That happened when Hamas attacked Israel and Israel started a full blown war in Gaza. The whole situation was very convenient for Russia, weapon deliveries were slashed to supply Israel.
It's just funny that people can't stomach that their own ruling class is leading them down the primrose path so they have to go casting about for a foreign bogeyman who's making it happen, despite the fact that every major Western power has bent the knee to this action against Iran.
This is reminding us something that we should never have forgotten - modern war has an insatiable demand for munitions.
To take just one example out of dozens, the US fired somewhere from 100 to 150 THAAD interceptors - about ¼ of the stockpile - during the 12 days war in 2025. We produce just under 100 per year. There are plans to raise that number to 400 per year.
The Ukrainians were expending somewhere around 10,000 drones per day in mid 2025. Russian numbers are likely broadly similar.
Many historical conflicts have featured a substantial bottleneck on multiple munitions during ramp up. World War 1 had artillery shell crises across Britain, France, Russia, and Germany. World War II had similar, especially for the Russians and Germans. The US was short on ammo early in the Korean war.
Modern mechanized combat demands an insane manufacturing and logistics chain. It can burn through stockpiles incredibly fast, especially of high capability expensive munitions. War production levels are utterly unsustainable during peace time.
This is why peer and near-peer conflict is as much an economic and productive game as it is a military one. Shock and awe takes a tremendous amount of resources to accomplish at all, let alone sustain.
That's why decapitation attacks can be very efficient, as wars are actually just extra-election elite changes since regular people minding their own business don't actually intend to kill some other group of people even if they are outrage and propaganda filled.
The problem is, those decapitation attacks work when the institutions are weak or structured in a way that all the power is in the hands of one person. It's always funny to watch in Hollywood movies everybody scrambled to save the US president and the US president being extremeyly important. Even in real life Americans swear in a replacement ASAP when the president dies (i.e. Kennedy). That's very funny from European perspective, RIP to the guy but just elect someone else why you are making it a big deal?
Also, the wars in Europe all have stories about how soldiers pausing the fight one the frontlines and having a chat sharing meals exchanging cigarettes with the opponent etc.
Your whole comment I kept recalling "The Art of War" - which is of course, mostly about how not to go to war, how if you must go to war, it needs to be efficient, bc the war will decimate the State faster than the enemy ever could, but be really smart about it, bc not only is it incredibly expensive, you could also lose, and its very hard to recover from.
Best to avoid warring if you at all can - thousands of years later, still true.
>US fired somewhere from 100 to 150 THAAD interceptors - about ¼ of the stockpile - during the 12 days war in 2025. We produce just under 100 per year.
Just a reminder that THAAD interceptor price is not due to material cost or difficulty to manufacture. Its approximately as expensive as gold per kilogram precisely because its made in such small numbers as part of a gold plated military contract.
It’s been over 100 years since the exchange was closed for war. They might open it for manual trading if algorithmic (80% of volume) is attacked. I bet we would never get attribution and that the US admin benefits by saying any damage must be Iran.
What is the optimal strategy for Iran, if they assume that the regime can withstand the intensive bombardments and people won't take it to the streets like US / Israel are assuming ?
Wouldn't it be to only launch cheap missiles / drones for a week or two to deplete interceptors and only then start using more advanced missiles ?
The Shah son doesn't have the local support his father had. Part of the diaspora like him enough, but the clans that brought him to power are way less aligned with the British ans US than they use to be.
On the other hand, exchanging an anti-US dictator for a US-aligned dictator is probably a lot better for the average citizen because your country won't be embargoed anymore, you just have to accept US oil companies on your territory.
They used up a lot of the remaining tomahawk inventory apparently. These operations, done without congressional approval, are wasting literal billions. Repositioning multiple carrier groups and spending lots of munitions isn’t cheap. And yet the administration thinks some alleged small scale Somalian fraud deserves all our attention.
