Iran Tests Naval Cruise Missile During War Games 547
Hugh Pickens writes "Iran says it has successfully test fired a cruise missile during naval exercises near the Strait of Hormuz, and the surface-to-sea missile, known as the Qader, struck its targets with precision and destroyed them. Iran had previously announced that it intended to test a missile during the exercises, raising fears that it might try to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for tougher international sanctions. The Qader missile is said to be capable of striking warships at a range of about 125 miles, a distance that would include some American forces in the Gulf region as Iran is about 140 miles at its nearest point from Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based. Analysts say Iran's increasingly strident rhetoric, which has pushed oil prices higher, is aimed at sending a message to the West that it should think twice about the economic cost of putting further pressure on Tehran. 'No order has been given for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,' Iran's state television quoted navy chief Habibollah Sayyari as saying. 'But we are prepared for various scenarios.'"
Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Funny)
There was no good naval battle on CNN in a while. If it happens, it will be really exciting 1 hour, because that's how long it will take to destroy all Iran's fleet.
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There was no good naval battle on CNN in a while. If it happens, it will be really exciting 1 hour, because that's how long it will take to destroy all Iran's fleet.
You should read about the wargames that someone mentioned in another post.
Supposedly it went so badly for the good guys that the referees stopped the game before it was over.
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Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Interesting)
The same story was making the rounds in 2002 about war games with Iraq as the defender, with a similar outcome - allied forces couldn't even gain a foothold until Iraqi forces were ordered to withdraw by the moderators.
Pretty sure that story wasn't true, and I'm pretty sure the updated version isn't either.
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a pretty iffy tactic at best.
And I feel you would be very mistaken if you think that nothing was learned from that.
Here is one way that it would probably go down IHMO.
The US fleet except would stand off outside of cruise missile range except for forward deployed Submarines.
F-18 and land based F-16s, F15s, and F-22s would hunt any recon aircraft that are sent out to locate the fleet. While ATACMS are moved to the coast for counter battery fire on SAM sites and land based cruise missiles.
Any ships of the Iranian navy that stay in port will be targeted with ATACMS and Tomahawks. Any ships at see will be hit by Harpoons. B-2s, B-1s, and B-52s will take out command and control, air fields, and radar sites using stand off weapons. While P-3s, Seahawks, and Seawolf class subs hunt the Kilo class subs and 688is and Ohio Class SGNs get into position for Tomahawk strikes.
Once Iran's sensors are degraded the US will us helicopters to mimic the fleet. They will fly low and slow and us radar repeaters to look like large ships. When the Iranians fire at those targets their radars will be taken out by HARMS and the missile sites by JDAMS, JSOWS or ATACMs depending on the location.
At that point the fleet can move closer and any remaining anti ship missiles should be taken care of by the CGs and DDGs escorting the carriers.
The Iranian fleet will be gone, The Iranian air force will be gone. The on threat left will be from their mobile ballistic missiles so we will see how well SM-3s and PAC-3s really work but if they do work as well as expected and if the launchers are within range of ATACMS for counter battery fire then the Iranian air and navy forces will no longer be a threat and any land forces they use to attack with will be vulnerable to air strikes.
I left out the UAVs which will be used to watch for and take out any small boats and to map radar sites for strikes.
And that is just using publicly available data.
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You seem to be assuming that the Iranian's don't have any high tech weapons and ECM, but clearly that isn't true. They managed to steal one of your drones only recently using purely technical means. They have satellites too you know.
Their air force has some fairly modern gear too and you brush over some major threats like their sub fleet which you seem to assume, again wrongly, will be effortless for your navy to destroy. Even Iraq's really old and crappy SAM sites took out a few of your jets so what makes
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:4, Interesting)
"You seem to be assuming that the Iranian's don't have any high tech weapons and ECM, but clearly that isn't true. They managed to steal one of your drones only recently using purely technical means. They have satellites too you know."
They claim that they did. Since the GPS signal that the drone uses is encrypted it is unlikely that they "brought it down" It is far more likely that it malfunctioned.
I do not think you know what ECM is or how it works. You have two types of ECM.
1. Noise jammers.
2. Deception jammers.
Both involve putting out EM. Guess what? The AIM 120 has a home on jammer mode as does the HARM. Jammers without air superiority have a very short life span. You use ECM when you are attacking to cover your own aircraft. It will not be a significant issue for the Western forces.
The US fleet can stand off in the Indian Ocean with out any issues until they degrade the Iranian defenses.
There SAM systems are based on the SA-5, SA-2, and the old US Hawk systems. All of them are 1960s/70s technology. They have had some upgrades but not state of the art. They claim that they have the SA-300 system but Russia says they didn't sell those to Iran. So that is a bit of a question mark. Sure we my take some losses but their SAM system isn't better than what Iraq had during the first gulf war.
As to their subs the only ones that are a real threat are the Kilos. Those are a threat but they have to snorkel to recharge their batteries and are slow. If they try to go in to the Indian Ocean they will be very vulnerable to the Seawolf class subs the US will have forward deployed. If they stay in shallow water they will be vulnerable to P-3s and Seahawks. If they stay in port they will get hit by ATACMS and Tomahawks.
A threat but not an insurmontable one.
Wild Weasel missions (Score:3)
Shotgun not flying one of the helicopters "mimicking" the US fleet.
Believe it or not there have been sufficient volunteers for such flights in the past.
"The Wild Weasel mission was to precede strike flights, sanitizing the target area of radar guided Surface-to-Air missile threats, leaving the threat area last, which sometimes would result in 3.5-hour missions, before returning to base. This was achieved by turning toward the air defense site in a threatening manner, firing radar homing missiles at the site, or visually locating the site to dive bomb it. These tactics w
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Insightful)
While all this is true, the interpretation of the events you are getting out of it is misleading.
