They have a working operational system and battle tested tactics, not only procurement.
It's not the rifle that distinguishes the special forces, but how it's used.
They built a network centric warefare with starlink and cheap android tablets down to the drone teams in the field.
They built a network of cheap acousting sensors (old phones) as passive sensors and using ML models to find the drones cheaply and increase the coverage. (Radars are expensive and easy to hit because they emit).
What they achieved is a "sensor fusion like" distributed system buid on cheap components and updated realtime. And all this is battle tested in the new environment of transparent battlefield (there is always a drone looking).
Also a lot of real-life electronic warfare stuff and drone applications.
This is what's missing in the US army. They are optimized for a symetrical 20th century warfare.
UKR = entire country of +40m is on the battlefront so they can do total war mobilized homefront distributed system... so can Iran. But it's very different for force projecting security guarantor US - can't convince paying protectorates to pivot total war defense posture in peacetime, that's what they bribe US not to do.
And ultimately whatever model of distributed lethality / survivability (which US planning foresaw) is less relevant that US global commitments requires high end hardware that has to be rotated / propositioned selectively, and sustainable only in limited numbers vs adversaries mobilized on total war.
But the fundamental problem is US adversaries are catching up on precision strike complex. Iran isn't asymmetric warfare, but restoration of symmetry. It's not so much US getting weaker as adversaries getting stronger, and without monopoly over mass precision strike (which naval / air superiority / supremacy is only delivery platform), US expeditionary mode simply on the losing side of many local attrition scenarios. Ultimately all US adversaries will gain commoditized local precision strike (even deadlier if bundled with high end ISR), at varying scales due to proliferation requiring persistence across global theatres US simply doesn't have numbers/logistics for.
TLDR: US expeditionary model is bunch of goons with rifles in trucks, driving around neighbourhood where everyone had knives that could not get in range. The second everyone else buys guns, then rifles, the expeditionary model breaks.
Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?
To the extent it's a money making scheme, well, capitalism gets blamed for all money making schemes even if it's supposed to be a specific subset of them which is useful for the feedback one can get from open markets.
(As that's a caveat inside a caveat, I'm mostly agreeing with you).
It's all of those, yet none are the real root reason.
For that, you must look at the main beneficiary. Which country stands to gain the most from a completely dilapidated Iran? Which country stands to gain more when all the regional powers that could stand up to it have been destroyed?
> Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?
Or because America is filled with demented cultists who think a two thousand year old property dispute is the key to triggering the Apocalypse so they can all be whisked away to paradise.
It's not a 2,000 year old dispute. Zionism began in around 1900. It was spearheaded until recently by "secular" Jews, who were borderline atheist. The Jewish religious texts themselves make wishing for a "return to Zion and Jerusalem" sound like wishing for a utopia or world peace. It pretty much reads like a metaphor, not like a political programme. Finally, most highly devout Jews were strongly opposed to Zionism, at least until after WW2.
That comment accurately described what American evangelicals believe.
American evangelicals don't care about 1900, differences between secular and religious Jews or their disputes. They don't care at all. They actually agree with a lot of what loosing side of WWII said and thought. And they in fact do believe the end of times prophecy and their duty to speed it up.
If you are unaware of that, maybe you should not be so arrogant when comment on politics. Because the radical American religious leaders are literally talking to the troops now as minister of war is their disciple.
There's something darkly funny about the reality being so demented that just describing it on HN gathers downvotes because it objectively sounds so awful.
The really crazy thing is just how few death cultists it really takes. The smallest minority of them have been busy radicalizing teenagers and biding their time for the past 20 years and this is what it’s come to.
It's so bizarre how OP was downvoted. It's a truth. History repeats itself. It's not the first war. It's not the last war. Maybe his (or her) tirade on capitalism annoyed the HN downvoting shoggoth.
> Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?
I don’t think we should look too far for reasons. He got all excited with the adventure in Venezuela and wanted to do it again, but with bombs and his pal Bibi. He’s itching to do the same thing to Cuba, and he’s not subtle about it.
> Was this started as a resource war, or as a money-making scheme, or as a distraction from the Epstein files, or just because DJT developed actual old age dementia after purging anyone who might say 'no'?
We won't know until everyone publishes their memoirs. I imagine absurd reasoning is entirely on the table. Given the administration's blind luck with its raid on Venezuela it assumed that scaling up the same plan would function, without realising how fortunate it was the first time. Reminiscient of Blair and Kosovo leading to hubris on Iraq.
I think they were extremely fortunate that their complex plan actually went off without a hitch. Its quite a lot of moving parts and hoping that certain people will react in certain ways.
> Maybe US also had people on the inside in Iran, but killed them by accident on the first strike with the "precision bombings".
Yeah but no. Iran isn't Venezuela by a long shot, extremely different properties all round. Its hubris to think what worked out well in one case would apply to a completely different one on the other side of the world.
Apple has been doing it for years not allowing "unsigned" software to be installed using the same "for the safety of the user" even against the user's wishes.
