Shrike
2d ago
Religion as whole in the US is still declining
There have been some signs that the decline is tapering off. I would not be shocked if it continued to slide, but I also would not be shocked if it didn't go lower.
Of course part of this is the question of "what counts as religious"? The rise of the nones, for instance, hasn't really corresponded with the rise of secular atheist types (and many nones indulge in religious practices) - so has the decline of religion been essentially false, and it's just been that organized religion is on the decline? Or do we really need to look at practice and church attendance? That seems like a more serious and better measurement in many ways (as I understand it it actually is a better predictor for many religious benefits) but does that unfairly discount religious practices that are by their very nature disorganized? There's some methodological questions there. I'd simply confine myself to observing that the "decline of religion" mostly doesn't mean "the rise of secular liberal atheism" or anything like that. It means people aren't going to church, not that they have become transhumanist Star Trek liberals or something.
They are also massively less influential than they were in the 80s and 00s and they'd have to work pretty hard to get that power back.
One notable difference since the 00s, I think, is that evangelicals will be more comfortable being in a political coalition with Catholics, and even Mormons and Muslims. They're still going to have serious reservations, but Obama-era liberalism made the misstep of putting "conservative religious people" broadly on the same team in some areas. I think this is tremendously important - all the little parts of these coalitions have their own organizations and patronage networks. Exercising political power is not just about counting heads, you need networking and institutions, and "all religious groups in the US that are relatively conservative" is much more powerful a coalition than "evangelicals."
Shrike
2d ago
That said, I suspect this is mainly due to the much larger population of non-practicing Catholics?
Yes, I think this is right. I also think there are a lot of people in the Catholic church who are very left-wing (...even on positions like abortion) and who want to reform the church from within.
Whereas as you say evangelicals who are dissatisfied with, say, the evangelical teachings on abortion just leave.
That said I would not be surprised if this changes - if younger people who leave Catholicism increasingly drop the label entirely, rather than continue to call themselves Catholic and just not do anything, then Catholicism will become more meaningful as a signal.
I think this is likely. My guess is that in the US over the next 40 - 50 years, Catholic numbers drop considerably (or if they hold steady, it's due to immigration) but the remnants are more dedicated and more "conservative" as far as such things go.
Shrike
3d ago
I am spitballing here but I have definitely wondered if places with longstanding minority groups just are able to handle integration much better than places where the very same groups are new. In other words, in this scenario, possibly you are both right and it's just that DFW, which has ~always had a significant Hispanic presence compared to Fairfax, Virginia, is much better culturally at handling the situation.
It would be odd if it were not at least somewhat that way, imho.
Shrike
3d ago
I don't think that this is true – non-denominational churches (which I would think are often but not always right-wing evangelical coded) are actually growing. And attending evangelical types typically have a positive tfr, IIRC.
Some groups (like the Southern Baptists, IIRC) are undergoing narrowing (perhaps temporary as Baby Boomers and the Silent Gen decline?) and of course retention rates are not perfect (so a high tfr does not guarantee continued adherence.) But I think that modeling a mild downturn in attendance to infinity is as naive as modeling a mild upswing to infinity.
Regardless, just going by current trendlines, I think we can expect evangelicals to continue to be a "live player" group. They're often overlooked in favor of the Amish or tradcaths because the Amish are basically a far-group to most internet users and tradcaths have a lot of momentum, so they are more fun to talk about, while evangelicals' day in the sun ended with Bush 2, but evangelicals never actually went anywhere.
I wouldn't necessarily predict it but I think there is actually a very good chance that evangelicalism (defined broadly, and perhaps throwing in a few Protestant denominations that wouldn't consider themselves evangelical but nevertheless have many of the same characteristics) is actually the Religion of the Future in America. Very plausible to see them cannibalizing the mainstream denominations as they enter tailspins, pick up tradpilled younger Gen Zs, and make massive inroads into traditional Catholic territories.
Shrike
3d ago
It is reasonable to assume that, if things continue on as they have for another 100 years, secularism will continue to rise.
If things continue on as they have for another 100 years (appropriate to your analogy) the "mature" civilizations will, like the elders of a community, only be a shell of their former selves, if anything is left of them at all.
Shrike
3d ago
There is potentially a discussion to be had about how Catholics got into that position, and I'd guess it has to do with the quite large and influential Catholic education system.
