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I assume you're talking about "slow and expensive" like sending tens of thousand of troops to occupy at _least_ the ~entire shore around the narrow part of the
by kadoban 4mo ago
I assume you're talking about "slow and expensive" like sending tens of thousand of troops to occupy at _least_ the ~entire shore around the narrow part of the Strait, indefinitely?
Yeah, shocking there's no political will for that.
- esseph 4mo agoHundreds of thousands
- energy123 4mo agoYou assumed wrong. Maybe listen to the interviews before responding with aggressive sarcasm.
- kadoban 4mo agoIt was an honest question.
- energy123 4mo agoI would point you to Gen MacKenzie's interviews as the reference on that question, I would just be regurgitating his views. He says that a sustained coastal invasion is not necessary. Raids would be necessary to destroy any buried weapons, but these troops wouldn't need to stay there. Other than this you need more of what they were already doing, "shaping operations" as he calls it, which is ISR drones overhead and lots of bombing/strafing runs. Eventually, because they don't have a remaining industrial base and cannot effectively replenish their stocks (excepting more simple one way attack drones), they will lack the ability to project enough power beyond their borders to keep the strait closed. Operation Praying Mantis is a somewhat dated case study, but still required reading. The reason it's so expensive should be more intuitively obvious - interceptors are expensive and are needed to pace China, and a few more months of closure is significant inflation before the midterms.
- andriy_koval 4mo ago> Raids would be necessary to destroy any buried weapons, but these troops wouldn't need to stay there. Shaheds can be launched from trucks from inside densely populated cities. Good luck with those raids. > Eventually, because they don't have an industrial base and cannot effectively replenish their stocks Modern drones are cheap and easy to assemble, Iran's allies (Russia, China) can easily smuggle them inside country.
- energy123 4mo agoThe win condition is not zero Shahed attacks, the win condition is to open the strait.
- andriy_koval 4mo agoIts the same thing. Businesses won't move ships if there are shahed attacks.
- energy123 4mo agoAnd yet they are moving ships despite Shahed attacks that occurred yesterday, so by this empirical observation, you must conclude that you are operating under a flawed worldview.
- andriy_koval 4mo agoyesterday's attack happened allegedly because Iran didn't allow specific ships to move. Those which are moving today likely received permission from Iran.
- kadoban 4mo agoThanks for the info, I'll track down that interview. That is an interesting strategy that I didn't consider.
- senordevnyc 4mo ago
- Gud 4mo agoThat would not be sufficient because Iran can send drones from deeper within its territory. There is no way to keep the straight open without cooperation from Iran, or a near destruction of all their military assets.