6 ms·

"However, procurement times on new equipment is on the order of several years to nearly a decade." Interesting that the Ukrainians can design, develop, produce

"However, procurement times on new equipment is on the order of several years to nearly a decade." Interesting that the Ukrainians can design, develop, produce and deploy a new type of a drone in something like 6 weeks. Of course, they are in a life-or-death struggle and thus cannot afford a decade of paper wars with various lawyerly and MBA types who want to have their say. That said, the US cannot afford those either, but it is under the illusion that it still can. Structural ossification at its best, and the result is ... inability to beat an impoverished, long sanctioned Middle-Eastern authoritarian regime into submission.

tristanj 5mo ago
Ukraine has been operating under general mobilization and martial law since 2022. Comparing Ukraine to the United States which is under no mobilization and civilian rule is not a fair comparison. If the United States was fully mobilized and restructured into a war economy like Ukraine, we would see rapid changes in military doctrine. On Iran, describing the US as "inable" to win is structurally incorrect. The US could always win the war whenever it wants to. Same with Russia vs Ukraine. Both the USA and Russia have ICBMs. Neither choose to use them, for political reasons.
- inglor_cz 5mo ago
  The gap between weeks and years is big, though. Even in peacetime conditions, this process could be sped up if necessary. Indeed it might not make any sense at all to think in years and decades when it comes to such a quick-evolving industry. Whatever drone the DoD sets in stone now, will likely be obsolete by 2030. The Ukrainian drone industry isn't particularly expensive, BTW, and mostly grew up from private sector grassroots. Ukrainian military has had its own share of problems with ossified Soviet-era leadership. They were able to route around these, though. The US does not want to do this so far; probably too much money involved, and not enough risk to rock those boats (or yachts). On Iran, describing the US as "inable" to win is structurally incorrect. The US could always win the war whenever it wants to. Are you sure, with the shortages of equipment that take years to replenish? In what sense? I am not even sure if the US has enough naval capability to make a D-day-like landing in Iran right now. That requires specialized ships and training. The US could probably win the war if it went in fully: as you say, if it was fully mobilized and restructured into a war economy like Ukraine. But that is already quite a bad situation to be in. If a superpower needs to do this in order to fight someone like Iran, it is not really a (conventional) superpower anymore. The US could also wipe Iran using nuclear missiles, but the political ramifications of such a step would be catastrophic. So could Pakistan. Pakistan has enough nukes to wipe Iran off the Earth (not that they want to). But no one mistakes Pakistan for a superpower just because they have deliverable nukes.
  - tristanj 5mo ago
    My impression from reading your comment is that you do not understand US doctrine. The US focuses on blitzkrieg, air supremacy, and precision strikes. Its doctrine is totally opposite of what is happening in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, which is a protracted WWI-era trench warfare conflict with minimal airpower by either side. The US is not optimized to fight such a war. Neither do you understand that the US has optimized its military around conflict against the PRoC. The US has fought multiple proxy wars against the PRoC. Arguably, the current Iran conflict is a proxy war against the PRoC. Future military spending is focused on countering China, not on the style of conflict Ukraine is facing. That is why the US is phasing out military assets such as infantry forces and artillery, and is investing in unmanned vehicles and long-range missiles. Further, you incorrectly quote and misinterpret what I wrote about ICBMs. The US (and Russia) could always win their current conflicts with ICBMs, but choose not to. That is a calculated choice, not an inability to win as you claim.
