During the entire gulf war (Iraq, 1990-91), only two F-15s were shot down via surface-to-air engagement. At the time, Baghdad was known to have the highest density of SAM protection out of any city in the world.
An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.
> A second Air Force combat plane crashed in the Persian Gulf region on Friday, and the lone pilot was safely rescued, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. The A-10 Warthog attack plane went down near the Strait of Hormuz about the same time that an Air Force F-15E was shot down over Iran, the officials said. In that incident, one crew member was rescued and search-and-rescue operators are looking for the second airman. Officials provided scant details about the A-10 crash, including how and where it happened.
there's some additional osint rumor mill that a blackhawk helicopter involved in rescue operations was also shot down but claims that crew been recovered
On top of these cases there is all of the aircraft that has been destroyed while grounded. The high tech AWACS getting blown up was a big hit, among others. The losses are likely much worse than we know since the military has been trying to keep a lid on most of them.
Not to mention the multiple THAAD radars taken offline. Those are $500M assets - and only 8 exist in the world. 24,000 precise transceivers all liquid cooled… not available on Amazon for next day deliver either.
a single AN/FPS-132 radar costs $1.1 bln, not $500m. And Iran stuck 17 of the CENCCOM sites hosting radars of all kinds across Qarar, Bahrain, Iraq, UAE, Saudi, Jordan, Israel, etc).
Total cost is so much bigger, it is staggering. The whole CENTCOM is blind basically, as well as Iron Dome which relied on these radars - all blind now, in addition to long-range early nuke detection to protect CONUS is also blind.
in addition to cost, they all require Rare Earth Minerals, and China has banned the export of these (they own like 99% of the market).
So not only CENTCOM is blind and incurred damage in high single digit billions, but also will be unable to repair the damage any time soon (probably for decades) even if the funding were made to be available
Government obviously pretty silent on all these failures and media doesn't want to dig and ask hard questions
>So not only CENTCOM is blind and incurred damage in high single digit billions, but also will be unable to repair the damage any time soon (probably for decades) even if the funding were made to be available
not just what i quoted, but your source does not say any of what you are saying.
your source says: Satellite images show damage near vital equipment on sites in at least five countrieshttps://archive.ph/QHNXW
> Government obviously pretty silent on all these failures and media doesn't want to dig and ask hard questions
Some analysts are sure drumming up the severity [0]. In the fog of war, it is hard to tell what's exaggerated and what's not. The proposal by the current US Admin to increase defence spending by 40% to $1.5t is not a welcome sign for those opposed to heavy spending, for any number of reasons.
> In the fog of war, it is hard to tell what's exaggerated and what's not.
Honestly it's more than that. Propaganda and lies put out by ALL actors in this conflict. If you want to understand what's going on I think you have the expose yourself to as many competing sources as you can find. And still you're going to end up with a very shoddy picture. The term for this is epistemic collapse.
For the United States, the government doesn't have the capability to extricate Israel from its political system, but the feds can create blowback for Israel which makes them less capable to influence the US in the future while achieving other strategic aims in the region. US war planners know plenty about blow back and I think this is being done on purpose. I am terrified for innocent Israelis, Iranians and Gulf state residents that have been led into this. Most of the states and peoples in the Middle East who have been destroyed used to be allies with the US. That isn't on accident.
Did a quick search, didn’t see confirmation that they’re blind/that all radars had been knocked out. Was asking whether others who know more about this topic than me would confirm.
This is the second time in 2 weeks I’ve seen a comment like this on HN. 37 years old. Been on here 16 years. Incredibly odd to me. Just announce “can someone else tell me if this is true?”
IMHO, people making claims should provide the evidence for them. One link is behind a paywall and the other clearly states that it is making informed speculations.
I could make all sorts of claims on the spot here. It doesn't create a duty for people reading this thread to go investigate them.
Traveling with kids on spring break, I don’t have time to read all war related news, and it tends to set off my propaganda account alarm when someone registers a new account to drop a bunch of assertions on such a politically divisive topic. So I was asking whether someone could confirm things like “The whole CENTCOM is blind basically, as well as Iron Dome which relied on these radars - all blind now, in addition to long-range early nuke detection to protect CONUS is also blind.”
There’s a good reason new accounts are colored green.
Moved on how? Satellites are useful for launch detection and cueing but as far as we know there isn't a satellite constellation capable of tracking airborne targets with enough precision for targeting. And the military couldn't really keep such satellites secret: the emissions would be impossible to hide.
This is exactly the situation I think of when I hear news of rescue missions. Running a rescue in a place with functional air defense is a recursive rescue problem that could quickly get out of control.
The first time I ever attempted a rescue mission in KSP, I ended up stranding 5 different kerbals in various orbita nearby trying to get the first one, and of course every one was a bigger and more complicated craft trying to save as many kerbals as possible. Eventually I just gave up and put a giant cross memorial in orbit, part as a reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion, and part as a memorial to the like 6 kerbals I left stranded in space.
…against the viet cong, where the biggest risk was the pilot getting pierced from small arms fire (in addition to the helo going down from pilot error). Quite different from the anti-air weapons modern day Iran possesses.
But I’m responding to the rescue mission comment, which, since Vietnam, have overwhelmingly employed helicopters (Huey’s then, Black Hawks today). But machinery aside, the larger point is that air operations will likely go worse here than they did in Vietnam, unfortunately for both sides.
Cheaper to operate than any fighter, longer endurance, good for patrolling over the Strait. Filling the gap between helicopters and fighters with a big, but cheap cannon.
"Just fine" for what? AGM88 is air-to-ground and manpads are surface-to-air. If you're implying that manpads work just fine instead of A-10s, you're wrong.
Geran-2 (which is Russian licenced Shahed drone) also carries air-to-air missile, so sending slow archaic manned airframe is just suicide mission (aka shaheed)
That is not a Shahed drone, that is a Geran-2 drone. Which is similar from the outside but not the same. Also Iran doesn't have stock of R-60s I think.
Well, A-10s are well suited for strafing runs, etc. Presumably they'd be sent in if the area they're entering is presumed safe. That clearly didn't pan out.
The reality is avoiding a ground operation was probably the wrong move at this point (ignoring the spicier broader debate of if the whole Iran campaign was the right call or not)
It's really hard to truly guarantee surface to air capabilities are gone when you're relying purely on sat images + aerial surveillance (and obviously this carries risk). Iran has fairly portable SAM systems that are public knowledge.
> ignoring the spicier broader debate of if the whole Iran campaign was the right call or not
How spicy of a debate is that really? How many people outside of the admin and the dwindling hardcore trump base actually thought this was a good idea?
Clearly this war isn't popular but that's a far cry from saying there's no debate. Like many other topics/questions we're seeing people following their tribe and bubbles rather than actual debating.
I would question to what extent repeating propaganda, qualifies as debate.
Even if you do say that it qualifies, it doesn't qualify as productive debate.
There is really no productive debate to be had here. Even if you think that Iran needed to be bombed, it took absurd incompetence to start doing so before planning how to handle asymmetric warfare against drones in an affordable way.
I also think there was an initial “euphoria” (I guess) during the initial days of the campaign.
People I know (even Iranian expats) were excited to see the regime get hammered and there was hope for possibility of change (and also a little bloodlust)… but I think as the war drags on and the US is exposed to be in an un-winnable mess, sentiment will continue to sour.
This has already started to happen in Nate Silver’s post you linked.
Your first link says 28% support it, so somewhere between 28 and 37%. I do wonder how many of those people could find Iran on a map, though I suppose you could ask the same about the people who are against it.
75 million using the YouGov number and just under 100 million using the Nate Silver average. (I think you must have used the more Trump-favorable number AND included children in your computation, which is not reasonable.)
Also worth noting that Nate Silver's measure has been declining for almost 3 weeks, the majority of the duration of the invasion.
Before the invasion, a University of Mariland poll says 55 million and a YouTov poll says 71 million support. These are useful numbers because we know there's a rally around the flag effect that distorts thinking during a conflict.
20-25% of Americans would support Trump pulling his pants down and taking a shit on the floor in the oval office on live TV. These people's opinions shouldn't be taken into account or respected in these discussions.
Surprisingly so, I would say. Without going into any identifying details, my buddy, who is otherwise fairly reasonable, thinks it was. I disagree. Reported country split ( US ) seems to fall some along common political lines though, so maybe we shouldn't be so surprised.
Then again.. I can no longer can rely on those surveys in any meaningful way.
As a person who believes in democracy, I'm pretty on board with it. My only complaint is they didn't do these strikes when the massive street protests were happening a few months ago.
This is what bringing democracy looks like?! The regime is more entrenched than ever and our commander in chief keeps threatening to commit war crimes on a massive scale. If he follows through on what he says he will do and obliterates all the civilian infrastructure in the country it will kill mass numbers of innocent people and turn millions of survivors into impoverished refugees.
As bad as the regime is, and it's very bad, what we're doing is even worse for most Iranians and the odds a democratic government arises from the ashes of our bombing campaign is incredibly unlikely.
> As a person who believes in democracy, I'm pretty on board with it.
As others have stated. This war will not bring democracy. Bombing Iranians have united them with the regime.
Also, US and Israel do not want a democracy in Iran. Israel would prefer a non-functioning place like Palestine or a mostly non-functional place like Lebanon that they can easily control.
Yes, bombing schools, universities and dessalination plants is a sure way to have more democracy in a country. Especially double taps where you kill the rescuers.
The US have so many examples where they did so and worked!
Oh, didn't you hear, we actually _triple tapped_ the school, so after the first wave of rescuers was also hit, anyone who came to help was also attacked.
Well, I have no idea. I'm just guessing it's not the reason I like the war.
I generally only attempt to scrutinize government action, and not government reason for action. Random citizens are at such an information disadvantage that I think it would be impossible to have an informed opinion as an outsider on the reasoning.
It could be as simple as "Iran kept trying to assassinate me so I'm going to assassinate them". Maybe he was pressured by Israel, I really have no idea.
If this is a troll it is masterful. If it's an honest opinion I would invite you to check your skull for unexpected holes where your brain may have fallen out.
You say this like a system of international law has ever existed that effectively restrains the most powerful nations in the world, democracies or otherwise.
Literally none of the fighting countries want Iran to be democratic. Neither USA nor Israel nor Iran. Israel dont want the country functional and would prevent democracy. USA idea of regime change is to keep regime, change head for someone who pays extortion money. And if Iranian leadership wanted democracy they would have one. Not sure if you noticed, but American admin loves dictators and insults democracies
So ,WTF are you talking about here.
Also, bombing city with that double tap tactic during protests ensures you kill protesters.
Having Iran be "non functional" would just be asking for even more hardliners take over, like what happened in syria. I don't take this to be actually indicative of their viewpoints.
The A-10 is a horrible friendly-fire as a service. Might as well use the thing as a bomb truck while you are still forced to keep it in service because certain brain cell lacking individuals think brr is good.
They sell them. Military gear (at least aircraft and missiles) aren't cheap like an AK47. They have enjoyed watching India and Pakistan in their latest air battles. Lots of operational intel gleaned from that.
It's an airplane. It is as susceptible to doors not being bolted on as much as a civilian flight. Maybe actually a higher chance of some benign mechanical issue as it is well known that air crews are often overworked with little to no sleep with the high tempo of sorties in these types of missions. Lots of historical examples of US military aircraft crashing from mechanical issues and not being shot down
At war there's a lot more pressure on ground and air crews that can lead to more mistakes. Also the mission would be flown closer to the limits vs. training.
So... We don't know? If your question is whether that's a good guess/greater than zero probability then sure. Is it a certainty? No. The Iranians will claim they shot it down. The Americans may or may not admit and if they deny then people will say they're lying.
