The commentary is terrible with reporters sounding as if they actually know what is happening and what the USA is accomplishing. When that is largely unknown and subject to in depth analysis and intelligence. The are overtly sophomoric.
In this particular case there is another test: reducing everything to the US / Trump being Israel's / Bibi's puppet.
I mean yes AIPAC, yes the Jewish vote, yes the disproportinate to their number influence Jews and Israel are having on the American politics. But claiming that a huge and hegemonic power such as the United States is controlled by Israel is similar to saying that before WWI Britain was controlled by Belgium or Russia by Serbia
Particularly as Trump’s dislike of the Iranian regime literally goes back decades. He is one of the those still holding a grudge over the seizure of the US Embassy in 1979.
His authorisation of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani was apparently in part prompted by Soleimani being involved in rocket attacks on the US Embassy in Baghdad.
He also tore up the agreement that Obama had made with Iran and other states over Iranian nuclear efforts because he thought (correctly) it was too favourable to the regime. As the Saudis recently pointed out, none of the released funds were spent in the interests of the Iranian people, it all went into further building up their destructive capacity.
Trump has also not hesitated to call out Bibi. When Bibi authorised the really stupid attack air attack on Hamas negotiators in Qatar—attacking a capital of a GCC country: it was nuts—apparently the resultant phone call from Trump was, um, robust. Hence Bibi being forced to both publicly apologise and personally apologise to Qatar.
Excellent points, but I wish to play Devil's advocate on this one.
In addition to the priors you describe, the general mood of despondency about the war is framed by three "extraneous" factors: (1) within living memory, the US spent blood and treasure in this neck of the woods, with very little to show for it, so you're starting with negative expectations; (2) the US electoral calendar and the general US attention span are such that Trump would be given credit for something with a clean ending *by the November mid-term elections*. Anything that looks like it might take longer to "read out" is a failure, in this view. Trump sure didn't do himself any favors (which is a pattern) by not articulating a definition of success. Accordingly, the deck is stacked towards judging the war a failure. (3) the perception (among the commentariat at least) that a war with China is fairly likely (call it 30% odds) in the near-term (call it three years) and that *the US would obviously lose* (after perhaps a desultory but nonetheless costly fight). And thus, that blowing our limited ammunition on a second-tier enemy is an unforced error.
In sum, you can simultaneously believe that Iran is a serious menace and have reasonable qualms (rather than Trump- or Israel Derangement Syndrome) about what's going down.
Oh yes, I am not trying to imply “therefore you must support the war”. It is a strategic choice, there are other possible strategic choices. It is even more true that you do not have to conclude that it will all be successful.
That being said, you can make an argument the other way re:Taiwan and China. The US has just displayed its operational capacity on a grand scale. It has also displayed a willingness to use force. If one is worried about drifts towards war, this is very different from the behaviour of the Western Powers in the late 1930s. Like the war in Ukraine, it has really hammered home the problem of interceptor supply and cost.
That Xi has started to purge defence scientists suggests that he is worried about Chinese weaponry not being up to snuff. The PLA has not fought a significant military campaign since the Laoshan Campaign of 1984. How well it would perform is very much an open question.
Good tests to weed out Trump haters (Florac?), but I would expect at least a couple of suggestions. Like WTC (R Fernandez).
Tho a Trump hater, P. O’Brien on my X feed makes some good points.
The decision tree issue is really important. From a prediction side, what result signals will lead to more bombing? Putting Marine boots on the ground at Kharg or other islands? Whalen will the son of the Shah call for Persians to rise up? What will the armed Kurds do if the US supports the Prince?
What is happening with Iranian money & the economy?
Disliking Trump is not the problem: it is only if they take the “it is all bad all the time” approach that I rule them out. My strongest recommendation would be Aimen Dean of the Conflicted podcast.
Ha! I thought about this argument after the fact (spirit of the staircase). Yes, it is good to make a show of force once in a while, and the Trump shtick ("he just might do it") is a great strategic asset here. Between upping the deterrence and depleting the stores, I sure don't know where we net out.
