If Iran does have underwater explosive drones, why would they boast about it and invite attacks upon that weapon and its deployment systems?
To complicate adversary targeting priorities. If you have to shift your pre-planned bombing sorties away from, say, local Basij HQ buildings, it takes pressure off of the Iranian government. Assigning aircraft to find/fix/target/track/engage "underwater drone launch points" is probably like searching for a needle in a haystack given the size of Iran's coastline.
A true UUV attack is probably outside Iran's wheelhouse, but cutting-down an attack speedboat to the waterline seems very realistic.
The more FUD they can generate around transport in the strait of Hermuz the better for them.
Maybe they have this capability and maybe they don’t, but they are clearly able to hit these tankers with something. Ukraine has been using these drones so it’s entirely possible Iran has this tech too.
Ukraine has been defending against these drones for past 4 years!
EDIT: nevermind, we are talking about sea babies, not shaheds - different kind of drones.
See how that doesn't make any sense?
[1] https://gcaptain.com/iranian-shadow-fleet-and-greek-affiliat...
With all the technology advancement and improvement with access to information in the last 30 years, why does it feel that all of this culminates to more disinformation, more pain, and less understanding?
Case in point: switching from oil to renewables - which can lower dependency to external actors a lot as solar panels and windmills have life span of years, so even if the producers suddenly refuses to sell more, one has some time to find an alternative - was done slower than it could have because of "discussions".
Since 20 years I almost feel the discussion "climate change or not" is fueled by people that want dependency on oil, such that we don't talk about the issue of a couple of big producer points of failure (USA, Russia, Gulf countries). Not sure if oil companies are smart enough to finance green groups (to which I agree generally but is besides the point), such that the public discourse stays in a conflict area (climate) rather than a simple one (independence), but if they are that would be meta-evil.
Kind of interesting how we have some areas of the world where there are no geopolitics and people live in peace and don't see any differences between the people they come across in the grocery store. And other places in the world where those vary same cultures in that midwestern grocery store might now be picking up arms against eachother.
And also kind of interesting how no one cares to highlight this cognitive dissonance we have, how an israeli and a persian can live as neighbors in the US, but in the middle east they are water and oil.
We have so much stuff that we just throw things away if a tiny piece of it gets tarnished / broken.
The US's population density is pretty low and we have a ton of land not in cities that's very sparsely populated.
Like it largely seems that geopolitics of now is about creating scarcity.
This is directly caused by technology. Morons have helped the worst possible people build surveillance and coordination and propaganda networks and are all confused pikachu about that going exactly the way you should have expected it to go.
Technology was also bypassing the "resource" problem at warp speed. Solar panels are the energy future, and thanks to China being actually good at strategic planning, solar can be deployed and utilized far faster than any other energy innovation. With the sheer abundance possible through bulk solar, water scarcity is an engineering issue, about manufacturing enough plumbing and membranes to desalinate whatever you need.
We are fighting an 80s oil war because people voted for an 80s TV personality to run our country after he was known to rape kids, brag about Mein Kampf (even though everyone knows he doesn't read for fun), and attempt to invalidate the 2020 election.
Israel saw a clear opening to wildly advance their imperialist ambitions and because Donald Trump is so damn stupid we have jumped in to this absurdist situation because Donald Trump wanted to be seen shooting first, because he thinks that looks "Strong".
Neither of which is actually true for oil. We're still finding oil reserves faster than we deplete them, major users such as China are rapidly decarbonizing, and the price was relatively low before the war.
But the people in power thought it was true, which is all that matters.
