Summarizer

Proxy war. And that's an awful lot of years and billions spent on flattening nothing, don't you think?

There are gun nut americans who truly believe gun owners would contribute an effective resistance to a modern invading army because they own an ar15. That country is deluded and everyone falls off eventually and trump may have actually accelerated the country out of it's golden age

> There are gun nut americans who truly believe gun owners would contribute an effective resistance to a modern invading army because they own an ar15. It would depend on their patience. The insurgency in Iraq was eventually suppressed (American COIN manuals were updated). The insurgency (?) in Afghanistan outlasted the patience of the invaders. So how long do the 'gun nutters' want to keep at it compared to the opposing force? Further, it's worth asking how effective, on average, is violent disobedience. Generally speaking a movement has about double the odds of success by not using violence: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44096650-civil-resistanc...

What makes you think the us army would unite against them? Sure a few nut militials would be suppressed, but if gun owners in mass are raising up that means a large controversy that the military will be aware of. The us military is not full of 'yes men' who will follow orders that blindly on home turf, a lot of them will follow. i doubt we will see this in my lifetime

And nearly every soldier playing government side would very likely have relatives on the other side. Most likely great demotivator

The 2nd amendment types are a little too impressionable for their guns to be of much use. They were soundly defeated in 5th generation warfare without the need to fire nary a shot. Less gullible americans tend to not own guns, so they were also defeated without firing nary a shot. Now America is just a big dumb worm that Netanyahu has his hooks in and uses to cruise around the desert with.

No, it is not. Russia was attacked by Ukraine multiple times and nukes are still not used. India, Pakistan and China are in various stages of conflicts with each other for decades and all of them are nuke-enabled super-powers. There are three points of having nukes: 1. Deter other countries with nukes from using them against you, or your military ally. 2. Prevent total annihilation in the war. You can lose the war, but not too much. 3. Burn the world to ashes. Very few countries can do it. It effectively forces the whole world to make sure that this scenario does not happen. So you can be sure that scenario where Ukraine conquers Russia and completely destroys it - will be prevented by the very Ukraine supporters. They don't want to live in the nuclear post-apocalypse, because there are scenarios where Russia fires every single nuclear missile on every major city on the Earth. As Putin framed it: We will go to heaven as martyrs, and they will simply drop dead. America lost several wars, recently they lost Afghanistan war and right now they're losing Iran war. They won't invoke nukes to overturn the table, they'll accept the lose.

> They won't invoke nukes to overturn the table How do you know? Trump's frustration is on the rise; at some point he very well may threaten nuclear strikes. Another scenario is, he tries to invade, an Iranian drone makes it through and sinks a big US ship, hundreds or even thousands of American soldiers die in a very short period of time. Now everyone's upset and the American public screams "revenge". Then anything can happen, really.

America has lost every war in the recent past.

Has anyone “won” a war in the recent past? In the old fashioned sense that they conquered something and used the newly acquired resources to make their own citizens lives better? The problem with the post ww2 world is that the old definition of winning a war no longer holds. You just don’t see wars of conquest very often and they don’t seem to work when they happen. The closest I can think to winning off hand is a few of the colonial civil wars. Vietnam for instance won in the sense that they outlasted the US and have a nominally communist government but it is not an outpost of the Soviet Union and it’s a major trading and tourist partner of the US. Iraq is not led by a belligerent to the US dictator and Afghanistan isn’t home to training camps for terrorists dedicated to attacking the US (yet). These were all extremely stupid, expensive and inhumane military actions. But the US never went into them to hold territory. So “there until we got tired of it” is as close to winning as it was ever going to be.

Yes, winning a war means achieving your political objectives. For example Iran wins this war even if they maintain the status quo. And they are on track to get even more, like obtaining ownership over the strait.

It hasn’t. There hasn’t been a war in centuries where America didn’t obliterate its opponent. It loses politically because its people don’t want war, but it’s defeated militarily everyone it’s engaged with.

If you can not win a war because your population is unwilling to bear the cost, then you are still unable to win (that is in fact a very typical way for a war to end). Nobody is disputing the fact that the US spends more money on arms than anyone else and has the shiniest of toys as a result, but "winning" in war is about effecting the outcomes that you want , not about whether your weapon systems are superior. The US military has clearly failed to deliver the outcome that Americans wanted in many recent conflicts (Vietnam, Taliban); counting those wars as "lost" makes a lot of sense.

People way underestimate what kind of mental fortitude you have to have to fight an overwhelming enemy. That's not something a tourism oriented country like Cuba has. At least I massively doubt that. It lacks the ideology to fight such a war, since you have to be ready to die. That's why Yemen and Vietnam won, while Venezuela folded. This is also why US "culture" is so much more powerful as a weapon than the aircraft carriers.

