Saudi Arabia and Iran war talk!

RDM_83 again

Its like choosing a side in the May Weather McGregor fight, ones a mouthy prick the other is a wife beater, same here Iran talks war a lot and the Saudi's are bastards

Anyway

If they have open conflict rather than the proxy war in Yemen people seem to be forgetting there is a country called Iraq in the way, now Iraq might lean towards Iran at the minute and have had Iranian sourced forces in the fight against ISIS but they still lean heavily on the USA in such I don't think Iran can use the tactics Russia used in the East of Ukraine , there is alternatively a path through Kuwait I think Iran knows what happened to the last regime to invade Kuwait.
Iran AFAIK doesn't have the capacity for large scale amphibious troop movements.

So it would be a heated up proxy war, and an air war. Iran's airforce is mainly left over American planes from the Shahs' regime, Saudi particularly with Israeli support would wipe the floor of it, and Israeli planes have been shown to be quiet good at penetrating russian built air defences. This means that the Saudi's could bomb high profile Iranian targets quite effectively, whats to say that this couldn't trigger regime change there if the perception is the state talked the country into a war it didn't need.

Iran has been strengthening its influence very effectively and without huge cost for a number of years, a war like this is exactly what it doesn't need.

Whats interesting is the way this sort of stuff is viewed by some in the west, like I would tend to be slightly more sympathetic to Irans case but the fact the harder left seem to be quiet enamored to the state as seen on this thread is just baffling, like this is a country that purged their communists, leftists and atheists in a manner probably more brutally than the South American regimes that the same people despise!
Its really bizarre and sometime feels like its because its simple binary thinking where- well they say they are socialist and they hate Israeli, that cancels out all the other stuff, and the Islamic authoritarianism and moral police well that gets a pass because of "reasons"

edit: actually do Iran and Kuwait share a border-off to google

Ballstein

Chrongen wrote: »

Are they? What can they do except talk, build useless weaponry and kill civilians? And in the process fail in their endeavours at occupying countries for material gain?

You'll never convince me that a 6 foot 6 loudmouthed bully pumped full of steroids is more powerful and righteous than a fearless, skinny 5' 4" guy who can fight without needing to beat his chest.

I understand that America's phoney wars are to make money and prevent anyone from carving their own path away from the Washington Consensus. I understand that the fools who signed up and got their legs blown off in Helmand Province thought they were defending something when all they were doing was being pawns for Grumman and Raytheon. I understand that. But the guys who are fighting AGAINST the shareholders are slowly winning.

Even Europe knows that America are a complete bullsh1t force. Germany are yearning to get free of the crappy US trade deals and get the Beijing to Berlin Railway moving.

They want the dumb sanctions on Russia lifted. They want to trade along the OBOR initiative.

America is run by clowns who can't even stop 30,000 kids a week falling into poverty. The rest of the world knows this.

While you may never be convinced of his "righteousness", the skinny 5'4" weed will have that reassuring thought as the last thing he ever thinks when the 6'6" bully breaks his back and beats him to death.

You do know after nearly 16 years of continuous war, the US has over 2 million battle hardened combat veterans. A single carrier battle group is more powerful than 99% of the individual countries in the worlds Air Forces and Navy's, the US has ten of them. Their Air Force is light years ahead of anything else in the world. The average American infantryman is as good as any in history and a far sight better than some half starved conscript from the Ural's.
Anyone with a ounce of military knowledge knows that there is no country in the world who could go toe to toe with the US in a conventional war and have a chance. The USA is far from perfect, but even under the presidency of that orange ape, it's a million times better than Russia and Putin.

jackboy

mulbot wrote: »

Why didn't they use it when they were struggling then?

Political reasons.

Ipso

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Its like choosing a side in the May Weather McGregor fight, ones a mouthy prick the other is a wife beater, same here Iran talks war a lot and the Saudi's are bastards

Anyway

If they have open conflict rather than the proxy war in Yemen people seem to be forgetting there is a country called Iraq in the way, now Iraq might lean towards Iran at the minute and have had Iranian sourced forces in the fight against ISIS but they still lean heavily on the USA in such I don't think Iran can use the tactics Russia used in the East of Ukraine , there is alternatively a path through Kuwait I think Iran knows what happened to the last regime to invade Kuwait.
Iran AFAIK doesn't have the capacity for large scale amphibious troop movements.

