Funny thing about war: you lose the ability to control the other actors. Iran is negotiating with Oman to take control of the Strait, and they will likely be successful in creating a toll system. This wasn't broken before the war, and Trump takes sole blame for breaking the freedom of the seas. More straits will see similar actions in the coming years, and shipping, and therefore trade, will get more expensive
Very difficult to win a war when basic steps aren’t taken, such as setting a goal, setting up a plan, listening to experienced generals, doing risk analyses, setting up plans to address each of those risks, etc.
Seems very basic. Those basic steps don’t seem to have been executed.
That, and he probably thought and was told by the toadies around him, that he's so big, strong, and powerful etc. that if he simply threw his weight around a bit to bully/threaten Iran, then they would immediately fold and give them what he demands. Turns out the only person shitting themselves was Trump himself.
Yeah, about them red hats. Democracy is a messy business. Red hat shit falls on all of us. Not to put too fine a point on it, the YouGov poll of July 21st lists the top five words used to describe our red hat president: dangerous (52%), corrupt (49%), racist (45%), out-of-touch (45%), and cruel (44%). You know what to do in November.
Yeah as another guy who lives up in the Great White North this is a point that I wish more Americans were willing to grapple with. It won't feel good, but we need you to be the best citizens you can be and not to blame somebody else for your problems. You know who has less agency than disillusioned American progressives? Everybody else in the world.
I don't want to (always) come off as a smug Canadian, but I'm pretty comfortable saying that a big part of why we ended up electing Carney's government from almost nowhere was because we were staring down the barrel of our own Maple MAGA movement. And too many Canadians, who are otherwise pretty conservative, but especially the folks on the left who could easily have done the whole "Biden is to close to Israel" or "Kamala is too mediocre for my tastes" sucked it up and understood the stakes.
If you look at the polling the centre right and the social democratic left basically moved entirely to the centre/centre-right even, because they were patriotic Canadians before they were online social media commentators. Our NDP essentially collapsed last year because there's no point in hoping for more progressive policies when the alternative is actual incompetence and authoritarian friendly ideologues who spend time at Mar-a-Lago and playing footsie with Victor Orban.
Not that I expect Americans to take political lessons from abroad, but all Americans of good character and who love their fellow citizens should see us as an example of how you can suck up your feelings and vote for the least bad option that has a realistic, or even plausible, chance of winning. Hope and wishful thinking based on Twitter or Tik-Tok memes about how the centre sucks as much as the far right don't get you very far when the alternative is willing to do anything to take power.
I'm fundamentally against the Liberal Party of Canada and their overall social and economic platform, it's too establishment and too cozy with Bay Street and foreign (American/Chinese) capital for this hoser. But I also made a significant (for me) political donation to a national political party for the first time in my life and am willing to continue to suck it up because I understood the stakes when I voted for a party that doesn't represent me perfectly, but is agreeable to a plurality/majority of my fellow citizens. There are more important things than idealism, and democracy is messy. You always own the government you elect, even when you didn't vote for them. And even if you don't they're going to be able to affect your life.
Hard to even say with any certainty that he was even elected. Without a thorough and transparent forensic review of the election results, we'll never know if Trump somehow really did win every single swing state for the first time in history. It would also give the many comments made on camera by Trump and Elon Musk to the effect of, "Yeah we pulled a sneaky and rigged that shit" ..if somehow they actually did win fairly, it would make these seeming confessions sound even stranger. So it's true we regular folks don't have in hand the hard evidence, but at this point, given everything else these knobs have gotten up to (referring to the extreme levels of criminality), it's logical to assume that Trump did not win that election and that Elon did indeed hack the voting machines like both of them have talked about repeatedly on numerous occasions.
The U.S. raced to develop cheaper ways to tackle the Iranian-supplied drones that Russia deployed, and has made some progress. But the stores of interceptors such as Patriots and THAADs were rapidly expended. “There are no good alternatives for stopping ballistic missiles,” .... “Without these defensive missiles, attacking missiles will land unopposed. That is what is happening in Ukraine.”
Before Russia’s invasion, the U.S. produced roughly 300 Patriot missiles a year, half of which went to allies. Production has since doubled, but badly trails wartime demand.
Had the Iran war been over in a matter of several weeks, as the administration initially predicted, the U.S. munitions problem would not be so dire.