The guy did the equivalent of the "zerg rush". Essentially, by skirting way up against the "rules envelope" he exploited a spike in effectiveness. It was not realistic, because Iran building a bunch of boats like that is sure to pop up on intelligence somewhere, if they even HAVE that many boats. It's not like they can go down to Haji's Marine and order 160 Yamaha outboard motors at a moment's notice. Plus, there's a whole other monkey barrel of complications and details they'd have to overcome. Like, so you need a missile, but now you need more electrical power on that little 21 foot boat, and it makes it top heavy, and , and, and.... If anything, they'd end up destroying half their missile effectiveness because they lose the fucking things off the end of the dock. What Iran DOES have, is a weak attempt at a modern navy with the same sorts of procurement problems (they buy used Russian, North Korean, and Chinese stuff and refit the hulls, just now, they are finally getting around to learning how to build sub hulls).
The game was re-started because, yes, there is a power spike there at one end of the envelope, but that's not what the game is about and since it's not a free-form unsupervised game between 14 year-olds on the internet, but rather done to actually learn something useful. So the game was re-done to fit the context of the information they were after. Yes, ha-ha clever neato nerd beat the big guys. Now that is old news, guess what, the big guys got answers for your dumb little boat scenario now. Come up with something new.
YOU should go re-read the events, and then go read a bunch more about the overall security and war-making capabilities of the two countries, and realize there's very little Iran can do that we won't see first. (Remember the recent drone incidents?)
Iran's navy is basically subs and missile boats. (Score:3)
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?129340-Iranian-navy-reveals-new-missile-boat-class [militaryphotos.net]
http://hello.news352.lu/edito-64397-iran-starts-producing-missile-launching-assault-boats.html [news352.lu]
Basically speedboats with missiles. Looks like they've been churning them out too.
Didn't you even Google "iran missile boat" before posting?
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US carriers are not expendable.
On the contrary. The Navy has 5 carriers which were built before 1990. I am sure that they would be not displeased in private to lose one of those to enemy action. The public backlash would include funding for a dozen or so new carriers to replace it.
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Interesting)
Nor is Iran technologically in the dark ages, having its own robotics industry and technology from China and Russia.
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Interesting)
100+ missile boats can send out a lot of missiles before they're sunk.
Also, IIRC an estimated 900,000 Iranians died resisting Saddam Hussein's grab of a useless strip of land along the border. Anyone who thinks they'll just run away and hide is a fool.
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Informative)
So, if we are patient, the rate limiting feature of the war will be the speed with which we can deliver advanced munitions to the battlefield as we use them, highly efficiently, to eliminate Iran's assets one by one and defeat them in detail with minimal risk. There is little chance that we will win completely untouched, but if Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Iraq are any measure -- and I think that they are -- it will be yet another case of our absolutely overwhelming military technology systematically and ruthlessly destroying a large but ill-equipped armed force. In the air we will be -- briefly -- challenged by our own F14 tomcat, plus a mish-mosh of soviet jets left over from the cold war.
The "left over" bit will be the main point of interest. The technology represented in their air force is somewhat aged. They have around 108 air superiority jets, all d
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Lunatics in Teheran are bound to try their new toys...
I might have missed it and and couldn't find anything on Google about it either but if you can educate me here a bit that would be greatly appreciated. The questions are:
How many foreign countries has the "Lunatics in Tehran" invaded. How many times have they even threaten other countries by parking their carriers off of the coast of another country? How many bases do they have in foreign countries? Do you know of any country the lunatics in Tehran has bombed with Jet aircraft? How many pre-emptive
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Insightful)
Iran doesn't invade countries, they train and fund terrorists instead. Lebanon and Iraq are good examples
Essentially what we have right now is a problem because the US changed the balance of power the middle east when they invaded Iraq and now it's out of whack and Iran no longer has any real countering force. I'm betting the idea at this point is to pummel Iran into the dark ages and hope Turkey emerges as the new dominant power.
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I could be wrong, but I thought that Iran was one of those Terrorist sponsor states, that simply provide the material and resources of a state to individual groups, so that when these groups go and do something nefarious, Iran as a country can go "it wasn't me!"...
Anyway that's just the impression I got.
The idea I think is, if they got the bomb, that it would quickly accidentally fall into the "wrong hands", and be used.
Which would be unbelievable stupid, and no amount of arm waving or head shaking is going
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Insightful)
Nor is Iran technologically in the dark ages, having its own robotics industry and technology from China and Russia.
I'm sure China would be delighted to see us throw away a few trillion dollars on another war that won't gain us anything except bad PR. We can sell them some more of our assets to pay for it.
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I'm sure China would be delighted to see us throw away a few trillion dollars on another war that won't gain us anything except bad PR. We can sell them some more of our assets to pay for it.
China depends on oil shipping through the Straits as much as we do, if not more so. Guess again.
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One thing to remember, we have some US dollars purchasing other debts too. This is at a rate of nearly 89% of dollars purchased by others. Then, consider that our interest rates our low ( payback to the owners of the debt is small) and the currencies we purchase have high interest rates in comparison. It is a net loss for the US, but not nearly as much as the rhetoric about being owned by China can appear to be when presented in a vacuum.
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Everyone is paying for it except the oil companies, their profiting by it, it's called rising oil prices. Whilst the US dicks about with sanctions against Iran as a result of pressure from Israeli campaign contributors and of course multi-national oil companies, Iran strikes back by making empty noises further driving up oil prices.
Has not everyone learned their lesson by now, this has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and everything to do with Israeli land profiteers and Texas oil companies
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:4, Interesting)
If they piss us off enough, we'll simply wipe the country off the planet.
- yes, why don't USA just do that and set the precedent for wiping out countries from the face of the earth?
How many seconds, minutes, hours, days after that happens that the rest of the world realizes what it's dealing with in face of USA and stops dealing with USA / attacks USA in a fit of self preservation?
It's just basic math - if USA is attacked by Chinese and Russian (and whoever may join in) nuclear weapons, and US strikes back, the only question is how many more Chinese would survive out of the 1.5 Billion compared to US 0.33 Billion?
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The US is badass dude.
...and it only costs you 10% of your GDP. A bargain really. Especially those F22s.
