I don't know enough about the current state of naval warfare but I've assumed this is related to the asymmetry that's emerged around protecting capital warships, especially in the scenario of a very narrow strait and a long enemy-controlled coastline. They can shoot relatively low-cost, short-range guided missiles from anywhere along the coast. Even if a warship stops the vast majority of them, only one has to get through to sink a multi-billion dollar ship that takes a decade to replace.
There are now similar asymmetries emerging across war-fighting and even though warships can still be effective (and less vulnerable) in other scenarios, this specific one seems especially bad. The other factor is that most of what ships carry through the straight isn't going directly to the U.S. so the impact on the U.S. is mostly secondary, reducing the risk the U.S. is willing to take. Of course, all this was known beforehand by military strategists which makes this all look even worse for the U.S. administration.
The bigger issue is the tankers. The US Navy isn't going to be happy patrolling the strait sure, but even if they did they wouldn't be able to protect the tankers enough for it to make sense for tankers to take the risk.
The last time this happened the US opened the strait by accidentally shooting down an Iranian passenger plane after sinking a large chunk of Iranian navy. The Iranians assumed the US shoot the passenger plane down on intentionally as a war crime and assumed the US would was planning to escalate the conflict. This fear deterred further Iranian attacks on tankers.
This isn't going to work this time because the US started the war by performing of the most serious escalations possible, a decapitation strike against top Iranian leadership in a surprise attack using a diplomatic negotiation as cover. The US did this while the strait was open and Iran was considering a peace deal.
Threats of escalation are no longer effective at deterring Iran because Iran now believes the US will take such actions regardless of what Iran does. What does Iranian leadership have to lose by staying the course? Very little. On the other hand if Iranian leadership back down, they loose all their leverage, they look weak internally, they look weak externally and the US might decide to attack them out of the blue again.
This is why decapitation strikes are generally not done. They remove options and they undermine deterrence and paint belligerents into a corner.
On a much smaller scale, this is advice I give to just about everyone: If your decisions won't affect how they treat you, then just do what you want. The fact that they won't like it doesn't matter, they didn't like you before.
This is very good career advice to any juniors reading
US downing of Iran passenger plane was as much an accident as the triple tap they did of the girls school in Iran recently or the use of nuclear bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in the past when Japan was already surrendering ie it was a terror tactic. I think americans have the false belief that US is some of kind of benevolent force acting for the good of the world and promoting freedom and democracy. Where as it is an empire that only looks at what is good for itself.
It was an accident, you can read the investigation. No one claims Nagasaki or Hiroshima were accidents.
> I think americans have the false belief that US is some of kind of benevolent force acting for the good of the world and promoting freedom and democracy.
A state can still make mistakes without saying it is good in everyway
> US downing of Iran passenger plane was as much an accident as the triple tap they did of the girls school in Iran recently or the use of nuclear bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima
The first and second event are undeniably different than the third in at least one crucial respect, the third was never even claimed to be unintentional by anyone involved - while the first two were repeatedly claimed to be unintentional by everyone involved. Of course, that doesn't prove they were unintentional but not even mentioning the accused's claims of innocence as you assert guilt does prove you're not presenting the comparison honestly.
> I think americans have the false belief that US is some of kind of benevolent force acting for the good of the world and promoting freedom and democracy.
I haven't thought that since I was a teenager, quite awhile ago. At certain points in history the U.S. did sometimes promote the cause of freedom and democracy but it was usually when doing so also aligned with U.S. strategic interests. A notable example was Radio Free Europe (aka Radio Liberty) started in 1950. The U.S. wisely realized the best counter to internal propaganda and totalitarian repression was just telling the truth, so RFERL was (almost always) genuinely unbiased, helpful for the cause of freedom AND good for U.S. strategic interests.
It's also worth mentioning that the Nagasaki bombing is often used as a case study on the ethics of war. They use it as a case study because, once I understood the full historical context of the war and what the U.S. side knew at the time, the decision to drop the A-bomb wasn't as clear-cut as I'd always thought. After spending four weeks on it in an advanced ethics class, my eventual assessment changed from absolute certainty to feeling the Hiroshima bomb was probably reasonably justified but that the Nagasaki bomb was not. The class started out 100% opposed to both but after four weeks was nearly evenly split on Nagasaki.
> After spending four weeks on it in an advanced ethics class, I feel the Hiroshima bomb was probably reasonably justified but that the Nagasaki bomb was not.
In the full context I'm kind of surprised there was any kind of split twixt the two given the full context that both H & N were on a very long target list being systematically worked through and both were destined to be destroyed and effectively levelled regardless of whether untrialled prototype nuclear weapons were tested on those cities or not.