In the first Iraq war, the KARI system in Iraq, which was built by Thompson-CSF, had its specifications leaked and the US obtained access to back doors and codes that allowed it to bypass and/or disable much of that system. You need to remember that the US and much of the West had friendly relations with Iraq and provided some infrastructure assistance and military support because Iraq invaded Iran.
No such analogous advantage exists in Iran, which is a much larger country, with better air defenses, and no western contractors ready to provide back doors into systems.
By that same logic that fact that we only lost 1 F-15 in, what, almost 3 weeks of bombing is actually a pretty good sign. Especially when you factor in that the Russians (proven) and Chinese (yet to be proven) are assisting Iran and Iran has been buying and building all of this military infrastructure at the expense of living conditions for its people just for this very attack, only to have almost everything obliterated.
And 3 weeks in to the war and the US is flying refueling tankers to refuel Blackhawks in the very area the F-15 was shot down to recover the pilots (1 so far has been received) should be much more informative than it seems to be.
Is that reliable? The IRGC basically runs the economy and takes a significant cut. The IGRC is also separate from the military. The nuclear program, quite obviously for military use, may also not be included. What about support for proxy groups? Hezbollah alone gets support above $1B per year.
They should probably be closer to 0 or more in line with European countries but these numbers aren’t accurate and don’t tell the full story. They don’t, for example, include money paid to and missiles transferred to Houthis to launch from Yemen. Nevermind Hamas and Hezbollah, rebels in Iraq and so forth.
> European countries are protected by NATO and a nuclear umbrella.
Well, protected by the United States primarily. They've mostly divested from military spending and capabilities over time, which is the ideal thing, but it seems like maybe we can't live in that ideal world, anyway...
I'm not suggesting that Iran shouldn't have a military, but instead questioning the purposes for which it would have one. Today its military is used for sending missiles at Gulf States, funding Hezbollah, and oppressing its people. So for it to have little to no military practically speaking would be a good thing.
Second at 2.5% GDP (again these figures are highly questionable) that's plenty to have defensive capabilities versus neighbors. There's nobody there to really worry about because who outside of the United States is going to invade Iran? And even then the US is only doing it because they won't stop doing crazy shit and launching missiles at everyone.
They wouldn't be under attack if they weren't being run by the regime that is running their country. Notice how it's just Iran that's being attacked? And even so, what good did that military to them? They still got attacked, and their military assets were still significantly/mostly destroyed. What's the point of a military if the military you're buying just gets obliterated by the only country that is going to attack you for things you did in the first place and didn't have to do?
Yes, Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy who has, in violation of UN actions and against Lebanese government wishes seized and held territory in Lebanon from which to launch rockets into Israel lol.
If you're going to use that as such a loose category than the list of countries that have been attacked expands quite a bit. Israel has attacked Iran, while Iran has attacked Israel, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA, and maybe one or two others that I'm not thinking of.
There is no civilization on the planet that would accept full disarmament under the logic that they should just trust that you won’t attack them if they weren’t armed.
Let's be fair, if someone bombed trump right now, most of the world would be happy, including a lot of americans.
Does that mean that someone should bomb US because of your regime? I mean... you have more homeless people living in tents than most cities post some natural disaster, your people can't afford education, healthcare nor (as above) homes, and you guys are spending money to bomb a place half a planet away that is in no way endangering you... and that after you've bombed it once before and "completely destroyed the nuclear program"... and before that and before that.
I mean... i understand americans are well... americans, but you guys can't even imprison pedos running your country, why should you decide who to bomb?
I mean.. what's next? Iranian special forces will eventually start destroying stuff in US, and you guys will claim "terrorism" or something again... well, it's not terrorism if you're in a war.
> Well, protected by the United States primarily. They've mostly divested from military spending and capabilities over time,
UK and France have nukes, european nato part isn't going to be invaded without nuclear exchanges.
Apart from that, each country is specialized on various things and combined military is quite capable.
Sure, it's not US level of spending... which is probably a good thing given the US basically cut education and healthcare for a few generations for that.
> UK and France have nukes, european nato part isn't going to be invaded without nuclear exchanges.
I like to think this is true, but how many French soldiers coming home in body bags defending Lithuania will it take before they say enough? Are they going to just resort to nuclear weapons against Russia immediately? I don't think the nuclear umbrella is the trump card that it you might be portraying it to be. It's really difficult to say who would use those and when. There are some obvious cases, but there are also some not so obvious ones.
But nukes aren't enough. You're not winning the Ukraine war with your nuclear umbrella for example - that's being won on the ground with Ukrainian blood.
> Apart from that, each country is specialized on various things and combined military is quite capable.
Combined command of a military like this is incredibly difficult, and while I'd certainly agree that some specific militaries are quite capable of [1], I think the political and organizational system in Europe really poses a challenge. But even so those militaries lack power projection capabilities and lack in some other key areas.
[1] In order probably Ukraine -> UK -> France -> Poland and then nobody else registers. Ignoring Russia because they're not really European IMO.
> Sure, it's not US level of spending... which is probably a good thing given the US basically cut education and healthcare for a few generations for that.
Nah, we actually have money to easily afford both we just have a bunch of morons in charge (Democrats and Republicans) who, particular to healthcare, have gotten us the worst of both worlds. Education we're #1 there's no question about that.
Which is a logical result of decades of sanctions, allowing only the insiders to profit from the country's ressources while the common man is bared from providing an alternative. Sanctions do not work and only entrench regimes, as we see in Russia, Cuba, North Korea and now Iran.
I've just been at a conference where some high-up guy from germany was talking about the effect of sanctions... russia used to sell wood pulp to germany, german factories would produce paper products and then sell a lot of them back to russia.
Then sanctions came, no more very cheap wood pulp for the german industry, and after a year of sanctions, the russians built (i think) 4 large paper factories, so even after the sanctions end, that business is not coming back to germany.
Extensive domestic economic control by security forces is also a feature of Egypt and Pakistan. America does not complain about those examples of course, because those countries bend the knee.
Half the world chants that. Currently, probably more. Americans have managed even to alienate the ass-kissing politicians from europe. Even in US, the people are protesting against the current president, and no wonder... trump wants 200 billion more while people can't afford healthcare and education and some cities look like cities from apocalypse movies, with homeless camps everywhere.
The US has lost mutiple KC-125 tankers and an E3 as well, although those were destroyed ont he ground rather than shot down.
building all of this military infrastructure at the expense of living conditions for its people
Just yesterday, Trump was talking about another $1.5 trillion for defense in the coming fiscal year, and saying the US can't afford things like daycare, medicare etc.
> The US has lost mutiple KC-125 tankers and an E3 as well, although those were destroyed ont he ground rather than shot down.
Which makes them irrelevant here in this discussion but sure yea. Russia (those sneaky guys who invaded Ukraine and are being supplied by Iran) provide targeting information to Iran, Iran has missiles, we can't shoot them all down, and here we are. It's unfortunate but that's what happens in a war. Frankly, these are very good lessons learned by the United States and they're going to come in handy if we end up in another war.
> Just yesterday, Trump was talking about another $1.5 trillion for defense in the coming fiscal year, and saying the US can't afford things like daycare, medicare etc.
We can easily afford both, but we choose not to because our political system is full of morons and corruption, but instead of Iran being more like the US and being dysfunctional in this regard, it should be more like Norway (excluding population differences) and pump and sell the oil and do so for the benefit of their citizens instead of this authoritarian rah rah death to America and death to Israel nonsense.
> Iran's military budget as a % of GDP has historically been inthe low single digits:
Figures provided here are inaccurate and don't account for spending on proxy groups, for example.
Good lessons. Like ignoring previous military plans that showed how tough a nut Iran would be to crack.
Lessons like the value of AWACs. Now we're down to 15 and the availability rate is like 50%. So 8 or so WORLDWIDE. Yeah, that's a good lesson. And we've cancelled its replacement after someone (probably Elon) whispered BS into Trump's ear about space based sensors.
I'm sure China is watching with a notepad out about all these lessons. Thucydides is rolling in his grave.
> Frankly, these are very good lessons learned by the United States and they're going to come in handy if we end up in another war.
This is an interesting take given that the US seems to have ignored many of the most important lessons from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
As for "end up in another war", the language you chose is very revealing. You don't just "end up in...war". Wars don't start themselves. Someone starts them and in the case of the US, it's almost always the US.
> This is an interesting take given that the US seems to have ignored many of the most important lessons from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
This is a fun trope that's parroted but none of these wars were the same or even really close to each other in goals.
Vietnam - actually has great relations with the US and we won the peace.
Iraq - well they had Saddam and now they have a functioning parliament and things seem to be going a lot better for them. Was it worth $1.5 trillion of US spend to achieve that? That's a better question.
Afghanistan - We wanted to provide schooling for little girls and stuff like that and, well, the population didn't want it. So at some point you cut your losses.
Iran - We're not going to like invade and occupy Iran, though we could. We're just going to have to keep blowing up their military capabilities until they have a more reasonable government.
> As for "end up in another war", the language you chose is very revealing. You don't just "end up in...war". Wars don't start themselves. Someone starts them and in the case of the US, it's almost always the US.
It was just a figure of speech - Ukraine wound up in a war.
The US usually starts the war because the US is the only country in the world actually trying to do anything about nefarious actors. Easy to criticize from the sidelines, which is why American foreign policy has shifted to - we don't care what militarily irrelevant countries think about our activities because, well, we don't and they don't matter and we don't really care what they think. It sounds bad, but if we just retreat to isolationism as the MAGA and far-left crowds want, well maybe Iran goes and builds 5x the missile capabilities we have now, then they close the straight, force the gulf states to capitulate, and now you've got a nuclear armed Iranian regime in control of 20% of the world's oil supply. Oh and now you have nobody there to save you because China isn't going to go sail boats over there and bomb Iran, and Europe certainly isn't. Now what do you do?
US is providing targeting information, weapons and money for ukraine... it seems totally fair that russia is providing the same info for iranians, hopefully they (and china) will send them some weapons too.
> instead of this authoritarian rah rah death to America and death to Israel nonsense.
After US and israel bombing them.... again... what do you think, will there be more or less "death to US" chants? Also, considering the number of dead people in iran, lebanon, palestine and other countries, the next step is probably special force work in US... the ones you guys call "terrorists".
US welfare system seems to contain a lot of fraud, waste, abuse and grift across the board, so this will be a good chance to cleanse the system of fraud.
or at least US citizens should protect legitimate entitlements and inspect everything to cut down on corruption
US welfare system seems to contain a lot of fraud, waste, abuse and grift across the board, so this will be a good chance to cleanse the system of fraud.
Taking money from social programs and piling into the military which contains "a lot of fraud, waste, abuse and grift across the board", certainly is a choice. Sort of the opposite of a smart choice, but definitely a choice for sure.
> By that same logic that fact that we only lost 1 F-15 in, what, almost 3 weeks of bombing is actually a pretty good sign.
"Good sign" of what, though? Air superiority? I guess, sure. But we've constructed a strategic situation for ourselves where mere air superiority is losing.
The straight remains closed. Because let's be blunt: if we can't reliably fly a F-15E or A-10 in the region, there's no way an oil company is going to bet its crew and cargo.
Honestly the best situation here is that Iran merely decides to toll the straight. That's "losing" too, but at least one with a merely "large financial overhead" on international energy traffic instead of a disastrous 15% off the top cut in capacity.
Iran is winning. This is the difference between tactics and strategy.
I’m reading one of those Blackhawks was shot down. An A-10, F-16, and a refueling plane, in addition to the F-15 so far today. Which, if true, is not a good sign.
