There’s never been a 100% one-sided war and the strikes on
Iran are no exception. According to
Newsmax website, as reported on 12-Mar,
Now, compare that to the reported hundreds or thousands of targets hit per day in Iran. That’s about as lopsided as you can get.
Too many people are trying to portray this as some kind
nearly even war with Iran effectively fighting back. Well, that’s about as far from reality as you
can get.
_______________________________
… at least 11 American military bases or installations have been damaged …[1]
Now, compare that to the reported hundreds or thousands of targets hit per day in Iran. That’s about as lopsided as you can get.
https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/u-s-military-iran-war/2026/03/12/id/1249244/
That’s true enough ConNavOps, but the Russians have been hammering Ukraine in much the same way for more than four years, and they’re still fighting.
ReplyDeleteIran is twice the size of Ukraine and has four times the population.
Let’s all hope you’re right on this.
From a military perspective, there's absolutely no doubt. The only question is whether we'll take this to an ultimate positive end point or stop short as we so often do?
DeleteWhat is the "ultimate positive end point"? If it's military dominance, we accomplished that in about the first 48 hours. So that can't be it. So what IS the end point we're going for here? It's hard to know when you've successfully achieved a goal when you haven't defined it.
Delete"What is the "ultimate positive end point"?"
DeleteThat is the key question for any military endeavor. Disappointingly, Trump has not elucidated an end point. This is not a geopolitical blog so I won't delve into what that endpoint should be although it should be pretty obvious.
The goal is to remove the sclerotic and militarily incompetent leadership cadre with new, younger and
Deletemore effective leadership. Sort like the French Revolution
removed the Monarchy and Bonaparte was able to rise.
I am sorry but why do people believe that Iran should somehow throw back pound for pound all ordnance dropped on it?
ReplyDeleteFirst off, damaging forward bases and air tankers (as well as pushing aircraft carriers as far as possible) lowers operational tempo and the amount of strikes possible. So it is actually a really important part of the puzzle.
Other than that, Iran does not plan to win, it plans to disrupt neighboring countries and the global economy on a strategic level. You don't need tons of explosives to shut down ship & air traffic, oil fields, refineries and facilities or to bankrupt the Gulf countries main economic model (which rests of stability and security for the mega rich, tourists and as major air hubs). You basically need a few drones
Take a look at the prices for oil, for NG, for urea (used in fertilizers). Yes Iran will be badly beaten. That does not mean that it cannot play the long game or that the long game is not in its favor.
It's most important strategic goal is to withstand the current war (without a regime collapse) and make the cost so large that it can achieve a (written or not) agreement that there will not be another round down the road. Iran's biggest fear is that things will repeat again after 6 months or one year, just as the June War was actually only round one.
It is targeting deterrence, not winning on a grand scale. It is probably even ok with Trump making grandiose claims of "completely victory" if it can achieve its goals.
Your entire premise is valid ONLY IF WE ALLOW IT. Iran has zero ability to achieve anything, at this point. A month or two of reduced shipping and a few instances of damaged facilities achieve nothing long term. Iran's ONLY path to anything resembling a win is if we fail to follow through ... as we so often do.
DeleteIran has no coherent leadership, no navy, no functioning state media, no control of their own oil facilities, no air force, and no sympathy from the neighboring Gulf states. They've lost everything ... AS LONG AS WE DON'T GIVE IT BACK TO THEM.
You're speaking as if they have control over how things will turn out. They do not. You are exactly what the post addresses.
Iran's ... state media are not shooting missiles and drones. Nor is its navy. Nor did Ukraine require a navy to deny Russian (surface) navy freedom of action.
DeleteYou are just making assertions at this point despite reality proving that Iran maintains quite strong punishment options.
Merely the fact that the US (after being surprised that their Maduro 2 long weekend operation failed) has made destroying.. Iranian Navy a key part of its campaign shows that the actual, meaningful military targets are quite far from being successful
I guess when I remind you that the USN was not successful in deterring the... Houthis your response will be something along the lines of "we only needed two more weeks of consistent operations to achieve our goals"
The reality is that disruption is quite cheap and easy, especially for a country the size (and resources) of Iran
What does "follow through" look like to you? I assume you are not talking about landing troops. So, keep bombing until... what?
