Oh good grief, this summary is both farcical and tragic: also, Trump has fucked air travel for at least the next two years, never mind automobiles and logistics.
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RE: https://infosec.exchange/@bontchev/116271481696841313
Oh good grief, this summary is both farcical and tragic: also, Trump has fucked air travel for at least the next two years, never mind automobiles and logistics. The supply chain shock will get as bad as 2022 within a couple of months—then keep getting worse.
@cstross Trump and the people around him are absolute morons, yes, but there is a weird motivated thinking desire among many to breathlessly claim US military hardware - which Trump had no hand in the development of - somehow sucks.
The F-35, for all its infamous flaws, is working better than experts expected. It was never designed to be fully stealthy - it emits radar so it can see and shoot at enemy aircraft.
And SM-3 continues to be phenomenal.
But the awesome performance of some systems
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@cstross Trump and the people around him are absolute morons, yes, but there is a weird motivated thinking desire among many to breathlessly claim US military hardware - which Trump had no hand in the development of - somehow sucks.
The F-35, for all its infamous flaws, is working better than experts expected. It was never designed to be fully stealthy - it emits radar so it can see and shoot at enemy aircraft.
And SM-3 continues to be phenomenal.
But the awesome performance of some systems
@cstross really does not change the fact that there never was any way to "win" this Iran War. You just have to look at this size, terrain, population layout of Iran compared to Iraq 2003 to get an idea of what sort of invasion force would have been necessary.
And there aren't any neighbors to Iran eager to become an invasion staging area.
So ... Iran will win. Period. They'll get bombed and stuff, and then ... they'll win.
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RE: https://infosec.exchange/@bontchev/116271481696841313
Oh good grief, this summary is both farcical and tragic: also, Trump has fucked air travel for at least the next two years, never mind automobiles and logistics. The supply chain shock will get as bad as 2022 within a couple of months—then keep getting worse.
@cstross Excellent and pithy analysis.
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@cstross really does not change the fact that there never was any way to "win" this Iran War. You just have to look at this size, terrain, population layout of Iran compared to Iraq 2003 to get an idea of what sort of invasion force would have been necessary.
And there aren't any neighbors to Iran eager to become an invasion staging area.
So ... Iran will win. Period. They'll get bombed and stuff, and then ... they'll win.
@isaackuo Yep.
For people who've never looked at a map (most Americans, apparently), my synopsis is, "Iran is Mordor". Big-ass empire surrounded on all sides by water or mountains. Also, it's on the other side of the world from the USA. Also-also, the littoral approaches are all naval death-traps. There's a REASON the Persian Empire didn't get conquered very often, and it's geopolitics!
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@rpluim @cstross already happening in some countries, and if Trump targets Iranian energy then I imagine that the response probably ends up even worse.
And Iran hasn't even started on non conventional warfare like flying smuggled in drones into US refineries, data centres or world cup stadiaIsrael has the world's best air defence and it can't keep their missiles out.
@etchedpixels @cstross The worst case I've seen suggested is Iran setting off a dirty bomb in an important population centre (do they have any plutonium?), thus rendering it uninhabitable for centuries. Somewhere like Manhattan or the City would be awful
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RE: https://infosec.exchange/@bontchev/116271481696841313
Oh good grief, this summary is both farcical and tragic: also, Trump has fucked air travel for at least the next two years, never mind automobiles and logistics. The supply chain shock will get as bad as 2022 within a couple of months—then keep getting worse.
@cstross "This is a clusterfuck of historic proportions and everyone who's ever held a rank knows it" - well then
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@isaackuo Yep.
For people who've never looked at a map (most Americans, apparently), my synopsis is, "Iran is Mordor". Big-ass empire surrounded on all sides by water or mountains. Also, it's on the other side of the world from the USA. Also-also, the littoral approaches are all naval death-traps. There's a REASON the Persian Empire didn't get conquered very often, and it's geopolitics!
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@blotosmetek @cstross @isaackuo translating to US English for USonian audiences: Iran is like the Texas of the Middle East.
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@blotosmetek @cstross @isaackuo translating to US English for USonian audiences: Iran is like the Texas of the Middle East.
@caesarologia @cstross @isaackuo Actually, Iran is about 2.5 times bigger than Texax, with land area 1 648 195 km² vs 676 587 km²…
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@blotosmetek @cstross @isaackuo yup, it's why the joke is that the only country to ever successfully conquer Iran, is the country of Iran, and even they weren't that successful. (That itself is a long ugly story.)
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@isaackuo Yep.
For people who've never looked at a map (most Americans, apparently), my synopsis is, "Iran is Mordor". Big-ass empire surrounded on all sides by water or mountains. Also, it's on the other side of the world from the USA. Also-also, the littoral approaches are all naval death-traps. There's a REASON the Persian Empire didn't get conquered very often, and it's geopolitics!