We'll have to wait and see what comes out but I don't think this is a bad sign. In war you lose equipment and aircraft. It's silly to think the US wouldn't lose some during the course of the war. After all, the OP to this thread highlighted all of the advantages Iran has. Yet we've wiped out quite a bit of their military infrastructure and have complete control over the skies. Russia can't say the same though for their little adventure ;)
We must be using different definitions for ‘complete’. I think Iran is using loitering anti-air missiles with IR seeking which seems to be effective. Maybe this sudden spike is reflective of receiving new equipment from China.
Could be. I guess my definition is “US can do whatever it wants without contest” and that seems to be the case here. What fighter jets does Iran have that are not destroyed? Do they have significant anti air defenses that we can’t attack and that limit our operations? Not to my knowledge but maybe there are parts of the country where that’s true, for now.
Of course in any war someone can fire back at and sometimes hit your aircraft even if you have complete airspace control.
I don't view it as contested because there aren't to my knowledge limitations on US operations. There's no aircraft for the US to worry about, nor are the SAM capabilities unknown. Guys get rockets and shoot them at aircraft, that makes it dangerous but not necessarily contested.
Yes the US probably is still using precision weapons because, well, unlike the Iranian government we don't want to use so-called dumb munitions and indiscriminately bomb civilians or civilian targets. And of course in general, why even fly into the airspace if you don't have to - malfunctions happen too.
> Yes the US probably is still using precision weapons because, well, unlike the Iranian government we don't want to use so-called dumb munitions and indiscriminately bomb civilians or civilian targets.
Are you referring to the "precision" weapons that hit the girls' school?
The us has air dominance but not air supremacy, which is why missiles are mostly used rather than bombs with gps kits, requiring to get much closer.
And the US has been very keen to bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure, along with Israelis, since the start of the war [0]. The US-Israelis are guilty of war crimes.
The recent bombing of an unfinished bridge is another example of the US-Israeli actions, especially since they did a double-tap to kill rescuers. [1]
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. It is completely expected to lose aircraft in an operation of this scale, against an opponent with this level of sophistication. People put way too much stock in all of these modern stealth systems and whatnot. Stealth, for example, is a buzzword. It will give a slight edge, but it's not going to make your aircraft completely invisible and unshootable.
We got through it in 2022. We can get through it again.
Though unfortunately Americans will learn the wrong lesson from this which should be to reduce dependency on oil for every day life. We should be aiming to have fewer cars and abandon car-only transportation as policy, and more sidewalks, trams, bike lanes, and better medium density mixed-use development. But if folks want to have Ford F-250s and drive 15 miles for a loaf of bread, you have to care about the Straight of Hormuz which Iran could threaten to shut down anytime and as they continued to strengthen their military capabilities increasingly likely to shut down in the future.
-edit-
Also to be clear EVs aren't the answer either. Can't be dependent on China for rare earth mineral processing, still doesn't solve c02 emissions, still have traffic and all the negative externalities.
The rare earth dependency on China is very much overblown. The U.S. has very significant natural reserves of rare earth minerals. The problem is the same with all mining - it's uneconomic to mine minerals in the U.S. because the job of "miner" is unattractive to Americans (both the laborers and the governments that sign environmental permits) when there are cleaner, safer, and more highly paid jobs available.
They're also just as much of a CO2 solution as electric trains are, i.e. it depends on the fuel source for the local electric grid (which today is overwhelmingly solar in most of the places where EVs are popular).
We're dependent on processing and refining, not the minerals themselves. Takes, from what I understand, 10-15 years to stand up that capability.
Overall EVs are great and all and that's what I have, but they're not addressing the underlying concerns and sticking with car-only or car-based infrastructure whether that's ICE or EV is a losing proposition.
> They're also just as much of a CO2 solution as electric trains are,
No, you need fewer electric trains to move much more people plus you don't replace the trains as often, &c, and then add in all the miles and miles of paved roads you need, parking lots, you name it. There's no way around this, if you care about the environment or care about human wellbeing you have to move away from car-only infrastructure like the US has and move toward more European models. And no, the geography isn't a challenge, most people live in urban areas in the United States, China is big too, and so forth.
I agree that we should abandon car-only transportation and instead move cars much further down the transit hierarchy. Ideally we would be relying on trains, bikes, and buses for most daily movement, using cars as needed instead of by default. But,
> still doesn't solve c02 [sic] emissions
This is incorrect. It doesn't magically make the entire grid carbon neutral but it does let us use much more efficient forms of power generation to make the electricity, and electric cars themselves do not emit CO2 (Carbon with 2 Oxygen). Effectively, switching to electric cars would remove cars themselves as a source of CO2 and make decarbonization much much easier.
Another good lesson could potentially be that going to war as a sideshow to distract from a news cycle that threatened people in power is not the best choice for the world at large.
The people who are benefiting from that distraction are not the same who are being harmed by the distraction. The leaders seem to be quite okay with these turn of events.
> Oil is still underpriced wrt to its environmental cost.
This may well be true, but we still haven't found a better fuel. Sure, we have electric cars, but they are still too expensive for the masses, or impractical, e.g. for apartment dwellers. Besides, oil has countless other uses besides as fuel for vehicles.
This could be an argument for investing in more reliable/higher capacity public transit systems though. Which would also likely result in a fair increase in public health from moving a bit more and possibly less polluted air going in an out of the lungs of the populace.
Yes, and, the world would be better off if the price of oil were higher. We would produce less plastic crap and take fewer frivolous airplane trips and take more public transit. Our petroleum consumption is based on underpriced oil.
> An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.
Why? We don't know exactly what happened but its easy to imagine that Iran held some anti-air systems in reserve for this phase of the war. They aren't trying to defend a target, their goal was likely to stay hidden and wait for an opportunity. They could keep the radar off and use a passive sensor network to notify them when it was in range, then turn the radar on to get a lock for the shot. Or even just IR. Recall, the Houthis gave stealth F35s some near misses over Yemen, no doubt supplied and trained by the Iranians.
It was pretty much a given that over time some of these airplanes would be shot down. There's no way to get every single MANPAD or even some of the larger anti-aircraft setups. A jet can even be brought down by a canon or a bullet given enough luck. We've had quite a few near misses, there's a video of an Israeli F-16 evading a surface to air missile, there have been the F-35 that was hit but managed to continue and land, there were countless drones shot down.
This was inevitable and just a question of time. Out of >10k sorties something is going to get hit. I've no idea what range the military planners expected and how we're doing vs. that.
OP left a little to interpretation, but, I think, top of the list starts with 'mission accomplished 2.0' meme followed by increased US casualties ( though I suppose the exact order likely depends on your current disposition ).
Have you considered not providing intel to Irak to allow them to use sarin gas against the Iranians? Or overthrowing their democratic regime that wanted an audit to understand how much of its oil was stolen by US companies? Or designating it as the "Axis of Evil" and sanctioning it after that it helped you invade Afghanistan? Or assassinating their religious leader during negociations?
Iran didn't become skeptic about the US overnight. I would advise to do some reading on wikipedia on the topic to make up your mind.
> During the entire gulf war (Iraq, 1990-91), only two F-15s were shot down via surface-to-air engagement.
was it because F-15 was used as superiority fighter at that time and now they use it as heavy bomber? I assume plenty of bombers likely was shot down in Iraq.
per wiki, f-15e was first produced in 1987, so there were very few in service at that time, and most of ground strikes were carried by other aircrafts.
Yes, most ground strikes were by other aircraft types, but the F-15E did have a lot of sorties, almost as many as the F-111 or F-4G (although the F-16 had many, many more sorties, but not all of them were air-to-ground)
It seems like the Iraqis were relatively poor operators of their systems. A few days ago I was reading about the Nato bombing of yugoslavia on wikipedia and it had the following entry:
"Yugoslav air defences were much fewer than what Iraq had deployed during the Gulf War – an estimated 16 SA-3 and 25 SA-6 surface-to-air missile systems, plus numerous anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) and man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS) – but unlike the Iraqis they took steps to preserve their assets. Prior to the conflict's start Yugoslav SAMs were preemptively dispersed away from their garrisons and practiced emission control to decrease NATO's ability to locate them."
So their SAMs likely just got stealth bombed / bombed from a distance.
1) The US has run 13,000 missions over Iran in the last month. Thats a lot of targets.
2) The initial US degradation of Iraqi capabilities was much much greater in gulf war 1.
3) F15s are not stealth fighters.
4) This is 35 years later.
5) "strategic bombing" of air defenses is mostly accomplished with our cruise missiles. We'll take out any air defenses we find, but you don't fly non-stealth planes over SAM batteries intentionally.
We haven't even started a ground campaign. If one plane is downed per 13000 missions, I think we're doing ok.
They certainly have, but the general idea is to first use stealth jets to bomb defensive systems (including radar observability) to conquer the skies, and then you can fly around somewhat freely. While SAM technology has improved, so have America's observability and stealth bombing capabilities. It will be interesting to learn the context and sequence of events which led to an F-15 being shot down by enemy fire.
(In 1991, the United States relied on the F-117 Nighthawk to penetrate Baghdad and launch salvos against radar and SAM sites. Simultaneously, Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired against similar communication and defense sites. In this war with Iran, the F-35 and B-2 have been used for stealth missions).
Recall that the Serbs shot down a Nighthawk when they were in a similar situation to Iran. They kept some good AA missiles in reserve and used a system of spotters and just waited for an opportunity. Its likely that similar tactics were used by Iran.
Also recall that the Houthis, armed and trained by Iran, gave F35s some close calls over Yemen.
The story is actually quite interesting. The Serbs observed that a nighthawk would routinely fly the same route but their radar couldn’t lock on it unless the missile hatch were open, which they managed to elicit.
In short, it took 2 rare events to occur for it to happen.
Most of the F15 upgrades have been against other aircraft. The F15 is primarily an air superiority fighter, it isn’t designed for attacks or defence against ground forces. The F15E is modified to attack ground targets, but ideally they would be targets without any air defences.
The F-15E Strike Eagle variant is definitely designed for attacks and defense against ground forces, but overall air defense is a probability game so it's not too surprising that it eventually happened
Yes, although it’s designed for interdiction, rather than primarily a ground attack aircraft, the difference being that it’s intended to be used against defenceless ground targets (like supply lines), not on the front lines.
What we can tell though is that Iran is still firing missiles (including cluster munitions) at Israel's civilians and at gulf states. So the ground facts are that it can still do that.
We also have to remember that Iran has a large number of different missile systems for different ranges. It's mostly not the same missiles they are firing at the nearby gulf states as they are firing into Israel. Some of the longer range missile systems they have need to be fired from western Iran to make it to Israel. There's a lot of other nuance, solid fuel vs. liquid fuel, mobile vs. fixed launchers etc.
I don't think we'll see anything close to reliable reporting any time soon.
The story of whether Iran had a nuclear program has been reported every which way but loose for the past 6 months.
By the time Trump started pushing that they were close to a nuke again, those that claimed he was wrong 6 months ago and the nuclear program was intact. Had started claiming it was in fact destroyed.
Gosh that sentence is hard enough to write, but the story is so contolvuted I don't think I can improve it.
That Iran had a nuclear program was not in dispute. It was regulated under international supervision based on the terms of Obama's agreement with Iran, which Trump promptly tore up because he has the mental capacity of a fourth-grader.
That Iran was on the verge of building bombs was far from clear. Khameini had previously issued a fatwa against doing so, on the grounds that it would be haram, or un-Islamic. All signs suggest that the IRGC was operating in full compliance with that fatwa.
I'm sure the remnants of his administration regret that now.
Seems to me their strategy is to shut down the Strait as cheaply as possible, force ground operations on known strategic points of interest, then just missile and drone strike Americans in Iranian territory where they have ~no air defense.
There are 4 players in this war and they all have very different goals and "victory" conditions.
