Lessons for Iran
1) Diplomacy will not work once America sends a bigger fleet and more troops once that happens America will invade they always invade.
2) UN Weapons inspectors are useless they can declare they can’t find weapons in your Iran but since they can't prove a negative America will attack anyway.
3) Letting America build up its troop levels, bring in more ships etc as you wait for diplomacy to resolve the crisis is stupid. Its better to attack first before the Americans get enough troops to attack you.
4) After the Americans win the war freedom and economic opportunity won’t follow, just look at Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran should make a point of this in their media to help unite their country.
Now then lets assume Iran is smart what would they likely do next?
1) Sneak Attack first before America sends in too many ships.
Reasons why this idea will work
a)
Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02) was a major war game exercise conducted by the United States armed forces in mid-2002, likely the largest such exercise in history. The exercise, which ran from July 24 to August 15 and cost $250 million, involved both live exercises andcomputer simulations. MC02 was meant to be a test of future military “transformation“—a transition toward new technologies that enablenetwork-centric warfare and provide more powerful weaponry and tactics. The simulated combatants were the United States, referred to as “Blue”, and an unknown adversary in the Middle East, “Red”.
Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue’s approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue’s fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces’ electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships. This included one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Astutely and very covertly, Van Riper armed his civilian marine craft and deployed them near the US fleet, which never expected an attack from small pleasure boats. Faced with a blunt US ultimatum to surrender, Force Red suddenly went on the offensive: and achieved complete tactical surprise. Force Red’s prop-driven aircraft suddenly were swarming around the US warships, making Kamikaze dives. Some of the pleasure boats made suicide attacks. Others fired Silkworm cruise missiles from close range, and sunk a carrier, the largest ship in the US fleet, along with two helicopter-carriers loaded with marines.
http://www.rense.com/....
My bold Imagine how many more losses we would have suffered if Iran attacked before we had sufficient forces in the area to demand a surrender?
After all after giving a notice to surrender the the American ships must have been expecting an attack imagine how many more ships will be sunk when they are not expecting an attack.
Next Lesson a change in tactics.
Iran I am sure has read the Millennium Challenge 2002 wiki the same as I did they know that no Iranian or indeed nobodies pleasure or fishing boat will be unwatched and will probably be targeted if it gets to close to any of our ships.
So then attack oil tankers first.
Reasons why
1) America depends on oil sink enough oil tankers, set them on fire and then close the Persian Gulf to shipping until those sunken oil tankers can be refloated and moved. As long as you still have some guns and missiles left no civilian crew will go to move those ships if you keep shooting at them. This means the Persian Gulf is closed until you are out of ammo or surrender.
Link to map of all US bases in the middle east below.
http://www.antiwar.com/....
America and our Western Allies have already imposed economic sanctions to stop Iran’s nuclear bomb program even though we don’t have proof it exists.
Iran I am sure considers this economic warfare a hostile act any country that has American bases on its soil is thus a legit target. That means Iran can close down the oil ports of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Omman by sinking oil tankers refueling with oil in their ports and using firebombs to set the oil on fire thus preventing rescue teams from preventing the oil tankers from sinking. Once sunk it will take weeks? before these ships can be moved and more oil pumped into oil tankers from these ports.
I assume all talk about a rise in oil prices is based on Iran sinking one or maybe 5 oil tankers and a few months long war. Imagine if Iran sinks 10, 20, 30 oil tankers? Imagine if the war lasts longer than 6 months.
2) Iran needs money to pay for the war if you sink every oil tanker in the Persian Gulf then you raise the price of oil. This both helps Iran pay for the war and hurts the Western economies now leveling economic sanctions on Iran.
a) You bankrupt the Western Insurance companies that insure oil tankers and have Credit Default Swap insurance policies that pay only if the price of oil goes up thus further hurting our economy.
b) Credit Default Swaps bought to protect Airlines and other fuel intensive using business from the price of oil will kick in. Despite all the talk about Obama crafting financial regulation the banks have No Margin set aside to pay Credit Default Swaps. We also have no transparency about which banks, insurance companies etc are exposed to CDS this means everyone will sell their bank and insurance company stocks because they don’t know who has exposure to CDS bought to hedge against rising oil prices. Given how many banks lied last banking Crisis about being ok when they were not I can easily predict that a war with Iran will lead to a bigger banking crisis than last time.
Notice I bolded Silkworm cruise missiles according to the Millennium Challenge 2002 war games we lost 16 warships to them the new Sunburn anti ship missile is much faster, its supersonic and much more accurate.
