China, Russia and Iran to hold joint naval drills (Reuters)

[bronxiteforever]

12/26/19 @ 4:20am
BEIJING (Reuters) - China, Iran and Russia will hold joint naval drills starting on Friday in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman, China’s defense ministry said on Thursday, amid heightened tension in the region between Iran and the United States.

China will send the Xining, a guided missile destroyer, to the drills, which will last until Monday and are meant to deepen cooperation between the three countries’ navies, ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a monthly news briefing.

The drill was a “normal military exchange” between the three armed forces and was in line with international law and practices, Wu said.

... Friction has increased since last year when U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six nations and re-imposed sanctions on the country, crippling its economy... China has close diplomatic, trade and energy ties with Iran.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-iran-russia/china-russia-iran-to-hold-joint-naval-drills-starting-friday-idUSKBN1YU0FI

[GitRDun]

1. The mice preparing against the anaconda

Total number of aircraft carriers:

China: 2
Iran: 0
Russia: 1 that doesn't work
Total: 3 ish

US: 11

Their combined navy would last 5 minutes against ours.

I am sure the Pentagon is quaking.

Interesting post though!

[bronxiteforever]

2. Interesting computer game scenario!

Limiting combat against China and Russia to just carriers would clearly be US advantage.
Once you remove nuclear weapons, a player can move pieces all across the board and play conventional WW2 battles.

Of course that won’t be what happens in the real world. The Pentagon this summer discussed fighting after nuclear exchanges:

“The world has not seen a nuclear strike in combat since 1945. But a nuclear attack from an enemy — and potential U.S. counter strike — is a scenario that’s drawing renewed attention from the Defense Department as the military prepares for the grim prospect of full-scale combat operations involving nuclear weapons.

“It’d be horrible,” retired Gen. Hawk Carlisle, former head of Air Combat Command and current head of the National Defense Industrial Association, said of this hypothetical scenario that could happen under new Pentagon doctrine.

“All the complicating factors of a nuclear exchange just accentuates whatever problem you would have in a normal hostile environment, with a level of complexity that is an order of magnitude more difficult,” Carlisle told Military Times in a recent interview.

... The 2019 nuclear doctrine calls for soldiers and Marines trained and prepared to conduct combat operations in a multitheater post-nuclear environment.

“The greatest and least understood challenge ­confronting troops in a nuclear conflict is how to operate in a post-nuclear detonation radiological environment,” the publication states.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/07/10/blast-from-the-past-the-pentagons-updated-war-plan-for-tactical-nukes/

[GitRDun]

3. While the nuclear threat is a complicating factor

because the US has its own nuclear capabilities, IMO the US advantage in conventional weapons stands.

If that crew elects tactical nukes, we would respond in kind, albeit to land based capabilities.

Nukes begets nukes...they all know it.

[bronxiteforever]

4. Nuclear weapons are the only factor.

It’s why we won’t attack China or Russia.
It’s why they won’t attack us.
To paraphrase Tolkien it is “one bomb to RULE them all”. That bomb rules over all humanity and it is sheer fantasy to think otherwise. Although as a thought experiment, I wonder how the orange a hole would do with a Cuban missile crisis? I don’t think too well.

War between large nuclear powers makes conventional weapons anachronistic. The nuclear option makes it a zero sum game for both sides. As the computer said in the movie Wargames "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”

I wonder what is the point of spending trillions on weapons when the Taliban(also with no aircraft carrier)has outlasted the Russians at their height of power and now US.