So it would be a heated up proxy war, and an air war. Iran's airforce is mainly left over American planes from the Shahs' regime, Saudi particularly with Israeli support would wipe the floor of it, and Israeli planes have been shown to be quiet good at penetrating russian built air defences. This means that the Saudi's could bomb high profile Iranian targets quite effectively, whats to say that this couldn't trigger regime change there if the perception is the state talked the country into a war it didn't need.

Iran has been strengthening its influence very effectively and without huge cost for a number of years, a war like this is exactly what it doesn't need.

Whats interesting is the way this sort of stuff is viewed by some in the west, like I would tend to be slightly more sympathetic to Irans case but the fact the harder left seem to be quiet enamored to the state as seen on this thread is just baffling, like this is a country that purged their communists, leftists and atheists in a manner probably more brutally than the South American regimes that the same people despise!
Its really bizarre and sometime feels like its because its simple binary thinking where- well they say they are socialist and they hate Israeli, that cancels out all the other stuff, and the Islamic authoritarianism and moral police well that gets a pass because of "reasons"

edit: actually do Iran and Kuwait share a border-off to google

It would make a great study in cognitive dissonance.

RDM_83 again

Ipso wrote: »

It would make a great study in cognitive dissonance.

Yeah I can understand it for the 70's and early 80's to an extent but it's not like the fact they hung tens of thousands of leftists a dozen at a time in the late 80's isn't exactly hidden particularly from anybody with in a interest in human rights or left wing international politics who are the people that generally make these statements are.

As I said though I do think the west bet on the wrong horse in setting itself against Iran in that I don't think they are very into the global jihad idea

archer22

Ballstein wrote: »

While you may never be convinced of his "righteousness", the skinny 5'4" weed will have that reassuring thought as the last thing he ever thinks when the 6'6" bully breaks his back and beats him to death.

You do know after nearly 16 years of continuous war, the US has over 2 million battle hardened combat veterans.and A single carrier battle group is more powerful than 99% of the individual countries in the worlds Air Forces Navy's, the US has ten of them. Their Air Force is light years ahead of anything else in the world. The average American infantryman is as good as any in history and a far sight better than some half starved conscript from the Ural's.
Anyone with a ounce of military knowledge knows that there is no country in the world who could go toe to toe with the US in a conventional war and have a chance. The USA is far from perfect, but even under the presidency of that orange ape, it's a million times better than Russia and Putin.

Are they more powerful than volleys of DF-21Ds, Zircons, and all the new generation of hyper sonic ASMs....not to mention Sunburn etc.

And yeah I know America and it's allies "can shoot down everything with magic missiles" etc blah blah ...but in real life Israel's state of the art corvette couldn't stop an old Chinese Silkworm missile fired by Hezbollah in the 2006 war :rolleyes:

Ballstein

archer22 wrote: »

Are they more powerful than volleys of DF-21Ds, Zircons, and all the new generation of hyper sonic ASMs....not to mention Sunburn etc.

And yeah I know America and it's allies "can shoot down everything with magic missiles" etc blah blah ...but in real life Israel's state of the art corvette couldn't stop an old Chinese Silkworm missile fired by Hezbollah in the 2006 war :rolleyes:

Yes, yes they are. If carriers are so ineffective why are China, the UK and other countries still building them. Even Russia has an old rust bucket of a floating sh1te pile floating about the oceans.

archer22

Ballstein wrote: »

Yes, yes they are. If carriers are so ineffective why are China, the UK and other countries still building them. Even Russia has an old rust bucket of a floating sh1te pile floating about the oceans.

China's first carrier was for it's missile research....ie understanding carriers.

Building a second one is simply for national prestige.

endacl

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

The big powers in the region are now beginning to threaten each other.

Electric cars + who cares = let them at it.

