[energy123]

The best missile defense is offsense: degrading the launchers, stockpiles and defense industrial base, with cheap stand-in munitions after SEAD, leveraging air and intelligence superiority. Expensive interceptors are only a stop-gap that buys you time for the offensive degradation. Expensive stand-off munitions, likewise, are a short-term stopgap until SEAD is complete.

[hedora]

Offense doesn't work at scale.

As the cost of drones goes to zero, the expected damage you take is roughly proportional to how much you have to lose. This means larger / richer economies cannot win these sorts of wars. To see what I mean, check out this desalination plant map:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/23/iran-threat-to...

It doesn't help if your commander in chief is incompetent and your invasion strategy involves treating desalination plants as legitimate military targets.

Of course, blowing up desalination plants in the middle east don't hurt the US all that much, but blowing up industrial supply chains does. We're something like 4 days away from a global chip manufacturing industry shut down (barring some logistic miracle, since we recently sold off our strategic helium reserves).

[throwaway2037]

First, hat tip on that Guardian article that you shared. The map of desalination plants around the Persian Gulf is excellent.

My first thought looking at it: Why does Saudi Arabia have desal plants in Riyadh? It is 100s of km away from the Persian Gulf! Maybe they want some far away from the Gulf for security reasons? Else, it looks weird. I imagine that they need to pump sea (salty) water from the Gulf to Riyadh, desal it, then pump back the waste water. Quite a journey.

[energy123]

It's heavily dependent on geography. Iran is geographically "lucky" it's positioned near the Strait of Hormuz and near the oil facilities of multiple Gulf states, allowing it to exert extreme asymmetric pressure through a small amount of drones etc. Most states can't replicate that luck. Good luck to South Africa if they ever decide to wage a similar war. Strategic depth also largely nullifies the role of one-way attack drones in combat, but it doesn't nullify the role of fighters and bombers who can exploit that range. I'm not discounting drones, they're highly important in many geographies, as Ukraine is showing, but I don't buy into this conventional wisdom online that they're the pinnacle in every situation.

[dlisboa]

Israel is similiarly lucky that it is surrounded by neighbors with US bases that can intercept missiles and drones before they get to it. All of its more competent enemies are very far away. In a different scenario there'd be no motivation for a country like Iraq or Jordan to help.

They can afford to try to destroy Iran's offensive capabilities because in-between countries allow their airspace to be used.

Wars are usually between neighbors. If a neighbor has a huge stockpile of drones they can launch a first salvo that'll overwhelm whatever defensive capabilities the other country has before they even get to the point of destroying launchers/manufacturing.

Threats of massive drones strikes are the closest deterrent a country can get to nuclear weapons without developing nuclear weapons. If Iran had 5 million drones instead of 50 thousand this war wouldn't even be happening.

[throwaway2037]

    > In a different scenario there'd be no motivation for a country like Iraq or Jordan to help.

While unprovable, I think the sentiment is too strong for Jordan. They have pretty good relations with Israel, and have been using their own fighter jets to down some drones from Iran. If anything, it is good practice for their airforce.

[hedora]

Russia is already shipping containers full of Iranian drones to the Ukrainian front. It doesn't take much imagination to see how geographic location is going to matter less and less as technology improves.

[konart]

Russia haven't used iranian produces drone n two years now.

[iso1631]

It's America that's waging this war, having attacked Iran for no reason the world can see

It's somewhat similar to Russia waging a war in Ukraine, although I can see some reasons for Russia to attack Ukraine (mainly territory)

[pc86]

If "I want this land" is a legitimate reason to initiate a war then basically anything is a legitimate reason.

[iso1631]

I can see the reasons even if I don't think they're legitimate. I can see the reasons why someone steals from someone else, or rapes or kills. Those reasons aren't good enough, but most people have reasons to do something.

Why is America attacking Iran? What's the official reason? What's the actual reason? Does anybody know?

[tliltocatl]

You are confusing reason as in "why they did it" vs "why they ought to do it".

[elfly]

Ah yes, Russia, the famously territory starved country.

[iso1631]

Billionaires try very hard to increase their own wealth. Politicians try very hard to increase their own power.

[shdudns]

So what Iran did in the Gulf

Cheap drones overwhelming defenses until the billion dollar radars and airfields got hit.

Then methodically hit everything according to a plan that forces allied forces to retreat to reliable water sources.

Whatever one thinks of Iran, the way they're waging this war is a masterclass in strategy.

[littlestymaar]

And that's why nuclear deterrence is so key: the enemy can never be sure to destroy everything before being hit once.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine really reminded everyone that nuclear deterrence is a nice thing to have for you security, and I suspect the Israelo-American attack on Iran is going to be the nail in the coffin of nonproliferation.

I expect countries like Brazil, Japan, South Korea or even Taiwan or Vietnam to have the bomb within ten years at this point.

And given the current war and the dramatic consequences ahead, I now think that the world would have in fact been safer had the Mullah's regime actually got the bomb instead of playing the “under the threshold deterrence” game.

[trick-or-treat]

There's a big difference between all the countries you named and Iran, the difference is jihad. You can't just let jihadists have nukes and hope they will only use them as a deterrent.

They're not just joking around when they say things like "Death to America" or "Death to Israel". They're not being hyperbolic when they say "We love death more that you love life".

They will absolutely use that bomb as soon as they have it, and it will trigger a response from the west when it happens.

[srean]

That is an opinion of some, yes.

It's the US that dismantled their democratic parliamentary system to maintain their hold on Irani oil. It's the US that shot down their domestic passenger jet with no apologies forthcoming. it's the US that foisted Saddam Hussein against them in a war where 30K Iranians perished to chemical weapons. I can understand why anyone who went through that would not like the US and its enablers much and I am not even Iranian or Muslim.

[littlestymaar]

I'm sorry but you're drowning in propaganda.

> There's a big difference between all the countries you named and Iran, the difference is jihad. You can't just let jihadists

Radical Islamism is very diverse, the Iranian regime is indeed an Islamic theocracy, but it's not jihadists, no more than Saudi Arabia or Qatar are.

> They're not being hyperbolic when they say "We love death more that you love life".

Well, the past 2 and a half years prove that it's not just hyperbolic, but complete bluff. They wouldn't have tried to appease Israel and the US after 10/7 if that was the case. They would have attacked Israel the first with all their might, including Hezbollah, like Sinwar wished they do. Instead they cowardly watched their entire proxy network being dismantled by Israel before being struck themselves. That's definitely not the behavior of someone not afraid of death.

> They will absolutely use that bomb as soon as they have it,

They wouldn't have accepted JCPOA if they wanted the bomb to use it. And they would have resumed their nuclear weapon program when Trump unilaterally left it, which they haven't.

Iran, like North Korea, is simply a corrupt authoritarian regime who wants to consolidate their power. Their bellicose rhetoric against the US or Israel is just that: rhetoric.