Atlanticism is literally well defined and it's not close to what you said
The U.S. and Israel attack Iran
- Thread starter rio's upper lip
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Atlanticism is literally well defined and it's not close to what you said
How is it leaked when it’s essentially already available to the public?
Completely.
It is also dead. And official definitions sound great. But it has always at least partly served white supremacy and American corporate interests. You know, the same shit that got us into this fecked up situation.
Maybe not originally back when it was first coined after the world wars but in recent years, particularly in the 21st century and during the "war on terror", that's what it looks like to me.
This was a misfire. The drones were meant as warning shots for US ships and accidentally hit UAE.
Maybe. Or maybe they are just responsible people who stopped posting when it became clear that this was getting serious and they didn't want to help Iran. We just don't know, do we?
In principle I agree with you. The issue is that the US voted for this virus a second time. And at least my perception is that the majority of US citizens don't care about what the US actions mean for their own allies. Being an ally of the USA always had costs. In the past decade it increasingly lost its benefits. Of course much accelerated by Trump, but I see no platform against this even if he leaves office.
It shows what's possible with modern technology. It's in the public interest to know and understand this to be able to form an opinion on (potential) wars. In democracies public opinion matters.
There is a reason why no European countey wanted to participate here...
They were exposing the actions of a traitor. Yes, under Trump I consider the US to be a traitor to Western values and alliances.
Why would Iran, or most other nations, be relying on it in the first place?
In terms of restrictions of satellite images in general, it’s easy to slap on various excuses about the risk posed to forces, but it has a lot more to do with limiting information to the media and public in general
The point is pretty clear. These bases are sitting ducks as the reporter suggested. Should the US decide to go back to these bases, they can be taken out again at will.
Well, we all knew that. Iran knew that and targeted them. US knew that and evacuated them.
The point of a base isn't to be "immune" to all attack - it serves as logistical hubs for forward troop presence and as a node in a network of many.
As for the latter, it depends on the importance. It's a trade off: Damage of infrastructure vs high cost of defence + potential loss of lives.
In a scenario where US has no strategic depth in the region, and all the Saudi bases/Jordan bases have been magically removed so they MUST rely on the forward bases in the Gulf States, there will be less damage, far more money spent on defenses there and more casualties when the war turns hot. What that means in practical terms is SHORAD being deployed there, operations being conducted from there and far less hits. However, when it does get hit, it means that since there are people operating there, people will inevitably die.
In this war, the planners decided they could rely on the rear bases for operations, sacrifice the infrastructure to preserve cost of defence and to ensure less lives.
There is also another PR disaster here. Nobody wonders if camps at the frontline are attacked, that's obvious. As long as the US troops move the front in the right direction it doesn't affect the global image of the US military.
This is different however. The US troops had to evacuate some of their main sites in the region. Not some field camps. The US had to admit that they can't even defend their own bases against Iranian attacks.
Evacuating obviously was the right tactical move and in the end the material damage can be replaced, as @AfonsoAlves said it's negilible compared to the US military budget. But the PR damage of Iran just destroying US bases should not be underestimated.
That's exactly the point you seem to be missing. The vast majority of people don't know that, that's why it's news. The majority of people, including americans, think american bases are well protected and are not being hit in any substantial way. Apparently they are not well protected at all and are being hammered.
It's the definition of news.
...Did the Feb evacuations of all the frontline bases in the Gulf not indicate that US were not going to bother trying to defend them?
Of course it did. But who followed that? For everyone who didn't this level of destruction is a surprise.
Was the random joe living his life offline aware of that? No, he wasn't. Now he's seeing all those bases blown up and will have some questions the government must answer. This should be considered normal stuff in a democracy.
Yeah, I don't disagree broadly speaking. It's like the planes getting shot down etc.
Anyone who follows these matters closely realize that a) destroyed bases in a hot war with any reasonably sized country is a given and b) enough air sorties will inevitably lead to downed aircraft.
But for the layman who grew up on US fighting rag tag desert militia who, at best, fire a few pot shots of mortar rounds at a base or suicide bomb a FOB, destroyed bases and downed aircraft is an absolute shocker.
The global image constantly shifts and changes.
The global image of the US military was that of pure incompetence after Vietnam (because it was trying to fight a war that had no objective and wasn't designed to fight. 1960's and 70's USA was designed to fight in open battle on the fields of europe, not jungles in south east asia).
Yet a war with Saddam in 91 against an enemy it was designed to fight made people think it was invincible.
Then we'll probably have a situation like Venezuela again where the country surrenders after 48 hours and people think its invincible again.