Ballstein

archer22 wrote: »

China's first carrier was for it's missile research....ie understanding carriers.

Building a second one is simply for national prestige.

So they built a carrier to understand a carrier, which according to you are now obsolete because of ASM’s, then decided to build another anyway for national pride despite them being so easy to destroy.
Makes sense.....

archer22

Ballstein wrote: »

So they built a carrier to understand a carrier, which according to you are now obsolete because of ASM’s, then decided to build another anyway for national pride despite them being so easy to destroy.
Makes sense.....

If your goal is to be able to destroy carriers...then its good to have one of your own to play around with and see what they can and can't do. (I don't expect America would have loaned them one for research).

Then for sailing around the world on friendly port visits...Its nice to have a big carrier parked up, (impresses the locals)..also for humanitarian missions..very useful.

China is not going overseas to invade other countries...neither do they have any intentions of battling the US in the Pacific battle of Midway style.

Chrongen

Ballstein wrote: »

While you may never be convinced of his "righteousness", the skinny 5'4" weed will have that reassuring thought as the last thing he ever thinks when the 6'6" bully breaks his back and beats him to death.

You do know after nearly 16 years of continuous war, the US has over 2 million battle hardened combat veterans. A single carrier battle group is more powerful than 99% of the individual countries in the worlds Air Forces and Navy's, the US has ten of them. Their Air Force is light years ahead of anything else in the world. The average American infantryman is as good as any in history and a far sight better than some half starved conscript from the Ural's.
Anyone with a ounce of military knowledge knows that there is no country in the world who could go toe to toe with the US in a conventional war and have a chance. The USA is far from perfect, but even under the presidency of that orange ape, it's a million times better than Russia and Putin.

You can keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night.

American soldiers serve one and ONLY one purpose and that is to die for corporations.

What was that quote from Henry Kissinger? Here it is:

“Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”



The ones who fight back are the defenders.

Chrongen

jackboy wrote: »

Technology wins wars not soldiers. Struggling against insurgencies does not mean that they are weak. They could have crushed the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan very quickly if they had used 10% if their military power.

Then why didn't they?

Did they act for the craic? Did they get defeated and then say "well we could've won" like what you are trying to maintain?

It's like a schoolyard bully picking on a kid, getting his nose and teeth broken and then claiming that he could have won the brawl if he "did better"

I hear the same old argument time and time again. America got destroyed in Vietnam and in Iraq and are continuing to sit in barracks in Afghanistan....against who? Fighters with lasers? Immortals? Men with invisible planes?

No. Against men, women and kids they can't defeat. Oh, they can round up and torture them. Then can incinerate a town or a village, but they will still go home crying and hoping their government will take care of them....a government that won't.

Chrongen

Ballstein wrote: »

While you may never be convinced of his "righteousness", the skinny 5'4" weed will have that reassuring thought as the last thing he ever thinks when the 6'6" bully breaks his back and beats him to death.

You do know after nearly 16 years of continuous war, the US has over 2 million battle hardened combat veterans. A single carrier battle group is more powerful than 99% of the individual countries in the worlds Air Forces and Navy's, the US has ten of them. Their Air Force is light years ahead of anything else in the world. The average American infantryman is as good as any in history and a far sight better than some half starved conscript from the Ural's.
Anyone with a ounce of military knowledge knows that there is no country in the world who could go toe to toe with the US in a conventional war and have a chance. The USA is far from perfect, but even under the presidency of that orange ape, it's a million times better than Russia and Putin.

2 million?

You DO realise that at the height of the Vietnam FCUKUP there were 500,000 US personnel in the country.

Of that number there were less than 40,000 combat troops. The rest were typists, pizza-makers, janitors, truck drivers to ferry laundry from barracks to bog, etc.

2 million battle-hardened American soldiers. Give it a rest.

22 US vets commit or attempt to commit suicide every single day.
Yeah, this is a fighting force that is driven by defence or country and where morale is high.

Chrongen

jackboy wrote: »

Political reasons.

What political reasons, exactly?