If China was to attack Taiwan, now would be the time. The current world order is at least in part based around the notion of the US (and allies) having the military capacity to fight any plausible combination of foes at all times. That this military capacity was used in accordance to a set of rules with input from allies and partners made the system tolerable.
If the US lacks the munitions to fight all of these conflicts, and is unreliable to allies or foes leads to a high likelihood of conflict.
Why give munitions to an unreliable partner? why rely on an unreliable partner for munitions? the Japan/Australia/SK-US-EU/NATO alliance depends on the US being sensible and broadly aligned with the goals of the other countries.
Granted, patriot missiles are still manufactured across the alliance and I'm sure arms will be available for purchase.
There is so much BS on both sides of the aisle so it seems impossible to get a clear picture but didn't Iran prepare better than Venezuela in terms of deployment of Chinese radar and other security defenses? Seems like there has been no conversation whatsoever about Chinese defenses, were they bypassed again? If so, then China must be reassessing. (Again dont know whats real and whats fake anymore)
China is being very careful to provide enough support not to be seen as abandoning their trading partners/allies, while keeping the support at a low enough level to not get entangled in conflict or create expectations for future conflicts. They want to be able to paint this as "just business", in spite of any rhetoric they may publicly have. In some cases they'll help more in covert ways (Russia), while others they'll do the bare minimum (Venezuela).
So yes, China did give (note: sell) Iran some hardware, but it's not the most cutting edge tech China has, and it's not in sufficient quantity to make much of a difference.
The US is still ahead of China in a lot of military tech, even if the gap keeps getting narrower.
This sounds like a cop out. The second biggest loser of Iran being invaded is China. The US already took out Venezuela and now Iran. I know China has made excellent strides in renewables but they still depend on oil to fuel their over capacitized factories. Now they have lost their number 1 and number 2 supplier.
Combined with 25% youth unemployment things are looking more grim for China.
If any of this tech had any value it should have done something. Now people aren't even bashing it like they did in venezuela they just seem to be accepting that it is not worth talking about.
Like I said there is so much BS on both sides and well your argument isn't convincing: There is this cutting edge tech that no one has seen and no one knows anything about but just trust me China is saving it for the perfect moment. :/
>The US is still ahead of China in a lot of military tech, even if the gap keeps getting narrower.
We need to take a step back and reassess: is the hardware effective against the US or is it not? If it is not, then it is no better than a paperweight. Second place finishers are not with us any longer as the victor wrote the history books.
I'm starting to think maybe WW3 has already started and we are so bogged down in the day to day nonsense that many don't realize it yet.
VZ and IR constitutes like 15% of PRC oil, heavily discounted. 15% seems like a lot but keep in mind PRC imports more than they use for filling SPR - about 1B in storage, or 2-3 years of IR/VZ oil imports.
Meanwhile PRC imports oil primarily for transport that can be electrified. They produce 5mbd domestically, which covers industrial use (petchem), which can also be derived from coal, discount RU/VZ/IR oil simply cheaper. Ironically if oil prices rise past $80 PRC coal to olefin becomes profitable, that's a PRC unique techstack, it only makes their industry more competitive vs others.
25% youth unemployment is western cope stat - broad PRC unemployment is like 6%, i.e. youth find jobs, PRC youth simply gets to fuckarounditis at home until they decide enter workforce later because high home ownership and household savings rate - something US youths with student loans and paycheck to paycheck culture can't do.
> cutting edge tech ... have done something
It's just boring anti stealth / anti air tech where science is reasonably well understood. Which cannot be provided to VZ/IR vs US overmatch. But what can be done is preposition them for intel gathering vs US, i.e. PRC stealth radars likely gather telemetry on US stealth / order of battle / EW even if VZ/IR cannot integrate them into shooters effectively vs US air. Doing something including passive collection on US using premier assets in real scenario. If anything like past CENTCOM drama, there's PRC Type 815A's chilling in CENTCOM right now hoovering up intelligence.
