6 ms·

"There's no such thing as public opinion, merely published opinion". While on the one hand we should never discount the impact of incompetence, gross negligenc

"There's no such thing as public opinion, merely published opinion". While on the one hand we should never discount the impact of incompetence, gross negligence, or deliberate mismanagement there's a reason this story is circulating. For the most-dominant military power in the world to "whoopsy" run out of weapons because of a low-stakes engagement isn't readily believable. Suspicious me likens it to the supposed "water shortage deception" at Midway in WW2 https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/december/battle-midway-five-intelligence-takeaways-today https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/december/bat... Slightly concerned that there could be an unreported tit-for-tat. China "allegedly" arming/equipping Iran to perhaps the USA coverty planting unbalancing arms and equipment to Taiwan. The Ukraine (and Iran?) theater has shown how drone warfare has changed the game. A nation without a navy can now inexpensively counter a nation with one (ongoing 2-for-2 at the moment).

justin66 2mo ago
> For the most-dominant military power in the world to "whoopsy" run out of weapons because of a low-stakes engagement isn't readily believable. Wow, yeah, you'd need to have morons at the top of the chain of command and subordinates afraid to speak out in order for something like that to happen. Nothing like the US government today at all.
- pendenthistory 2mo ago
  (Not American, need to preface with this) I think the US military has shown itself to be extremely competent in the last war. Reading about Desert Storm and later the invasion of Iraq it's just insane. It's still possible they miscalculated how rapidly warfare would change, but to call them morons... As far as I can see, there are only three proven militaries in the world, the US, Israel and Ukraine, and the US is orders of magnitude larger than the rest. Have we already forgotten what happened to Maduro? What other country in the history of the world could pull something like that off? Russia tried at Hostomel, didn't go so well.
  - hgoel 2mo ago
    I think their point is that it doesn't really matter how competent the lower levels of the command structure are if the ones at the very top are bumbling fools unwilling to listen.
    - abirch 2mo ago
      If you don’t have an objective, no amount of military might is going to get you there. This was the USA’s biggest mistake in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Iran.
      - pohl 2mo ago
        Since the objective was never disclosed, one might assume it was to deplete our magazine depth.
  - LastTrain 2mo ago
    You think the US has shown itself as to be extremely competent in the Iran war? If you were talking about Iraq, that was completely different leadership.
    - jonnybgood 2mo ago
      The US killed almost the entire Iranian regime leadership with minimal cost. What definition of competence are you going by?
      - yifanl 2mo ago
        And then what happened?
      - organsnyder 2mo ago
        I'd argue that seriously upending global energy markets (and perhaps the entire economy) is quite a high cost.
- FuckButtons 2mo ago
  Never attribute to malice that which can easily be explained by stupidity.
- xnx 2mo ago
  > morons at the top of the chain of command and subordinates afraid to speak out Hey now! Let's not forget that half of congress is also complicit.
yifanl 2mo ago
> For the most-dominant military power in the world to "whoopsy" run out of weapons because of a low-stakes engagement isn't readily believable. This is a concerning statement, as it implies it'd be impossible for the United States to lose an engagement regardless of any and all evidence.
- rootsudo 2mo ago
  At the same time, this is how intelligence and counter intelligence works. As much as I want to believe mainstream media, what is verifiable opinion vs state sponsored media and propaganda? Or are we not supposed to think and assume all headlines are real?
- irishcoffee 2mo ago
  How’s this. I can tell you with absolute certainty the US has a lot of munitions, they have not run out. Let’s stop pretending that the only reason Iran isn’t glass at the moment is because of the good will of the US. Unbelievable.
  - yifanl 2mo ago
    I agree that if things were different, things would be different, but I'm not sure what this adds to the conversation.
  - davidgay 2mo ago
    I guess you view what would be the worst crime against humanity ever to be committed (and yes, I really do mean to include all the previous ones in that statement) to be an acceptable answer to “oh, we have no more smart bombs, let’s just kill everyone in this country”? Not committing a crime against humanity is not “good will”.
    - irishcoffee 2mo ago
      Then what is good will? A movie character?
jonny_eh 2mo ago
Most dominant does not mean most intelligent
Barrin92 2mo ago
>For the most-dominant military power in the world Russia kept saying its the second most powerful military in the world and now it's the second most powerful military in Ukraine. You can't just keep saying words and then think they're true because you keep repeating them. There's no secret US weapons factories hidden away somewhere, the inadequacy of the US industrial base to maintain production for long term war have been known for decades and were in some sense even an intentional shift after the end of the Cold War.
- colechristensen 2mo ago
  Russia could still trigger a mass extinction and end civilization as we know it. The thing which has changed is the nuclear threat is almost just, losing interest? Yes any one of a handful of nations could launch a strike that would kill tens of millions and start a war that would kill billions but... why? A teenager could build in their garage that can take down a ship or a particular room in a building a thousand miles away so what's the point of vaporizing civilians? It is exclusively a weapon for genocide now and it seems like mutually assured destruction is an ending doctrine it's a weapon for a madman and there are just so many easier options to accomplish any goal.