You haven't really made an argument of your own. You've just made a claim and presented no evidence. "Simple as that" is neither argument nor evidence nor rationale. This is no better than the people who fall back on "war is hell" to justify when they've fucked up and caused the deaths and suffering of a bunch of civilians for no good purpose. You could at least say something like "we have to bomb the people so they can be free" or "don't you know the Iranians were seconds away from nuking new York, because they have no regard for their own survival". We should "deprecate" offensive wars of choice based on lies because the opportunity cost is enormous (what could we have bought with the 200+ billion they're already looking to spend here?). Every time we do this we create more terrorists (see the blowback incidents weve already had from this war), which results in more egregious government overreach on the domestic population (see patriot act and the experience of commercial flight in today's world). And those are just some of the basic reasons. I don't have time to write them all.

> This is making a pretty big assumption that the long-term US energy mix is going to stay the way it is. It's the stated goal of one of the parties to keep or increase fossil fuel usage, isn't it? > Meanwhile the US administration flips parties every four to eight years Magic 8 Ball says "yeah, in the past, 2028 isn't looking good though" > next time they're Democrats they'll be trying to hasten that result Which will be blocked and/or immediately overturned by the current/next Republic Congress/Senate/SCOTUS/President.

The problem for a would be attacker is that the US still has enough military power to give almost any country on the planet a very bad day every day for as long as the US cares to. Historically, the way to win against the US is to survive long enough for the US to get bored and leave. The last time that happened, it took us 2 decades to get bored.

> it would ensure survival first The US was ensuring survival just fine when it was big on soft power. If you let go of soft power your remaining choices are diplomacy (which takes skill) and hard power (which takes a different kind of skill). If you go down the hard power road (which the US seems to be doing) you will end up with a very long list of eventually very capable enemies. It's a madman's trajectory and historically speaking it has never worked. I suspect it also will not work for the US.

Afghanistan took only 18 years. For the 20 years war you are probably talking about: I wouldn't call significant civil unrest in opposition of the war "getting bored"

We can remove them and do the isolationist thing as many have been clamoring for. Then we have no need for bases in Europe or the Middle East. Gulf States can figure out how to live with a nuclear armed Iran or one that has a repository of thousands of missiles to blow up gulf state infrastructure when they misbehave. We can remove the bases in Europe too, and when Russia invades Lithuania the Spanish and Germans can take care of it. Or perhaps these bases aren’t just in allied countries “at their grace”. These alliance systems don’t just solely benefit America.

> 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. Unless it's by a right-wing white male, obvs., in which case they get promoted / lauded / re-elected / etc.

US can pull out and probably should. The impetus for the blockade on the Strait goes away when the US pulls out. Even the UAE said as much as which is why they are currently trying to pass a UN Security Council Resolution stating as much and get the RoW to show enough teeth to get Iran to back down.

...also, Germany has 84,000,000 people, so definitely not half of Iran. > Having said that Iran could sink an american ship if the navy will become complaicent and will assume there are no threats. Also, this is an election year in the US, and the war is already hugely unpopular, so despite all of Hegseth's posturing, they're probably playing it extra extra safe. That's also the reason why Trump is so angry that other countries aren't willing to take the risk in their place...

I’m not sure I agree with your argument but all of it made sense until you started talking about Cuba. Iran knows that the US population really really doesn’t want a ground invasion. Right now, we have lost a handful of lives from missiles hitting US bases, but it’s not the same as a ground war. Cuba, however, would very much get a ground invasion if they start striking the US with missiles. It’s not even a question. And I also assume their leaders are not religious fanatics with any interest in martyrdom.

Iran also knows that Americans don't want high gas prices so they targeted Americans' wallets from the outset. If even a half-assed invasion attempt existed that so much as involved a single dock being damaged, the psychological damage to America would be intense. America hasn't really been invading in, what, 2 centuries? War is a thing that happens "over there", never at home. It's easy to dissociate and pretend it doesn't affect you. Once people realize they've poked a bear, regret sinks in fast.