1. Israel wants to ruin Iran permanently, to turn it into Somalia 2.0, meaning a quasi-state with no organized, central government. Were they to succeed in this it would be a humantarian disaster the likes of which we haven't seen since probably WW2. Tens of millions of refugees that will probably collapse surrounding countries;
2. The US (IMHO) wanted to placate Israel with a cheap decapitation strike that would force regime change and bring in a US-friendly regime, similar to Venezuela. This was completely unrealistic and they completely underestimated Iran's ability to maintain an offensive capability. We don't even know how much Iran's missile and drone capability has been degraded (to the GP's point). I don't even believe it's been degraded 50% (as GP claimed) abut we have no way of knowing. The entire Iranian military is built to resist a strategic bombing campaign;
3. Iran no longer trusts the US as a good faith actor and negotiator after multiple incidents of acting in bad faith, killing their negotiators and bombing an embassy so their goal is to make the price of this war so high economically that the US never thinks about doing this ever again. And that's a cheap thing to do, as you note. Drones can close the Strait and ne devastating to the economies of the Gulf states; and
4. The Gulf States just want to maintain the pre-war status quo. Saudi Arabia in particular just wanted to contain Iran. They're less vulnerable to the Strait being closed but it's still a problem politically as the US and Israel are bombing other Muslims. The Gulf states are learning the the US security guarantee ain't worth shit but they can't break away from being US client states with their own unpopular regimes probably collapsing without US arms. But in a prolonged conflict some of them may collapse anyway, particularly Bahrain and even Iraq.
So Iran just fires a dozen ballistic missiles a day to remind Israel of the war Israel started. An estimated ~50% of missiles get through missile defences now. Otherwise threats and the occasional drone are sufficient to close the Strait and massively disrupt the ME3 airlines. Militarily, Iran can probably keep that up forever. Mobile missile launchers are cheap and drones can be launched from basically any truck. They're also produced and stored in underground basis that are essentially impervious to bombing short of nuclear weapons.
Many believed prior to Trump's speech this week that he would either escalate or pull out. Instead he found a secret third, worse option, which is to tell Europe and Asia "you're on your own" (with the Strait closure) after the US launched a war nobody but Israel wanted or supported. That's an interesting strategy because it's going to cause some serious soul-searching in all of these countries about the wisdom of US allegiance.
You forgot the 5th actor - Russia - which is benefiting hugely from the collapse of NATO, the loosening of oil sanctions, the huge hike in oil prices, and the way the US was persuaded to expend a ridiculous percentage of its conventional missile stockpiles on a pointless project.
Ukraine is doing its best to minimise Russian oil exports, and that's certainly having an effect.
But strategically, Russia is a huge beneficiary of this mess.
Really, any rival state-level actor benefits from seeing America squander its currently limited supply of high-end munitions and put months of stress on its airframes, warships, and people.
It depends where you draw the line. The extended players include:
1. Russia (as you say): I think this war of choice virtually guarantees a settlement of the Ukraine war along the current borders. At some point Europe will need to ease their energy crisis with Russian oil and gas. Well done, everybody, the system works;
2. Europe: like the GCC they are finding US security guarantees and the NATO protection racket aren't what they were sold. Pax Americana was an illusion. I've elsewhere predicted this is going to lead to arms and tech nationalism within Europe. It's actually a race between fascism taking over Europe and Europe divorcing itself from the US and I suspect fascism is currently winning; and
3. China: the biggest wineer of all this. China is still receiving Iranian oil exports. In fact, the US "punished" Iran by lifting oil sanctions, allowing Iran to sell oil to China at market rates instead of below market (because of the sanctions). Again, well done, everybody; and
4. Asia: this has exposed their weakness of imported oil, particularly Thailand, Vietnam and the Phillipines. I would not be surprised if this war of choice is the turning point that leads to a China-cenetered Asian security compact.
In one year, the US has essentially torn up the entire post-1945 rules-based international order, which it designed for its own benefit.
I think this war is actually pushing many away from fascism. Trump was the reference for a lot of the European right and this is showing people he was terrible and, by extension, embarrassing them all.
Heck, Orbán is currently running an electoral campaign as "the candidate of peace".
The post-1945 rules-based order was already a slow motion train crash that most of the West remained in denial about until Putin wiped his behind with it in the 2014 invasion of Crimea. To pretend that Trump is somehow breaking an otherwise intact system at this point is fanciful.
The post-1945 order was dead after the NATO's war in Yugoslavia in 1999, and the subsequent recognition of Kosovo. At the very latest.
One coulld argue that it happened earlier, for example after the collapse of the Soviet Union, or the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, or after the annexation of East Germany.
It'll partly depend on what internal housecleaning—or perhaps fumigation—and reform happens in the US.
While it is unlikely to occur, imagine the international effect if the US resoundingly impeached and removed of a lawless president, and Congress formalized a lot of international agreements into statute rather than delegating too much to the executive branch.
Nah, this problem is systemic, and much older than the current administration. Or has everyone forgotten the "anthrax" in a test tube? The invisible WMDs? The fake news about soldiers tossing babies out of incubators? Setting up a web of lies and attacking is a foundational value of the United States.
I don't think we do. I think this is our Teutoburg Forest moment [1].
Part of the issue is there's no real opposition in the US to what's going on. The Democrats being the controlled opposition party aren't in opposition to the war (eg [2][3][4]). They just oppose the way it was initiated. In other words, they have a process objection not a policy objection.
I've seen lamenting over Harris losing the elction (as well as more than a few doing "stolen election") about how the world could be different. But US foreign policy is uniparty
> The Gulf States just want to maintain the pre-war status quo. Saudi Arabia in particular just wanted to contain Iran. They're less vulnerable to the Strait being closed but it's still a problem politically as the US and Israel are bombing other Muslims. The Gulf states are learning the the US security guarantee ain't worth shit but they can't break away from being US client states with their own unpopular regimes probably collapsing without US arms. But in a prolonged conflict some of them may collapse anyway, particularly Bahrain and even Iraq.
Saudi and the UAE don't want the pre-war status quo, they want America to bomb Iran back to the stone age so it can't continue missile or launcher production.
>> Doesn't break out anti-air, but Iran absolutely has a lot of teeth left.
With the price of oil having skyrocketed, and the new revenue that will be coming from the Hormuz tolls, they will also be rebuilding their previous capacity in no time.
US also has A-10s doing gun runs in Iraq too. It makes sense the US is more willing to take risks 1-month into the war given how effective they've been and for Iran to also adapt their manpad teams after they probably failed a ton of times previously.
You saw the same pattern where Ukraine and Russia both constantly adapted on the battlefield and the war changed rapidly over the first year.
Yeah I have seen the clip with Iran polices firing at the UH-60s, which is very concerning. Sure SIGINT makes sure there is no serious AD but there is no way to guarantee that there is no MANPADs somewhere close.
Which is why any "adventures" that involve boots on the ground will come with a significant rise in US casualties. Few Americans have likely seen the videos from the Russian Invasion, of what modern war with $1000 quadcopters dropping grenades on terrified soldiers looks like.
You can't really take out "the whole" air defense system because there will always be folks out with MANPAD-type things, those will score hits on occasion. That's probably what we saw here. I doubt MANPADs were nearly as common in the early 90s as they are today.
The videos we've seen match up with what we've seen on the ground. They are all running a custom software we haven't seen elsewhere and don't seem to be traditional MANPADS in any way.
We know Iran is driving around bongo trucks with small SAM systems on the back that use passive IRST rather than radar. The missiles themselves have the capability to cruise in the air for some period of time searching for a target before kicking in the engine for a last, fast sprint to the target. Because they are electro-optical (and piloted by a human), even early-warning and flare deployments won't do very much against a skilled operator.
True but without radar they have a relatively difficult task of being out there setup and waiting for a fast moving jet to pass within range.
Compare that to Ukraine defending it's skies with NATO (well mostly French IIRC) AWACS feeding early data which is what made MANPADS in Ukraine so effective against Russian attacks.
Yeah my guess was they were coming in along predictable routes at this point and that's what got them? I saw that the search and rescue mission was in an area close to water. I believe many Stinger hits in Ukraine can be attributed to predictability.
My concern is that other countries can aid Iran with weapons in a direct and indirect way. There is no guarantee to block the railroads from East and the shipments from North.
That's not a concern it's a reality. Iran is not shut-off or blockaded to any meaningful degree. It has tons of unmolested border crossings and Caspian sea access, and maintains full control within it's own borders (minus the parts that have been blown up).
Also ships are still transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from Iranian ports taking goods in from China, with who knows what on board. They are also exporting more oil now than they were before the war.
I mean special military operation, not war. Only congress can declare war.
Even the Philippines, a US ally, has struck a deal with Iran for safe passage. Meanwhile, Oman is working with Iran on a toll scheme. There's an emerging chance that no US-flagged vessel crosses the Straight of Hormuz again in our lifetimes (except maybe for a retreating 5th fleet).
The Philippines may be a US client state since MacArthur liberated them from Japan, but they need to deal with Iran to keep the lights on. The rationing situation is quite bad in a lot of east Asian countries.
> a US client state since MacArthur liberated them from Japan a US client state since MacArthur liberated them from Japan
And a US colony/territory for the 43 years before Japan invaded. They were ruled by a US puppet state in a supposed "transition to independence" at the time Japan invaded, however it's unclear how much actual independence they would have had in practice.
I mention this because:
1. The way you state it makes it sound like they were somehow independent before the war.
2. It explains why MacArthur was there with the US army to resist the Japanese invasion from the first day it happened (Dec 7, 1941)
3. Its history worth looking into to contextualize just how bad the US has always been at taking over places. Acting as if this is post WW2 (as the media does) is counter-productive to truly understanding the number of really botched invasions the US has done.
Iraq is pretty flat on the routes between the US-allied countries and the major strongholds (Basra, Baghdad). You can't easily conceal rocket launchers there.
Tehran is protected by mountain ranges that can provide plenty of cover. And Russia is probably feeding it the real-time radar data from its military bases in Armenia.
> An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.
Not to dispute that but what about the comparison makes it not a good sign? Iran has much more capable radar and missiles now than Iraq did 35 years ago, doesn't it?
The success of the war depends on the approval ratings of the US president which will almost certainly take hits when US military takes hits so the US citizens seeing the US military taking hits at a higher rate than relatively recent wars in the area is a bad sign for "winning" whatever "winning" means here.
Military aviators train for this, being alone behind enemy lines (look up SERE school if you’re curious, one of the craziest training courses outside of special forces) and there is a special force just for aviator recovery behind enemy lines, US AirForce Pararescue. Hopefully they’ll get the aviators back quickly, the last thing our country needs is American hostages making this ridiculous war harder to stop.
TBH I went through SERE school (aircrew) and I questioned its value, since the training is in eastern Washington/northern Idaho area mountainous woodland environment and all the evasion they showed us relied on that kind of cover and "bushcraft"
And you know, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran are definitely not eastern Washington lol
Iran isn't just central Tehran. Look up the Zagros Mountains and the Alborz Mountains. Or just look at a picture of the northern Tehran skyline, it is at the foot of the Alborz, a huge mountain range. There's plenty of woodlands and forest too. Some parts of the Hyrcanian forests get over 50 inches of annual rainfall, which isn't Forks, WA, but it is substantial.
Not really, if you're entering Iranian airspace from the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, or Europe, you're flying over either the Zagros Mountains or the Alborz Mountains. Unless you crash/eject in a city, you're almost certainly going to be in the mountains. Look at a map.
You'd get additional specific training for deployments and the skills are transferrable. But obviously they can't train everyone in every biome that we have, otherwise you'd spend a whole year just flying around to different areas of the country to train and on a 4-year contract it's just not going to work time-wise.
