Summarizer

> 50% of PRODUCTION, not plants, as in a few plants responsible for 50% of US refinery / LNG production. This is making a pretty big assumption that the long-term US energy mix is going to stay the way it is. The primary historical impediment to electric vehicles was high up-front cost, in turn driven by high battery costs. However: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-pric... We're soon to have electric cars (and trucks) that cost less ICE ones, on top of the lower operating costs. Which in turn cost even less when more solar and wind are added to the grid because the "charge more when power is cheap and less when it's expensive" thing lowers their operating cost even further and reduces the amount of natural gas you need in the grid because periods of lower renewable generation can be offset by deferred charging instead of natural gas peaker plants. Even without any purposeful efforts to do anything about climate change, the economics point to fossil fuels declining over time as a proportion of energy. Meanwhile the US administration flips parties every four to eight years and the next time they're Democrats they'll be trying to hasten that result rather than impede it. Which makes a long-term strategy of building the capacity to target petroleum infrastructure something that could plausibly be increasingly irrelevant by the time it would take to implement it.

The biggest effects would be economic, and would drive any sensible country away from a reliance on Gulf Oil. The US is essentially a military/petro-oligarchy wrapped inside a republic pretending to be a democracy. If the global oil economy is badly damaged, the US will be badly damaged with it. This isn't about who can blow the most shit up. It's about global standing in the economic pecking order, which is defined in part by threat credibility, but also by control over key resources. If some of those resources stop being key, that's a serious problem for any hegemon. We're seeing a swing towards global decarbonisation, and this war is an ironically unintentional turning point in that process. The US has had decades of notice that this is inevitable, but has failed to understand this.

> The US can't just pull out, either. Watch orange man pull that one out. There are no rules of behavior anymore, he can do whatever the fuck he wants, laws, treaties, morals, future and so on be damned, ego whims dominate the decision chain. Who is going to do anything. The only exception is israel, they seem to have a massive leverage on him and utilize it to the fullest. Also he and his clan are heavily gaining from insider trading on those huge swings, we talk about billions here on just closest circle and everybody knows this. Also, US is gaining on big oil prices, another reason to sow more chaos. Not happy times ahead.

> This is a real problem for the U.S. Navy, because they've invested heavily in craft intended to operate near hostile shores. It's a great sign for the US military as a whole: That is the primary American tactic to defeat China, using land forces hidden on the First Island Chain with anti-ship missiles, to control the seas around China. More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47584795

A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. There is value in much of what you're saying in your post, even though I don't necessarily agree 100% with all of it. However, no one involved in planning or starting this attack, underestimated the size of Iran at all. All of that would have been covered by all briefings. The US admin and military knew all of this, and frankly has planned all of this. The US has some of the most capable spy networks, knowledge, and military experience on the planet. And yes, even the current admin takes advantage of this. So the real question is, what is the end goal? None of the noise we hear from mouthpieces is really it. I suspect that causing trillions in damage to Iran is likely simply it. A bloody nose. I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this. The US military, and daily briefings have all covered every aspect of what's been happening in the Ukraine war. They know. They've been studying it. They're not surprised by it. They 100% knew that Iran has been supplying drones to Russia in vast quantities. What I strongly suspect is that Iran is being given a message. One it didn't listen to when it was bombed months ago. Don't help Russia. Don't align with China. Don't sell oil to China. And also? Right now, all those drones made-in-Iran? All the munitions. All the missiles. All the tech they've been shipping Russia? It's ground to a complete halt. So whether or not Iran was stubbornly going to continue to export these things to Russia, it can't , as it needs them domestically now. Russia is now cut off from that supply chain, because Iran needs it for itself. If you look at what's happening, Russia has been forced to withdraw from the world stage as it is bled dry by the Ukraine war. It first pulled back from Syria, and it (Assad) fell. It pulled out of Cuba, out of Venezuela, all troops and aircraft and support. Russia has ceased to be a world power, it's literally done. It's become nothing but a regional power, incapable of projecting any power on the world stage. The Ukraine war is serving its purpose. The West and the US are only supplying enough weaponry to keep Russia bleeding. Never enough weaponry for the Ukraine to win, never enough support, the US just trickles weaponry to them. The Ukraine just serves one purpose -- keep Russia fighting, keep it off the world stage, keep it bleeding all its power and might until it's a complete empty husk. Yet as Russia has pulled back, China has attempted to moved to fill that vacuum. It's been buying oil from places like Venezuela, and Iran. It was extending soft power into Cuba. The US cannot tolerate this, and back to the start, I suspect that this is also a secondary message being given. A message to China. "Don't do this". Cutting Russia and China off, each for different reasons, could be viewed as a good success for the US. My thoughts are -- what's next? What other thing does the US want to cut off from China, and Russia? Because I suspect that's where things will pivot to. -- (One thought here is, about exit strategies, is that just walking away and leaving the straight Hormuz a mess, will literally force Western allies to police that straight with their navies. The US has been pulling back from policing shipping lanes world wide over the last 20 years, and unhappy with its allies for not taking up the slack, or what it deems a "fair share". With Hormuz, US allies will be forced to take up the slack, an interesting outcome. This too would be an immense success for the US.)

