When Russia invaded Ukraine, nobody (even the Ukranians) imagined that 5 years later they would have their own missiles hammering Russia 2500kms in the rear. Americans need to start accepting that a) the Iran war will also probably still be going on in 5 years and b) Iran will probably in a better place than they are now, strategically speaking.
> Iran war will also probably still be going on in 5 years
The Russia/Ukraine war has a goal, to make Ukraine either part of Russia or a client state.
What's the goal of the US/Iran war? So far it seems like the goal is to mostly return to the status quo prior to the war. I can't imagine that could continue 5 years because there's just not an objective. Of course, I could easily be mistaken.
I never got the logic of this conspiracy theory. If you’re trying to make money insider trading off some events, wouldn’t you want markets to be open when the events occur? You’d like to be able to enter and exit your position immediately before and after any news breaks. Markets being closed when a deal is announced makes it less efficient to trade on that news.
Lmgtfy: there are many articles and plenty of analysis available. Trades are happening on prediction markets minutes before Trump announces market altering information, trades that only make sense when you know that Trump is about to make an announcement.
I’m specifically referring to the claim that news being released when markets are closed is evidence of insider trading (replying to the comment “There is a reason why these "peace" deals are always announced on Fridays”). The link doesn’t mention that, but I’m still interested if anyone has an explanation!
You're calling it a "conspiracy theory" despite loads of evidence of insider trading, both traditional and crypto, by Trump and his cronies?
Do you think the Trump-Epstein connections are just a "conspiracy theory" as well?
1) Someone in the administration is leaking news soon before it’s announced, enabling insider trading. This is obviously supported by the evidence from markets.
2) The administrating is scheduling world events as part of a larger conspiracy to do enabling insider trading on specific predefined dates. Markets moving a few minutes early doesn’t provide evidence that this is happening.
Statements like: “There is a reason why these ‘peace’ deals are always announced on Fridays” imply the second (and aren’t even objectively true).
Per the spec of the last 25 years, they will let it run until the party in control of the White House changes. The new party will be responsible for the exit & cleanup phase.
I'm not sure its accurate to imply that being completely delusional means you have no goal. Gulf War part II had a goal regardless of the deceit involved. The Afghanistan war though I thought took the cake for the sheer delusional premise.
To tie it to the sibling comment about Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown who was the High Representative for Bosina & Herzegovina was also one of the lone voices warning about the Afghanistan war in the beginning.
I wasn't able to find the article containing the original warnings, but here is one article from the early days[0].
The military industrial complex is a "narrative"? If anything the public does not understand it enough. But please, do scrutinize it. What is the goal of all of the USAs wars in the middle east, if not to funnel taxpayer money into the pockets of shareholders of weapons companies? The latest one for example, in Iran, is clearly just because Trump can profit off of it, and because Israel wants to destroy all of their enemies in the region. And of course, Israel is a great consumer of USAs military technology (which they buy with "aid" i.e. taxpayer money from USA itself).
Just to be clear what your position is. You believe that US is getting involved in wars particularly the middle east because US government wants to give money directly to military contractors or it wants to boost the value of these weapons companies to benefit the people who invested.
If they just wrote the owners of the weapons companies a check directly, the public wouldn't like that as much as the "patriotic" "war on terror". But of course there's also other reasons such as religious fundamentalism (christian zionism) that influence it.
They do write weapons companies direct checks through research and procurement contracts. No one cares because the amount is tiny. Its not this huge market being pumped like slopulists pretend it is. Politicians dont need to invest in defense companies to get rich they can invest in anything with their insider knowledge. Defense companies dont need a war to get government money.
> Defense companies dont need a war to get government money.
> military operations in support of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). DOD's reported annual obligations for GWOT have shown a steady increase from about $0.2 billion in fiscal year 2001 to about $162.4 billion in fiscal year 2008
445 billion is tiny on the budget of the US government. your stat showing the increase in spending from 2001 to 2008 does nothing to support your narrative. Defense spending goes up after you're attacked wow shocking.