Delete"Iran maintains quite strong punishment options."
DeleteLOL!
"Houthis"
We made no serious attempt to stop them. I've detailed exactly how we could have done that but for whatever reasons we opted not to.
"The reality is that disruption is quite cheap and easy, especially for a country the size (and resources) of Iran"
I think I pee'ed a little laughing!
"What does "follow through" look like to you?"
DeleteThis is not a geopolitical blog so I won't go into that aspect although I've made it clear enough what the ultimate goal should be. Any reasonably intelligent person can see what the end point needs to be. I assume you're reasonably intelligent?
Our Commander-in-Chief's comments from today seem relevant to this exchange: "Remember, it only takes a couple of people to screw up the strait... Their military is defeated, but all you need is a few people dropping mines here and there and, you know, you louse it up."
DeleteI can't recall a single instance I've seen of anyone saying this is a "nearly even war." Do you have a source for that?
ReplyDeletePerhaps the debate you're talking about is, what does "winning" look like to each side? If it's targets destroyed, bombs dropped, etc., we then, yes, if course the US (and Israel) are "winning"! By that bean-counting metric, we also won Vietnam, several times over!
An Iran that can still be a sufficient threat to, say, disrupt shipping through Hormuz at will, or still maintains its current anti-western theocratic regime, may not "win", but also would see that as not losing, which is enough.
"I can't recall a single instance I've seen of anyone saying this is a "nearly even war."
DeleteWell, your comment pretty much qualifies. There's another comment just in this section that pretty much says Iran controls the war and will likely win. In previous posts there are comments about how powerful Iran's military response has been. Throughout the Internet, so many people are claiming Iran is successfully resisting. And so on.
It's one thing to have an opinion but it's another to ignore reality which is what you're doing.
"Iran that can still be a sufficient threat to, say, disrupt shipping through Hormuz at will"
That's absurd as well as being yet another example of claiming Iran is successfully fighting. Iran has no navy to harass ships. They've lost their mining capability to any significant extent. They have no air force to attack shipping. Their anti-ship missiles are being systematically destroyed. They have no ability to shut down the strait. Shipping is reduced, now, but slowly resuming. As far as I know, not a single ship has been sunk.
At some point, you have to recognize reality for what it is or be seen as a fool.
Iran's ONLY path to anything resembling a win (or even survival) is IF WE LET THEM by not following through, as we've so often done. Their fate is 100% in our hands, not theirs.
Wars are political acts, not military exercises conducted in isolation. As a reader of this blog, my first impression of this war is that it lacked a "CONOPS". There was never really any doubt we could drop bombs when and where we wanted. The impotency of the Iranian military was fully proven last summer; there was nothing more to demonstrate. When we started dropping those bombs, however, we did so without any clear idea at all of what we wanted to achieve. The long term outcomes remain uncertain - but thus far, strategically, our muddled thinking has worked to Iran's favor. Yes, they've shown the expected impotence at stopping US attacks, but at the same time, they've stayed in power, replaced an old hardline cleric with a younger one, and shown they have the ability to inflict meaningful economic pain on the US in response to being attacked, none of which were assured beforehand.
ReplyDeleteYes - exactly.
DeleteAnyone who doubted that a surprise, US-Israeli military offense against a third-rate regional power wouldn't result in a quick military victory is delusional. That was NEVER in question! We quickly and efficiently achieved military dominance. As we should have.
What is, and always was, in question was what that would lead to. If anyone thought that, following such a complete military loss, Iran would just surrender, give up, roll over, become a US patsy - whatever - simply doesn't understand how the world works. A basic review of history would show how rare it is that this is the case. I don't think we will understand the non-military outcome of this war for years.
"When we started dropping those bombs, however, we did so without any clear idea at all of what we wanted to achieve."
DeleteUnclear to you, perhaps, but clear enough to the rest of us. The immediate goals were to stop Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions, neuter their military, stop their ability to export and sponsor terrorism, eliminate their leadership, etc. What our ultimate geopolitical goal is has not yet been publicly annunciated.