Why do you think the number of people in Iran matters? I think most of what you said is just speculation, not founded on reality. The only thing that would stop the US from invading Iran in under 3 months is political will. Russia doesn't have the scale and power of the US airforce, or the ability to project that power using the US navy and all the bases in the middle-east. Any comparison with russia at all makes me question your entire analysis. Iran is big and geographically challenging, Afghanistan is notorious in the same sense as well, even more so by their infamous defeat and expelling of Russia in the 80's. The US invaded afghanistan in a matter of 1-2 months and held on to the country for 20 years. Establishing a FOB initially will be challenging but with Kuwait and KSA eagerly cooperating, it won't be a challenge. Drones are effective when your enemy is nearby and you can project it against them. Iran can threaten just about any US interest in the region but not the US homeland itself. They can't attack Europe because that would risk drawing them into the conflict, so their only option is to attack existing enemies in the region and do their best to inflate the price of oil. And therein is their strategy that might win the war, it isn't all the reasons you listed, but political will as a result of economic pressure. The US lost in Afghanistan, Vietnam, and even arguably in Iraq because of loss of political will to continue the conflict. But then again, the current administration will not be deterred by pesky things such as the will of the american people, they'll use it to declare emergencies and attempt to hold on to power instead. The only thing that can defeat the US right now is the republican party in the US willing to turn on their beloved dictator. > Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran. The US has bunker-busters. Even though your analysis is full of many technical flaws the most critical flaw in my opinion is how you aren't considering aerial advantage for the US, but yet you seem to think drones are an advantage. Drones are only useful at attacking pre-determined regional targets to influence political will. For the US however, unlike Russia, the US doesn't have a decrepit airforce, and doesn't flinch at launching $70~M/launch tomahawks. The ukrainain army right now isn't withstanding a constant barrage of bomber jets dropping on them. Russia is several decades behind US equivalent fleets from what I understand. The US military hasn't been sitting on their hands watching the Russia-Ukraine conflict either. They've been testing all kinds of anti-drone tech in the desert for a while now, but this is the real opportunity for them to battle-test different techniques. No one is sanctioning the US either (more like sanctioning itself), and there is no real or practical shortage of war-chest funds (unlike Russia), and having a big war every two decades means the US military-industrial complex far more capable to meet the supply-chain logistics demands. The US military certainly is the biggest in the world, dwarfing all other countries' militaries combined. But the thing most people don't realize is that is not what makes it the most capable invading force in the world, it is the sheer efficiency of the logistical effectiveness unseen the history of war before, backed by the ability to fund years-long wars without so much as flinching on the domestic economy front. I would argue that the if the political will existed, the US can invade the entire region, from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas in less time than how long Russia has been at war with Ukraine. Even if the US couldn't use the bases and airspace in Europe at all, the calculus remains the same. > This worked a lot better when the trouble spots couldn't do much to them. Huh? what do you mean? They're entirely designed to address hostilities, they're not designed establish access in a non-hostile littoral, this goes back to WW2 beachead establishments (like normandy). The carrier ships are never meant to be close to land to where they're a target, but the carrier group itself is entirely designed to establish a beachead and deploy an expeditionary force under hostile conditions. I admit, maybe my history recall is lacking, do you know of any post-WW2 conflicts where the US navy established a beach head as part of an invading force that didn't face both aerial and naval resistance? Iran and Afghanistan didn't require it, neither did Korea or Vietnam as far as I know.

I don’t think air dominance will hold up for long if a plane costs billions and a drone a couple thousand. Any interceptor rocket the US uses will set them back millions versus literal peanuts on the other side. Add that Iran is basically a mountain fortress and they’ll run out of money very quickly; disregarding that prolonging the war will be __very__ unpopular in the US. They really got themselves into an unwinnable bind

Well, no, the goal is very clear - try to somehow make reps not lose next election and take focus away from PDF files

Moving focus from PDF files has been achieved - at least for now. But how do you make reps not lose next election with this war lingering on the news?

Realistically another attack on the scale of 9/11. Republicans were in power throughout the majority of the 00s.

Rig the election? You could pass a law that makes 1/3 of the country ineligible to vote, but makes sure they won't find out until they're at the polling booth. You could also prepare your allied goons to defend polling stations.

That won't work.

I think it's extremely likely that we'll see ICE assaulting polling station lines in Democrat areas. I also think it won't be enough.

Watch and learn.

I'm not sure it will last long once we see a few videos of drone kill of US soldiers on /r/dronecombat Ukraine must defend itself against an authoritarian Russia where nobody can publicly complain about what's happening. This is not the case in the US, unless they go full dictatorship.

There is no political will in the US to spend billions of dollars and institute a national draft and have tens of thousands of soldiers dieing. That would probably cause Vietnam War-style protests if not an outright civil war

I and a lot of other centrist-leaning folks are radicalized now in a way we weren't then. Perhaps it still won't happen, I don't have a crystal ball, but right now I will only vote for primary candidates who promise to prosecute Trump's goons and plan to reject the legitimacy of any future government that does not follow through.

Indeed it did not. But Trump and the members of his administration have announced, repeatedly and explicitly, that they hate me and wish me harm. So I can't accept being governed by them or by a system that tolerates them. If they decide they'd like to apologize, and offer some explanation for how I can be sure they won't return to their misdeeds, perhaps we can hear them out.

The issues the US faces are political and humanitarian (and economic) rather than military. I don't see any compelling evidence that the US couldn't open the straits if it really wanted to, it's just that the cost in lives and hardware would be unlike anything the US has seen since Vietnam, maybe even the second world war. And of course, once you open the strait, you have to keep it open. The whole thing is a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. It should probably also be pointed out that doing nothing has a cost too, and it's probable that the bill for doing nothing over a long period of time has come due. I, like most people, never bought the WMD claims leading up to Iraq. I'm not sure what to think here. I certainly don't buy that Iran wasn't working towards getting the bomb after how well it worked out for North Korea. I can't claim to know the calculus involved in determining whether or not it's worth going to war with Iran to stop them from getting the bomb.

