"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (63 Viewers)

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I've just seen a report that the US has temporarily removed sanctions, until April 11, from Russian oil that is already at sea. This has been done in a bid to halt the global increase in oil prices due to the Iran situation.

Frankly, I'm appalled….not just at the decision but at the level of strategic incompetence on display.

Attacking Iran with no achievable desired end-state was crass. Yes, you can bomb the hell out of Iran's fixed infrastructure. However, Iran has LOTS of ways to mess with the world's oil supplies. Have we learned no lessons from Iraq and previous forays into the Gulf?
If anyone thinks that it will end on April 11th, or that the Straits will be open on the 11th, they are kidding themselves. Iran has no serious need to open them and every reason to keep them closed.
It takes time to restart a refinery and a number of them are being damaged, repair will take time.

I was remined of a comment that Bomber Harris made in WW2, 'People say that you cannot win a war by bombing them. I said we don't know, no one has tried it'. Well he certainly tried it and the result as we all know was that it couldn't be done. It took boots on the ground.
 
If anyone thinks that it will end on April 11th, or that the Straits will be open on the 11th, they are kidding themselves. Iran has no serious need to open them and every reason to keep them closed.
It takes time to restart a refinery and a number of them are being damaged, repair will take time.

I was remined of a comment that Bomber Harris made in WW2, 'People say that you cannot win a war by bombing them. I said we don't know, no one has tried it'. Well he certainly tried it and the result as we all know was that it couldn't be done. It took boots on the ground.
Please recall August 6 and 9 1945. No boots on the ground.

Iran obviously still has all the 60% enriched bomb material. China is in crisis mode with 20% of its oil supply cut off. Mullah leadership being decapitated but IRG basically intact, but tactical footprint seriously degraded. China may bypass Mullahs and strike a deal with IRG to open up the shipping lanes. I have no idea what China can offer short of armed confrontation with the US. The US OTOH can offer to supply China (at prevailing rates) oil and gas as replacement for Iran deep (but unavailable) discounts.

Enough materiel for 10 nukes could probably yield 2-3x materiel for dirty bomb that can be smuggled across any border - but that threat always existed

If I had to make a guess the IRG will try to negotiate a deal, bypassing Mullah control, in order to stay in power. IRG has to balance continued resistance to complete loss of revenue sources to sustain the org while stifling civilian uprising. It doesn't get better for them as time moves on.

The only possible conditions which should be acceptable for cease fire should be to surrender all enriched nuclear fuel, all centrifuges, complete and unfettered access by UN, Israel and US anywhere in Iran at any time. The US in turn would have to agree with non-interference of their domestic affairs, remove the sanctions.

One can hope.
 
Please recall August 6 and 9 1945. No boots on the ground.

There's a few million soldiers and Marines who fought and died in that theater whose children and grandchildren would take angry issue with this. You're right in the very shallowest sense -- but only by ignoring the years of sacrifices that went into putting those planes into position, and putting Japan into the place of being ready to surrender.

And then it took hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground afterwards to enforce our peace.

That none of the fighting (except Iwo) took place in Japan proper does not mean ground troops were not needed.
 
There's a few million soldiers and Marines who fought and died in that theater whose children and grandchildren would take angry issue with this. You're right in the very shallowest sense -- but only by ignoring the years of sacrifices that went into putting those planes into position, and putting Japan into the place of being ready to surrender.

And then it took hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground afterwards to enforce our peace.

That none of the fighting (except Iwo) took place in Japan proper does not mean ground troops were not needed.
You over reacted.

My point was simply that an invasion of 1M+ ground troops, and hundreds of thousands More dead when boots touched Japan - were a.) not required for Japan to capitulate, and b.) were delivered by airpower by one B-29 each. It was a simple reply to Glider's closing comment that wars can not be won from the air. If you argue otherwise, well fine, have it it - but my comments were not to denigrate the land and sea and air battle losses before the Bombs were dropped.

