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by rainworld 12 days ago
> the standard "modern" war

For the US and friends is terrorizing the enemy, his forces, his civilian population into giving up. Is feeding a civil war until he crumbles.

> bomb the living shit out of anything armoured

That’s absolutely not what’s missing in Ukraine.

> and then push forward with your own armour.

And then, as soon as you assemble let alone move in the open, you get wrecked. No one has an easy answer for this. The answer is what we’re already seeing: attrition.

> Iran

Iran prevailed in an highly asymmetric conflict by successfully attriting US/Israeli air defenses and surviving their attacks, depleting their arsenals. Which was their goal, not “levelling Tel Aviv”—however much they would have liked to.

Finally, what Israel is facing in Lebanon right now is but a pale imitation of what’s going on in Ukraine. But bad enough. One can imagine what just a couple days of Ukraine-level losses would do to them, militarily and politically. No matter their air superiority.

1 comments

> For the US and friends is terrorizing the enemy, his forces, his civilian population into giving up

The US has tried to do it a few times (most notably Vietnam), but it isn't the strategy in the slightest. The goal is always an Iraq style campaign with heavy air attacks to destroy/confuse most enemy capabilities before a swift invasion.

Terrorising the population in submission has never worked. The US Air Force's own study of strategic air power after WW2 concluded so.

> That’s absolutely not what’s missing in Ukraine

> and then push forward with your own armour

If you rule the skies, you shoot down most attacking drones / it becomes too dangerous to launch drones from short to medium distances (because you'd be found out and destroyed ASAP). It's important to remember that not all wars are the same, and a competent army from a strong military power wouldn't have gotten bogged down to trenches in the first place. Mobile warfare is all about speed and unpredictability and the enemy being unable to react in time