I would also just add that "evangelical" continues to be much more of a signal for "right-wing" than "Catholic" and so I think Catholics are an easy place for righties to get people who agree with them on most everything without also having a religious affiliation that is listed under I AGREE WITH RIGHTIES ON MOST EVERYTHING in the dictionary. (Obviously evangelicals are more nuanced than that, but in terms of public optics I do think it matters a bit.)
As per your comment, I would not be surprised if this actually changes, and Catholicism becomes smaller but much more visibly right-wing as older generations of leaders die out (and as the left shifts to be more and more hostile to religion and away from old Catholic-friendly patronage networks). I foresee Catholic thought-leadership staffed with evangelical foot-soldiers as being a very potent coalition in the future, despite their cracks.
Shrike
12d ago
Even if you have outer layer air defenses, you don't have a lot of time if they goof up and you need your CIWS. So maneuvering to unmask seems very plausible to me.
I'd also say that the US military, from what I can tell, embraces a mindset of utilizing the full spectrum of their capabilities for the sake of professionalism. Which is a DoD Powerpoint-y way of saying that the military likes to both test and practice things during real military environments, so making a radical maneuver to unmask in the face of even a nominal threat could very well be seen as a "best practices" thing.
Shrike
12d ago
Likewise, if I imagine a general being killed by Russian ballistic missiles, in most cases the body will not be in a state where you can put him in his quarters and pretend it was a natural death.
If you're killed by overpressure I think the body is often pretty intact, isn't it? Which would be pretty plausible for a situation where someone gets hit in a bunker.
Shrike
12d ago
Note my reply here – a decoy without the electronics systems would be pretty useful nonetheless (and that's without getting into using it as an aerodynamic test item or a testbed for new electronics systems, both of which are potentially very useful applications).
to avoid having to explain that under certain conditions (extreme low range, high powered analog radars) your stealth plane isn't that stealthy
This isn't all that secret, I had a B-2 engineer tell me something similar to my face in casual conversation.
Shrike
12d ago
You might recall during the last high profile stealth bombing strike operation about two weeks ago that some of our stealth bomber fleet was used as decoys for the rest of our stealth bomber fleet. If you had a flying decoy that looked good enough to fool peer adversaries you could fly it around, park it on the ramp in Diego Garcia, etc. etc. to fool enemies about our real movements and make it less likely that they actually hit valuable military hardware during an attack.
Shrike
12d ago
2008: USAF fake the crash of Spirit of Kansas using a (probably remote control) flyable prototype mocked up. B-2 inventory is officially -1.
Why would you crash a perfectly flyable prototype when you could use it (as a decoy, if nothing else)? Strong "fake the moon landing on the moon" vibes.
Shrike
12d ago
It would be hard to cover up an actual hit of a carrier (carriers have thousands of people onboard). If that had happened I would expect it to have come out via RUMINT already. Not saying it's impossible, just that it's much harder than covering up e.g. an American Marine getting whacked by Russian Iskanders.
While we're discussing the (possibly) hit B-2 it's worth mentioning the second F-117 that was hit by the Serbians and "covered up" (not acknowledged) by the USAF.
Edit to add – the Spirit of Missouri is still active. Wikipedia has a picture of it overflying an airshow in 2018. If it was hit, then it was repaired, or an extremely convoluted plot as suggested by the Serbians was put into place to cover it up (frankly it would have been much easier just to say that it crashed due to pilot error back in 1999, I don't understand why one would wait for nearly a decade to finish the coverup).
Shrike
20d ago
I'm not sure I actually believe this – the right runs a lot of parallel institutions that are better/More Elite than the state-run institutions. I think the actual problem for the right is a bit more subtle.
Some of it is that is because of how school systems work in the USA, local ideology often matters more than state or federal ideology – and since population centers are often leftie, figuring out ways to redistribute resources away from local school systems to the institutions (elite and otherwise) that are more right-sympathetic is a victory for the right. Uncharitably, you could argue this is school choice does (although the counter-argument it only works because, frankly, the generic-and-often-left-wing choices are often quite bad and many people would take their kids to right-wing parallel institutions if they could afford it).
Shrike
24d ago
One of the interesting things that the right wing in the USA is doing is working to destroy many of the institutions that can be deployed to be The Man (the Department of Education being perhaps the prime example).
I don't think this eliminates the chance that the right-wing counterculture suffers from victory (as seems to typically be the case!) but I do think, if successful, it makes it more difficult for the right to seize and hold the low ground of "mandatory and cringe" that typically alienates people. Banking on "diversity of thought" to skew right-wing is a bold choice that may not pay off, but if it does it is actually likely to help keep the right more diverse (and more tolerant) by ensuring that the right's "client base" (for lack of a better term) is diversified.
