Comment by thrownawaysz
2 days ago
>the difficulty of transporting extremely heavy 155-millimeter artillery shells and guided multiple-launch rocket system pods across contested oceans and degraded theater road networks
I found it interesting that not even this article thinks about it that the US mainland ever can be attacked
> I found it interesting that not even this article thinks about it that the US mainland ever can be attacked
It can be, but it would be very, very difficult for anything short of lobbing ICBMs around. You'd have to have a fleet of ships that would be detected as soon as they set sail, and then protect that fleet for the entire voyage, which would also be extremely difficult for any adversary.
Getting boots on US soil would be even tougher.
Drones are an option, but cross-ocean ones are not an easy problem to solve.
For better and for worse our country is armed to the teeth with civilians who would take great offense to a foreign military invasion
It could be attacked easily via an alliance with Mexico or Canada. The premise that such a thing could never happen is not a good one for military planning.
It seems more likely we'd attack ourselves
According to Zelensky, there will be drones capable of traversing tens of thousands of kilometers within a couple of years. The US mainland is definitely at risk of drone attack in the near-medium term, IMO.
> One, two, three years — drones will strike ten, twenty thousand kilometers. With reactive engines, they will be very cheap -- Zelensky
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/2042105223989035429
I did some digging, reaction engines are jet engines that can transition into a rocket propelled mode. It could enable a single stage to orbit plane.
Within the atmosphere the jet engine will burn atmospheric oxygen which would theoretically reduce the amount of fuel needed to reach a certain delta-V. Once outside of the atmosphere the engine switches to a rocket propelled mode, usually by injecting stored oxygen into the engine in addition to jet fuel.
So far there hasn't been a working prototype of a reaction engine. A British company SABRE closed down due to lack of funding but it did prove several pieces of the reactive engine design could work independently.
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Balloon-lofted drones seem more likely as a means for even a minor military power to strike deep within a country.
These can be launched in mass, cheaply. They're difficult to detect and/or distinguish (weather balloons are already common), and easy to cloud with dummy balloons, perhaps dangling aluminium paper to enhance radar signatures.
The drones themselves could use optical+inertial guidance, and have either minimal propulsion or be entirely glide-based. Given prevailing high-altitude winds (generally west-to-east in mid-northern latitudes) strikes could be launched many thousands of miles from targets with minimal or no fuel / propulsive storage use.
"Ukraine uses military balloons to deliver drone strikes inside Russia" <https://english.nv.ua/russian-war/ukraine-uses-military-ball...>
"Ukraine Revives Military Balloons for Modern Warfare Needs: Report" <https://thedefensepost.com/2026/02/18/ukraine-balloons-moder...>
Japan used a similar strategy, though to no strategic or tactical effect (six civilians were killed in Oregon), during WWII:'
Fu-Go balloon bomb <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb>
In 1945, a Japanese Balloon Bomb Killed Six Americans, Five of Them Children, in Oregon <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1945-japanese-balloon...>
The idea that attacks on the US come from afar is an assumption too.
It doesn’t seem impossible that some radical group of attacks the US from within.
And that’s quite apart from the US threats to attack its neighbours.
North Korea and Iran both have orbital launch vehicles. If you can put something in orbit, that's most of the way to putting something in Times Square or DC.
This hasn't happened yet. And much easier, more deniable attacks like car bombings of these places also hasn't happened to any real degree.
The mass shootings in the US are mostly performed by Americans, usually right-wing Americans, and the percentage performed by foreigners is close to zero. Looking forward to some right wing American replying linking to individual examples of foreigners doing mass shootings as though that disproves the point.
A drone capable of traveling tens of thousands of kilometers to its target is called a cruise missile.
They are not cheap.
What "reactive engine" is Zelensky talking about?
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>Getting boots on US soil would be even tougher.
Getting them there seems easy, its the keeping them there that seems like a logistical nightmare.
>You'd have to have a fleet of ships that would be detected as soon as they set sail, and then protect that fleet for the entire voyage, which would also be extremely difficult for any adversary.
Or make friends with one of your neighbors that the USA appears to be keen on pissing off constantly. I have never seen more negative sentiment about the USA from Canadians before, who now see the USA as a strategic threat instead of their mentally challenged neighbor.
And dont get me started on Mexico, they can probably be had for pennies.