Summarizer

A big mistake here was simply underestimating the scale of Iran. Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine. More than 2x Germany. More than 2x Iraq. More than any country in Europe. About 2/3 of Russia. Expecting to win a war on the cheap was a fantasy. Especially since Iran has been fighting Israel for years. On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. That finally made it undeniable that sending naval vessels anywhere near a hostile shore is a thing of the past. Countermeasures can take out some attacking missiles, but not all of them. This is a real problem for the U.S. Navy, because they've invested heavily in craft intended to operate near hostile shores. Littoral combat ships and amphibious assault ships are intended to operate offshore of trouble spots. This worked a lot better when the trouble spots couldn't do much to them. The size of Iran means that knocking out drone and missile production for long won't work. Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now. Ukraine produced 4 million drones last year, and production continues to increase. Ukraine even exports drones now. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE have been making deals with Ukraine for air defense systems. Iran exports drones to Russia. Mass-produced drones today are a simple airframe, a lawnmower engine, and the smarts of a cell phone. Ukraine has people making them in basements. Presumably, so does Iran. The US can't just pull out, either. The enemy gets a vote on when it's over. Israel, Iran, and Yemen now all have to agree. Probably the best deal the US can get at this point is a cease fire with Iran collecting tolls on the Strait of Hormuz. Worst outcome is the US attacks Cuba, Cuba allies with Iran, it turns out that Cuba has been stocking up on Iranian drones, and Cuba becomes a forward base for drone and missile attacks on the southern US.

Anyone lacking effective nuclear response can be steamrolled by those who do with total impunity. Ukraine begs to differ.

Russia pre-invasion of Ukraine probably said something very similar.

>If this happens and Cuba decides to launch drones/missiles against the US homeland, it's not an exaggeration to say that Cuba is flattened and invaded that same afternoon. I sort of think it maybe is an exaggeration, you're evidently of the opinion that the U.S happens to have enough battle ready troops with the requisite hardware positioned within a few hours of Cuba so that they can invade and flatten in the time it takes to fly from Miami to Havana? I don't know, but a Destroyer would take about 10 hours to get from Florida to Cuba. It seems your definition of invade and flatten is just dropping bombs, but that definitely does not handle the invade part of things, and it remains to be seen as to whether, with drones, being able to fly non-stop is the great technological advantage it once was. Some preliminary evidence from around the world suggests in a drone led conflict it confers the ability to have expensive hardware destroyed and pilots killed non-stop.

> But it is, the US is no position to flatten anything. The US is certainly in a position to flatten (with conventional force) anything in the Carribean, whatever failures it had in long counterinsurgencies where the logistics tail wrapped nearly halfway around the world. (And however badly it would probably fail in occupation in many of the places it could easily flatten close by, for that matter; flattening is much easier than occupying.) > Afghanistan? Lost Vietnam? Lost Ukraine? Lost Iran? Lost Ukraine? Ukraine hasn't lost and the US was never a direct belligerent in that conflict.

> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine Population size is relevant but not the most important factor. Russia has 146,000,000, more than 4x than Ukraine. It doesn't guarantee that Russia will win the war. > On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles. Ukraine also had Bayraktar TB2 overhead which distracted Moskva's crew and provided targeting information. Russia probably didn't sent a fighter to down it because skies around Ukraine are contested. Skies not only around but over Iran are not reallty contested. Having said that Iran could sink an american ship if the navy will become complaicent and will assume there are no threats. > The size of Iran means that knocking out drone and missile production for long won't work. Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now. Russia cannot fly planes over Ukranian territory. The US can fly not only F-35 but even B-52. That's a big difference. The only thing which could prevent the US from knowking out missile and drone production is insufficient intellegence.

I like the size and population take, but the industry perspective is bad: Russia doesn't have air superiority. US and Israel do. Cuba becoming a base for Shaed drones? You are out of touch with how much industry you need for that. They are cheap, but they are not FPVs or off-the-shelf Mavics.

I saw a teardown of an Ukrainian drone a while ago and I was surprised how similar the setup was to the IoT project I worked on. I could be setting up a good chunk of the software part of a similar system myself and I am not that specialized of an engineer.