ChinArb has a fascinating way of describing the conflict. He divides the systems into (generally) western, high tech bespoke weapons, profit and deindustrialization and crushing debt, the system, mainly of the east, with a full stack of mining and manufacturing, competing to deflation, and how they interact with a third system, a stateless, physics-governed layer emerging from Big Tech’s “hardening” into sovereign-scale infrastructure. To build AGI, Amazon and Microsoft can no longer just write code — they must become heavy industry, digging copper, building nuclear reactors, and hoarding GPUs like nations hoard gold, morphing from software companies into “sovereign utility monsters.” Very interesting . Not whether a government or leader is “ good,” “bad,” or otherwise. It’s an analysis of the ongoing interaction between all three. I’ve never been able to get through it, but reminds me of the “Three Body Problem.” It doesn’t look good for the future of System A…
How do we judge the quality of a strategic decision tree from the outside? More directly - how do we tell when an actor is following a line of strategic contingencies that were thought out ahead of time, versus making it up as they go (being reactive once strategic initiative is lost?)
Excellent question, and very hard while a war is ongoing. An aura of certainty in commentary is not encouraging for that very reason. Even judging the outcome of a war after it is over can be a partial exercise, as often effects can take considerable time to work through.
I think one good model might be whether a reasonable number of experienced and hopefully successful battlefield commanders who are not subject to political/establishment control or loyalty are in broad agreement over good-bad regarding clear political goals that translate into strategic objectives (ends); then into decisions trees and into fluidity (means); into tactical superiority and into battlefield execution (application).
Regarding your comments about Battlefield flexibility such as "Indeed, the IDF, and Western armies in the Gulf Wars, found generating fluidity on the battlefield very much to their advantage."
The Wehrmacht (I'm not a Nazi fanboi, BTW) understood and mastered this back in the 1930s and applied it to great effect in the first 3 years of WW2.
Robert A. Doughty's excellent book "The Seeds of Disaster" describes in forensic detail how the French Army post WW1 developed a rigid, beaureaucratic style of war where everything always went according to a huge and incredibly complex plan of their devising, whereby their enemy would cooperate in his destruction. The Maginot line exemplifies this thinking, and the destruction/circumvention of the Maginot Line, described in his follow-up book "The Breaking Point", shows how well the Germans had learned the opposite lessons from WW1.
The Germans recognised that the battlefield was inherently chaotic, and decided that the way to win wars was to *make* the battlefield as chaotic as possible, while having SOPs and training in place that assumed chaos would happen, and allowed their forces to *use* the chaos to prevail. Their troops were trained to assume that everything would be chaotic, to use that to their benefit and to stay calm, work through it and win the fight.
The German doctrine of Aufstragtaktic (mission tactics) developed as a result of all this thinking way back then is the basis of all western armies current doctrines of "mission command" where fluidity on the battlefield may be used to ones advantage.
John Boyd's OODA loop paradigm has also evolved into a big part of this concept. Impose chaos on your enemy, then think and act faster than him in order to prevail.
Anyway, I suppose all this history is familiar to you, and I'm advising you how to suck eggs. It's an area of great interest to me though, andI thought I'd send off a spray, just in case.
As always, I greatly admire your thinking and your writing.
Thank you, and while the general pattern I am familiar with, I have not read Doughty, so further and better particulars are always welcome.
The Germans apparently found the American soldiers a bit confusing to deal with, because they would often “run away” when facing superior forces and then suddenly turn back and attack when they acquired more numbers and support. This seems to be an American characteristic, and you get similar confused European responses to American patterns of fighting at least as far back as the American War of Independence.
British and US armour was usually inferior to German, though the later was fuel hungry (which they lacked) and ammunition was short (because of big 88mm rounds).
Troops ran away and Sherman tanks bypassed Tigers, but they then called up British 17 pounders which blew of the tracks and jammed the turret or, given by this stage fantastic air supremacy - and kit - they called in Tempests, Typhoons, P47, P51 and P38's which destroyed German tanks and armour, or bombed and strafed the artillery and infantry. Fluidity in tactics to use air power in support of ground troops facing superior armour.