> will literally force Western allies to police that straight with their navies If it can't be done by the US navy, it can't be done by Western navies either. What will actually happen is the Eastern countries (including Australia for this purpose!) will just pay the toll. Much cheaper than a military operation. Iran has already achieved an important objective: getting un-sanctioned. All this "message" stuff? That's not coming in the public messaging. > If you look at what's happening, Russia has been forced to withdraw from the world stage as it is bled dry by the Ukraine war. It first pulled back from Syria, and it (Assad) fell. It pulled out of Cuba, out of Venezuela, all troops and aircraft and support. Russia has ceased to be a world power, it's literally done. It's become nothing but a regional power, incapable of projecting any power on the world stage. This has certainly happened, but Russia can stop at any time. It's their Afghanistan (again) or Vietnam. Your analysis also completely leaves out the EU and rNATO role. > It's been buying oil from places like Venezuela, and Iran. It was extending soft power into Cuba. The US cannot tolerate this, and back to the start, I suspect that this is also a secondary message being given. A message to China. "Don't do this". Intercepting international trade on the seas is just piracy. China may get the message but they're under no obligation to respect it.

The US didn't refill it's own strategic oil reserve before it attacked and raised its own oil prices, there is no foreseeable exit strategy where Iran doesn't now effectively own and charge usage for the straight, and Russia (and Iran but I digress) are now more able to sell their oil than before, bolstering their economy and helping them continue to attack Ukraine.

It's not just drones, but parts for drones. It's also munitions, shells, missiles. It's about production volume. The Ukraine is also getting large supplies of the same from the West. No side can produce domestically, what the other can product domestically + import. The imports matter. It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however? In terms of oil, the US has recently cut China off from Venezuela as well. Short term supplies are important, "the future", a cloud of probabilities about oil shortags helping China, is not immediately apparent. It's suffering shipment halts from two lead suppliers now, both which were non-open market shipments, and volumes are unclear. I wonder, what if the Ukraine suddenly stepped up and crippled deliveries of Russian oil to China? Or what if Saudi Arabia was told "don't do that". From where I sit, it's China that's being most directly affected by these actions in terms of energy supply.

> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. > Is this accurate, however? Note that as long as there is a risk (even 1 to 20, maybe 1 to 100) that your tanker will be attacked, you just won't sail. (The logic of commercial shipping.) Hence, blocking Hormuz does not mean total blockage, just a credible threat. How do you propose to stop such a threat? Adding warships to the mix, to shoot down incoming drones, simply adds those warships to the risked assets. What happens if a couple of escorts are hit/sunk? We were not able to stop Houtis. What makes you think we can stop Iranians? I do not understand this whole "Cripple China" thing. What do you think will happen if China decides that US is REALLY GOING AFTER IT NOW? Maybe it will be enough for them to just stop shipping crap to US. What will the US do if suddenly the shop shelves become empty, CCCP-style?

This reads as a Tom Clancy wet dream of American Machiavellian geopolitical maneuvering and not (what it is) yet another historic military intervention blunder - the likes of which we've seen multiple times in just our lifetimes alone (Vietnam/Iraq) - lead by some of the dumbest people to ever grace the highest positions of our military apparatus. Not only is China still receiving oil from Iran but Russias oil revenues have spiked significantly because of the conflict with the FT considering Russia the biggest winners of this conflict so far. Hard to really analyze your post because you look at geopolitics through the lens of Jack Bauer

Look at who's buying the oil for the answer to your question.