I realize there's a big difference between old Soviet artillery shells and modern JDAMs
Yes – JDAMs will have much more payload (a small 500 pound bomb will have nearly 200 pounds of explosive filler, while a M107 155mm shell will have around 15 pounds) and be considerably more accurate (a CEP of 10 meters versus, according to Google's AI overview, perhaps up to 250 meters at max range for an unguided 155mm shell). Not only do the bombs deliver more payload, they deliver it much more precisely. There's a reason that the Russians fielded glide bomb kids in Ukraine very quickly.
The USAF only has about 20 B-2 stealth bombers, and they all require massive maintenance. Other strategic bombers would be vulnerable to air defence and are also limited in number
Yeah, the US would likely use tactical aircraft to fly most sorties with smaller weapons such as JDAMs – the Air Force has more than 400 F-35s (if stealthier aircraft are needed and if they present an advantage – which they may not, particularly if Iran is relying on IR guidance systems) and more than 200 F-15E Strike Eagles. (The Israelis have accomplished what they've done so far with less than 70 F-15s, and about 45 F-35s, plus nearly 200 F-16s. Of course in any real war the US Navy with their 400+ Super Hornets would also contribute).
As for the rest of it, I was responding to your claim that the USAF wasn't capable of "mass destruction." I agree with your point that applying that destruction profitably would be an issue. But a single F-15E can a larger bomb load than B-17 or Lancaster strategic bombers in World War Two (more than 20,000 pounds). If we use the Anglo-American bombing of Dresden as our benchmark for "mass destruction," we will note that it was accomplished over four days in 1945, used about 1200 Lancasters and B-17s over the course of four raids (so 300 aircraft/raid on average), delivering around 4,000 tons of bombs. Even if each JDAM in the US inventory was a 500 pounder (unlikely, the largest JDAM is a 2000-pound bomb) the US could plausibly accomplish Dresden 2.0 again over the course of a week with its F-15E fleet alone and still have leftover JDAMs.
Not that it would need to, because guided munitions are much more effective than mass carpet bombing (Wikipedia reports that PGMs were 35 times [edit – originally put percent here by mistake, which is much less impressive and also wrong] more likely to destroy their targets than unguided bombs and made 3/4ths of all successful strikes on targets despite being less than 10% of all munitions dropped in the Persian Gulf War).
I'm not saying we should bomb Iran! On balance I am against it! I'm saying the US Air Force has a lot of bombs. I think this is considerably under-appreciated, people are (rightfully) concerned about American procurement but "haha tail bomb kits go brrr" is actually a thing.
Shrike
29d ago
roughly 1 bomb per 3 square miles
I just want to highlight this here – 1 bomb per 3 square miles of a country larger than Alaska is a lot of bombs (and again recall that this is just JDAM kits!)
Now – what does "destroy Iran" mean? If it means "turn the country into literal molten lava" then no, the USAF does not have the firepower to do this.
If it means "knock out their power grid, obliterate their armed forces, wreck their transportation infrastructure, decapitate their leadership and generally render them incapable of performing the functions expected of a state" then yes, the US has the firepower to do this – the density of "Iranian military/government/dual use facilities/equipment" is not going to be denser than 1 every 3 square miles.
Perhaps the user you are replying to literally means "kill all Iranians" when he says "Let them all die to defend their ambitions." But if, in context of "Kill all their scientists, all their engineers" he's advocating for eliminating the Iranian leadership and personnel responsible for developing nuclear weapons, the US doesn't lack the firepower to do this. Since we've proven capable of building upwards of 100 JDAM kits per day, we might be able to kill upwards of 30,000 Iranian scientists, engineers, and assorted staff per year assuming each guided bomb only kills one (a silly assumption) without even denting our stockpile.
The main problem for the US would be getting the intelligence on where the personnel are (and clearing the Iranian defenses). But those are primarily problems of intelligence procurement, not problems from not having enough firepower.
Shrike
30d ago
It's built for precision strikes, not mass destruction (unless nukes).
Yes, the USAF is built for precision strikes, but the US builds guided bombs the way the Russians build artillery shells. We've made over half a million JDAM kits (although of course we've used a lot of them). Assuming a stockpile of around 200,000, we have roughly one precision guided-bomb for every squad in the Iranian military. That's without getting tapping our inventories of cruise missiles, guided missiles, guided and unguided rockets, or cannon ammo at all.