LSWCHP: Interesting and I'd agree about (land) battlefield flexibility but I'd argue that Germany failed the war decision tree test, because the lacked the options to give them strategic fluidity across the different battlefields, notably air, sea, industry and logistics.
The problem was that the German armed forces were solely configured to fight a land war across borders in Europe with the Luftwaffe in support. Mission tactics only really worked at the land war level. So a narrow decision tree.
Against maritime powers - the British Empire and later the USA - they had no surface fleet, no aircraft carriers and no four engine bombers to project power, which denied them options.
In 1940 even without the RAF denying the Luftwaffe air superiority, they could not cross the Channel and had no landing craft. By 1941-2 Cunningham had defeated the Italian Fleet, secured the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Suez and kept eastern supply routes open. The Axis North Africa campaign became pointless.
This along with US-UK-Canada's victory in the North Atlantic kept the supply lines open. The US then brought could bring land armies to Europe along with air power.
Germany found itself fighting a war for raw materials like oil whilst needing that very oil to fight the war. And off-course by the end of the war the Empire was industrially out-producing all Axis powers whilst the USA was out-producing all other Axis and Allied powers !
The Germans decision tree lacked air, sea, logistical and industrial options.
It is making things worse at the moment. The longer term effects, we do not know yet. Also, if you are the largest energy producer on the planet, and by far the largest natural gas producer on the planet, blocking the Straits of Hormuz is a mixed event.
It would be a niggling issue - Irans' internal awful theocracy to the Net Zero EU. Though, doesn't this war help with EU's Net Zero weaning off oil? /s
Yet, if Iran actually produced nuclear warheads, as they are intent on doing for decades, and have a lot of more than half way enriched uranium now (and perhaps even higher that we don't know about), would anyone be better off?
I for one approve being proactive, and also I cheer slamming Iran's theocracy hard and degrading their production capabilities, as they were the suppliers of drones to Russia, without which Russia would be in dire straight with their stone age at the initial couple of years weapon technology. Even though Russia learned to build drones now, it was receiving Iranian drones until this war.
As to disliking Trump. Positives far outweigh minuscule negatives. Much more than with any US president in the last 30 years, and same goes for UK, Germany, you name it. Long live Trump!
North Korea and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and it hasn't led to anything. They just sit around minding their own business. I think it would be the same with Iran.
Plus this war is clearly going beyond nuclear capability. We assassinated their entire leadership. It's pretty obvious we are hoping for regime change. We made it existential.
No, it would not be the same for Iran. You have to take what authoritarian regimes say seriously, particularly when they spend billions backing up what they say. They believe their eschatological ideology. This makes them very different from Pakistan—which has nuclear weapons to counterbalance India—and North Korea—which has nuclear weapons to maximise their status and their leverage as troublemakes.
Besides, it is not just about nuclear weapons, it is about decades of systematically disrupting the Middle East for ideological reasons, and them constantly seeking to expand their capacity to do so.
I don't consider North Korea/Pakistan less dysfunctional or ideological than Iran. I think these places are all full of rational enough actors they don't initiate nuclear war for no reason.
"it is about decades of systematically disrupting the Middle East for ideological reasons"
The very first thing that happened after the revolution is that we got Saddam to invade Iran and supplied him with WMD to use on them.
Then after we broke Iraq and created a power vacuum Iran filled the power vacuum in a majority Shia country.
Yes, they fund some terrorists that hate Israel. Everyone does, including our allies. That sucks for Israel. It was really fucking stupid of the Jews to locate their country there. I had sympathy for Israel on Oct 7th, but that sympathy is now gone. They won the war and it was time to move on. This is a war of choice not a war of defense.
It is not about being less ideological, it is about what their ideology is. Also, you are narrowing the focus way too much to Israel. If you declare that your intention is to destroy Israel, and spend billions on that cause, it is hardly surprising if Israel takes you at your word.
But the Islamic Regime’s destructive disruptiveness extends well beyond Israel. A Middle East without the Islamic Regime would be much more peaceful.
Korean Peninsula without North Korea is more peaceful.