Seems likely to be even worse now. USS Ford out of action, removed from region due to "laundry fire" and some socks in the toilets. Also USN has far fewer carriers to deploy. Three or more were deployed continuously off Vietnam for years at a time.

There's no shortage of national security and military analysis talent in the US. There is a gigantic shortage of intestinal fortitude in the politicians. The Army tried reducing the sizeof their tank force, and had to back down after screams from Congress because it would have meant job losses in some representative's district. The US poured money into the strike fighter and littoral ship projects, despite the brass telling them it was the wrong approach. And so on. (I suspect this is one reason why Anduril have been successful, since they have fewer sacred cows that must be fed.) Now we are in a timeline where the top brass are being ejected unless they toe the Party line. I am not optimistic that this will lead to better outcomes in terms of our ability to win against adversaries.

Number 1 reason why I want to see the United States of America and its very loud citizens get a taste of humble pie in this self-inflicted crisis of idiocy with global ramifications. Even when discussing a war that's obviously gone out of hand with no easy resolution in right, there's still this air, this attitude from American commenters that somehow the might and brilliance of the US military will prevail in the end and they can restore their position as leaders of the free world. Meanwhile the rest of the world has waited 50 years for this day. Let me have a little schadenfreude with my €2.20+ litre of petrol.

> I want to see the United States of America and its very loud citizens get a taste of humble pie in this self-inflicted crisis of idiocy with global ramifications. I sympathize with the sentiment even though I am American. The problem with this is that Americans are not a uniform cohort. The people who deserve to eat humble pie in this scenario are neck deep in propaganda and their own inflated egos and will never learn any rational lesson from this despite how catastrophically it might go. The Americans who are paying attention and will understand the harm of this operation already know it's a fiasco and wish the country was doing anything but what it is doing.

> The people who deserve to eat humble pie in this scenario are neck deep in propaganda and their own inflated egos and will never learn any rational lesson from this They will turn on someone or something they can blame.

Great, you can now help genocide defenseless children, and attack countries to cause massive disruptions to the rest of the world, without much worry. Sure great strategy to get HATED, as you should be.

a strong majority of the united states citizens are against the war, despite a full court propaganda press against the right and a no-kings distraction op against the left https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2026/03/25/americans-br... don't confuse american citizens with the bought-and-paid talking & tweeting heads we are forced to live with

"No Kings" isn't a distraction, it's very tangible popular opposition, and they're certainly not in favor of the war?

It muddies the waters by focusing on divisive issues like immigration enforcement and de-emphasizing the war, preventing what could be a unified left-and-right antiwar movement. Plain anti-war protests could draw significant support across the political spectrum, so divisive issues are inserted as wedges. Same thing that happened in the 60's, when the anti-war movement went from a coat-and-tie affair to a laurel canyon one.

If you think the No Kings movement is preventing a unified front against the war, you haven't been paying attention to the political discourse in the US since the rise of the Tea Party 15+ years ago.

So Indivisible, which planned the protest, knew the US was going to attack Iran months in advance and plotted this protest to distract from it? What strategic masterminds! What opsec! The left always seemed so fractious and disorganized, but they were just wily, biding their time. But, why? Seriously, I'm sure you're smart enough to know this is absurd. Just sit down and think about it a bit.

There will be no public rapprochement between the right and the left pretty much anywhere in the world. They are fed by entirely different media machines. If you like, its a coordination problem where the various groups no longer have the commons of a shared reality to coordinate through.

It's not just the "media machines". These two sides have completely different moral values.

There is no anti-war movement on the right. The only time there is, is when a Right-winger is trying to win an election. Once said right winger inevitably starts a war, the pom poms come out.

Tucker Carlson is perhaps the most popular commentator on the right and has a significant following and he is adamantly anti-war. There is a legitimate cross-ideology opportunity here that the war party (which spans both american political parties) is desperate to keep from materializing.

I think you are ignorant about the nuances of the US right. It is not a monolithic block anymore than the US left is. Prominent right-wing figures who are against this war: - Tucker Carlson - Thomas Massie - Candace Owens - Marjorie Taylor Greene - Rand Paul - Steve Bannon - Nick Fuentes - Matt Gaetz Honourable mentions: - Joe Rogan (I know many people on HN would consider him right wing) - Charlie Kirk (in the months leading up to his death he said it would be a "catastrophic mistake") Trump's approval rating has dropped -16.7 points: this represents many of his core supporters bleeding away.

If everyone just noticed that they have to vote left the world would be a paradise /S

You can't vote left in the US, there are no left parties and no left politicians.

They don't even mention the country Iran or the war by name, because it's a DNC op and the DNC also supports war in Iran. They don't mention Israel or Gaza, because the main organizers and funders are Zionist. They have no concrete demands. It's a distraction, a release valve, controlled opposition.

The No Kings protests I saw were full of anti-war signs. I kinda assumed the whole protest was an anti-war protest primarily so I'm surprised to hear this take

Will the citizens of said country do anything to prevent their government from doing this? If no, then why does their disposition matter?