As long as nation state planners don't buy into this narrative, it's not a strategic problem. If decision makers start believing the hype then its problematic. OR planners buy into the "We're really bad" narrative, spend huge gigantic sums of money and end up in a US 90's situation.
I'm pretty sure this was front page of BBC news at the time, but fair enough.
I don't see how Military doctrine could be challenged reasonably in any government, let alone a democratic one.
"Why did Schwarzkopf utilize a left hook strategy and not an amphibious assault?" is not a reasonable level of discourse the average civilian can provide and all it does is muddy the waters.
We mock the average joe for challenging status quo on Medical things like Vaccines. The average joe is not in a place of reasonable knowledge to debate the institutions on certain topics and this is one of them.
Here is how the interaction would go:
"Why were the bases hit!"
"Well, we decided the risk of trying to defend it with SHORAD and keep active personnel there was too high, especially since we can maintain operational tempo with the rear bases, and basic basing infrastructure is very easy to replace and SHORAD asessts and people are not."
"...What's SHORAD?"
Just a reminder that 2 and a half months ago, the strait of Hormuz was open, gas was affordable, and Iran were absolutely nowhere near having a nuke.
Well said. The issue here is that it feels like you describe Trump and Hegseth here.
I'm quite sure this is the case. I've seen reports that Trump and Hegseth apparently were quite surprised that Iran just didn't surrender but keeps fighting. Not sure how trustworthy those reports were, but they fit the picture that it looks like they are looking for a good exit they just don't find.
I could be wrong but I would bet money on the average European being better informed about these pre-war developments than the average US citizen.
Or you could explain to people: "it's just cheaper and safer for us when Iran uses their ammo on empty buildings that we can easily rebuild after the war, compared to actively defending them. We keep our defence capabilites for actually valuable assets"
You have to simplify things for people outside your bubble. You don't have to show them your exact calculations, but breaking it down to points like "it's just cheaper" is understandable for everyone.
But feeedom though?
This leads to the problem that we've seen in this thread:
"It cant be this simple! What are they hiding! What are they not telling us!"
For example: Fire aboard USS Gerald Ford.
A government that is telling lie after lie can't expect the people to believe them any longer.
On top the US have the Hollywood problem- they make so much propaganda about how great their military is that people just don't believe the mundane problems they really have.
A military that can fight alien invaders can't habe problems drying clothes, can it?
So far the US have won every tactical battle against Iran. And yet Iran appears to be more stable and trustworthy to many people than the US.
We've come a long way.
Any source for this? They’re attacking UAE again today so…
If anyone seriously thinks that the position of all US Naval vessels with the exception of maybe some subs or some of the US stealth ships, is unknown to the majority of countries military intelligence around the world, then I've got several large bridges to sell.
I would also replicate that to aircraft, troops and land based weapons and vehicles too.
I'm no
I normally would be absolutely certain that the US knows how easy it is to locate/track almost anything at sea as well, and that they would take as many precautions and measures as they possibly could to hide and protect the vessels they didn't want seen or found. However, given Hegseth is a fecking moron and how many of the top ranking military brass he has fired or blocked promotions for, I'm actually not sure they do know. Or if they do, they are too arrogant to care or take it seriously enough to overly worry about.
I would also replicate that to aircraft, troops and land based weapons and vehicles too.
I'm no
I normally would be absolutely certain that the US knows how easy it is to locate/track almost anything at sea as well, and that they would take as many precautions and measures as they possibly could to hide and protect the vessels they didn't want seen or found. However, given Hegseth is a fecking moron and how many of the top ranking military brass he has fired or blocked promotions for, I'm actually not sure they do know. Or if they do, they are too arrogant to care or take it seriously enough to overly worry about.
Yeah, I learnt from the movies that all nations have those large maps on a table with little models.
Stalin used to use one of those spinning globes people have in school classrooms, and a tape measure to tell his generals how far they needed to advance.
I think this is probably the stage Trump is at.
Maybe just me, but the killers of 200 children in a school are far more worthy of being jailed (and more)...than some researcher predicting the positions of mass murdering machines on the map.
Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya joint military command claims it has not carried out attacks against the United Arab Emirates in recent days, yet warns of a “crushing response” if any action is carried out by the Gulf country against Iran, Reuters reports.
Sorry mate but I have to point out that you took issue with a post of mine a few weeks ago specifically over my use of the word "destroyed". The way you're describing the rag tag desert militia attacks is pretty much exactly how you characterized the Iranian strikes on US bases. Has your opinion on the level of damage inflicted by Iran changed since we had that discussion?
No.
We were explicitly talking about Al-Udaied Air base strikes. You said that base got destroyed.
