Originally Posted by
West Coast
Propaganda ORAC. When will the tiger show up to the war beyond a few lucky pot shots?
If you take Op Prosperity Guardian as a template: The US military will deliver an impressive performance and achieve much everything that was asked of them, but it will still end in a Strategic failure. My best guess is that (like in the Red Sea) , a low-intensity Iranian operation will massively throttle western linked shipping volumes. The US will continue to strike launchers but will be unable to reassure insurers or ship owners sufficiently. In the meantime, China will remain uninvolved in public but in private will get security guarantees from Iran in exchange for financial and military support. This will allow Chinese shipping lines to massively increase their share of oil transport, increasing profit and securing Chinese interests. The US will then have to make a decision on whether or not to commit to an indefinite ground operation in order to restore freedom of navigation through the straits.