Russia is a buyer of Iranian drone tech. Iran has also done a very good job marketing their maneuvering reentry vehicles in the last couple weeks.

Russian military technology has not evolved since the 90s

You have it backward, Iran is not shipping shahed drones to russia anymore its not 2022, the trend reversed and russians are teaching iranians about their mods that improve penetration chances. russians are now fully self-sufficient with shaheds. The rest I fully agree with, although its a half-assed effort that will likely backfire long term.

The non-war obsessed normies are something to behold, that's for sure. Most probably the GP has never looked at the FPV videos coming out of Ukraine, or maybe he somehow thinks that US soldiers are Terminator-like machines who would have nothing to fear from aerial drones.

In chapter 11 of All Quiet on the Western Front Paul and his unit find an abandoned food cache in the middle of no mans land. Instead of secreting away the food back to their lines where they will have to share it, they decide to just cook and eat it right then and there. But a spotter plane from the allies sees the smoke and then begins shelling their position. Cue a terrifying, if hilarious, scene where the soldiers try and cook pancakes as shells explode around them. Paul, as the last to leave, takes his pancakes on a plate and dashes out, timing his escape between bursts, and just barely making it back to the German trenches. Its a rare comic scene in an otherwise horrific and very real look at WW1. The scene in the book is just so familiar to the lines in Ukraine these days, nearly a hundred years later. Instead of spotter planes near the dawn of aviation, we have satellites and drones (similarly quite new in the role). Instead of just shells and fuzing experts, we have FPV drones and much more sophisticated shells. Instead of buddies from the same towns all huddled together in cold muddy holes, we have deracinated units spread far and wide in laying in fear of thermal imaging. This results in a no mans land again, but a dozen kilometers wide instead of a few hundred meters wide, and somehow more psychologically damaging. My point is that absent any tech that will miraculously be invented and deployed widely in the new few weeks, the Iran war, if it should be a ground one, is going to be just like Ukraine is today, which is somehow a worse version of trench warfare . Even casual Victoria II players know that WW1 is essentially the final boss of the game. And the 'lesson' of Vicky II is essentialy: Do not fight WW1, it ruins Everything . To be clear: The US is choosing to fight a worse version of WW1 without even a stated (or likely even known) condition of victory. We're about to send many thousands boys to suffer and die for not 'literally nothing', but actually literally nothing.

Ukrainian war is the way it is because neither side has a decisive advantage in air. There's barely any CAS - there are, however, lightweight drones. If Iran were to become a major ground war, one of the sides would have air dominance, and we know which one. How that would change things remains to be seen. But it wouldn't be the same exact trench war, that's certain enough.

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.

I think the poster's point is that FPV drones & accurate/advanced shells mean that you get all the downsides of WW1 trenches and no-man's land, PLUS new downsides of trenches not helping so you're constantly under threat of death no matter where you are. Plus: the more people huddle together the better the target they are, so you get to hide in small groups (or solo) in the hopes that the economics of killing just you doesn't pencil out and the drones will kill someone else while _they're_ sleeping, instead of you. If you're looking for more reading maybe start with WW1 trenches, then look for YouTube videos about Ukraine drone usage? The drone stuff may be too new for lots of writing about it, but you'll get an oblique view of it by looking at how the Russians put those roll cages / turtle shells over their tanks, etc. If you find anything and wanted to share it that would be interesting (if morbid)!

Technically, they'd be sleeping in a dugout where the entrance is covered by tarps and has ideally at least 2 turns to avoid the blast traveling inside (and potentially to make non-fiber-optic drones lose signal as they try to maneuver inside in case they get past the tarps). You're most likely to get droned when on watch or carrying supplies.

I don't know about places to read more about it, but if you want to be psychologically damaged yourself without even being a participant there is a lot of drone footage from the Ukraine war floating around on the internet. These clips highlight lots of incredibly disturbing events like Russian soldiers having exploding drones blow up close enough to them to cause eventually-fatal injuries without actually killing them, forcing them to kill themselves (and in some cases, their friends) with their own guns. Its horrific to see on a human level regardless of the political circumstances of the war and who is or isn't in the right.