Money is spent on defense contracts regardless of an active war. There is no evidence that wars are being started to get an extra few hundred million in budget each year spread out across the entire industry.
> 445 billion is tiny on the budget of the US government.
I don't know if you're just not very good with money or straight up denying reality, but 6.6% of the total government expenditure or 9% of total revenue for 2024, is not at all tiny. To give you an example so you might comprehend it, that's like a yearly expenditure of $5900 for a person with the mean salary of $66000 yearly. How is that tiny?
For comparison the annual spending on ALL education K-12 costs 850-950 annually. So what's 2x tiny, is that also tiny?
> Defense spending goes up after you're attacked wow shocking.
Let me help you out with the math a bit here: 162.4 / 0.2 = 812. This is an increase of 81100% in 7 years. If you compare 1940 ($17.5B) to 1945 ($89.5B) that's an increase of 411% in 5 years.
6.6% of total government expenditure is significantly smaller than you tried to make it out to be. What are you trying to show with a per captia comparison its not paid as a % of the persons salary the person make 66k is probably paying less than $100 towards the military. It doesnt even make sense towards your original point as it gets paid out in times of peace.
You're trying to cherry pick this time in history before the US was a global superpower and compare it as if it supports your point. You have nothing to show that wars are being started for profit.
All the wars are clearly geopolitical in nature. In 2001 the defense budget didnt increase because politicians said we need to make more money in the defense industry and isreal needs more land. They said holy shit we just got attacked in New York we need to retaliate.
It's not a "per capita comparison". I'm asking you, if you spend 6.6% of your own salary on something, would you call that "tiny"? Are you actually genuinely misunderstanding this or are you being obtuse on purpose?
> It doesnt even make sense towards your original point as it gets paid out in times of peace.
Right, so the USA is spending a huge amount on its military (remember, $445B is only the external contracts, not salaries etc.) and also simultaneously just happens to get involved in a bunch of conflicts without any clear goal or purpose. But the two are entirely unrelated, of course.
> You're trying to cherry pick
No. In case you don't know about it, there was a world war happening during the period '40-45. Why did the USA only need to increase it's spending by 400% in order to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, while needing a 81100% increase in spending in order to lose against Afghanistan etc.?
> All the wars are clearly geopolitical in nature.
Mind explaining the geopolitical goals achieved by the current war in Iran? Or the previous in Afghanistan? Or just pick any war in the middle east from the last 30 years.
> They said holy shit we just got attacked in New York we need to retaliate.
Once you've lost something (I think sooner or later, Iran will succeed in sinking a big US ship) then even if you cant win, you also cant leave else its an admission of defeat - so it drags on and on and on.
I think they can already sink any US ship that comes in range if they want to. And the US knows it too. But for different reasons, it's in neither's interest to go there.
I think the current leadership in Tehran is pragmatic enough to want to avoid that. Of course, the longer this drags on, the more likely they are to be replaced by hard-liners
> I think sooner or later, Iran will succeed in sinking a big US ship
Sinking or even just seriously damaging a U.S. aircraft carrier — approx. 5K people in crew + airwing, billions of dollars in ship and aircraft — might trigger a Pearl-Harbor or 9/11 fury among the American public. No U.S. president could get away with even a "proportionate" response, let alone doing nothing.
Think of the Tonkin Gulf incident in 1965, which led to the U.S.'s widened involvement in Vietnam on the basis of grossly-distorted reports about alleged attacks — which never happened — on U.S. destroyers (which are comparatively small ships). [0] If Iran were to actually sink a U.S. aircraft carrier, then Trump-Hegseth-Miller might well nuke Tehran in response.
We sure as hell don't need anything like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 by a terrorist. It triggered a cascade of some of the stupidest and costliest government decisions in history. Belgrade, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, London, they all effed it up almost beyond belief. WWI cost millions of lives and untold billions in resources that could have been put to far better use. Iran sinking a U.S. carrier could be a similar trigger.
