Live Conflict Israel-US vs Iran War (2026)

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With the US destroying Iranian science and technology to send Iran to the stone age, how would Americans react to Iran targeting the moon missions.

 

[Spitfire9]

The proliferation of cheap, effective, and unmanned anti-ship systems around the world suggests that a new way of warfare at sea is just around the corner, whether American military planners like it or not,” he concludes.

Does India need to reconsider its plans for one or more carriers or will systems offering almost complete protection against attack be evolved before any new carrier is launched?

PS Will DEW have developed enough to guarantee shoot down of 100% of attack drones in a swarm attack?

 

[Ripley]

Γιατί η πολεμική μηχανή των ΗΠΑ δεν θα ισοπεδώσει τους Ιρανούς και δεν θα «ανοίξει» το Στενό του Ορμούζ

Η εποχή της αεροπορικής ισχύος που κυριαρχείται από αεροπλανοφόρα ξεθωριάζει, καθώς φθηνά, μη επανδρωμένα αντιπλοϊκά όπλα αναδιαμορφώνουν τον ναυτικό πόλεμο, ανεξάρτητα από το αν οι Αμερικανοί σχεδιαστές είναι έτοιμοι γι' αυτό ή όχι

www.pentapostagma.gr

The era of carrier-dominated air power is fading as cheap, unmanned anti-ship weapons reshape naval warfare, whether American planners are ready for it or not.

According to James Russell, a former associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, failure is looming over Iran.
He says: “American taxpayers could forgive anything if recent events left them wondering why the world’s largest and most expensive Navy is standing outside the Strait of Hormuz, watching helplessly as the Iranians decide which ships they will allow through the waterway.

After all, they must be wondering why the US Navy can’t just flatten the Iranians and reopen the strait, sending life and the global economy back to normal?

Unfortunately, the days of the United States’ all-powerful sea power as a means of projecting power near well-protected shores are coming to an end.

This shift raises questions about the future of naval forces and the wisdom of investing in these extremely expensive instruments of national power.

A brief review of American naval history shows how this shift came about, and calls into question whether Washington is ready for the future of naval warfare.

In the early 20th century, aspiring powers such as Germany and the United States viewed a strong Navy as a necessary part of achieving "great power status" and as an important means of exerting influence over friends and adversaries.

Based on this logic and the experiences of the once-powerful British Royal Navy, the United States built the largest fleet in history, taking advantage of the almost unlimited industrial potential of the era.

During World War II, America used its Navy to wage and decisively win the war in the Pacific against the Japanese, while also winning the submarine war in the Atlantic, which allowed the Army to move to Europe, and thus prevented all of Europe from becoming part of the Soviet empire.

Both of these victories decisively influenced the direction of the 20th century and the subsequent consolidation of American global power and hegemony.

At that time, navies had the great advantage of being able to transport land forces to almost any region of the world.

America's seemingly ubiquitous aircraft carriers also gave naval forces striking power several hundred miles along any coastline, to strike enemies at will.

This approach was perhaps best expressed during the Vietnam War. American aircraft carriers spent much of the conflict 90 miles off the coast of Vietnam in an area dubbed "Yankee Station."

From there, American forces launched air strikes that hit North Vietnam, albeit at great cost in lost pilots and materiel.

In the 1990s, when the US held a position of undisputed global naval supremacy after the end of the Cold War, the US Navy sent aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf "with impunity" to help the Air Force police the no-fly zones over Iraq and indirectly help enforce the United Nations trade embargo on Iraq.

By the late 1990s, the US Navy began to reduce its aircraft carrier transits through the strait, and today those carriers sail well out of range of Iranian missiles.

The era of denial of access and land-based denial of access had arrived in the Persian Gulf. The balance between land-based and sea-based weapons had shifted in favor of land-based weapons, particularly missiles.

It was no longer possible to install Yankee stations in areas where enemies had invested in arsenals of cheap, expensive cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.

Iran’s moves to secure the Strait of Hormuz did not go unnoticed. The Chinese immediately realized the implications of what Iran had achieved and began building their own “anti-Navy” system, designed around missiles that could target U.S. Navy ships, which would presumably rush to Taiwan’s aid in the event of an attack.

Today, China has several families of precision anti-ship systems, most notably the DF “Dong Feng” series of missiles that can track and target U.S. ships thousands of miles away while they are at sea.

Numerous war games today convincingly demonstrate that the United States Navy would suffer serious and perhaps unacceptable losses from these missiles in any war against China.

Back in the Persian Gulf today, the U.S. Navy is coming to terms with the reality of the situation, recognizing that it simply cannot sail through the Strait of Hormuz without risking destruction by Iranian missiles.

Today, U.S. aircraft carriers are well out of the Gulf, but within range of Iranian missiles.

These steps have imposed additional costs on the war effort, necessitating costly and ongoing aerial refueling operations.

The U.S. Navy has incorporated various countermeasures to protect itself from incoming missiles, but the close proximity of Iranian systems to the Strait of Hormuz significantly reduces warning times for any attacks.

American ships are also vulnerable to mines and various unmanned systems both above and below the water.

Despite discovering its vulnerability to Iranian mines during Operation Earnest Will in the Iran-Iraq War 40 years ago, the US Navy today still lacks reliable mine-sweeping ships to mitigate the threat.