This is the view outside of Fairchild AFB, which runs the training course in question.
Wikipedia reports that Spokane has a Mediterranean climate, as does Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province where this F-15 is reported to have been shot down.
far from pc but i grew up hunting along the snake and the old guys always called those hills "Bin Ladens" bc it looked like the pictures of where news reported he was hiding
Sounds like typical one-sized-fits-all, checkbox military nonsense. Perhaps there are better and/or climate-specific SERE courses in one or more services? Because if it's ineffective, it's a waste of time and money more so than usual and puts expensive-to-replace personnel at risk.
Seems like it's all about vacating the area and busting out the CSEL (or NGSR when materialized) personal SAR comms is the best way out, or it may well turn into a weeks(s) long, nonstop spy-shit ordeal getting out. Perhaps some forethought and packing with knowledge and specific local-appropriate items (and chunk of cash) would help more than MIL-STD Walmart camping aisle prepper bullshit.
No, we actually train to be tortured and held if caught, but everyone knows the risks before you take off. Captured marines or soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re clear eyed about it.
I've found that most of our population has almost no connection to the people that actually fight wars, and therefore have no idea what they think. With the exception of a few criminals, none of us desire to commit war crimes. None of us want to send rounds into civilian infrastructure, seeing regular people struggle to get food, fuel, and water in Iraq did not make me feel powerful and it was obvious it did not advance our goals on the ground.
The jingoistic commentary people hear from politicians and former military podcasters that don't fight anymore is repugnant, and this backsliding in the (at least attempt at) honorable execution of war is not going to bode well for our country. It's probably trite when we're double tapping girl's schools, but I want to think that purposely striking civilian infrastructure, universities, hospitals, water resources... this was all something "we" didn't do.
This is actively devaluing the meaning of being a Marine. Maybe this already happened in Mai Lai, maybe this was further chipped away by Abu Ghraib, maybe letting Eddie Gallagher off... etc etc. But this feels different in a way I've never felt before.
Why do it, then? I'm not trying to be inflammatory or ask loaded questions here, I'm genuinely curious (as someone who, as you note, has almost no connection to the Americans who fight in wars; I have friends who are vets, but have been out of the military for years), and I just don't understand.
I absolutely believe you when you say that none of y'all want to commit war crimes, fire on civilian infra, bomb schools, etc. And yet that's happening right now, in Iran, and the soldiers continue to follow orders and carry out this travesty. I get that refusing an order is not something any soldier will do lightly, but when a school gets hit in Iran, do the soldiers conducting that strike not know what they're attacking beforehand?
Even if they don't, do they never find out? Do they not see that some large N% of targets that have been hit have ended up being civilian targets? When they're ordered to fire on a new target, do they not question whether or not it's a civilian target, given past history?
I ask these questions from near-complete ignorance; I really do not know how this works, or what kind of information any officer or soldier has when they're about to follow the orders they've been given. But it just seems insane to me that people continue to follow these orders, assuming they know how many civilians have been killed through previous actions. I just cannot imagine being in their position, and actually trusting that my superior officers were ordering me to do things that will later turn out to be morally defensible. (If any of this war is morally defensible, which I don't think it is.)
I don't have a good answer for you. I expected the upper and middle officer corps to conduct themselves with honor and they aren't.
I'm going to bet that pilots aren't briefed to hit a school, they get a target package that says this is a legit target, an IRGC command post or something. There are multiple layers of detachment between the person picking coordinates, entering them into a JDAM, and the pilot releasing that weapon so who is ultimately responsible (and this is by design, everyone can tell themselves a story right now to sleep at night.)
But you do know what you hit, in the version of the military that I was in there would have been a detailed investigation into the chain of failures that led to striking a school with children in it. I'm sure it weighs heavily on the every person involved in that decision. Cold comfort for the parents of those kids, but something like that leaves a life long scar on the people responsible.
And they have DOD lawyers (with backup from the DOJ) saying the whole thing, and specific targets, are legal. Along with that, much of the most Sr leadership (of both combat forces, and legal) have been fired and replaced with MAGA loyalists.
There have been so many crimes and zero accountability. I frankly wouldn't know where to start, but maybe a good example is "collateral murder", which Assange has been persecuted for revealing for the better part of the past two decades.
We want them to. At the same time that we sit at our keyboards and philosophize about how soldiers should refuse to carry out unlawful orders, we [collectively] do not really want them spending all that much time pondering it. The most obvious cases, sure, but in general we want them to do what they are told, and do it quickly. That is why there are lawyers in the field to make fast judgements.
The better solution is to try and not routinely find ourselves in the position of the country being led by criminals.
"No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically-correct wars. We fight to win,” Hegseth said."
It's a self-soothing performance of self-importance, like everything else this administration does.
This is not an administration run by adults who model consequences.
Everything happens to reassure the Commander in Chief - and the people behind him, like Miller and Vought - that they're exceptionally special and gifted people who can have anything they want and do anything they want, to anyone, without limits.
There's pretty clearly negative value in having civilian leader whose most notable accomplishments are being a TV opinion host, and quitting the Army because they decided he was too dangerous to be allowed to serve as a guard for a presidential inauguration.
It’s not not woke, it’s wokeness of a different kind. They exclude those who disagree with their brand of orthodoxy, it seems like to me they’re firing anyone who says no to the ground invasion.
Right but the reason we have rules against people declaring no quarter is to prevent a race to the bottom. It is absolutely reasonable to respond to a no quarter declaration in kind, which is... again... the entire reason we have prohibitions on it.
They won't face any US law. AIUI, they have been getting letters from the DOJ office of legal counsel that say it's legal. This effectively immunizes them (the DOJ can't turn around and charge you with a crime, if they advised you beforehand it was not a crime).
The best shot would be to turn them over to the ICC
Yep. And war crime seems to have lost all meaning in the US.
But, even if you dismiss the idea of international standards, this is clearly very bad for US soldiers (and sailors, airmen, etc). I wonder if they see that.
> But, even if you dismiss the idea of international standards, this is clearly very bad for US soldiers (and sailors, airmen, etc). I wonder if they see that.
If they landed anywhere near a town they are probably captured. The kuwait video from the f15 that was hit with friendly fire was crazy. Like 6 suvs worth of locals immediately surrounded this guy and they were threatening to beat him with a galvanized pipe.
edit: I'm baffled by the amount of downvotes pointing out the objectively correct terminology can get. Its not a matter of opinion, military personnel captured by the enemy are pow no matter their treatment. A hostage, by definition, has been abducted.
As a matter of fact, if Iran comes out of the war having not committed war crimes they’ll have a huge worldwide moral and public image victory over the United States and Israel.
Iran has for nearly fifty years pursued unilateral hostilities against the US and Israel, including funding numerous terrorist groups and militias to wage war on them. It can’t negotiate its way out of this quagmire because the IRGC’s core ideology and mission is hatred (and hostage-taking).
In addition to waging continuous offensive militia operations, it’s been cultivating a conventional and nuclear offensive option which it most definitely would use if it had it, because again, the IRGC’s reason for existence is to “resist” Israel and the US, by which they mean obliterate those nations. What Trump recently has been saying about Iran is exactly what Iran has been saying for decades about the US and Israel.
One of those militias went all Leroy Jenkins in 2023 and prematurely initiated the current hot war, which Iran is losing. In frustration, Iran has embarked on a terror campaign of bombing neutral neighbors to punish them for … friendly diplomacy with the US I guess, and bombing civilians in Israel. And annexing an international waterway.
What Trump and folks on this board don’t seem to realize is that war with Iran is more like fighting a bunch of lawyers. You hurt them kinetically and they make you feel like you hurt yourself, get all confused. They slaughter 35k of their own people and shut off the Internet; the US mixes up the boundaries of an IRGC naval base in a much more constrained horror and the UN starts strutting around.
Narratives do matter for winning wars and between Trump derangement syndrome and the IRGC’s natural cleverness at permanent victimhood, it’s the narrative that’s at risk in a war between great nations that, unfortunately, sadly has been perfectly inevitable for decades.
It's not unilateral, the US have been deeply involved in Iran since the 50´s and the overthrow of the democratic government in order to allow the US companies to continue to steal Iran's oil.
Then of course they had to deal with Irak who invaded them using US weapons and intel. Including use of sarin gas, thanks to US intel.
The argument about democracy in Iran is hypocritical given that neither Trump or Israelis care about it at all. They just want weak client States.
The Iranians didn't wake up hating the USA one day and a little techouva would be healthy if we want this conflict to end.
How am I reading this? Wasn't the regime mowing down tens of thousands of its own citizens prior to this war? I mean, not a "war" crime, I guess, but it seems ludicrous to give them any "moral victories".
They already targetted civilian infrastructure, so they already commited war crime. They also threatened to attack universities wh8ch is war crime on itself (after attack on their universities).
Prisoner exchanges are a pretty strong motivator for any group, even hardline ones. If the Taliban was up for exchanges I think the IRGC is pretty likely to want to keep prisoners for that too.
I would note ISIS put out some high res, professionally edited video of burning a (Jordanian?) pilot to death while inside a cage. Quite savage, but the propaganda effect is more profound than about anything else I've seen.
Yes, after that video it was clear that Daesh and everyone in their little caliphate would be hunted down. And it was, they were. They were attacked everywhere they tried to return to. From minor girls returning to the Netherlands to 45 year old men (trying to) return to South Africa, all were persecuted, and that one video had a lot to do with that happening. After that video, even muslim nations started hunting these people.
And yet, they are still around, made famous and split into separate groups, still actively fighting on multiple fronts all over Africa. And if the Iranian government falls for sure they will be coming back with a vengeance in the area.
That's a lovely thing to say, but if your existence is being threatened by an aggressor, I wouldn't blame you for throwing out the rulebook.
In my view, if someone invades your territory and starts attacking you, you have no obligation to follow any sort of "principles" or "rules" when it comes to how you fight back. Anything you need to do to the attackers in order to defend yourself and your people is, by definition, morally defensible.
(Do note that I said "need". Doing arbitrary messed-up things that don't actually further the goal of driving back the attackers is not ok.)
There is no if. We've already done that. So yes, we are no better than them. So answer the question. Why would Iran follow conventions it's enemy that started a war of aggression is not following?
Especially after the double-tap on civilians and first responders the US just did on that bridge. Or the threat for no quarters from the secretary of defense. Or the threats to destroy critical civilian infrastructure for water or power.
First: count the responses to my thread of people suggesting Iran cannot/should not be held to the Geneva convention: 4,5 (I'm counting the Hegseth comment as 0.5)
The point is there are a great deal of people, even in the US, who advocate that it is unreasonable to hold people fighting the west in general and US in particular to the Geneva conventions. I don't know where this idea comes from, because morally it is of course indefensible, but there you go.
I would expect the number to be bigger in Iran. I would expect the number among IRGC extremists to be even higher than in Iran in general.
Second: war crimes have 2 interpretations. First as violations of the Rome treaty which require that the state where the warcrimes happen has signed the Rome treaty. Iran hasn't.
The second interpretation of warcrimes is that they are violations of the Geneva conventions, and the reaction would be that the UN security council intervenes. Well, the UNSC has preemptively declared they will not hold Iran to account for warcrimes (to be exact: France, Russia and China have declared they will veto). So at minimum you can say that Iranian warcrimes will not have any "official" consequences.
The world and the UN have decided that warcrimes "don't count". As in there will not be any consequences unless the government of the country where they happened implements those consequences.
Third: Iran has already kidnapped a US civilian (a reporter, Shelly Kittleson) and are holding her hostage. This is already a violation of the Geneva convention. They have also kidnapped hundreds of foreign nationals of other nations and are also holding them for ransom, which is also a violation of human rights, ie. a warcrime.