>It triggered a cascade of some of the stupidest and costliest government decisions in history.
Eh. WWI wasn't an accident, a series of unfortunate incidents, or something that just got out of hand.
Countries and people WANTED the war, war was still thought about as a general benefit to the country, almost sporting. Everybody was feeling powerful with the new capabilities industrialization gave them and they wanted to use that to gain influence. (of course not literally everybody, but this was a prevailing force)
> Countries and people WANTED the war, war was still thought about as a general benefit to the country
That was true among some of the players in various governments — Kaiser Wilhelm being a prime example. Can you cite any (reputable) historians who think that was a general attitude?
It is well documented in France as well. It was seen as a revenge for 1870. There was quite a bit of enthusiasm. At least initially, before the killing started in earnest and people got stuck in the trenches.
Stefan Zweig famously wrote a lot about it in his memoir, and he describes being in Austria and the general excitement in the lead up to and beginning of the war.
The implication here I'm disagreeing with is that the war was the unintended consequence of mistakes. Instead of mistakes leading the continent down a dark path it was intentional, just waiting for an excuse to start fighting.
I have to differ. I don’t think anyone on either side even imagined, let alone intended, that the Western Front would get bogged down in four years of trench warfare or (on the Allied side) that Russia would fight so suboptimally. There was a lot of catastrophically-naive optimism at work.
Not only that, but even the status of the goals is insane.
Right now Republicans are just flipping a coin every day to decide whether each "goal" is (A) a critical need where only Dear Leader can save us or (B) a glorious victory for Dear Leader who has solved everything forever.
We saw the same with the the mutually-incompatible and shifting "goals" of the illegal taxes on American buyers (tariffs.) Some of those "goals" were being pre-declared as achieved simply by announcing the policy. (Narrator: "They weren't.")
As with Ukraine, it's a David and Goliath kind of conflict and in both conflicts, the temptation for Goliath to escalate by leveraging scale is predictable, tempting and frought.
Iran is not David in this case. They’ve shown that their drone warfare is just a little bit under what the US military can provide. Remember that they destroyed a quarter of a trillion dollars radar installation. And the US has spent billions on munitions. The US can’t actually keep going in this war.
Without diminishing the huge cost Iran has been able to inflict on US radar, quarter of a trillion is off by more than two orders of magnitude, maybe three. There are 1-2 confirmed radar system confirmed hit, a couple more suspected hit or damaged. But that is going to be hundreds of millions in damage, nowhere close to 250 billion,
I once compared the historic GDP values, and IIRC if Iraq-vs-US in 2003 is 1x baseline, then Iran-vs-US today is 7x. Plus Iran (today) has 2x the population and 3x times the land area than Iraq (today).
It takes one party to start a war, but it takes (at least) two to end it.
The war ends when all involved parties agree that it ends, not because one party is tired of it.
The only way the US alone can end the war in Iran is to ensure complete surrender, and then stay put for 20 years like Iraq and Afghanistan, only to leave like a thief in the night and things reverts to what they were before, only with more local hate for the US than was already there (as most islamic states sees the US as the great devil).
I think most European nations learned their lesson in Iraq and Afghanistan. None of those were NATO operations btw. Article 5 was invoked for Afghanistan, but the NATO contribution was limited to a naval operation and patrolling of US airspace. NATO is a defensive treaty, not an aggressive one. The actual ground invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq was done by a US led coalition of the willing, and when the US started the Iran war, most european leaders openly declared that this was not europes war.
This is not necessarily true. Yes the strait of hormuz is technically in their territorial waters, but it has been recognized as an international water way until recently. Every country with a port on the other side of the strait is going to lose access. This might not be a tolerable situation to those allies of ours and they also have the ability to force the war to drag on. Maybe we walk and pull out from our bases in those countries. maybe they suck it up and live with paying tolls. but maybe they bomb a port in iran and iran strikes a us base in response
> This is not necessarily true. Yes the strait of hormuz is technically in their territorial waters, but it has been recognized as an international water way until recently.