The lessons of the Ukraine-Russia war are pertinent. Ukraine successfully drove the Russian Black Sea Fleet away from its shores through missile and drone attacks.

Iran has incorporated several of these systems into its toolbox in the Strait of Hormuz.

These systems are not necessarily sophisticated, but their mere existence introduces significant risks to U.S. Navy operations in and around the strait that cannot be ignored for mission planning purposes.

This is why the U.S. Navy has not attempted to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

Simply put, Iran is threatening extremely expensive and manpower-intensive American ships with weapons that cost a fraction of the cost in return.

Furthermore, the United States cannot easily replace damaged ships due to the well-documented decline of its shipbuilding industrial base.

If U.S. Navy ships cannot cross the Strait of Hormuz, then some may wonder whether the military could do so with the help of ground forces, as President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested.

But the reality is that such operations with relatively small numbers of troops cannot decisively change the long-term strategic situation.

Iran can threaten maritime operations in the strait relatively easily and cheaply through missiles, drones, and naval unmanned attack systems from areas far from the strait.

There is no decisive military solution to this problem, given Iran’s geography and military capabilities. This reality suggests a modified paradigm surrounding the application of sea power near well-fortified coastlines in the modern strategic environment.

Gone are the days when aircraft carriers and their expensive, manned, short-range planes could project decisive power and strike America’s enemies at will, free from the skies.

The proliferation of cheap, effective, and unmanned anti-ship systems around the world suggests that a new way of warfare at sea is just around the corner, whether American military planners like it or not,” he concludes.

Maybe this should make some people’s ears ring at decision making positions of our country.

PS: Im not saying that CV is passe!

 

[Ripley]

Does India need to reconsider its plans for one or more carriers or will systems offering almost complete protection against attack be evolved before any new carrier is launched?

PS Will DEW have developed enough to guarantee shoot down of 100% of attack drones in a swarm attack?

In case of India where surrounded by an ocean, I don’t think it should worry much. But as a general rule of thumb, any naval fleet or pieces of naval vessels that would push through contested and congested waterways - straits in particular - should be very cautious. Especially with the new weapons ıntroduced in recent years.

 

[Spitfire9]

I was just listening to an ex-US ambassador talking about the Iran war. He commented that Trump finds himself in the unpalatable position of needing to choose between

(1) Halting the offensive without having 'got the job done'
(2) Sending in the troops

If he goes for (2) and that does not alter the regime's policy regarding open navigation of the Gulf, what is achieved?
If he goes for option (1) there is no guarantee that the regime will alter its policy to allow free navigation of the Gulf.

As the ex-US ambassador said, Trump should never have attacked Iran. I agree. I wonder if the world would be in a similar economic mess if Israel alone had attacked Iran.

 

[Huelague]

I agree. I wonder if the world would be in a similar economic mess if Israel alone had attacked Iran.

A single strike on Israel can free the world. Can free all mankind. Even it is the most unpopular reaction.

 

[GoatsMilk]

I was just listening to an ex-US ambassador talking about the Iran war. He commented that Trump finds himself in the unpalatable position of needing to choose between

(1) Halting the offensive without having 'got the job done'
(2) Sending in the troops

If he goes for (2) and that does not alter the regime's policy regarding open navigation of the Gulf, what is achieved?
If he goes for option (1) there is no guarantee that the regime will alter its policy to allow free navigation of the Gulf.

As the ex-US ambassador said, Trump should never have attacked Iran. I agree. I wonder if the world would be in a similar economic mess if Israel alone had attacked Iran.

isreal/zionism doesnt give a shit about the costs america will incur. For isreal using american might to destroy iran is good business for them. The whole Epstein PDF affair looks basically like blackmail over trump and his cohorts.

 

[Tabmachine]

Great article on Iran's "passive defense" strategy (requires translation from Turkish to English)

https://www.iramcenter.org/iranin-pasif-savunmasi-doktrini-ne-olcude-basarili-oldu-2783

While passive defense is a smart investment for a mid-sized power facing a technologically superior opponent, the 2026 war has revealed three facts:

First, passive defense is a mechanism that complements active air defense rather than a substitute. When the protective umbrella collapses, all the capacity underneath is exposed. Iran's S-300 batteries had already been eroded in previous Israeli attacks, while the Native Baver-373 system had never been tested in high-intensity combat conditions. Both systems were inadequate against the combination of F-22, F-35 and EA-18G.

Second, the basic paradox of underground storage is that the protected elements have to be brought to the surface at some stage before they can be used. This moment, combined with constant UAV surveillance and precision strike capability, produces a deadly bottleneck. The strategy of entry denial and area denial has also systematically turned this bottleneck into a destructive vulnerability.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the most strategically decisive passive defense success is also the least costly element: distributing enriched uranium to different points before the bombardment begins. If these claims are true, this element will be one of the strongest trump cards Iran has outside the Strait of Hormuz when the negotiation table is reached.

As a result, the Iranian Passive Defense Agency can be considered one of the most ambitious conventional survival programs that a medium-sized power can develop in the face of technological superiority. Twenty years of underground construction have created facilities that can withstand even the most powerful conventional weapons. However, passive defence is unable to protect the Islamic Republic in its entirety from the consequences of the destructive military offensive.