Every time someone criticises the USA for its atrocities and its ridiculous foreign policies I see this argument, that supposedly most people are supposedly against whatever bad thing is happening right now. Yet, Americans elected Trump, twice even, and gave his party control over the other branches of government at the same time. We'll see at the midterms how much the American populace really disagrees with what the government is doing.

This. Much of the most prevalent messaging on both the extreme left and the extreme right tends to be from other countries posing as Americans. It’s also difficult to even form opinions lately as the amount of lying by all outlets is nearly impossible to sift through. All we really know is that right, left, black, white, gay or straight, nobody is actually on our side anymore.

One freedom denied to Americans is that we can not provide comfort to our enemies - this is punishable by death according our constitution, so we tend to err on unwavering support for our military always. Many Americans may be absolutely against this horrible, barbaric, idiotic action in the Middle East, but they might wisely not want to talk about it. So let me say "Thank you to all American troops for your service, God bless America. Our military is the only reason we have peace and freedom." - this is my official public opinion as an American and I would never have at least two witnesses catch me saying anything different.

The US public discourse is so dehumanized today that anyone who is not "with them" is literally not a human anymore. Even within the country itself "the leftards" are considered an obstacle which can be removed if only enough force is applied. Sending armed agents at protesters is seen as being the same thing as sending pest control to clear out beaver dams on the creek. Nobody cares what the beavers think, they are not human, they do not have feelings. They are simply a menace to be dealth with.

There aren't a lot of alternatives - the amount of mass killing going on right now is unusually high. People can't spend all day frothing with moral outrage at the horror of it all. If something is routine there isn't much of an alternative than to discuss it as routine. This article is actually unusually good, I wouldn't be surprised if the site was generally anti-war. It isn't unusual for the level of analysis to be "we're the in-group, we're morally right, they're the out-group, we can't imagine they're competent, lets kill them it'll be easy". The moment people start doing serious analysis they become well-armed pacifists. As a case study; this war is part of a trend of the US hurting itself in aid of ... nothing useful for the US. The only silver lining is I don't see the Trump presidency surviving this and that might be a lesson to the next guy about trying to start fights.

Ukrainians are unimpressed that US no longer supports war to exhaustion. US in unimpressed that Ukraine supported other side in elections Problem is that US wants to distance itself instead of ending the conflict

US doesn't actually have a way to end the Ukraine war. It doesn't have a way to end the Iran war either. Other than unconditional surrender.

Okay, let's assume most of their steel is Chinese (I have my doubts because, yet again, more conspiracies), we only import a quarter of the steel we use. That would hurt losing it overnight, sure, but we wouldn't be absolutely toast like the autarkists are saying. These takes are much more doomer than I'm willing to bet the supporters of "bring everything back" realize. Do you have no faith in the US economy / populace adapting to a hypothetical all out war with China?

Personally I have little to no faith in the adaptability of the US workforce for such things. It would be a generational shift. Exceedingly few people even have basic mechanical skills these days. It’s not like WWII where you have a majority population that works on the farm or in a factory with their hands, and at home fixing stuff that breaks. That sort of population can be rapidly redeployed. We would need to start from the basics like “how to turn a screwdriver” for a huge portion of the workforce. When you really start looking into things, nearly everything points back to China at some point. Pharmaceuticals? The APIs or at least important precursors largely originate there - even if they hit a middleman country first. Then you get into basic components and it’s the same story. That part from India or Mexico might not be available without China as a backstop. It’s not an impossible problem, but it’s a problem that took decades and a generation or two to destroy. It’s far easier and quicker to destroy things than build them.

I agree the situation is dire, but do not underestimate the US government’s ability to spend its way to gain a desired result. The first time a bullet hits US soil there will be 50 million people falling over themselves to manufacture shoes by hand if it helps “kill the bad guys”

I doubt that. If American soil was threatened I think you would see a mass mobilization. People like living in America and they won’t give it up easily. I know I would join. See how long Ukraine has lasted with far fewer resources. Americans are fat and happy now but we are not always this way.

I think the majority of Americans are on Ukraine's side but of course the president has other ideas. The UK has some Ukranian drone manufacturing going on https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0dvjwygk1o

> I think the majority of Americans are on Ukraine's side but of course the president has other ideas. I think that it's understood that when we use shorthand such as "US is not supporting Ukraine" that it is the respective governments that we are discussing. The point about the "majority of Americans" is true enough (though you might say that the majority of Americans care about the price of gasoline and groceries and little else politically) but it is rather irrelevant if the administration does the opposite. In other words, "thoughts and prayers from people" is not enough to make you an ally. Money and policy is the real thing.

Well, regardless of technology, the space of things you can accomplish without risking your own troops' lives is very small. (Unless you're willing to go nuclear, which has the pesky downside of ending the world.) To put it in perspective - in Vietnam, opposition forces lost over a million troops and continued to fight viciously. The US lost around 50,000 and gave up and left. Democratic countries simply lack the stomach for this kind of thing (which is a good thing, really).