So those are my three reasons Iran won't hold itself to human rights standards.
> Iran has already kidnapped a US civilian (a reporter, Shelly Kittleson) and are holding her hostage.
Expect there to be a lot of operatives of the US in Iran. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it wouldn't be the first time a CIA or something operative is caught and this is the cover.
France vetoed proposal about opening the straight by force. France and Europe in general dont want to dragged into this war.
Also, I dont see UN punishing Israel or American war crimes either ... so it makes sense to not apply "whatever goes" standard to aggressors and different one to the defender.
You mean the army shooting 40.000 protestors just 2 months ago including 1000+ children, then executed a child that won an international wrestling competition, now accusing everyone else of warcrimes?
I think I'll need some reeducation on this concept of "dignity" you speak. Could you explain further?
None of those numbers are verifiable. The opposition has every incentive to lie. And let's not forget there was a lot of armed agitators amongst those protesters. Mike Huckabee let the cat out of the bag with a tweet boasting of how a mossad agent walks beside every protester.
I didn’t downvote you, but a terse “well actually it’s prisoner of war” doesn’t really add to the conversation. Imagine doing that in person, you’d annoy everyone around you.
If you explained why it’s distinct and what that might mean for downed crew I think it wouldn’t have been down voted
No, they wouldn't annoy everyone around them, that's just your subjective projection. I, for one, found it an important distinction that highlights how easy it is to skew a narrative towards a more sympathetic one. It saw it as having similar value to those Instagram posts juxtaposing headlines reporting on "dead Palestinians" vs "killed Israeli victims".
The US military is in the middle of a top-level political purge; both honesty and competence as an institution will be below normal levels for the forseeable future, and honesty about sensitive operations during wartime is never much even as a baseline.
What’s the buzz like amongst military right now? Is moral low? High?
It’s been fascinating to see my Father (Marine and Army veteran) and my brother (soon be a commissioned Air Force officer) who usually are very aligned politically start develop the first rift I’ve ever seen regarding this war.
> Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to step down and take immediate retirement, sources familiar with the decision told CBS News...
> Two other Army officers were removed from their roles, according to three sources familiar with the matter: Gen. David Hodne, who led the Army's Transformation and Training Command, and Maj. Gen. William Green, who headed the Army's Chaplain Corps...
> Hegseth has fired more than a dozen senior military officers, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Slife and the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse.
Why this guy? Makes me speculate that it is entirely a political purge where they are trying to groom the military leadership to be entirely filled with loyalists rather than professional soldiers. As a veteran I find this very disheartening.
And of course the first thing the next administration will be obliged to do is fire this cadre and build another, which will fuel the grievances and set up the following cycle. Sigh.
I am not from the US, so I don't really care about how it does its things.
I definitely don't expect political purges on bureaucracy in my country of residence after elections, and I would consider it an extremely bad sign.
Typically the new party replaces the top levels; this is expected. Director of something, secretary of this and that, minister of something else, etc.
The actual bureacrats doing day to day work typically are not political agents. Getting rid of them for political reasons indicate loss of know-how, tacit knowledge, and competence, in the name of blind loyalty.
This was also true of the US. It’s expected to replace the Secretary of Defense and a variety of subordinate secretaries and undersecretaries like the Secretary of the Army with political leaders affiliated with the President’s party. Military officers at the highest level, such as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or the Chiefs of Staff of the respective branches, are somewhat political, but they are expected to be professionals chosen for merit. And below that level, it has historically been very frowned upon for political leadership to directly involve itself in the selection and promotion of flag officers beyond setting criteria and expectations.
Because almost all of the people inside Iran have been disconnected for the past 35 days [1]. And believe it or not, they are texting these news live to all mobile phones on a daily basis as well. Some regime supporters believe it, because the want to believe it, they need to believe it. Just in the past 24 hours I have received 5 different messages from different organizations claiming victory and damage to US / Israel assets.
Just for a quick laugh, look at the official (Iranian) president's letter to the American people published yesterday [2]. The font changes between the paragraphs!
> Iran tweets about taking down an American jet basically daily.
Sure. We have two sets of demonstrable liars here. See, for example, the E-3 Sentry that got blown up; it took leaked photos for that to be admitted.
And don't get me started on the several times in the last few months we've "obliterated" Iran's nuclear capacity and missiles and whatnot only to be told it's time to do it again.
The claim being addressed is a shootdown over Qeshm island, which is the biggest island just west of the strait of Hormuz. The current CSAR operations are happening somewhere in the Khuzestan province. Probably somewhere within the 150 km radius of [1] based on online footage of the C-130 flying over.
Hate to say it and sound so "conspiracy-like", but I no longer can trust what the current US administration is saying. Ever since the path of a hurricane was redrawn with a sharpie, it's been... unusual.
I think the problem is that in previous administrations at least they had some skill in lying in ways that were not so constantly contradicting one another.
Regardless of whether it's a "perfect setup" or not, the facts speak for themselves.
Most competent governments don't say things that are outright wrong. They may use double speak, or not comment on a topic. But this government (and unfortunately it's this specific adminstration/president) has acted time and again in a way that both of us know very well.
Not really. Just that trust ain't binary and the govt is made of people. I don't like this admin but this too shall pass. Cultivate your garden. Electing bad people has consequences.
None of what's happening today could have happened without everything that came before it.
The blue team carries plenty of blame for not fielding better candidates. If nobody is buying your bullshit, it's a little weak to blame the customer.
And all of the us electorate carries plenty of blame for letting our government get so massive and out of control over time. We've let this beast metastasize and grow, and now were stuck with it.
The American people are ultimately to blame for it, they've got the government they deserve, which is actively dismantling the US empire day by day. The American people voted for Trump instead of Kamala, and that is rather damning of the state of the American people, far more so than however damning it may also be for the Democratic party.
As we all know, in this day and age, you need to REALLY sell your story, and have the media behind you. Competence is tertiary.
> Approval of Trump among Republicans has slipped to a second-term low of 84%, down from 92% last March. At the same time, an all-time high 16% of Republicans disapprove. This shift can be attributed, at least in part, to declining support among non-MAGA Republicans, as approval dropped 11 points in the last year among this group (70% in March 2025 to 59% today). Virtually all MAGA Republicans continue to approve of Trump, with 98% approving a year ago and 97% now.
Or the bootlicker olympics for those who want everyone else to ignore the constant lies because they think bigger, more powerful government is utopian.
I wouldn't be so pleased with myself over such "You will get wet in a rainstorm." style predictions.
truths from different angles that are at odds with one another produce mistrust and thoughts of conspiracy. We have more of that now than we have ever had, ever. It doesn't take Nostradamus to point to the trend.
tl;dr : Gee, where did this mistrust in the current government come from? I'd point but I don't have that many hands.
"They killed unarmed civilians so that means we can kill unarmed soldiers!"
Are you seriously trying to say this war of aggression on Iran is about democracy for their people? That's not what the US does. What the US does is lip service to democracy while destroying it around the world for capitalist interests.
Based on the initial comment, I believe we were trying to deduce how the Iranian regime might treat an unarmed US pilot… what do you think they will do to him if they kill 18 year olds for protesting?
PS: I’m not sure why you feel the need to be passive-aggressive. That’s how I interpreted your comment at least.
The "50,000 murdered protesters" is blatant atrocity propaganda to launder the actual mass murder of civilians and failed illegal regime change war by the United States and Israel. Nothing more. It is a lie told with the blackest of intentions.
"Who cares if we murdered 170 schools girls? The evil regime murdered 50 gorillian civilians so it's okay when we do it!"
The crew of the IRIS Dena were warned twice by the US to abandon ship according to a report from one of the sailor’s father. They refused.
Not sure if it’s possible to treat enemies better than that. And I doubt the Iranians will treat a US pilot well. Look at how they treat their own citizens.
The ship was an unarmed vessel on its way to a goodwill visit to Sri Lanka and coming from an international maritime exercise hosted by India, which the United States also attended and participated in. The US torpedoed it, and when it sank, the US did not apparently attempt to rescue any of the Dena's crew. Fortunately, Sri Lanka showed up and saved 30 people.
Mind you, the details of war are not always clear. The US says that the ship was armed, and it also says that they did make an effort to rescue the crew. The US does not explain why it failed to actually rescue anybody, of course.
If the source below is correct, the commander of the Dena ordered his troops to stay on the ship despite the warnings, there was a bit of a mutiny and the survivors are those who rejected those orders and jumped off.
OK if I come to your car, declare you’re my enemy, and tell you to get out before I toss a Molotov at you, does that mean I can’t be tried for murder later if you refuse?
This was a sneak attack outside of an established war zone, for an illegal war, so don’t try to conflate this as an attack on America’s enemies. The USA made them their enemies themselves.
They were in international waters. This was literally a war crime according to international law. Even the killing of the Supreme leader was against international law.
That doesn't seem like the most trustworthy source.
>Established in May 2017 and funded by Saudi Arabia,[1][2][3][4][5][6] it actively promotes former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi as the next ruler of Iran.
Not sure how anyone can believe this while, as another commenter points out, the US is proudly and unilaterally murdering speedboat users in the Caribbean without any due process.
Of course I'm serious, why would my age affect how I feel about a soldier dying invading another country? But you are right that probably in the big context of things a POW is better for negotiating an ealier cease fire, which would ultimately be the better outcome.
I think an A-10 is also down (pilot ejected and safe). I'm surprised that they decided to fly an A-10 into Iran. I mean it's a solid plane that can sustain some AD fire, but at the same time it usually operates within the height that MANPADs can reach.
The article says this is the first jet that was shot down by enemy fire this war, but this confuses me. Was the F35 that was downed a while back friendly fire or something? Are F35s not fighter jets?
Assuming you're both referring to the events of 19 March, they did not eject from the F-35. I know of no event during this war where an F-35 crew ejected.
The missiles have what’s effectively a flak shotgun shell at the tip, when they’re pointed at an object and close by it shoots flak in a tight cone towards the front.
Flak spreads the damage better and does more kinetic damage than trying to ram a plane with a missile and hoping the concussion from a the resulting explosion damages something.
You're talking about a single "dash" on the frame before it goes all white. First question, if it were a laser, would be what exactly are you seeing there? A laser from the side is invisible, there'd need to be dust there, or the air would need to have turned into plasma. I don't think either makes that much sense. Second question/problem would be… it would have failed/be malfunctioning because —
— pretty much all AA munition works by exploding in close proximity to the target and showering it in shrapnel. So this might even have "helped" the missle/shell against malfunction in its fuse. And considering that this is designed to work like that, and it's likely not the greatest quality work on the Iranian side, it's also possible that the thing is already exploding and just ejected some piece of intentional shrapnel (or unintentionally itself) early, ahead of the actual detonation.
Or the Iranians edited that "dash" into that one frame, it's not exactly like it's a reputable source and it's in their interest to confuse things. Maybe they want the US to believe that the countermeasures are malfunctioning and helping their attacks, so they turn it off…
C-130s and helicopters flying low over Iran right after they shot down an F-15 in the same spot is wild. Whatever I think of the war idiocy, that's brave.
It's breaking news...meaning it may be inaccurate. CENTCOM certainly is saying it's false [0]. But there are enough signs of it being genuine, to be concerning at this stage.
Flying low over Iran at this point is planned, expensive "standoff" munitions were planned to give way to more accurate and less expensive munitions once air superiority was reached - which U.S. has been claiming has happened for a while now.
> An F-15 fighter jet pilot has been rescued alive by the U.S. military after their aircraft went down over Iran, a U.S. official said Friday.
> White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Donald Trump had been briefed on the incident — the latest dramatic development in the war, now more than a month old.
