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Iran destroys five US refueling aircraft.
(www.vietnam.vn)
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this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2026
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It feels like Iran is exposing the traditional US military as a bit of a paper tiger unless you count nukes. I’m sure I’m at least kinda wrong, but that’s the vibe I’m getting
US seemingly watched russia get rekt by ukrainian drones and decided they'd like a punch in the face as well. But who am I to judge those masochistic tendencies.
The US military did a Tobias Funke “but maybe it’ll work for us”
he does have that tobias kind of energy just a slightly different flavor, e.g., orange instead of blue/diamond
As one of the ones paying for it that's who I am criticizing it
I think the last year of officer purges also has something to do with.
They didn't stop with the officers. They also purged a ton of their most competent enlisted personnel.
I don't know if this info is even available. But I would be extremely curious to see if trans soldiers were concentrated in any particular positions or areas of the military.
I imagine the military readiness of the average trans soldier was probably far above average. It's not like the military or military culture was ever some utopia for trans people. I'm sure every trans soldier or sailor had to deal with a whole lot of shit related to their gender. To be willing to put up with that, they would have to really like and be passionate about their job. To rise in the ranks in the face of bigotry, they would have to be quite skilled at their job. Marginalized minority groups usually need to work twice as hard to produce the same career outcomes as their non-marginalized peers.
They got rid of their best damn F35 wrench in the marines I can tell you that for sure
he left back in 2015. he was republican, but he didn't want to reup to serve under trump for some reason.
This is the first time the US actually tried to fight a technologically advanced army since WW2, and the results are frankly embarrassing.
So we're forgetting about Iraq then?
Iraq had mostly 70s tech, and the US did manage to break their army initially and topple the government. It was a disaster in strategic terms, but Iraqi regular army was no match for the US. This time around, Iran actually appears to have the upper hand. They've pushed out the US out of their bases across the region, destroyed billions if not trillions in the infrastructure that the US built up over many decades, and they're eliminating American air power which was thought to be untouchable. This is truly unprecedented.
Your description of the differences between Iraq and Iran is good, as well as your explanation of the current situation.
However, it would change significantly if the U.S. decided to stop half-assing it. If the douchebags running the show decide they want to commit to a full-scale invasion with all available assets, I think you'd see a situation more similar to Iraq. We could absolutely roll Iran's formal military if we committed to it.
But the subsequent occupation and attempt to maintain control would be doomed to the same failures as Iraq, Afghanistan, and all those before it, but on an even larger scale. All forward progress would stop once the Iranian military's command and control falls. There's no way we could win the asymmetric warfare that would follow, and I'm not at all saying we should even try. It's all a pointless pile of shit that never should have been started.
That's frankly delusional. Iran is a country of 90 million people. The US does not have the resources to, as you say, roll them. In fact, it's pretty clear that US army isn't even prepared for the realities of modern warfare like drones.
Unfortunately all it would take is a fast deployment tactic dedicating everything the US has. It comes down to raw numbers of immediately available manpower, aircraft, and munitions. The US has a stupid amount of these things at the ready.
It would be bloody and brutal and not certain, but I'd say the US would have a decent chance of overrunning the country.
Now this will only topple the government, then you get into a whole Afghanistan situation again. So I suppose it depends on what the definition of victory is. Could the US defeat Iran and occupy it? I think it's likely, but the second they leave a new government that hates the US (rightfully) forms. Could they occupy indefinitely? Probably at a steep cost.
So I see a path for the US to overwhelm the Iranian military, but no real way for them to ever establish control of the region. I wouldn't call that a win for the US for sure
The US is not configured to deploy everything it has in one theatre. This is not a realistic scenario. You've clearly have never dealt with real world logistics in your life, if you think that's even remotely possible. And even if this fantastical feat of creating supply chains to the region for sustained war was possible, there's very little chance of the US overrunning anything. You only have to look at a map to realize that Iran is a very mountainous country that would be a nightmare to fight in.
Finally, the US army is configured for legacy 20th century warfare. NATO as a whole is entirely unprepared for what modern war looks like. This is part of the reason the US is already getting its ass kicked by Iran, not being able to establish air dominance which is the core part of NATO fighting doctrine.
here's how NATO fared in recent exercises with Ukrainian veterans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAg4qBaFvjI
and here's how well US army is prepared to deal with drones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETeA07YjnSM
Worse. The US actually just doesn't have enough troops to occupy Iran. We literally don't have enough people in uniform. The US would need to institute a draft to raise the number of soldiers necessary.
I think that's an eventuality.
I don't think the US can even afford such an occupation financially. We're already spending more on interest than we are on even the defense budget. Even if our leaders completely ignore popular will and the cost of lives. The US budget and debt can only be stretched so far.
I'm not sure any of that matters to the billionaire class. They have their bunkers and surveillance state.
Replying to myself to add context
https://kbin.earth/m/usa@lemmy.ml/t/2532455/-/comment/11930321
If you've played RTS/starcraft, zerging one unit at a time after you have started the campaign, is not effective. Zerging as a verb also refers to suiciding cheap units to overcome a big objective, and US is not playing the Zerg side. Putting entirety of US military forces in near proximity of Iran is going to continue the reported hospital filling Iran strikes on those gatherings from this weekend.
The plan you speak of is completely different than surprise assassination of ayatollah followed by quick air campaign hoping for surrender. It is something that has to be in place before the air campaign, and not one unit at a time that has 2 week lag time before it is in position.
Iraq was nothing like Iran. Iraq is a small country, with a small population and a small military industry. Iran is far more advanced and capable, and it also had more time to prepare both strategically and technologically.
We may just be in an era where things swing in the direction of cheap mass armies rather than expensive elite fighting units. Think knights vs longbows. Sometimes the technology of the day favors small numbers of very expensive fighters, vehicles, and weapons. Sometimes the tech favors large numbers of cheap weapons. Cheap longbowman beat out expensive elite armored knights. Elite gun-toting marksmen and mercenaries eventually replaced the longbow armies. The mass gunpowder armies of the Napoleonic era replaced the elite mercenary armies that came before that. In the twentieth century, tanks, machine guns, and aircraft overcame masses of soldiers charging trenches with cheap rifles.
It's not necessarily some moral failing of the nations involved. We may simply be seeing the technology evolve. Expensive aircraft that cost hundreds of millions are the modern day equivalent of knights, while cheap drones are the equivalent of the hoards of English longbowmen. An individual knight could easily defeat a single longbowman in combat. But bows were so cheap you could deploy them by the thousands. A modern fighter jet will laugh in the face of a cheap drone. But if the jet costs as much as a thousand drones put together, spamming drones becomes the winning tactic.
The US military is shit, always was, always knew.
Only difference is they can't hide it in this case.