| ▲ | SegfaultSeagull 12 hours ago |
| Or perhaps they will learn they are outmatched, lack the resources and technological capabilities to compete, and deterrence will have been established. |
|
| ▲ | elzbardico an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| Iran can establish deterrence with asymetric means and let's not forget, that contrary to what most americans think, Iran is not a backward hell hole like Somalia or Afeganistan. For a third world country we could say they have a competent R&D infrastructure, with a good number of STEM graduates every year (with roughly half of them being woman, which shows they are casting a wide net for talents). They also have a lot of leverage points in their geography, in the fact that the US is at a historical low point in its military capabilities. US and Israel strategy seems to be to completely destruct Iran's economy, but the problem is that this is a game where they can also shoot back. |
|
| ▲ | dlisboa 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Very few countries lack the technological capabilities to produce these kinds of drones. What most countries don't have is, for lack of a better term, the resolve Iran has shown. Venezuela could have built drones and resisted just the same, but it's internally divided enough that it was possible to strike a deal with an inside faction and have a coup from within. |
|
| ▲ | don_esteban 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| There is a huge difference between 'deterrence' in the sense of deterring a country from taking aggressive action it might have otherwise considered, and 'deterrence' in the sense you are using here (surrender without fight, we are so much stronger than you). |
|
| ▲ | pjc50 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Iran has always known that the US is a higher tech nation, but you should not just expect them to surrender on that basis. |
| |
| ▲ | deburo 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's not what deterrence means. From google: the action of discouraging an action or event through instilling doubt or fear of the consequences. It's meant to avoid conflict altogether, say with China and Taiwan. | | |
| ▲ | swat535 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Iranian here, you're assuming sanity. That doesn't work when your opponents pray for death and see martyrdom as victory. This is genuinely how Shia extremists think. They have nothing to lose and will sacrifice everything and everyone for their cause. They don't care about Iran or Iranians or prosperity of the nation. | | |
| ▲ | elzbardico 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Every country that has a opposition diaspora says the same stuff you're saying here. For what is worth, you could be from a family of Savak secret police members. And frankly that's not how it looks to me. | | |
| ▲ | rendang an hour ago | parent [-] | | Every country's diaspora claims their country is ruled by Shia Muslims? |
|
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | biker142541 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| History would suggest otherwise; rarely is this ever the case. |
| |
| ▲ | quietbritishjim 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | History doesn't necessarily make it clear when a war might have started but didn't because of some specific factor. Mainly you see the wars that did happen. (It has a strong survivorship bias in the sense that a war "survived" history if it went ahead for real rather than being considered and decided against.) | |
| ▲ | marcosdumay 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You seem to be implying that there is a long history of countries starting wars against the USA? | | |
| ▲ | gzread 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | More like the USA starting wars against countries, and those countries not immediately surrendering, to which the USA is shocked. | | |
| ▲ | falcor84 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think that there's a more general issue here with the US and the West in general having a mindset built up on playing Risk and Civ, which considers the foreign country as a whole as their opponent, whereas in practice, the adversaries are a multitude of individuals, for almost none of whom a surrender is the rational choice, especially (as sibling comments pointed out) when part of their reasoning and authority is based on a divine mandate. | | |
| ▲ | testaccount28 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | to be clear: your claim is that the us military is misinformed because key constituents have played too many board games? does hearing it back like that make it seem absurd to you as well? | | |
| ▲ | falcor84 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well, yes (except that Civ isn't a board game). And no, it doesn't make it seem absurd to me. My argument is that Western strategic thought (with games being a codification thereof, rather than the source of) generally considers countries as mostly atomic actors that can be defeated - the history of European warfare being filled with "gentlemanly" surrenders followed up by peace treaties, with guerrilla warfare being a very rare exception. On the other side, the reality in the East is that a state's collapse doesn't end the conflict, but just prolongs it. The army doesn't surrender, it goes home with its weapons and reconstitutes as insurgents. I can't actually think of a single proper surrender of an Eastern country ever, except for Japan in 1945. | | |
| ▲ | dragonwriter 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Well, yes (except that Civ isn't a board game). It is actually several physical board games, the oldest of which is older than (and unrelated to) the computer game [0], as well as being a series of computer games that are basically digital board games. [0] Well, except for the computer game based on it and its expansion, which, because of the other computer game, had the long-winded title "Avalon Hill's Advanced Civilization". | |
| ▲ | pyuser583 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Finland comes to mind. | | |