In surveying my friends in Silicon Valley, it seems that most VCs/techies know that: 1. This administration is likely leading us into long term wars and social instability 2. American Dynamism and Defense Tech (or more politely bundled into "DeepTech") are war profiteering, benefiting from greater instability
Speaking / acting out against the American military complex and Big Tech/VC's role in this carries 3 big risks: 1. Not being invited to parties ("too much negative energy, we want to be surrounded by positivity" or "don't talk politics") 2. Censorship and reduced following across most major social media platforms 3. Being economically left out as the world bifurcates into a K-shape economy
As a result, most of my community (generally peace-loving, music-loving humans) seem to be either taking a position of "the world has always been at war and will always be at war, I'm just a realist" or "I'm just going to focus on my locust of control and my personal wellbeing" or "if it's gonna happen anyways, I might as well make money off of it". There is a strong contingent of the resistance as well (still fighting for climate, social justice, peace) but much higher rates of depression and social isolation in this group
So it does not seem to be a problem that can be solved by more information and more technology (though k-12 and higher education assuredly is worth investing in), but perhaps by less nihilism and a stronger social/moral fabric
A big reason I am considering starting a company again is that we need more flags of institutions that carry large weight/reputation and stand for a set of values that is different than the current (and historical) status quo. I expect most of my community would be thrilled to align with those flags if those flags where held up tall and broke through the noise
Which is to say, if you're considering setting up one of those flags, please please do. The world doesn't have to be this way.
Someone with a 500$ laptop, internet connection and a handful of social media accounts can do a level of damage and cause pain that would be impossible 3-4 decades ago.
Technology might advance, but people are still people. Greed, stupidity, ego, jingoism...these don't change no matter how much tech advances
Because the United States government is so grossly dysfunctional that a blatant real world re-enactment of Wag the Dog[1] has gone off without a hitch. "Without a hitch" in the "distract from the President's rape of a child" sense of the original film, of course.
Maybe in hindsight, "flooding the zone" will be considered a much bigger threat than it is today. Most of what's going on in the last 12 months have happened in plain sight and would have never worked 30 years ago. Today, it just flies, attention span be damned.
One of the original adages in technology is:
garbage in, garbage out.
https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news...
Either way for sure this will cause further backlog. And for what.
I wonder how many more caches of drones Iran has lying around. Days? Weeks? Years?
There's also the question of how to resupply any anti-drone systems in the area - maybe we'll see convoys carrying interceptors crossing the Arabian desert.
'Nope'
They'll signal something else later and things will open up.
Yes, it sounds crazy right now, but a lot of things sounded similarly crazy 10 years ago, and here we are.
There is no crisis that would create a situation where elections "cannot be held".
That is to say, if the current admin attempts to suspend elections, the legality of that and the magnitude of the reaction will be the same, crisis or no.
They keep making the same mistake: underestimating that your adversary gets a vote, whether it's Iran, trade partners, colleges, Colbert, the Kennedy Center's audience, or Minneapolis.
But they claimed "flawless victory".
Both things cannot be true at the same time.
If the goal was to hurt China / BRICS and kneecap Iran it seems on point.
It's always hard to predict how the USA will vote when "war" is happening.
While also hurting Europe, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and many more. Very on point...
It will hurt everyone, Americans included, oil is a global market, fertilisers are a global market, those are basic inputs for probably every single thing produced in the world.
So now all of us around the globe have to pay the price for American Imperialism, compounded by the complete shattering of the USA's soft power as an ally, this will only create more animosity against the USA from all sides. Very on point.
But the USA oil industry can make a buck until everything buckles, or perhaps the USA admin will introduce price controls like in the 1970s, that worked very well too.
USA, Europe, and many other countries depend on China for manufacturing. I doubt that this is going to solve inflation.
But it will fill the pockets of a few people in oil rich countries that can still export.
This 'Venezuelan oil' is a pipe dream for the moment. It will take a significant amount of years to get anywhere near completed.
You are mistaken to assume there was a goal. Trump has admitted he did this because he was told that Iran were about to attack the U.S. not because of any strategic goal.
I expect more competency from US Presidential administrations, and also expect more competency and indpendence from the various parts of the executive branch, which should execute their missions without micro-management from the President, and I further expect far more competence from Congress and the US Supreme Court in setting law and enforcing law. It's bad enough that we have an incompetent Presidential administration, but that damage should be limited by the independence of the other parts of the government. The blast radius should be far smaller, we shouldn't have a King.
We wouldn't be having a discussion about the US having a king if Biden's administration was actually competent at doing its job.
Someone really hopes you forgot about them...
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2032091651422720197
*Edit: Now I understand that some companies may make more money, but the economy overall may suffer.
*Seems like I hit a nerve with stereotypical people groups.
