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I feel like 5% of Americans and 95% of Canadians know that there is a current trade war between the two countries. And this bodes very poorly for Canada.
In pretty much every conflict, the winner is the one who fights it with the fewer hardships incurred. In the Civil War, there were gentlemen attending Harvard whose life was barely touched by the war. And meanwhile, essentially the entire student body of the University of Mississippi enlisted and almost all of them were killed or injured.
On the extreme end, the US can destroy the entire Air Force and Navy of Iran, drive their entire economy into ruins, and only spend like 0.2% of GDP to do so with like two dozen casualties.
Which I guess is to make the trite point that Goliath always wins, as long as he doesn't even have to try very hard. The Don Draper meme "I don't even think about you at all", encapsulates the situation perfectly.
I know the US military says this but is it actually true? Is the war currently in a state you'd expect if the Iranian navy and air force are destroyed?
Why doesn't the US head back into its Gulf bases? Or sail into the straits of Hormuz with the fleet and have the 210 civilian ships waiting there head on through off to make more money rather than sit around anxiously?
If the Iranian economy is in ruins then why has the Trump administration switched tactics back to sanctioning/threatening Iran's trading partners. Why a financial D-Day and not a real one?
I fully believe that Iran's warships and fixed-wing warplanes have been destroyed or otherwise rendered inoperable. So what.
I don't remember hearing about Iran having warships worth mentioning before the war. Sinking a few minelayers may deprive Iran of a strategic option they don't currently want (mining the Straits so they are off limits to everyone) but doesn't achieve any US political goals - although it isn't clear if it even does that given that you could probably mine the Straits with rowboats if you wanted to.
The Russia-Ukraine war demonstrates that second world armies facing second world air defences don't fly fixed-wing warplanes in anger, so destroying them doesn't hurt Iran much. Even mid-price reusable drones like the Turkish Byraktar are steering clear of enemy air defences (Ukraine is mostly using them over water) with the proper air war fought using cheap disposable drones and missiles. Iran's behaviour in the current war is consistent with this picture. The Fog of War means I can't be sure whether or not the 5th Fleet base in Bahrain is rekt, but if it is the damage was done by cheap drones.
That's not how mining works. The idea is to mine the straits so only a narrow corridor, easily targeted by your land-based weapons, is available. Iran would definitely like to be able to do that, and at various times has suggested they had done so (and as far as I know, the mine status of the old agreed-upon corridors is unknown). Iran can't mine the Oman corridor with rowboats or, apparently, anything else they have at the moment. Despite the name, the strait is over 20 miles wide at the narrowest point.
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The 2017 ONI report is a bit out of date, but still reasonably useful. The regular Navy, IRIN (NEDAJA) is responsible for everything outside the Gulf and shares responsibility over the Strait. This is where you find the traditional vessels, this is where you find the power projection capability, this is where you find the deep water capability, and this has by its nature been pretty much completely destroyed.
There's also the IRGCN, or NEDSA. As the name implies, this is the IRGC's version of the regular Navy, and it's a bunch of whatever-the-hell. Small boats, fast boats, a few other things. Primarily used to harass/board ships and lay mines. No idea how they're doing these days, but if they'd been given a bit more time to observe and react to the Russo-Ukrainian War, I'm sure they'd have added an absolute ton of MAGUROs and similar. Seems very in line with their philosophy of small & fast swarms.
Thanks - I would say that the only thing that could pass for a capital ship is the three Russian-made Kilo-class attack submarines.
Recently I think they also had a large deck drone carrier? But yeah, other than that, I think they topped out at frigate. And not even a Kriegsmarine frigate.
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