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

[cstross@wandering.shop]

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

In wartime, the enemy always gets a vote.

(These people are deeply unserious. I mean, they *must* be old enough to remember the 1980-88 tanker war and the vital role the Straits of Hormuz played back then, right?)

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/hormuz-strait-iran-oil/686365/

[flippac@types.pl]

@cstross Not all of them - Hegseth was born in 1980 for example

[celeduc@mastodon.social]

@cstross ExxonMobil ordered this war with their campaign contributions.

[jackwilliambell@rustedneuron.com]

@cstross

I'm thinking it's a combination of bigotry and hubris. Despite the fact they are, at best, mediocre thinkers they have convinced themselves they are smarter than everyone else and everyone not white and Christian are especially stupid.

You see this in every kind of large organization as well. The big mistake many in corporate leadership make is, "Anyone who agrees with me is smart. Anyone who doesn't is an idiot."

The smart leader knows their limits and accepts 'no' as an answer.

[otolithe@mastodon.social]

@cstross memory? What’s that?

[wordshaper@weatherishappening.network]

@cstross These guys are all fundamentally bullies, and like all bullies don't ever consider that the person they're punching might have opinions on that which matter. Or that they may be punched back.

[paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange]

@cstross

apparently, they not only don't want kids to get any education in history and politics, they keep appointing cabinet level folks who don't know any of this either...

[drwho@masto.hackers.town]

@cstross They're extremely serious. You don't start a war like this if you're not. This downplays how dangerous they are, and that's a bad threat model.

They are, however, complete idiots. The two are not exclusive.

And they're probably not old enough. They definitely don't teach it in school.

[ariaflame@masto.ai]

@jackwilliambell @cstross They have no skills, no intelligence, and no education, so they value the only things that they identify as. The things that took no effort.

[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.