Yes, until the US bombed Iran and then signed a terrible MoU that didn't reject Iranians claim of control of the said waterway…
As former French Ambassador Gerard Araud puts it, the US diplomacy has been deeply incompetent during the negotiations and they gave way too much to Iran in the MoU. As a result, at this point the US cannot realy claim Iran is infringing international laws anymore (not that international laws matter to the current US admin anyway)
> but it has been recognized as an international water way until recently
Who cares? International law is quite clear. But regardless, the world really doesn't have a say so long as Iran (& likely Oman in the end) wants to enforce this view.
> but maybe they bomb a port in iran and iran strikes a us base in response
...and the strait will still be closed. It just makes zero sense.
Regognized by whom? This is very one sided view, obviously US sided.
This kind of shit or excuses could not be pulled if we would be talking about gulf of mexico for example.
US is not center of the world and rest of the world means >95% of mankind, rest of the world is pretty fed up with that unfair treatment and things are changing. Very slowly, but steadily.
Iran signed UNCLOS 1982 which most countries signed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_United_... in which Iran stated that only parties that signed are entitled to free passage through its maritime territory, except for warships etc. This was accepted by all. The US did not sign.
I'm just a layman, but the goal seems obvious to me. First it's not US/Iran but US + Israel / Iran. From Israel's point of view, I assume the goal is the preemptive destruction of Iran's military capabilities (especially nuclear weapons).
This is not a very charitable explanation, it takes politicians at their word during a war. (One should not do that, and you can refer to Putin’s language at 2022 as a parallel example to Trump’s)
The initial US goals clearly were:
1. Regime change
2. Denial is of nuclear weapons
It’s also clear these goals were not achieved. So the US changed tactics and goals. (Same as Russia no longer plans on capturing Kiev it seems)
Most likely the US is stalling for time due to oil markets and has the same intentions as before, limited only by current capability.
According to The Economist, the Iranian theocracy is no longer in power, the IRGC is. Still, not the regime change Trump was hoping for, that's for sure.
> Khamenei’s killing has accelerated Iran’s transition from a theocracy to an ambitious nationalistic state dominated by military men. The irgc appears to wield power with few constraints. Clerics who challenged its influence—including former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani—were conspicuously absent from the [funeral] processions.
Forgive me its been a while since I read about Irans political structure, but my understanding is that the IRGC is supposed to take over in times of succession crisis, and sort of take any measures to guarantee the islamic revolution.
The test is supposed to be that they hand back power sometime after the crisis.
If you assume Khamenei Jr is still unwell, and there's still a spot of bother regarding what his succession would look like, and the civilian government is still a bit in shambles, the IRGC taking over seems very easy for them to justify. Whether they hand that power back willingly is another matter that remains to be seen.
The problem here is that Trump bombing Iran is going to keep them in power longer. The IRGC being in charge is going to keep Trump bombing them. I dont see a way out of that spiral on either side.
> Trump bombing Iran is going to keep them in power longer. The IRGC being in charge is going to keep Trump bombing them. I dont see a way out of that spiral on either side.
Your statement actually makes the way out of the spiral very explicit: Trump must stop being in power.
1) Severely kneecap the Iranians' nuclear ambitions. This one might actually be working to an extent.
2) Severely kneecap the Iranians' military ambitions in the Middle East as a whole, particularly with respect to Israel. This remains unknown. Their neighbors seem content to give them a pass for launching missiles into their infrastructure, possibly on the grounds of shared religion. Maybe they'll get tired of it.
3) Cause regime change in Iran. Not happening now. Might not happen in the foreseeable future.
Initially it's unclear what the goal was. But now the goal must be opening the strait of Hormuz ASAP. There's going to be serious economic fallout if that doesn't happen[0]. It remains to be seen how realistic that goal actually is. Iran has big advantages in their favor.
