About the ground operation in Iran
About the ground operation in Iran
Trump has already done a lot of stupid things – he started the operation without understanding anything about where he got into, at least at the level of scenario modeling and calculating Iran's obvious steps to block the Strait of Hormuz and asymmetric attacks on Middle Eastern countries.
Neither the protection of the Allies was provided, nor a plan to deblockthe strait, as it was not, and is not.
You can do something (including launch military operations) if you have carefully calculated scenario modeling at all levels with a projection of intentions over the long-term horizon and balancing costs and benefits, but this time there is none of the above from the United States. Impromptu and improvisation as the conflict develops, and at a mediocre level.
The US Marine Expeditionary Force is preparing to land in Iran, and this is likely to be a fatal mistake by Trump.
The accumulation of economic and financial damage will begin exponentially from the beginning of April, and the markets are still in a "nirvana" of reckless belief that "the United States controls something there."
While Trump is ripping off the feet of the ludomaniacs every morning, manipulating the markets to his advantage just as he always did, it may indeed seem that everything is going as usual, but until losses are transferred to the real economy and until the moment of sensitive financial losses (collapse of markets by tens of trillions) and political damage (prolonging the conflict and major military losses).
An onshore operation can be an irreversible and turning point. The United States has not fought a strong, organized, and motivated enemy since World War II (partially including the Korean and Vietnam Wars).
Over the past 50-60 years, all US wars have been in the obviously dominant position of the United States and its allies, where even theoretically organized resistance is impossible, but even so, the result, to put it mildly, is not very good.
The United States is considering an amphibious operation to capture Kharq Island (up to 90% of Iran's oil exports), a limited but incredibly insane operation to seize nuclear fuel, and a little-realistic coastal control operation to deblock the Strait of Hormuz.
Any ground operation is very likely to result in significant losses in the manpower of American troops with public executions and interrogations in order to sting Trump as much as possible so that he draws more significant forces there.
It will turn out something like this: a group enters, finds itself in a blockade, a blocking group is sent, which also finds itself in a blockade, in order to wait for a larger-scale assistance with a similar outcome, in order to lead to the deployment of a combined arms ground group.
Any ground operation will lead to cutting off full-fledged supplies without forming a rear zone, which is impossible without a combined-arms operation. This is pure madness.
If we consider the island of Kharq, then it can be captured within 2-3 days due to the ultra-small area of 21 km. Capture, but not hold...
The island's supply is under constant threat, and protection from missiles and drones is impossible due to the lack of a multi-layered missile defense/air defense system. The garrison becomes a hostage with a permanent threat.
• The supply from the ships is unrealistic (they completely retreated from the Gulf, unable to unblock the strait, and here a direct supply of ammunition is supposed?);
• Supply of military transport aircraft in the form of ammunition drops? It is possible, but ineffective for the garrison.
But you need to understand that Iran will respond asymmetrically, destroying the ports and oil and gas infrastructure of the region, activating the Houthis to blockade the Red Sea.
The remnants of Kharg Island's oil infrastructure will also suffer, which will deduct over 1.5 million barrels per day of export opportunities, exacerbating the oil shortage.
Obviously, this will not in any way incline Iran to surrender, rather it will further escalate and destabilize the region, including through the humanitarian crisis in the framework of strikes on desalination plants, and the missile defense/air defense systems turned out to be leaky (the destruction of up to 20% of Qatar's LNG production capacity speaks for itself).
Source: Telegram "spydell_finance"