"Guys we're off to war and we're off to kill a load of people and destroy things until we achieve our objective which right now...we don't have one but we're going to kill and bomb and destroy and a lot of our troops will be killed and maimed and crippled. When we are stopped from doing that by the people we are killing and terrorising and disfiguring and we don't continue to do it until the slaughter stops and because they kicked the **** out of us then it stops....and for political reasons. I want you all to know that when we get hammered in a war for no good reason other than to act like CNUTS, it's because we weren't allowed to win, Dammit. Now you remember that!"

:pac::pac:

Skylinehead

archer22 wrote: »

If your goal is to be able to destroy carriers...then its good to have one of your own to play around with and see what they can and can't do. (I don't expect America would have loaned them one for research).

Eh not really. Carriers can launch planes. That's about it. They don't defend themselves much, there's other ships for that.

China want a carrier because they're really quite good at power projection. Nothing like a floating airfield for that.

Irish Praetorian

Chrongen wrote: »

You can keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night.

American soldiers serve one and ONLY one purpose and that is to die for corporations.

What was that quote from Henry Kissinger? Here it is:

“Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”



The ones who fight back are the defenders.

Notorious false quote, not only is there no evidence he said anything resembling it, the fact that he served in WW2 kinda rubbishes the notion he would put himself down.

Chrongen

Skylinehead wrote: »

Eh not really. Carriers can launch planes. That's about it. They don't defend themselves much, there's other ships for that.

China want a carrier because they're really quite good at power projection. Nothing like a floating airfield for that.

An aircraft carrier is now a useless, overpriced, ineffective piece of junk. The only reason the US maintains them is because they look cool and are a propaganda tool.

An aircraft carrier can be sunk or crippled by a single jet 100's of miles away.

One bomb on the flight deck renders the thing nothing more that a cruiseliner for sailors and bored aviators.

Iran can cut a ship in half with their supersonic Shahab missiles. Likewise China with their Silkwoms and Sunburns. Hezbollah hammered the Israelis with their anti-tank missiles in 2006 BUT they also blew and Israeli frigate to bits from the SHORE. North Korea can pepper the US with Hwasong-15 missiles.

Do you think any of these could plough dozens of armour piercing high explosive missiles into a lumbering US aircraft carrier until the thing was a listing blazing wreck?

Vladimir Poontang

Chrongen wrote: »

2 million?

You DO realise that at the height of the Vietnam FCUKUP there were 500,000 US personnel in the country.

Of that number there were less than 40,000 combat troops. The rest were typists, pizza-makers, janitors, truck drivers to ferry laundry from barracks to bog, etc.

2 million battle-hardened American soldiers. Give it a rest.

22 US vets commit or attempt to commit suicide every single day.
Yeah, this is a fighting force that is driven by defence or country and where morale is high.

Shhh let him keep posting this stuff, its hilarious.

Chrongen

Irish Praetorian wrote: »

Notorious false quote, not only is there no evidence he said anything resembling it, the fact that he served in WW2 kinda rubbishes the notion he would put himself down.

“I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”

server down

the purple tin wrote: »

They are stretching themselves very thin though, lots of troops across Africa and SE Asia at the minute for instance.
America will also be very wary of getting drawn into another 'boots on the ground' invasion and occupation scenario after Iraq and Afghanistan.
Plusconsider the amount the US spend on their military, almost 600 billion in 2015 and rising. Crazy money, they can't maintain that level of spending forever.
For all the tough military talk chances are the biggest global conflict in the future will be economic and not a traditional war.

The Americans will fight any war they are told to fight. They’ve been fighting countries that haven’t toed the line since WWII. Of course they don’t like too many casualties so they prefer to either bomb from the sky or send in proxy troops like Isis to do their dirty work for them.

server down

Ballstein wrote: »

While you may never be convinced of his "righteousness", the skinny 5'4" weed will have that reassuring thought as the last thing he ever thinks when the 6'6" bully breaks his back and beats him to death.