As were 72 other cities (including Tokyo) prior to either H or N being touched.
ie. In the full ethical context the deeper question is really about programs of total war / total destruction rather than the edge case of using two targets as test sites for novel weapons.
I didn't want to digress too much on that sidebar but the split on Nagasaki was mostly centered around the number of days between Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think nearly everyone would have agreed the second bomb was probably justified had it been dropped later. Many felt that given more time the Japanese side might have changed their minds without the second bomb.
Makes sense that Trump would shutoff Voice of America since it was originally designed to counter Nazi and then Communist propaganda.
People who are "already surrendering" don't need to be nuked twice.
Yes we are in agreement
I think "Iran was considering a peace deal" is a bit of a stretch here. Iran was stalling for time, not willing to give anything, and the Strait was indeed open. If they won't give anything now why should they have given anything before.
What does Iran still have to lose? Well, a lot. All their oil is exported through the strait that is now blockaded by the US. The regime while having survived so far and executing thousands of people is still vulnerable over the long term. Leaders can still be hit and potentially the penetrations that led to the success of the initial strikes is still there. Iran's energy sector which is what the regime needs to maintain control (pay salaries etc.) has still not been hit. Other strategic targets that are dual use have also still not been hit.
Iran is never going to capitulate, until it capitulates. Their rhetoric is going to remain that the US has no more levers and can't change anything, because admitting otherwise invites those levers to be engaged. There is some truth to certain individuals likely willing to pay a large price but it's far from clear how deep and wide that extends and what is the tipping point. It is possible that Iran can withstand an oil blockade and even a resumption of air strikes for a very long time but it's also possible they can't. I can't tell and I doubt many people can. There are analysts and various experts with all sorts of opinions.
EDIT: Some of you may remember the Iraqi rhetoric before the US invasion. Then when the US attacked Iraq it crumbled like a paper tiger. The US lost 139 people or so (the coalition lost a bit more) to take Iraq and the Iraqi army largely surrendered or ran away. Assad's huge army with tanks and fighter jets, supported by Russia, collapsed from a bunch of ragtag ex-ISIS guys on Toyotas. The Iranian regime is a lot weaker than what you'd think by listening to them talk because any projection of weakness is the end of them. Ofcourse the US Iraqi invasion ended up very badly after this tactical success and that's the actual problem. Defeating Iran on the battlefield - not so much.
> I think "Iran was considering a peace deal" is a bit of a stretch here.
Iran was considering a peace deal. I agree that the most plausible was they would reject it.
> What does Iran still have to lose? Well, a lot.
The US could do this, sure, but then Iran would have even less to lose. This might work if the US started small and threatened escalation to try to compel Iran, but the US started at massive escalation so any additional airstrikes are likely to be less escalatory and thus less of a threat.
Even worse, there is a fundamental problem with madman theory, if Iran believes they are dealing with a madman, then threats aren't effective because a mad man doesn't keep promises. If you think your opponent is not rational, then you should not expect them to follow cause and effect.
> Iran is never going to capitulate, until it capitulates. Their rhetoric is going to remain that the US has no more levers and can't change anything, because admitting otherwise invites those levers to be engaged.
I agree that we don't know exactly how much pressure is on Iran. Iran historically has been willing to suffer almost any cost. During the Iran Iraq war then sent enormous numbers of teenagers in human wave attacks over and over. It is my estimation that the current war with the US has helped to stabilize the Iranian government and that they benefit more from the war continuing than from a peace deal.
The only military lever the US has left on the table is an invasion of Iran. Maybe limited to the coastline or maybe complete regime change. Trump has not even attempted to bluff that he is doing this.
The Iran/Iraq war is why I made the edit about US vs. Iraq. Just because Iran and Iraq fought for years does not mean Iran or Iraq are able to fight a super power. They can not.
Iran does not think they are dealing with a madman. I don't believe for a second that they think that if all the demands made of them are met someone will harm them just for the fun of it. The maximalists demands. The problem is those maximalists demands run against everything this regime stands for. Not that those demands are bad for the Iranian people, they're actually good. What is true (and it's not a question of madman theory) is that the US and Israel will absolutely take some concessions and be willing to delay dealing with the rest of the problems. That is not irrational. That is 100% rational. And ofcourse the Iranians knows this as well. What the US and Israel want is a stop to the proxy wars, a stop to long range missiles, a stop to the nuclear program and a stop to "exporting the revolution". No workarounds or funny business.
I think the regime is very weak. Conditions in Iran are worse and a population that already wanted them gone now wants them even more gone. Their boisterous rhetoric is a sign of weakness that westerners misinterpret. The more they sound threatening and winning the more they are losing.
