Can the USA win a war against Iran without cheating?

[Takhisis]

Germany may have a slight chance of touching Britain, but wasted that with by losing the Battle of Britain.

Hmmmm, they still managed to regularly inflict some damage after that. That could never have happened with the US.

I never claimed otherwise.

I never said you did, don't worry.

 

[Archbob]

We can win without cheating if they don't cheat either. I mean when they hide among civilians and pretend to surrender then blow themselves up, you have to cheat a little too.

 

[BasketCase]

If you are talking about the currrent deficit, no argument. Traditionally though it´s Republicans that tend to have deficit budgets (as the one the current administration started with). So we end up that your claim between a connection between non-military spending and the US ´going downhill´ is lagrely due to Republican administrations.

Which doesn't actually mean anything; Republicans and Democrats are both pretty bad when it comes to deficit spending (though Democrats are moderately worse); the only reason Republicans are responsible for more debt is because the nation has had mostly Republican Presidents lately.

Further, you're leaving out the role of Congress in America's debt crisis. Much of the deficit spending we've seen from Republican Presidents was signed-onto by Congresses controlled by Democrats. Whereas Bill Clinton only managed to erase the budget deficit with a Congress full of REPUBLICANS. George Bush Jr.'s deficits were never great, but they got considerably larger starting in 2006 when Congress flipped to the Democrats. And, of course, since Obama took office, the budget deficits have ballooned by a lot more.

Now that still doesn´t completely rule out social spending as the cause, but citation is - as said - still missing.

No citation is needed. Nothing is needed but maths. The deficit stands at a hefty trillion and a half; spending on "subcontracted wars" is only a small fraction of that (for example, for the first six years of Bush Jr.'s Presidency it was around 100 billion for both Iraq and Afghanistan combined). Therefore something else besides "spending on subcontracted wars" must be responsible for the rest.

The only "attrition" that this spending causes, in the end, comes from the bottom line; the only reason the U.S. has a problem is because total spending is greater than total income. Which leads to the question--how much "budget leeway" does Iran have......?

Iran would lose big time, because a war of attrition would attrit Iran a lot worse.

 

[Dachs]

Agreed on all accounts, but vonbach accused the US of not facing their equal since 1812 and that just isn't true. While the industrial might of the US may have made the outcome of the war inevitable, Germany and Japan were still far from being pushovers. They could face us on the battlefield and have a reasonable chance of victory. To me, that makes them our military equal.

He also accused the US of winning wars by targeting and killing civilians, which is also not true. While I can admit that we have committed our share of war crimes, we have always achieved our victories on the battlefield, not by slaughtering innocents.

To me, the idea of fighting a military equal means that either side of a war has a reasonable chance to win. Not fifty-fifty, certainly. But I can demonstrate from the First World War and the Second World War. In the First World War, the Central Powers, especially Germany, came damned close to defeating the British and the French in 1917, and again in 1918, and did defeat the Russians in 1917-8. Assuming the Americans joined the war before this happened, what options would America have to win the war by itself against Germany? (Well, they'd have Japan on their side, I guess. Like that would do much good.) The German armies are more powerful, and the German fleet is at least of equal strength; the Germans would be able to prevent the Americans from doing anything in Europe (especially since the Americans would somehow have to pull off an amphibious landing in the face of serious opposition with a largely unblooded army and without the ability to use the United Kingdom as a base), and the American public of the 1910s, unlike that of the 1940s, would be difficult to keep in the war for very long against that. But look at the Second World War. The United States' population was significantly more interventionist, and attacks on American soil and long-term attacks on American shipping inured the populace to a greater willingness for war. Unlike 1918, the United States absolutely had the industrial and military ability to fight both Germany and Japan at the same time and win. And to cap it all, the Americans would eventually possess a monopoly on atomic weapons to deploy against enemy targets. You can make an argument that the Germans, Austro-Hungarians, Ottomans and the rest could have reasonably won the First World War; it is much harder to make an argument that the Axis and associated powers could have won the Second. That, in my mind, separates a military equal from the rest of the pack. Surely you would agree that that is a reasonable definition, even if you do not share it.

That doesn't mean that the ability to win a war defines all of what a military equal is. Sometimes political or other factors prevent one country from employing the full measure of its military might against an enemy that possesses a military that can in no way be said to be an "equal". The PAVN got smashed by the US military in every major engagement they fought with each other, and clearly cannot be described as the "equal" of the US Army, but due to the way in which the war in Indochina was defined in the 1960s and 1970s, the Americans lost the war anyway. So there's sort of a minimum threshold of military power, I guess?

