Greetings friends, I've been thinking strategically about the War in Iran and whether it was ever possible for it to be a good move on Trump or Netanyahu's part. On the surface it looks really terrible before and after and during so is there any benefit to the action in the first place. I think the main good argument for why it happened for Trump is some variation of Hubris or expectation that Iran's regime would be weak; which to be fair they generally have been for 2-3 years. That said Iran has 93 (!) million people so if you bank on killing the leader and all potential leader prospects working (I don't think this has ever worked historically despite the assassin's creed games) you'd have to go through quite a lot of people. It is possible for the US and Israel to destroy all weapons making facilities in Iran eventually but it will probably take like 6 months or more at which point the Strait of Hormuz would be closed for that entire duration and presumably things like Desalination plants would be attacked in the GCC countries..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................So if you can't win via bombing can you win via ground invasion. Obviously ground invasion would be spectacularly unpopular in the US but so is the price at the pump going up for 6 months so as discussed every outcome is dogshit so because of that some kind of ground invasion is possible. A limited occupation of Iran's coast seems like the least likely ground invasion to fail (though still relatively likely to fail) so this is more about how should the force be made up and so on. Its not that easy to transport let's say 40,000 troops over night so it would take maybe 1-2 months to happen; the same is true for China Vis-a-Vis Taiwan; obviously right now is the absolute best time ever to attack Taiwan but the amphibious assault takes a while to setup so they probably won't wind up doing it and there will be some amount of force replenishment; maybe a pit stop for the Gerald R. Ford en route to Hawaii or what have you....................................................................................................................................................................................................................So a ground invasion requires prep work and will take 2-3 months to setup; assuming no Iranian capitulation (which their authority is decentralized now so its really hard for them to capitulate mechanically in the first place even if some of them wanted to), do you begin the plan now or do you wait for more economic pain to incentivize other countries to help you. Here's where we get to the main interesting strategic point; I don't think it's possible for the Iran War to ever look good on the whole but it is probably possible to have a "good" outcome in the end via a coalition invasion; an actual coalition invasion mind not one that's 90% US or what have you. If France, UK, Germany all contribute 5000-10000 troops and the US/Israel take up the remaining amount and occupy the southern coast of Iran then they can probably hold open the Strait of Hormuz indefinitely; if this doesn't happen within say 6 months to a year we have a very probable recession globally and probably a catastrophic famine in the Gulf States due to no food coming in; I guess there could be some air lift potential there or something but its quite a lot of people to feed by that method......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... There is some vague amount of risk with such an invasion that it could spark WW3 but Russia does not have the military capacity to help Iran and China is likely almost entirely focused on Taiwan because of the golden opportunity if they can pull that off in the same time period. So WW3 certainly not and Taiwan maybe like 15% possibility within a year or so; 2027 was the predicted invasion date for US/NATO wargames; if Trump had continued to be successful in foreign policy actions he probably would have deterred China but presumably the Iran conflict will have the opposite effect so we might still wind up getting 2027 anyway. Shoutouts to the Esports World Cup; insert various jokes here.
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