The MOP is a bespoke weapon designed to fill a small niche, and the fact that it has been procured in small numbers doesn't reflect on the broader state of the USAF's procurement of guided weapons.
Shrike
1mo ago
Russia has said they would use nuclear weapons if their sovereignty was threatened. While this was a veiled threat along the lines of "Ukraine and the occupied portions of it are part of Russia, so don't you dare take them back", I don't doubt it would ring very true if Russia proper was legitimately under threat of losing territory.
Yes, I agree with you there.
We rolled over then-one-of-the-largest armies in the world in a month and then immediately pulled out.
The United States and its allies did enter Iraq, but it never got within 100 miles of Baghdad. If Iraq had had a credible WMD program, it would not have been sufficient to neutralize it.
On this note, a large army would likely not be the primary thing we'd need to fight China if they up and decided a US invasion of Iran was the perfect time to strike. In the short term, it would be primarily a naval and air defense, with the biggest land target I can think of being Taiwan (who has their own army - and ideally we'd want to keep the Chinese marines from ever making a landing, making them secondary).
Yes, correct. But the US doctrine is to fight with air support, meaning that US munitions stockpiles would be degraded in an invasion of Iran (as would US missile interceptors given Iran's large stockpile of ballistic missiles). Obviously a sufficiently thorough destruction of the Iranian military by Israel makes that moot, but that hasn't happened yet.
I genuinely hope this puts a bow on the whole situation, and the US never needs to lift a finger to change this.
SAME.
I just explicitly and powerfully do not want a nuclear Iran - or any new nuclear country that has even a chance in hell of using them.
Sovereign states have the right to develop nuclear weapons, if they so choose, and invading them for doing so would be a violation of international law. Many of the next countries to develop nuclear weapons will likely be US allies (Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan, perhaps Taiwan and Poland; contrast with of course Iran and perhaps Belarus). That's part of why stopping a Chinese invasion is so crucial to US defensive strategy, as a successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan dramatically increases the odds of nuclear proliferation.
On the one hand, I understand the desire to limit nuclear proliferation. On the other hand, I think that the nuclear asymmetry arguably makes the world more unstable and more prone to violence.
Because nuclear weapons are, though not a magical item, a potent deterrent, the best method to prevent other countries from getting them might be to explicitly carve up the world into nuclear power blocs (US, Russia, China, India) and give the nuclear sovereigns explicit hegemony and dominion over the other nation-states. The nuclear sovereigns could agree to use their nuclear weapons against any country that attempted to develop or field any independent nuclear capability. They might even be able to develop a shared nuclear monitoring and weapons sharing framework that could gradually grow in time into the true planetary sovereign, the single nuclear monopower.
This would of course be a complete overturn of the post-WW2 global order, but under that current system unilaterally invading countries that decide to develop nuclear weapons is illegal. Doing so would freeze the number of nuclear powers at their current levels (and possibly reduce them), at the price of the destruction of the sovereignty of most nations on Earth – but you seem quite comfortable to ignore national sovereignty if weapons of mass destruction are in play.
Otherwise, if the United States wants to ensure a nuclear-proliferation-free Earth (I am not sure this is actually a good idea, but running with your goal here for a moment), it is presumably on the hook to (illegally) invade and de-nuclearize any country, which means that it is in the national interest of countries like China and Russia to proliferate nuclear weapons programs to hostile states, forcing the United States to bear the costs of intervention. (Of course the United States can play the same game, but doing so risks...proliferating the weapons!)
Shrike
1mo ago
As I've discussed before, the Ukrainian hold on the actual nukes seems to have been pretty tenuous at best (and the idea that the United States promised them protection in any meaningful sense is false) – but yes, I agree that the Big Lesson of Current Era is "have nukes."
And North Korea isn’t being invaded because of those nukes.
I sort of doubt this, honestly, there's little appetite for even the conventional damage North Korea could do.
Shrike
1mo ago
Nuclear weapons make you functionally immune to a conventional invasion and will make anyone think twice about even striking within your borders.
They pretty obviously don't.
It's definitely true that nuclear weapons are very powerful and that having them ups the ante for an invader. But we've had a lot of experience recently concerning the limitations of being a nuclear-armed power and that's not reflected here. I agree with you about the issues with soft power but both in your original post and here you're using language that suggests that having nuclear weapons gives you some kind of immunity while Russia – the world's nuclear power – has been subjected to a conventional land invasion and have been struck within their borders innumerable times by Ukraine. Israel's nuclear weapons may have caused Iran to think twice, but it hasn't stopped them from repeatedly launching conventional ballistic missiles at Israel many, many times.
