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American destroyers and aircraft carriers have been chased away from the Strait multiple times now. Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way a

American destroyers and aircraft carriers have been chased away from the Strait multiple times now. Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year.

Jensson 5mo ago
In what way were they chased away? Iran tried to sink them and didn't hit any shots, and many on Iran's side died trying. Many IRGC soldiers dying and not even scratching the paint on US vessels doesn't show US to be weak. > Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year. Valuing the lives of your crewmen and avoid terrorists is bad how? USA not wanting their soldiers to die is weak? Would you want more deaths on US side to show strength? USA can win this war with barely any casualties, why would you not do that? And USA being able to do this with barely any losses shows tremendous strength to me, Iran was more powerful than Ukraine but USA could establish aerial superiority immediately with no losses, this is so much stronger than what Russia displayed.
- srean 5mo ago
  Given how expensive they are they were presumably supposed to do more than primarily stay out of range. There are less expensive ways of doing that.
  - Jensson 5mo ago
    They block Iranian ports so Iran can no longer export oil, that is doing a lot.
    - srean 5mo ago
      And Iran has blocked the strait too. It's at best a stalemate.
      - Jensson 5mo ago
        But this stalemate benefits US corporations by raising the price for oil, so its not really hurting the attacker. In order to hurt a plutocracy like USA you need to hurt the American stock market but American stocks are doing great.
        srean 5mo ago
        That's true. Both USA and Russia should be quite happy with the current state of affairs. China not so much. Rest of the world is quite pissed with USA. But that's just emotion. Unless it gets realised into something concrete it matters little.
        yongjik 5mo ago
        Trump is at -20% net approval and it's steadily getting worse even now. Seems like most Americans don't decide whether things are going great by looking at S&P 500.
        bdangubic 5mo ago
        neither he nor people that will decide 2026 election give a hoot about his net approval rating. they should not even poll this. the only thing worth polling is few states that could swing the election one way or another (and this is even smaller number than normal for upcoming midterms). what americans think on the whole has stopped mattering awhile ago…
        runsWphotons 5mo ago
        It benefits a few corporations in the short term but not America in general. And if the oil prices rise and stay high, there will be demand destruction. US sits on top of the capital food chain and will be hurt.
- LorenPechtel 5mo ago
  We are quite incapable of dealing with a mass attack by Iranian small boats with bombs.
  - Jensson 5mo ago
    They are not, they updated their tactics to account for that so they destroyed a lot of Iranian small boats with bombs trying to attack the vessels. If they were incapable of countering that we would have seen American casualties in these skirmishes but only Iranians died.
    - freethinker101 5mo ago
      [dead]
- jcranmer 5mo ago
  > USA can win this war with barely any casualties What do you mean by "win"? What strategic goals can the US achieve in this war? We're at a point where merely achieving status quo ante bellum--i.e., Iran doesn't charge for passage through the Strait of Hormuz--seems to require giving concessions elsewhere. In many ways, this looks like the American version of Pearl Harbor--a stunning tactical victory that is simultaneously a crushing strategic loss.
  - Jensson 5mo ago
    > We're at a point where merely achieving status quo ante bellum--i.e., Iran doesn't charge for passage through the Strait of Hormuz--seems to require giving concessions elsewhere. No, there is no reality where the world will let Iran take tolls here, no matter what happens that part wont happen. The world depends too much on straits being open and toll free, if you let that slide once it will be done by others and that will break down the entire world order.
    - protocolture 5mo ago
      Which as they say, will require concessions elsewhere to achieve.
    - jcranmer 5mo ago
      What you're skipping over here is how that happens. If Iran wants to charge tolls on the strait, someone has to do something to keep Iran from doing that. And when you start gaming out the possible identities of that someone, the possible things of that something... well, the most likely route of this is via negotiating some concessions to Iran (i.e., at minimum sanctions relief and maybe even concrete progress to a nuclear bomb). That assumes that Trump even considers freedom of navigation as something worth concessions in the first place, which I don't take as a given.
    - tpm 5mo ago
      So now you pivoted from the US to the world. Yeah Trump tried that, first to engage 'the Europe', then eastern Asia (Japan, South Korea), now China. He has to own his failure, nobody will solve it for him. Meanwhile the SPR is draining, reserves all over the world are dwindling, thw world is hungry for oil - they will pay the tolls happily.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- genxy 5mo ago
  Blowing shit up and killing people isn't winning. Winning is getting what you want strategically and operationally. Unless you are 12, most outcomes aren't just big explosions.
ericmay 5mo ago
> Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year. The ship went the long way around because why risk being attacked by missiles? It's less that the US Navy "was defeated", which itself is a plainly asinine comment which only serves a purpose of trying to incite others, and more so a practical safety concern. But if you really want to argue that the US Navy was defeated, I would submit our next step should be to utilize nuclear weapons on Yemen and destroy the Houthis. That way you can't make these claims and we'll see who really is defeating who :)
- etdznots 5mo ago
  [dead]
chrisco255 5mo ago
Not one U.S. ship was damaged by the Houthis. Meanwhile airstrikes took out a ton of Houthi assets.
- TitaRusell 5mo ago
  Americans always say they are winning. Nobody believes it.
  - chrisco255 5mo ago
    I guess, you know nowadays it seems like if an enemy scratches one of our ships it is called a total loss for the U.S. meanwhile other nations have their entire air force taken out along with all of their targeting systems and most of their missile supplies and even their heads of state are taken out by F35s or arrested by special forces and somehow that is called "losing" by armchair internet dwellers.
theonething 5mo ago
[flagged]