> I think the regime is very weak.
The "enemy of my enemy" concept suggests that even if the people hate their government, their immediate pain is being caused by the United States and Israel, so I'm less confident about that.
> Iran does not think they are dealing with a madman.
Iran does think they are dealing with a mad man, or at least a government practicing a policy (as the US administration's apologists have termed it) "intentional volatility".
A far more interesting issue here is the oil supplies available in the Pacific. Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia, and others are all ramping up production capacity. Non-OPEC oil production is increasing generally in response. This is likely to undermine the Middle East's ability recovery from current constraints as non-OPEC players gain clout in the markets.
Right now people are talking about China and California have limited supplies. But those are enormous, powerful entities that are deploying multi-pronged strategies to secure energy resources. Look at what they're doing and bet there. You also see developing countries retooling to support less oil-intensive economies, like increasing work-from-home options. Solar and wind are currently feeling weak without their subsidies but are exhibiting staying power as people look to move off more petroleum-dependent energy resources.
As for the tactical issue, the concept people seem to be trying to get at is "cost-per-kill". That needs to come down. Yes, we can kill drones with supersonic interceptors. But spending $6M to shoot down a $6K drone has terrible long-term economics.
> Iran does think they are dealing with a mad man, or at least a government practicing a policy (as the US administration's apologists have termed it) "intentional volatility".
We're going to agree to disagree. I know this is what "people" are saying about the US. But it's not what Iran thinks and it's not what the US is actually doing. This is what Iran wants you to think, as it weakens the US, and what it's going to say. Are you saying that the US will go to war with Iran if all the demands I listed were fully and transparently met? A by the way there is that Europe and Canada (e.g.) also don't think the US administration is "mad". Everyone is playing their little geopolitical and local political games.
I also doubt Iranians think their immediate pains are caused by the US and Israel. Some might but most don't.
I agree with you the energy crisis aspect is overblown (I think that's what you're saying). Supply increases in other places and alternative power sources can displace some usage- certainly over time. The other thing that's going to happen are more strait bypassing pipelines.
EDIT: So the problem isn't mad people or rationality. The problem now, as before, is simply that the Iranian regime is religiously and ideologically unable to give in. Giving in will likely result in their fall even if they were able to give in. This is what's driving the main dynamics here. It's not Iranian negotiation tactics or the US supposed not negotiating in good faith or being "mad". The "mad man" are those that believe that Iran is interested in giving in on its exporting the revolution and the destruction of Israel.
You seem to have missed the reference to Madman Theory above, interpreting it as a literal commentary on someone's / some group's sanity.
Whether or not actual mental deficiency is involved here is irrelevant; the strategy is the same whether performed intentionally or otherwise. Unfortunately, its track record is dismal in both cases.
> But it's not what Iran thinks and it's not what the US is actually doing.
I think you need to provide some evidence for your claim. The US had a deal with Iran. A madman ripped up that deal, started a war with a decapitation strike, and is now attempting to negotiate a deal we already had before we spent billions of dollars killing school kids. The “People” you dismiss includes scholars, strategists, experts on international relations.
You could possibly explain trumps behavior as rational if you believe he is trying to avoid getting arrested for pedophilia, but that doesn’t build trust. In any case, the issue of competence comes up. Even if you could trust the person who renamed the Defense department to the War department, that person simply isn’t competent.
Trump promised he would end the deal and he ended the deal. Why is that "madman ripped up that deal"?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-kept-his...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-ir...
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/trump-...
Many including Trump have long said the deal was a terrible deal. You can disagree with that (and you'd be wrong) but I'm not sure how we get from that to your statements.
Enough evidence? What sort of evidence are you looking for? Can you provide evidence for your claims?
EDIT: Also can you prove that we are looking to get the "same deal" we used to have?
The JCPOA was set to expire on 18 October 2025 after which Iran would not have any limits on pursuing their nuclear program. Are you suggesting the US is seeking a deal now that Iran would pause their nuclear program until 2025? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal#Expiration
EDIT2: The JCPOA:
- Kept the Iranian regime in power with massive capital influx resulting in horrendous human rights abuse and 10's of thousands of deaths.
- Was being violate by the Iranians. Iran had nuclear sites at Turquzabad, Varamin, and Marivan, which they hid from the IAEA (something that was discovered after Israel stole documents about the Iranian nuclear program). Iran hasn't declared those sites and generally refused access to them for years after the fact. When the sites were eventually inspected years later (in 2020) there was evidence of undeclared nuclear material. https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/06/1164291#:~:text=Iran%20...
- Was time bound and didn't address many other issues.