The Chinese have drone carrier ships already in fleet and I think that is likely the future addition to fleets that is necessary. I am not sure how much the era of human controlled flight is coming to an end but certainly substantial drone capability and anti drone defence is urgently required.

Carriers have been in question long before this conflict. There's been a big question as to how effective and/or survivable a carrier battle group will be in the South Pacific, especially given China's long range anti-ship missiles. There's been a whole ramp up of very exquisite technology to try to get the upper hand here, but I don't expect we'll see the carrier be the force it has been over the last few generations. It's just too tempting a target.

> ... drones Regarding drones they are, by definition, not very sturdy: for they're drones and not B52 bombers or bunkers. What's very likely going to happen is that, just I can take a Browning B525 Sporter balltrap shotgun and shoot any civilian drone from afar because the gun shoots an expanding cloud of tiny, cheap, pellets, armies are now going to come up with systems to both defend and destroy drones. I'm not saying the drones used in war are the same as DJI drones: what I'm saying is that with the proper tech, they're much less expensive to take down than, say, a ballistic missile or an aircraft carrier. Anyone seeing this conflict and thinking that the militaro-industrial complex isn't hard at work working on solutions to take down drones is smoking heavy stuff. Ukrainian and Russian did it already (although it's nothing serious, it's just an example): here we were talking about actual tiny drones, carrying explosives, and running towards vehicles. As a cheap defense measures, they started immediately adding metallic "spikes" (not unlike hairs) to the vehicles, so that the drone wouldn't reach the vehicle's body and instead explode when hitting the mettalic spikes. War has always been about "tech x" / "anti tech x". This time is not going to be different. > Though I do worry about the possibility of a more sophisticated opponent being able to launch swarms of drones and missiles at aircraft carriers. China. They're demos of thousands of drones fully synchronized in the sky at night making nice 3D patterns with everybody on the ground going "aaaah" and "wooooow" is a display of military capability. I'm not saying it's not a concern: but it's not as if the US (and others) were going to sit and think "oh drones exists, the concept of war is over".

> It isn't like they have no experience with the concept and those drones are far more capable than anything Iran has. Unless Iran bought some CM-302 missiles from China, the mere threat of which appears to mean that China and Iran now control the oil in the gulf. But ELI5 me maybe I don't understand realpolitik

> 40% comes from Mexico and Canada Where do you think this originates from? China ships a rather large amount of stuff to these countries to take advantage of the trade agreements. So much that you can find satellite images of large yards in Mexico that are used for this purpose with barely any effort.

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 have a feeling that China doesn't export much steel. They more likely export their steel in the form of finished products.

I saw hints of this ~20 years ago. I was working on software for a consumer device. For manufacturing it, we chose Foxconn. One non-negotiable point from their end was that they had to write some of the software on the device. They didn't care which part or how small. The device had a physical keyboard with a micocontroller that managed it and they ended up writing the code that ran on that micro as it was largely independent of the code we were writing, and easy for us to test. The first versions were not great, but they got better quickly. As we talked amongst ourselves about why they were so emphatic about this, it became clear to us that they were taking a long term view of the importance of moving into the intellectual property side of things. Dustin points out that, in some areas, they are there.

That talks about how they couldn't find someone US side to make the injection moulding moulds. We used to have a manufacturing business in the UK and got quotes for some moulds in the 1980s. You could get it done in the UK but the cost to get it from China was 1/5 as much. I guess people just went with the cheaper option.

This sentiment is very popular in Europe. From the perspective of the American, it's like, help was offered for 90% of the time in the Ukraine conflict, then we took a break and suddenly we are more an enemy than China. From my point of view, the pushing away is not one-sided like Europeans like to portray, but has been mutual for awhile.

Would you say we're worse than China these days (if so, what % of the time did China help Ukraine in the conflict)?

I would suggest that China are currently a more reliable partner than the US because of their predictability, given that I cannot be sure whether or not this statement alone might result in a change of tariffs for my nation at the whim of America's king. I'm still looking for congress in all of this (did they ever even approve this war in Iran?!?) but idk if the republic is a thing anymore or not.

hopefully this will all start to settle down around the end of this year if congress gets its teeth back and hopefully by the end of 2028. If it doesn't.... well then I despair, as the world I once knew is over. Already within the subreddits of my nation there is an increasingly dismissive attitude to the historic alliances that kept us safe for around the last hundred years and I can't blame them. Especially if Hormuz remains blocked and the US just walks away leaving this pile of sick of its own creation on the floor. I imagine a new rather loose coalition might rise of such a status quo and its possible that China becomes a major player in that, given its likely desire as a major manufacturer to keep trade open and shipping flowing, which is the opposite of what the US has been doing since 2025.