No, unfortunately, because circumstances change. It was unbelievably stupid to attack Iran, and everyone involved knew this might happen, but now that it has happened it needs to be dealt with one way or the other.
It can't be, because if that was the goal they'd just stop attacking. The strait was open until they sneak attacked Iran. Everyone seems to be in agreement that as part of a ceasefire the strait will open. Iran has shown no particular interest in closing the strait except as a war tactic. The US clearly does not have the power to control or open the strait militarily, its been months now. They appear to be outclassed.
If the goal was opening the strait, then Trump would direct the US military to stop attacking and then the strait would open up. Peace is the only path they have to open the strait and there is every reason to think negotiation would succeed in having the strait open in a matter of days.
By process of elimination, the war goal either seems to be some sort of relatively indirect attack on China's energy security or simple support of Israel in Lebanon by keeping the Iranians out of it. Or maybe Trump has also reached the tipping point into senility; a scenario which seems increasingly likely.
Iran charging tolls is not an acceptable definition of an "open" strait.
All the stuff about China's energy supply... it's not that deep. Y'all are trying to believe Trump is playing 5D chess when he's demonstrably shit at checkers.
What is the alternative here other than acceptance exactly? It seems the options are either accept a toll or accept that the strait is closed.
The toll seems pretty reasonable. Trump doesn't look like he's actually going to compensate them for the sneak attack and all the bombing runs; they have to make the money up somehow as all that destruction looks expensive. And they need a source of funds ASAP to arm up before the US comes back.
But it does imply at some level attempting to achieve them. At every stage of the war the US has taken (and continues to take) action that is more likely to close the strait than open it. To the point where people were pointing it out how this would game out years before the war actually happened.
It is possible that the US military is so incompetent that they can't plan or that Trump has lost touch with reality. But then their goals would just be incoherent and incomprehensible. Assuming they have coherent goals and some capacity to work towards them it is clear that an open strait is at best a very low priority one.
You say Trump has "lost" touch with reality as if he ever had it. He comprehends that opening the strait is important but utterly lacks the mental or emotional capacity to understand in any level of detail what that requires.
Trump has clearly stated many times the goal is to prevent Iran from obtaining nukes. Many times. Repeatedly, again and again, and all negotiations are directed towards that first and foremost.
Just the other day at the NATO summit he seemingly claimed Iran's nuclear program is so damaged they'll never be able to build a bomb. So, mission accomplished? Nothing the guy says is credible..
If it's continue 5 years, the country connected to this war in this region will go fast downstairs and maybe even end in a broken state.
I don't sympathies with any monarch country there, but no one wants more unstable countries, especially in the Arabic region.
> The Russia/Ukraine war has a goal, to make Ukraine either part of Russia or a client state.
No, it has a goal to keep Putin in power.
The Iran war happened to move people's interest from a certain set of files about a certain group people onto something else.
It succeeded by that standard, but now has created the mess that you can't just start a war with a country to distract your voters and not suffer any consequences from it.
Iran was not thrilled to be bombed to play a part in this distraction.
> the us in its current form will not tolerate an existential threat to israel
It seems to be tolerating Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir just fine!
Imagine the different place Israel would be if it pursued Oct 7 as a criminal act instead of a pretext to commit genocide. Enormous strategic blunder by the Netanyahu regime. Israel would not be a global pariah state and it's entirely possible that regime change in Iran would have succeeded. But you are never going to regime change a people who know with certainty that they will be butchered/raped/tortured by their supposed "saviors" the Israelis. There is literally nothing worse than surrendering to Israel.
the prevalence of secular jews in the state department makes them completely unable to read islamic countries. it's the third time this happens in a decade
by punching islamic regimes you create a feedback loop of islamic eschatology
the only way out now is forward ie boots on the ground. this is gonna happen whether dems or reps are in power
Indeed, and this breed of arabist has been relentlessly pushed out of the department since the 1960s which is why we are in the mess we are in
there's a devilish mess of evangelical wasps secular jews actual jews irishmen and not a single person who has read more than two lines about islam let alone convert into it
islam has been treated like communism or socialism ie somthkng you can root out in exchange for walmart and free stuff. thats not it. muslims are willing to die for it and they will prove it again and again, and no amount of conventional weaponry will bring afghanistan or iran to its heels for long
I'm not sure anything is a distraction from the Epstein files. I don't think the administration cares about the Epstein files. What would be the fallout if they were all released? We already know that a lot of wealthy people were raping children. It's not like the US is going to prosecute.