- Trump said he would withdraw from the agreement. That was his election promise. Trump also said on multiple occasions (and in fact it had been US policy forever) that Iran would never be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
Any rational person adding would agree that the US attack on Iran is in line with its long standing policy. They would also agree that Iran had no other reason for the amount of highly enriched Uranium they amassed other than the manufacturing of nuclear weapons. So I'm not seeing the irrationality here. Ofcourse if your position is that Iran should have nuclear weapons, should oppress their people, and should use proxies to attack others then from your perspective this is an unwelcome development. It's still rational though.
"I'm gonna stab myself in the face!" - stabs self in face
Sure, clearly not a madman if he tells you he's going to do it first. o_O
> Iran does not think they are dealing with a madman.
No one knows but the Iranian leadership. The Iranian leadership has been famously bad at modeling the intentions and motivations of other nations leaderships. A bolt of the blue decapitation strike, followed by the US having plan if Iran closes the straits which is the obvious response by Iran, does at face value appear to be the work of a madman. Now in the US we might conclude that Trump and Hegseth are just wildly incompetent and unprepared, but it seems likely to me that Iranian leadership see irrationality instead of incompetence.
We're well within the realm of speculation but: The Iranian leadership has prepared for decapitation attacks which is partly why they weren't as effective. Their so called "Mosaic Defense" was built for that. They have seen what Israel dealt to Hezbollah. So they must have known this would be an option. There was also no question that at some point force was going to get used, at least by Israel. Israel accounted for about half of the firepower (and really 100% of the firepower on Tehran pretty much) and for the entirety of the decapitations strikes. Israel said on multiple occasions it will attack Iran if Iran didn't stop pursuing its nuclear program. With Hezbollah weakened that threat/lever was less effective. Israel was very worried about Hezbollah's retaliation. Israel had already decimimated Iranian anti-aircraft defenses. So all of this is expected, rational, and what Iran accounted for. I agree the degree of US participation was a surprise but not a zero probability event, certainly after their participation in the last round, and their massive military buildup.
Likewise the closing of the strait was no surprise. These sort of scenarios are planned for and there is zero doubt the closing of the strait was a scenario considered by the US and Israel military planners.
Not a ton we can say other than that. Maybe the US and Israel thought the blow would be so hard the regime would crumble. Maybe they thought Iran wouldn't dare. Maybe they thought that if Iran closed the strait they'd be able to reopen it by force. Indeed this could be where over-confidence, or incompetence, or inexperience, comes in on the US side. It's also that one can never fully predict how things would develop. There could have been over-optimism and under-estimation of the Iranians ability to withstand the air campaign or to effectively close the strait.
All that said, both sides are rationally pursuing their interests. Iran's regime wants to survive and it wants to keep building missiles and nuclear weapons and expand it's religious and political influence. The US and Israel want to put a stop to this before Iran has an arsenal of nuclear weapons mounted on long range ballistic missiles. Both sides will do their best to not tell you what they think or what their plans are (and the Iranians are definitely much better at this than the current US admin).
> This is why decapitation strikes are generally not done. They remove options and they undermine deterrence and paint belligerents into a corner.
You don't think autocrats have a strong incentive to not die?
The dead leadership can't change their decisions anymore. And the new leadership has no reason to assume that considering a peace deal will keep them alive. The US has already shown that they are happy to break the deal, then a couple years alter kill you anyways. Staying the course at least keeps the internal threats down (which are just as capable of killing any autocrat)
Threatening autocrats might work, but just bolt out of the blue decapitation strikes undermine future threats because they figure they'll get no warning. If you are threatening, you are bluffing and when you aren't bluffing, there are no threats.
Some religions create a strong incentive for adherent to die in certain ways (X number of virgins when you get into heaven, that sort of stuff).
But anyway, once they are dead, your option to target them is gone.
Modern US surface warships such as the DDG-52 Arleigh Burke class are pretty survivable. The Iranians (and their Houthi proxies) have made sustained attacks on them and don't seem to have hit anything. And a single hit would be highly unlikely to sink such as vessel: we're not talking about something like the Russian Moskva cruiser that was crewed by drunks and had inoperative defensive systems.
The real problem is that there are too few such vessels to sustain convoy escort operations. Each destroyer can only provide area air defense for a handful of merchant vessels, and they can only stay on station for a few days at a time before they have to cycle out to refuel, rearm, and conduct critical maintenance. Some of the key munitions also appear to running low. And it appears that the other Gulf states are refusing to allow use of their facilities over fears of Iranian retaliation.
