[erickhill]

Wouldn't take very many at all, we've now learned these past four years (and even the past 2 months). All you need are drones, that are pennies on the dollar cheaper than trillion-dollar militaries. Depending on the munition, a single bomb we drop on Iran could cost between $40,000 and a couple million dollars. Think of all the high-end drones you could buy instead.

Everything is changing. Including our influence.

[daemin]

In the Russian-Ukrainian war the GPS guided shells that the USA was sending to Ukraine cost about $40k a pop, where as you can get at least a dozen drones for that price.

Even the fanciest self propelled artillery is getting destroyed by these little cheap buggers.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

> Wouldn't take very many at all, we've now learned these past four years (and even the past 2 months). All you need are drones, that are pennies on the dollar cheaper than trillion-dollar militaries.

You make an incorrect conclusion which is unfortunately both quite popular and incorrect among westerners who read two and half editorials about Russo-Ukrainian war in some NYT/WAPO/whatever and think they now understand modern warfare. The reality of the situation is that drones are a very useful tool, but any side achieving actual air supremacy would result their fighters and bombers cruising over frontline and enemy towns on low altitudes taking out any high-value targets at whim. The situation would be similar to boots-on-the-ground phase of The Iraq War, resulting one of the sides to rapidly gaining ground and winning the war. Keep in mind that the cited "40k per-hour" price is quite cheap compared to per-hour operation cost of any kind of big ground force.

In fact, last thing US wants is to be in Russia's shoes unable to meaningfully advance into the territory of by all measures much weaker enemy.

[soco]

Unless the drones take out your air bases, and the AA rockets are biting at the low altitude flights. Sorry it's never that simple.

[hattmall]

That isn't really accurate, small drones are enough to antagonize regional neighbors. They are far from being able to project influence, stabilize international trade, or even remotely protect a territory from an enemy that isn't concerned with civilian casualties.

[nixon_why69]

> project influence, stabilize international trade, or even remotely protect a territory from an enemy that isn't concerned with civilian casualties.

We just failed to do all of those things quite visibly.

Iran made a choice not to escalate to destroying desalination capabilities and that's why a lot of Saudis and Emiratis are still alive. It's not because we protected them.

[kortilla]

Because they didn’t want the retribution that would follow. That’s what protection looks like. Assured destruction when it’s not mutual is pretty motivating.

[nixon_why69]

Sure, but we still couldn't have stopped them with our vaunted carrier-based power projection, or with our exhausted ABM capabilities.

US Naval doctrine has been a paper tiger ever since that Millenium Challenge exercise.

[kortilla]

Not being able to stop random killings or destruction from small arms fire has nothing to do with military power projection.

Military power projection is the reason the US was able to destroy a significant portion of Iranian leadership, nuclear infrastructure, and weapons infrastructure with no retaliation from Iran back in the US nor any pushback from any of Irans allies.

Military hegemony has nothing to do with being a perfect police force that can stop anything from happening anywhere.

>but we still couldn't have stopped them with our vaunted carrier-based power projection, or with our exhausted ABM capabilities.

Who is “we”? Your account started posting nothing but anti-US stances and pro-China/Iran stances since this conflict began.

[sofixa]

> Military power projection is the reason the US was able to destroy a significant portion of Iranian leadership, nuclear infrastructure, and weapons infrastructure with no retaliation from Iran back in the US nor any pushback from any of Irans allies.

First, Iran doesn't have allies, it has friends of convenience (Russia like the military cooperation but don't like the cheap oil competition, China love the cheap oil competition but don't care for the damage, etc).

Second, US bases and US allies (in the actual sense of the word) were attacked by Iran, successfully. US and all its allies were also impacted by the trivial closure of the Hormuz. US allies now will forever know that the US is not a reliable ally and can't protect them; stocks of crucial materiel were wasted on achieving nothing; and high oil prices will cost the US domestic politics dearly. US power projection whacked a few nutjobs from a regime full of them. Oh, and they're a theocracy that believes in martyrdom! And the new supreme leader is a strong proponent of nuclear weapons (unlike his predecessor and father), and saw half his family blown up in front of him.

> Military hegemony has nothing to do with being a perfect police force that can stop anything from happening anywhere.

Being unable to enforce your will on an enemy is not "hegemony". Iran will walk out of this conflict with their nuclear programme back on track, a revenge minded regime, and maybe even a toll on an international strait to fill up their coffers.

[nixon_why69]

I'm American, also that's considered bad form. 2/3 of Americans were against this and think it was a failure.

Military hegemony in the gulf region would mean being able to force Iran to stop attacking gulf targets, rather than negotiating a ceasefire because both sides are hurting. What we have is a multipolar situation, it's not arguable, it's right on the scoreboard.

A hegemon would be able to unilaterally open the straits.

Best for everyone to recognize it and act accordingly. It's got nothing to do with cheerleading, that stuff is for rubes.

[dotancohen]

US military deterrence has been a paper tiger ever since Biden told Iran "don't" [1], and Iran did, and Biden did not respond. Now whoever the sitting US president would be - Trump or anybody else - must restore that deterrence. There is no nice or easy way to do that. The last time the US had to do that was during WW2 and the enemies were not floating heavy, extended media campaigns and funding US universities at the time.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/shorts/A8ce6wzoReA

[sofixa]

The reason why Iran was even back in the nuclear game was because a moron pulled out of the JCPOA that was giving them concrete steps and carrots to get them to stop.

[ben_w]

The Millenium Challenge was 2002, predating Biden by about 20 years, and was the same year Iran was named as part of the "Axis of Evil".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_evil#2002_State_of_the...

[fakedang]

Lol, classic American exceptionalism.