Jensson 5mo ago

In what way were they chased away? Iran tried to sink them and didn't hit any shots, and many on Iran's side died trying. Many IRGC soldiers dying and not even scratching the paint on US vessels doesn't show US to be weak. > Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year. Valuing the lives of your crewmen and avoid terrorists is bad how? USA not wanting their soldiers to die is weak? Would you want more deaths on US side to show strength? USA can win this war with barely any casualties, why would you not do that? And USA being able to do this with barely any losses shows tremendous strength to me, Iran was more powerful than Ukraine but USA could establish aerial superiority immediately with no losses, this is so much stronger than what Russia displayed.

srean 5mo ago
Given how expensive they are they were presumably supposed to do more than primarily stay out of range. There are less expensive ways of doing that.
- Jensson 5mo ago
  They block Iranian ports so Iran can no longer export oil, that is doing a lot.
  - srean 5mo ago
    And Iran has blocked the strait too. It's at best a stalemate.
    - Jensson 5mo ago
      But this stalemate benefits US corporations by raising the price for oil, so its not really hurting the attacker. In order to hurt a plutocracy like USA you need to hurt the American stock market but American stocks are doing great.
      - srean 5mo ago
        That's true. Both USA and Russia should be quite happy with the current state of affairs. China not so much. Rest of the world is quite pissed with USA. But that's just emotion. Unless it gets realised into something concrete it matters little.
      - yongjik 5mo ago
        Trump is at -20% net approval and it's steadily getting worse even now. Seems like most Americans don't decide whether things are going great by looking at S&P 500.
        bdangubic 5mo ago
        neither he nor people that will decide 2026 election give a hoot about his net approval rating. they should not even poll this. the only thing worth polling is few states that could swing the election one way or another (and this is even smaller number than normal for upcoming midterms). what americans think on the whole has stopped mattering awhile ago…
      - runsWphotons 5mo ago
        It benefits a few corporations in the short term but not America in general. And if the oil prices rise and stay high, there will be demand destruction. US sits on top of the capital food chain and will be hurt.
LorenPechtel 5mo ago
We are quite incapable of dealing with a mass attack by Iranian small boats with bombs.
- Jensson 5mo ago
  They are not, they updated their tactics to account for that so they destroyed a lot of Iranian small boats with bombs trying to attack the vessels. If they were incapable of countering that we would have seen American casualties in these skirmishes but only Iranians died.
  - freethinker101 5mo ago
    [dead]
jcranmer 5mo ago
> USA can win this war with barely any casualties What do you mean by "win"? What strategic goals can the US achieve in this war? We're at a point where merely achieving status quo ante bellum--i.e., Iran doesn't charge for passage through the Strait of Hormuz--seems to require giving concessions elsewhere. In many ways, this looks like the American version of Pearl Harbor--a stunning tactical victory that is simultaneously a crushing strategic loss.
- Jensson 5mo ago
  > We're at a point where merely achieving status quo ante bellum--i.e., Iran doesn't charge for passage through the Strait of Hormuz--seems to require giving concessions elsewhere. No, there is no reality where the world will let Iran take tolls here, no matter what happens that part wont happen. The world depends too much on straits being open and toll free, if you let that slide once it will be done by others and that will break down the entire world order.
  - protocolture 5mo ago
    Which as they say, will require concessions elsewhere to achieve.
  - jcranmer 5mo ago
    What you're skipping over here is how that happens. If Iran wants to charge tolls on the strait, someone has to do something to keep Iran from doing that. And when you start gaming out the possible identities of that someone, the possible things of that something... well, the most likely route of this is via negotiating some concessions to Iran (i.e., at minimum sanctions relief and maybe even concrete progress to a nuclear bomb). That assumes that Trump even considers freedom of navigation as something worth concessions in the first place, which I don't take as a given.
  - tpm 5mo ago
    So now you pivoted from the US to the world. Yeah Trump tried that, first to engage 'the Europe', then eastern Asia (Japan, South Korea), now China. He has to own his failure, nobody will solve it for him. Meanwhile the SPR is draining, reserves all over the world are dwindling, thw world is hungry for oil - they will pay the tolls happily.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
genxy 5mo ago
Blowing shit up and killing people isn't winning. Winning is getting what you want strategically and operationally. Unless you are 12, most outcomes aren't just big explosions.

ericmay 5mo ago

> Hilariously the USS George HW Bush had to go the long way around Africa rather than risk transiting the Bab El Mandeb after the Houthis defeated the US Navy last year. The ship went the long way around because why risk being attacked by missiles? It's less that the US Navy "was defeated", which itself is a plainly asinine comment which only serves a purpose of trying to incite others, and more so a practical safety concern. But if you really want to argue that the US Navy was defeated, I would submit our next step should be to utilize nuclear weapons on Yemen and destroy the Houthis. That way you can't make these claims and we'll see who really is defeating who :)

etdznots 5mo ago
[dead]

chrisco255 5mo ago

Not one U.S. ship was damaged by the Houthis. Meanwhile airstrikes took out a ton of Houthi assets.

TitaRusell 5mo ago
Americans always say they are winning. Nobody believes it.
- chrisco255 5mo ago
  I guess, you know nowadays it seems like if an enemy scratches one of our ships it is called a total loss for the U.S. meanwhile other nations have their entire air force taken out along with all of their targeting systems and most of their missile supplies and even their heads of state are taken out by F35s or arrested by special forces and somehow that is called "losing" by armchair internet dwellers.

theonething 5mo ago

[flagged]