I'm obviously a huge nerd. I like playing D&D, and with some encouragement from my sister, I tried my hand at designing a TTRPG. I never quite finished it, but I learned a lot that's worth sharing. This is my perspective on the topic, with deeper examinations to follow.
Targeting ships that left before the blockade began seems like a very bad precedent to set. Great way to erode freedom of navigation, and what little international trust in the US is left at this point.
I mostly just don't want to give Netanyahu credit for being clever enough to have orchestrated all of that on purpose without anyone finding out.
Netanyahu is awful (he should have been in jail a decade ago), and it was his fault for not taking it seriously enough, and he definitely used the crisis to his advantage to do more terrible things.
I don’t think it implies he was playing both sides though, just that he’s an irredeemable person.
Netanyahu can be a fascist who exploited the October 7th attacks and also not have caused them or even wanted them to happen.
I can’t vouch for either statement, but since any good fascist knows “don’t let a good crisis go to waste”, I don’t think it would be a contradiction.
I think the rule from CENCOM was that food and medical supplies are allowed but subject to inspection.
I'm a little confused too, but I guess there must be some argument about how that leads to not enough ships being willing to do it.
Even assuming it’s a good idea (which it probably isn’t), where would you even stage troops? Crossing the Zagros mountains from Iraq is probably too risky, as is a massive amphibious operation across the gulf, and I don’t think Pakistan would let you build up there. And the buildup would take months
yeah, like .... what?
I’d be curious to see some accounting of indirect costs like infrastructure destroyed, or at least the cost of increased oil prices for Americans added in.
That also sounds like less than the military funding supplementals I’ve heard about.
As we go back to the moon, and start thinking about sending humans to Mars and more probes to the rest of the solar system, we need to think about supporting infrastructure. I think Earth departure tugs are part of the infrastructure that will make that exploration much cheaper and easier.
I think this eclipse selfie from one of the solar panel GoPros might just be THE iconic image of Artemis 2.
But why have a showdown that we've already proven we can't win? China'll just help them rebuild every time anyway, so even the damage inflicted is pretty temporary.
Unless someone figures out a way to hit equipment in tunnels too deep from bunker busters from the air, why would it go differently?
There is also just a precision issue because without US, Russian, or Chinese satellite intel, long range missiles are more terror or anti infrastructure weapons than anything else, which isn’t useful to Israel, and might even be counterproductive most of the time.
I picked 600 as the closest for illustration. The 1000+ mile range to be useful makes the cost even worse.
I think they might also have a superiority complex issue, but they did invent the strike eagle to get around airspace closures.
And that's why Iran somehow wins by losing. The IRGC has nothing left to loose that airstrikes can hit because we've already destroyed all of it, and they don't care about civilians, so now they have escalation dominance.
Long range missiles are a lot safer and don't rely on air superiority, but they deliver a fraction of the combat power per dollar. Israel is generally confident they can take air superiority and are fighting constantly, so guided bombs just make more sense.
An F-16 with 2 JDAMs costs 100k tops for each 1000kg warhead dropped in Iran, and even stuff like HARM or JASSM is only around $1M.
The shortest distance between Israel and Iran is almost 600 miles, which requires multi-million dollar IRBMs to deliver a smaller warhead less accurately.
That gives Iran escalation dominance at this step, so the US can’t credibly threaten escalation short of skipping right to a ground, invasion, which is a step too far.
The conditions do seem absurd, but I’m not sure what the US could threaten to get more favorable terms.
I think part of the issue here is that there aren’t any strictly military targets left in Iran that can be hit with just air power, and the GCC oil and water infrastructure being wrecked would be catastrophic.
Oil to $200/barrel for real this time?
This is really the last thing we need right now.
Once you start destroying the logistics into a major city, that might make it hard to move military equipment in, but I’d be worried it would make it hard to move food in too.
Seems like it could be counterproductive at best.
I would say all the demands are impractical because a unilateral end to fightings as a precondition for negotiations has basically never worked in any war.
For the IRGC, which doesn't care much about regular Iranians, there doesn't seem to be much that they can lose from an air campaign that they haven't already lost, and China will help them rebuild after.
That might just make "More air campaign" not a terribly effective threat.
I feel like that shouldn't even be a surprise, given that almost every other heavily sanctioned autocratic regime seems to do that. It's a really effective way to make black market money that doesn't care about sanctions.
With the Iran war demonstrating an incredible rate of interceptor consumption, it's becoming clear that we need something cheaper than Patriot. CUDA was practically a mini PAC-3, and while it wasn't the right fit for offensive counter air, it might be the answer for cheap ballistic missile defense.
Maybe I've been overestimating the size of the strait, and it would neatly avoid the submarine and mine threats.
I guess it could mostly just rely on air cover if the round trip is only 4-5 hours, especially in a large coordinated assault.
At 55kts, the Zubrs could pretty easily outrun the air defense destroyers, so unless something can keep up with them, I'd think that would put a limit on how far they can get from the slower main landing force while actually taking advantage of their speed.
I was thinking about how the US has basically air supremacy over southern Iran, but the missile threat is still significant enough that the Navy won't go anywhere near the coast.
This could reflect a low casualty tolerance, but I think also says something about how hard the threat is to eliminate.
Given how fast these are, is there anything that could provide air defense escort for them ahead of the main landing force?
Otherwise I’d expect them to mostly be for deploying scouting or flanking units near the main landing site, maybe as an alternative to US vertical envelopment doctrine.
It's like that old saw about outrunning the bear, you just have to outrun the other guy.