I think being the "home team" makes swallowing those casualties easier (as easy as they can be, anyways); it's easy to perceive the situation as a fight for your life. Obviously, there were other things going on in Vietnam (and Afghanistan and the larger War on Terror) to keep them fighting but it's much easier to muster up the manpower when a war seems existential because it's happening in your neighborhood.

As opposed to democratic countries like the US or UK which would just lay down their arms after a few tens of thousands of their soldiers were killed in the event of a foreign military invasion on their territory?

You can lose in chess if you run out of time, even if you have an overwhelming piece advantage. US leadership has made some questionable decisions that effectively turned their game (and only their game) into ultrabullet kriegspiel.

You over estimate the American publics capacity for critical thought and reflection. Most Americans will come away from this humiliation thinking we just need to increase the military budget

Sure, they will find out it is a good military. No doubt about that. What the US has found out repeatedly but fails to acknowledge is that the opposition proves to be a match. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia have shown just how deep reserves of human resilience and arsenal of guerrilla tactics they have. This doesn't fit the US's mindset about how war is to be waged. Meanwhile, the American public wants a quick skirmish and a bold "We WON" claim .. it has no appetite for body bags coming home and the price of oil rising. Which is why if China makes a move on Taiwan, the US can do nothing.

> the price of oil has gone up considerably (that may have been an actual objective) Even Trump isn't that dumb. There's a reason he dialed the tariffs back so much; price hikes lose elections. If there's one highly visible product of whose price all Americans are keenly aware, it's gasoline. And on top of that, it affects the price of pretty much everything else too. I thought the tariffs would be his undoing but jacking up the price of gas is even worse for him.

> there has to be a real purpose. Escorting a bunch of privately owned oil tankers to bring down the price of gas does not really cut it. While I agree with you in principle, if I have learned anything about politics it is that under whatever political system you care to invent, the people will definitely demand war and a navy to escort private oil tankers if it means they get to drive for $0.01 less per gallon.

> either involves ground troops or leaving without opening the strait. These options are not mutually exclusive. > That is not to say Iran is winning. They are though, the US administration has already lost it's patience, their strategic objectives (whatever they might have been have clearly not materialized), the talk about talks may very well be the administration preparing to make a bunch of concessions proclaim victory and walk away. As it's possible for both parties to lose, a party can win all the battles and lose the war.

What if Iran escalates when US decides to go? I don’t think US can go without leaving a power vacuum, which, given current forces positioning, would benefit Iran most probably. I don’t see a path to helping Gulf nations, which will pragmatically be inclined to work with Iran as neither of them can leave like US can.

>"That is not to say Iran is winning" This will sure warm one's heart when that one can no longer afford things.

Normally I wouldn't think the American public would be so shallow. But just tonight, while getting gas just outside St. Louis, a young woman was having an absolute meltdown outside her car about the price of gas being $3.65 a gallon. Wild. So, yeah, perhaps the price of gas is high enough that the public would tolerate some heavy collateral damage at this point.

>"So, yeah, perhaps the price of gas is high enough that the public would tolerate some heavy collateral damage at this point" Or realize who had caused the whole thing.

That might require thinking instead of feeling.

Number one Google search on our last Election Day: "Did Biden drop out?" Informed electorate, this is not.

The issue is that the administration has kicked the bee hive, and is now claiming that securing passers by from angry bees has nothing to do with them. Its a great way to diminish what lingering shreds of trust the (hopefully) former allies of the US may still have had. The US has better ways to decrease oil prices internally that commit to losing boats in the strait.

> the people will definitely demand war and a navy to escort private oil tankers if it means they get to drive for $0.01 less per gallon. This was more true in the 70s: the various fuel economy improvements mean that the impact is reportedly less than half this fine, and the millions of people who bought a hybrid or BEV don’t even notice. I think there’s less of an “war at any cost” bloc now, especially after the humiliating collapse of the last Republican president’s big Middle Eastern learning opportunity, and a lot of people would be willing to abandon Israel to fight Netanyahu’s war alone if it saved them money at the pump.

Ever play Doom (2016)? It's about renewable energy. Pesky little-- very minor --side effect that it's extracted from Hell, and using it causes the denizens of Hell to spill over to our side. One would say they are "unleashed". By raising the price of oil so much, our dear leader is trying his level best to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.

US forces are not partisan and not culled, they're mostly the same entity they were last year, but with a few Generals asked to retire. (Edit: highly professional I might add. There are quirks, and obvious hints of 'nationalist bias' - but that's to be expected. They are not the 'cultural problem' we see on the news - at least not for now. They lean 'normal') The current Joint Chiefs is a bit obsequious but he's not crazy. These are very sane people, for the most part. They may be pressed to do something risky, like land troops at Kharg island, but not completely suicidal. That 'risk' may entail getting a number of soldiers captured, but that's not on the extreme side of military failure, it's mostly geopolitical failure. It would certainly end DJT as a popular movement. Having a ship hit, or a few soldiers captured - and this sounds morose - is normal. That's why they exist. It's the political fallout that's deadly. They won't do anything to crazy. The craziest thing they could do is 'full invasion' and Congress won't allow that. It's very unpopular and DJT has populist instinct as well - he's trying to 'find a way out'.