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Informative)
...you dumb Eurotrash liberal droolers would get pissed, go ahead, have another sit in protest in a park ya whanker.
Does this add anything to your argument? I agree with what you said before, but that bit left me with the impression that you are unstable with an uninformed view of people who disagree with you.
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Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem I have with your warhawk nonsense is the idea that it's the United State's who should do something about it. We've already blown over a trillion dollars on two wars, and you want us to blow another trillion on Iran? You conservatives do all this whining about the deficit, but gloss over the fact that it's your precious defense spending that accounts for a third of non-discretionary spending every year and your precious interventionist actions overseas that add hundreds of billions of dollars on top of that. It's funny that Ron Paul would probably be solidly in the #1 spot in Iowa today if it weren't for the fact that Republicans can't accept a man who won't spend trillions for us to enter into another war all by ourselves.
Sure the world would cheer us taking on Iran. China will gladly put us deeper in debt to them to fund the war. NATO will probably join in, the same way they joined in for Libya--as cheerleaders on the sidelines, letting us spend ourselves to death acting as their military while they spend the savings on universal healthcare and higher education for their citizens.
You called the above poster a "Eurotrash liberal drooler," but the European Union is playing us for suckers, just like former Defense Secretary Gates said [wsj.com], and it's Americans like you who make it all possible as you spend us into the ground with your wars and then try to blame the hole you put us in on America's crumbling libraries, roads, and schools.
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:4, Interesting)
While some european countries have prospered greatly with american funds on the post-WWII , the "american dream" is a part of the lie sold to the people. You can be a rich and prosper nation in any market - given you have no competition, and many of the big traditional american companies were built on profit from reconstruction of Europe and defense contracts. No money is for free, not even in America.
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Interesting)
One problem with this is that our fleet is parked right outside their country. We could sink their ships, but the missiles will still be coming from all over their *land*.
I'm annoyed that the US has the policy to anchor a fleet on the doorstep of a country tensions are high with, then blames that country for being confrontational. I could just imagine the propaganda storm that would come if Iran or North Korea had a fleet off the coast of Hawaii and started having random wargames right there. Why is this country such a hypocritical bully all the damn time?
What's Canada like? Is it nice there? -starts packing-
Re:Would love to see some naval battle (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't laugh. Google on the battle the UK had over the Falkland Islands. Both sides quickly pulled their big ships to rear safe zones when they realized little, cheap ( in comparison ) missiles could make short work of huge, expensive ships.
Re:so (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:so (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd imagine that it would be a pretty big embarrassment to the US navy if they lost one or more of their Carriers to a country with an air force only twice the size of what you can fit on one of those carriers.
Re:so (Score:5, Interesting)
in a serious shooting match between First World (and here we include the Ruskkies and the Chinese) powers the US would have its ass handed to it on a platter.
Seriously? You need to go and review the US naval force relative to China or Russia. It's not even close. In a nonnuclear fight the US loses battles but will inevitably win the war. If it then goes nuclear, well, we can bounce more rubble than anyone.
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Yes, I'm sure foreign navies could sink US naval assets, but the overall US military capacity is sufficiently advanced that it would simply be an example of winning a battle and losing the war.
If Iran did sink or heavily damage some US ships, it would suck, but the US has the military capacity to devastate Iran, to wipe out much of its military capacity. Iran does not have the naval or support capacity to hold the strait.
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but the US has the military capacity to devastate Iran, to wipe out much of its military capacity
Don't forget that military capability alone is worthless without the political will to use it.
Re:so (Score:4, Insightful)
If Iran blockades the Strait, political will won't be a problem. No matter what you think of war and peace, globalism and economics, the reality is that a blockade of one of the most important waterways on the planet will most assuredly bring a firestorm to Iran, one that that country could not hope to weather.
Re:so (Score:4, Insightful)
Somehow I don't think Iran's intention is to start a shooting war with the US; its real intention is to be a thorn in our side and eventually cripple us economically. Looks like it's working too; they're using the Reagan strategy of bankrupting the enemy by forcing them to build up their arms, except they're doing it asymetrically: they build a fleet of tiny speedboats with missile launchers for peanuts, and we spend billions on super-high-tech countermeasures. All they have to do is keep presenting themselves as a threat that we need to expend tons of money and resources to be vigilant against, and eventually our house of cards will collapse.
Personally, I'm rooting for the Iranians. If we're so stupid that we can't keep our noses out of that part of the world, then we deserve to go bankrupt and have our economy destroyed. Maybe if we'd start electing politicians who actually downsize the bloated military and engage in diplomacy and making our nation energy-independent, we wouldn't have these problems.
No oil, no food in the grocery store (Score:5, Interesting)
instead of other people dying for your enjoyment and corporations' profit
That's quite naive, you are more vested in keeping the sea lanes open than you might initially think. When the oil stops then so do the trucks that deliver food to your local grocery store.
Yes it would be great if we got off foreign oil and delivered food using local or renewable energy but that's not what is going to happen in the next two weeks, and IIRC two weeks is about all there is in the local stores and distribution centers on average.
Re:No oil, no food in the grocery store (Score:5, Insightful)
Move big trucks to natural gas ... (Score:3)
Not saying that shutting down the straits wouldn't have an impact, but I don't know that life would grind to a halt in two weeks, either.
That's not the claim that I was trying to make. I was trying to educate a silly person that the global flow of oil is not about corporate profit, its about far more personal things like getting food from farm to city. That is why the US Navy escorted convoys of oil tankers in the past when Iran made similar threats.
