Comment by lostlogin
2 days ago
The next war is going to need the US to do something pretty spectacular if it’s going to reclaim the ground it’s lost in the Iran war.
The situation there is an utter joke, and shows no sign of wrapping up any time soon.
That’s because there’s no political will for ground forces by the US because it’s a dumb war. If there was political will, then the area around the Hormuz strait would’ve been seized, as well as the nuclear sites secured. Carpet bombing, too, not just surgical strikes.
It's not merely that the US has not, will not, and/or can not put boots on the ground.
It's that regional bases and sea-based platforms from which the US has operated with impunity in previous conflicts, as recently as a decade ago, are no longer safe from retaliation. This puts the US, its forces, and perhaps more significantly its friends and allies in the region at risk in both the present and any future conflict(s).
> That’s because there’s no political will for ground forces by the US because it’s a dumb war.
It’s all very well claiming you can win, but when you don’t that’s the result you’re stuck with.
Most analysts doubt the US, on its present phase, has the capabilities of doing so.