While Japan 'was in a place of being ready', there was fierce debate whether to surrender of fight to the death - even after Hiroshima. There weren't any illusions about whether the war could result in victory - but the desire to take as many as possible in the race to annihilation was real. I lived in Japan from 1947 thru 1951 Johnson AFB, and Tokyo. As a youngster I don't claim to have great knowledge of the culture but I did live as a Gaijin in a culture that respected America for obvious reasons but not at the stage of embracing the 'conquerors' - young or old. Thank God that MacArthur WAS respected, otherwise Japan could have drained into in multi political schism combined with guerilla warfare.

You could draw an analogy with current situation in Iran. Airpower will either bring the IRG to negotiate or some internal conflict will arise to attempt to facilitate removing the Republican Guard - but it won't be US troops on the ground. Nor will Israel go in on the ground without us.
 
Please recall August 6 and 9 1945. No boots on the ground.

Iran obviously still has all the 60% enriched bomb material. China is in crisis mode with 20% of its oil supply cut off. Mullah leadership being decapitated but IRG basically intact, but tactical footprint seriously degraded. China may bypass Mullahs and strike a deal with IRG to open up the shipping lanes. I have no idea what China can offer short of armed confrontation with the US. The US OTOH can offer to supply China (at prevailing rates) oil and gas as replacement for Iran deep (but unavailable) discounts.

Enough materiel for 10 nukes could probably yield 2-3x materiel for dirty bomb that can be smuggled across any border - but that threat always existed

If I had to make a guess the IRG will try to negotiate a deal, bypassing Mullah control, in order to stay in power. IRG has to balance continued resistance to complete loss of revenue sources to sustain the org while stifling civilian uprising. It doesn't get better for them as time moves on.

The only possible conditions which should be acceptable for cease fire should be to surrender all enriched nuclear fuel, all centrifuges, complete and unfettered access by UN, Israel and US anywhere in Iran at any time. The US in turn would have to agree with non-interference of their domestic affairs, remove the sanctions.

One can hope.
Of course technically you are correct, Japan did surrender after the dropping of the Atomic bomb. However, both Germany and Japan suffered the most hideous pounding and I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. Even then, Germany didn't surrender until they were overrun by ground forces and Japan were finished. There are good grounds for believing that Japan could be starved into surrender with or without the nuclear bombs.

There is no way the world would let the USA and Israel batter Iran as Germany and Japan were hit, besides it would take too long.

All Iran has to do is keep the shipping lanes closed for a couple of months, the economic damage would be substantial and the impact on public pressure in the world, in the USA and Israel overwhelming. Iran doesn't need to get involved with dirty bombs although that is a realistic option for them.

N Vietnam can also be added to the list of countries that were seriously hit by airpower and didn't fold. They were brought to the negotiating table when the coast was mined and starvation became a threat, but the USA and Israel don't have that length of time.
 
Report regarding the Hungarian "Bank robbery". Lots of question regarding why it was done and its (il)legality.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZtackN4baE

Here's a hint why: Parliamentary elections are to be held in Hungary on 12 April 2026 and according to many reports Orbán is likely to lose power...if the elections are allowed to happen without interference.
 
You over reacted.

My point was simply that an invasion of 1M+ ground troops, and hundreds of thousands More dead when boots touched Japan - were a.) not required for Japan to capitulate, and b.) were delivered by airpower by one B-29 each. It was a simple reply to Glider's closing comment that wars can not be won from the air.

If you think those planes won that war by themselves, I don't know what to tell you. Those bombs may have spared us further ground casualties, and the need to invade Japan directly, but I can guarantee you the bombs were only one of several factors involved in the surrender decision. This has been thoroughly documented by Toland and, more recently, Richard Frank.

If I "overreacted", it's only in service to historical accuracy, which I deem far too important to let such an inaccurate statement go unanswered.
 

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