And the US is trusted with nuclear weapons.

There's a non zero chance Trump does try to 'win' this with nukes. Apart from the narcissism he gives every impression of not just being a "if I have a hammer, every problem can be solved with nails" type guy, but also a "if I have a hammer it has to be used, or it is worthless" type guy.

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Can they be used on civilian ships or is it only for military use?

You can stick pretty much anything on a civilian ship, with enough work*. In that case, you'd presumably lift a vehicle with it onto the ships then take them off at the end to swap onto a ship going the other way, which seems simple enough. Though given the information on its effectiveness comes from the manufacturer some mild skepticism about its stated capabilities is warranted. Especially so if it's actually been rejected (given it's microwaves, is it massively less effective if it's, well, raining for example?).

We have no idea how the system copes with swell (probably ok, on a big tanker, on a smaller cargo ship though?) and especially salt water. Which will mess things up far worse than fresh water might.

*Germans stuck ~light cruiser level load outs on modified freighters in WW2 for example, and they had to be clandestine. Good enough that the Kormoran sank a heavy cruiser, albeit they wouldn't have had a chance if the cruiser had been sensible.

6 hours ago, Elerond said:

Its integration to US Army's system seem to have been delayed as 2024 they were excepting that integration is done in 2025, but it looks that project didn't go forward in 2025.

Four v1 have been delivered and as recently as July 2025 the Army bought two more v2: Epirus Receives $43.5 Million Contract from U.S. Army for IFPC-HPM Generation II Systems

I agree that all DE weapons suffer from environmental limitations (rain, snow, clouds, haboob, smoke) but it seems to me that ("human safe" lol) microwaves offer a better option than pewpewing single targets with a laser.

1 hour ago, Zoraptor said:

There's a non zero chance Trump does try to 'win' this with nukes. Apart from the narcissism he gives every impression of not just being a "if I have a hammer, every problem can be solved with nails" type guy, but also a "if I have a hammer it has to be used, or it is worthless" type guy

That would not bode well for Ukraine.

Also I find it kind of ironic that the US had tripped over the same assumption Russia had in Ukraine, that the local population will be on their side.

Edited 23 hours ago23 hr by Sarex

On 3/14/2026 at 12:38 PM, Zoraptor said:

I have to admit there's a certain amount of grim amusement to be had from Trump now begging other countries to send warships to Hormuz.

Sounds like a grand opportunity to cut a Tarrif deal with redacted. I'm sure he'd be all over that.

2 hours ago, Sarex said:

That would not bode well for Ukraine.

I don't think there's any realistic scenario in which Russia nukes Ukraine even if it were not as taboo.

The trouble with Trump is that he's Trump. No one really knows what he'll do in a no win situation. It wasn't a reasonable decision to attack Iran either, it wasn't a reasonable decision to do so with-seemingly, and it's a pretty solid seemingly- no apparent plan for anything apart from blowing stuff up and when that doesn't work, blowing more stuff up. The ultimate end point of that 'strategy' is, well, nukes. Not really the logical end point, but we're far beyond applying logic to someone who appears to have had no consideration for how the other side might react.

2 hours ago, Sarex said:

Also I find it kind of ironic that the US had tripped over the same assumption Russia had in Ukraine, that the local population will be on their side.

I don't really think Russia believed the local populace would rise, just that the Ukrainian army wouldn't fight effectively.

Western media, and probably Intelligence, appears to suffer from classic Confirmation Bias. And really, White Knight/ Hero complex as well.

If you watched/ read only the BBC* you'd think that every Iranian opposed their government. Because they all say they do. But, every time I see or read a BBC interview with an Iranian I remember that the type of people who would say things the BBC doesn't like would simply never be interviewed by them- they'd never talk to the BBC in the first place. People who had changed their mind post bombing wouldn't risk anything to berate the BBC knowing that they'd probably not get covered. You'd never know that from the BBC itself though.

You can also see it with the Iranian women football players. They make the free choice to stay in Australia, but have to be being pressured into deciding to return to Iran. There's a fair chance they just turned on the news, and decided that actually their government was not wrong about some things. Even if they don't like their government they may well hate being used to justify attacks on their country.

This is the ultimate problem with all these sort of things; you have the media- and Intelligence- talking only to the people who say what they want to hear. Since they hear nothing else from people, except state media who you can easily dismiss, you end up Believing what you want to be true is true.