You do know after nearly 16 years of continuous war, the US has over 2 million battle hardened combat veterans. A single carrier battle group is more powerful than 99% of the individual countries in the worlds Air Forces and Navy's, the US has ten of them. Their Air Force is light years ahead of anything else in the world. The average American infantryman is as good as any in history and a far sight better than some half starved conscript from the Ural's.
Anyone with a ounce of military knowledge knows that there is no country in the world who could go toe to toe with the US in a conventional war and have a chance. The USA is far from perfect, but even under the presidency of that orange ape, it's a million times better than Russia and Putin.

Battle hardened by invading a country (Iraq) that had been bombed into oblivion, losing in Afghanistan and supplying proxy armies like Isis.

Americans don’t like casualties so they won’t be sending in too many of their “battle hardened” troops into Iran proper. Maybe they will do the usual trick of bombing Iran into the stone ages and even that may be deemed too risky to American lives so they’ll use drones.

Chrongen

server down wrote: »

Battle hardened by invading a country (Iraq) that had been bombed into oblivion, losing in Afghanistan and supplying proxy armies like Isis.

Americans don’t like casualties so they won’t be sending in too many of their “battle hardened” troops into Iran proper. Maybe they will do the usual trick of bombing Iran into the stone ages and even that may be deemed too risky to American lives so they’ll use drones.

Indeed.

How many clueless rednecks do you expect to march blindly to the recruiting kiosk like they did on September 12th 2001?

Most of them now will just happily sit on their arse at a ball game and watch the flags get bigger and bigger and the jets flying over in greater shows of utter bullsh1t.

"Thank you for your service"

They could be thanking a rapist in a boyscout uniform but "thank you for your service ...whatever it was"

Ballstein

Amazing, all the strange usernames who only post pro Russian sh1te appeared back at the same time. Vodka break must have been over at the shill factory. No rest for the wicked I suppose.

JenovaProject

Ballstein wrote: »

Amazing, all the strange usernames who only post pro Russian sh1te appeared back at the same time. Vodka break must have been over at the shill factory. No rest for the wicked I suppose.

Anti-American is not automatically Pro-Russian

Skylinehead

Chrongen wrote: »

An aircraft carrier is now a useless, overpriced, ineffective piece of junk. The only reason the US maintains them is because they look cool and are a propaganda tool.

An aircraft carrier can be sunk or crippled by a single jet 100's of miles away.

One bomb on the flight deck renders the thing nothing more that a cruiseliner for sailors and bored aviators.

Iran can cut a ship in half with their supersonic Shahab missiles. Likewise China with their Silkwoms and Sunburns. Hezbollah hammered the Israelis with their anti-tank missiles in 2006 BUT they also blew and Israeli frigate to bits from the SHORE. North Korea can pepper the US with Hwasong-15 missiles.

Do you think any of these could plough dozens of armour piercing high explosive missiles into a lumbering US aircraft carrier until the thing was a listing blazing wreck?

Yeah, they spend literally hundreds of billions building and maintaining these for "propaganda". There's cheaper ways of doing that. Everyones building carriers, but no they're wrong and some random Internet persona has it all figured out? Get out of that.

You seem to be thinking that carriers operate in isolation. That same jet can be blapped from 100s of miles away by an escorts missile, or, oh, by carrier jets.

There's certainly future concerns with anti-ship missiles en masse but remember that the last time the US fought a conventional war against enemies on the same terms was WW2.

Odhinn

Chrongen wrote: »

An aircraft carrier is now a useless, overpriced, ineffective piece of junk. The only reason the US maintains them is because they look cool and are a propaganda tool.

An aircraft carrier can be sunk or crippled by a single jet 100's of miles away.

One bomb on the flight deck renders the thing nothing more that a cruiseliner for sailors and bored aviators.

Iran can cut a ship in half with their supersonic Shahab missiles. Likewise China with their Silkwoms and Sunburns. Hezbollah hammered the Israelis with their anti-tank missiles in 2006 BUT they also blew and Israeli frigate to bits from the SHORE. North Korea can pepper the US with Hwasong-15 missiles.

Do you think any of these could plough dozens of armour piercing high explosive missiles into a lumbering US aircraft carrier until the thing was a listing blazing wreck?

You've been playing one of those strategy games where they make the sides equal for playabilitys sake, I think.

