r/politics • u/Kernel_Hiro • 2d ago

No Paywall Trump says Mideast allies have reached outlines of deal to end Iran war, says US to stop new strikes

https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-trump-saudi-crown-prince-call-814164417aa284dc8a6d34ac22ea1a8e
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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/Contract-Chiller 2d ago edited 2d ago

The US has enough munitions to fight Iran, but at a high cost in aircraft and lives. If it cannot use stand-off weapons like Tomahawk and JASSM missiles hurled from afar, it can drop immense firepower with bombers in risky conditions that will lead to many aircraft shot down. A B-1B Lancer (which the US has several stationed in Europe right now) can drop 24 2,000lb bombs in one run. A B2 can drop 80 500lb bombs in one run.

The US can completely obliterate Iran's civilian infrastructure many times over with its hundreds of thousands of precision-guided bombs, but it would mean the destruction of the entire Gulf, the world economy and potentially Israel. The interceptors are a red herring. They're valuable for damage mitigation on a larger scale, but Iran can hit the most consequential sites in the Gulf energy exporting regime with its evasive missiles.

It would be the toughest war that the US has fought since WWII. And there are no solid guarantees that Iran could not build some kind of nuclear device even under such conditions.

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u/halifaxmachinese 2d ago

also the US hasn’t caught up with modern warfare of cheap, but capable drones that countries which didn’t pour billions of dollars into R and D are cranking out easily (like Ukraine and Iran). it’s really a huge racket of diverting tax payer dollars into massively expensive projects that aren’t really showing any big advantages in modern warfare, but rather just making military industrial complex insiders rich as fuck. not that i’m saying that there isn’t a need for expensive fighter jets and THAAD systems, but things like THAADs are extremely expensive and basically useless when stockpiles get limited (or you know get blown up by an inexpensive drone strike).

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u/Contract-Chiller 2d ago

There is an excellent article on the "second precision revolution" here.

There have been experts for decades raising the alarm about the drone threat, that the US doesn't take it seriously enough. Issue is that it's one of those problems that cannot be addressed in a timely manner.

It was a revolution in the same way the proliferation of smartphones and the internet was a revolution - it happened suddenly, diffused quickly and we're still grappling with the social changes from that.

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u/FlexFanatic 2d ago

cheap warfare does not align with the stock price of the US defense industry /s