“The real problem is that there is no long-term strategy—and we can’t plan around that.”
The US just let all of its soft power go when it allowed DOGE to cut all of its international aid programs, then it made international enemies by starting several new wars and stealing government leaders, then it made enemies of its own people through increasing tariffs and inflation. The advantage wasn’t squandered, it was forcefully destroyed.
It's been recognized since Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense that the economics favors offense. It's relatively simple to saturate whatever anti-missle missiles are deployed simply because the defensive missiles are much more expensive than the offensive ones. Once an adversary gets functional production of cheap weapons they can just launch away (like Ukraine and Iran) until the defensive systems are exhausted.
The true danger to our national security then, is not Iran, but our own corrupt and administration, and its system of crooked, cost-plus contracts with corporations, courtesy of the Defense Department. We need to stop picking fights with other countries, and bring our troops home, and not send them abroad again with out genuine due cause, as agreed on by a bi-partisan Congressional committee.
We need to end our idiotic support of covert operations around the globe. If the US government can not justify its actions openly then we have no business sticking our noses into other people's business.
We need to end the stranglehold on the world economy, of what Theodore Roosevelt referred to as "malefactors of great wealth".
And we need to start enforcing the Constitution and the rule of law. Get me that, and then we talk about operations overseas.
FireWireBestWire | 15 hours ago
Funny thing about war: you lose the ability to control the other actors. Iran is negotiating with Oman to take control of the Strait, and they will likely be successful in creating a toll system. This wasn't broken before the war, and Trump takes sole blame for breaking the freedom of the seas. More straits will see similar actions in the coming years, and shipping, and therefore trade, will get more expensive
SurinamPam | 13 hours ago
Very difficult to win a war when basic steps aren’t taken, such as setting a goal, setting up a plan, listening to experienced generals, doing risk analyses, setting up plans to address each of those risks, etc.
Seems very basic. Those basic steps don’t seem to have been executed.
snertwith2ls | 8 hours ago
I think Trump's goal was to enrich himself. I don't think he had a goal for how the US as a country/super power would come out. Just Trump get rich.
temblors | 2 hours ago
That, and he probably thought and was told by the toadies around him, that he's so big, strong, and powerful etc. that if he simply threw his weight around a bit to bully/threaten Iran, then they would immediately fold and give them what he demands. Turns out the only person shitting themselves was Trump himself.
Jonthrei | 13 hours ago
When basic steps what? When basic steps whaaaaat?!?
(You forgot to finish your first sentence)
SurinamPam | 11 hours ago
Ty. Completed.
roastbeeftacohat | 10 hours ago
maritime empire require being on nice terms with other countries, a breakdown of the maritime wold order is russia's main long term goal.
PowerandSignal | an hour ago
MAGA!
Easy_Interest_6832 | 14 hours ago
How did we squander our strategic advantage? We elected the clown posse.
plassteel01 | 13 hours ago
We? Maybe you did but I didn't
Cedric_T | 12 hours ago
From up here above the 49th, hard to tell who’s who, now that many of you are hiding your red caps.
Easy_Interest_6832 | 10 hours ago
Yeah, about them red hats. Democracy is a messy business. Red hat shit falls on all of us. Not to put too fine a point on it, the YouGov poll of July 21st lists the top five words used to describe our red hat president: dangerous (52%), corrupt (49%), racist (45%), out-of-touch (45%), and cruel (44%). You know what to do in November.
SirCharlesTupperBt | 9 hours ago
Yeah as another guy who lives up in the Great White North this is a point that I wish more Americans were willing to grapple with. It won't feel good, but we need you to be the best citizens you can be and not to blame somebody else for your problems. You know who has less agency than disillusioned American progressives? Everybody else in the world.
I don't want to (always) come off as a smug Canadian, but I'm pretty comfortable saying that a big part of why we ended up electing Carney's government from almost nowhere was because we were staring down the barrel of our own Maple MAGA movement. And too many Canadians, who are otherwise pretty conservative, but especially the folks on the left who could easily have done the whole "Biden is to close to Israel" or "Kamala is too mediocre for my tastes" sucked it up and understood the stakes.
If you look at the polling the centre right and the social democratic left basically moved entirely to the centre/centre-right even, because they were patriotic Canadians before they were online social media commentators. Our NDP essentially collapsed last year because there's no point in hoping for more progressive policies when the alternative is actual incompetence and authoritarian friendly ideologues who spend time at Mar-a-Lago and playing footsie with Victor Orban.