Because Trump likes being antagonistic. And the notion that plundering America is just a distraction from the files is itself a convenient distraction from the plundering of America.
> Why has not a single person been prosecuted since the files were released?
Someone's name appears on it more than the word "God" does on the bible, according to the press. I think a tangible confirmation of that, and the deeds that occurred, and the fact Epstein was a Mossad agent with Russian ties would send a lot of things crumbling.
Did Bondi not say on camera that if the list was released "the system would collapse"?
If that's the goal then the US and Israel are doing their best to stop it from happening. Iran is responding to provocations. Stop provoking them, no more blown up ships.
Iran has shown a willingness to do these things through proxies regardless of anyone else before.
Furthermore, if they want to deal with the US or Israel, then they should target American or Israeli assets. Not third party ships manned by citizens of neutral nations who just want to get to port and remit cash to their families back home.
Should they avoid doing that because it’s working really well at putting their opponents in a bad spot, while costing them almost nothing?
Those ships are bearing goods from (or taking goods to) countries that are hosting US forces attacking them. They’re valid targets, and blockading their shipping… I mean, the US does that to countries that haven’t even helped attack us, seems insane to suggest it’s somehow a foul to do that to countries that are helping attack you.
What difference does that make? A blockade is a blockade, and oil is fungible, so it doesn't matter whose flag it is. Run a blockade, get blown up. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Remember, the US blew up an UNARMED Iranian ship after what was basically a parade at sea in the Indian Ocean. The US started this, and keeps it going.
It’s an odd declaration and maybe based on Rus/Ukraine. But Ukraine is doing better now than in the first week of the “Special Military Operation” due to having a lot of rich allies who have (in fits and starts) given them a lot of money and gear, and due to a Russia which has stretched its military and economy to the breaking point.
By contrast, Iran’s only allies are its terrorist affiliates in Lebanon, Gaza, and the Houthis. Those guys can’t do much to help. China and Russia (see above though) are willing to do business with them but don’t really give a crap about Iran surviving.
Anyway, the US and Israel can keep degrading Iran’s military and “government” by dropping bombs (or better, drones) on them every week for a decade and it won’t really be a big deal for the former. Iran though will not be better off for it, I’m pretty confident. (Other than their surviving religious fanatics will be even more suicidally devout.)
> Anyway, the US and Israel can keep degrading Iran’s military and “government” by dropping bombs (or better, drones) on them every week for a decade and it won’t really be a big deal for the former.
“In the 39 days of the air and missile campaign before the ceasefire, U.S. forces heavily used the seven munitions in Table 1. For four of them, the United States may have expended more than half of the prewar inventory”
According to that article, they expended ballpark a third of their inventory of expensive weapons systems such as Patriots or Tomahawk missiles, each with a production lead time of at least 3 years.
If so, they would run out of those expensive weapons in three more months.
Perhaps. If we need more, we can make more though, and at a faster rate than Iran can. I really doubt Iran has the capability to significantly threaten the factories where we make those munitions. The same can't be said the other way around.
I also suspect the US military is actively pursuing more cost-effective ways to blow things up, as Ukraine (and indeed Iran) has been doing. We don't have to use Patriots and Tomahawks all the time, unless we're shooting down something fast and dangerous with it. And again, Iran has a limited ability to pay for that type of thing, so I'm not that worried.
