About 50 percent of Chinese oil comes from the Gulf. How much is China willing to contract for their proxy while they are potentially preparing/posturing for open conflict in the ~2027 window?
I think China could go either way here. If American troops are on the ground, I can see the Chinese funding an insurgency against them. Remember, an oil embargo is inevitable if what you're saying about 2027 is true. However, on the other hand, I can also see the Chinese trying to end the conflict ASAP to restore the flow of oil. That's why I included China as a party to the minesweeping operation.
I don't think anyone in the administration is talking about a ground invasion. I was going to say "considering a ground invasion," but the Pentagon is paid to plan out all sorts of things, so they probably have a plan for that, but I'm positive Trump would not OK it.
The "scale" of Iran is not fully grasped by many superficial observers. While the regime might have relatively low support, Iran's geography and rather decent human capital do not suggest a ground invasion would be a good idea.
Yes Iranians are incompetent browns and Israelis are high IQ Übermenschen, trained and evolved over years of uh unjust persecution. I have full confidence they can handle this-and any other future tests on their own.
I don't think a ground invasion is a good idea either, but you're significantly overestimating the costs of one. Your biggest issue is you haven't properly articulated what the aim of a ground war would be.
Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, or Korea, there wouldn't be any hope or intention of occupying and enforcing a specific order in the country. All the US/Israel alliance needs to accomplish is 1) Capture or destroy the nuclear facilities, 2) Destroy Iranian missile and drone production, 3) Control the coastline along the Strait of Hormuz, 4) Cripple the central government.
All of this is doable for a fraction of the costs you laid out for a full-scale war of conquest.
A plausible alliance campaign could look something like this:
1) Bombing campaign. All airstrips, tank depots, logistics centers, training facilities, HQs, munitions factories, government facilities, communications facilities, air defenses, naval ships and facilities, etc, destroyed.
2) Special forces drop near nuclear facilities, build airstrips, airborne troops take control and destroy them, evacuate.
3) Massive propaganda campaign calling for a general uprising with a promise of the end of sanctions and massive economic aid, large scale arming of restive ethnic minorities and any resistance blocs that emerge along with special forces assistance.
4) Amphibious coastal invasion, capture of strategic points in order to establish full spectrum overwatch of the coastline.
In this scenario, a likely outcome is the regime losing control over large chunks of the country within weeks, and a strong likelihood of the regime collapsing or "reforming" and using for peace within months. There would be casualties, and the strait would be closed to shipping, and all this would cost tens of billions, and this action would possibly have severe repercussions and unintended consequences.
But if the question is, can the US afford to invade Iran? The answer is definitely yes, if the goal of the invasion is limited to pulling their teeth out.
Would that be a problem if the US military could just treat all Iraqis as enemies? Shiite militias can do some damage when they can operate as guerrillas, but if the US isn’t trying to control Iraq or provide security, wouldn’t the US military be pretty insulated from them? What need would the US military have to interact with Iraqis at all in that scenario? Also, if the goal of the US military was just to destroy Iran’s capabilities, how costly (both in terms of lives, money, and other resources) would that be? Couldn’t they destroy so much infrastructure that whoever ruled the country would need decades to recover? Or selectively destroy infrastructure so that areas with majority minority populations would be able to achieve independence? If the goal was to destroy all of the infrastructure that makes modern life possible (electricity, fertilizer and farm equipment, water treatment and sanitation, transportation, heavy machinery, hydrocarbon extraction and processing and pipelines, any sort of complex industrial facilities, etc) how costly would that be? How much would the US military even need to engage with population centers in Iran, or with the Iranian military? Do they have good enough intelligence to be able to kill enough of the PhDs and other experts to make rebuilding not just a task of moving around physical objects, but also of training experts? The US hasn’t fought a war where the aim was only death and destruction since WWII, no? So we don’t have a good idea what that would look like now. My guess is that if the US took out Iran’s ability to make drones early in a conflict, it would be horrifying the extent to which the US military could kill and destroy with impunity inside Iran. Also note that I am not advocating for this; the sensible reaction of most countries in the world to such a thing coming to pass would be that they need MAD immediately, and Armageddon would be much more likely to happen.
My suspicion is that the real limit to US aggression against Iran is that is that US voters don’t have the stomach for atrocities like the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo, and not that the US would spend too much money or too many US soldiers would die.
About 50 percent of Chinese oil comes from the Gulf. How much is China willing to contract for their proxy while they are potentially preparing/posturing for open conflict in the ~2027 window?