"worked to Iran's favor. "
You've got to be kidding.
"inflict meaningful economic pain"
What meaningful economic pain? Gas prices rose a bit? Gas prices go up and down all the time. That's not meaningful.
You're delusional. Come on and join the rest of us over here in reality!
"What is, and always was, in question was what that would lead to."
DeleteOf course. You seem to think that it's not even theoretically possible that this could result in a positive outcome. Consider, as one example, Syria. Once the dictator was gone, the country ceased being a threat. We could have done much more to guide an even more positive outcome but chose not to. Eliminate the leadership until you find a leader that is willing to cooperate to an acceptable degree.
I cite it as an example for you but we are not going to discuss Syria. This is not a geopolitical blog.
I suspect that the Trump administration thought that there would be a continued uprising if the Iranian regime was damaged.
DeleteMaybe the 30,000ish people that were massacred last month sucked the fire out of the resistance there?
Either way, I think that we have accomplished the original goal of neutering Iran's nuclear program, and badly damaged the Iranian military.
That supports our current friends in the Shia-Sunni cold war going on in that region.
Regime change would just be the icing on the cake. We'll see if it happens.
Lutefisk
Not directly on topic. While I personally don't think Iran has any meaningful capability (if any at all) to lay mines, the recent decommissioning of the four remaining Avenger-class sweepers based in theater seems incredibly bad timing. They were literally lifted home just in January.
ReplyDelete"decommissioning of the four remaining Avenger-class sweepers based in theater seems incredibly bad timing."
DeleteYep! Combined with the ongoing retirements of the LCS, it's a farce and illustrates just how screwed up the Navy is.
In the news today, two of the four LCS "minesweepers" sent the Gulf two months ago are in Malaysia, presumably for repairs.
DeleteWe've built the wrong surface navy for this type of operation.
DeleteWhat we have are aircraft carriers with high-end escorts.
Those are great for carrier airstrikes, not great at anything else.
Lutefisk
They had probably been at sea a month having left before the action and needed to come in as per their design. They are also safely away until needed whereas an Avenger might have remained stuck and been a target we need to devote more resources to defending. Obviously the ships design would have benefited from fewer single points of failure as well as the ability to integrate more than one mission module package at a time. You need the anti-surface gear to do the MCM in this scenario, it seems.
Delete"You need the anti-surface gear to do the MCM in this scenario, it seems."
DeleteNo. You need a well thought out CONOPS for mine clearing which includes anti-surface protection provided by other assets (air force, Burkes, patrol boats, etc.). Trying to make one platform, a minesweeper, in this case, capable of doing everything is how and why we continually produce failed ship classes. That said, NONE of our mine clearing assets (the few we have) are designed for clearance under combat conditions. Our pursuit of unmanned, one-at-a-time clearing has been a false path.
Back to navy stuff rather than politics. As a Brit I find it highly embarrassing that until recently we had 4 mine sweepers/counter measures boats in the gulf and have had them there for a couple of decades. It is ironic this all started when the last of them was arriving back at Blighty. I personally think, militarily, that it will highlight the total lack of US /Western/ NATO anti mine kit.
ReplyDeleteWhat did the RN actually have in the way of effective mine clearance capability? I genuinely don't know. As I understand it, the main asset was the Seafox underwater drone which was a slow speed, short endurance, one-use kamikaze drone which requires previous detection of a mine by some other asset. Does that sound like a good system?
DeleteThose of us of a certain age recall SecDef McNamara judging how Vietnam was going based on measurable metrics like net body count.
ReplyDeleteJudging the success of today's war over net installations destroyed, total bombs dropped, etc. likewise misses all the qualitative elements that ultimately makes war a success or failure.
"Judging the success of today's war over net installations destroyed"
DeleteThat's certainly true. So far, only you and few others have ventured into the body count approach. I won't go there. I prefer to look at capabilities destroyed like the Iranian navy being destroyed, the leadership being decimated, the missile production being destroyed, missile storage being destroyed, mine laying ships being wiped out, sanctions being imposed, financial assets being frozen, nuclear facilities being destroyed, and so on. This gives me a much more accurate assessment than any body count. Eliminate all those capabilities and you've succeeded, militarily, whatever the body count is.