> Perhaps. If we need more, we can make more though, and at a faster rate than Iran can.
We can't. We built a system that creates a very small number of very expensive munitions and that can't be scaled up. We've been trying to scale up munitions production for years now with the Ukraine war. And it just isn't possible.
Not only does it take years to make any missile now. Our total capacity to make missiles is incredibly low. Like, we can make 600 Patriot missiles per year. We've expended twice that so far with Iran alone. We can make 100 THADD per year. We've expended 300 so far.
The US will run out of missiles way before Iran does. Iran could easily produce 2000 missiles per year and if it pushed it could make closer to 8000.
Iran will recover its missile stocks from the current war in a year. It will take the US until 2031 to do the same.
Have you taken a look at Iran's targeting capabilities and the assets they were able to destroy? More importantly, have you considered who facilitated those targeting capabilities?
Thank you - didn't see that yet, not surprising but very disappointing. Still, unless China is gonna start giving kinetic support to Iran, Iran's ability to be "doing great" in the war is still limited by its crippled, single-commodity-based economy and the US and allies' ability to blow a lot of their shit up.
> Anyway, the US and Israel can keep degrading Iran’s military and “government” by dropping bombs (or better, drones) on them every week for a decade and it won’t really be a big deal for the former.
I disagree. The huge problem here is that USAF is showing how they are doing things over and over again. For China it is a treasure trove of data and ideal place for testing of their gear to detect and later shoot down US stealth aircraft which USA is constantly threating to use against China.
I actually agree with you on this completely, it's definitely the worst downside of the war. Same reason we don't want S400s being operated by Turkiye, we'd like China and Russia to have as little data as possible on our warplanes.
I believe the assessment is based on the desire of the US to offer concessions (such as sanctions withdrawal) in order to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Which will be painful in the medium term, but less so in the long run as oil is diverted around it.
Russian goals are vastly different from US'. US has no intent to incorporate Iran or fight out for each and every mountain village. US goals might not be easily achievable either but for completely different reasons. Iran is also unlikely to get 10% of the logistical support Ukraine has.
US may not take Iran under them, but they will grip the Iran's economy by controlling their oil and gas resources. It is what US doing in Irque, all oil sales going through bank of New York, they not only take cuts from sales but also make threats like we would not send dollars if you did not do this and that.
US involvement in the Middle East has ruined those countries. It is not a just middle east where ever they involve they ruin others ex: Trump's Congo deal which locked in their mineral for decade without any benefit to poor Congos
So if the Iran war is still going on in 5 years the global economy has collapsed. I'm not sure people realize just how quickly this situation is going to be dire. 2-3 months more of this and certain countries are going to have rolling blackouts. We will be having shortages of avgas and huge price spikes in avgas, gas and diesel. Diesel in particular is going to have a massive impact on inflation.
Oil futures don't currently reflect this because a lot of players have exited the market because they're sick of being fleeced by Donald Trump who has bet big and then announced yet another fake ceasefire, at least a dozen times. We actually have a bunch of short positions, such that we risk a Gamestop like short squeeze.
Ukraine is harder to figure out because it's really difficult to get good information. We have people on one side saying Russia is on the verge of collapse (and has been for 3 years) while it's also clear that Russia still has a manpower advantage and Ukraine's army is facing desertion and a lack of soldiers to draft. It's also unclear what the real impact of strikes on oil infrastructure deep in Russia are really changing the battle lines and overall position. If anything it might just exacerbate the energy crisis brought on by the Iran war.
People assumed Russia would press with their full might and that has just yet to ever happen. Why don't they carpet bomb all of the ukraine? Why not fire off a littany of missiles? Why not conscript the bulk of their manpower reserves and actually invade in earnest?