That and its sad that we are addressing the same threat as 30 years ago. When "Pickens Plan" advocates talk about switching heavy trucks to natural gas and mention "national security" this is
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Tried that, but subsection E of the law pertaining to eyesight said that since my eyesight was over 20/800 prior to lasik no matter how good it got I was sidelined. A pity since I had the Nuke guys talking to me and they had started me on paperwork before we found out about that. You know what really sucks, that law was lobbied for in the early 90's by a bunch of asshole progs who found it "unfair" that men and women were choosing to have lasik done in hopes of getting good enough eyesight to get in so they
Re:yeees (Score:5, Insightful)
We've all discussed the "wars for oil," but in this case, the US (at least officially) gets no oil from Iran, even though it is ranked as the world's fourth- or fifth-largest producer [offshore-environment.com]. The larger danger is Iran's ability to disrupt oil shipping through the Straight of Hormuz, where approximately 20% of the world's oil passes on its way to market [205.254.135.7]. Disruption of this channel would have a major impact on the price of oil world-wide. Therefore, it is in all oil-consuming nations' economic interests to NOT go to war with Iran. Those nations who do get their oil from Iran would be even more directly affected of course, and would have to turn to other producers. This then means more consumers drawing from a reduced supply pool, even further driving up costs.
Make no mistake, the US most certainly spies on Iran (and upon many other countries), and would love to see the current regime fall. Again, though, a war would have the opposite affect, at least in the short term. The Iranian people themselves are not happy under their current leadership [familysecu...atters.org] (while a quick web search will not turn up much official information, you will find MANY support groups whose aim is to provide help and support for the Iranian public); a war, especially one started by an invader who supports Israel, would most likely turn the public more towards, rather than against, the current regime.
Finally, you are not wrong that ignorance persists in the United States, but so too does it exist around the world. I assume you are not from America, therefore you are likely making your statement in fact from a position OF ignorance, not allowing that there are many Americans who DO make an attempt to understand the world around them, not only in the countries to their north and south, but also in those across the oceans that insulate their nation. It is also true that there are many people around the world make ignorant suppositions, not just about America, but about their own neighboring nations, and about countries around the world. No one group of people has a stranglehold on ignorance, but it is likely to be equally true that no one group of people is totally marred by it, either.
Re:The US navy is a floating death trap (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, if only it were so. However, it's not. A war with Iran would last roughly one month. The progress would be simple -- we would eliminate its air power in detail within roughly one week, standing the navy well off. We would at the same time eliminate most of Iraq's navy from the air. We would at the same time systematically eliminate its visible ground assets (including both air and surface missiles). There would be much sound, much fury, and Iran's political leadership might well be killed in a decapitation strike early on, and of course its nuclear plant would be completely destroyed. By the second week our navy would be moving back in, at some risk but largely protected by on-ship magic against missiles, and how will Iran be able to target those missiles? We'll have complete control of space, complete control of the air, and will be able to see and target any radar emissions almost instantly. Turn an asset on and lose it. Leave it off and lose it anyway as it is picked out by satellites and surveillance air. We will have all of the battlefield intelligence, all of the command and control, huge technological advantages, and overwhelming military force. Week's three and four will be the ground war, which may not conclude by week four but which will have defeated Iran's army in detail by week four. Mopping up may take another two to four weeks. As long as we don't try to occupy a defeated Iran and fight the war into the hills, we could eliminate their military and get out in no time, and leave their internal political structure in shambles if not destroyed.
Iran knows that, which is why they may not knock the block off of our shoulder in Hormuz. On the other hand -- everybody else wants this war. I mean everybody. Count the number of people who gain advantage -- and I mean $100B and up advantage -- from this war. Pretty big list, right? In the NYT today, there it is, congress seeking to cut a half trillion to a trillion from the pentagon budget over ten years. How long would another war stretch that out? Indefinitely? How much money is that a year? Oooo, a lot. Then there is Israel (really wants the war and may use espionage and subterfuge to provoke it). The apocalyptic Christians (no armageddon without rivers of blood, Jesus can't come back until we start up something big involving Israel). Obama (can he really leave Iran and Korea as unfinished business going into this election? And nobody wants to tackle Korea, as they have real missiles and NUKES). Oil companies. Democrats (want to raise taxes). Republicans (want to protect their military-industrial buddies). CNN. The generals (out of Iraq and Afghanistan, about to be made irrelevant again). Our Sunni allies hate and fear the Shia, especially Shia armed with nukes.
I do appreciate the Kabuki reference, but perhaps this is a different kind of theater. The only three countries in Asia that the US couldn't immediately take are India, China and North Korea, and honestly, we could probably kick NK's butt and take names tactically but the strategic war would cost 25 million lives as NK nuked SK, Japan, and as much of the US as they could reach (maybe Alaska, dunno). India I would hate to take on, not least because India is my second country and they are our friends (and they've got a damn tough, nuclear armed military). China is also both our friend, our biggest trading partner, and a nut too tough to ever want to crack. Iran (and Pakistan, at rough equivalence in terms of actual military power but weakly armed with nukes) we could certainly take down, and take down quickly. India could take down Pakistan in a matter of weeks (which
Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 (Score:5, Informative)
U Sank My Carrier! By Gary Brecher
http://www.exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=6779 [exile.ru]
"send everything at once"
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It's an experiment in tactics rather than a literal "game". It doesn't matter who wins as long as lessons can be learned.
Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 (Score:4, Interesting)
Clearly you've never played organized sports. It's not like every practice is a scrimmage; there are times when you set up a scenario where the opposing players run a certain play to see if your play works against it. If you didn't do this you couldn't choose what to practice. How much better would a team get if the guy playing the opposing quarterback quit each time this happened? van Ripen wasn't some no-nonsense tell-it-like-it-is leader, he was a whiner and cared more about personal credit than about testing tactics against tactics and improving, which is the whole point of a wargame. And by the way, in what sense is this a media ploy? You get a couple of articles about a given exercise and...that's it. These wargames are quite costly and the lessons we want to learn/theories we want to test are very well defined ahead of time to avoid wasting that money. If this was a media ploy it'd be the equivalent of you buying a giant tv and hiding it in your living room as you step outside and tell people you have a big tv.
Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 (Score:5, Insightful)
Read about small boats and aircraft did during US war games under Gen. Paul van Ripen.
Also remember the words that got a general in trouble in Iraq: "This isn't the war we were expecting to fight.", or something to that effect.