Once they are, you essentially waive all your chances to military deterrence.
Deterrence was invented to deal with the problem of other people's nuclear weapons. (This is an exaggeration, but it's very common to see the word "deterrence" preceded by the word "nuclear.")
I don't disagree with everything you say: yes, the US is vulnerable to internal unrest, as all countries may be, yes having nuclear weapons does allow you to use them to effectively defend yourself, thereby making it more likely that attackers will not attempt to militarily conquer you in your entirety but they're not magic.
I don't know that this is true. There was a lot of fear about Iraq getting one, and after we utterly demolished their ability to make war in the first Gulf War, they were never a credible threat.
Presumably if the Iranians can enrich uranium once, they can do it again. Israel killing every single nuclear scientist and obliterating every nuclear facility might set them back a generation, and that might be long enough for the problem to become moot. But generally speaking, if Iran can do it once, they can do it a second time.
I could be wrong about this, but my recollection was that Iraq was never nearly as far along the "make nuclear weapon" tech tree as Iran was, and their reactor (the one destroyed by Israel) was constructed and serviced by France. I don't think Iraq had nearly the in-house expertise Iran does (Israel's campaign against Iranian scientists notwithstanding).
Secondly, Iran has relatively good relations with North Korea and might simply be able to procure functional nuclear weapons from them (I have no idea what North Korea considers sane or not).
We cannot get continuously bogged down in a 20 year nation building/peacekeeping quagmire.
But that's what would be required if our goal is to prevent Iran from ever developing a nuclear weapon using military force alone. Quite possibly boots on the ground could be avoided, but it would require, presumably, an indefinite persistent air interdiction of any nuclear capabilities.
Or how else do you propose to once-and-for-all prevent them from rebuilding their nuclear capabilities? The other paths are 1. overwhelming humanitarian disaster (such as nuclear weapons) of such magnitude as to turn Iran into a political non-entity, 2. some sort of deal, or 3. installing or allowing to be installed a new regime.
I want it done now when it's going to be the easiest for us to do.
I think we're both on the same page here, but it won't be easiest for us to do it now, it will be easiest in probably one or two weeks or so.
You opened your original post saying that you were arguing in opposition to the "let the two parties sort it out" position, but it seems to me that you're happy to let Israel sort it out and your main concern is that they will be unable to "finish the job." What exactly do you think the US can do that Israel cannot?
It's true that the US has MOPs that may be able to penetrate some of the Iranian underground facilities. If they can't, we'd need to use nukes (which Israel already has). If Israel has airspace control over Iran, they can (I think) keep the bunkers closed indefinitely by bombing their entrances, so it's unclear that the US has a huge advantage over Israel in this regard. The main abilities the US brings to the table are
- MOPs (which may or may not work, but can't guarantee that Iran won't just rebuild what has been destroyed)
- A very large army (but you don't want ground occupation)
- Hundreds of interceptors (but we don't want to use them, because China)
- More air power of the sort Israel essentially already has (which seems relatively pointless right now if the Israeli air campaign is as effective as is currently believed, doesn't it?)
So what exactly do you think the United States should do?
Shrike
1mo ago
the majority of rabidly pro-israel partisans I've met are republican and therefore at least defacto ukraine-skeptic
To be fair, if you are trying to prevent nuclear proliferation than you should be skeptical of Ukraine. The longer the war drags on, the higher the odds of them procuring a nuclear weapon go. (How high or low those odds are I'm not sure, but I wouldn't rule the possibility out.)
Shrike
1mo ago
Nuclear weapons are a complete game changer, making your nation functionally immune to any threat to its sovereignty.
Okay, so if that's true then why do you then say in the very next paragraph
Iran already has MRBMs that could be converted to take a nuclear payload right now. Those threaten our bases and our allies. They have a functional space program, and if you have put a satellite in orbit you can build an ICBM. Those threaten the continental US. Iran has demonstrated that it has the intent to strike the west and US if it can. They are working on the capability, and once that's done, an active nuclear arsenal presents them the opportunity at any time.
and then later
A United States is impossible to invade. A broken one is anything but.
?
It seems to me that obviously either nations with nuclear warheads can be threatened, in which case they can be deterred. Or they can't be, in which case the United States (and Israel) has nothing to worry about. But you seem to be trying to have it both ways!
Look, I actually would like to remove the Iranian regime, and I don't particularly want Iran to get nuclear weapons.