It would take a ridiculous amount of firepower to fully destroy Al-Udaied. The size of it is about the size of Inner Manchester/a smaller UK city/larger UK town. It's 15 sq miles.
There have been bases that have been technically "destroyed", ie someone can't just waltz in and put it back in operation in a few days/a week. Al-Udaied isn't one of them.
The "destroyed" ones are smaller ones in the Gulf, not the larger ones. Ie FOB's with a few barracks, a bunker and some ops offices. Or Staff Headquarter bases (5th fleet HQ Bahrain for example).
We were not explicitly talking about Al-Udaied. The sentence I wrote, which you took issue with, was:
You responded, in a post you've since deleted, as follows:
You went on to describe a comparison with images showing a Syrian base the US took out a decade back, and compared it to an image of Al-Udaied and you focused a portion of your response on that base specifically.
You continued with the following:
Now, destruction of bases in a hot war is a given.
For what it's worth, the next exchange was my inquiring whether there was truth to the claims that various radar installation had been destroyed, which you did concede, but also explained that there are satellite based redundancies available. I can't recall the details and that post has been deleted as well.
And to pre-empt the response I feel is coming, yes I understand that operational tempo probably isn't affected if these bases were largely or entirely evacuated prior to the conflict. I don't take issue with that claim at all.
I didn't delete it. I don't know where it's gone. I couldn't find the original post either. But my analysis there in the quote which is still visible is all about Al-Udaied and the larger bases.
Small FOB's being destroyed is just noise to me.
I guess when you mean "base" what do you actually mean?
Base means anything from literally abandoned airstrips in the desert/barbed wire fencing with some sandbags and an office (Lily pads they're called) to Al-Udaied.
When I say "Destroyed bases in a hot war" I mean the former bases get hit and destroyed.
Here is the list of proven damaged major bases:
None of them were destroyed, barring NSA Bahrain which did get pretty flattened in D1.
All the other stuff that were actually destroyed is small FOB's, which are expected and which people on social media/news articles are focusing on.
The only one there that is actually concerning are Prince Sultan getting hit, Arifjan getting hit as there were actually significant operations going from there.
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Fair enough, maybe the posts were moved to the military hardware thread or something.
When I'm saying base, I'm referring to your own post ie I'm adopting your own definition of "base".
"destroyed bases in a hot war with any reasonably sized country is a given"
"But for the layman who grew up on US fighting rag tag desert militia who, at best, fire a few pot shots of mortar rounds at a base or suicide bomb a FOB, destroyed bases and downed aircraft is an absolute shocker."
Now fair enough, if we're only talking about "major bases", "larger bases" etc, I don't take issue with the claim that more minor bases, or more minor installations, or clumps of sandbags in the desert, whatever, have been "destroyed" and larger bases have sustained damage that does not amount to "destroyed". My initial question back in March was phrased simply as "destruction of US bases".
Even based (I'll get my coat) on your post quoted above, it sounds like at least a couple of the major bases sustained more than "a couple of missile and drone hits that don't affect operational tempo". I say that without knowing specifically what any of NSA Bahrain, Prince Sultan or Arifjan are actually being used for, if they are being used at all, in this war. I'm simply using your characterization of that damage as concerning - I'm assuming that concerning damage affects operational tempo.
So Trump announced this Project Freedom and paused it in a day. Now saying Iran wants to talk.
Some ships transiting did get attacked and I'm guessing not enough were willing to risk it so they had to "pause" it.
Some ships transiting did get attacked and I'm guessing not enough were willing to risk it so they had to "pause" it.
Let me guess, Trump's latest idiotic scheme fell at the first hurdle and now he's in the ditch claiming that he meant to do that all along and look how he's outsmarted his opponent once more.
Smells like TACOs to me
I mean he did get 2 ships through = strait is open according to hesgeth yesterday.
I read there are 1,500 ships waiting to go through it so perhaps trump finally did some maths.
Or someone worked the calculator for him. Absolute amateur hour. Iran are playing him like a fiddle.
Precisely this. There's a reason why Carter, Regan, Bush1, Clinton, Bush2, Obama, Biden and also Trump1 properly advised didn't pursue this path. Idiocy.
A few years ago I thought I’d give chess a crack. Read a couple of books and practiced online.
Played a friend of mine who is a serious player and way better than me a few times.
Every time we got towards the end of the game my pieces weren’t where they should be and I realised I was fecked. Had no idea quite how it had happened though as it all seemed great, until it didn’t.
Iran has been placing its pieces for years maybe decades. Trump thought about it for 5 minutes and jumped straight in.