Perhaps you should heed your own words and refocus your attention on capabilities destroyed.
The point is that simply counting things that can be counted - like the number of things destroyed or accounts frozen - is a very limited (and sometimes useless: Vietnam) method to determine success in war. Particularly when your foe doesn't have much to be counted in the first place.
Delete"The point is that simply counting"
DeleteSo far, it's pretty much just you that's focused on counting "things".
I’ll be relieved and happy if we’re in a better position at the end of this conflict than we were before it, and I m reasonably confident that we will be as long as we don’t ‘declare victory’ and go home before the job is complete.
ReplyDeletePeople need to remember that we’re only fifteen days into this thing: two weeks after Pearl Harbor the press wasn’t screaming OMG what the heck is going on - it’s nearly January and the Japanese haven’t even surrendered yet!
" two weeks after Pearl Harbor the press wasn’t screaming"
DeleteThere's some welcome perspective!
NY Times headline on 12/21/1941: "ENEMY SUBMARINES ARE OFF BOTH OUR COASTS; HARD FIGHTING AT DAVAO; FOE'S TRANSPORT SUNK; U.S. SEEKS 'UNITY OF ACTION' IN ANTI-AXIS DRIVE"
DeleteToday's NYT headline: "Stark Choice for Trump as Growing War Enters Third Week: Risks in Either a Longer Fight or a Pullback"
DeleteThx. It’s the instant gratification thing and the quick dopamine fix getting in the way of long(er) term planning and goal setting.
DeleteInjections for weight loss, so why diet. Uber eats and fast food; wealth through Crypto; Amazon Prime same day delivery - people have gotten used to all this and expect it in every aspect of their lives including their vicarious war experience and they want results NOW!
If they can’t see clear pics of victory unfolding in real time then obviously it’s a disaster, and even otherwise sensible people panic and catastrophize, and the media look for a defeat where there isn’t one.
"Its Reuters."
ReplyDeleteI NEVER cite unnamed, undescribed sources. The fact that any supposed news organization would do so strongly suggests that the information is suspect. The closest I come to dealing with unnamed sources is when I allow anonymous commenters, such as yourself, to participate in the blog.
I deleted the rest of your comment as pure fantasy level garbage.
ComNavOps : Thank you for your blog. It is interesting on many level. On of this level, currently highlighted, is that it embodies the "US view" of the concept of "Victory". As pointed by many others contributors, the US seems to view "Victory" as the total annihilation of the ennemy , and so considers the continuous destruction of ennemy manpower and equipment as steps towards victory.
ReplyDeleteHistory teaches us that Victory is very different : it is the reach of a political outcome that is more favorable than the previous equilibrium. Destruction of the ennemy without political advantages is like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon : endless and meaningless, even if - yes - you can fill a bucket if your spoon is big enough.
Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq.. all exemplify this.
Besides that, US diplomacy can sometimes be bold, brillant, courageous and have long lasting effects (see Nixon getting closer to China to isolate the Soviet ? The effect of the Détente during the Cold War ?). So please do not view my post as a blind criticism of the US foreign policy.
" the US seems to view "Victory" as the total annihilation of the enemy"
DeleteThis is as far from the truth as possible! As best I can tell, since the government has not explicitly laid it out, the US goal is elimination of the ruling class along with all ability to make nuclear weapons and conduct/export terrorism. The Iranian people, far from being annihilated, would then be free to choose their path forward. The "destruction of enemy manpower and equipment" supports those goals. If the US goal were total annihilation, we'd be attacking population centers and we're not beyond specific military targets.
"History teaches us that Victory is very different "
History teaches us that the best victory is the total elimination of the offending ruling class as exemplified by our victory in WWII. Germany and Japan have no become beneficial world members.
"please do not view my post as a blind criticism of the US foreign policy."
There is plenty to criticize US foreign policy about as long as the benefits are also realistically and objectively recognized. US foreign policy is like the old saying about governments: it's the worst except for all the others.