Billy86

A Little Pony wrote: »

Christians standing up for themselves, how dare they. Good for them in that **** hole part of the world.

So if a Catholic vote was worth 4 Protestant votes up north your opinion would be... ?

Odhinn

A Little Pony wrote: »

Christians standing up for themselves, how dare they. Good for them in that **** hole part of the world.

You seem to think that some sort of gerrymandered corrupt and sectarian state is the solution, which is of course the kind of thinking thats never lead to any problems, anywhere.

the purple tin

server down wrote: »

The Americans will fight any war they are told to fight. They’ve been fighting countries that haven’t toed the line since WWII. Of course they don’t like too many casualties so they prefer to either bomb from the sky or send in proxy troops like Isis to do their dirty work for them.

That's true, but once the Chinese get their quantum computer up and running America will be royally screwed. They'd have the ability to crack codes, military secret files, cryptocurrency etc easy as pie.

Irish Praetorian

I'm not sure if everyone here is aware of this, but is possible to to disagree with US foreign policy without going down the route of fawning obsequiousness toward whatever US rival happens to show up. People should be more careful when doing the whole 'hate the US so much anyone is better' thing, because that's the same kind of thinking that led to some of the worst excesses of the Cold War.

Ipso

Irish Praetorian wrote: »

I'm not sure if everyone here is aware of this, but is possible to to disagree with US foreign policy without going down the route of fawning obsequiousness toward whatever US rival happens to show up. People should be more careful when doing the whole 'hate the US so much anyone is better' thing, because that's the same kind of thinking that led to some of the worst excesses of the Cold War.

To quote Homer Simpson "you'd think so, but here we are"

jackboy

The US military has never been defeated in a war. They were pulled out of several conflicts for political reasons. They could only do that because they were strong. The opposing forces in those situations were little threat to the US. Only very weak armies fight to the death.

jackboy

jackboy wrote: »

The US military has never been defeated in a war. They were pulled out of several conflicts for political reasons. They could only do that because they were strong. The opposing forces in those situations were little threat to the US. Only very weak armies fight to the death.

Which means they lost.

Skylinehead

They certainly lost Vietnam. They "won" the conventional part of Iraq 2 handily, but couldn't stop the insurgency.

jackboy

Edz87 wrote: »

Which means they lost.

No it doesn't mean the military lost. The US military were not defeated. At the end of the war they were far stronger than the opposition. You could say the US lost the war but the US military were as strong as ever. If the Vietnamese were a threat to the US mainland the the US military would have been allowed to annihilate them.

archer22

jackboy wrote: »

No it doesn't mean the military lost. The US military were not defeated. At the end of the war they were far stronger than the opposition. You could say the US lost the war but the US military were as strong as ever. If the Vietnamese were a threat to the US mainland the the US military would have been allowed to annihilate them.

They were fragging officers and smoking dope to comfort themselves...I would say they were well beaten and demoralised.
A hell of a long way away from being "as strong as ever".

jackboy

archer22 wrote: »

They were fragging officers and smoking dope to comfort themselves...I would say they were well beaten and demoralised.
A hell of a long way away from being "as strong as ever".

You are talking about easily replaceable soldiers. Of course a lot of the soldiers went through hell and were good for nothing at the end of the war. The capabilities of the US military were not significantly depleted. They were then and are now the strongest military force in history. Despite their dodgy motives sometimes the world would be vastly worse without them.

conorhal

Subcomandante Marcos wrote: »

So Hezbollah, democratic organisation who are part of a democratically elected government = bad but Saudi Arabia is the good guy because Hezbollah are friendly with Iran and the Saudis and Israel don't like having regional competition?

Feck off Saudi.

I laugh at the weight people apply (from a very western perspective) to the term 'democratically elected', well so was Hitler.
They can both be the scum of the earth. Hezbollah is a really nasty organization, much like the also 'democratically elected' Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Both they and the Saudi's are fanatics, just a different branch, one with more money than the other granted, but both prone to stirring the pot to generate chaos and violence that suit their own ends.
Suggesting that one is better than the other is laughable. Kind of like saying of Northern Ireland, who's worse? The IRA or the UVF?
Can't both be worthy of utter contempt?

conorhal

cisk wrote: »

Saudi Arabia won't take on Iran, they may have the best military equipment from the U.S and U.K but they can barely defeat a few rebels in Yemen.