> if it should be a ground one, is going to be just like Ukraine is today I do not think this is correct. The problem in Ukraine is that anti-air defenses control the skies, so the only accurate long range fires are expensive missiles in short supply. This seems to not be a problem in Iran. US forces can fly relatively cheap bomb trucks anywhere and drop ordinance on anything. Stealth aircraft and NATO doctrine apparently work. I'm not advocating for a ground invasion, but there's no reason to believe it would go the way of Ukraine.

> The problem in Ukraine is that anti-air defenses control the skies... <snip> ...US forces can fly relatively cheap bomb trucks anywhere and drop ordinance on anything. Stealth aircraft and NATO doctrine apparently work. In Ukraine, neither side has access to the air weaponry (in capabilities or volume) that the US does - so the battlefield has evolved into one of drone superiority. So yes, the US could (logistics willing) pummel Iran with B52s, B2s, and the like, maybe largely unopposed. However, this would only achieve so much: "winning" would be very different, especially when it's likely to turn into into a grinding resistance/insurgency ground war. A better analogy than Ukraine may be the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, only Iran has far more trained fighters and weaponry from the start. Or Vietnam, of course. Maybe the US could "win", but it would depend on the strength of the political will to continue losing soldiers and spending huge amounts of money; and it would certainty be seen as a "forever war". And of course (as noted elsewhere) the US' more recent forays into Iraq and Afghanistan show how difficult regime change by force is.

Iran is a large country, just getting to Tehran with large-enough force is logistically enormous task. Complicated by the fact that the logistic convoys can nowadays be trivially decimated by FPVs. Air superiority is not going to help you much against small dispersed resistance groups with FPVs (ideally fiber optics, so not detectable by emissions from afar). There is a chance that there will be similar democratization with AA (you will need proper AA missiles, the physics of reaching a fast jet flying high simply demands it), but the distributed passive targeting is made much simpler with current commodity computing and optics. Achieving AA Denial is difficult, but forcing the attacker to use standoff munitions instead of gravity bombs/close-in air support not so much: shifting the risk of losing an aircraft from 1 in 100000 to 1 in 100 will do it.

Trump already said he was just going to bomb all their infrastructure so the economy of the country couldn't function if they didn't negotiate and then it's just going to be a mass refugee crisis. It would be a mass refugee crisis anyway with a protracted ground invasion, but more Americans would die, so Trump is choosing to get it over with the easy way for America at least if they won't negotiate. IMHO, This is pretty much the strategy the Khans used in the 13th century when they encountered arrogant Islamist Sultans emboldened with the bravery of their faith who refused to capitulate. They killed all the islamic people in Baghdad and then proceeded to fill all their canals and burn all their books. This decisively ended the Islamic golden age and Europe was able to survive after a very difficult 14th century where it would probably have been easily crushed by Islamists from the East had the Khans not set them back at least a few centuries. Truly one of the big turning points in World History. Oh yeah, we can't do this to Russia because they have nukes, but the Ukrainians are trying to do it piecemeal.

In Ukraine, the USA and Russia are definitely allied. So sarcasm misplaced, I think.

I think the point being made is that before Iranian drone doctrine (they were the originators of the long range drones, the FPV drones and sea drone which have dominated the Ukraine way too). A US CSG could simply sit in the Hormuz strait shoot down any incoming missiles and keep it open. Right now the US has 3 CSG in the middle east and nearly 50000 troops. After weeks of intensive bombing the strait remains closed and any associated asset in the region is at risk the loss of the E3 to drones is particularly shocking.

I didn't take it as exhaustive. While you're alluding to high-end reapers/etc., the majority of drones in the Ukraine-Russia conflict have foam wings and low cost components.

The ones that are decimating the russian oil industry are a bit more impressive than that. The foam wing ones are mostly Shaheds, the Ukrainian ones tend to be made of various plastics and/or fibreglass or composites for the more specialized stuff.