@cstross @isaackuo From where I’m sitting Iran has won the gulf by logistics - there’s no reason to hide under the American shield when Paedopotus Rex (the leading light in Just Stop Oil apparently) will stomp hard on you anyway and Iran has the biggest supply of drones and missiles.
I expect Iran to demand withdrawal of US forces from these protectorates and I suspect they’ll get it because you want to deal with a organisation that is reliable and consistent. The USA is neither.
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R relay@relay.an.exchange shared this topic
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@caesarologia @cstross @isaackuo Actually, Iran is about 2.5 times bigger than Texax, with land area 1 648 195 km² vs 676 587 km²…
@blotosmetek @cstross @isaackuo the US mind cannot comprehend the metric system. We need to translate it somehow using absurd units like washing machines per square palms or elephants per rednecks.
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RE: https://infosec.exchange/@bontchev/116271481696841313
Oh good grief, this summary is both farcical and tragic: also, Trump has fucked air travel for at least the next two years, never mind automobiles and logistics. The supply chain shock will get as bad as 2022 within a couple of months—then keep getting worse.
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@caesarologia @cstross @isaackuo Actually, Iran is about 2.5 times bigger than Texax, with land area 1 648 195 km² vs 676 587 km²…
@blotosmetek @caesarologia @isaackuo Iran is very nearly as large as Mexico (90% of the area), 75% of the population (with a LONG history of resisting invaders), surrounded by mountains, and the closest points in CONUS and Iran are 7500km apart. (Unlike Mexico, where there's a land border.)
US folks who think "Iraq, Iran, what's the difference?" need to think in terms of "one is Ukraine (only crappier), the other is Russia (minus Siberia)" to get anywhere close to the scale of the problem.
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@etchedpixels @cstross The worst case I've seen suggested is Iran setting off a dirty bomb in an important population centre (do they have any plutonium?), thus rendering it uninhabitable for centuries. Somewhere like Manhattan or the City would be awful
@rpluim @cstross Manhattan wil be under water in 50 years anyway at current rates.
The previous Iranian leader issued a fatwah prohibiting nuclear weapon usage but they blew him up so who knows
Seems they like finely calculated responses. Like the DIego Garcia attack when Starmer decided to help the US. Easy to shoot down but the clear message being "actually we can hit London if we want"
And for the world cup they just need to blow up one stadium that's empty just before a game.
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@cstross @isaackuo From where I’m sitting Iran has won the gulf by logistics - there’s no reason to hide under the American shield when Paedopotus Rex (the leading light in Just Stop Oil apparently) will stomp hard on you anyway and Iran has the biggest supply of drones and missiles.
I expect Iran to demand withdrawal of US forces from these protectorates and I suspect they’ll get it because you want to deal with a organisation that is reliable and consistent. The USA is neither.
@green_bens @cstross I'm not an expert in the region but I'm pretty sure they will remain strongly opposed to Iran. But they may seek different strategic defense partners, such as Turkey or Ukraine.
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@isaackuo Yep.
For people who've never looked at a map (most Americans, apparently), my synopsis is, "Iran is Mordor". Big-ass empire surrounded on all sides by water or mountains. Also, it's on the other side of the world from the USA. Also-also, the littoral approaches are all naval death-traps. There's a REASON the Persian Empire didn't get conquered very often, and it's geopolitics!
@cstross @isaackuo I think its even simpler - Iranian leadership has been planning for this for 50 years and are clearly prepared to extract maximum pain from the world until the us is stopped.
Meanwhile us leadership appears to have thrown out 50 years of knowledge about Iran, strategic alliances, soft economic power, and every other advantage they had that wasn't "more expensive weapons" and started a war with about 5 seconds of thought
More planning went into the Iraq War for fucks sake
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@rpluim @cstross Manhattan wil be under water in 50 years anyway at current rates.
The previous Iranian leader issued a fatwah prohibiting nuclear weapon usage but they blew him up so who knows
Seems they like finely calculated responses. Like the DIego Garcia attack when Starmer decided to help the US. Easy to shoot down but the clear message being "actually we can hit London if we want"
And for the world cup they just need to blow up one stadium that's empty just before a game.
@etchedpixels @cstross Is a bunch of enriched uranium combined with conventional explosives a "nuclear weapon"? I suspect radioactive uranium dust is pretty nasty, especially in large quantities.
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@cstross @isaackuo I think its even simpler - Iranian leadership has been planning for this for 50 years and are clearly prepared to extract maximum pain from the world until the us is stopped.
Meanwhile us leadership appears to have thrown out 50 years of knowledge about Iran, strategic alliances, soft economic power, and every other advantage they had that wasn't "more expensive weapons" and started a war with about 5 seconds of thought
More planning went into the Iraq War for fucks sake