Everyone assumed the war would be over in two weeks, because it really could have ended in two weeks if russia went full throttle early on. But there must be some factors at play that prevent total war from seeming like an attractive option. Maybe fear of equal reprisal. And in the end you get this slog of a war, with an unchanging front line and various headlines every few weeks of some one off piece of infrastructure or industry being destroyed, and little coming after that. I'm not sure what these factors are exactly, but clearly they exist to quiet the beast and have this slow drip war be the optimal outcome compared to alternatives. Maybe the threat of NATO taking control of the war is what keeps it at its current slow pace.
Russia does not have anywhere near enough aircraft to do that. If they tried, they'd lose more of their air force.[1] Russia does not have much of an aircraft industry left. For one thing, much of the USSR's aircraft industry was in Ukraine.
- Why not fire off a litany of missiles?
Nuclear? Russia so far has not wanted to cross that threshold and start WWIII.
Non-nuclear, they have to build them.
- Why not conscript the bulk of their manpower reserves and actually invade in earnest?
Because Russia is running out of manpower reserves. The draft in Russia now covers all males from 18 to 30. In that age range, men can no longer leave Russia. Russia has 1.4 million military casualties so far, with about 400,000 deaths. Currently, the casualty rate is higher than the new recruit rate.
Conscript soldiers serve for one year, but there is heavy pressure to sign up as a "volunteer" with no time limit.
The Russian tradition of throwing recruits into battle with a huge casualty rate continues.
It worked in WWII, but cost 20 million lives. It hasn't been working in Ukraine. The Ukrainian claim is that the survival time for a new soldier on the Russian front lines is four hours.
This is probably exaggerated.
It was policy for a while that the draft wasn't enforced too strictly in Moscow and St. Petersburg. This was to avoid generating political opposition to the war. That seems to be over.
Russia has no ability to carpet bomb anyone anymore. They have only a handful of operational strategic bombers left and little or no capability to manufacture new ones. Much of the USSR's old heavy aircraft supply chain was in Ukraine. So Russia is unwilling to risk their aircraft in defended airspace because they need to preserve them as part of their strategic nuclear deterrent triad.
> People assumed Russia would press with their full might and that has just yet to ever happen
I don’t think you are appreciating how large the Ukraine is, how deficient the Russian military is and how depleted its population has become.
Look at the losses they are taking, with military casualties having passed a million. Their military spending is a huge portion of GDP (as mush as 50%, see wiki). Their parking lots of mothballed tanks are depleted and their refineries smashed. Russia is teetering and may not be able to sustain this much longer.
Other than nukes, Russia does not have significant spare capacity. They use missiles and drones with months of their production. They fly bomber aircraft as close to the front as they can. They've burned through most of their cold war era stockpiles of equipment. 0.5-1% of their entire population is a casualty of this war (so probably closer to 5% of their working age men).
Ukraine has a proper army with proper weapons and strong foreign support; Gaza only has a bunch of militias with outdated arms and makeshift rockets. Obviously, fighting Gaza is easier than fighting Ukraine.
Scale doesn't really matter with an air force. The IAF is much, much stronger and more competent than the Russian Air Force. Plus, the Israelis are bombing defenseless cities (in Lebanon), and getting a lot of help from the US (in Iran).
To be frank, you seem to have a cartoon's idea of war.
US is the only country that maybe has a capability to carpet bomb someone to rubble. Russia has always preferred to do it with Artillery anyway, which they have done to many many Ukrainian cities.
A prolonged strategic bombing campaign that can "Wipe a city off a map" takes weeks, hundreds of bombers, and tens of thousands of tons of explosive, and either air supremacy to protect your bombers (not sufficient against a target with SAMs) or the ability to build hundreds of those bombers fresh.
Literally nobody can do that anymore. America can maybe do that once or twice. Only 60ish B52s even remain.
In Chinese we call it "wash the ground with missiles", and many Chinese and Taiwanese say this constantly as a threat or concern. It's amusing that many people think this is a practical thing to happen, and keep bringing it up.
You cannot mass troops easily in the days of satellite and targeted long ranged missiles. They mass 20 million troops but they have to transport them down supply lines and house them all to get them close to the front. They'd be picked apart.