Iran didn't attack the desalination plants because that would amount to actual warcrimes - and they care about their public perception in the broader community of nations. Unlike, of course, Israel and the USA, who don't mind turning a few schools and hospitals to smithereens.

You might call this "assured non-mutual destruction", and of course it helps that the US is located away from Iran's immediate neighborhood, but destroying the lifelines of the GCC countries would assure an economic collapse globally that the world has never seen before. Imagine something on the lines of oil at $300 a barrel, zero fertilizer, zero semiconductors, zero plastics, the works. And Iran could just as easily turn Israel to glass, with a death by a thousand papercuts (or drones, whatever your flavor). Of course, all of this at a huge cost to itself.

[watwut]

It was more son that they have space to escalate. It was strategic decision. They did attacked those when their plants were attacked.

US does not have capability to destroy them. It can make lives of civilians hard, as it tried, but foreigners attacking civilians dont make regimes fall.

[t-3]

Protecting territory is pretty pointless for many countries, who would be facing neighbors they cannot remotely match in capability. Allowing civilians to be slaughtered is a cheaper and more effective method of warfare for these. Protecting civilians well is difficult even for very well armed countries with expensive defense systems, letting them die brings many martyrs and propaganda opportunities and breeds hatred for the enemy.

[vlovich123]

Something tells me a war with china isn’t going to be carriers duking it out but carriers filled to the brim with aviation and naval drones that seek and destroy enemy craft. As Iran has shown, you don’t need to attack the USA directly to destabilize its influence. The US market economical influence has been far more important for force projection and stabilizing trade than anything else and by all accounts Trump has pissed away allies on that front too. US force projection for trade stabilization is for minor things like protecting against pirates - you don’t need million dollar missiles for that.

[CamperBob2]

That isn't really accurate, small drones are enough to antagonize regional neighbors.

Such as a Russian strategic bomber base thousands of miles from the front?

[smcin]

If you mean Operation Spiderweb, the Ukrainian Osa drone only had a range of 5 miles/ 8km (one-way) and had to be launched from the roof of containers simultaneously transported unknowingly by Russian truckers and that was a covert operation that took 18 months to set up. So no that particular model couldn't attack even 10 miles away.

Ukraine has other long-range strike drones but haven't heard of more than a thousand miles range.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spiderweb

https://sofrep.com/news/deepstrike-campaign-drone-attacks-ag...

[CamperBob2]

Details, details. The drones got the job done, didn't they? Getting a truck to within a few miles of the target is still pretty cheap compared to traditional weapons-delivery methodologies.

Spiderweb was a modern-day Doolittle Raid. It didn't scale, at least not immediately, but it still changed the tenor of the war. It put the Russians on notice that they weren't safe. Not that the Russians care, but most countries would. Imagine if someone attacked an Air Force base in the US with similar tactics and a similar outcome...

[smcin]

The Doolittle Raiders actually flew B-25Bs 2600 miles, they didn't hitch a ride on a Japanese cargo ship, though. Spiderweb maybe more resembles the 2024 Lebanon pager attack than the Doolittle Raid.

Sure it was a huge shock to Russia but clearly was a once-off, and required undercover Ukrainian operatives to assemble the smuggled drone parts near the Ukrainian or Kazakh borders, and Russian truckers to unwittingly move containers. All of that operation was revealed and probably can not be repeated; the operatives were evacuated.

> It put the Russians on notice that they weren't safe. Not that the Russians care, but most countries would.

Well there was no GSM jamming near sensitive Russian sites but there is now, and that seems to be annoying Russian civilians intensely, along with internet blocking.

[regularization]

> an enemy that isn't concerned with civilian casualties

You mean like when the Zionists openly stopped food from getting into Gaza, while the western governments were backing the Zuonists? Those people concerned with civilian casualties?

An enemy unconcerned with civilian casualties, give me a break.

[esikich]

How not? Precision kills with 0 warning. You can just bring one on a plane to whatever country and have the thing charge with solar/powerlines until your target is getting coffee outside on a nice day. Or whatever.

[hattmall]

Ok, I'm not even sure what to reply here, that makes no sense and doesn't accomplish any of the things I mentioned. It's also not even particularly feasible and just not at all how any sort of wartime operation is likely to work at scale.

But I am sure of who I wouldn't put in charge of critical military operations.

[jcranmer]

Drones are not a strategic weapon. When you talk to the Ukrainian military, with their actual expertise in drone warfare, the general consensus is that drones are an inferior replacement for artillery (note that ex-Soviet military systems are a lot heavier in artillery use than NATO military systems) that they use because they can't get the artillery shells that they need but they can get drones in sufficient quantities. It hasn't enabled any strategic breakthroughs in the Russo-Ukrainian War, it is merely served to lock in the grinding stalemate it's been in since October-ish 2022.

The US war on Iran also demonstrates the problems of drones too: the US is currently able to wage a war 6000 miles away from its shores, because of the use of an awful lot of weapons systems that aren't drones. Iran is unable to dislodge that military, or even meaningfully impact its ability to carry out said war, not 100 miles away from its shores, despite a heavy use of drones to attempt to do so.

The war also demonstrates another big issue... the continued delusion of many civilian and military leaders that strategic bombing alone is sufficient to win a war despite this failing literally every single time it's been attempted in the past 100 years.

[IsTom]

> that they use because they can't get the artillery shells that they need

That used to be true, but I don't think that the case anymore. UA is now striking logistics ~150KM behind the contact line with drones. Regular artillery can't do that. Guided rockets maybe could, but they'd be more expensive and come in smaller quantities.

> US is currently able to wage a war 6000 miles away from its shores

For a rather restricted use of "wage a war". They did not stop Iranians from doing their thing. Bombing alone does not have a history of winning wars.