this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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i didn't know anything about THAAD but it really seems like idk decades old equipment getting btfo'd by newer developments and huh looks like the first working one was in 2013
I don't understand the U.S. military planning beyond "it's all a grift and there's no real planning" because like, why not do all this mad dog bombing shit then, if at all, if this is the best missile defense they've got? or were Iranian ballistic missiles good enough even then for them to worry? if that's the case (actually, either way) why the fuck only have eight of them, worldwide? what? what is this? like sure they're a billion dollars but like. oh my god they shit that money for breakfast on their wunderwaffen toilets, just build more missile shit?
like I want america to lose (without me or my loved ones dying or going homeless would be great) but I can't help but just be critical of the seeming lack of forethought here. For the cost of the last 2 years of aid to israel you could have like 10-15 of these motherfuckers made just for the Gulf region instead of this scrambling "oh god we need to bring the one from Korea!" shit (which, at that, uhh if the first already got blown the fuck up what's the plan for the second, geniuses?)
like holy hell god damn
Traditional missile defense isn't really the problem. The main issue is that these were designed to take out more sophisticated missile attacks from peer adversaries over huge areas of defense.
The real problem is that drones have changed the game. Now your billion dollar platform is firing millions of dollars of ammunition to take out a bunch of drones that only cost thousands of dollars to make.
Now instead of just shooting off a bunch of missile attacks, militaries like Iran have learned to saturate the area with a bunch of drones as well . With the goal of either confusing the intercept capabilities, or just overwhelming them.
yeah so why did they wait until Iran had these drone capabilities before doing anything, because now they're just throwing their nuts into the grinder seemingly relying on dated technology that is no longer useful
Prob a multifaceted issue. For one, the US military has a tradition of always preparing to fight the last war, not a future one. But imo, it's a greater symptom of a dying empire. One where corruption allows for the revolving door of higher command to retire to defense industries that bid on government contracts.
Generals know that moving away from these billion dollar platforms would piss off their future employers, so they just put off any actual upgrades for personal gain.
Not really their own nuts, just the nuts of some lower enlisted they don't care for anyways.
It's still impressive tech that could be useful for decades to come if they account for things like drones by other means. In terms of military service a couple decades is still pretty new for most things.
My friend's dad is in a position where he advices purchases for the Canadian navy (gross i know) but the decision is made higher up than him. He would constantly moan about stuff like this cause it generally led to his propositions not going through. Dude was big on rail guns
I think realistically the plan was to never actually do anything direct in the first place, just ensure a status quo of localized MAD where neither side can actually risk attacking the other because it's lose-lose, posture and threaten in order to bully concessions out of Iran while letting the color revolution machine churn along and maybe accomplish something someday, and station some token defenses around the area to stop small scale skirmishes from hitting anything too important.
It wasn't until Israel exploded in a pent up frenzy of aimlessly, frantic violence for the simple purpose of spreading horror and death that a hot war became a possibility, and the Trump regime is too bumbling and incompetent to contain the situation.
Because previous administrations realized that this would be a giant clusterfuck no matter what, so didn't pull the trigger.
The US military is made impotent by its tight coupling to the mil-ind complex. Equipping decisions are not made by the military but by the complex. The more parts that go into a weapon, the more jobs are created to build those parts, the more congresspeople vote to fund those weapons to secure those jobs in their districts to win elections. So you end up with infinite R&D money being thrown into a pit labelled "Wunderwaffen" with like 10% going into a district and 90% into the pockets of Raytheon shareholders, and those Wunderwaffen that get off the ground have supply chains that are far too long and have extra markup at every stage, because they're ultimately make-work programs.
Versus, say, Shahed drones, which you can crank off an assembly line and fly out the door.
THAAD is actually pretty solid, its main problem is that there are too few of them, and too few missiles for them too, so it is really easy to just overload them with cheap mass-produced missiles.
yeah which is like, a problem you think you'd fix with the billions of dollars you're dumping into your military
Billions of dollars mean nothing if you don't really have the productive capacity.
seems like a losing strategy tho
The important thing is that up until now it made a lot of money for the capitalist class.
Yeah, that's what we are seeing now.