But there are (at least) three things that need to be considered. (Just going to ignore for the moment the legal problems with preemptively striking another nation, but suffice to say that as I understand it it's legally problematic, to the extent that international law means anything.)
FIRST, the United States does not have infinite capacity to do things. If we actually want to fight China, which we've said we want to be able to do publicly, that means very specifically that we cannot write blank checks where ballistic missile interceptors, smart munitions, etc. are involved. We are already arguably under-equipped to deal with the very real Chinese threat, which will likely be a more serious threat to American hegemony than anything that Iran can do. And part of the reason we are under-equipped to fight China is because we canceled procurement and research programs throughout the Global War on Terror to fund the Global War on Terror – effectively eating our own seed corn.
And the only reliable way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is regime change. (And even then...I wouldn't exactly consider it "reliable.") Which will either require local Iranian collaborators (in which case Israel is likely already better situated than the United States to procure them) or "someone" (the United States) to invade and pacify the country. (Or some third, arguably worse option, like creating a massive humanitarian crisis to cause the country to collapse entirely). So asking the United States to "make sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon" is arguably a much more serious ask than our last Middle Eastern incursion, depending on how serious you are about it
SECONDLY, the United States declining to enter the fight may actually in some ways be good for Israel because it could force Iran to withhold a portion of its offensive weapons as a deterrent package. If the United States intervenes at a massive level to accomplish regime change, there's really no point in Iran not firing every last missile that it has. So the US standing out is forcing Iran to make choices about whether or not to empty out its war reserve. Since Israel appears to be successfully hunting Iranian ballistic missile on the ground, this hesitation likely makes the Iranian ballistic missile stockpile less effective (assuming a fixed capacity to destroy ballistic missiles on the ground, the Israelis will destroy a larger number of ballistic missiles on the ground over time if fewer numbers are ordered to launch any given salvo).
FINALLY, the strategic interest of the United States in the conflict lies, as you suggest, in removing Iranian nuclear capability. Trump hopes to do that via negotiation. Israel's actions may force Iran back to the negotiating table, in which case US involvement would be counterproductive (since it may drive Iran away from the negotiating table). Currently the good cop/bad cop (or, if you prefer, Great Satan/Little Satan) routine seems to be worth a shot.
If the good cop/bad cop routine fails, then – while it is in the interest of Israel to push for US involvement as early an often as possible in order to decrease the cost of the conflict on Israel – it is in the interest of the United States to make Israel bear as much of the burden as possible. (We've poured billions of dollars into their ballistic missile defense, it's not as if we are obliged to give them a carrier strike group, too!) If Israel conducts the war successfully, they may reduce the cost of a limited US intervention (destroying the buried nuclear facilities with bunker busters – although it's possible that some of them are buried even too deeply for oversized US ordinance!) to near-zero. While this by itself likely cannot terminate Iran's nuclear program – as they have built up nuclear capability once, we should presume they can do it a second time – it can likely scrap a lot of difficult and expense work and (presumably) set them back for a while. Kicking the can down the road, but sometimes that's all you can do – and it might be all that's necessary. The Iranian regime may not last forever.
Given the above, it seems to me that it would be unwise for the United States to do anything at this point besides let things play out. Diplomacy may still work. If Israel can actually do "everything except the MOP up" then, yeah, sending them a dozen MOPs [I think technically Israel could deliver them via C-130, which would be pretty funny] or whatever is probably a decent deal for the US. Shooting down a few Iranian ballistic missiles to test our capabilities is also probably smart. But what exactly is the US interest in intervening right now and potentially foreclosing a path to bringing Iran to the table?
There is actually, the APKWS laser-guided rocket, which has already been used by US fighters to take down Geran-type weapons.
A single F-15 can carry fifty of these, [edit: sorry, at least 42, although I'm sure larger pods could be introduced] introducing video game ammo logic to real life and allowing a squadron on station can defend a vast territory from even hundreds of Gerans pretty easily and more effectively than static air defenses (Gerans are slow and ~easy to detect if they are flying at 3km). At somewhere around $20 grand it trades nicely in cost with a $70,000 cruise missile.
Ukraine can't use this particularly effectively because it has been unable to degrade Russian air defenses and fighter coverage (and in fact I wonder if Russia modified their Gerans to fly at higher altitudes specifically to deny fighter interceptors ground clutter cover). NATO's air forces and capability to degrade air defenses are vastly superior to Ukraine's, so the APKWS is a more viable defense strategy for them.
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