Personally, I also always remember the old Chomsky response to a reporter who didn't like Manufacturing Consent: ~"..if you asked those sort of questions, you'd never be employed as a reporter in the first place".

*or just about any other western source really. But the BBC is handy, has a live stream and a veritable plethora of articles and newsbits talking to Iranians, and BBC 'Persian' (sic; that it isn't BBC Iran or BBC Farsi shows who it's aimed at) exists.

6 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

I don't think there's any realistic scenario in which Russia nukes Ukraine even if it were not as taboo.

The trouble with Trump is that he's Trump. No one really knows what he'll do in a no win situation. It wasn't a reasonable decision to attack Iran either, it wasn't a reasonable decision to do so with-seemingly, and it's a pretty solid seemingly- no apparent plan for anything apart from blowing stuff up and when that doesn't work, blowing more stuff up. The ultimate end point of that 'strategy' is, well, nukes. Not really the logical end point, but we're far beyond applying logic to someone who appears to have had no consideration for how the other side might react.

I don't really think Russia believed the local populace would rise, just that the Ukrainian army wouldn't fight effectively.

Western media, and probably Intelligence, appears to suffer from classic Confirmation Bias. And really, White Knight/ Hero complex as well.

If you watched/ read only the BBC* you'd think that every Iranian opposed their government. Because they all say they do. But, every time I see or read a BBC interview with an Iranian I remember that the type of people who would say things the BBC doesn't like would simply never be interviewed by them- they'd never talk to the BBC in the first place. People who had changed their mind post bombing wouldn't risk anything to berate the BBC knowing that they'd probably not get covered. You'd never know that from the BBC itself though.

You can also see it with the Iranian women football players. They make the free choice to stay in Australia, but have to be being pressured into deciding to return to Iran. There's a fair chance they just turned on the news, and decided that actually their government was not wrong about some things. Even if they don't like their government they may well hate being used to justify attacks on their country.

This is the ultimate problem with all these sort of things; you have the media- and Intelligence- talking only to the people who say what they want to hear. Since they hear nothing else from people, except state media who you can easily dismiss, you end up Believing what you want to be true is true.

Personally, I also always remember the old Chomsky response to a reporter who didn't like Manufacturing Consent: ~"..if you asked those sort of questions, you'd never be employed as a reporter in the first place".

*or just about any other western source really. But the BBC is handy, has a live stream and a veritable plethora of articles and newsbits talking to Iranians, and BBC 'Persian' (sic; that it isn't BBC Iran or BBC Farsi shows who it's aimed at) exists.

There is a real and active large segment of Iranians that would love to see a new type of government

Tens of thousands of them protest in every large protest we have seen over the last 20 years and thousands of them get killed by the state

You wont find domestic regime change in Iran because the state has complete control of its security forces like all similar autocracies and they will crush any protests using maximum force. Also the protesters have limited access to weapons so they dont represent a real opposing force like we witnessed in Syria. That was domestic regime change because the groups opposing leadership had the resources to fight Assad

So as much as it would be preferable its almost impossible to see the current leadership being overthrown by an internal uprising

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

There is a real and active large segment of Iranians that would love to see a new type of government

Tens of thousands of them protest in every large protest we have seen over the last 20 years and thousands of them get killed by the state

You wont find domestic regime change in Iran because the state has complete control of its security forces like all similar autocracies and they will crush any protests using maximum force. Also the protesters have limited access to weapons so they dont represent a real opposing force like we witnessed in Syria. That was domestic regime change because the groups opposing leadership had the resources to fight Assad

So as much as it would be preferable its almost impossible to see the current leadership being overthrown by an internal uprising

One problem (amongst many) is, there is no unified opposition. Everyone being against something is not the same as everyone being in favour of something (or someone). The latter being exemplified by how the Shah was overthrown by a unifying figure. Afghanistan being the example of what you end up with when you have a puppet government held up by foreign interests and no popular support.

Speaking of Iran, I just saw the Orange Moussolini making noise again. It's Nato's duty to support the US in its war against Iran. You can't make **** like this up 😂

I would have loved linking to the BBC article, but its one of those constantly changing ticket type things, so the content keeps changing

56 minutes ago, Gorth said:

One problem (amongst many) is, there is no unified opposition. Everyone being against something is not the same as everyone being in favour of something (or someone). The latter being exemplified by how the Shah was overthrown by a unifying figure. Afghanistan being the example of what you end up with when you have a puppet government held up by foreign interests and no popular support.

