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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   25222 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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It wouldn't be like Vietnam tunnel warfare because you're not chasing enemies through tunnels. The enemies are on the surface; they'd be killed and the US military would set up a defensive perimeter and then send in the engineers to start digging.

But I agree this is unlikely at this point.

I think the US military has enough firepower to keep ground forces away from the engineering zone, but how are they going to stop drones and missiles?

The US can shoot down drones and ballistic missiles too, at least at the rate Iran can currently fire them.

That is probably true for a carrier group, but I don't think the US can airlift destroyers to the middle of Iran.

My understanding is that so far, they have used high-flying jets to attack Iran with impunity. I would expect that helicopters might be more vulnerable. Also, we don't know yet how many short range missiles and drones Iran can launch in the middle of their country.

The US can shoot down drones and ballistic missiles relatively effectively at existing installations with reliable supply chains and stockpiles of air defense munitions. A dig site in the middle of Iran is going to require flying in all the air defense equipment, all the necessary ammunition, all supplies for the security force, supplies for the engineers, excavating equipment, replacement equipment when the initial stuff gets damaged... And then at the end you have to fly everything out again (you can ditch the heavy equipment, but not the soldiers or engineers or uranium).

The US military has immense operational competence, but this would be an incredibly delicate operation with numerous vulnerabilities.

Yes, all of that seems difficult but something the US can do.

The US seems to be able to shoot down most of them. Not all of them. This is an important distinction that doesn't seem well reported anywhere.

They don't need to shoot down all of them to carry out an operation. Losses greater than zero are acceptable.

I was speaking more generally regarding the whole war, but in this specific instance "losses greater than zero" very quickly complicate things and expand the operation. Unless the HEU is secretly stored closer to the border than publicly indicated, you're looking at 200+ miles of contested airspace, transporting in and out. Every piece of essential equipment or personnel you lose now needs a backup, which balloons the size of the operation, makes it harder to transport and protect, and increases the number of targets that can be hit. So you need more protection, which increases the footprint to be transported and protected, etc.

The US has air superiority. But yes, it would be a big operation. I believe the US certainly has the capability to do it, though.

And if the recent public speculation that the material was moved to Ishafan is true, the stuff is just in intact tunnels covered with soil and not really deeply buried.

The US has air superiority.

I think it's really telling that the US has achieved air superiority over Iran instantly, while Russia has as of yet never achieved that level of superiority over Ukraine.

I believe the US certainly has the capability to do it, though.

It's probably not impossible, I'm just saying that when considering scale redundancies and protection need to be included in that calculus.

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