> effective against the US or is it not?
It likely is in volumes that negate US overmatch. There's a reason US/IL is trying to strangle IR's shit tier missile complex now - 12 days war and houthis have shown even garbage IR hardware is enough to simply overwhelm US+IL+co through densest ABM defense in the world, after PRC eastern theatre command. Everything we're seeing last couple years has basically validated PRC model once extrapolate scale to natural conclusions. Consider US vacated most of CENTCOM to avoid IR counter fire. PRC has magnitude more highend missiles, million+ drones, loitering munition for 1/2IC, is US going to bail Okinawa/Yokosuka/Busan etc vs PRC with more fires than US has produced interceptors, ever, how are US going defend 1IC security obligations if IR penetrating MENA with crippled/puny missile complex.
>effective against the US or is it not
As what was seen, see PRC tandem AShM tests a few years ago where they coordinated hypersonics launched from different sites to strike moving target at see, i.e. something US hasn't even demonstrated. What we see is US overmatch still effective against adversaries dramatically smaller with generations old hardware (because of course it is) but even those hardware, at limited scale is forcing US to adopt postures that would basically lead to defeat in westpac scenario. The fact that US has to preposition 1/3 of active fleet and airforce hardware for WEEKS vs minor adversaries fraction PRC size and fraction PRC tech/industrial output suggest US simply not capable of dealing PRC scale/tier adversary, that's without considering munition stockpile etc.
What people should think about is not how much US can stomp lighweight adversaries, but how much % of US force has to be committed to doing so.
Mostly agree, I will push back on the '25% youth unemployment is western cope stat - broad PRC unemployment is like 6%, i.e. youth find jobs, PRC youth simply gets to fuckarounditis at home until they decide enter workforce later'
Rural Chinese kids are getting shafted in every way possible. Most adults are there two days a month at best (basically almost all present adults are 50 or more), they are undereducated, and rural jobs pay a fifth to an eighth of what an unqualified factory job pays, and there isn't enough of them. It's probably a blip for Chinese employment numbers, but man, rural China seems harsher than rural Vietnam, at least for the new generations.
Rural situation is interesting, little opportunities, many in informal economy.
Yes historically very UNDERemployed, but at this point it's, and this will sound callous, matter of bootstraps, i.e. rural youth, despite having shittier education are more educated than their rural parents. AKA they are minimal competent to do migrant blue collar work - lots of well paying factory jobs if willing to relocate. But that also hard life style so many choose to not, because modern shit rural life is frequently not as laborious as shit migrant dormitory life.
It terms of stats, rural marginalization = contradictions.
Technically/theoretically rural employment is always 0%. Rural hukou = own small plot of farmland = by definition rural residence are bucketed as farmers. But in terms of useful stats, whatever their unemployment hardly matters because they make so little money, like the bottom 1-2 quantiles in PRC (predominantly rural) aggregates to like 5% of PRC GDP. It's a blip for PRC economic health, but urban/rural divide is irreconcilably unjust. Though also practically unjust especially for PRC demographic trends, TLDR rural is where most of the undereducated old are, it's going to be nice low cost dumping ground for retired people who wants to chill in their gardens.
All limited exchanges end in annihilation, parties are required to tit for tat the exchange and it's really easy to run out of targets when you are using nukes - forcing an escalation.
If Taiwan was invaded, the only military targets for the US are in close proximity to major population centers. The response would be nukes on US Naval bases (in close proximity to US population centers). This would rapidly escalate to a full exchange. Or China would just use their nukes to achieve all military objectives in Taiwan.
Neither China nor the US plan to invade each other, or engage in any non-limited conflict. There is no rational reason for either to ever use nukes.
MAD is actually a myth - especially when it was invented in the 60s, its more so now, in theory, but in all practical sense - nobody can use the massive nukes, they would prolly melt the polar ice and screw the climate for sure... but, having them means something else: nobody without an equivalent number can actually engage with you.