Militaries are notoriously bad about preparing to fight the last war again. Or the war before last... The US has spent most of the last 65 years spending petabucks preparing to refight WWII (vs. the Russians) in central Europe and the Japanese navy at sea.
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That was an extremely good contigency plan, prepare to fight where the last big fight took place... right up to the point where a bunch of missiles turned up in Cuba.
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Should carriers even get that close to the battlefield? Those planes have a huge range, couldn't you just park the carrier pretty far away until you've turned everything in the water into debris and flotsam with planes and subs?
And hell, if the Hormuz situation goes beyond saber rattling and the US suffers heavy losses then how likely is it that the US will unwrap the ICBMs?
Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 (Score:5, Informative)
Hanging off of your post a little bit, there's been some rumblings in the news about the Chinese DF-21 [wikipedia.org], which is basically a straight up, straight down mortar shell designed to sink aircraft carriers (and other local battleships) within an 1100 mile radius (that includes singapore, japan, and both koreas). Sort of the same functionality as an ICBM, but with more conventional explosives attached. The big problem is that they come down at mach 2 or faster, making them difficult to detect, let alone intercept.
Forbes alluded to this saying "its surface vessels are increasingly vulnerable to Chinese attack [forbes.com]"
While I doubt we'd unwrap the ICBMs, there's no reason to think this non-nuclear-ized technology exists. We've already retired battleships from the navy, it's not too far-fetched to imagine that Carriers are on their way out too.
More reading:
http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-china-joins-the-yacht-club/ [exiledonline.com]
http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/ [exiledonline.com]
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I don't doubt we'll continue buying Carriers for the next 20 years, but I think "power projection" has been "let's bomb them in the middle of the night with a plane that took off in Missouri, then flies back home when it's done [wikipedia.org]" for at least a few years now. With the advent of UAV technology (GPS jamming not included) soon, we'll be able to bomb our poorly-equipped enemies from the comfort of our own living room! You don't even need the same pilot for the entire mission. When his 8 hours are up, the other g
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The US exports food. Sooo, yeah.
Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 (Score:5, Interesting)
You forget that part of the reason why war games are interesting is that many cheat as best as they can without being demoted for it, often they'll find holes in the general plan that might not exist in real life. Small boats are clever, but I'm sure that they never launched a weapon (American or cobbled together) during the entire game. I don't think that I would have needed to be in combat to understand how different it would be from having some guy in a pontoon boat pretend that he has a mounted weapon on it.
UAV suppression of the Iran coast line is a given under a combat order and likely active just off the coast now, so how many missile boats would we let collect in the gulf? More importantly, how long would it take for them to collectively start to fire? I'd bet that we're better at fire control. How many boats would be lost by Iran before they could fire? If they all start to drill at the same time, does Obama rain Hell Fire down on them preemptively? A few boats might take damage or even be sunk, but I'd hardly think that the whole fleet would be in collectively in jeopardy. It's just another sad example that suicide missions force a cost of lives.
Interesting but flawed article (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting article that seems to be plausible in its main thrust. But Gary Brecher can't resist bloviating about WW2 parallels, and in the process he reveals a pretty impressive degree of ignorance about the naval history of that era.
"The little biplanes buzzed out...and sank every ship. First a destroyer, then the huge German battleship, then all three US battleships. The Navy tried to ignore the results, but with Mitchell yapping at their heels, they finally started moving from battleship-based to aircraft-carrier-based battle groups".
1. Actually, the "little biplanes" that sank the German battleship Ostfriesland dropped 1-ton (2000 lb) bombs. Some of the worst damage was done by bombs that were deliberately dropped as near-misses, using massive water pressure pulses to rupture the vulnerable underwater part of the hull. Of course, Ostfriesland was unmanned and did not defend itself - there were none of the repair parties that would normally fight any breaches in the hull, and the aircraft could come as close as they liked. Amusingly, Mitchell himself told Congress that, "In my opinion, the Navy actually tried to prevent our sinking the Ostfriesland."
2. The British Royal Navy began using ship-launched aircraft in earnest during WW1 (1914-18). The Japanese also began experimenting with aircraft carriers at least as early as the USA. The reason why the USA built so many (and such big) carriers in the1930s and 1940s was mainly that it could - it had the huge wealth necessary to build over 100 carriers during WW2 alone, while other nations like Japan built hardly any. Also, aircraft carriers were very suitable for the Pacific war, with its vast expanses of open ocean and usually good flying weather.
"The British didn't pay any attention to Mitchell's demonstration. Their battleships were better made, better armed, and better manned".
This, too, is unfair. The British knew very well that their battleships were no better (to say the least) than those of the USA and Germany. Because Britain ended WW1 almost bankrupt, and owing huge amounts to the USA, its defence budgets were run on a shoestring right up to (and through) WW2. HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson, for example, were smaller and slower than battleships built between the wars by the USA, Germany, Italy, Japan, and France. The British knew very well that aircraft would be very dangerous to warships, but they couldn't stop building battleships because there was still a need for them.
"Why didn't the British think of it in 1940? There was plenty of evidence that battleships were nothing but giant coffins. They just decided not to think about it".
This is where Brecher gets altogether carried away and parts company with reality. Battleships were still necessary, in the Atlantic and Mediterranean theatres if less so in the Pacific. Although the German battleship Bismarck was crippled by a (very lucky) aerial torpedo hit, it took two British battleships to pound her into scrap before she was sent to the bottom by torpedoes. At the battle of Matapan, three British battleships sank three powerful Italian cruisers in a matter of minutes, changing the whole balance of the war in the Mediterranean. And the complex air, sea and land struggle for Guadalcanal was arguably settled when the battleship USS Washington smashed the less powerful Japanese battleship Kirishima, helping to give the USN supremacy in the waters around the strategic island. Certainly battleships were increasingly endangered, but until 1945 they still had important roles to play. The same is true about US carriers today. The fact that they may easily be sunk if they venture into a landlocked body of water like the Persian Gulf does not mean they are not enormously useful.
"In the Falklands War, the Argentine Air Force, which ain't exactly the A Team, managed to shred the British fleet, coming in low and fast to launch the Exocets".
