The Atlantic: Why Trump Didn’t Plan for the Strait of Hormuz

[lazarou@mastodon.social]

@cstross seems like the White Master Race doesn't plan ahead or co-ordinates.....too 'woke' I guess.

[jackwilliambell@rustedneuron.com]

@ariaflame @cstross

Really? None of that is true except the part about values. We aren't talking people with no education or even no knowledge of history. Most of them aren't even especially stupid.

They just aren't as smart as they think they are and they let their prejudices drive their conclusions. Which itself is a special kind of idiocy, I'll concede. But it isn't what you are saying.

[beecycling@wandering.shop]

@cstross Must have slipped his mind. It's only been an extremely strategically important choke point for ::checks notes:: centuries.

[blotosmetek@circumstances.run]

@cstross erm… in case of Trump, I believe he is old (and demented) enough to have forgotten it.

[chigaze@mstdn.ca]

@cstross Both Hegseth and Trump have extremely inflated opinions of US power and it’s effect. They assumed Iran would buckle immediately rather than counter attack and hold out.

[knowprose@mastodon.social]

@cstross 'plan' is a 4 letter word for this administration.

[flippac@types.pl]

@wordshaper @cstross Or double-legged then repeatedly groinstomped...

[etchedpixels@mastodon.social]

@cstross He's off sending 5000 troops and an amphibious assault ship there next. That's going to get really messy if the Iranians have an FPV drone stock.

[drbrain@mastodon.social]

@cstross “Many of the systems used to deploy such weaponry are small and easily transportable, so tracking them down is not easy. Doing so requires constant air patrols”

I'm sure Iran is well prepared to repeat the Yugoslav Army's F-117 shootdown

[angusm@mastodon.social]

@cstross About the time the first bombs started falling, I wrote a list of my main assumptions about the war, which were:

1. The US has an achievable plan to quickly eliminate Iranian air defenses.
2. The US probably does not have any coherent longer-term plans for what to do after that.
3. The Iranian regime have had several decades to think about what they'll do when their backs are against the wall.

Nothing I've seen recently has made me think I was wrong on any of these points.

[mark@mastodon.fixermark.com]

@cstross In the' 80s, Trump was consolidating a real estate empire in Manhatten and New Jersey with is father's money. It is actually entirely possible that he was insulated enough from the tanker war to not have to care, and I would never accuse the man of understanding, well, anything really.

[angusm@mastodon.social]

@wordshaper @cstross

Helmuth von Moltke's Law of Military Operations: No plan survives contact with the enemy.

McIntyre's Corollary: Having NO plan means that YOU don't survive contact with the enemy.

[photo55@mastodon.social]

It takes effort.
They have, or at least had, deep ranks of experts on every geopolitical area and problem, keen to offer information, answer any questions put.
But what they want is agreement and the appearance of loyalty.

[swaldman@mendeddrum.org]

@cstross Old enough? Some of them.

Paying attention to anything outside their own borders at the time? Open to question, I feel.

[mwop@phpc.social]

@cstross They were too busy having their egos (among other things) massaged by minors to pay attention back then.

[jorny@mastodon.social]

@cstross

The level of self delusion and machismo stupidity is darkly fascinating.

https://kyivindependent.com/trump-ukraine-drone-defenses/

"No, we don't need (Ukraine's) help in drone defense," Trump said in the interview. "We know more about drones than anybody. We have the best drones in the world, actually."

[dryak@mstdn.science]

@angusm @wordshaper @cstross and no, asking Grok AI or any other chat bot doesn't constitute "a plan".

[dashdsrdash@tilde.zone]

@angusm @cstross

My assumption is that, somewhere in a Pentagon basement, there are three to seven different war plans for Iran.

And none of them were consulted by the present evil incompetents; in fact, I suspect that the secretary of the Department of Mexico didn't even consider that planning had been done.

I suppose that's a bit of relief: he probably doesn't know about the plans to occupy Canada or defend against a Cuban invasion of Florida.

[angusm@mastodon.social]

@dashdsrdash @cstross At least one of the basement war plans consists of a single sheet of paper with the word "DON’T” printed on it in block letters.

Not that I think that the Iranians are invulnerable superbeings, but that the possible bad outcomes are many and their probabilities are high. Indifference to civilian suffering may make some of the outcomes seem acceptable, but there's still a lot of room for things to go wrong in ways that even a psychopath won't like.

[nazokiyoubinbou@mastodon.social]

@cstross Haha, you think they can remember past lunch today. Hard to imagine having that much confidence in these people.

(/big sarcasm)