Both China and the USA have made many moves that benefit Putin. I would say neither party is a friend of Ukraine. China plays its own long games and the USA is being run by madmen. Why do I have to prefer one over the other? I don't like the way either is behaving on the world stage, and each for different reasons.

You seem to be completely out of touch with the way the USA has been behaving towards the EU as of late, maybe get with the times and then report back. Last I checked China hasn't threatened to take over either Canada or Greenland, has not started any major wars for which they expect the EU to pay for cleaning up their mess, has reasonably sane leadership and on top of that has been a fairly trustworthy business partner that does not engage in whim driven economic warfare. They also have a bunch of very dark sides that I am going to assume we are all familiar with. I really wonder why you think that the USA should be given a free pass for what it has done in the last decade. And that's before we get into human rights issues and other 'details'. Comparing yourself to China is not the flex you think it is. Your bio says that "Farming negative karma is not trolling when you're expressing your honest views." and that's all fine, you have a right to your honest views but if they're indistinguishable from trolling to the point that you feel you need to pre-empt that classification then maybe HN is not the place for you?

> Europeans are typically not willing to place the US above China. This is not a scalar, it is a multi-dimensional array with tons of values that all individually can be ranked. One some of these the USA is better than China on others it is definitely not. You may want to collapse that all to a single 'but we're better' picture but that is just not how the world works. > The bio is provocation for people who dig into people's profiles. I don't like to do that. I just take the person's posts as is. And that's not true either because you clearly checked my account upthread to link it to Europe.

The other poster mentioned the opinions about the US and China being multi-faceted, I like to see it with vectors. My question is, given all the vectors, can you provide an average magnitude and average direction of the vector? If the average vector points left the opinion favors China, if it points right the opinion favors the US. The American point of view is, yes we did make a claim towards Greenland which is European territory, but we also helped with European security. These are two separate vectors, right? Now average them. And plot China's vectors. I imagine the vectors China produces is much lower in magnitude, and as such provokes a lower emotional response in terms of opinions.

China has been cutting off Ukraine from direct drone supplies, they have to use front companies and middlemen.

My theory is that China is playing wait-and-see. Likely futures: Russia survives; business as usual, if much poorer. China doesn't want to poison that relationship. Russia falls; China helpfully "adopts" the orphaned Asian lands. Iran falls; turmoil follows; the USA as usual (since WWII) has no plans for afterwards. Do nothing until opportunity presents itself. Iran survives; the US falters; wait and benefit from the opening that creates. I can't see a path where China picking sides in UKR/RUS nor USA/IRAN benefits China at all.

As someone says, don’t interrupt a rival when they are making a mistake. China can gain quite a lot by just waiting on the side lines, contributing as much as they can get away with while still looking reasonable (which is quite easy, when the other protagonists are Putin, Trump, or Khamenei jr).

not sure if anybody notices, after the war, russia opens a lot of markets to chinese companys.

Paid in yuan, of course, because that's the currency they're allowed to use, because of the US. And then oil companies decide it's annoying to use two different currencies, and they would rather buy the oil with yuan as well...

The position of the article seems to me to be it 'won't' because it can't. And that is an accurate assessment. It would take much more than the forces in the region, to secure the "strait". To actually secure the strait, you have to secure the entire Persian Gulf. It doesn't matter if tankers can pass through the strait only to be blown up just of Qatar. At it's widest the Gulf is about 360 kilometers, well within the range of most drones, aerial, surface and underwater. So they would have to protect every ship in the gulf, intercept all the drones all the time, or secure the entire coastline. It's simply a task air-power and naval power can't perform. Not without major casualties and without attacks going through. The US navies ships are good for real wars, but for casualties to be accepted, 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.

Why would he care? He's not going to be up for re-election anyway and besides he's not paying for his own gas. But the price of oil going up helps russia in a considerable way and that could well have been one of the drivers (and apparently carrying water for Netanyahu).

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.

