Now this can be circumvented over with standoff munitions, but now you're increasing ordnance cost by magnitudes, and theoretically this can be scaled to hit subsonic standoff munitions, so on paper negate / require even more premium munitions.

The none poverty version coming online is mega constellation ISR, throw enough SAR in space to make sky completely transparent.

Heavy weight boxing a teen it should have brained in round 1.

Teen lands a few punches back is embarrassing.

Teen slapping heavy weights protectorates more embarrassing.

Teen surviving week 4 is like heavy weight failing to brain teen by round 7.

At this point it's looking like we're going to round 10 TKO, whoever "wins", US loses. People still going to wank over if US wins on TKO because muh K:D ratio or something, but real signal is teen's strategy was to survive hits and ultimately 10000s of heavy weight hits weren't haymaker strong enough to brain a teen. At >2% of GDP of PRC, Iran is basically teen/toddler territory that drew down significant % of US active force and munition stockpiles, so there's also layer of US losing more based on relative effort expended.

This not to mention, relative to US performance / conemps, i.e. going back to standoff munitions, there's not really enough discretionary high end munitions to take degrade all Iranian infra vs Iran has enough in reserve to take out all regional desalination. Nevermind US expending 1000s more TLAMs / JASSM(ER)s leaving it unprepared for any other near peer conflict. Reminder Iraq was 20% size of Iran, and so far US+Israel only flew ~20% of sorties via Iran than it has Iraq. Even factoring in precision munitions, US would have to expend more munitions than it has to actually cripple Iran on par with Iraq.

Building infra and networking gear is cheap in society that knows how to build and carriers are required to install in administered villages even if it's not profitable. Fiber adoption rate actually higher among rice farmers because they get subsidies, 1Gbps gigabyte fiber for cost of 200 Mbps in city and because bunch of villages got hooked up in last 10 years - they skipped straight to fiber which was bundled with road/power buildout.

Meanwhile US so dysfunctional / can't brute force rural fiber, need to literally invent SpaceX to plug gap. Which TBH is good copium.

1. Iran was retarded and didn't preemptively strike US staging who had local overmatch and first mover advantage. Nothing to do but weather hits, chip away at regional basing and wait until US+Israel operation tempo goes down. Can't sustain surge sorties forever, especially with regional logistics wrecked. US pilots tired now, on stims, making mistakes.

2. Iran not remain retarded, was hide and bide, waited for US to get complement, gathering data / building tactics to squeeze out surface-air without getting glassed. Regardless, Iranian capability seems much less degraded than claimed. Who knows how many of the 20k+ targets hit was basically just drawing down highend munition inventory, which now forces flying closer on lower end munitions.

At the end of the day, Iranian mosaic forces are chilling in underground bunkers waiting for US+co to make mistakes. Consider Iraq, a much smaller country by every metric ate 5x more sorties from more carriers and sustained regional air campaign and fell because they hedged on centralized IADs. Granted most Iranian hits are precision munitions (more efficient per sortie), but we simply should not expect Iran doctrine built on distributed survivability to be remotely defeated relative to effort expended.

>don't actually do you any good.

Sure, economy of scale good for consolidator being net bad is valid, but this wasn't discussion on optimal macroeconomics, this discussion on what US politically able to do. There are things US should do, but systemically can't.

> Cold War to decentralize

Cold war dispersion for nuclear math and precise conventional strike math is different. Spreading 2 factories apart so they draw 2 nukes vs 2 factories get 2 conventional packages regardless of spatial separation.Circle back to feasibility, what is required for distributed / dispersed survivability. Is US going to dismantle gulf oil infra and move it inland. Most physical infra processes are not fragmentable or self healing like internet. How much are Americans willing to pay, coldwar was eating 15% of GDP. All this ultimately secondary to the point that doing all this costs US more (because everything in US costs more) vs adversaries simply getting more missiles, it's economically/strategically self defeating. Let's not forget Soviet answer to US disbursement was building more missiles while US still pays inefficiency tax on suburbs.

Those are ridiculous / absurd economies of scale numbers, splitting piles up 20-50% per duplication inefficiency, especially in US context (expensive regulatory/physical buildout), splitting 1 hyper to 1000 medium is not marginal more cost, it's magnitudes / 1000%s more cost - costs private or public will not go for, and is prematurely self defeating because others can always build cheaper missiles than US can build infra (hence goldendome theatrics).

In principle, US can preempt CONUS physical vulnerabilities, where 100+ years of built up over assumption of CONUS not being vulnerable. In practice the chance of that happening approaches 0. Didn't even harden CENTCOM air shelters and planners have been noting vulnerability for years. Not just economies scale, but JIT and all other aggregate downstream optimizations US likes to make in name of efficiency. US simply not culturally PRC who does not mind (and is optimized for) some extra concrete for physical security. Not that PRC does not have huge vulnerabilities, just development has been made with mainland strikes in mind.

But at same time, extend IRBM range by 1000km, and replace refineries with hyperscalers, or whatever targets that worth deterrent value (energy at top of list). Refineries just most immediately very high value targets that happens to be closest to missile range.

But the assumption is less about US adaptability/smartness, as the way commodity conventional strikes is trending, CONUS _ will _ be vulnerable eventually. Fortress America is as much function of geography as technology. Just like how 20 years ago Iran couldn't hit Israel or many GCC companies even if it wanted to... now it can. The natural outcome of longer and longer range strikes is at some point US becomes in range of Monroe neighbours who doesnt want to be Monroed.