Other countries generally aren't really in a position to assist as part of a coalition either. They either don't have sufficiently capable warships at all, or lack the logistics train to sustain them in the Persian Gulf / Gulf of Oman region. After the Cold War a lot of countries like the UK and Germany essentially dismantled their navies so that they now exist only as government jobs programs.
Assisting the US with regard to Iran is phenomenally unpopular. The increase in energy prices isn't outweighing people's desire not to have their country assist.
The other thing is: even if a country like the UK committed billions of dollars to joining the fight in the gulf - there’s no reason to think it’d lower their energy prices, or earn them any favours from Trump.
Short of a nuclear strike (which isn’t on the cards thankfully) nothing short of a ceasefire can get shipping moving again. Sending more warships doesn’t help with that.
So it’s not just that helping Trump would be incredibly unpopular at home - there’s also no guarantee the huge expense would lower energy bills at all.
Many countries have said they will help patrol the strait as long as the war stops. Iran wont be able to keep this after the war. Iran wont declare war against the entire world, so they wont shoot down their destroyers.
The attack on Iran was an attack on the globe, causing energy and supply chain issues for everybody, including the attackers.
Other countries are not volunteering to help prosecute more attacks on Iran, because they are already victims of those attacks, and it's bad enough that the USA and israel aren't even apologizing for hurting them, much less paying for the damages.
Thus, the offer to "help patrol the strait" once the USA and israel stop attacking is meant to persuade the USA and israel to stop attacking, not an indication of support for the USA and israel's attacks. Indeed, most countries do not support the USA and israel's attacks on Iran, were totally okay with the status quo, and would have preferred if the USA and israel had not attacked Iran.
So what? Attacking Iran was a stupid move, but the US and Israeli regimes don't particularly care about the other victims whining. If other countries are going to make themselves dependent on fossil fuels from the Persian Gulf region then they'll either have to secure their own sea lines of communication or accept that supplies are unreliable. Asking for apologies or payments won't accomplish anything. That is the geopolitical reality.
There are refeniries dependent on the Persian Gulf region(PGR) but the majority of countries are dependent on the the general commodities market of downstream products. The US famously produces more oil than it uses and is not generally receiving fuel that's downstream of the PGR and yet if you look at the gas prices in the US you'll realise that it's not as simple as being reliant on fossil fuels from the PGR.
That's without taking into account other things like high grade helium or specific niche products.
The us imports more crude oil than it exports. An easily looked up fact.
The us does export more refined products than it imports but it’s highly dependent on crude imports for it’s significant refining capacity.
> the US and Israeli regimes don't particularly care about the other victims whining
This does seem to be true of israel, but as for the USA, it does not, hence the USA limiting their attacks.
> If other countries are going to make themselves dependent on fossil fuels from the Persian Gulf region then they'll either have to secure their own sea lines of communication or accept that supplies are unreliable.
This sort of rhetoric is why other countries do not support the USA and israel: the other countries already did that, then the USA and israel came and attacked those supply lines, thus attacking those countries.
It strikes me as gaslighting abuser language to attack someone else, then blame it on them for not protecting themselves better. It's better for the attackers to acknowledge their mistakes, apologize for them, and pay restitution.
It's not rhetoric. I'm not trying to convince anyone, I'm just explaining how things work. Since the other countries largely lack the ability to act, their support or lack thereof is irrelevant. The US and Israel have no incentive to apologize or pay restitution; more likely outcomes are that they either escalate, or unilaterally disengage and leave others to clean up the mess.
The world does have another much better option: they can pay the Iranian ransom and call it a day. No need to participate in another war.
this is in no small part because Iran is viewed a bit like America's Poland.
Yes, I know ww2 comparisons are tired but honestly the Lebensraum explanation makes more sense than what trump has said publicly, so here we are...
And yet national leaders do phenomenally unpopular things all the time when they decide it's necessary. In this particular case it's mostly moot because none of the other impacted countries really has the capability to act regardless of popularity or lack thereof. Like the UK chose to spend all of their money on nationalized healthcare instead of the military. I don't mean that in a critical or negative way, on balance that might have been the right choice for them. But that choice does constrain their options in a crisis.
The UK spends a lower fraction of its GDP on health than the US (the US is an outlier because of its system).
The UK's NHS is not why it's not taking part in this mess.
Would it not be pretty counterproductive for other countries to assist the US in this case? That seems only likely to prolong / exacerbate the war. The US giving up would be much faster.
Whether it would be counterproductive or not depends on what those other countries are trying to produce. None of them particularly want to pay tribute or protection money to Iran, especially because Iran could then decide to close the strait again or raise the fee at any time. They also don't want to set a precedent that other countries might exploit for charging transit fees through their national waters. And the USA might impose secondary sanctions on any country which makes payments to Iran. So the current stalemate might last quite a while.