Having said all that, not fighting a military equal doesn't mean much. In some cases - especially America's - it means that American diplomacy has prevented such a situation from arising (good for us!) or that the American military is so awesome that no such equal exists (good for us!). I don't see how either of those things is bad.

The assertion that Americans win wars by committing war crimes is prima facie ridiculous. Even if Americans were more prone to commit war crimes than any other military in history (hahahahahahano), the thing about war crimes is that they usually don't materially assist to victory in war. Even if they do have a benefit, it's usually incidental and not necessary (did the US Army really need to disperse plague-ridden clothes and blankets to various Native American tribes in the 1870s? would it really have lost the Plains Wars if it hadn't?), or actively, materially harmful (such as the practice of taking trophies from the bodies of Japanese soldiers, which if anything only strengthened Japanese morale). So yeah, he was wrong about that, but that's obvious and I didn't feel the need to address it.

I disagree that taking Midway would have been beneficial; taking and holding that base would have likely been a strategic liability rather than an asset. It is close enough to Pearl Harbor for Americans to attack while distant enough from Japan to make it difficult to resupply (US submarines based in Alaska and Hawaii would have had an even easier time attacking Japanese supply lines). I can't imagine their long-term struggle with attrition would be ameliorated by this.

The Japanese failed to realize there were two types of targets in the Pacific: those worth attacking with all 6 fleet carriers, and those that were not worth attacking at all. The unfocused attacks they launched in 1942 at bases with marginal value simply enabled the Americans to defeat them in detail.

I guess the greater problem was that they ran out of good targets besides Hawaii, which they could not seriously contest unless the most generous hypothetical conditions are entertained.

I never said that taking Midway Island would be worthwhile; I said winning the Battle of Midway would be. Regardless of what you think about the Japanese chances, three less carriers on the Americans' side is a win for Japan. I believe - I may be wrong - that the Japanese idea about an amphibious landing on Midway was simply a device for setting the trap for the American fleet, and when they found themselves in an engagement that landing became an irrelevant means to an end that had already been achieved. I don't see the Japanese maintaining a position on Midway for very long even if they had decided to stick the landing anyway.

I completely agree that Japan's inability to stick to its original offensive-defensive strategy in favor of widely separated attacks against dubious targets with virtually no resources was an error that doomed what minuscule chance the Japanese had of "winning" the war in the Pacific, whatever that might have meant.

I will get to back with you about your many, MANY, factual errors in the rest of your post later.

However, for now I will point out that there was only 1 Essex class carrier commissioned in 1942 and three in 1943 so your claim that six new carriers would be available within a year of Midway is entirely incorrect.

In 1942, CV-9 was commissioned. During the course of 1943, CV-10, -11, -12, -16, -17, and -18 were commissioned. All of these were Essex-class vessels. USS Wasp (CV-18), however, was not commissioned until November 1943, more than twelve months after Midway. Six plus one minus one equals six.

Assuming the Japenese curb stomped the US at Midway, and there is no good reason to deny this was not a possible outcome, that would leave the US with one operational fleet carrier that in real life was sunk just a few months later (USS Hornet).

This would have given the Japanese complete mastery of the Pacific for a least the rest of 1942 and superiority through 1943. More importantly the cream of the crop of Japanese naval aviation would not have been lost. Rather, the US would have suffered that loss of experienced pilots. The Japanese would ales launch three more carriers in 1942 and 1943, offsetting the new Essexs of those years which would not have been empty shells like they were in real life. That assumes the Japenese do not have follow on victories just like the US did after Midway.

You are being a bit to arrogant in your assessments.

The good reason to deny that the Japanese could have "curbstomped" the Americans at Midway is that they went into the battle with a crap plan (actually, scratch that: a horrible plan) and crap intelligence, while the Americans went into it with excellent intelligence and a decent plan; poor Japanese naval aviation doctrine compounded further advantages that the Americans gained partially through luck. Maybe the Japanese could've won the battle; most battles could, at least theoretically, have gone the other way by their very nature. But they'd have to have gotten ridiculously, unsustainably lucky, and the Americans would've had to get either ridiculously, unsustainably unlucky, or abominably stupid on an institutional level very quickly. Neither one of those things seems particularly likely to me.

