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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

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".

tristanj 5mo ago
You obviously don't understand US doctrine, since earlier you were complaining how the US hasn't adapted its arsenal regarding drones in just four years. Iran would not be able to pursue nuclear weapons nor missiles without China's assistance. The precursors of the missile fuel, the precursors of yellowcake processing, the chips and hardware of Iranian drones, all come from China with its assistance and blessing. China has provided military equipment and weapons to Iran. China has military personnel in Iran operating air defense systems. It is accurate to call this a proxy war. The fact you are unaware of any of this, demonstrates your lack of understanding of the conflict. Further proof you do not comprehend US doctrine, is that the US can always escalate the conflict and pursue a ground war. But is hesitant to do so simply because Trump does not want war. Trump prefers quick, surgical operations; and does not want to drag the US into a forever war like Bush Jr and Obama did. You keep claiming the US is "inable" to win the war, yet you do not understand the definition of this word. Choosing not do pursue a strategy for political reasons is not inable. The US would win a ground war against Iran, full stop. Your analysis fails to consider this option. But it would win at the cost of thousands of lives, and likely the US would need to occupy the country, which is politically challenging, and Trump is savvy enough to be hesitant to pursue this option. You also lack historical understanding of war. You forget that total destruction and capitulation was the default strategy of war for millenia, see strategies of the Mongols or the war against Japan, where the US firebombed and leveled Japanese cities, even nuking them, until capitulation.
- inglor_cz 5mo ago
  " that the US can always escalate the conflict and pursue a ground war. " You seem to be stuck on repeat with "don't understand, don't understand, don't understand". Yet it seems to me that it is you who got sucked into some bizarro understanding of war being fundamentally an annihilation contest between the two parties involved. This very shallow understanding is now somewhat widespread in the blogosphere and pushed by, again, shallow types like Stephen Miller. Claims like "total destruction and capitulation was the default strategy of war for millenia" are just not true. It happened sometimes, but quite often also not, because warring parties always have some limits to their effort, be it ideological, economic or political limits. And this was no less true in Antiquity than today. Outside the bizarro "total destruction" corner, war between organized states has been understood primarily as a continuation of politics, with the goal to make your enemy do something that they don't want to. Even the Mongols you mentioned usually gave a besieged city an option to surrender, because their primary goal wasn't simply to kill, but to conquer and rule. Yes, there are exceptions (Carthago delenda est), but these exceptions aren't the historical rule. Let us look at the situation in Iran now. The US seems to want something from Iran. It is not very clear what, but probably free movement of ships through Hormuz, nuclear disarmament and maybe even regime change. It also does NOT want to genocide the Persians out of existence. While doable, it would carry a heavy reputational penalty and cause significant friction back at home. Not even Trump wants to add tens of millions of civilian lives to his conscience, hence WMDs are out of question. A ground invasion is thinkable, but I am much less persuaded about its efficiency than you are. As you yourself say, this has a risk of turning into a forever war and the US isn't equipped, mentally nor doctrinally, to fight forever wars. Which means that you likely won't get what you want from the current Iranian leadership by the sort of military means you can feasibly use against them, and that is not a victory. Please give me a plausible scenario in which the current US is capable of winning a ground war against Iran in the presence of all the current political limitations, which are quite fundamental. You can't. Ultimately it does not matter if you can't win because you cannot muster the political will to engage in a costly war, or if you can't win because you run out of Tomahawks (both are correlated, btw). It is still an inability to win, which is obviously detrimental to the US imperial standing.
  - 5mo ago

tristanj 5mo ago

You obviously don't understand US doctrine, since earlier you were complaining how the US hasn't adapted its arsenal regarding drones in just four years. Iran would not be able to pursue nuclear weapons nor missiles without China's assistance. The precursors of the missile fuel, the precursors of yellowcake processing, the chips and hardware of Iranian drones, all come from China with its assistance and blessing. China has provided military equipment and weapons to Iran. China has military personnel in Iran operating air defense systems. It is accurate to call this a proxy war. The fact you are unaware of any of this, demonstrates your lack of understanding of the conflict. Further proof you do not comprehend US doctrine, is that the US can always escalate the conflict and pursue a ground war. But is hesitant to do so simply because Trump does not want war. Trump prefers quick, surgical operations; and does not want to drag the US into a forever war like Bush Jr and Obama did. You keep claiming the US is "inable" to win the war, yet you do not understand the definition of this word. Choosing not do pursue a strategy for political reasons is not inable. The US would win a ground war against Iran, full stop. Your analysis fails to consider this option. But it would win at the cost of thousands of lives, and likely the US would need to occupy the country, which is politically challenging, and Trump is savvy enough to be hesitant to pursue this option. You also lack historical understanding of war. You forget that total destruction and capitulation was the default strategy of war for millenia, see strategies of the Mongols or the war against Japan, where the US firebombed and leveled Japanese cities, even nuking them, until capitulation.

inglor_cz 5mo ago
" that the US can always escalate the conflict and pursue a ground war. " You seem to be stuck on repeat with "don't understand, don't understand, don't understand". Yet it seems to me that it is you who got sucked into some bizarro understanding of war being fundamentally an annihilation contest between the two parties involved. This very shallow understanding is now somewhat widespread in the blogosphere and pushed by, again, shallow types like Stephen Miller. Claims like "total destruction and capitulation was the default strategy of war for millenia" are just not true. It happened sometimes, but quite often also not, because warring parties always have some limits to their effort, be it ideological, economic or political limits. And this was no less true in Antiquity than today. Outside the bizarro "total destruction" corner, war between organized states has been understood primarily as a continuation of politics, with the goal to make your enemy do something that they don't want to. Even the Mongols you mentioned usually gave a besieged city an option to surrender, because their primary goal wasn't simply to kill, but to conquer and rule. Yes, there are exceptions (Carthago delenda est), but these exceptions aren't the historical rule. Let us look at the situation in Iran now. The US seems to want something from Iran. It is not very clear what, but probably free movement of ships through Hormuz, nuclear disarmament and maybe even regime change. It also does NOT want to genocide the Persians out of existence. While doable, it would carry a heavy reputational penalty and cause significant friction back at home. Not even Trump wants to add tens of millions of civilian lives to his conscience, hence WMDs are out of question. A ground invasion is thinkable, but I am much less persuaded about its efficiency than you are. As you yourself say, this has a risk of turning into a forever war and the US isn't equipped, mentally nor doctrinally, to fight forever wars. Which means that you likely won't get what you want from the current Iranian leadership by the sort of military means you can feasibly use against them, and that is not a victory. Please give me a plausible scenario in which the current US is capable of winning a ground war against Iran in the presence of all the current political limitations, which are quite fundamental. You can't. Ultimately it does not matter if you can't win because you cannot muster the political will to engage in a costly war, or if you can't win because you run out of Tomahawks (both are correlated, btw). It is still an inability to win, which is obviously detrimental to the US imperial standing.
- 5mo ago