Plus gas is largely immune to sales tax and we don't really tax corporations so this will largely lead to no revenue for the US and instead just record profits for Exxon.
Or it's for "Da NuKeS ThEy AbOuT To GeT" it's even dumb because they killed the only dude who was against Iran getting nukes. [0]
Or he got tricked by bibi &co into yet another middle east war I don't have words to describe how dumb it is.
[0] Iranian intelligence minister Esmaeil Khatib said that the country may nevertheless change their stance if "pushed in that direction" like a "cornered cat". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei%27s_fatwa_against...
Iran now admitted it had 60% enriched uranium, which is weeks from 90% for nukes.
For energy, only 3-5% enrichment is needed. Anything >20% is weapons-usable.
https://apnews.com/article/iran-nuclear-enrichment-c0079c387...
I guess that's another war to end all wars to add to the list
https://open-ev-charts.org/#global:electric-sales:quarter
It won't change rapidly in the US, because the current administration opposes renewables at every turn and keeps low cost BEVs out of the US, but most of the world's energy/oil needs are outside the US. This situation will accelerate a global process that was already gaining speed.
Really.
The Ukraine would like to have a word.
Of course that could be the entire idea.
The WW2 convoy situation was far easier to escort (but still quite dangerous obviously) because:
1. The Atlantic is a much bigger place, even considering common routes and chokepoints.
2. U-Boats had to surface frequently, making them extremely vulnerable to Allied air cover.
3. U-Boats had to be within visual range to strike convoys, versus the drone and missile world we live in now.
- We likely don't have the assets to move the amount traffic that needs to get through
- We probably can't protect them perfectly (we don't have maritime supremacy) so ships will still take damage and that will stop the convoys pretty quickly
I suspect the escort ships would be fine though. They can defend themselves.
So if we did start them, they wouldn't continue for long until the economic pain was pretty massive and the cost of loosing ships was worth it.
That's harder than bombing schools, goat herders or kidnapping the leader of the most corrupt country in the world, are you sure they can still pull it off, I'm starting to think even they know they cannot anymore.
After seeing the latest white house CoD style propaganda videos and Pete "Kafir" Hegseth speeches it's clear the people in charge completely lost it
> In After the Empire, written in 2001, Todd claimed that the reason for America’s “theatrical micromilitarism” was to prove that it was still an indispensable power in a post-USSR world. In his latest work, however, he revises this thesis, arguing that it would imply attributing rational intentions to Washington.13 The American liberal oligarchy is not driven by any clear project.
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2024/11/how-the-west-was-...
I don't really have anything constructive to add, but hope folks in US realize just how insane all this is. Like can we just not have wars, like pretty please anything but more bombs and killing...
Like what happened to the walls folks in US were building a while ago, can we fund another, I will donate a 100$ if we wrap up all this shit this week. Heck if Russia and other countries pack it up I will add another 100$ to it...
Does that work, does anything work? ._.
Let's do something productive, honestly AI slop is more productive than this. I still can't wrap my head around this nonsense.
I am 25 I don't wanna know a world at war, just a few hundred more years of peace please, then you folks can feel free to go to war with Zurgs or something with your AGI drones...
Even if Trump's claims that the war will end shortly were true. Oil prices are guaranteed not coming down if many more of these ships are sunk.
https://public.axsmarine.com/blog/build-time-for-new-vessels...
The problem is they are halted, which causes price spikes.
$120/barrel Oil will screw up the whole world.
Does he even care if his actions hurt the country or global stability at all, so long as his supporters remain unwavering? It seems like he doesn't, so here we are.
There is no plausible stimulus that he might actually care to respond to.
Imagine if multiple Western countries allied early to correct this regime (and not just with sanctions).
> IRAN has claimed responsibility for an attack on two oil tankers anchored in Iraqi territorial waters, as conflicts in the region continue to escalate and strikes on commercial shipping spread beyond the Strait of Hormuz.
It's not that it's impossible to go through it, but you have to do something specific in order to do so beyond just trying to go through, or you're going to walk straight into getting a bloodey nose.
But yeah, these ships weren't anywhere near the strait.