At the same time, NK has done NOTHING of note outside its borders since the Korean War.
NK is objectively a much worse death cult than Iran. It's got a GDP/capita of $1,300 despite having one of the worlds highest IQ populations. Its people literally starve in peacetime.
Iran has 4x that despite shit human capital. And I can think of no comparable episodes of starvation.
No because the IRGC will run out of missiles and drones and spares because all the factories and repair shops and supply chains have been bombed to b******.
And who is the 'we' that is worse off? Trump is America First and the US in a net energy/oil exporter! I agree we (that's me, my country) will be worse off, but maybe he is not! But we (not me) will be worse off because we (not me) assumed that war was abolished, the liberal order would last forever, and that supply chains would never be disrupted. As Lorenzo might put it our political class relied on short term efficiency and never considered long term resilience!
Certainly since China is worse off as gets 45% of its discounted sanctioned oil by this route. It will now have to seek new supplies maybe without discounts and potentially at a higher (market) price which will impact its artificial competitive advantage in manufacturing.
Similarly the Venezuela stuff and the interdiction of smugglers all affected China, Iran, Hezbollah et al.
How can the IRGC run out of missiles and drones? They are allies with the worlds largest manufacturer, which can create infinite missiles and drones to send to them. And drones are cheap as fuck.
"And who is the 'we' that is worse off?"
Literally me at the gas pump yesterday. And the guy one lane over that complained when he saw the price.
1. They make their own missiles with components as they do drones: they sold the later to Russia who reverse engineered them.
2. They do not buy missiles and drones from 'world's largest manufacturer' as far as I know.
3. They may buy components not fully made missiles and they have no way or where to assemble them.
4. The US has just shown, as has also already been shown in Ukraine, that drones are not a battlefield changer. What matters are things like 155mm shells and your ability to manufacture them (Russia) or the combination of naval and air power with satellites, GPS etc that the worlds full spectrum dominance power possess. 5. Iran's military is decimated. Stockpiles built up over twenty years are gone.
6. The 'world's largest manufacturer@ can't get to Iran past the US Navy, which:
7. has also shown that it can sit on the other side of Taiwan and blow 'the world's largest manufacturer's navy out of the sea and its planes and missiles out of the air.
7. You see there are navy's with lots of ships. And then there are navy's with lots of SHIPS.
1) Yes you can but it hard and expensive and to move volume, you need to go by sea. Otherwise, they'd be able to fly the stuff in. And they can't. Otherwise the oil could come across land, but they don't have pipelines which take years, money and expertise to build and would be infeasably long. Oh and the terrain and politics, through Afghanistan and Tibet would be challenging to say the least.
2) I didn't say they'd run out yet. I said they would run out because all the factories and stores have been destroyed. This means they have only got what they have on immediately to hand: Its like having a magazine for your personal weapon with only 30 rounds left when the enemy has a supply chain.
Oh and why are the strait still shut? Because the USA quite rightly concluded (understanding the losses incurred in amphibious assaults like Iwo Jima and Okinawa) that they won't send in Marines at this stage. They will wait the Iranians out. Especially given the US is self-sufficient in energy and have just taken control of Venezuela's. Its also political leverage over Europe and, as I said earlier, it affects China, the main US rival, badly. So its actually a strategic win.
The commentary is terrible with reporters sounding as if they actually know what is happening and what the USA is accomplishing. When that is largely unknown and subject to in depth analysis and intelligence. The are overtly sophomoric.
In this particular case there is another test: reducing everything to the US / Trump being Israel's / Bibi's puppet.
I mean yes AIPAC, yes the Jewish vote, yes the disproportinate to their number influence Jews and Israel are having on the American politics. But claiming that a huge and hegemonic power such as the United States is controlled by Israel is similar to saying that before WWI Britain was controlled by Belgium or Russia by Serbia
Particularly as Trump’s dislike of the Iranian regime literally goes back decades. He is one of the those still holding a grudge over the seizure of the US Embassy in 1979.
His authorisation of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani was apparently in part prompted by Soleimani being involved in rocket attacks on the US Embassy in Baghdad.