In fact the Argentine Exocets sank exactly one British warship, HMS Sheffield. They also damaged three other ships (and admitte
Re:Interesting but flawed article (Score:4, Informative)
In fact the Argentine Exocets sank exactly one British warship, HMS Sheffield. They also damaged three other ships (and admittedly scared the hell out of everyone).
By far the most significant use of an Exocet was when they hit the Atlantic Conveyor, which was being used as a temporary aircraft carrier (since Harriers and helicopters can happily operate from a container ship). If I remember correctly, the British lost most of their troop-carrying helicopters in that attack.
The main reasons why they didn't achieve more than that was because they didn't have many missiles and the British fleet stayed on the edge of the area that the Argentinian aircraft could reach, which meant their Harriers couldn't operate over the Falklands for long before having to return to refuel. So while the Exocets didn't sink many warships, they certainly had a significant impact on the war.
Re:Interesting but flawed article (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason why the USA built so many (and such big) carriers in the1930s and 1940s was mainly that it could - it had the huge wealth necessary to build over 100 carriers during WW2 alone, while other nations like Japan built hardly any.
Japan built 25 or so carriers [ww2pacific.com] and it had near equivalent numbers of fleet carriers (that is, carriers intended to operate with a fleet) at the time of Pearl Harbor. And I'm not sure, but it looks like when one looks at fleet carriers, that Japan build somewhere around 23 proper fleet carriers (of varying size) plus a couple of converted battleships during the war compared to somewhere around 38 for the US (counting ships on the above website). It's worth noting that the biggest problem for Japan wasn't the raw numbers of carriers, but the lack of pilots to man planes. Most of their carrier pilots were lost in 1942, meaning carriers still operating after that point usually did so without a full complement of airplanes.
Who needs crazies at home (Score:5, Insightful)
When there are so many too choose from abroad?
Iran is doing what all failing governments do, redirecting the ire of their people to someone other than itself. Granted they have had their "Great Satan" for many many years the uprisings and home grown terrorism does show the state cannot control all factions present within its borders.
So they need to have their people believe that all fault is outside of the country while at the same time explaining the lack of living standards and such is the great sacrifice needed to uphold Iranian values and freedom in the face of the great enemies abroad. Wow, sounds like North Korea as well.
Iran is the dog on the other side of the fence, barking and slavering to get at you. Yes it has teeth and yes it will hurt, but its going to get such an ass kicking it really enjoys that fence as much as you do.
With all the exaggerated press in the US about war mongering politicians its not exactly reassuring to see that there are still so many crazies abroad to give the locals reason. Iran is threatening more than the US with this boast of closing the straights. Perhaps they are trying to wake their Iman they so desperately need.... most likely a failing leader most likely needs the crisis and possibly the war to stay in power.
Re:Who needs crazies at home (Score:5, Insightful)
Iran is doing what all failing governments do, redirecting the ire of their people to someone other than itself.
Kind of like the USA's warmongering politicians are doing with Iran?
Why ARE we persecuting Iran? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know about the "risk" of nuclear proliferation, but as we did nothing about Kim Il Jong for decades in North Korea, I think the fears of Iran having nukes are over-rated. If a blustering blow-hard like Kim could threaten his neighbours repeatedly with invasion and war without reprise, why is the Iranian rhetoric considered any worse?
Certainly Iran executes a lot of people for violating a strict interpretation of Islamic law, so anyone who's against religion in government has a fundamental problem with Iran. But invasion is a poor way of protecting the people from a government that places dogma over reason. Surely diplomatic discourse would be more effective than the threat of invasion.
And that's really the problem I see. The US keeps beating the invasion and war drums. Iran refuses to back down, the mouse that roared at the lion. Neither side seems willing to act rationally.
If you're going to constantly go on about invading a nation, yeah, they're gonna get paranoid about BEING invaded. They're going to want to build up their military and their armaments to fight back, including nukes.
And with Israel and it's nukes so close to Iran and clearly a darling of US policy, the threat to Iran is imminent, at least from their perspective. Mind you, the Iranian government doesn't help that situation with their ongoing diatribe against Israel. More bluster that escalates instead of negotiates.
Recent US history is a track record of invasion and attack for reasons that turned out to be unjustified in the end. It doesn't give me a comfortable feeling to see them dictating policy to Iran when the US handling of Cuba has shown that appeasing the US does NOT mean the sanctions will be dropped.
Maybe if someone were to take a serious step like disarming Israel's nuclear arsenal, things could settle down in the middle east.
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The reason is because North Korea is not particularly strategic, it has no oil and can't exert control over routes trading oil. Iran has oil and can exert control over important routes where oil is moved.
Iran has oil (Score:5, Insightful)
And is selling it for Rial and Euros, not dollars. Their oil bourse just last year started trading crude.
That's why they have to be "liberated".
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Sigh. Not that old chestnut again.
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Are you KIDDING me?
Saudi Arabia executes hundreds of 'witches' a year, never mind other religious transgressions that are punished severely, and SA is the biggest US 'ally' or so it seems. [staticflickr.com]
Learn something about blowback and US involvement in destroying democracies around the world to install dictators starting all the way back in 1953 [youtube.com]
Imagine if it were Texas. [youtube.com]
Nobody cares about the NK dictator because he is just a tyrant that enslaves and kills and rapes his people, but he has nothing that US wants - OIL.
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That's what the urban legend says. The reality is that less than a third of the oil the US imports comes from the Middle East - most of it comes from Canada or Central and South America.
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Oil is pretty fungible. Light sweet crude like Iran pumps is completely fungible.
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Iran has stated that the eradication of the Israeli state is a policy objective.
To suggest that Israel is therefore a 'threat' to Iran is ludicrous.
"Recent US history is a track record of invasion and attack for reasons that turned out to be unjustified in the end. "
Last time I checked there were 2 US 'invasions' in recent history.