- So I meant militarily. Yes - you're right, they could totally do something as stupid as attack civilian infrastructure. I totally buy that. - Congress is in charge. First - they need budget, and the GOP majority has zero appetiate for approving this. Remember that most of the GOP dislike Trump, and they also don't like this war, it's risky to the US - and - their own jobs. So the GOP finds ways to 'resit' Trump without sticking their neck out. They do this collectively by grumbling and not passing legislation. The majority leaders tell Trump 'We just don't have the votes for it!' thereby not taking a position against Trump, more or less 'blaming the ghosts in the party' kind of thing. That's very different than passing legislation that reels Trump in, that's 'active defiance'. So by 'passive defiance' and not approving $, the majority holds the Admin back. Remember that nobody wants this, not the VP, not Rubio. Hegseth is a 'TV Entertainer'. The Defence Establishment and Intelligence Establishment knows this is stupid. 80% of Congress wants it over now. If DJT has 65% poularity and 75% for the war, the equation would tilt, but as it stands, there is not enough political momentum. But anything could happen ... The death or capture of US soldiers could strongly evoke people to move one way or the other.

Sinking a US ship would be a drastic escalation. Iran has done a lot of damage to US assets but inflicted few casualties, demonstrating both capability and restraint. If they destroyed the American boomers' few remaining illusions of supremacy by sinking a ship and potentially killing hundreds of crew, the loss of face would likely instigate a drastic response that could lead to a worst-case scenario. Much better for Iran to keep playing bloody knuckles and force the US and Israel to beg for peace when their missile defenses and appetite for war run dry.

Interesting to see three entirely different responses to my question - but I think I believe this one the most. Not necessarily that they could be successful in attacking (who knows), but that trying would escalate things on the wrong timeline for them. At this point, they actively want to drag this out. My sense at the moment is they are pursuing a "humiliation" strategy where they will persuade Trump to withdraw by making it too embarrassing to continue. For that, all they have to do is make him look impotent, which they achieve by continuously provoking just enough to force a response (either military, or Trump to issue yet another TACO threat he can't carry through with) but then popping up a few days later with a new attack showing it didn't work.

Brightest minds of US were too focused on displaying ads and making teenagers addicted to tik tokies-like stuff instead of working security, defense, etc You couldve seen anti militsry industry sentiment on HN for years, which apparently worked for US adversaries, who knows who was behind that propaganda :) Inb4: im from eu

The US no longer uses its army for defense. Nobody in their immediate region dares attack them, they're too powerful ("Godzilla", in the words of John Mearsheimer). All the wars that the US has fought since WWII are nothing to do with defense. Just look at the Wikipedia article on "power projection": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_projection The leader image is ... a US aircraft carrier (the USS Nimitz). That's what the US uses its military power for, to influence events in lands far, far away from its territory. But, now, tell me which one of the many wars that the US has fought in after WWII did not end in disaster. Afghanistan? Iraq? Korea? There was a meme doing the rounds the other day: "Name a character who can defeat Captain America". The answer being "Captain Vietnam". The US has faced humiliating defeat after humiliating defeat while bringing death and destruction and immeasurable misery to millions around the world. That is what HN users seem to have an "anti" sentiment for. If you watch the news you'll be able to tell that this goes far beyond HN. The whole of US society seems to be extremely tired with those "forever wars", those senseless excursions to faraway lands, that not only do not secure US interests but turn world opinion more and more against the US. Even the US' closest allies now fear the US: vide Greenland. Anyone with more than a video game or comic book understanding of how the real world works would do well to be concerned. Edit: also from EU, btw. Greek but living in the UK.

>The whole of US society seems to be extremely tired with those "forever wars", This is the main thing I would disagree with, as an American who rubs elbows with conservatives quite a bit. A large amount of Republican and conservative Americans want war. They're primed for a war they haven't had this generation. There are a lot of relatively young conservatives who are eager for war. A weird number of Republicans don't think we lost Iraq or Afghanistan, or a few other wars, so they aren't tired of it yet. Like 15-25% of Americans also believe in some form of the end times prophecy involving Israel. I'm not kidding about this. The number really is that high. A lot might not openly state that they believe in it, but they were raised under a religious teaching that says it will happen. Hegseth, literally, has a crusades tattoo and openly talks about eradicating Muslims on his weekly or monthly sermon. But yes a majority of americans, like 60%, are extremely tired of ongoing wars. But I can also drive to towns in the western US where trump still has majority support and they will openly say they support the Iran war. America is really polarized and a lot of conservatives only talk about this stuff to family now. I grew up super rural and have to deal/work with very religious conservative Americans often enough. There are a lot more of them than people think. They've just learned to self-segregate and keep to themselves and say things a certain way.