He also tore up the agreement that Obama had made with Iran and other states over Iranian nuclear efforts because he thought (correctly) it was too favourable to the regime. As the Saudis recently pointed out, none of the released funds were spent in the interests of the Iranian people, it all went into further building up their destructive capacity.
Trump has also not hesitated to call out Bibi. When Bibi authorised the really stupid attack air attack on Hamas negotiators in Qatar—attacking a capital of a GCC country: it was nuts—apparently the resultant phone call from Trump was, um, robust. Hence Bibi being forced to both publicly apologise and personally apologise to Qatar.
Eisenhower on that decision tree: "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything"
Exactly. No surprise that Eisenhower knew what he was talking about. Thank you for the excellent quote.
Excellent points, but I wish to play Devil's advocate on this one.
In addition to the priors you describe, the general mood of despondency about the war is framed by three "extraneous" factors: (1) within living memory, the US spent blood and treasure in this neck of the woods, with very little to show for it, so you're starting with negative expectations; (2) the US electoral calendar and the general US attention span are such that Trump would be given credit for something with a clean ending *by the November mid-term elections*. Anything that looks like it might take longer to "read out" is a failure, in this view. Trump sure didn't do himself any favors (which is a pattern) by not articulating a definition of success. Accordingly, the deck is stacked towards judging the war a failure. (3) the perception (among the commentariat at least) that a war with China is fairly likely (call it 30% odds) in the near-term (call it three years) and that *the US would obviously lose* (after perhaps a desultory but nonetheless costly fight). And thus, that blowing our limited ammunition on a second-tier enemy is an unforced error.
In sum, you can simultaneously believe that Iran is a serious menace and have reasonable qualms (rather than Trump- or Israel Derangement Syndrome) about what's going down.
Oh yes, I am not trying to imply “therefore you must support the war”. It is a strategic choice, there are other possible strategic choices. It is even more true that you do not have to conclude that it will all be successful.
That being said, you can make an argument the other way re:Taiwan and China. The US has just displayed its operational capacity on a grand scale. It has also displayed a willingness to use force. If one is worried about drifts towards war, this is very different from the behaviour of the Western Powers in the late 1930s. Like the war in Ukraine, it has really hammered home the problem of interceptor supply and cost.
That Xi has started to purge defence scientists suggests that he is worried about Chinese weaponry not being up to snuff. The PLA has not fought a significant military campaign since the Laoshan Campaign of 1984. How well it would perform is very much an open question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Laoshan
Great points and guidance.
Good tests to weed out Trump haters (Florac?), but I would expect at least a couple of suggestions. Like WTC (R Fernandez).
Tho a Trump hater, P. O’Brien on my X feed makes some good points.
The decision tree issue is really important. From a prediction side, what result signals will lead to more bombing? Putting Marine boots on the ground at Kharg or other islands? Whalen will the son of the Shah call for Persians to rise up? What will the armed Kurds do if the US supports the Prince?
What is happening with Iranian money & the economy?
Disliking Trump is not the problem: it is only if they take the “it is all bad all the time” approach that I rule them out. My strongest recommendation would be Aimen Dean of the Conflicted podcast.
Interesting. Your ideas make sense.
Ha! I thought about this argument after the fact (spirit of the staircase). Yes, it is good to make a show of force once in a while, and the Trump shtick ("he just might do it") is a great strategic asset here. Between upping the deterrence and depleting the stores, I sure don't know where we net out.
ChinArb has a fascinating way of describing the conflict. He divides the systems into (generally) western, high tech bespoke weapons, profit and deindustrialization and crushing debt, the system, mainly of the east, with a full stack of mining and manufacturing, competing to deflation, and how they interact with a third system, a stateless, physics-governed layer emerging from Big Tech’s “hardening” into sovereign-scale infrastructure. To build AGI, Amazon and Microsoft can no longer just write code — they must become heavy industry, digging copper, building nuclear reactors, and hoarding GPUs like nations hoard gold, morphing from software companies into “sovereign utility monsters.” Very interesting . Not whether a government or leader is “ good,” “bad,” or otherwise. It’s an analysis of the ongoing interaction between all three. I’ve never been able to get through it, but reminds me of the “Three Body Problem.” It doesn’t look good for the future of System A…
The complication is that China has an enormous debt burden and Japan a very large one.