- Iraq: following the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, Iraq's military was ejected and a ceasefire agreed, along with a no-fly zone. Subsequent to repeated violations of the ceasefire
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"The arab world is rather unpredictable right now. If the US shoots first, that will turn all these regime changes against the US in a heartbeat."
Not necessarily. The iranians are persian, not arab, and the arab world has about as much love for them as it does for the US.
um... math fail? 125 < 140 (Score:2)
The Qader missile is said to be capable of striking warships at a range of about 125 miles, a distance that would include some American forces in the Gulf region as Iran is about 140 miles at its nearest point from Bahrain.
So the missiles have a range of 125 miles and the closest part of the target is 140 miles... I don't want to downplay the significance of the situation, but from 15 miles outside the missile's effective range, you wouldn't even be able to see it when it splashes harmlessly into the water. The article was even claiming they could hit isreal at 625 miles away. What am i missing?
Re:um... math fail? 125 140 (Score:3)
US naval ships won't have to be at their base in Bahrain. They might be patrolling the gulf, half way to Iran. So about 70 miles. Possibly a lot less if they are close to Iranian territorial waters.
Re:um... math fail? 125 140 (Score:3)
If you read the linked articles then they the Missiles hit the targets 125 miles away and they was thought to be the effective range, but no exact details are known. It's possible it could reach 140+ Miles putting the US 5th fleet within range.
They are claiming it as a "Long Range" weapon, though 125 Miles seems a bit short to be considered "Long Range" so the thinking is that the range might be longer or they are bluffing.
If I had a missile, I would lie about it's range (Score:3)
No? Or isn't that a blindingly obvious thing to do?
The quoted specs are speculative, so till they are used in anger fully fueled we won't necessarily know their capabilities.
Iran manufacture several classes of missile from cruise to multi stage ballistic. They even make them themselves which is better than most European countries are capable of.
HTH.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Transiting the Hormuz.. (Score:5, Interesting)
* Caveat: In the last ten years, I have only spent 2 years in the Persian Gulf, transiting the Hormuz approximately 20 times.*
- The strait is approximately 12 miles wide at the "choke-point".
- A Qader has an maximum range of 125 miles.
- Most of the corporations that run tankers through the straits are extremely risk adverse. All it would take is one missile being "tested" in the vicinity of the shipping lanes to cause the number of tankers to plummet.
- There is a huge number of container ships that go from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea and into the Mediterranean via the Suez (and vice versa), and almost the same number of ships that "turn left" instead of "right" there.
- Jet-skis can and do transit the straits. The bigger smugglers use speedboats, but the intelligence agencies use the personal watercraft sized craft and semi-submersible planing hulls to move agents and for surveillance. What airborne surveillance aircraft that Iran does have are slow moving and could probably be best engaged by M-4's and SAWS.
- The US Navy presence in Iraq is rather small compared to the USN presence in Bahrain and the UAE.
- Iran's militarized coast guard regularly harasses ships that transit the strait anyway. Have to love the 'Great Satan Running Dog' rants that comes up on chan 16.
- Iran's air force could be wiped from the skies by a single squadron of F-18F's loaded for dedicated air to air. It is their waterborne forces that are actually a threat.
- Two Global Hawks at high-altitude would be able cover the entire Persian Gulf with real time targeting data.
- Sniper rifles work just as well at sea as they do on land.
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1. You have AEW radars looking down and ship based radar looking up just where will the missiles hide?
2. Interesting idea of trying to get a cruise missile to fly in close formation with an airliner. I have never heard of that being done in real life.
3. Modern radar can identify the target based on it's signature. So unless the airliners is pumping out jamming a modern radar system will see the missile and identify it at high altitude and take it out with a SM2 at long range.
Really?
And yet more evidence that Iraq was a huge mistake (Score:5, Interesting)
Had he gone after North Korea, the result would have been an unmitigated humanitarian crisis as North Korea would have unleashed a barrage of missiles and artillery fire(possibly with chemical and/or biological weapons) on Seoul, and the North Koreans are so dug in that there would be no way they could be neutralized without significant damage to Seoul and the surrounding areas. Kind of nice for your enemy to put half their population and probably around 2/3 of their economic output well in range of your artillery isn't it?
Now look at Iran, they have the strongest navy in the middle east(Iraq didn't have anything resembling a functioning navy when the US invaded). They also have decent missiles thanks in no small part to the North Koreans, and a relatively formidable ground force. US casualties in Iran would have been huge, and thats assuming Iran DOESNT have any chemical/biological capabilities....
Now look at Iraq. Saddam eventually disarmed and complied with almost all the UN regulations. His army was incredibly weakened by the embargoes and his air force crippled. And now he is dead. Gadaffi gave up WMD, and now he is dead. What message does this send to dictators? If you disarm, we kill you, if you can cause massive amounts of suffering, we negotiate.
Now look at the Iranian regime, there are only 2 things keeping them even remotely popular, and thus probably in power, in Iran.
1. Defending agains the US(Which thanks to the cowboy president many Iranians legitimately think might invade)
2. Oil revenues(which is why oil continued to plummet after the recession started, Ahmadinejad and Chavez, among others made so many promises to their people assuming oil was going to be over $150/barrel. When the price fell they had no choice but to continue to keep supply high in order to keep the money flowing in)
So now what is happening? The regime knows its running out of time, and has to get nukes fast or else risk being wiped out. Stopping Iranian oil exports would essentially cause chaos at home, so Iran is doing everything in it's power, including going to the brink of war, to keep those oil exports going. It wouldn't be nearly this paranoid about getting nukes if the man-child hadn't decided he wanted to play war hero for daddy and take out a guy that while certainly not, to borrow a phrase from Lewis Black, a snuggy bear, was not any worse than most regimes supported by the US(and the EU before Europeans start getting all self-righteous, France went after Libya and thus has a hand in this too, though not as big as the US's obviously). So instead of his fantasy of making the world safe from tyrants, Bush's actions have basically said, "if you want your regime to stay in power, get WMDs" Good one. The Iraq war will go down as the biggest foreign policy blunder in post-war American history. And while the actual Vietnam and Korean Wars were probably more savage, they were relatively self-contained. The Iraq war(and supporting the Libyan rebels) will have implications that will be felt for decades to come.