As an American, I think a better metric for outcomes of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq is: were we trading with the before the war and are we trading with them one generation after the war ? The same is even true of WWII, a more important marker afterward is that we spent the rest of the 20th century trading prosperously with Japan and Germany. Korea: the south became an economic powerhouse with whom we now trade for critical computer components and is a generally reliable ally in the region. Vietnam: we now trade with them happily and enjoy generally productive relations, largely because they fought us for less than two decades but fought China for centuries and centuries. Iraq: we aren't yet a generation past, but the government they have now is better than what they had under Saddam Hussein, even if it was almost immediately subverted by Iran. And jury is out on Iran because that hot war just started. Afghanistan: we aren't yet a generation past, but very likely the most clear failure in this list. I remember thinking in high school (during the active phase of the war): "if we actually want to make a difference, we'd have to stay a century or more, and we don't have the will to do that the way the British or Russians tried to, and even they ultimately failed to make any local changes." Europeans also need to realize that everyday Americans don't actually care about Europe very much and never truly have . It took the Lusitania to get us into World War I, Pearl Harbor (and Hitler's declaration of war) to get us into World War II, and the credible threat of the Soviet Union to keep us in Europe for decades after the war. The husk of Russia at the center of the Soviet skeleton isn't a credible threat to America, and the American reversion to the mean of isolationism began as the Cold War ended. That reversion completed sometime between 2010 and 2015. There is a new credible threat, but that is China, and even to well informed Americans Europe is slipping from their attention. Most people in Trump's government probably don't care that much about reopening Hormuz quickly. Gas prices are only truly spiking in U.S. states where local environmental regulations have obstructed access to domestic and regional supply, and the largest of those states (i.e. California, New York) have broken against Republicans in every Presidential election (9 of them in a row) since the end of the Cold War.

> You couldve seen anti militsry industry sentiment on HN for years, which apparently worked for US adversaries, who knows who was behind that propaganda Me.

What makes you think what the US, most probably at the behest of occupiers of Palestine, is going to do wonders for sentiment of the general public towards the US military industry? The anti-military sentiment is justified and will probably grow as more people wake up to the terrorising and dual faced nature of the US.

The U.S. can't win this war. John Kiriakou did a nice analysis on this on his recent podcasts. "Iran just has to prolong the war and survive it to win". Trump on the other hand needs a decisive win fast, or the economic and political fallout will be too big. As long as Iran can launch cheap drones and keep a small but steady pressure there is just no path out of this for the U.S. except to go home.

I have seen the same from other sources https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/ > This is the second sudden bombing campaign the country has suffered in as many years – they do not want there to be a third next year and a fourth the year after that. But promises not to bomb them don’t mean a whole lot: establishing deterrence here means inflicting quite a lot of pain. In practice, if Iran wants future presidents not to repeat this war, the precedent they want to set is "attacking Iran is a presidency-ending mistake." And to do that, well, they need to end a presidency or at least make clear they could have done. Can they do that: yes, keep Hormuz shut until much closer to November, and "the economic and political fallout will be too big."

> They seem resilient but I wonder how much they would be close of falling While neither of us have any special insight into that, and no-one has certainty, I urge you to read the essay linked, as this topic is in fact discussed with historic examples. "There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad ... There is a great deal of ruin in a nation." You are right that the the Iranian regime's short and longer term goals align. But, happenstance or not, they are aligned and likely will stay that way.

> That’s the thing there is no stopping it now. Trump walks away and ... Right, Short of unconditional surrender, it is very hard for one party in a war to just end it without the other side also agreeing to cease. Otherwise, walking away just lets them target your back.

Id personally like to know why we are expending our taxes waging war on behalf of a sociopathic nation who just passed a law to legalize the death penalty for those specifically not a part of their special ethnoreligeous group? They are literally celebrating by carrying around NOOSES.

All establishment media, thinktanks and both parties are pro US imperialism in general which necessitates wars of aggression, you have to read this critique more like it's taking place within the pro-war group. Like everybody is agreeing with the Iran war in principle thats not even up to debate anywhere in the mainstream. It wouldn't even occur to most Americans that "no wars at all" is even an option to begin with. To most, their "freedom" and safety depends on wars thousands of miles away. One example you can look for (it's everywhere) is in the way Chinese military capabilities are discussed by media like that, what is often brought up against them is "the lack of experience", without a hint of irony alongside the implicit view of china as the dangerous aggressor and rival. Imperialism is just the air they breathe, they don't notice it at all. Peaceful coexistence is not an option.

Iran already had severe water problems. Attacking the water infrastructure would definitely cause huge civilian casualties. Israel is used to that. Not clear whether America is ready to go into the midterms with an official policy of US-flagged genocide.