Which is why tactical nukes will be used in the future - likely by the US, Russia, or later on, maybe China. The British and French only have enough if we support them - India and Pakistan hardly have enough for each other...
Essentially - if we did take out say half a city somewhere and Russia doesnt go to their "final at bat" forever, for some country that isn't Russia - nobody else will attack us directly either bc they can't destroy our capacity to entirely remove them from existing.
China would want to fire back - but do you waste a billion people to make your enemy really, really angry and determined to use all of their remaining capabilities - which is more than everyone else (cept Russia), with just what is outside of the US in subs...
I'm not actually joking here - trading a part of an iconic city, to be taught an unwanted lesson, is superior to losing all the skylines of all the cities and learning no more lessons ever.
That modern understanding is actually entirely different than Mao originally approached an exchange - he said he wasn't worried - bc China has enough people and cities.
This is the real reason America has so many - bc with our large sprawled out country and global distribution of nuclear capabilities - we will always be the last one pushing red buttons. That is all that matters in an actual nuclear war/exchange - being the last one left IS Winning.
I wont explain more, bc it clearly is uncomfortable to people, but essentially, if the US and Russia were to "allow" each other to use tactical nukes (with rules, they set for each other) - like my example with Kiev (which would accomplish sooo many things - I wont elaborate further in case the Pentagon has somehow that) - with that one move, condoning "limited tactical nukes" bc they are "so weak" compared to the "real ones" - we would immediately return to a bipolar world split between the US and Russia.
All those conversations about the end of NATO would immediately stop, for example.
We’ve used nuclear weapons before when it made sense and we’ll use them again when it makes sense. Tactical nuclear weapons have downsides and generally don’t make much sense. Hitting population centers works.
In theory, these new "tactical" systems are better able to engage military targets. In practice, a 500-kiloton payload can also be used to blanket a wide area with total destruction.
Nagasaki was 21 kilotons, which means an average 500 kt MIRV warhead carries the energy equivalent of roughly two dozen individual Nagasaki sized detonations.
They can easily be used on population centers. The word "tactical" is more like a rebranding of nuclear weapons.
Well, my comment was flagged, so apparently it wasnt taken lightly by everyone.
You don't need a missile for everyone - I don't want to offend anyone but, you only have to use them in such a way that everyone else is affected.
Like how in America, our energy grid is so bad and interconnected - an air blast above Kansas would render most of our electrical grid and any connected/ancillary electronics completely unusable.
You're forgetting that U.S. healthcare costs are also massively overblown compared to other western countries, due to the absence of proper collective bargaining. (And possibly even collusion between insurers and healthcare providers to rip off citizens and the government.)
The root comment implies that if not for warmongering, you could have had healthcare.
That's not the case. If the USA had a more functioning political system (ranked choice voting etc) and didn't hate 'communism' so much then they would have healthcare.
Yep just like many things Americans are sure can't be done, universal healthcare has never been done anywhere in the world, ever. And healthcare everywhere costs what Americans are willing to pay (public and private money).
I don't think OP is talking about a specific war, but the overall cost to maintain such a capability and project force all over the world. At least that is what I perceive when people lament about lack of healthcare.
The United States military budget is now 1.5 trillion dollars per year.
What if they didnt try to kill us tho? What if the world is so interconnected now, that we actually could hold hands - especially if we already had those asteroids already at the Lagrange points - if we were "post-scarcity" as a species, what would be worth fighting over?
We absolutely can, and will, go get those asteroids.
The UK spends around £200bn a year on public healthcare that covers everyone, for a population around 1/5th the size. Scale that up and convert to USD and you’re still well under half the $3tn figure you quoted.
Universal healthcare is the norm in all of west / central europe, it's good quality, accessible for EVERYBODY (including the poors), and doctors still have great quality of life and are rich.
You guys are just getting f** by a mafia in the US and defending it for no factual reasons. Both by the military industrial complex AND the medical field btw.