| ▲ | falcor84 an hour ago | parent [-] | | As an example of an Eastern country? Well touché, I suppose you're historically correct, but what I had in my mind for this distinction is not the line in the middle of Europe (between the First World and Second World), but that between Europe and Asia. Sorry if I miscommunicated. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | marcosdumay 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > when part of their reasoning and authority is based on a divine mandate If you are atheist is becomes rational to surrender to the people that are invading your house and killing your friends at random? |
|
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | nerfbatplz 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The Iranians just hit an F35 with a proverbial box of scraps they put together in a cave. The Chinese military must have experienced collective euphoria when they saw that. |
| |
| ▲ | 9cb14c1ec0 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | To be clear, that F35 was being incredibly careless, flying low in broad daylight. All the stealth features of an aircraft are useless if you can look at it with your own eyes. In any conflict with China, F35s would not be flown that way. | | |
| ▲ | pjc50 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | In a direct conflict with China, the ICBM exchange would destroy the F35s on the ground. | | |
| ▲ | elzbardico an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | There won't be a direct conflict with China, at least not in the last 10 years, because the US first needs to complete de-coupling his economy from China more, re-industralize in-shore or at least near-shore, and dramatically build up its military and logistic capabilities to fight an expeditionary campaign on China shores. China also is not stupid, and no matter how much they posture, they won't invade Taiwan. | |
| ▲ | mrguyorama 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | China doesn't seem to think so. China believes they need to fight those F35s in the air. Why would the opening salvo be ICBMs? | | |
| ▲ | don_esteban 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | To deny the US the use of any nearby airfields (Okinawa, several others in Japan an Philippines). This will limit US airpower to carriers, which are few and sinkable. Of course, China wants to be able to fight those F35s in the air - to mitigate the damage they can do to them (while the F35s still have airfield/carriers to land on) - also in order to make it easier to sink those carriers. Still, you can bet that all US nearby airfields would be peppered very early in the conflict. |
|
| |
| ▲ | iso1631 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You're holding it wrong? How many cheap-ass drones could you buy for the cost of one F35. 100k? A million? | | |
| ▲ | breppp 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | None of these reached Israel from Iran this war, so maybe their superior quantity is not enough | | |
| ▲ | don_esteban 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Iran does not have a million of them, the numbers they have are better utilized on targets in Gulf states. If Iran launched 10000 Shaheds towards Isreal, you can be sure quite a few would get by. Maybe Ukrainian drone interceptors can be made cheap enough to be good enough against massed Shaheds. We are still early in the new paradigm, there will be significant developments. | | |
| ▲ | fpoling 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | APKWS interceptor is about 35K USD and works much better than drone-based interceptors. The problem is to scale the production, training and deployment. Another problem is detection. One needs wast multilayered system that US military missed to build as big stationary radars are very hard to defend. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | nerfbatplz 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | To be clear, Trump announced that the US had destroyed Iran's air defenses, missiles and missile launch capabilities. Trump also said that the US enjoyed air supremacy over Iran and were flying when and where they wished. Maybe one of these days we'll see a B-52 take off with JDAMs and not JASSMs but probably not, kind of scary to try and drop gravity bombs on a country that your stealth fighters can't fly over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tohttYlvFvU | | |
|
|
|
| ▲ | varispeed 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| You miss the fact that many adversaries will not act rationally. |
| |
| ▲ | iso1631 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, if it was acting rationally the US Would not have spent billions trying to blow up an 80 year old man while massively increasing the price of oil and fertiliser globally leading to economic instability But the US has not acted rationally. It hasn't since January 2021. | | |
| ▲ | varispeed 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | There could be a rational explanation if you assume US administration is compromised by Russia and Ayatollah's son wanted him out to assume power. One phone call to Putin, Putin's one phone call to Krasnov and everyone is happy. Son gets the power, Russia gets sanctions lifted, higher oil price, US and allies spend kit that cannot be now sold to Ukraine, Krasnov gets to play the stock market. Win-win-win. | | |
| |
| ▲ | baxtr 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Especially when they're optimizing for afterlife. | | |
| ▲ | elzbardico an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | A big part of the US involvment in the current war is driven by Christian Zionists, that literally believe that there needs to be a fucking end-of-the-times war in the region so Christ comes back. | |
| ▲ | breppp 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The fact that many Iranian officials optimize stealing millions from the state, means they aren't optimizing for the afterlife | |
| ▲ | keybored 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This thread is talking about how the adversaries will attack America based on the current events that Iran is counter-attacking Israel and American bases since Israel and America invaded them illegally. Lots of smugness about the supposed irrationality of the adversaries considering that backdrop. |
|
|