The Iranians have battle-hardened Generals from the Iran-Iraq war, not to mention being backed up by Hezbollah. Now could the Saudis count on the U.S getting fully involved, I'm not sure another all-out war will go down well at home.

Indeed. The Saudi's remind me of those commissioned officers in the imperial armies of old that bought their commissions with daddy's money and ended up in charge of battle hardened troops because they had the right last name rather than the talent or experience for the job.
I'd say the Saudi's would get slaughtered.
The problem is that wars are fought by proxy a lot these days. Don't expect these two to clash, as is often the case in the middle east, expect a long drawn out proxy war to go hot instead of cold and the collateral damage to proxy states to be enormous.
In other words, expect the current state of the middle east to be looked back on as a period of relative stability.

Ballstein

archer22 wrote: »

They were fragging officers and smoking dope to comfort themselves...I would say they were well beaten and demoralised.
A hell of a long way away from being "as strong as ever".

Saying a few conscripts were strung out and moral was low among the same is a far cry from saying they were defeated. As has been said above numerous times, the American is the strongest military force in history and is still at least 30 years ahead of anyone else.
As for Iran, a counterbalance to Israel/Saudi Arabia is no bad thing. Three odious regimes but at least a strong Iran will keep the other two in check.

Ipso

Would Pakistan be more aligned with Saudi Arabia or Iran, there are some really ugly rumblings coming from there in the guise of fragile men who don't like their god being mocked (Bangladesh isn't looking good either, and the Rohingya stuff in Burma could also be a place where outside extremism could take hold).

Ballstein

Ipso wrote: »

Would Pakistan be more aligned with Saudi Arabia or Iran, there are some really ugly rumblings coming from there in the guise of fragile men who don't like their god being mocked (Bangladesh isn't looking good either, and the Rohingya stuff in Burma could also be a place where outside extremism could take hold).

There is a supposed agreement between Pakistani and the Saudi's for the former to support the later with nuclear weapons in the event they need them.

Billy86

jackboy wrote: »

No it doesn't mean the military lost. The US military were not defeated. At the end of the war they were far stronger than the opposition. You could say the US lost the war but the US military were as strong as ever. If the Vietnamese were a threat to the US mainland the the US military would have been allowed to annihilate them.

That seems like you're shifting the goalposts a bit - you said they have been defeated in a war, they have. The fact that they could have 'won' by dropping nuke after nuke on Vietnam means nothing, because they were aware that the cost of that victory in terms of environmental and political cost, and the precedent it would have set, would have seen that 'win' actually be a net loss.

So they (correctly) ran from Vietnam, and thus lost that war.

server down

Irish Praetorian wrote: »

I'm not sure if everyone here is aware of this, but is possible to to disagree with US foreign policy without going down the route of fawning obsequiousness toward whatever US rival happens to show up. People should be more careful when doing the whole 'hate the US so much anyone is better' thing, because that's the same kind of thinking that led to some of the worst excesses of the Cold War.

You’ve won whatever straw man argument you are having there. The idea amongst the fans of the US is that the world would be a worse place without them. Without American hegemony. Given America’s recent actions I doubt that.

A multi polar world with Europe going it’s own way, and Japan too, and China and South America also trying to restrain the US would be a safer world.

jackboy

Billy86 wrote: »

That seems like you're shifting the goalposts a bit - you said they have been defeated in a war, they have. The fact that they could have 'won' by dropping nuke after nuke on Vietnam means nothing, because they were aware that the cost of that victory in terms of environmental and political cost, and the precedent it would have set, would have seen that 'win' actually be a net loss.

Yes, they pulled out for political reasons as you have mentioned. There is a massive difference between a military defeat and a political pull out. It would not have taken nukes to finish the war, there were other costly options. The US military are usually forced to fight minor wars with one Hand tied behind their backs.

