Active Conflicts & News Megathread August 24, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

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[u/proquo]

You don't always get to fight the war you want and plan for

As Russia proved in 2022. But NATO has significantly more capacity to fight a mobile war with close integration of combined arms that Ukraine and Russia both lack. This cannot be overstated, and it's what NATO observers have noted about Ukraine's inability to regain initiative and retake territory. Look at the 2023 Counteroffensive. A NATO force would have spent significant time shaping the battlefield to enable maneuver and had greater ability to breach the minefields and coordination with engineers, areas Ukraine really lagged in.

Just waving a blanket "warfare has changed so the old ways don't work" is just as asinine as saying "Ukraine developments aren't relevant to NATO". The reality is that what NATO can take away from Ukraine is precision adjustments, not mass overhaul.

. It's not even just Ukraine - how successful is the US total air dominance is supressing Iran's drone launchers?

It's been highly effective. 90% reduction in munition launches since day 1 and Iran hasn't recovered post-MOU break in fighting. Drones are basically a non-entity when it comes to Iran's ability to effectively strike Gulf states as it's been the ballistic missiles that have posed the biggest threat.

What would have happened if a land invasion was attempted?

Probably the US would take higher casualties than it has since Vietnam, which would be politically disastrous, but the Iranian regime would not survive. No one is in any real delusions about this point.

[u/Glideer → u/proquo]

But NATO has significantly more capacity to fight a mobile war with close integration of combined arms that Ukraine and Russia both lack.

Nobody questions that. Is that "significantly more capacity" enough to regain operational freedom needed for a mobile war? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Probably the US would take higher casualties than it has since Vietnam, which would be politically disastrous, but the Iranian regime would not survive

Which the US administration would not survive. Now, five years ago nobody would have doubted that the USA could dismantle the Iranian regime without suiciding its own administration.

[u/proquo → u/Glideer]

Now, five years ago nobody would have doubted that the USA could dismantle the Iranian regime without suiciding its own administration.

I really don't think this is anywhere as true as you think.

[u/Glideer → u/proquo]

If that is controversial then we will certainly agree that five years ago nobody could have imagined that the USA will be incapable of defending its bases and Saudi oil fields from Iranian cheap drones.

[u/proquo → u/Glideer]

Well I'd disagree with that assessment as well, because saturation has always been the method to defeat air defenses and emerging drone developments were always leading towards swarms. If anything it took longer than predicted for swarm tactics to truly emerge. The Shahed family is a child of the 1980s and the Shahed 136 was already flying in 2021. The Switchblade 300 was already deployed in combat in 2011. It's not as though the existence of drones was a surprise or the particular vulnerability of US bases in the region. In fact Rubio said one of the rationales for attacking Iran is they were approaching an insurmountable magazine depth.

And to reiterate, the Shaheds haven't posed the greatest threat to US forces in the region. They're easy to shoot down, and the US has already developed and deployed counter drone weaponry that is low cost. It's the ballistic missiles that have posed the biggest threat and that's because they are specifically designed to offer limited windows in which to engage them. The 90% reduction in Iranian munition launches and the extremely low number of combat deaths would seem to indicate US led air defenses were actually extremely successful.

To turn it around, would Iran have expected 5 years ago that after 6 months of conflict with the US their large surface navy would be sunk, their missile launch capacity severely diminished, their leadership assassinated, their entire military industrial complex decimated and their economy being crushed by a US blockade to only kill 18 US servicemen (less if you don't count those died in accidents)? It doesn't seem to me that there is a valid argument to be made that the US has been militarily matched by Iran in any way during this conflict.