The use of "a" instead of "the" pilot suggests more than 1 personnel on the plane, considering F15's carry 2 people (unless it's some magical F15 I haven't heard of), it means there's still 1 guy missing out there.
Or he (I assume) could also have been found dead, and is not being mentioned before his family is notified of the sacrifice Donald Trump made of his life.
Iran doesn't have to shoot down a single jet to win this war. Just move military hardware into caves. Sacrifice civilian infrastructure as the only viable bombing target. Wait it out until American domestic pressure from perceived war crimes ends the war. They can't afford to fight a land war or garrison over the entire country.
The fact that Israel has leveled much of the 140 square miles of gaza over the past 3 years and still fails to remove Hamas from power. No chance against 636,372 square miles and 93 million people. Worse odds than Vietnam. There isn't even a defined victory condition.
It's even worse if you consider what rational options the mullahs have. Yes, they are a murderous dictatorship and enemies of US - no question about that. But they did nothing to provoke this particular attack and they still got bombed.
Backing off without first inflicting severe pain is just not an option in this situation. It would be an invitation to get bombed at will.
> Sacrifice civilian infrastructure as the only viable bombing target.
I'm imagining the air crew going "Huh, there are no clear actual targets to bomb. Hey, Cleetus, command won't be happy about us not bombing anything at all, retarget on that school over there, let's get this over with and go home."
They are thinking on a longer timeline than a month. They kept some anti-air missiles in reserve for this phase of the war, where they aren't trying to defend Iran's airspace. They just need to hide and wait for opportunities to occasionally hurt the US, Israel and the other Gulf states.
1. Iran was retarded and didn't preemptively strike US staging who had local overmatch and first mover advantage. Nothing to do but weather hits, chip away at regional basing and wait until US+Israel operation tempo goes down. Can't sustain surge sorties forever, especially with regional logistics wrecked. US pilots tired now, on stims, making mistakes.
2. Iran not remain retarded, was hide and bide, waited for US to get complement, gathering data / building tactics to squeeze out surface-air without getting glassed. Regardless, Iranian capability seems much less degraded than claimed. Who knows how many of the 20k+ targets hit was basically just drawing down highend munition inventory, which now forces flying closer on lower end munitions.
At the end of the day, Iranian mosaic forces are chilling in underground bunkers waiting for US+co to make mistakes. Consider Iraq, a much smaller country by every metric ate 5x more sorties from more carriers and sustained regional air campaign and fell because they hedged on centralized IADs. Granted most Iranian hits are precision munitions (more efficient per sortie), but we simply should not expect Iran doctrine built on distributed survivability to be remotely defeated relative to effort expended.
Air defense is not static. Even fixed launchers can be moved, and reacting to how your enemy is operating is an important part of air defense tactics. The famous F-117 shootdown happened because the air defense operators carefully planned around how the US was using its aircraft. If most Iranian air defenses were destroyed in the first few days, it'd make more sense for them to hold whatever was still available for the sort of situation where they had much higher chances of scoring a kill than just throwing it out there to get destroyed immediately and accomplish nothing.
If you want a real explanation, this is how defensive wars against an overwhelming opponent are fought. Iran knows that they can't build an iron-clad air defense perimeter, there still isn't a reliable answer against stealth aircraft and cruise missiles. They never had a chance of shooting down every plane that enters their airspace, and that isn't their goal.
Instead, they will fight this war by absorbing blow after blow, hiding their capabilities and striking back when it is advantageous.
All Iran needs to do to win is:
1) Outlast the US air campaign - note this only requires protecting enough of their defensive capabilities to remain difficult. It does not require shooting down every US aircraft that enters their borders. It does not require shooting down most aircraft that enter their borders.
2) Prevent free shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
That's it. They just need to apply economic pain as domestic and international opposition to the unprovoked attack grows.
I just looked it up. Those are turboprop (slower) but have a high ceiling of 50k feet. So Iran did have something better than stingers left. Maybe they just got lucky this time.
I didn't downvote, but your post sounds like you're implying some kind of tomfoolery, deception, or other hidden reasons. There are very likely none, it just takes time to adapt to a specific enemy, probability slowly increases while you get more attempts, and then after some time (t) the first shootdown is "properly" successful. And note how this was preceded by that half-successful shootdown where the plane made an emergency landing. And they shot down drones.
You sound like they roll an antiaircraft cannon out of the hangar and immediately successfully down a plane. That's not how that works. The AA was probably there from the beginning, just not successful.
We don't know what downed it yet, so it's hard to say. Iran is hiding and rationing their offensive munitions, we know that, so it's not surprising when the number of drone and missile attacks spikes after weeks of bombing. That's part of the plan. But the ability to take down a US fighter jet is not something they are rationing- it's likely at the edge of their capabilities and they got lucky. If they could be knocking down more, they would be.
Probably because their air defenses were too busy getting shot to shit.
There was a lot of Iranian AA losses in the opening phase of this war. US went town on anything that looked remotely like AA to secure the sky for themselves, and operated with ever-increasing impunity since.
Between advanced ISR, stealth, ECM and stand-off munitions, US has a lot of tools to make the lives of AA crews into a living hell.
It's unclear what happened here exactly. It might be a "straggler" SAM that wasn't destroyed in the strikes, might be US going too aggressively and putting reduced survivability airframes within an area that wasn't sufficiently cleared, might be an Iranian adaptation not unlike the "SAMbushes" seen in Ukraine.
I don't see it as a sign that Iran is somehow reconstituting its AA capabilities though.
Military strategists long warned that air campaigns flying over South Iran would have to contend with passively-guided SAMs and MANPADS on their way to Tehran. There are hundreds of road-accessible caves in the Zagros range that cannot be inspected via satellite. They inherently present a risk to overflights unless they are occupied on the ground first; it's common knowledge why Kohgiluyeh and Fars are so dangerous.
On this subject, they won't, because they mostly want this war too. Most members of both parties have taken AIPAC money. Most of them are also glad somebody is finally attacking Iran, especially without them having to sign their name on a use of force authorization or declaration of war.
Plot twist: The Dem leadership (Schumer, Jeffries, et al) also supports this.
That's why their main complaints have been procedural: "Why didn't you come to us first with your plans?". And why they slow-walked the vote on a war powers act.
The dems have no power against a unified GOP front, and they already look pretty weak on issues like this. They are trying to figure out how they can mollify their base while attracting enough centrist voters to retake Congress later this year. I don't care for the dem leadership but I feel a little sympathy for them. Catering to their loudest supporters is a pretty big reason they are the minority party right now.
> Catering to their loudest supporters is a pretty big reason they are the minority party right now.
By "loudest supporters" - are you referring to the donor class? Money is speech, after all.
The Democratic party has an identity crisis: it's failing to balance special interests and their traditional constituents - post-Goldwater/ southern-strategy. Instead of activating their base, they seem to be courting the political center that has been hollowed out by Maga and polarization, incidentally matching the desires of their donors who abhor any kind of populist leftist politics, including anything in instituted by FDR.
> By "loudest supporters" - are you referring to the donor class?
No, I don't believe so. I'm talking about the people who convinced them that culture wars were the right way to do battle with a conservative opponent despite that being automatically an uphill battle. The dem leadership focused on issues that polled well with a small group of loud people on a crusade, and largely ignored bread & butter issues that resonate with people less politically inclined. But centrist votes are counted just the same as partisan ones, and more plentiful.
Where trumps Republican Party have spent the last 10 years not catering from their loudest supporters?
Either the majority of Americans want this war, in which case the Dems have to be quiet, or they don’t, in which case the dems should be making it the number one issue.
Sadly I suspect the answer is not in the side of the Hollywood version of post ww2 America.
Now is the time to insert the “are we the bad guys” meme.
Approximately never. We are in a situation where Congress is unusually beholden to their constituents for once, because those people care deeply about Donald Trump. So this is what they want; not just the war, but everything -- they want all the power to rest with Trump.
> The war has record low approval ratings, even among Trump's base.
The war does, Trump does not. He maintains very strong support among the base, and that is the part keeping the GOP politicians in line. It is why some of them just resign instead of enduring the threats from his supporters.
If everyone is somewhat implicated in Epstein files, then everyone is afraid of Putin / Netanyahu who might pull up the files. It's funny how they are so scared to face justice, but also interesting how American law enforcement became so corrupt.
There's a very strange problem with this whole thing where, of course, whatever these powerful people have done behind closed doors that is illegal and exploitative and harmful is terrible and they should be put to justice.
However, if the direction of the country is being seriously altered via blackmail, IMO that is many orders of magnitude worse than anything they could have done. Like we are currently bombing yet another middle eastern country for no clear reason.
I would personally be open to some kind of Epstein jubilee where we absolve everyone involved in order to nullify the blackmail.
Like it's not great, it's terrible for the victims and for justice, but at the moment we are getting terrible from both ends, could we at least reduce it to one end?
We always talk about what these powerful people "have done", as if it's all over. Surely Epstein's death did not bring about the end of billionaire sex trafficking? Someone stepped in. These guys are still raping people on private planes and private islands
But why are we focusing on the raping, and not on what the American government is doing that has no clear rational motive without “Israel has captured the government” and a very clear rational motive with “Israel has captured the government”?
If the American government continues to perform actions that are blatantly against the interests of America and Americans, the impact of that on Americans is going to be (and may be already) massively massively worse than the person to person level crimes we are focusing on.
Does it just feel so bad thinking about it that a lot of people have a hard time even going there mentally? I really don’t get it.
If true I can’t imagine it will play well even among Trumps base. When was the last time a US fighter jet was shot down? 1999 during the intervention in the balkans?
Honestly it seems like the only thing Trump's base cares about is the price of gasoline. They don't give a shit about what's actually happening in the war.
Let’s see. Most people underestimate how strong Trump’s approval is with his base. Before you read further, ask yourself what Trump’s approval rating is with his base.
> Approval of Trump among Republicans has slipped to a second-term low of 84%, down from 92% last March. At the same time, an all-time high 16% of Republicans disapprove. This shift can be attributed, at least in part, to declining support among non-MAGA Republicans, as approval dropped 11 points in the last year among this group (70% in March 2025 to 59% today). Virtually all MAGA Republicans continue to approve of Trump, with 98% approving a year ago and 97% now.
Trump leads a personality cult not a traditional political base. There are some who have stopped supporting him because they thought he aligned with their political views but 35% or so of the US population still support him despite his 180 degree turn on two of his foundational election promises: to keep the US out of foreign wars and to bust open an international pedophile ring run for elites.
If the pilots are recovered we probably won't hear about it from either side for hours. Iran will want to get them a mile underground before they send out the B-rolls. If recovered by the US, they will want them out of theater before anyone knows better so they can't be targeted.
Via the NYT:
Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament and a key government figure overseeing the war, took to social media to mock the Trump administration as U.S. forces searched for a missing American airman from a downed fighter plane. “This brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from ‘regime change’ to ‘Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?’”he said in a post on X. “Wow. What incredible progress. Absolute geniuses.”
I'm an American and a patriot and the way I want to see this end is with Pete Hegseth and others from this nightmare administration delivered to the Hague, in chains.
This is the dumbest, most pointless military conflict in American history. There is nothing plausible to win, but we can conceivably lose everything. A pyric victory is among the most favorable outcomes. We are led by corrupt imbeciles. I can only hope the outcome includes regime change for the U.S.
> A particular concern, they said, was threats made by the US to Iran’s energy infrastructure. “International law protects from attack objects indispensable to the survival of civilians, and the attacks threatened by Trump, if implemented, could entail war crimes.”
I am not going to lie, I am beyond disgusted at the United States.
And the "it's Trump" card doesn't work, Americans defend this travesty of an old non functioning constitution.