Cost, I'd guess? There must be a reason why Russia and Ukraine are using more drones than missiles in their strikes. And while capabilities are somewhat different, if a ship carrying oil or LNG get hit by either one, it's going to have some consequences

This is no longer true. As the article says, the Ukrainians have effectively denied the Black Sea to the Russian navy through use of drones.

It's more like, through the combined use of drones, sea-drones, and anti-ship missiles, backed by the productive might and surveillance capability of NATO, against a weak Russian navy. Iran has much weaker capabilities and is fighting a much stronger enemy.

These boat drones ukraine used to sink some russian ships seem to be very hard to avoid.

> If a carrier can launch fields of drones and missiles, then whatever land mass your attacking can launch more This is also true of airplanes. The point is you choose where you launch your drones from anywhere in the world. > change in dynamic here isn’t a function of carriers or their abilities. It’s a change in the cost of drones and missiles It's a return to battleship economics. Except instead of direct fire from and onto shores, you have indirect fire via drones. Unlike shells, however, we have anti-drone capabilities on the horizon. It's silly to assume the current instability will persist for more than a few years. If the U.S. were paying any attention to Ukraine, it shouldn't have persisted until even now. > the technological advantage is that carriers represented for a long time has been completely neutralised Really not seeing the argument. Again, being able to build and launch and being able to field drones–alongside other weapons–is night and day. (Note that all of these arguments were made when missiles first dawned, too. Drones are, in many respects, a missile for area denial.)

> Large aircraft are the cheapest and most scalable way to deliver a ton of explosive on target. An important variable missing from your calculus is distance from munitions factory/supply depot. There are far cheaper and scalable ways to deliver tons of explosives if your supply lines are short, such as rail when you're defending your homeland. Carrier groups are both transport and FOBs > You should also consider that it is much more difficult to sink a large ship than a small ship. How did that turn out for the Russian Black Sea flagship, the Moskva?

I think this strategy is effective for Ukraine and Iran because they fight an enemy that is superior in terms of weapon capabilities. If you are the big boy with the bigger gun you don't necessarily need that. PS: I will take that back when someone manages to hit a carrier with a low cost drone boat.

You don't even need to say "lasers" : that's the future. CIWS is already a thing today and Ukrainians have downed Shaheds with ground fire from small arms. There's a plethora of various low cost systems being developed for some defence, but the assumption I always see on HN and elsewhere is that for some reason cheap offensive drones will just never have a countermeasure...which isn't how any of this works (exhibit A: massed infantry assaults can sometimes work against emplaced machine guns, but in general the machine gun was the end of that tactic). There is absolutely no reason that the current disruption drones are causing should lead to some sustained power imbalance: if you don't have the big laser today that's one thing, but if tomorrow you're scoring 100% intercept rates against the same threat then how cheap it is doesn't matter anymore. And there's no particular reason to think that won't be the case (if a cheap drone can be on the offensive, you'd have to present a very good case why the interceptor cannot be built in similar quantities at which point you're back to high end systems deciding the day).

You could do this anywhere in the world for a very small amount of money. The implications of the Ukrainian war have changed the balance of power for ever. No airport will ever be safe again.

The USA military is losing equipment sitting unprotected on the tarmac 4 years since Russia invaded Ukraine. Your shining city is a polished turd.

Nobody is using Patriot to intercept Shaheds. PAC-2/3 are intended for ballistic missiles and fighter jets. In Ukraine, low-flying drones are primarily countered by FPV, MANPADS, drone-hunting aircraft and truck, and EW before point defense SAM and AA gun.

> America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale We make plenty of stuff at scale. We just haven’t designed any of military around it since WWII. > unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.

> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America I think the Ukranians are still unimpressed with the withdrawal of US support, especially from the shells which were being manufactured in the US (now moved to Rheinmetall), and the de-sanctioning of Russian oil: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2871wyz9ko

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 in unimpressed that Ukraine supported other side in elections Sorry, what is "the other side" exactly?

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.

Did I miss something? When did Ukraine support any side in elections?

US in unimpressed that Ukraine supported other side in elections Considering that Trump literally tried to blackmail Zelenskyy in his first term, why on earth would they have supported him in 2020?