Speaking of Iran, I just saw the Orange Moussolini making noise again. It's Nato's duty to support the US in its war against Iran. You can't make **** like this up 😂

I would have loved linking to the BBC article, but its one of those constantly changing ticket type things, so the content keeps changing

Yes that also complicates domestic regime change in Iran but you could argue in Syria it was similar. You had different ideological groups with a common objective of ending Assad's regime

But in Syria's case they were armed and had resources. In Irans case having a common objective is moot if you cant actually overthrow the state militarily

Its amazing how NATO suddenly becomes relevant to Trump when he wants there help. Thats why I always I ignore his selective criticism of NATO and his threats of leaving NATO

The US also benefits from NATO when it can like it benefits from the UN. No single country is greater overall than these institutions

But its easy to generalize and find fault but you still better to be part of them for the US

18 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

I don't think there's any realistic scenario in which Russia nukes Ukraine even if it were not as taboo.

Could be, but I wouldn't be surprised.

18 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

I don't really think Russia believed the local populace would rise, just that the Ukrainian army wouldn't fight effectively.

Western media, and probably Intelligence, appears to suffer from classic Confirmation Bias. And really, White Knight/ Hero complex as well.

If you watched/ read only the BBC* you'd think that every Iranian opposed their government. Because they all say they do. But, every time I see or read a BBC interview with an Iranian I remember that the type of people who would say things the BBC doesn't like would simply never be interviewed by them- they'd never talk to the BBC in the first place. People who had changed their mind post bombing wouldn't risk anything to berate the BBC knowing that they'd probably not get covered. You'd never know that from the BBC itself though.

You can also see it with the Iranian women football players. They make the free choice to stay in Australia, but have to be being pressured into deciding to return to Iran. There's a fair chance they just turned on the news, and decided that actually their government was not wrong about some things. Even if they don't like their government they may well hate being used to justify attacks on their country.

This is the ultimate problem with all these sort of things; you have the media- and Intelligence- talking only to the people who say what they want to hear. Since they hear nothing else from people, except state media who you can easily dismiss, you end up Believing what you want to be true is true.

Personally, I also always remember the old Chomsky response to a reporter who didn't like Manufacturing Consent: ~"..if you asked those sort of questions, you'd never be employed as a reporter in the first place".

*or just about any other western source really. But the BBC is handy, has a live stream and a veritable plethora of articles and newsbits talking to Iranians, and BBC 'Persian' (sic; that it isn't BBC Iran or BBC Farsi shows who it's aimed at) exists.

Again, could be, but the narrative over here is that their intelligence networks dropped the ball majorly and that Putin was getting a completely wrong picture of the attitude of a regular Ukrainian.

9 hours ago, Gorth said:

I would have loved linking to the BBC article, but its one of those constantly changing ticket type things, so the content keeps changing

'Share' (at the bottom of the newsbit) does generate a unique url which links directly to the newsbit. Seems that for some reason the forum insists on embedding it as a 'live' thread though, instead of as a standard hyperlink.

eg https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cx2lr40g17kt?post=asset%3A31eeddf8-3347-4e96-8612-776d7d42dd46#post links to a specific newsbit if you c&P into a browser. If you let it be converted to an embed it shows as:

BBC News

Trump says he's 'not happy' with UK after Starmer says it...

The US president repeats his call for other nations to assist in securing the Strait of Hormuz, after saying it would be "very bad for the future of Nato" if allies don't help.

11 hours ago, BruceVC said:

There is a real and active large segment of Iranians that would love to see a new type of government

Of course. And you hear from them constantly because they want to talk to the media, and they're exactly the sort of person the media wants to hear from. Indeed, if you listened to the media they're the only people who exist in Iran (except those who are part of the 'regime'. Which is, in itself, biased wording).

You don't hear from those who support the clerics though. They won't talk to the BBC, or CNN, or Le Monde or whoever. Who also aren't really interested in hearing from them anyway. There's always far more interest in hearing from those who reinforce what you already believe. That gives a massively distorted view, along with, well, defining a bunch of Iranian entities as terrorist so you can't show anything 'promoting' their views.