"Like the UK chose to spend all of their money on nationalized healthcare instead of the military"
I believe the equation is a bit more complex than that.
Fair enough. There are a multiple additional reasons why the UK can no longer afford an expeditionary military to protect their overseas interests, but the full explanation can't fit into an HN comment. The exact reasons aren't relevant to the current state of affairs, the main point is that they lack the capability to do anything even if they wanted to.
Is it even worth to escort tankers? The money you spend on countering cheap drones would be massive, and this administration would likely ask the escorted ships to pay for protection. At that point, they might as well just pay Iran.
The rub is the insurance for the tankers. The providers are looking at the risk and saying “hard pass.” Unless the US govt wants to get in the tanker insurance business they are stuck.
The US government is already in the shipping insurance business. That hasn't helped. War risk insurance is also still available from other carriers.
https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/breaking-news/w...
I don't know anything about this but I am a software engineer.
Stop laughing for a minute because I do have a point.
As a software engineer, I typically build something and engineer it so I can iterate quickly and improve it. I know that the first version won't work.
Isn't this a perfect opportunity for Iran to iterate on sinking cargo ships? I'm struggling to believe that a regime that is (allegedly) weeks away from a nuclear bomb wouldn't be able to keep launching missiles at ships until they notice the right type of hole.
And, think of the apprenticeship opportunities.
Iran doesn't want to sink merchant ships. They want to extort money from merchant shipping companies by threatening to sink their ships if they don't pay for 'protection'. All they need is a credible threat, which they already have absent any naval ships willing to stay at point blank range to defend merchant ships.
While there are religious, cultural and political aspects to this, the Iranian govt has primarily become a kleptocracy in recent years. It sustains power through the Revolutionary Guard (aka IRGC) which has grown into what's essentially a state-run, money-making commercial enterprise. It collaborates and colludes with various entities across the Iranian economy which it controls either directly or via bribes and coercion. While reasonable people can debate what the recent attacks on Iran accomplished, they certainly nerfed a large part of the IRGC's income. The new Hormuz extortion scheme isn't just retaliation or vengeance, it's replacing lost income which is urgently needed to prop up the Iranian government.
Yes, Iran has already hit several merchant vessels. Their ability to do that occasionally is not in doubt. It's mostly a question of economics. The ship owners and insurers have to decide whether it's worth the risk to run their cargoes through. This has all happened before with the 1980s "Tanker War" between Iraq and Iran: despite some losses the traffic never completely stopped.
And large merchant ships, especially crude oil tankers, and quite tough to sink. When they take a hit it usually just causes some damage.
Iterating on a rocket design is not like making a tweak to a line of code. It needs production line changes, manufacturing, testing, (repeat X times) where the process takes weeks, months or even years untill desired results can be achieved. And their manudacturing sites have been reduced to rubble, so that slows things down too.
As I said I'm only a software engineer but didn't Ukraine revolutionize the rules of asymetric warfare by drone iteration? Your statement rings true but I wonder if there are aspiring rocket engineers that really want to test their totally unproven new ideas without the constraint of a military hierarchy in peacetime.
The thing is, Iran doesn’t need to. US maybe can defend their ships, but they can’t defend commercial ships well enough for them to resume regular operations. Even unsuccessful attacks would cause insurance to make it not possible.
Houthis closed their straight some years ago and US wasn’t able to do anything about that neither. And Houthis are nowhere near as capable as Iran.
US gambled on decapitation strike and failed.
It's clearly clogged, could PNE's unclog it?
Yes, that is a fair point. However, the cost of drone versus latest generation ballistic missile that has a chance to reach us naval ship is very different. And in that sense, iterating on a drone is closer to iterating on a line of code because one drone would cost you a thousand bucks and your iteration is a small tweak like adding a different grenade triggering mechanism. Rockets require custom design, custom manufacturing lines, and generally much more difficult to modify and make more effective.
You also have a lot more tries with cheap drones since the target is lower value, so you have hundreds of data points on how each iteration performs vs hitting a naval ship which is an extremely rare event, so it's hard to see whether your iteration on a rocket actually succeeded.
The Iranians (and their Houthi proxies) have made sustained attacks on them and don't seem to have hit anything.
That's because the US has kept the surface combatants far back from the Persian Gulf for the duration of the war.
As far as we know, they have attempted to run the strait twice and had to turn back because they were under sustained attack.
I assume these ships can defend themselves for some period of time, but eventually the munitions run out, and they become sitting ducks. There is a reason the US Navy fled the Persian Gulf on Feb 26 and has not returned since.