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.

> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Should have worn a suit. The US is not an ally of Ukraine, it sees Ukraine as a nuisance that should have rolled over long ago but somehow refuses to and because the US still needs Europe for a bit longer (but maybe not that much longer) they're still playing ball as long as Europe pays (as it should, but that's besides the point). Allies come to each others aid, the US has all but abandoned Ukraine after Trump came to power and did far less than it could have done early on. Why you would expect Ukraine to be generous after the numerous put downs and actions that were clearly organized to benefit Putin is a mystery to me.

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 think there's very little to be learned from Ukrainian technology. They dont have unprecedented servos, software, or manufacturing. What they have is a dire situation that drives efficient and pragmatic proucurement. This is much harder to export.

They have a working operational system and battle tested tactics, not only procurement. It's not the rifle that distinguishes the special forces, but how it's used. They built a network centric warefare with starlink and cheap android tablets down to the drone teams in the field. They built a network of cheap acousting sensors (old phones) as passive sensors and using ML models to find the drones cheaply and increase the coverage. (Radars are expensive and easy to hit because they emit). What they achieved is a "sensor fusion like" distributed system buid on cheap components and updated realtime. And all this is battle tested in the new environment of transparent battlefield (there is always a drone looking). Also a lot of real-life electronic warfare stuff and drone applications. This is what's missing in the US army. They are optimized for a symetrical 20th century warfare.

UKR = entire country of +40m is on the battlefront so they can do total war mobilized homefront distributed system... so can Iran. But it's very different for force projecting security guarantor US - can't convince paying protectorates to pivot total war defense posture in peacetime, that's what they bribe US not to do. And ultimately whatever model of distributed lethality / survivability (which US planning foresaw) is less relevant that US global commitments requires high end hardware that has to be rotated / propositioned selectively, and sustainable only in limited numbers vs adversaries mobilized on total war. But the fundamental problem is US adversaries are catching up on precision strike complex. Iran isn't asymmetric warfare, but restoration of symmetry. It's not so much US getting weaker as adversaries getting stronger, and without monopoly over mass precision strike (which naval / air superiority / supremacy is only delivery platform), US expeditionary mode simply on the losing side of many local attrition scenarios. Ultimately all US adversaries will gain commoditized local precision strike (even deadlier if bundled with high end ISR), at varying scales due to proliferation requiring persistence across global theatres US simply doesn't have numbers/logistics for. TLDR: US expeditionary model is bunch of goons with rifles in trucks, driving around neighbourhood where everyone had knives that could not get in range. The second everyone else buys guns, then rifles, the expeditionary model breaks.

> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America. That is happening, only with "EU" not "America". Because the EU are Ukraine's allies. https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-to-open-10-weapons-expor... https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-to-open-arms-factory... https://euobserver.com/209049/eu-signs-off-on-e260m-grant-fo... As for the US being Ukrainian allies as compared to EU, well: https://kyivindependent.com/us-military-aid-to-ukraine-dropp...

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

>We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America. The soviet union collapsed as a result of military overspending and massive supply chain corruption in an attempt to keep up with an opponent with lower levels of corruption and a far more powerful industrial base. Which is to say, inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons while showering them with cash would signal that that Christmas came early for Putin.

> inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons Ukraine is a massive weapons manufacturer. It's a small country holding Russia's entire military-industrial complex at bay. We have a lot to learn from them, even if it's just tactics and industrial organisation. And those lessons don't only apply to fighting pisspot dictatorships like Putin's.

is china helping ukraine also? The real "force multiplier" is basically the same as it was 100 years ago: fancy advanced tech works great to clear large, unoccupied spaces with no terrain costs; it still won't go into a jungle, climbmountains or fight in the streats. Whats compounding existing reality, is how cheap it is to use commercial tech from any of these manufacturing hubs, china included, and turn it into a small but persistent offensive weapon. So now Americas got billions of dollars worth of ammo up agains millions of dollars worth of fodder, and that won't clear the way to controlling a large, well defended plot of land. America's leaders are drunk and high on their own propaganda, even while Ukraine has demonstrated just how useless the old, bulky and costly tech is.