How do we judge the quality of a strategic decision tree from the outside? More directly - how do we tell when an actor is following a line of strategic contingencies that were thought out ahead of time, versus making it up as they go (being reactive once strategic initiative is lost?)
Excellent question, and very hard while a war is ongoing. An aura of certainty in commentary is not encouraging for that very reason. Even judging the outcome of a war after it is over can be a partial exercise, as often effects can take considerable time to work through.
I think one good model might be whether a reasonable number of experienced and hopefully successful battlefield commanders who are not subject to political/establishment control or loyalty are in broad agreement over good-bad regarding clear political goals that translate into strategic objectives (ends); then into decisions trees and into fluidity (means); into tactical superiority and into battlefield execution (application).
Wey well stated Sir.
Regarding your comments about Battlefield flexibility such as "Indeed, the IDF, and Western armies in the Gulf Wars, found generating fluidity on the battlefield very much to their advantage."
The Wehrmacht (I'm not a Nazi fanboi, BTW) understood and mastered this back in the 1930s and applied it to great effect in the first 3 years of WW2.
Robert A. Doughty's excellent book "The Seeds of Disaster" describes in forensic detail how the French Army post WW1 developed a rigid, beaureaucratic style of war where everything always went according to a huge and incredibly complex plan of their devising, whereby their enemy would cooperate in his destruction. The Maginot line exemplifies this thinking, and the destruction/circumvention of the Maginot Line, described in his follow-up book "The Breaking Point", shows how well the Germans had learned the opposite lessons from WW1.
The Germans recognised that the battlefield was inherently chaotic, and decided that the way to win wars was to *make* the battlefield as chaotic as possible, while having SOPs and training in place that assumed chaos would happen, and allowed their forces to *use* the chaos to prevail. Their troops were trained to assume that everything would be chaotic, to use that to their benefit and to stay calm, work through it and win the fight.
The German doctrine of Aufstragtaktic (mission tactics) developed as a result of all this thinking way back then is the basis of all western armies current doctrines of "mission command" where fluidity on the battlefield may be used to ones advantage.
John Boyd's OODA loop paradigm has also evolved into a big part of this concept. Impose chaos on your enemy, then think and act faster than him in order to prevail.
Anyway, I suppose all this history is familiar to you, and I'm advising you how to suck eggs. It's an area of great interest to me though, andI thought I'd send off a spray, just in case.
As always, I greatly admire your thinking and your writing.
Thank you, and while the general pattern I am familiar with, I have not read Doughty, so further and better particulars are always welcome.
The Germans apparently found the American soldiers a bit confusing to deal with, because they would often “run away” when facing superior forces and then suddenly turn back and attack when they acquired more numbers and support. This seems to be an American characteristic, and you get similar confused European responses to American patterns of fighting at least as far back as the American War of Independence.
British and US armour was usually inferior to German, though the later was fuel hungry (which they lacked) and ammunition was short (because of big 88mm rounds).
Troops ran away and Sherman tanks bypassed Tigers, but they then called up British 17 pounders which blew of the tracks and jammed the turret or, given by this stage fantastic air supremacy - and kit - they called in Tempests, Typhoons, P47, P51 and P38's which destroyed German tanks and armour, or bombed and strafed the artillery and infantry. Fluidity in tactics to use air power in support of ground troops facing superior armour.
LSWCHP: Interesting and I'd agree about (land) battlefield flexibility but I'd argue that Germany failed the war decision tree test, because the lacked the options to give them strategic fluidity across the different battlefields, notably air, sea, industry and logistics.
The problem was that the German armed forces were solely configured to fight a land war across borders in Europe with the Luftwaffe in support. Mission tactics only really worked at the land war level. So a narrow decision tree.
Against maritime powers - the British Empire and later the USA - they had no surface fleet, no aircraft carriers and no four engine bombers to project power, which denied them options.