    - inglor_cz 5mo ago
      I understand the US doctrine, which is also fine-tailored to buying very expensive systems from certain corporations that have few to none competitors and feel no real pressure to innovate. "Arguably, the current Iran conflict is a proxy war against the PRoC." That is stretching it. The vast majority of weapons that Iran deployed were of their own build, and China sends nowhere near as much equipment to Iran as, say, Europe to Ukraine. "Future military spending is focused on countering China, not on the style of conflict Ukraine is facing." Which is part of the problem. As a wanna-still-be-superpower, the US will face a lot of diverse conflicts in the world, with various characteristics. "The US is not optimized to fight such a war." The US is not optimized to a bombing campaign against countries the size of Iran anymore either. You are literally running out of things to throw at them after mere weeks have passed. Good luck fighting China then, with its 16x as big population and 100x as big economy than Iran has. "The US (and Russia) could always win their current conflicts with ICBMs, but choose not to. That is a calculated choice, not an inability to win as you claim." War is continuation of politics, not just destruction for its own sake. To win the war does not mean "utterly destroy a certain region", but "make the opponent do as you wish, at least in some aspects, against his will, while not suffering catastrophic consequences elsewhere". If political constraints stop you from deploying WMDs, and you cannot achieve your political aims with conventional weapons, that counts as an inability to win the war. Can the US make the Iranian leadership drop their nuclear ambitions? It does not seems so. Can the US wipe Iran off the map? Yes, but at the cost of becoming a pariah nation, which is worse than ayatollahs having a few nukes. Only a fool would call the latter "victory".
- ponector 5mo ago
  >>The US could always win the war whenever it wants to. Same with Russia vs Ukraine. Yes, russia can win anytime. They simply decided to grind a million of russians instead. ICBM is a deterrent, not a winning weapon.
Steltek 5mo ago
You present two issues: 1) the US is slow to adapt to drone warfare and 2) the US is losing to Iran. For 1), the US isn't in a hurry because there's no actual threat. The lack of drone warfare capabilities only impacts US action overseas and of the little bipartisan consensus left, one thing is clear: no new wars (Trump's Iran war is seen as betrayal from his own party but it's hard to oppose Dear Leader). For 2), it's hard to win when you don't know what you're doing or declare victory when you don't know what your goals are. I'm not sure there's even domestic agreement that it's a war.
- inglor_cz 5mo ago
  1) actual threats tend to mature in weeks, so this is a good recipe to get caught with pants down. 2) I concur, there seem to be no actual goals there. There is a Croatian saying that "form whomever who doesn't know where he wants to sail, no wind is useful". This fits.
  - Steltek 5mo ago
    1) Threats from who? Canada? Mexico? For the past ~150 years, the US has really only had overseas conflicts with few threats to domestic territory. The best argument you could make it the Cuba Missile Crisis, I suppose? If your immediate plan is to stop fighting in far away places, then drones aren't really a worry.
    - inglor_cz 5mo ago
      Threats to your allies, for example. "If your immediate plan is to stop fighting in far away places, then drones aren't really a worry." Yes, you can dismantle the entire coalition your presidents put together for 70+ years, but at some cost. The US economy is heavily intertwined with the rest of the world, and it probably cannot decouple from China AND forty democratic countries that used to be US allies at the same time. Might be cheaper just to respect the current entanglements, at least in the long run.
      - deleted 4mo ago