It was a pretty solid setup when everyone wanted it to succeed. We will get a few more safeties put in place via statute after this experience, of course, but what really needs to happen is meaningful improvements to the Constitution. We know enough now to spot plenty of weak points which could be addressed. When I'm feeling particularly spicy I think a Constitutional Convention would be seriously awesome. But then I think of the possible outcomes and I'm not so sure. Were the majority of the population acting in good faith, I'd feel better about it.
I thought I made it clear that I don't generally think that would be a good idea. I think it would be interesting, which I sometimes think might be worth the risk. Certainly discontent with the status quo is a broadly held sentiment not at all unique to the current right wing.
Let's hope Iran doesn't follow the "no quarter, no mercy" policy laid out by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. For the unfamiliar, it means executing survivors and surrendering combatants. Aka war crimes.
Iran just killed ~40,000 of their own people in January, the biggest single event massacre since the Holocaust. I don't think Pete Hegseth is going to move the needle in their ideology.
How is this whataboutism? Saying that the idiot in charge of the DoD isn't going to change a long standing hostility towards human life from the Iranian regime is whataboutism in what way? Please indulge me. You're genuinely expecting me and everyone to just forget the 70s hostage crisis, the state sponsorship of terrorism, and the recent slaughter of 40k civilians and with a straight face say if they kill a US soldier it's because of...Pete Hegseth at a press conference? I swear this board has turned into a BlueSky alternative if anything that involves anything with the US comes up.
You don't have to forget anything, just contextualize it. The United States already tried installing a puppet government in Iran and it went terribly. They were so unpopular that the CIA set up state-sponsored torture rings to quell dissent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAVAK
Going back to the old way foments instability that jeopardizes the Gulf States, with precisely zero upsides to anyone that isn't a net oil exporter (namely, the US and Russia). If this was about protecting against genocide then the US would be invading Sudan and Gaza, not Iran. The death toll has nothing to do with how American leadership sees this conflict, and it has been like that for over half of a century.
Iran had one of the largest and most extensive integrated air defense networks in the world. US has been bombing Iran from day 0 of this war. Those are the air losses they took.
Being able to counter air defenses to this degree and operate with this level of impunity is a major SEAD/DEAD win.
It's pretty normal for planes to go down in a war. They've flown 5000+ sorties, it's a pretty huge accomplishment this is the first one lost over Iran. Especially considering all of the last decade's speculation about how tough attacking Iran would be.
You'll never be able to fully suppress all of their manpads. Even if you destroy the bulk of their air defence network.
2-3 a week is not great for the greatest military, more than half attributable to Iran.
With 300+ US casualties, that's ~10/day, a fatality every ~2 days. No boots on the ground (that we know of, sure there are some elite ops in the country)
You must not have read about all the hype Iran had before the war and before 2024 especially. The US airforce/navy has performed extremely well. In Desert Storm they lost far, far more aircraft and that only lasted 1.5 months (Iran is 1 month in). Even the ballistic missile strikes against Israel haven't been exceptionally notable, considering Iran is going full-bore and has thousands of ballistic/cruise missiles and drones. They should be able to do much more to regional military bases.
The main issues with this war are strategic questions and people mocking the presidents inconsistent communication. But otherwise for an air campaign this has been about as good as one could expect - within the limits of what an air-only campaign can do.
Iran's regime is an radical Islamic theocracy that has "Death to America" as a matter of policy, supports every other radical Islamist militia in the entire Middle East region, and tried to build nukes after being told, repeatedly, not to build nukes.
I don't know about you, but the idea of a radical Islamic theocracy and a well known source of Middle East instability having nukes doesn't sit well with me. As far as reasons to invade countries go, this alone would make for a damn good one.
Here's an idea I heard put forth because Iran is asking for a great power guarantee against future incidents like this.
Have China the guarantor, build military bases, and put them under their nuclear deterrence umbrella. Iran can be assured they won't be bombed, the West can be assured they won't have nukes. (in theory, I largely assume the CCP will not aid in their construction or let them have nukes under such an arrangement).
Thing is, all the little countries are looking at what happened to Ukraine (who gave up their nukes), Iran (who has not gotten them yet), and North Korea (who has them). Their looking and thinking, if I had nukes, I probably wouldn't be the target of regime change.
If a button existed that magically turned Iran into a secular-ish democracy(-ish) like Turkey then, yes, I would expect the President of the United States to press it.
No such button exists, and it's increasingly clear that this war will leave the entire world far worse off while further entrenching the current Iranian regime.
"Far worse off" how exactly? "Entrenching" how exactly?
Iranian regime wasn't doing that well even when it wasn't actively bombed. And "rally around the flag" only goes so far in a country that has been killing protestors by the thousands.
I don't see this war ruining Iran's regime overnight as is. But if it comes up with a sustained effort to pressure Iran, or a ground operation to topple the regime directly, it well might.
> "Far worse off" how exactly? "Entrenching" how exactly?
Hardliners and the IRGC have significantly more power than before, and however few moderates that remain have much less political capital and are at much greater risk of being purged.
If Iran doesn't win significant concessions tayt the sucker-punch attacks will never be repeated again[1], they are guaranteed to sprint towards the minimum viable nuke.
1. Bibi will refuse, obviously, and Americas capacity to leash him is questionable.
the big difference with Iran is the strait of hormuz. It doesn't matter how "well" it goes if it stays closed and torpedos the global economy
> inconsistent communication
I feel like "inconsistent communication" is putting it lightly, with trump going back and forth between "we won", "we'll take the oil", and "whatever we'll leave" often within the same day.
Does it matter? US is a net oil exporter, and not exactly starved for Gulf oil. And every day the strait stays closed is a day other Gulf states have a very pressing reason to conflict with Iran. As if Iran didn't give enough of those to the entire region.
Iran isn't somehow able to exert infinite economic pressure forever. They can play the chaos monkey, but how much does it helps them? Threats only work on those who cave in to them.
It does matter because oil is a global commodity, the fact that the US is a net exporter doesn't stop the prices from going up and other follow-on impacts to the global economy.
It means that US isn't hit the hardest. There's no "we have to end the war this month or our country grinds down to a halt". Just the slow grind of economic pressure that, I remind, affects more countries than just the US - and many of them far stronger.
US leadership can just say "this isn't enough to deter us" and proceed with the rest of the war however they want.
The Iranian regime is betting that they can outlast Donald Trump on this front. Trump's War is very unpopular and they don't care what the Iranian people think or suffer through.
Holy shit, thats really saying the quiet part loud.
“Does it matter?”
Yes, Who cares about the rest of the world?
Nations shutting down, businesses shutting down, and all because the elected leader of America got involved in a war to avoid accusations of pedophilia.
And lest we forget, this is the nuclear superpower. Thank god there is no conspiracy theory about Nukes being useful so far. I have more faith that the administration will bend towards conspiracies than away from them.
US military is performing quite well. US political leadership is the questionable part of this war.
It would sure be nice if White House gave a reason to believe that there's an actual plan for dismantling Iran's regime, or Iran's influence, that goes beyond "wing it".
I wouldn't draw comparisons to Desert Storm, 36 years ago and a differently composed US military, along with all the ISR advancements since then.
> They should be able to do much more to regional military bases.
Could, they are not going all out, but they do keep striking gulf states on the regular
> people mocking the presidents inconsistent communication.
Asking questions, we the people deserve some clarity instead of half a dozen changing reasons and being told we already won, but still need to win, and that we'll be done in a few weeks a few times now. We the people have to pay for this, we deserve answers, especially what's the plan for when the shooting stops?
Israel, or at least Bibi, seems to be the only one who is very clear about the goals and intentions.
> They should be able to do much more to regional military bases.
I don't see why they couldn't. The obvious strategy for Iran right now is to use cluster munitions and Shahed waves to expend as many interceptors as possible before sending in the high-throw unitary (or nuclear) warheads. It makes sense that we saw the smaller MRBMs first since they're the cheapest minimum-viable threat.
> this has been about as good as one could expect - within the limits of what an air-only campaign can do.
We're deep in the missile age. Air campaigns like this sucked during the Scud hunt, and it triple-sucks now that America has to contend with drone warfare. The limits of an air-only campaign have been constricting for the past three decades, and the death toll can only climb if the air war fails.
The only ones I'm seeing act like there should be no expectation of losing aircraft in a war are social media figures who always want to bloviate about something.
Read the section titled 'The Gamble' if you want that opinion, but the tl;dr is that our 2025 strike against Iran ceded our ability to claim dis-involvement in Israeli strikes, and so Israel was able to draw us into this war whether we wanted to or not.
> The American people voted for this, they wanted this.
Less than half of the people who bothered to vote actually picked the guy.
I even believe that a non-trivial number of those folks actually believed their own rhetoric about America first, no wars, etc. But their commitment to one man is stronger than their commitment to ideals, and so here we are.
While criticism of Israel should not be conflated with antisemitism, the concept of a "Zionist Occupation Government," without question, originates from neo-nazi conspiracy theories. Take that shit elsewhere.
At this point Israelis (and the bulk of Israel-backing jews around the world) only have themselves to blame for the resurgence of neo-nazi conspiracy theories.
>antisemitic conspiracy theory that claims that Jews secretly control the U.S. government.
Anyway, this just seems to be fact, and not a conspiracy theory? Besides for the "secretly" part.
dang moved the comment from those threads to here, so the discussion is empty. I'm not sure if the press coverage has more info. (My guess is that they are quite similar.)
Large, sophisticated, expensive war assets like fighters and carriers are brilliant against literally cavemen like we've been going around fighting lately, but are quite useless against enemies with even slight technological progress. If this conflict continues we're going to see a lot of US assets in fragments.
When the first-tier hostile leadership structure was eliminated in the first day of the war, and only after a month do the surviving enemies finally manage to damage a plane so severely that it can't return to a friendly base to land, is "quite useless" an adequate and accurate description of the technology used to prosecute that war?
It's useful in saving the pilot's life. With less advanced tecnologies, more pilots would have been shoot down. It's useful in targeted attacks, but they have proved themself uneffective (at least for now) as the new leadership is alined with the objective of the replaced one. It's close to useless when it comes to making the war cost-effective, which start being a relevant metric when the conflict start lasting too long. Of course the US has a bigger economy, so all the news about cheaper systems damaging or destroying quite expensive ones may still lead to a US victory, but a costly one for sure
When you decapitate a well organised military, all you achieve is installing a new enemy you know little about you can’t predict their actions and that now know they are fighting for their own survival.
Whether you have specific leadership or not doesn't matter much to (a) having to adapt to the enemy and learn what works, and (b) probability just doing its thing, more chances and so on, and (c) US leadership descending the oceans of stupidity all the way to the Mariana trench.
It reminds me of a Age of Empires campaign I played at a LAN from a long while back, where the game went on for 20 hours and ended in a stalemate between an atomic age player and a very primitive age player. The atomic player had total control of the map, they were carpet bombing the entire thing with nuclear weapons. But they could only create them so fast while the primitive player was running around on horses, just surviving enough to prevent the other player from winning. The only reason the game ended was because I tripped over the power cord to one of the computers.
Weapons are designed with an opponent in mind, and guarded against the expected threat models from that opponent. Everything breaks down when the opponent does not what you want them to.
It's only "high tech" to the aforementioned cavemen. To everyone else it's a 707 you can't even get spare tires for any more, equipped with some truly obsolete technology aboard. I mean it has a mechanical waveguide for crying out loud.
I don't even know why I clicked on this thread. It's like reading a thread on economics or other topics where we tech folk think our success at pushing around bits makes us instant expert on anything we ponder.
Most of the responses here are either demonstrating a heavy bias, an utter lack of background knowledge or both.
An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.
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