In 1940 even without the RAF denying the Luftwaffe air superiority, they could not cross the Channel and had no landing craft. By 1941-2 Cunningham had defeated the Italian Fleet, secured the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Suez and kept eastern supply routes open. The Axis North Africa campaign became pointless.
This along with US-UK-Canada's victory in the North Atlantic kept the supply lines open. The US then brought could bring land armies to Europe along with air power.
Germany found itself fighting a war for raw materials like oil whilst needing that very oil to fight the war. And off-course by the end of the war the Empire was industrially out-producing all Axis powers whilst the USA was out-producing all other Axis and Allied powers !
The Germans decision tree lacked air, sea, logistical and industrial options.
The book CASTLES OF STEEL is looking at me from the bookshelf.
Pretty much every idiot Canadian pundit and talking head fails your (correct and excellent) tests.
How many tankers were exiting the Strait of Hormuz before the war? How many are exiting today?
That’s really the main KPI that matters. No matter how many things you bomb, if they can shut the straight then we are worse off then before the war
It is making things worse at the moment. The longer term effects, we do not know yet. Also, if you are the largest energy producer on the planet, and by far the largest natural gas producer on the planet, blocking the Straits of Hormuz is a mixed event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_production
https://x.com/biancoresearch/status/2043342974717681875
It would be a niggling issue - Irans' internal awful theocracy to the Net Zero EU. Though, doesn't this war help with EU's Net Zero weaning off oil? /s
Yet, if Iran actually produced nuclear warheads, as they are intent on doing for decades, and have a lot of more than half way enriched uranium now (and perhaps even higher that we don't know about), would anyone be better off?
I for one approve being proactive, and also I cheer slamming Iran's theocracy hard and degrading their production capabilities, as they were the suppliers of drones to Russia, without which Russia would be in dire straight with their stone age at the initial couple of years weapon technology. Even though Russia learned to build drones now, it was receiving Iranian drones until this war.
As to disliking Trump. Positives far outweigh minuscule negatives. Much more than with any US president in the last 30 years, and same goes for UK, Germany, you name it. Long live Trump!
North Korea and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and it hasn't led to anything. They just sit around minding their own business. I think it would be the same with Iran.
Plus this war is clearly going beyond nuclear capability. We assassinated their entire leadership. It's pretty obvious we are hoping for regime change. We made it existential.
No, it would not be the same for Iran. You have to take what authoritarian regimes say seriously, particularly when they spend billions backing up what they say. They believe their eschatological ideology. This makes them very different from Pakistan—which has nuclear weapons to counterbalance India—and North Korea—which has nuclear weapons to maximise their status and their leverage as troublemakes.
Besides, it is not just about nuclear weapons, it is about decades of systematically disrupting the Middle East for ideological reasons, and them constantly seeking to expand their capacity to do so.
I don't consider North Korea/Pakistan less dysfunctional or ideological than Iran. I think these places are all full of rational enough actors they don't initiate nuclear war for no reason.
"it is about decades of systematically disrupting the Middle East for ideological reasons"
The very first thing that happened after the revolution is that we got Saddam to invade Iran and supplied him with WMD to use on them.
Then after we broke Iraq and created a power vacuum Iran filled the power vacuum in a majority Shia country.
Yes, they fund some terrorists that hate Israel. Everyone does, including our allies. That sucks for Israel. It was really fucking stupid of the Jews to locate their country there. I had sympathy for Israel on Oct 7th, but that sympathy is now gone. They won the war and it was time to move on. This is a war of choice not a war of defense.
It is not about being less ideological, it is about what their ideology is. Also, you are narrowing the focus way too much to Israel. If you declare that your intention is to destroy Israel, and spend billions on that cause, it is hardly surprising if Israel takes you at your word.
But the Islamic Regime’s destructive disruptiveness extends well beyond Israel. A Middle East without the Islamic Regime would be much more peaceful.
Korean Peninsula without North Korea is more peaceful.
At the same time, NK has done NOTHING of note outside its borders since the Korean War.
