Wouldn't take very many at all, we've now learned these past four years (and even the past 2 months). All you need are drones, that are pennies on the dollar cheaper than trillion-dollar militaries. Depending on the munition, a single bomb we drop on Iran could cost between $40,000 and a couple million dollars. Think of all the high-end drones you could buy instead.

Everything is changing. Including our influence.

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hattmall an hour ago | parent | next [-]

That isn't really accurate, small drones are enough to antagonize regional neighbors. They are far from being able to project influence, stabilize international trade, or even remotely protect a territory from an enemy that isn't concerned with civilian casualties.

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t-3 10 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Protecting territory is pretty pointless for many countries, who would be facing neighbors they cannot remotely match in capability. Allowing civilians to be slaughtered is a cheaper and more effective method of warfare for these. Protecting civilians well is difficult even for very well armed countries with expensive defense systems, letting them die brings many martyrs and propaganda opportunities and breeds hatred for the enemy.

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nixon_why69 18 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> project influence, stabilize international trade, or even remotely protect a territory from an enemy that isn't concerned with civilian casualties.

We just failed to do all of those things quite visibly.

Iran made a choice not to escalate to destroying desalination capabilities and that's why a lot of Saudis and Emiratis are still alive. It's not because we protected them.

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vlovich123 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Something tells me a war with china isn’t going to be carriers duking it out but carriers filled to the brim with aviation and naval drones that seek and destroy enemy craft. As Iran has shown, you don’t need to attack the USA directly to destabilize its influence. The US market economical influence has been far more important for force projection and stabilizing trade than anything else and by all accounts Trump has pissed away allies on that front too. US force projection for trade stabilization is for minor things like protecting against pirates - you don’t need million dollar missiles for that.

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esikich an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How not? Precision kills with 0 warning. You can just bring one on a plane to whatever country and have the thing charge with solar/powerlines until your target is getting coffee outside on a nice day. Or whatever.

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hattmall an hour ago | parent [-]

Ok, I'm not even sure what to reply here, that makes no sense and doesn't accomplish any of the things I mentioned. It's also not even particularly feasible and just not at all how any sort of wartime operation is likely to work at scale.

But I am sure of who I wouldn't put in charge of critical military operations.

	▲	rulesilol 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		You know the quote: Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. You've just received some first hand experience.

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regularization an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> an enemy that isn't concerned with civilian casualties

You mean like when the Zionists openly stopped food from getting into Gaza, while the western governments were backing the Zuonists? Those people concerned with civilian casualties?

An enemy unconcerned with civilian casualties, give me a break.

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daemin 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In the Russian-Ukrainian war the GPS guided shells that the USA was sending to Ukraine cost about $40k a pop, where as you can get at least a dozen drones for that price.

Even the fanciest self propelled artillery is getting destroyed by these little cheap buggers.

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jcranmer 41 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Drones are not a strategic weapon. When you talk to the Ukrainian military, with their actual expertise in drone warfare, the general consensus is that drones are an inferior replacement for artillery (note that ex-Soviet military systems are a lot heavier in artillery use than NATO military systems) that they use because they can't get the artillery shells that they need but they can get drones in sufficient quantities. It hasn't enabled any strategic breakthroughs in the Russo-Ukrainian War, it is merely served to lock in the grinding stalemate it's been in since October-ish 2022.

The US war on Iran also demonstrates the problems of drones too: the US is currently able to wage a war 6000 miles away from its shores, because of the use of an awful lot of weapons systems that aren't drones. Iran is unable to dislodge that military, or even meaningfully impact its ability to carry out said war, not 100 miles away from its shores, despite a heavy use of drones to attempt to do so.

The war also demonstrates another big issue... the continued delusion of many civilian and military leaders that strategic bombing alone is sufficient to win a war despite this failing literally every single time it's been attempted in the past 100 years.