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0 pointsdon_esteban2mo ago0 comments

Re: I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this.

Isn't this just wishfull thinking?

I mean, more mature administrations than Trump's have blundered into Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan without real exit strategies...

Re: Iranian drones to Russia:

Russians now (for quite some time) have their own production and development of Shahed derivatives, I doubt there are shipments from Iran to Russia.

Re: policing Hormuz:

Europe won't do it, for the same reason US is not doing it (it is an impossible task).

Re: the overall aim:

deny China the access to the Gulf oil, succeeding so far, but ultimately pointless (China will be lifted by greatly increased demand for its renewables and battery tech, as well as their electric cars)

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4 comments · 2 top-level

b1122mo ago· 2 in thread

It's not just drones, but parts for drones. It's also munitions, shells, missiles. It's about production volume. The Ukraine is also getting large supplies of the same from the West. No side can produce domestically, what the other can product domestically + import. The imports matter.

It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however?

In terms of oil, the US has recently cut China off from Venezuela as well. Short term supplies are important, "the future", a cloud of probabilities about oil shortags helping China, is not immediately apparent. It's suffering shipment halts from two lead suppliers now, both which were non-open market shipments, and volumes are unclear.

I wonder, what if the Ukraine suddenly stepped up and crippled deliveries of Russian oil to China? Or what if Saudi Arabia was told "don't do that". From where I sit, it's China that's being most directly affected by these actions in terms of energy supply.

don_estebanOP2mo ago

> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. > Is this accurate, however?

Note that as long as there is a risk (even 1 to 20, maybe 1 to 100) that your tanker will be attacked, you just won't sail. (The logic of commercial shipping.)

Hence, blocking Hormuz does not mean total blockage, just a credible threat.

How do you propose to stop such a threat?

Adding warships to the mix, to shoot down incoming drones, simply adds those warships to the risked assets. What happens if a couple of escorts are hit/sunk?

We were not able to stop Houtis. What makes you think we can stop Iranians?

I do not understand this whole "Cripple China" thing. What do you think will happen if China decides that US is REALLY GOING AFTER IT NOW?

Maybe it will be enough for them to just stop shipping crap to US. What will the US do if suddenly the shop shelves become empty, CCCP-style?

cycomanic2mo ago

> It's nice to wave away policing Hormuz, by simply asserting it can't be done. Is this accurate, however?

There have been plenty of analyses pretty much all concluding the same thing. How do you propose to do it? In normal times there were > 150 per day travelling through the gulf. Remember the coastline of Iran along the Gulf is about 2000km, all allowing them to launch strikes against ships (and they don't need to be sophisticated). So would you put a warship with every cargo ship? Occupy the whole coast? I don't see any feasible solution to police it.

amluto2mo ago

> Re: I'd be astonished if 1000s of exit strategies weren't deep planned, maybe a dozen best-outcomes planned, before a single plane bombed anything. The US knows how to exit this.

> Isn't this just wishfull thinking?

The administration could have asked their favorite LLM to plan 1000 exit strategies, kind of like how, if you asked an LLM to make up a reciprocal tariff formula, you would have gotten approximately the administration’s formula.

None of this means that the results are at all useful.

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