NK is objectively a much worse death cult than Iran. It's got a GDP/capita of $1,300 despite having one of the worlds highest IQ populations. Its people literally starve in peacetime.
Iran has 4x that despite shit human capital. And I can think of no comparable episodes of starvation.
Maybe this is 'Sen no Sen'
Ah, another stanza from Kipling's The Gods of the Copybook Headings is due here:
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
No because the IRGC will run out of missiles and drones and spares because all the factories and repair shops and supply chains have been bombed to b******.
And who is the 'we' that is worse off? Trump is America First and the US in a net energy/oil exporter! I agree we (that's me, my country) will be worse off, but maybe he is not! But we (not me) will be worse off because we (not me) assumed that war was abolished, the liberal order would last forever, and that supply chains would never be disrupted. As Lorenzo might put it our political class relied on short term efficiency and never considered long term resilience!
Certainly since China is worse off as gets 45% of its discounted sanctioned oil by this route. It will now have to seek new supplies maybe without discounts and potentially at a higher (market) price which will impact its artificial competitive advantage in manufacturing.
Similarly the Venezuela stuff and the interdiction of smugglers all affected China, Iran, Hezbollah et al.
Like it or not it all appears joined up.
How can the IRGC run out of missiles and drones? They are allies with the worlds largest manufacturer, which can create infinite missiles and drones to send to them. And drones are cheap as fuck.
"And who is the 'we' that is worse off?"
Literally me at the gas pump yesterday. And the guy one lane over that complained when he saw the price.
Oh me not we then?
1. They make their own missiles with components as they do drones: they sold the later to Russia who reverse engineered them.
2. They do not buy missiles and drones from 'world's largest manufacturer' as far as I know.
3. They may buy components not fully made missiles and they have no way or where to assemble them.
4. The US has just shown, as has also already been shown in Ukraine, that drones are not a battlefield changer. What matters are things like 155mm shells and your ability to manufacture them (Russia) or the combination of naval and air power with satellites, GPS etc that the worlds full spectrum dominance power possess. 5. Iran's military is decimated. Stockpiles built up over twenty years are gone.
6. The 'world's largest manufacturer@ can't get to Iran past the US Navy, which:
7. has also shown that it can sit on the other side of Taiwan and blow 'the world's largest manufacturer's navy out of the sea and its planes and missiles out of the air.
7. You see there are navy's with lots of ships. And then there are navy's with lots of SHIPS.
1) You can get to Iran by land from China.
2) If we have destroyed all their drones and missiles, why are the straights still closed?
1) Yes you can but it hard and expensive and to move volume, you need to go by sea. Otherwise, they'd be able to fly the stuff in. And they can't. Otherwise the oil could come across land, but they don't have pipelines which take years, money and expertise to build and would be infeasably long. Oh and the terrain and politics, through Afghanistan and Tibet would be challenging to say the least.
2) I didn't say they'd run out yet. I said they would run out because all the factories and stores have been destroyed. This means they have only got what they have on immediately to hand: Its like having a magazine for your personal weapon with only 30 rounds left when the enemy has a supply chain.
Oh and why are the strait still shut? Because the USA quite rightly concluded (understanding the losses incurred in amphibious assaults like Iwo Jima and Okinawa) that they won't send in Marines at this stage. They will wait the Iranians out. Especially given the US is self-sufficient in energy and have just taken control of Venezuela's. Its also political leverage over Europe and, as I said earlier, it affects China, the main US rival, badly. So its actually a strategic win.
1) Yes, but if the issue is existential its not like China doesn't have the resources.
2) Unless China sends them more.
BTW I'm four years into a war with Russia I was told sanctions would end in like three months.
3) I remember what happened when we blockaded the energy resources of another East Asian power. At least they were the aggressor in that case.
This is a particularly good summary of the interaction between energy supply/demand and the geopolitics of the war.
https://youtu.be/DxvCfCDauZE?si=zgEDRvnlGt1mtaeZ
the reporting is now that Trump has made the regime stronger
And they know that how?
an academic’s opinion
well we all know what that's worth!
perhaps apply Lorenzo's first two rules?
I’m disappointed in you.