tristanj 5mo ago

Ukraine has been operating under general mobilization and martial law since 2022. Comparing Ukraine to the United States which is under no mobilization and civilian rule is not a fair comparison. If the United States was fully mobilized and restructured into a war economy like Ukraine, we would see rapid changes in military doctrine. On Iran, describing the US as "inable" to win is structurally incorrect. The US could always win the war whenever it wants to. Same with Russia vs Ukraine. Both the USA and Russia have ICBMs. Neither choose to use them, for political reasons.

inglor_cz 5mo ago
The gap between weeks and years is big, though. Even in peacetime conditions, this process could be sped up if necessary. Indeed it might not make any sense at all to think in years and decades when it comes to such a quick-evolving industry. Whatever drone the DoD sets in stone now, will likely be obsolete by 2030. The Ukrainian drone industry isn't particularly expensive, BTW, and mostly grew up from private sector grassroots. Ukrainian military has had its own share of problems with ossified Soviet-era leadership. They were able to route around these, though. The US does not want to do this so far; probably too much money involved, and not enough risk to rock those boats (or yachts). On Iran, describing the US as "inable" to win is structurally incorrect. The US could always win the war whenever it wants to. Are you sure, with the shortages of equipment that take years to replenish? In what sense? I am not even sure if the US has enough naval capability to make a D-day-like landing in Iran right now. That requires specialized ships and training. The US could probably win the war if it went in fully: as you say, if it was fully mobilized and restructured into a war economy like Ukraine. But that is already quite a bad situation to be in. If a superpower needs to do this in order to fight someone like Iran, it is not really a (conventional) superpower anymore. The US could also wipe Iran using nuclear missiles, but the political ramifications of such a step would be catastrophic. So could Pakistan. Pakistan has enough nukes to wipe Iran off the Earth (not that they want to). But no one mistakes Pakistan for a superpower just because they have deliverable nukes.
- tristanj 5mo ago
  My impression from reading your comment is that you do not understand US doctrine. The US focuses on blitzkrieg, air supremacy, and precision strikes. Its doctrine is totally opposite of what is happening in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, which is a protracted WWI-era trench warfare conflict with minimal airpower by either side. The US is not optimized to fight such a war. Neither do you understand that the US has optimized its military around conflict against the PRoC. The US has fought multiple proxy wars against the PRoC. Arguably, the current Iran conflict is a proxy war against the PRoC. Future military spending is focused on countering China, not on the style of conflict Ukraine is facing. That is why the US is phasing out military assets such as infantry forces and artillery, and is investing in unmanned vehicles and long-range missiles. Further, you incorrectly quote and misinterpret what I wrote about ICBMs. The US (and Russia) could always win their current conflicts with ICBMs, but choose not to. That is a calculated choice, not an inability to win as you claim.
  - inglor_cz 5mo ago
    I understand the US doctrine, which is also fine-tailored to buying very expensive systems from certain corporations that have few to none competitors and feel no real pressure to innovate. "Arguably, the current Iran conflict is a proxy war against the PRoC." That is stretching it. The vast majority of weapons that Iran deployed were of their own build, and China sends nowhere near as much equipment to Iran as, say, Europe to Ukraine. "Future military spending is focused on countering China, not on the style of conflict Ukraine is facing." Which is part of the problem. As a wanna-still-be-superpower, the US will face a lot of diverse conflicts in the world, with various characteristics. "The US is not optimized to fight such a war." The US is not optimized to a bombing campaign against countries the size of Iran anymore either. You are literally running out of things to throw at them after mere weeks have passed. Good luck fighting China then, with its 16x as big population and 100x as big economy than Iran has. "The US (and Russia) could always win their current conflicts with ICBMs, but choose not to. That is a calculated choice, not an inability to win as you claim." War is continuation of politics, not just destruction for its own sake. To win the war does not mean "utterly destroy a certain region", but "make the opponent do as you wish, at least in some aspects, against his will, while not suffering catastrophic consequences elsewhere". If political constraints stop you from deploying WMDs, and you cannot achieve your political aims with conventional weapons, that counts as an inability to win the war. Can the US make the Iranian leadership drop their nuclear ambitions? It does not seems so. Can the US wipe Iran off the map? Yes, but at the cost of becoming a pariah nation, which is worse than ayatollahs having a few nukes. Only a fool would call the latter "victory".
ponector 5mo ago
>>The US could always win the war whenever it wants to. Same with Russia vs Ukraine. Yes, russia can win anytime. They simply decided to grind a million of russians instead. ICBM is a deterrent, not a winning weapon.

Steltek 5mo ago

You present two issues: 1) the US is slow to adapt to drone warfare and 2) the US is losing to Iran. For 1), the US isn't in a hurry because there's no actual threat. The lack of drone warfare capabilities only impacts US action overseas and of the little bipartisan consensus left, one thing is clear: no new wars (Trump's Iran war is seen as betrayal from his own party but it's hard to oppose Dear Leader). For 2), it's hard to win when you don't know what you're doing or declare victory when you don't know what your goals are. I'm not sure there's even domestic agreement that it's a war.

inglor_cz 5mo ago
1) actual threats tend to mature in weeks, so this is a good recipe to get caught with pants down. 2) I concur, there seem to be no actual goals there. There is a Croatian saying that "form whomever who doesn't know where he wants to sail, no wind is useful". This fits.
- Steltek 5mo ago
  1) Threats from who? Canada? Mexico? For the past ~150 years, the US has really only had overseas conflicts with few threats to domestic territory. The best argument you could make it the Cuba Missile Crisis, I suppose? If your immediate plan is to stop fighting in far away places, then drones aren't really a worry.
  - inglor_cz 5mo ago
    Threats to your allies, for example. "If your immediate plan is to stop fighting in far away places, then drones aren't really a worry." Yes, you can dismantle the entire coalition your presidents put together for 70+ years, but at some cost. The US economy is heavily intertwined with the rest of the world, and it probably cannot decouple from China AND forty democratic countries that used to be US allies at the same time. Might be cheaper just to respect the current entanglements, at least in the long run.
    - deleted 4mo ago