Not that I expect Americans to take political lessons from abroad, but all Americans of good character and who love their fellow citizens should see us as an example of how you can suck up your feelings and vote for the least bad option that has a realistic, or even plausible, chance of winning. Hope and wishful thinking based on Twitter or Tik-Tok memes about how the centre sucks as much as the far right don't get you very far when the alternative is willing to do anything to take power.
I'm fundamentally against the Liberal Party of Canada and their overall social and economic platform, it's too establishment and too cozy with Bay Street and foreign (American/Chinese) capital for this hoser. But I also made a significant (for me) political donation to a national political party for the first time in my life and am willing to continue to suck it up because I understood the stakes when I voted for a party that doesn't represent me perfectly, but is agreeable to a plurality/majority of my fellow citizens. There are more important things than idealism, and democracy is messy. You always own the government you elect, even when you didn't vote for them. And even if you don't they're going to be able to affect your life.
temblors | 2 hours ago
Hard to even say with any certainty that he was even elected. Without a thorough and transparent forensic review of the election results, we'll never know if Trump somehow really did win every single swing state for the first time in history. It would also give the many comments made on camera by Trump and Elon Musk to the effect of, "Yeah we pulled a sneaky and rigged that shit" ..if somehow they actually did win fairly, it would make these seeming confessions sound even stranger. So it's true we regular folks don't have in hand the hard evidence, but at this point, given everything else these knobs have gotten up to (referring to the extreme levels of criminality), it's logical to assume that Trump did not win that election and that Elon did indeed hack the voting machines like both of them have talked about repeatedly on numerous occasions.
[OP] D-R-AZ | 16 hours ago
Gifted Read:
https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/08/shortage-weapons-shaping-war-iran/688201/?gift=9raHaW-OKg2bN8oaIFlCoqFny3RfN3D6aJA2m_zuDq0&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Excerpts:
The U.S. raced to develop cheaper ways to tackle the Iranian-supplied drones that Russia deployed, and has made some progress. But the stores of interceptors such as Patriots and THAADs were rapidly expended. “There are no good alternatives for stopping ballistic missiles,” .... “Without these defensive missiles, attacking missiles will land unopposed. That is what is happening in Ukraine.”
Before Russia’s invasion, the U.S. produced roughly 300 Patriot missiles a year, half of which went to allies. Production has since doubled, but badly trails wartime demand.
Had the Iran war been over in a matter of several weeks, as the administration initially predicted, the U.S. munitions problem would not be so dire.
“The real problem is that there is no long-term strategy—and we can’t plan around that.”
plassteel01 | 13 hours ago
This whole shit show falls on Trump and the republican party
thewanderingent | 14 hours ago
The US just let all of its soft power go when it allowed DOGE to cut all of its international aid programs, then it made international enemies by starting several new wars and stealing government leaders, then it made enemies of its own people through increasing tariffs and inflation. The advantage wasn’t squandered, it was forcefully destroyed.
anonanon1313 | 13 hours ago
It's been recognized since Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense that the economics favors offense. It's relatively simple to saturate whatever anti-missle missiles are deployed simply because the defensive missiles are much more expensive than the offensive ones. Once an adversary gets functional production of cheap weapons they can just launch away (like Ukraine and Iran) until the defensive systems are exhausted.
Brainchild110 | 10 hours ago
They're called The NRA, the big oil producers and Trumpy. And the dumbasses that put them all in power.
lrobb09 | 3 hours ago
How? We hired a completely incompetent dipshit to run things.
tneeno | 3 hours ago
The true danger to our national security then, is not Iran, but our own corrupt and administration, and its system of crooked, cost-plus contracts with corporations, courtesy of the Defense Department. We need to stop picking fights with other countries, and bring our troops home, and not send them abroad again with out genuine due cause, as agreed on by a bi-partisan Congressional committee.
We need to end our idiotic support of covert operations around the globe. If the US government can not justify its actions openly then we have no business sticking our noses into other people's business.
We need to end the stranglehold on the world economy, of what Theodore Roosevelt referred to as "malefactors of great wealth".
And we need to start enforcing the Constitution and the rule of law. Get me that, and then we talk about operations overseas.