- layman51 2mo ago
  I was thinking about this too because some years ago, there was a ranking article that’s now unavailable by the U.S. News and World Report (more famous for its college and university rankings) that had listed Russia as the strongest military.[1] A lot of people were questioning or poking fun at the ranking because of how Russia was struggling with Ukraine. Also, a lot of people seem to confuse analysis with endorsement or validation. But really it’s important to note that a lot of stuff also has to do with how information is very sensitive and can influence a lot of people. If mainstream media can be believed, the U.S. is also struggling a lot with Iran right now, but you might not realize that if you mainly used Trump’s Truth social posts as your only source of info. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20220313151414/https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/strong-military https://web.archive.org/web/20220313151414/https://www.usnew...
colechristensen 2mo ago
Once proper defenses for cheap and slow suicide drones is created (fast small unmanned interceptors with bullets instead of missiles) this temporary drone threat phase of war will be mostly over. The ability to build $1000 drones in everybody's garage was an obvious but unhandled threat, surely it will be though. The funniest thing I've seen with the Ukraine war (if it's not AI) is an old prop plane with it's canopy removed and the dude in the rear seat shooting down a drone with his automatic rifle. We're going to get Top Gun: RC Mini Edition in the next armed conflict and it's going to seem like a video game. It will then become just another threat, and one that is managed well enough to no longer be a david v. goliath kind of weapon.
ARandomerDude 2mo ago
This doesn't account for the substantial difference between military deception and political (self-)deception. The Midway water shortage deception was a way to gain a tactical, followed by strategic advantage. Running out of missiles is an "incovenient truth" for the zionist pro-war crowd. History is littered with innumerable examples of political leaders not adequately considering ground-truth military and logistical realities (Confederates fighting in Pennsylvania, Germans invading Russia, etc.).
lumost 2mo ago
It's been discussed for decades that the US would run out of precision munitions in any multi-week conflict. The presumption was that the US would either be in a nuclear war at that point, or a ground campaign would complete the task along with dumb munitions. That the US decided to expend it's precision weapon stockpile on a conflict of choice with no ground or dumb bombing campaign to fallback on is a mystery for later generations. It is not unbelievable that Iran is capable of blocking a dumb bombing campaign indefinitely, or that the viable targets for such a campaign are politically untenable.
- wbl 2mo ago
  The US is always going to slap a JDAM kit on for better effect.
- cyberax 2mo ago
  > That the US decided to expend it's precision weapon stockpile on a conflict of choice with no ground or dumb bombing campaign to fallback on is a mystery for later generations. There is no mystery. A dumb bombing campaign requires air superiority, and Iran actually has reasonable anti-air defense. They're not a bunch of guys running around with AK-74s. The US absolutely can achieve that. But it _will_ result in aircraft losses, and it requires detailed planning. Both of these are not acceptable anymore.
  - Terr_ 2mo ago
    > Iran actually has reasonable anti-air defense. They're not a bunch of guys running around with AK-74s. To help put that in perspective versus Iraq: Iran's GDP today is a ~7x stronger than Iraq's was (in 2003) relative to the US GDP at each time. In other words, bigger economy, better-equipped military. Plus having ~2x the population, and ~3x the land area.
starik36 2mo ago
> nation without a navy can now inexpensively counter a nation with one I would argue that you are right with Ukraine vs Russia since the former has sunk so many of latter's assets. But that has not been the case with US vs Iran.
tailscaler2026 2mo ago
[dead]
SmirkingRevenge 2mo ago
> For the most-dominant military power in the world to "whoopsy" run out of weapons because of a low-stakes engagement isn't readily believable. Sadly, I find it very believable. To build them costs lots of time and money. To use them, not so much. Going low tech might risk more casualties in some cases - and so all the political problems that follow along from that. We've also seen plenty of wishful thinking from the civilian leaders of the military. I'm sure that in their minds, each strike they launch is surely the one that will finally break Iran, better hit them with the good stuff, shock and awe. They've also been purging all kinds of top military officers, presumably over culture war issues and insufficient sycophancy.
renegade-otter 2mo ago
Leave it to HN to over-intellectualize and twist something obvious because why not? The cretins in charge of the country think the problem is that the soldiers don't have enough testosterone and have too much facial hair, and these people are capable of this next-level deception of the enemy? I don't think so. Their idea of an army is the movie "300" - on oiled up, violent homoerotic phantasy. Soon, that's what's going to be actually left.
tw04 2mo ago
Given that all of the advisors who warned against starting something with Iran called this out as a risk (before hegseth cleaned house of anyone competent willing to speak up), why do you think this is so unbelievable?