> There is a reason the US Navy fled the Persian Gulf on Feb 26 and has not returned since.
Two US Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers transited Hormuz a couple of weeks ago without damage and are still there last I heard. The Iranians were really upset, but couldn't do anything to stop it.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2-us-navy-destroyers-transit-st...
Do you have supporting evidence they are still there? I though they exited toward the Gulf of Oman around May 6/7 https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-RELEASES/Press-Release-V...
I had not heard about that transit, thanks for sharing! The ships mentioned in our two links match up, so it certainly sounds like they spent a some number days in the Persian Gulf and transited back. There was also a transit that occurred in April which mentioned other ships joining the operation in the future, not sure if that happened or not.
If it went so swimmingly, why only twice then, when there are thousands of marooned ships in need of escort services?
Transiting by themselves is a lot different than escorting merchant vessels. By themselves warships are free to maneuver at any time and do so at military speeds. Convoy duty with merchant vessels requires repeatedly moving slowly along a predictable route for sustained periods. Mobility and speed are two of a warship's main strengths.
The extreme narrowness of the strait right next to so much enemy-controlled shoreline is a unique problem. All of the destroyers and frigates from all the world's navies combined couldn't sustain protecting the massive number of merchant vessels wishing to transit the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis.
> Transiting by themselves is a lot different than escorting merchant vessels
The second crossing was conformed to be such an escort mission. They shot down everything Iran threw at them, but the cost assymetry still holds.
> All of the destroyers and frigates from all the world's navies combined couldn't sustain protecting the massive number of merchant vessels wishing to transit the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis.
My point exactly: the argument that the "US Navy isn't as large as it used to be" is moot
Ships don’t need escort services because you don’t give command of oil tankers to risk taking thrill seekers. And insurance isn’t enough when the captain is literally on the ship, potentially getting killed.
Ships need a robust, sustained ceasefire.
Warships vs. insurers willing to underwrite a policy for merchant vessels to transit are definitely two very different things. The Iranian Government has a much higher pain threshold/resolve than Trump, but they're also in a lot more pain with the Gulf of Oman closed. Both sides are losing, who will get tired of it first?
> I don't know enough about the current state of naval warfare but I've assumed this is related to the asymmetry that's emerged around protecting capital warships, especially in the scenario of a very narrow strait and a long enemy-controlled coastline.
It's not the billion-dollar warships that transport oil, it's the much more fragile and unarmed tankers.
Even if the US Navy begins full escort duty, it can't remain on-station forever. What are shippers to do afterwards? One drone strike might cause a tanker to have a very bad day, yet it's extremely difficult to so permanently degrade an entire country that they become incapable of launching sporadic attacks.
Ultimately, the status of the Strait must be settled diplomatically, and the US and Iran are each betting that the other side will blink first.
It's not even the strait that's the important geopolitical entity here. It's all the oil pumps and refineries in Saudi Arabia, Qatar or UAE.
The US began to patrol the strait with Destroyers and immediately stopped when the scared Saudis immediately realized that Iran was about to attack Saudi oil rigs.
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Iran has too many targets and the only thing that can stop them is the equivalent to an Israeli Iron Dome across the entirety of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE, maybe more.
> Iran has too many targets and the only thing that can stop them is the equivalent to an Israeli Iron Dome across the entirety of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE, maybe more.
Another key issue is Iran's regional neighbors haven't invested significantly enough becoming credible military threats against Iran. Instead they tried to play an in-between game of being tacit frenemies because Iran and its proxies could be politically useful. But in the last 3 years, Iran lost most of its proxies through a series of catastrophic miscalculations, dramatically shifting regional dynamics. Iran now has less reason to cooperate regionally and its neighbors lack of credible offense is costing them dearly.
A contributing factor is that the direct customers for much of what passes through the strait are Western European countries who've failed to sustain any real naval power beyond ceremonial presence. In recent years, the U.S. Navy had to quietly ask the German navy to stay away from the Western Indian ocean due to the additional burden of guaranteeing the safety of the German "warships" if they were attacked by Somali pirates.
Without going too far into the political weeds here, I'll say that the problem is less "Germany and UAE needs more guns" and more "maybe we shouldn't have pissed off Iran".
I agree with you that Trump's recent attack on Iran was an ill-advised strategic blunder.
However, it can be simultaneously true that most countries in Western Europe and many in the Middle East have under-invested in their military readiness for so long, they've lost the ability to secure their own strategic interests. You're right to be annoyed other countries provoked a regional bully for their own misguided reasons. While Trump is our problem, relying on a bully like Iran not being a bully against the EU's global interests is Europe's problem.