Re:And yet more evidence that Iraq was a huge mist (Score:4, Interesting)
You need to cut down on the revisionist hindsight. Saddam's Iraq was clearly the worst at that time.
Lets see:
Known to be working on nukes: Iraq, Iran & NK.
Pushing Terrorism: Iraq, Iran & NK
Attempted assassination of a former US President: Iraq
Had recently invaded a neighboring country: Iraq.
Had recently invades a second neighboring country: Iraq.
Nukes may indeed be a get out of jail free card for thuggish regimes preserving them from military action but the sanctions, now that just about everyone is agreeing to them and making sure that cheaters are getting punished may yet make the lesson "reneg on your signature of the the Non-proliferation treaty & lose all your international trading partners".
Re:And yet more evidence that Iraq was a huge mist (Score:5, Informative)
Presented to U.S. officials by the Iraqi National Congress, a London-based exile group pushing for an American attack on Iraq, the defector says Saddam is close to finishing a long-range ballistic missile that could hit Cairo; Ankara; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Nicosia, Cyprus, or Tehran. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/658542/posts [freerepublic.com]
That was what we were told in 2002. A decade on, we now know that those "intelligence" reports of WMDs from the INC were actually supplied by a double agent working for Iranian intelligence.
According to a US intelligence official, the CIA has hard evidence that Mr Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed US secrets to Tehran, and that Mr Habib has been a paid Iranian agent for several years, involved in passing intelligence in both directions. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/25/usa.iraq10 [guardian.co.uk]
Oops. And what about those mobile bioweapon labs? It turned out that intelligence came from another unreliable source:
Despite warnings from the German Federal Intelligence Service questioning the authenticity of the claims, the US Government utilized them to build a rationale for military action in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including in the 2003 State of the Union address, where President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs", and Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, which contained a computer generated image of a mobile biological weapons laboratory.[1][4] On November 4, 2007, 60 Minutes revealed Curveball's real identity.[5] Former CIA official Tyler Drumheller summed up Curveball as "a guy trying to get his green card essentially, in Germany, and playing the system for what it was worth." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant) [wikipedia.org]
The whole story was made up by one guy who wanted his immigration card, and yet - without any verification - it was used by the Bush administration to justify a war.
And since you brought it up, alll of the intelligence that linked Iraq to 911 was lies as well.... There was no Iraq Islamist link (well, at least until the coalition invaded and plunged the country into a bloody sectarian civil war)
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The weapons were gone because the consequences would have been grave if the inspectors ever
Analysts are wrong, as usual (Score:4, Informative)
The real reason is right there in the summary:
Analysts say Iran's increasingly strident rhetoric, which has pushed oil prices higher, is aimed at sending a message to the West that it
wants more money for its oil...
All other goals are secondary.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why? Iran has a few cruise missiles and no way to strike at the US home base. The US has several complete navies and a home base in Iraq, right next door. They also have hundreds of cruise missiles available. I real military terms nobody can take on the US directly.
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I must rephrase. In real military terms nobody can take on the US without resorting to attrition.
you can grind down the US but every opening move the US will wipe out all your supposed defenses of pretty much every country except Russia and China. Now can the USA stay and finish the job is another story.
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You'll note that Iran waited until the US pulled every last infantryman out of Iraq on Dec 31st before making this proclomation (the next day), and the US turned around and agreed to sell Saudi Arabia essentially a $30 Billion Iranian Air Defense Kit the day after. We don't have a major base in the region that I'm aware of anymore. Turkey kicked us out in ~2006 or 2007, making Germany our closest base (besides the Carrier group)
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Sigonella and Aviano might be acceptable to run a long term war from, but the rest of those sites you listed don't look any more built up than a municipal civilian airport. Sigonella and Aviano are about 2,600 miles from the strait, while the much larger Ramstein (4 schools, a major regional millitary hospital, etc) is about 2,900 miles from the strait.
:-)
As for the Afghan bases, I'm not sure you'd want to run a war from an airfield in another active war zone
I'm not aware of any bases in I
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Ugh, the arrogance.
Yah, also the ignorance
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i know! why target the US fleet.
Just sink a couple of Oil Tankers or other commercial ships as they pass through the straits.
That would have a bigger impact on the US than trying to attack the fleet...
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Re:LOLOLOLOL (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the message is more "Fuck with us and people die" rather than "We will conquer the Earth". Just my 2c.
Or worse, "Fuck with us and your voters will be paying ten dollars a gallon for gasoline."
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They won't close the strait, they need the oil money, and couldn't stand doing a favor for their middle-eastern rivals by raising oil prices and driving western oil business to rival OPEC nations.
They won't get far showing off more powerful weapons, the Saudi's and the Pakistani's won't like it, and the Iranian's risk provoking military action from them, more than from the US.
The US media are a bunch of drama-thirsty morons who are looking to make a big deal out of this issue. Just ignore Iran, nothing will come of this. The Iranian government has nothing to gain from this, except the PR battle, saying "HA! we were strong enough to drive off the US!" even though we already know this is a total bluff.
If anything, they will start a conflict with neighboring nations, which in the most extreem of worst-case scenarios, could lead to a middle-eastern version of the Great War, and then the US can come in and support are already battle-fatigued allies against the Iranian aggressors with considerably less effort than what it took in Iraq these past 8 years.
You have to love the Iranians....what they are actually exposing is not a material change in the balance of power, only a change in the willingness to use it. If the US could make a credible threat to Iranian oil terminals, (communicated via back channel to the Chinese customers, maybe? with a Saudi rep by your side with a megabillion dollar oil contract?) all this fracas would taper off.
Eventually, a fading US would simply switch from a "sea control" strategy to a "sea denial" one...the persian gulf wou
Re:LET ISRAEL DEAL WTIH THEM (WITHI US FUNDING) !! (Score:4, Insightful)
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