Chrongen

server down wrote: »

Battle hardened by invading a country (Iraq) that had been bombed into oblivion, losing in Afghanistan and supplying proxy armies like Isis.

Americans don’t like casualties so they won’t be sending in too many of their “battle hardened” troops into Iran proper. Maybe they will do the usual trick of bombing Iran into the stone ages and even that may be deemed too risky to American lives so they’ll use drones.

Now comedians like that wanker, Dennis Miller , are fond of making snotty, arrogant quips like "The definition of an EYE-Raki war hero is one who waits five seconds before surrendering" ..... cue ignorant guffawing laughter from the audience. Next joke is something about the French for being a bunch of pussies for opposing the invasion and destruction of Iraq and the killing of millions.

Maggots like him echo the weak, and comforted angle of some who constantly bang on about how the US are brave righteous warriors, defending the planet and anyone who might fight back against his family being butchered is a "raghead" or "unpatriotic"

Do these guys sound battle-hardened to you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwNUMM4iRb0





The US military PAID the Sunni awakening in Iraq billions to stop attacking them until they worked out how to get the hell out of the country.

Chrongen

Skylinehead wrote: »

Yeah, they spend literally hundreds of billions building and maintaining these for "propaganda". There's cheaper ways of doing that. Everyones building carriers, but no they're wrong and some random Internet persona has it all figured out? Get out of that.

You seem to be thinking that carriers operate in isolation. That same jet can be blapped from 100s of miles away by an escorts missile, or, oh, by carrier jets.

There's certainly future concerns with anti-ship missiles en masse but remember that the last time the US fought a conventional war against enemies on the same terms was WW2.

Indeed. Think about that.

If the US entered into what you call a conventional war as opposed to some bullying campaign against a country with even the most basic missile technology their aircraft carrier would be useless. These things were fine for projecting power in the 40's when the range and speed of aircraft was limited to subsonic propeller machines and there was no missile technology.

The Argentinians during the Falklands War had FOUR, just FOUR French made Exocets and they got one of those to destroy the Sheffield. They probably could have wrecked the Hermes or Invincible AC's if they had a few more.

and that was 35 years ago. You think the US could defend a floating scrapyard like the Reagan if they were ever to get into it with Iran, North Korea?

Cop on. These things are useless in the modern age.

BUT....they are kept on as propaganda symbols and also the contracts to maintain the stupid things make cash for the investors.

archer22

Chrongen wrote: »

Indeed. Think about that.

If the US entered into what you call a conventional war as opposed to some bullying campaign against a country with even the most basic missile technology their aircraft carrier would be useless. These things were fine for projecting power in the 40's when the range and speed of aircraft was limited to subsonic propeller machines and there was no missile technology.

The Argentinians during the Falklands War had FOUR, just FOUR French made Exocets and they got one of those to destroy the Sheffield. They probably could have wrecked the Hermes or Invincible AC's if they had a few more.

and that was 35 years ago. You think the US could defend a floating scrapyard like the Reagan if they were ever to get into it with Iran, North Korea?

Cop on. These things are useless in the modern age.

BUT....they are kept on as propaganda symbols and also the contracts to maintain the stupid things make cash for the investors.

True, I would hate to be on an American Aircraft carrier when missiles like DF-21D come screaming in at mach 10 one after the other :eek:

Chrongen

Odhinn wrote: »

You've been playing one of those strategy games where they make the sides equal for playabilitys sake, I think.

No, I've been watching the facts play out.

I've avoided the propaganda and looked to logic. I've considered all aspects and I have come up with one irrefutable fact and that is that the US, the "greatest military machine in the world" could not win a fight against anybody.

Jets, submarines, satellites, spooky stealth bombers that don't work if it's snowing, missiles, air-conditioned tanks with their own fridges full of Diet Fcukin Coke......etc, etc.

And the US can't win a damn thing except maybe Grenada.

And the excuse is that the politicians fcuked it up or the enemy were sneaky of [enter excuse du jour here]


You talk about board games like that is supposed to give you credibility. Perhaps you might want to stay on point.