justin66 2mo ago

> For the most-dominant military power in the world to "whoopsy" run out of weapons because of a low-stakes engagement isn't readily believable. Wow, yeah, you'd need to have morons at the top of the chain of command and subordinates afraid to speak out in order for something like that to happen. Nothing like the US government today at all.

pendenthistory 2mo ago
(Not American, need to preface with this) I think the US military has shown itself to be extremely competent in the last war. Reading about Desert Storm and later the invasion of Iraq it's just insane. It's still possible they miscalculated how rapidly warfare would change, but to call them morons... As far as I can see, there are only three proven militaries in the world, the US, Israel and Ukraine, and the US is orders of magnitude larger than the rest. Have we already forgotten what happened to Maduro? What other country in the history of the world could pull something like that off? Russia tried at Hostomel, didn't go so well.
- hgoel 2mo ago
  I think their point is that it doesn't really matter how competent the lower levels of the command structure are if the ones at the very top are bumbling fools unwilling to listen.
  - abirch 2mo ago
    If you don’t have an objective, no amount of military might is going to get you there. This was the USA’s biggest mistake in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Iran.
    - pohl 2mo ago
      Since the objective was never disclosed, one might assume it was to deplete our magazine depth.
- LastTrain 2mo ago
  You think the US has shown itself as to be extremely competent in the Iran war? If you were talking about Iraq, that was completely different leadership.
  - jonnybgood 2mo ago
    The US killed almost the entire Iranian regime leadership with minimal cost. What definition of competence are you going by?
    - yifanl 2mo ago
      And then what happened?
    - organsnyder 2mo ago
      I'd argue that seriously upending global energy markets (and perhaps the entire economy) is quite a high cost.
FuckButtons 2mo ago
Never attribute to malice that which can easily be explained by stupidity.
xnx 2mo ago
> morons at the top of the chain of command and subordinates afraid to speak out Hey now! Let's not forget that half of congress is also complicit.

yifanl 2mo ago

> For the most-dominant military power in the world to "whoopsy" run out of weapons because of a low-stakes engagement isn't readily believable. This is a concerning statement, as it implies it'd be impossible for the United States to lose an engagement regardless of any and all evidence.

rootsudo 2mo ago
At the same time, this is how intelligence and counter intelligence works. As much as I want to believe mainstream media, what is verifiable opinion vs state sponsored media and propaganda? Or are we not supposed to think and assume all headlines are real?
irishcoffee 2mo ago
How’s this. I can tell you with absolute certainty the US has a lot of munitions, they have not run out. Let’s stop pretending that the only reason Iran isn’t glass at the moment is because of the good will of the US. Unbelievable.
- yifanl 2mo ago
  I agree that if things were different, things would be different, but I'm not sure what this adds to the conversation.
- davidgay 2mo ago
  I guess you view what would be the worst crime against humanity ever to be committed (and yes, I really do mean to include all the previous ones in that statement) to be an acceptable answer to “oh, we have no more smart bombs, let’s just kill everyone in this country”? Not committing a crime against humanity is not “good will”.
  - irishcoffee 2mo ago
    Then what is good will? A movie character?

jonny_eh 2mo ago

Most dominant does not mean most intelligent

Barrin92 2mo ago

>For the most-dominant military power in the world Russia kept saying its the second most powerful military in the world and now it's the second most powerful military in Ukraine. You can't just keep saying words and then think they're true because you keep repeating them. There's no secret US weapons factories hidden away somewhere, the inadequacy of the US industrial base to maintain production for long term war have been known for decades and were in some sense even an intentional shift after the end of the Cold War.