But ignore that, and say that the Japanese wipe out all three American carriers at Midway. Okay, they still can't take Hawaii, they still can't take Port Moresby, they still can't push up the Kokoda Trail, and their impending efforts towards Guadalcanal are still badly exposed. The Japanese are still effectively incapable of hurting the Americans in any meaningful way; they must continue to attack the Australians - something that victory at Midway does not improve their ability to do. So they can't stop the Americans from reclaiming naval superiority in terms of sheer numbers before next year. Furthermore, Japanese operational naval doctrine is still badly flawed and relies on luring the remainder of the American fleet into an engagement in WestPac that the Americans would have to be ludicrously stupid to enter. They still have no counter to American submarines. Their material capability to win the war is no greater than it was before Midway.

I really don't see how any of this is "arrogance" at all.

 

[r16]

surfing at webcafes haven't read the whole thread but one thing that has caught my eye is the relationship between Midway and loss of elite Japanese fliers . ı believe they had no effective replacement plans and those aviators would have been lost in any case . Their further influence could have been countered with more attention on the Pasific , it would have delayed the US bomber offensive in Europe perhaps , but there still would have been Mustangs by February 1944 .

 

[Antilogic]

surfing at webcafes haven't read the whole thread but one thing that has caught my eye is the relationship between Midway and loss of elite Japanese fliers . ı believe they had no effective replacement plans and those aviators would have been lost in any case . Their further influence could have been countered with more attention on the Pasific , it would have delayed the US bomber offensive in Europe perhaps , but there still would have been Mustangs by February 1944 .

Part of the Japanese problem was the lack of a rotation scheme for their veteran pilots, to get them back in the home country teaching the next generation of pilots. The second problem they had was the loss of the support personnel on their carriers--the mechanics and ground crews were hard to replace because Japan was not as industrialized as the major Western nations, and the ones lost at Midway were incredibly fast and proficient.

 

[Crezth]

I will get to back with you about your many, MANY, factual errors in the rest of your post later.

You're zero for one so far.

 

[Patroklos]

In 1942, CV-9 was commissioned. During the course of 1943, CV-10, -11, -12, -16, -17, and -18 were commissioned. All of these were Essex-class vessels. USS Wasp (CV-18), however, was not commissioned until November 1943, more than twelve months after Midway. Six plus one minus one equals six.

Commissioning is irrelevant, availability is what matters, which is why I specifically said available. Of the carriers you mentioned...

CV-9 USS ESSEX - reported for combat duties in May 1943, 11 months after Midway.

CV-10 USS YORKTOWN - Released for combat duty from Pearl Harbor 24 August 1943, 14 months after Midway.

CV-11 USS INTREPID - Reports to Pearl Harbor for duty on 10 January 1944, 19 months after Midway.

CV-12 USS HORNET - Arrives for at her first operational availability in the Marshal Islands on 20 March 1944, 21 months after Midway.

CV-16 USS LEXINGTON - Arrives at Pearl Harbor ready for combat operations on August 9th 1943, 14 moths after Midway

CV-17 USS BUNKER HILL - Available for combat duty in the autumn of 1943, participates in her first action near Rabul on 11 November 1943, 17 moths after Midway

CV-19 USS WASP - Reported for combat operations in Pearl Harbor on 4 April 1944, nearly two years after Midway.

The Maths for new US carriers ready for operations against Japan by year:

1943 - 4

1944 - 6

1945 - 7

1946 - 7

The maths for new carriers ready for action within a year of Midway:

1 (ESSEX)

So no, there were not six replacement carriers available within a year of Midway. There was one, and assuming a complete loss by the US at Midway similar to what actually happened the US would not have been back up to Midway carrier force levels until the beginning of 1944.

By the end of 1944, assuming no other major losses to the Japanese until then, the US would have again had superiority and obviously would have run away with it into 1945/1946, but that is a significant expansion of the war and what would have happened in the interim is anyone's guess, but it surely wouldn't be anything to make the US war effort easier.

You're zero for one so far.

You should pick your horses better next time.

 

[r16]

Part of the Japanese problem was the lack of a rotation scheme for their veteran pilots...the mechanics and ground crews were hard to replace ... and the ones lost at Midway were incredibly fast and proficient.

nothing to argue against . The Japanese had to win fast if they fought , hence they concentrated on it to the detriment of staying power - if that's the term - and even if they had won Midway they would still have lost in the face of American production . Japan lost the war by Pearl Harbour , had they fought as they had originally planned , off Philippinnes within range of land air , and had USN shown real eagerness to solve it all in one big battle , they might have got away with a few gains by 1945 .