Some specific products like SPECIFIC mixes of aviation fuel, only some PADD3 refineries are setup to produce or produce significant % i.e. IIRC something like 90%+ of military JP5/JP10 come from PADD3. That's why I said "specialty" aviation fuel, not just general aviation fuel. Or taking out out Colonial pipeline which ~2.5m barrels - US doesn't have 10,000k extra tankers or 5000 extra rail carts in reserve for that contingency. Turning off export has nothing to do with this, there isn't enough to keep in-nation due to refinery mismatch, or not enough hardware to move it in event of pipeline disruption.

Of course predicated on timeline/execution, i.e. US can potentially fix refinery mismatch and harden/redundant over next 10 years. We don't know if/when Monroe countries will start adopting their own rocket force. Just pointing out after Iran has demonstrated defense is useless for midtier powers and mediocre offense can penetrate the most advanced defense, the only rational strategic plan is go hard on offense for conventional counter-value deterrence. The logic like Iran, it matters less RoW suffers more, only specifically that US suffers as well, the harder the more deterrent value. And due to sheer economic disparity, could be trillions for US vs billions for others, even if trillions for US is relatively less.

Gulf coast PADD3 refineries = disproportionate production of diesel, aviation, bunker fuel for CONUS use. Something like 70% of all refined products used in US comes from PADD3, other refineries cannot replace PADD3 complexity/production levels (think specialty fuels for military aviation, missiles etc). US economic nervous system is EXTRA exposed to gulf coast refinery disruptions. PADD3 refineries (or hubs / pipelines serving east/west coast which more singular point failure) itself enough to cripple US with shortages even if all exports stopped. Gulf gas terminal is for export i.e. doesn't materially impact CONUS, it's deterrence conventional counter-value target. There's also offshore terminals. The broader point being gulf coast has host of targets along escalation/deterrence ladder.

Of course US can try to coerce INF for conventional in Americas, but commoditized conventional precision strike are conventional... and commoditized, it's the kind of product where specialized dual use components may need to be sourced... among millions of TEU traffic, but otherwise local industries can build, like Iran.

There's also no global pariah status for proliferating conventional missiles for self defense and hence accessible to many players, coercion / enforcement would require trying to mow grass to keep capabilities out of 600m people...in perpetuity... tall task even for even US. Especially considering form factor of missiles... i.e. sheltered / hidden, they are not major battlefield assets like ships and planes that needs to be out to have wheels turned.

Ultimately it's not about winning vs US, it's about deterring US from historic backyard shenanigans by making sure some future time when US is tempted, and US always tempted, it would risk half of CONUS running out of energy in 2 weeks.

Like the Iran logic is extremely clear now, no amount of defense survives offensive overmatch, the only thing left is to pursue some counter offensive ability that can have disproportionate deterrence value. The thing about US being richest country is US has a lot of valuable things.

I had my youtube premium (back when it was red) banned for violating community guidelines - impossible since account was only used for viewing videos. Appeals got auto rejected... can only repeal every few weeks... oh at time account ban = cannot access accounts page so they kept charging for months while I appealed. Had to cancel credit card.

For reference I also had wechat account blocked in PRC... and show how got to talk to a human being and sort it out within a few business days.

Eventually youtube account restored... 2 YEARS LATER, OUT OF NOWHERE. I think maybe I posted on youtube google groups and someone eventually got to it, but who the hell knows.

It's acceptable, as I said, targets in RU soil legitimate. Of course the UKR has their own calculation on what PRC interests in RU they're able to hit that's not counterproductive - PRC support for RU MIC can be much more than what it is.

Even if we accept moving from "rule based" doesn't discount realist/rational based which rule based is derived from. It is not hard to understand allowing your house to be used to shoot at someone else = your house is now legitimate target. Expecting immunity under those conditions is strategic fantasy, especially when IR hitting GCC countries is arguably not counter-productive.

Hosting US assets actively being used in war vs Iran = being active co-belligerents. Host countries no longer neutral when they don't adhere to duty of abstention (Hague Convention V). This not even Iran using deniable proxies, this is Qatar allowing sovereign territory to facilitate attack on Iran, which unambiguously makes them legitimate target. Ditto with Diego Garcia.

In the same way railway in RU already legitimate target for UKR because in RU soil. If EU sending out sorties from NATO bases to hit RU then they too would be active belligerents. There's no compartmentalizing using territory to shoot someone else.

E: 50% of PRODUCTION, not plants, as in a few plants responsible for 50% of US refinery / LNG production.

No. This is absurd claim that can't physically comport with sortie generation math.

CSIS report from first 3 weeks noted Israel did more than half of strikes on ~15,000 targets... all Israel's hits would be from land basing.

2xCSG at surge for 3 weeks = ~6k sorties, ~20% for kinetic strike (80% of sorties supportive, cap, tanking, ew etc). Optimistically carriers hit ~2000 targets when not standoff during first 3 weeks. Likely strike compositions: Israel from land, 50%, US from regional land ~35% (we know lots of none carrier aviation was involved), carriers ~15%.

The real kicker is CSGs since been pushed to standoff - kinetic strike ratio to dwindle to single digit % sorties at those distances, making carrier cost:strike ratio even more unfavourable. This something most expect from peer/near peer adversaries, not Iran, i.e. carriers seem vulnerable to lower tier of adversaries than originally thought.