Although the Russian navy continues to rust in port, and the Russian army is in disarray, in certain key areas Russian technology is actually superior to our own. And nowhere is this truer than in the vital area of anti-ship cruise missile technology, where the Russians hold at least a ten-year lead over the US.
Many years ago, Soviet planners gave up trying to match the US Navy ship for ship, gun for gun, and dollar for dollar. The Soviets simply could not compete with the high levels of US spending required to build up and maintain a huge naval armada. They shrewdly adopted an alternative approach based on strategic defense. They searched for weaknesses, and sought relatively inexpensive ways to exploit those weaknesses. The Soviets succeeded: by developing several supersonic anti-ship missiles, one of which, the SS-N-22 Sunburn, has been called “the most lethal missile in the world today.”
According to one report, when the Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani visited Moscow in October 2001 he requested a test firing of the Sunburn, which the Russians were only too happy to arrange. So impressed was Ali Shamkhani that he placed an order for an undisclosed number of the missiles.
The Sunburn can deliver a 200-kiloton nuclear payload, or: a 750-pound conventional warhead, within a range of 100 miles, more than twice the range of the Exocet. The Sunburn combines a Mach 2.1 speed (two times the speed of sound) with a flight pattern that hugs the deck and includes “violent end maneuvers” to elude enemy defenses. The missile was specifically designed to defeat the US Aegis radar defense system. Should a US Navy Phalanx point defense somehow manage to detect an incoming Sunburn missile, the system has only seconds to calculate a fire solution not enough time to take out the intruding missile. The US Phalanx defense employs a six-barreled gun that fires 3,000 depleted-uranium rounds a minute, but the gun must have precise coordinates to destroy an intruder “just in time.”
. A single one of these missiles can sink a large warship, yet costs considerably less than a fighter jet. Although the Navy has been phasing out the older Phalanx defense system, its replacement, known as the Rolling Action Missile (RAM) has never been tested against the weapon it seems destined to one day face in combat. Implications For US Forces in the Gulf
http://www.rense.com/....
The Millennium Challenge 2002 war games assume much slower silkworm missiles and that Iran would have to swarm our ships with multiple missiles to get past our defenses with the Sunburn maybe they would need only two missiles to take down our most armored ships.
I expect that if we fight and lose to Iran or even if we win if we lose 16 or more warships money that was expected to be spent for new ships will be moved to developing new missiles because missiles are cheaper than ships and even the best missile defense systems can’t protect a ship from multiple missiles. Plus its cheaper to make multiple missiles than it is to make multiple ships.
3) Next if Iran sinks ten oil tankers and lights the oil on fire with firebombs well our ships in the Persian Gulf will be covered with smoke thus making landing planes on aircraft careers impossible. Our sailors will all have to wear gas masks to breath which will hamper their efficiency and make sleeping a challenge. Oil tanker fires might last for days also they will restrict vision and effect any infra red targeting systems we may have.
4) If Iran cuts off the oil ports of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Omman for a month or so then those countries will have to withdraw money they have in Western Banks and invested in Western Stock Markets to pay their bills. This would further hurt our economies.
a) If the oil countries are prevented from selling oil long enough they won’t be able to pay their foreign workers…who they mistreat badly according to several human rights groups.
In 2010, Bahrain’s population grew to 1.2 million, of which 568,399 were Bahraini and 666,172 were non-nationals.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/....
In 2010, the UAE’s population was estimated at 8,264,070,[4]of whom fewer than 20% were UAE nationals or Emiratis,[85]while the majority of the population were expatriates
http://en.wikipedia.org/....
Seventy percent of the Saudi population is under 30, and as many as 40 percent of those young people are unemployed. According to the kingdom’s own statistics, holding a college degree almost doubles the chances of failing to find a job.
http://www.globalpost.com/....
About 31% of the population is made up of foreign nationals living in Saudi Arabia
http://en.wikipedia.org/....
Given the huge numbers of Foreign Workers and high unemployment among young Arabs Iran by attacking their oil ports very well might spark rebellions in several oil countries.
Next Lesson for Iran Attack every country’s oil tankers if they have a US army or Naval base America show them the cost of being friends with America show them that America can’t protect them. Its a classic Mafia tactic and it works.
I cannot believe that any American war games would assume Iran's navy even if they could sink 16 of our warships would engage in a suicide run where in the end they all die when they can hurt America more by crippling our oil supply then attacking our fleet.
According to the International Monetary Fund, a $10-a-barrel increase in the price of oil reduces U.S. GDP growth by 0.5 percentage points.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/...
I humbly submit this post for consideration for a State Dept or Pentagon analysis job:) Judging from what I read in the papers it seems you need me:)