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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   4892 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026

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That is some serious cope. We are releasing 20-25 billion to get rid of Iran's outdated military assets. If sanctions come off, they can reequip better than they had before with full access to raw materials from the world market.

Once they feel they have rebuilt enough they are free to close the strait again, this time with military assets better optimized to do so since they know it's effective leverage rather than theoretical leverage. By then Trump will no longer be president and it will be someone else's problem.

By then Trump will no longer be president and it will be someone else's problem.

Hopefully, someone who knows more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery!

Iran will have to spend years rebuilding assets America destroyed in a few weeks. Therefore, Iran is stronger than ever.

Literally this.

Outside of Germany post WWI, I can't think of any national military in the past few centuries that got trounced thoroughly and then somehow this made them a BIGGER threat in the short term.

I suppose it depends how narrow the "short term" is, but to my mind jumps the example of Pearl Harbor. The American fleet loses a bunch of obsolete (even if they didn't know it) battleships and learns the power of naval aviation in the process. Instead of trying to fight the new war with the old one's tactics, the US Navy significantly re-orients its procurement and campaign strategies and their doctrine. This builds the force that reverses the war in '42 and wins it in '43 and '44

This isn't just my opinion either. I've read several historians say that Pearl Harbor was a net gain for the Americans even in the immediate term

  • Everything about the Napoleonic Wars and the eventual formation of Germany.
  • If you count trouncing which didn’t manage to end the war, conflicts like the American Civil War or the Nazi invasion of Russia.
  • Actually, do Stalin’s purges count as trouncing his own military?
  • Communist China.

I wouldn’t actually count the Wehrmacht as a short-term response. 15 years to get into power, 5 more to rearm before really throwing their weight around. That’s enough for significant leadership turnover plus several revolutions in military affairs.

The latter is the real load-bearing part. A solid defeat leads to effective revenge if and only if the underlying fundamentals change. You’ve got to adopt a new technology or find a new point of leverage.

In the case of Iran, which was already a more or less modern military, what’s the pivot? Drone integration? Not enough to overcome the USN. Control of the strait? Not exactly a new idea. I guess they have expanded the space of strait diplomacy to include some more favorable options. I don’t know if that meaningfully makes them stronger.

Because they've proven the concept that they can effectively close the strait of Hormuz and cripple gulf oil production with a collection of low-end weapon systems that can't be intercepted reliably enough to counter, and which they can keep producing and deploying despite significant efforts to stop them. KDR is basically irrelevant next to the vastly larger problem of massively asymmetrical requirements for achieving strategic success.

any national military in the past few centuries that got trounced thoroughly and then somehow this made them a BIGGER threat in the short term

The USA post-Vietnam

It depends what’s in the deal but pipeline construction should ramp up now. There were reasons to not do it before and let Iran have the close the Straight card because then they didn’t need the build nukes card. That seems over now.

Near as I can figure, the total cost of materiel lost to the Vietnamese was roughly <5% of the total defense budget at the time.

Even if we grant the U.S. being fully defeated in the war itself, I dunno if 'trounced' is the right way to describe it in that context.

I mean, Afghanistan was also a loss for the U.S. in the end but again, not really a trouncing.

Genuinely, Germany's example is the surprising one because they took massive casualties and material loss, then 20 years later had a fully industrialized, cutting edge military force which outperformed all their immediate neighbors'.

Because they've proven the concept that they can effectively close the strait of Hormuz and cripple gulf oil production with a collection of low-end weapon systems that can't be intercepted reliably enough to counter

And the U.S. has shown that they can shrug this off far, far easier than pretty much all of Europe.

And can enforce its own blockade as a retaliatory step too.

and, as mentioned, can pop their leadership structure at will.

Iran has no winning hand here. Maybe they have a hand that forestalls an actual invasion indefinitely. But they also seem to be constitutionally incapable of 'surrendering' so I have little doubt they're happy to posture and claim whatever victories they can.

Near as I can figure, the total cost of materiel lost to the Vietnamese was roughly <5% of the total defense budget at the time.

Post-Vietnam, the US was in the humiliating position of having lost what was essentially a conventional war against a much weaker, smaller adversary. This prompted a number of reforms to how the US military organized and operated, leading into the absolutely crushing dominance of the Gulf War (though, ironically, most of what the US did wouldn't have helped in Vietnam).

Iran has no winning hand here

Then why is Trump folding?

Ok, so why is Iran not getting better terms out of the deal?

Once we put aside mass media speculation, what do we actually know about Iran's capabilities in the gulf? They claimed to be able to shut down the gulf, they threatened a few ships, and this spooked the insurance companies enough to bring traffic to a stop. But America claimed that Iran did not meaningfully control the Straits at all.

Iran can threaten gulf oil traffic, but America can blockade Iran, bomb them, and intercept all their counterattacks. It also appears that Iran cannot meaningfully threaten gulf oil that has been rerouted around the Straits, and they cannot threaten global oil traffic at all. This has lead to some global disruptions for sure, but not the worst-case scenarios that were predicted confidently a few months ago. So what can Iran do?

If Iran has as much control over the Straits as you suggest, and we can't counter them effectively as you suggest, why are they agreeing to a peace deal?

Ok, so why is Iran not getting better terms out of the deal?

Better terms than what? Billions (possibly hundreds of billions) in tribute from their enemies and the ability to do it all again whenever they want?

Warning: The "?si=" and "?pp=" portions that YouTube has started adding to any URL created with the "share" button allegedly can be used to reveal the YouTube username of the user who created that URL. For that reason, those portions of the URL should be deleted before copying and pasting.

Good to know. Also good to know that Firefox's "Copy Clean Link" feature automatically removes that info.

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