If the technology becomes cheaper, this creates more market pressure, by changing the cost base of certain product. For example books when printing press was invented went from luxury to something expensive but more affordable. In software markets that means that will have more software, more competition and in free market segments profits will evaporate.
The pseudo "entrepreneurs" who think they could outsmart the market by working less, are just naive. In a free market economy optimization is brutal and a freelancer developer will sell the same "product" cheaper, because he has the same technology available to him.
So the only way to get the gains from these AI technologies is to have something that can't be easily copied like market knowledge, data access or sweetheart deals with big companies that can pay more because their profits support the higher spend.
Also, services based SAAS especially B2B will not die, because a tyre shop won't have the time to write/debug/host it's own solution and will not want to depend to a single contractor who can disappear for a vacation. But the margins will go waaay down. 25$ for a set of forms and a database, not gonna cut it anymore.
> Also, services based SAAS especially B2B will not die, because a tyre shop won't have the time to write/debug/host it's own solution and will not want to depend to a single contractor who can disappear for a vacation.
True in the current state of LLMs, possibly not true forever if someone finds the magic bullet that turns the one-shotting (reliable) software dream that companies like Anthropic and Perplexity currently peddle into reality. Seems far-fetched ATM but the gains since GPT-2 have been very real.
We're quite a ways away from this though, even with Opus 4.6 and the like. And even further from it being part of Claude Code rather than some proprietary $1000/mo. closed-source solution.
As you say though, _if_ such a technology were to exist, it's Anthropic that holds all the cards, not random entrepreneur #25721 who is asking the Anthropic API the same thing that the actual customer could just be asking directly. At that point you're an undesirable middleman, not a business.
You can definitely invest trough a holding company set up in Ireland or in other lower tax jurisdiction and pay less tax that way.
Even if you invest in a Croatian startup you can wrap in a UK structure to have the British courts available. Or you can structure the deal to include the British court as a venue for conflict mitigation.
Also Irish courts are comparable and since 2020 have remote hearings (thank COVID).
Either way, your main risk is not the law, but startup market risk.
With NZ cost of living if you factor in higher labor costs it will make everything even more expensive relative to income. Cheap temporary labor is great not only for the companies, it's good for the consumers too, bringing prices down and availability up. The backpacker is in and out, dosen't need medical care, social security and other services.
Many of the jobs that are low paid backpacker frendly, the locals aren't to keen to do. If you don't have them there, many busineses will close down, because margins can't support 100% local staff.
It's crazy capitalism is now at the point where no one having jobs is a good thing, and local job creation not going to locals is actually good for the locals because it brings prices down for non-local tourists. Cheap temporary labor bringing prices down for tourists benefits locals how?
How are people supposed to live in this world?
Not to mention when I travel I go to meet locals and see the local culture.
It's not the capitalism fault. It's the limitation of the physical world. You barter your skills for other's products/services.
More people in the tribe = more people to swap with (larger market).
More people who take the shitty low paid job = cheaper products.
If you don't have the cheap backpackers working shitty jobs in the hotels you won't get the tourists, who bring a lot of money in in places like Queenstown. Less money = less businesses = less jobs.
Offline world is a hard and unforgiving place. Either we find how to barter our skills/products or we rely on the taxes from the ones who are productive.
The real world is not a highschool econ classroom. It is far more complex than supply and demand. Beyond barter for labor, workers give up vast abilities to live in a society that protects them from abuse. Part of that is allowing them to create and enforce rules to protect them from known evils.
you can't cheat the supply/demand of atoms with social constructs.
You might be able to change the way the pie is sliced, but not grow it that way. Productivity is something in the realm of the real world not just philosophical categories of good/bad.
It's mostly a no-brainer. Cost of living is higher than AU and wages are lower. Across the Tasman sea the market is 5 times bigger with real earning power around +30%. (but the weather is much more hot and from Brisbane up to the south the fauna tries to eat/sting/kill/bite you).
Housing in Australia is still one of the worst thing about the country, but in NZ is not much better, may be even worse. So New Zealand will become like Switzerland of the Oceania. It's the most beautiful country in the world and the Southern Island is a magical place.
Also, now it's less than 50% white, so it is a very diverse place, especially bigger cities like Auckland and Wellington. So in the bigger cities you can find a lot of good international food and culture too.
I think from a HN prespective if you have an internet business and don't mind the time zone difference and you're earining enough, NZ iz a fantastic place that is safe, clean, first world country, diverse and super beautiful, outdoor lover's paradise.
OT: from Brisbane up to the south the fauna... made me scratch my head for a millisecond until I thought about it from a southern hemisphere standpoint. As a northerner I think of Oz and the likes as being 'down under (unsaid: the equator)' so I suspect you southerners think of Europe and the likes as 'down under' as well.
It might be an intentional 'non-northern-hemisphere-centric' construct. I had not heard it before but in a way it does make sense given that a sphere does not have a defined 'top' and 'bottom'. Then again the one we live on has a defined 'north' and 'south' and north tends to be thought of as 'up'.
I've been thinking, it could mean it doesn't matter which direction you go, cause I'd think north or south of Brisbane is same, wildlife is gonna try to eat/kill/sting you
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