colechristensen 2mo ago
Russia could still trigger a mass extinction and end civilization as we know it. The thing which has changed is the nuclear threat is almost just, losing interest? Yes any one of a handful of nations could launch a strike that would kill tens of millions and start a war that would kill billions but... why? A teenager could build in their garage that can take down a ship or a particular room in a building a thousand miles away so what's the point of vaporizing civilians? It is exclusively a weapon for genocide now and it seems like mutually assured destruction is an ending doctrine it's a weapon for a madman and there are just so many easier options to accomplish any goal.
layman51 2mo ago
I was thinking about this too because some years ago, there was a ranking article that’s now unavailable by the U.S. News and World Report (more famous for its college and university rankings) that had listed Russia as the strongest military.[1] A lot of people were questioning or poking fun at the ranking because of how Russia was struggling with Ukraine. Also, a lot of people seem to confuse analysis with endorsement or validation. But really it’s important to note that a lot of stuff also has to do with how information is very sensitive and can influence a lot of people. If mainstream media can be believed, the U.S. is also struggling a lot with Iran right now, but you might not realize that if you mainly used Trump’s Truth social posts as your only source of info. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20220313151414/https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/strong-military https://web.archive.org/web/20220313151414/https://www.usnew...

colechristensen 2mo ago

Once proper defenses for cheap and slow suicide drones is created (fast small unmanned interceptors with bullets instead of missiles) this temporary drone threat phase of war will be mostly over. The ability to build $1000 drones in everybody's garage was an obvious but unhandled threat, surely it will be though. The funniest thing I've seen with the Ukraine war (if it's not AI) is an old prop plane with it's canopy removed and the dude in the rear seat shooting down a drone with his automatic rifle. We're going to get Top Gun: RC Mini Edition in the next armed conflict and it's going to seem like a video game. It will then become just another threat, and one that is managed well enough to no longer be a david v. goliath kind of weapon.

ARandomerDude 2mo ago

This doesn't account for the substantial difference between military deception and political (self-)deception. The Midway water shortage deception was a way to gain a tactical, followed by strategic advantage. Running out of missiles is an "incovenient truth" for the zionist pro-war crowd. History is littered with innumerable examples of political leaders not adequately considering ground-truth military and logistical realities (Confederates fighting in Pennsylvania, Germans invading Russia, etc.).

lumost 2mo ago

It's been discussed for decades that the US would run out of precision munitions in any multi-week conflict. The presumption was that the US would either be in a nuclear war at that point, or a ground campaign would complete the task along with dumb munitions. That the US decided to expend it's precision weapon stockpile on a conflict of choice with no ground or dumb bombing campaign to fallback on is a mystery for later generations. It is not unbelievable that Iran is capable of blocking a dumb bombing campaign indefinitely, or that the viable targets for such a campaign are politically untenable.

wbl 2mo ago
The US is always going to slap a JDAM kit on for better effect.
cyberax 2mo ago
> That the US decided to expend it's precision weapon stockpile on a conflict of choice with no ground or dumb bombing campaign to fallback on is a mystery for later generations. There is no mystery. A dumb bombing campaign requires air superiority, and Iran actually has reasonable anti-air defense. They're not a bunch of guys running around with AK-74s. The US absolutely can achieve that. But it _will_ result in aircraft losses, and it requires detailed planning. Both of these are not acceptable anymore.
- Terr_ 2mo ago
  > Iran actually has reasonable anti-air defense. They're not a bunch of guys running around with AK-74s. To help put that in perspective versus Iraq: Iran's GDP today is a ~7x stronger than Iraq's was (in 2003) relative to the US GDP at each time. In other words, bigger economy, better-equipped military. Plus having ~2x the population, and ~3x the land area.

starik36 2mo ago

> nation without a navy can now inexpensively counter a nation with one I would argue that you are right with Ukraine vs Russia since the former has sunk so many of latter's assets. But that has not been the case with US vs Iran.

tailscaler2026 2mo ago

[dead]

SmirkingRevenge 2mo ago

> For the most-dominant military power in the world to "whoopsy" run out of weapons because of a low-stakes engagement isn't readily believable. Sadly, I find it very believable. To build them costs lots of time and money. To use them, not so much. Going low tech might risk more casualties in some cases - and so all the political problems that follow along from that. We've also seen plenty of wishful thinking from the civilian leaders of the military. I'm sure that in their minds, each strike they launch is surely the one that will finally break Iran, better hit them with the good stuff, shock and awe. They've also been purging all kinds of top military officers, presumably over culture war issues and insufficient sycophancy.

renegade-otter 2mo ago

Leave it to HN to over-intellectualize and twist something obvious because why not? The cretins in charge of the country think the problem is that the soldiers don't have enough testosterone and have too much facial hair, and these people are capable of this next-level deception of the enemy? I don't think so. Their idea of an army is the movie "300" - on oiled up, violent homoerotic phantasy. Soon, that's what's going to be actually left.

tw04 2mo ago

Given that all of the advisors who warned against starting something with Iran called this out as a risk (before hegseth cleaned house of anyone competent willing to speak up), why do you think this is so unbelievable?