alt Hacker NewsA big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years.
On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. That finally made it undeniable that sending naval vessels anywhere near a hostile shore is a thing of the past. Countermeasures can take out some attacking missiles, but not all of them.
This is a real problem for the U.S. Navy, because they've invested heavily in craft intended to operate near hostile shores. Littoral combat ships and amphibious assault ships are intended to operate offshore of trouble spots. This worked a lot better when the trouble spots couldn't do much to them.
The size of Iran means that knocking out drone and missile production for long won't work. Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now. Ukraine produced 4 million drones last year, and production continues to increase. Ukraine even exports drones now. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE have been making deals with Ukraine for air defense systems. Iran exports drones to Russia.
Mass-produced drones today are a simple airframe, a lawnmower engine, and the smarts of a cell phone. Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran.
The US can't just pull out, either. The enemy gets a vote on when it's over. Israel, Iran, and Yemen now all have to agree. Probably the best deal the US can get at this point is a cease fire with Iran collecting tolls on the Strait of Hormuz.
Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US.
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Germany has 80+ mil inhabitants. Also 90,000,000 people doesn't mean 90,000,000 soldiers, especially when a large part of them hate their own regime.
I agree with some of your points, but I'm not sure about the drones. I don't think the kind of drone you can build with a lawnmower engine would be likely to do any significant damage to any but the smallest ship. And the US/Israel coalition has a much greater airpower advantage enabling them to target drone production than Russia does.
Cuba is in no shape to do anything. Even if they had drones, the leadership there is very unlikely to use them since doing so would result with almost 100% probability in the US killing or capturing them.
> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany.
Germany has 83.000.000 people
Don't forget the coastal geography. Iran's coastline in the Persian gulf is longer than California's coastline, and they can do drone attacks anywhere in the Gulf, not just the narrow strait portion that everyone seems to focus on.
Cuba allying with Iran is pure fantasy though. There's no logistical connection between the two nations. It would be as irrelevant as Greenland allying with Antarctica.
TIL: Germany (85m) has almost the same population as Iran (90m)
The global Shia’s population is even larger than Russia’s population, and more willing to fight the US/Israel. Russia is of course superior to Iran technologically but Iran has the larger support worldwide.
Germany has 80M people.
> This is a real problem for the U.S. Navy, because they've invested heavily in craft intended to operate near hostile shores.
It's a great sign for the US military as a whole: That is the primary American tactic to defeat China, using land forces hidden on the First Island Chain with anti-ship missiles, to control the seas around China. More here:
You think the pentagon was like "shit, Iran is bigger than we thought"?
Bush and his son in one gulf, Bobby and his in another. Crisis after crisis.
> Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US.
If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon. After 9/11, there's no world in which any attack on the US homeland, however small or local, is met with anything other than overwhelming retribution.
Having difficulty projecting force from the air with fighter bombers launched from air craft carriers and refueling caravans from the Indian Ocean or Mediterranean Sea against a determined enemy that has been preparing for this eventuality since 1979 is one thing. Being able to fly non-stop B-52 and B-2 sorties from home air bases with single-digit-hour flight times is a different thing entirely.