which will be blocked and/or immediately overturned by the current/next Republic Congress/Senate/SCOTUS/President.
  - bluGill 7mo ago
    It might be the goal - but there are a lot of other factors than just one party.
  - AnthonyMouse 7mo ago
dinkumthinkum 7mo ago
You think the lesson from recent events is that these countries can challenge the IS militarily? Is this real?

alsetmusic 7mo ago

Downvoting a description of a technical solution for smaller nations based on actual evidence from existing conflicts is silly. You might not like the politics you perceive from someone using particular vocabulary, but the proof is there. The USA's supremacy has been challenged in a meaningful way (along with every other major military power). The strategies of the large powers will have to evolve.

gizmo686 7mo ago

The problem for a would be attacker is that the US still has enough military power to give almost any country on the planet a very bad day every day for as long as the US cares to. Historically, the way to win against the US is to survive long enough for the US to get bored and leave. The last time that happened, it took us 2 decades to get bored.

maxglute 7mo ago
The problem is they are not would be attackers, they're countries building up domestic defense that US would have to preempt ala Cuban missile crisis, and sustain preemption over entire continent, with each preemption legitimizing rational for more build up. Of course US can try to coerce INF for conventional in Americas, but commoditized conventional precision strike are conventional... and commoditized, it's the kind of product where specialized dual use components may need to be sourced... among millions of TEU traffic, but otherwise local industries can build, like Iran. There's also no global pariah status for proliferating conventional missiles for self defense and hence accessible to many players, coercion / enforcement would require trying to mow grass to keep capabilities out of 600m people...in perpetuity... tall task even for even US. Especially considering form factor of missiles... i.e. sheltered / hidden, they are not major battlefield assets like ships and planes that needs to be out to have wheels turned. Ultimately it's not about winning vs US, it's about deterring US from historic backyard shenanigans by making sure some future time when US is tempted, and US always tempted, it would risk half of CONUS running out of energy in 2 weeks. Like the Iran logic is extremely clear now, no amount of defense survives offensive overmatch, the only thing left is to pursue some counter offensive ability that can have disproportionate deterrence value. The thing about US being richest country is US has a lot of valuable things.
- b112 7mo ago
  I think you underestimate how much of that 50% is just exports. And how much other plants can be scaled up quickly. And how the US can temporarily nationalize things, and ensure all the output goes domestic. Just a backroom threat of emergency, temporary nationalization, would ensure CEOs give the US priority. IE, they'd get to retain higher profits. What I think would really happen, is the rest of the world would suffer and run out of energy. Not the US.
  - maxglute 7mo ago
    There's no think, this is know territory. Gulf coast PADD3 refineries = disproportionate production of diesel, aviation, bunker fuel for CONUS use. Something like 70% of all refined products used in US comes from PADD3, other refineries cannot replace PADD3 complexity/production levels (think specialty fuels for military aviation, missiles etc). US economic nervous system is EXTRA exposed to gulf coast refinery disruptions. PADD3 refineries (or hubs / pipelines serving east/west coast which more singular point failure) itself enough to cripple US with shortages even if all exports stopped. Gulf gas terminal is for export i.e. doesn't materially impact CONUS, it's deterrence conventional counter-value target. There's also offshore terminals. The broader point being gulf coast has host of targets along escalation/deterrence ladder.
    - b112 7mo ago
      Yes, I'm not disagreeing that there are lots of interesting things to hit on the Gulf coast. PADD3 is just another way to say "gulf" refineries, it's a location not a technical specification. Other refineries can indeed take up the slack. Especially if the US stops exporting. Trains can deliver fuel, trucks. The US military would not be crippled, most certainly, and the domestic US would see primary production kept in-nation, not exported. I'm not sure why you think that only Gulf refineries can make jet fuel. NOTE: I'm not saying it wouldn't be a key attack vector, or non-disruptive. I'm just saying the US would do what it always has done, as any nation would do, it would ensure survival first, and so the rest of the world would suffer far more.
jcattle 7mo ago
Afghanistan took only 18 years. For the 20 years war you are probably talking about: I wouldn't call significant civil unrest in opposition of the war "getting bored"
fastasucan 7mo ago
"Bored", is that what you call thousands killed, a massive national debt and a political minefield?

AnthonyMouse 7mo ago

> 50% of PRODUCTION, not plants, as in a few plants responsible for 50% of US refinery / LNG production. This is making a pretty big assumption that the long-term US energy mix is going to stay the way it is. The primary historical impediment to electric vehicles was high up-front cost, in turn driven by high battery costs. However: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-price https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-pric... We're soon to have electric cars (and trucks) that cost less ICE ones, on top of the lower operating costs. Which in turn cost even less when more solar and wind are added to the grid because the "charge more when power is cheap and less when it's expensive" thing lowers their operating cost even further and reduces the amount of natural gas you need in the grid because periods of lower renewable generation can be offset by deferred charging instead of natural gas peaker plants. Even without any purposeful efforts to do anything about climate change, the economics point to fossil fuels declining over time as a proportion of energy. Meanwhile the US administration flips parties every four to eight years and the next time they're Democrats they'll be trying to hasten that result rather than impede it. Which makes a long-term strategy of building the capacity to target petroleum infrastructure something that could plausibly be increasingly irrelevant by the time it would take to implement it.

zimpenfish 7mo ago
> This is making a pretty big assumption that the long-term US energy mix is going to stay the way it is. It's the stated goal of one of the parties to keep or increase fossil fuel usage, isn't it? > Meanwhile the US administration flips parties every four to eight years Magic 8 Ball says "yeah, in the past, 2028 isn't looking good though" > next time they're Democrats they'll be trying to hasten that result Which will be blocked and/or immediately overturned by the current/next Republic Congress/Senate/SCOTUS/President.
- bluGill 7mo ago
  It might be the goal - but there are a lot of other factors than just one party.
- AnthonyMouse 7mo ago

dinkumthinkum 7mo ago

You think the lesson from recent events is that these countries can challenge the IS militarily? Is this real?