thinker wrote: Sun Jun 29, 2025 9:28 pm
Hello gents, I have a question for the guys that have military experience. I have seen videos of Iran's hypersonic missiles hitting Tel Aviv, I believe both China and Russia also have hypersonic missiles in their arsenals. I believe we are working on this tech but are net yet to the point where we would be able to use it. From what I have seen these things are unstoppable, Israel doesn't have an answer for them, do we (US) have anything that could stop them?
I've seen lots of different analysis but it seems to boil down to the simple matter of quantity/quality of missiles and drones vs quantity of systems capable of stopping the missiles. It seems that there's lots more missiles/drones available to all the actors vs air defense and attrition of both doesn't favor those who rely on air defense. But we're currently in the fog of war and available information is murky. There's plenty of videos showing Israel getting pounded, they've blocked all on the ground reporting of missile strikes and that's a tell. Apparently many people believe the current ceasefire is only to re-equip the air defense and missile stockpile. It's probably a strategic blunder to continue using up our stockpile of limited air defense because they take a long time to manufacture.
A three theater war would be an enormous challenge in the best of times but it's well known we've actually fallen behind in some critical areas related to this. We're seeing a pushback on 2 fronts that's been showing this and it's unfortunate for our position, considering the arsenal the PRC has amassed. They're getting real time data and weapons testing of our best systems and will probably make adjustments for making them better. And they're probably just watching us attrit our arsenal with a long lag time for manufacture.
Where I disagree with Navigator is my uncertainty about how closely these nations are collaborating. They might have a common goal, but there's a lot of bad blood between them, and their opposition to us is about the only thing they have in common. There's also India, a nation Russia has been close to historically, and China's enemy.
Weapons are a tradable commodity and they're being traded. We do it too. It doesn't necessarily buy influence more than the ability supply and resupply armaments. But that ability in and of itself doe buy influence. It also gets information which is valuable to everyone who's using those systems. But fundamentally, it's not like they necessarily trust each other or are collaborating on a deeper level. They just have a shared common adversary. Probably why having fewer such adversaries is better for our position. I still think John's original analysis or Russia and Iran being on "team West" is fundamentally correct. And it also doesn't mean that we'll have any special feelings of comraderie besides fighting a common adversary.
I can't help but think that the average "Russian on the street" feels that he has much more in common with the West than with China. Ditto the average "Indian on the street." And even the average "Iranian on the street." Who knows what that's worth, but it's got to be worth something.
spottybrowncow wrote: Mon Jun 30, 2025 9:21 pm
I can't help but think that the average "Russian on the street" feels that he has much more in common with the West than with China. Ditto the average "Indian on the street." And even the average "Iranian on the street." Who knows what that's worth, but it's got to be worth something.
Remember John saying a very many times that the will of the people will eventually become the policy of the government?
to re-equip the air defense and missile stockpile. It's probably a strategic blunder to continue using up our stockpile of limited air defense because they take a long time to manufacture.