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Notes -
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/more-marines-heading-to-middle-east-as-u-s-continues-relentless-strikes-on-iran
To my knowledge, US ground forces have not been meaningfully involved in the Iran conflict. It appears that this might be changing.
What strategic objectives would 2,500 marines be able to achieve in the context of this conflict? Are the islands in the strait important enough to capture but far enough from the Iranian mainland to actually hold? I'll admit that I am no expert in this. At the moment all I can do is hope none of my relatives get deployed and hope for the best.
So US is coming for real.
Can they win despite all? According to our former mottizen @KulakRevolt, yes.
See CatGirl Plan for Epic Furry Victory.
If I can nitpick, CG overestimates the need for draft - Russian experience shows that big country can recruit rather large forces voluntarily just for cash.
Why drafting people when you can rev up printing press once more and promise millions in cash for signing up. Lots of disadvantaged Americans would take the offer as eagerly as Russians from rural areas.
Realistically, if there is any plan, it will will involve Azerbaijan moving from the north. The Azeri army was built up in the last 30 years by NATO and Israel exactly for this purpose, it was never about holy rocks of Artsakh/Karabakh.
KulakRevolt has a long history of outlandish failed geopolitical predictions and should be read more as entertainment than as prophecy.
My personal favorite being a strong prediction that Egypt would invade Israel after Oct 6th in support of Hamas
Yeah his predictions are real 'alternate timeline' stuff. Deliberately or not, his predictions are things he would like to see (or more cynically, things his followers want to see and will spike engagement).
I remember his flameout post here seemed designed to be as polarising and ostentatious as possible.
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Most Americans, including those in the 18-35 age range, cannot join the Army because they're too fat and/or they smoke weed or take other illegal drugs and/or they've declared bankruptcy and/or they've been found guilty of a crime and/or they're not smart enough and/or they have a medical condition.
The uniformed services raise and lower their standards slightly in order to make recruitment goals, but most people still can't join the military when they're at their lowest. And the DoD has been on record for decades that the worst thing that could happen to the organization would be to suffer under Vietnam-era style draft again. It makes for far worse combat units.
If the military services were forced by the politicians to accept people via a draft, I suspect they'd create units specifically to sequester those people so they'd never get in the way of the professional force.
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I think Kulak severely overestimates the offensive capabilities of the Iranians. They can't bring millions of human wave tactics against the US Army. Any attempt to mass such forces and they'll be flattened in short order by the US Airforce. Also given the fragility of the Iranian regime I question their ability to give millions of unvetted conscripts guns. If going against the Americans means certain death and going against the Mullahs means that airforce fights for you... well I expect any mass conscription to end it short order. And speaking of conscription the Gulf states lack the population base for his proposed cannon fodder, they have a tiny population of citizens and those citizens are fat and happy they aren't going to go die in the Iranian mountains for Israel nor will their monarchs send them to.
We don't need a draft anyway though because America could conquer the two provinces he mentions with just the national guard. He whole analysis assumes they Iranians will be able to fling millions of men at the US which they won't because of America's overwhelming airpower.
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Bribes won't work in a prosperous capitalist economy, you can't just pump money into the demand for young workers without driving the price up prohibitively.
If pure manpower is a concern for the USA, the best route would obviously be the Roman one: we've got millions of able bodied men dying to become American citizens at the border.
The problem for the American military is that the all volunteer army is what makes the army so damn effective. Once you start impressing low human capital into the army, you lose effectiveness in a hurry.
Why would that be a limiting factor? If the economic-political situation gets so screwed up we're considering a draft or mass service-for-citizenship scheme, it would be entirely feasible for the government to redirect american economic productivity from old-age healthcare to military power. It wouldn't exactly be very popular, but nothing about this is anyway.
Because we have 4% unemployment, so every soldier payed to go overseas vacates a job in America, which will then need to increase wages to attract workers, which will then lead to increased bribes to attract soldiers. I suppose in the short term one can outrun the wheel of inflation, but not in the long term.
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Disadvantaged Americans aren't as desperate as disadvantaged Russians, nor are they fit for military service. You could force the probation roster into the Army without too much fuss from other people, probably, but the US army wouldn't be exactly thrilled to have them.
We basically give every citizen free health care, food stamps, and section 8 free housing. The middle class is squeezed but all the people you could bribe to get drafted are already getting paid.
You would need to gut the free stuff program to get people to take money to enter the military.
Well, the poorest of the poor don't tend to join the army very often- the working class and middle classes dominate enlistment. These people might be on CHIP or something but they're not getting huge welfare assistance, nor do they need it. The military is attractive out of economic necessity to the recently shotgun married and that's about it, and they're also mostly already in the army.
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Kulak clearly says that the US will fuck it up somehow, that the actual plan will be way more shambolic and half-cocked and sure to fail.
I agree. Also, Azerbaijan is probably weak to drones/missiles. They don't want to lose their oil do they? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to profit off the price spike than potentially get wrecked?
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