I think China could go either way here. If American troops are on the ground, I can see the Chinese funding an insurgency against them. Remember, an oil embargo is inevitable if what you're saying about 2027 is true. However, on the other hand, I can also see the Chinese trying to end the conflict ASAP to restore the flow of oil. That's why I included China as a party to the minesweeping operation.
For some reason I read that as "Conor McGregor". I was like "Wait, hold up, elite MMA fighter has options on global geopolitics?"
I don't think anyone in the administration is talking about a ground invasion. I was going to say "considering a ground invasion," but the Pentagon is paid to plan out all sorts of things, so they probably have a plan for that, but I'm positive Trump would not OK it.
The "scale" of Iran is not fully grasped by many superficial observers. While the regime might have relatively low support, Iran's geography and rather decent human capital do not suggest a ground invasion would be a good idea.
i think the chances of a ground invasion are basically zero, but the americans can do a lot of damage from the air
Very true, although we've seen the limitations of that approach with Gaza. Hamas still governs the Gaza strip.
Yes Iranians are incompetent browns and Israelis are high IQ Übermenschen, trained and evolved over years of uh unjust persecution. I have full confidence they can handle this-and any other future tests on their own.
So American should stay out.
What is IPP exactly? Percentage of population that is the mean IQ?
I don't think a ground invasion is a good idea either, but you're significantly overestimating the costs of one. Your biggest issue is you haven't properly articulated what the aim of a ground war would be.
Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, or Korea, there wouldn't be any hope or intention of occupying and enforcing a specific order in the country. All the US/Israel alliance needs to accomplish is 1) Capture or destroy the nuclear facilities, 2) Destroy Iranian missile and drone production, 3) Control the coastline along the Strait of Hormuz, 4) Cripple the central government.
All of this is doable for a fraction of the costs you laid out for a full-scale war of conquest.
A plausible alliance campaign could look something like this:
1) Bombing campaign. All airstrips, tank depots, logistics centers, training facilities, HQs, munitions factories, government facilities, communications facilities, air defenses, naval ships and facilities, etc, destroyed.
2) Special forces drop near nuclear facilities, build airstrips, airborne troops take control and destroy them, evacuate.
3) Massive propaganda campaign calling for a general uprising with a promise of the end of sanctions and massive economic aid, large scale arming of restive ethnic minorities and any resistance blocs that emerge along with special forces assistance.
4) Amphibious coastal invasion, capture of strategic points in order to establish full spectrum overwatch of the coastline.
In this scenario, a likely outcome is the regime losing control over large chunks of the country within weeks, and a strong likelihood of the regime collapsing or "reforming" and using for peace within months. There would be casualties, and the strait would be closed to shipping, and all this would cost tens of billions, and this action would possibly have severe repercussions and unintended consequences.
But if the question is, can the US afford to invade Iran? The answer is definitely yes, if the goal of the invasion is limited to pulling their teeth out.
you have forgotten that american troops would enter via iraq
I am assuming that Shiite militias would be activated in Iraq to make Iraq into an effective Iranian proxy.
Would that be a problem if the US military could just treat all Iraqis as enemies? Shiite militias can do some damage when they can operate as guerrillas, but if the US isn’t trying to control Iraq or provide security, wouldn’t the US military be pretty insulated from them? What need would the US military have to interact with Iraqis at all in that scenario? Also, if the goal of the US military was just to destroy Iran’s capabilities, how costly (both in terms of lives, money, and other resources) would that be? Couldn’t they destroy so much infrastructure that whoever ruled the country would need decades to recover? Or selectively destroy infrastructure so that areas with majority minority populations would be able to achieve independence? If the goal was to destroy all of the infrastructure that makes modern life possible (electricity, fertilizer and farm equipment, water treatment and sanitation, transportation, heavy machinery, hydrocarbon extraction and processing and pipelines, any sort of complex industrial facilities, etc) how costly would that be? How much would the US military even need to engage with population centers in Iran, or with the Iranian military? Do they have good enough intelligence to be able to kill enough of the PhDs and other experts to make rebuilding not just a task of moving around physical objects, but also of training experts? The US hasn’t fought a war where the aim was only death and destruction since WWII, no? So we don’t have a good idea what that would look like now. My guess is that if the US took out Iran’s ability to make drones early in a conflict, it would be horrifying the extent to which the US military could kill and destroy with impunity inside Iran. Also note that I am not advocating for this; the sensible reaction of most countries in the world to such a thing coming to pass would be that they need MAD immediately, and Armageddon would be much more likely to happen.
My suspicion is that the real limit to US aggression against Iran is that is that US voters don’t have the stomach for atrocities like the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo, and not that the US would spend too much money or too many US soldiers would die.
I am not sure if you caught my sarcasm -- I don't cite either of them except as a joke.