Unfortunately, we live in a world of super powers including Russia, China and, yes, even the U.S. who at best have their own strategic interests which may not always align with yours and at worst will take from you whatever you can't defend. If you can't secure your own economic interests militarily, there will eventually be steep costs. Even if your own country carefully tiptoes around bullies for fear of provoking them, you can still be trampled under the feet of other countries fighting for stupid reasons which have nothing to do with you.
Note: I say this as an American who likes our European allies and who thinks Trump has been an idiot on almost everything. Even back when Trump was just a bad reality TV host, I could see the U.S. should stop trying to be "World Police." It was never going to be sustainable over decades and it was distorting the behavior of other countries, both enemies and allies. Since the end of the cold war the U.S. has subtly harmed our allies by enabling some of them to under-invest in their own military readiness.
> Iran has too many targets and the only thing that can stop them is the equivalent to an Israeli Iron Dome
Wasn't Iron Dome coverage deteriorating due to low munitions? The cost asymmetry between drones and interceptors makes any drawn-out conflicts mutually punishing - unless someone on the future decides to gamble on another decapitation strike. The Iron Dome is great against improvised pipe-rockets, but less effective against ballistic missile salvos.
I think this is not discussed enough. These are huge investments and destroying them requires a significant time to recover. Our key growth play being AI which is a huge energy consumer, impacting the long term supply chain for energy is questionable.
Cheap drones taking out an AWACS is a great example of this. The US has only 16 of these and it will cost $700 million to replace, and was taken out by a drone that probably cost less than your car.
The very definition of asymmetric.
All of this was well known before the war though. The idea that navy is incredibly vulnerable modern anti-ship defenses has been a major consideration in the Taiwan situation for at least a decade (mostly in relation to the ability of the US navy to even operate in the area in a war). More recently, Ukraine has made a great show of sinking navy ships with cheap unmanned surface vehicles
Back in WWII you could sail your navy up a river and expect positive results. In the 21st century, the idea of attacking an enemy-held strait with navy doesn't work
The US military is also just less powerful than it was at its peak at the end of the Cold War as well.
Still the most powerful navy in the world, but spread increasingly thin (turns out "the whole world" is quite a big place).
This is no longer Reagan's (almost) 600 ship navy, and projecting power halfway round the world is no mean feat when your opponent can lob missiles and drones at you from their back garden
I don't see how more more American war ships in the strait would change the calculus of the Iran war without. Even if they packed the strait with ships so that an admiral could walk from Oman to Iran without getting their shoes wet, Iran could still lob drones and missiles from inland.
suppose one has N independently developed interception systems (from detection till physical interception attempt), each with an intercept success rate of 90%.
a rudimentary calculation then gives the probability of hitting (not sinking) the ship as 0.1^N per launched missile; so it seems that given enough budget to spend on independently developed missile interception systems allows to drive down the penetration success rate arbitrarily.
Multi-billion sounds like $ 10^10; so assuming an attacker can launch say a million missile attempts then the statistical loss would be 0.1^N * 10^10 * 10^6; so the statistical loss can be driven down arbitrarily say to $ 1 by developing ~ 16 independent interception systems.
16 independently developed intercept systems doesn't sound like unobtainium for a vested nuclear power.
furthermore, the development cost of 16 independent intercept systems can be amortized over many more installations than a single ship, it can be amortized over multiple ships, multiple bases, multiple strategic assets across the globe.
You have abstracted things a bit too far.
Unless your interceptor system is unobtainium laser system with unobtainium cooling system, backed-up by unobtainium power source, you are going to run out of interceptor missiles (or even Phalanx bullets) way sooner than 'million missile attempts'.
Quite possibly 100-200 Shaheds + half a dozen proper anti-ship missiles will cause you to turn tail.
equally unobtainium as the 1 M missiles aimed at the ship.
Is it? Russia’s making 60k Shaheds a year, and they are in the middle of an active conflict that has other needs.
60k / year = about 180 per day = 7 per hour.
there are so many options from coil guns, to lasers, to jammers, to non-nuclear EMP's, ... that don't involve the caricature of a million dollar missile intercepting it.
You’re proposing largely experimental or theoretical solutions to a today problem.
And the Ukraine war has demonstrated the issues with jammers.
I agree launching 1 M Shahed drones at a ship would be purely theoretical, and won't solve Iran's today problems...
> Even if a warship stops the vast majority of them, only one has to get through to sink a multi-billion dollar ship that takes a decade to replace.
Even worse. They don't need to attack _warships_. They can just attack civilian vessels, especially tanker ships, that don't have any defenses.
A hit on a tanker and the subsequent oil spill would be catastrophic.