This is fundamentally a failure of political leadership. You don't try to achieve a goal when you don't have the military means to achieve at a cost you are willing to bear.

There are endless numbers of military objectives that the US military that could have been sent on where they would have had no chance to succeed. That they generally weren't is a function other administrations, however bad, not being so embarrassingly incompetent as this.

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hammock 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You’re making an orthogonal point. His point was that regardless of political decision making, the US Navy has demonstrated an incapacity of controlling the Strait of Hormuz, which is bad

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fc417fc802 5 hours ago | parent [-]

No, his point is that being unable to do that was (or at least should have been) a forgone conclusion. There are many things that we know the US (or UK or Chinese or etc) military can't do and that isn't a bad thing per se.

The US navy was unable to keep hormuz secure for civilian traffic but was able to blockade it themselves. I think that's exactly the outcome you'd expect in this scenario.

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rayiner 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> No, his point is that being unable to do that was (or at least should have been) a forgone conclusion.

No, not at all. As I said, controlling straits and keeping them open for shipping is a fundamental function of a navy going back to Roman times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_navy (“By far, the navy's most vital task was to ensure Roman grain imports were shipped and delivered to the capital unimpeded across the Mediterranean.”).

The inability to keep the strait clear shouldn’t have been expected. It’s a purely military objective that’s squarely within what our ridiculously overspecced Navy should be able to do.

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fc417fc802 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It is a fundamental function in the general sense, yes. But I don't think anyone was expecting that the US could do so in hormuz in this instance (at least without committing far more assets of a non-naval variety). I also think there are plenty of examples that take the form (strong navy, narrow body of water) where failure would be expected but that doesn't mean the navy in question isn't capable or that it fails to fulfill its role.

Similarly it is a fundamental function of the infantry to maintain ground control over a region but it is easy to come up with hypotheticals where any given power including the US would fail to do so.

> It’s a purely military objective that’s squarely within what our ridiculously overspecced Navy should be able to do.

I'm sure they could if cost was of no consequence but depending on the size of iran's drone stockpiles the interceptor costs might well bankrupt us. And even then they would only manage because (I assume) iran either can't or won't employ hypersonic missiles against tankers.

	▲	rayiner 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> But I don't think anyone was expecting that the US could do so in hormuz in this instance (at least without committing far more assets of a non-naval variety). I think that’s exactly what they thought. I think this was supposed to be a quick and dirty campaign like Venezuela. > I'm sure they could if cost was of no consequence but depending on the size of iran's drone stockpiles the interceptor costs might well bankrupt us. And even then they would only manage because (I assume) iran either can't or won't employ hypersonic missiles against tankers. I think this is the part they overlooked. The military has been planning to attack Iran for 50 years. I can totally believe that they underestimated Iran’s drone capabilities and hypersonic missiles. Either way, there’s a real military lesson here. Iran has enormous leverage over the world through its control of the strait of hormuz. Even the most powerful navy in the world can’t protect the world’s oil shipments without a land war against Iran (which I expect would be a trillion dollar effort). The Iranians are much more powerful than we thought.

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rayiner 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> You don't try to achieve a goal when you don't have the military means to achieve at a cost you are willing to bear.

Did the military advise the administration it would take a lengthy ground war to control the strait? Or was it pitched as something the Navy could do without a ground occupation?

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pohl 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It wouldn’t matter if they had. He’s doesn’t listen to anything he doesn’t want to hear. At this point one can safely assume that he was told exactly how this strategic defeat would play out, and it went in one ear and out the other.

	▲	rayiner 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don’t think we can assume that. Maybe Trump ignored warnings (though if that happened I would have expected it to be leaked). But there’s also a possibility the Navy fucked up. And that’s important to consider, because that’s something that needs to be fixed.

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8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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logicchains 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>at a cost you are willing to bear.

It's pure greed. The IRGC relies heavily on oil money for funding the massive militia (hundreds of thousands of Basij) that allows it to stay in power; if that income collapsed then it would eventually lose control. Trump however not only refused to bomb Iran's oil infrastructure but even stopped the IDF from doing so, just because he thinks he'll somehow be able to take that oil for himself and his cronies in future like he did in Venezuela.

	▲	orwin 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't think that's true. The Khomeini clan do rely on IRGC to remain in power somewhat, but it also has strong influence towards the civilian government, and the OPA it ran on the Mullah at the start of the war, getting a non-mullah elected supreme leader at a very cheap price prove they rely on more than their central militia. A lot of the clans who supported the Shah during the original coup also seems to support the regime, which makes the north stable. The western part of the country, despite insurgents/independence groups, seems to have reported their hatred of S.Hussein towards the US (to be fair, the chemical weapons Hussein used to bomb their village were from the US), which means they might choose to fight the US rather than the regime. Imho the regime was made stronger because of this war. It was really a bad moment to strike. Khomeini had a cancer, and waiting for his death and the succession crisis that would have ensued would have been a better choice. Now the regime is stronger than ever. Although my real thoughts is that this strength the Khomeini project is temporary, in the sense that the only reason the regime lasted this long before was because the power was shared. If they keep pushing for more control, without sharing, they will end up loosing everything.
	▲	simonh 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I don’t think that’s it. Iran has demonstrated an ability and willingness to strike the equivalent infra in the gulf states, including the very vulnerable gas liquefaction facilities in Qatar. If the US destroyed their oil infrastructure, all that infrastructure goes. Hormuz would be irrelevant, there’d be almost nothing to ship through it. Plus given the long term reductions in the gulf supply already from damage, the world now needs Iranian oil. That’s why Trump has allowed Iranian oil already outside the gulf to be sold, was willing to drop oil sanctions on further Iranian shipments, and was so panicked when Israel hit an Iranian oil facility.
	▲	fakedang 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Bombing Iran's oil infrastructure would give Iran the casus belli to do a like for like strike on the GCC countries. Imagine strikes on Fujairah port, the Aramco, ADNOC and QatarEnergy refineries on the Gulf Coast, as well as the Yanbu and Habshan pipelines. That means effectively taking out 25℅ of global oil supply -> oil at 150-200 a barrel -> Trump and the Republicans lose the midterms badly -> Trump gets impeached. I'm sure somebody explained it to him that this is exactly what would get happened, which is why he did not overextend or let Israel do so.