Ukraine has been striking down Shaheds with even cheaper drones for several years now. No reason to use unproven technology when there's a practical means available.

I mean, you can't blame them. It's not like there was any recent precedent for a large thundering superpower to start a conflict (not a "war", of course)--under the assumption that a quick decapitation strike would end things in a few days--with an underestimated asymmetric adversary (one supported by a larger enemy) that responds with cheap drones and the like, resulting in an increasing quagmire, not to mention one resulting in the loss of valuable and irreplaceable airborne command-and-control aircraft during the conflict

You mean Special Military Operation, comrade.

He has considered it. He's a psychopathic fantasist. No one sane would have started this war. But the consequences would be catastrophic. Not least that Russia would very likely nuke Ukraine to try to force a surrender. And France would have to decide whether to respond in kind. Trump would not - of course - nuke Russia. Likely not even if Russia launched a first strike. And it's unlikely Iran would surrender, because Iran has set itself up as a patchwork of semi-independent forces. The immediate response would be a mass missile strike on desalination plants and oil installations in Israel and the Arab states. The absolute best outcome would be plumes of smoke all over the Middle East. The worst outcome would be all of the existing minor nuclear nations - North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel - deciding the safety was off, and why not?

Dropping the bomb will be a massive loss for the US as it’ll legitimatize nuclear warfare. Right out of the attack, the US ceases being the first firepower and becomes equal to the rest of the nuclear ones. Next Russia takes Ukraine in a week and rich countries will buy nukes from North Korea and Pakistan.

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 was an article somewhere a few days ago, where the author raised the question: Why buy tanks in a world of drone warfare. Something like that. I see this as much the same "problem". Drones can't really take or hold territory, they can only deny access to it. At some point you need people and armoured vehicles on the ground. The US is facing the same issue in Iran. You can bomb all you like, but a bomber, like a drone, can't hold land. Iran can launch drones and missiles towards the Strait of Hormuz from the entire country, denying anyone access, but also without being able to hold it. Because they went in without a plan, or even a goal really, the US administration denied itself, and everyone else, access to the strait. The military leadership probably knew this. If not they could have asked Ukraine if this was a sound idea, given their knowledge and experience with Iranian drone technology.

And boats, amd submerged drones, and mines...

The problem shown by Ukraine was that large, expensive solutions were not effective when cheap weapons were used. The solution, which will take time, is to recreate some of the cheap defensive solutions that used to be available - guns, radar-bearing weaponry, etc. these are quite boring to the high tech industry, who prefer things like lasers, rail guns, etc. but ww ii showed they worked, and I suspect the approach speed of drones is similar to kamikazes. There are also fewer ships than in the 80’s, and everything costs too much. F-35’s vs. F16 birds, the gripen argument in Canada or Europe. How to get companies and staff to embrace low tech solutions in a rapid mapper. Perhaps they can remember history and make planes that support ground operations rather than high tech birds. Having more, slower birds with cannons would help with drone warfare. Armour also helps. And yeah, selling ads vs more interesting tech solutions was a cliche 10+ years ago.

https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/30/what-are-ukraines-new-gu... > Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine is willing to share its expertise in unblocking maritime trade routes with the naval drones. > “We shared our experience with the Black Sea corridor and how it operates. They understand that our Armed Forces have been highly effective in unblocking the Black Sea corridor. We are sharing these details.”

Trump casually talks about destroying the energy infrastructure, power plants, desalination plants etc. This is one of the most controversial things that the Russians do in Ukraine - attack the grid when it's cold to try and freeze people to death. To willingly deprive a country of 100,000,000 people of water and power coming into summer would surely be a war-crime.

> This is one of the most controversial things that the Russians do in Ukraine - attack the grid when it's cold to try and freeze people to death But the Russians have been doing it. Iran may have targeted an Israeli power plant. The precedent, unfortunately, is set.

They have and Ukraine haven’t surrendered (nor do they look like they will any time soon), so I don’t see how it wit k a in Iran.