The problem is that we need to adapt to the asymmetrical aspect of drone warfare, as Ukraine has done. The best description I saw of the current state is “flying IEDs”. Drones and ballistic missiles make area denial asymmetrically cheap for a defending forces. This lesson needs to be incorporated because it would be the same tactic used by China to deny access to the South China Sea.

There is no party even capable of doing it. The Gulf coastline is almost 1000 miles long, there would have to be a gigantic occupation of an area the size of a small country, at the same time as there would be 'all out war' with Iran, which would be backed by China and to a lesser extent Russia, and whereupon an invasion would provide them with millions of determined fighters. We're talking 'Gulf War' scale of operation against a much bigger, more capable country, and of forces willing to fight. And the US doesn't even have anywhere to do it from . Assuming a Gulf country would host an invasion force - extremely unlikely - there's no magical way for US to cross the Gulf with large numbers of forces, as we can't get capitol ships in there in the first place. There's no amphibious capability at the scale necessary on the Arabian Sea. Literally just the logistics of large scale landings is almost impossible. That leaves the Kuwait / Iran border, and maybe something a bit wider. And then fight through the mountains across the Gulf? The thought is absurd, it's a 'major campaign theatre' - of which US forces were theoretically capable of fighting in two at once, but that's not pragmatic. That's 'wartime economy' kind of thing. It's possible but unlikely that 10K marines and paratroopers are going to be able to do much, because it's very risky and likely won't accomplish much.

The current situation is very dangerous. A global disruption in shipping would lead to an economic crisis that could start WW3 (imo). Also the US and Europe would be pretty fucked since we depend on it much more. China could still get resources from russia and is much more self sustained. Also China and Russia want to break the us hegemony.

> the US and Europe would be pretty fucked since we depend on it much more. China could still get resources from russia and is much more self sustained America would be fine. We have the Americas and Asia to trade with, and Iran can’t restrict those oceans in any meaningful way. Europe, the Middle East, Africa and non-China Asia would get screwed.

If drug shippers can make drones cross the Pacific for a few million a time, why can't Iran reach the Pacific shipping lanes? I think the main limit on them interfering with that shipping would be that China becomes unhappy with them, not that this is infeasible? (Also, at these prices I don't think it will be limited to Iran, or even to nations, so countermeasures will need to be invented).

America isn't getting exports from Iran, until recently they were sanctioned. More of a problem is that the biggest buyer of Iranian oil is China. I don't think that getting out of the war with Iran by starting a war with China would be an improvement.

> America isn't getting exports from Iran Single market. Every barrel China buys from Iran is a barrel it doesn’t scour the global markets for. > getting out of the war with Iran by starting a war with China China isn’t getting into a war with America over the Strait.

> Single market. Not really, they were getting discounted oil prices previously that they are no longer able to get. Also, they are a large importer of oil compared to the US, which is an exporter. They have much more to lose from high oil prices than we do.

> America isn't getting exports from Iran Single market. Every barrel China buys from Iran is a barrel it doesn’t scour the global markets for.

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.

Not even short range. With a sensor feed from an ally they can project into the Gulf of Oman, and via Yemen the entire BaM. Doubtful China would provide that because they want oil, but likely Russia would, because they want high oil prices and American humiliation.

The United States primary strategy against China, in the event of war around Taiwan or nearby, is the same: China's coast is mostly enclosed by the 'First Island Chain', which extends from Japan to Taiwan, through the Philippines and Borneo (look up a map and the situation will be very clear). Imagine strings of islands along the US coasts controlled by Chinese allies and with Chinese and allied forces training intensively there. The American plan is to keep the Chinese navy trapped (or under assault) along its own coast by putting Marines (and Army soldiers too, I think) on the islands with anti-ship missiles. The northern tip of the Philippines is as close to Taiwan as the Chinese mainland is; the US and Philippines are conducting an essentially endless series of military exercises and the US is placing some of its most advanced missiles there.

intresting.. looks like that USA also wont go well on the taiwan strait..whats the last time USA pick a enemy of it's own size and won?

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.

tumpy was/is/might be going to china in a week or so, and there is pretty much no way that can happen while WWIII is launching, and/or things are going mega bad for the marines, as there is no way they are not going find themselves in a real fight. all those islands are owned and operated by the irainian military, who in fact have complete long range artilery superiority,and every square inch dialed in, dont see how it could be done except with a full and total invasion of the wholecountry, which would likely go worse and would require a much much larger force than the one on hand, but tumpy is crazy, so who knows