Third Carrier Group to Iran, Iran builds Base in Venezuela - Cuban Missile Crisis #2?

[Karl Agathon]

That's not actually why we have subs, we have them for ultimate survivability reasons, not to minimize second strikes. It's one of the three legs of the nuclear stool.

I assumed that they were also in play for second strike capability.

 

[fskimospy]

I assumed that they were also in play for second strike capability.

Well they are in place as OUR second strike capability, but that's still mostly for Russia or China as they are the only potential adversaries with significant counterforce capability. To use them to limit second strikes against us is highly unlikely considering our nuclear posture.

 

[Karl Agathon]

^^^Thanks for the clarification. I had read in the past that they were there to give (at the time) mainly Russia a moment pause in case they actually thought they could actually knock out most or all of our land base missles before they fired.

 

[wwswimming]

They have been crying wolf on this war about to happen for 9 years now. I would not sweat it.

well, i'm not really sweating it.

i forget if it was 2005, 2005 ... a few years ago there were 4 or 5 carrier groups in the Straits of Hormuz. of course, that was at the peak of the Iraq drive-by shooting.

HOWEVER, an Iranian base in Venezuela is serious business, from the point of view of the US gov.

and the US has a history of starting wars based on faked provocation, e.g. the Gulf of Tonkin & the Southeast Asian War (Admiral James Stockdale was the senior flyer at the Gulf of Tonkin, and stated clearly in his autobiog. that there was not a North Vietnamese boat in sight. They were ordered to fire at ... the ocean.)

so the US is quite likely to seek a made-up confrontation with Iran, so they can say, "they hit us !".

and there is always the possibility of Iran doing what nations do naturally - defending themselves against US & Israeli incursions into their territory that are going on all the time.

 

[Craig234]

HOWEVER, an Iranian base in Venezuela is serious business, from the point of view of the US gov.

And a permanent US military presence in Iraq is serious from Iran's point of view.

so the US is quite likely to seek a made-up confrontation with Iran, so they can say, "they hit us !".

and there is always the possibility of Iran doing what nations do naturally - defending themselves against US & Israeli incursions into their territory that are going on all the time.

Ya, that's a common scenario for starting a conflict, though it'd be hard to use an attack on forces on their soil to justify an attack (remember the Gulf of Tonkin attacks you cited were described as occurring in international waters, though apparently the one that happened was in North Vietnamese waters - against a US escort of South Vietnamese terrorists trained by the US entering North Vietnam).

But remember the accidental US downing of an Iranian civilian passenger jet.

How would the US respond to Iranian ships off the US coast accidentally downing a US civilian passenger jet?

I'm less suspicious of a false flag operation - with all the investigation that can debunk it today - than of provocation.

Wasn't the crippling of their nuclear power program an 'act of war'?

But there's a big question that the US wants a war with Iran. Not much doubt there was some interest in the Bush administration; they didn't do it. And it's gotten a lot more 'unattractive' now; also, with trends suggesting the ruling regime is in more and more trouble from their own people - and even more with the Arab uprisings - it'd seem far more likely for us to look how to help the internal opposition that have a war. (something we've done before, of course, in 1953).