As commander in chief, would you attack satellites to reopen the Strait of Hormuz?

[lightbulb27]

The SOH provides the life blood of oil supply for Europe (diesel) and Asia (Japan/China). It also provides the fertilizer for a lot of the world, which is now going to go into constriction... hunger for many and economic strain if not ruin for others.

Once Iran loses the targeting ability for their missiles... and the waters are scrubbed of mines and mine laying ships, then it's open and Europe and Asia is secured again.

You are commander in chief.

Would you do it and accept the consequences whatever they may be? Or would you go another route to stabilize the globe?

Star Wars... seems inevitable consideration

Yes

No

Other

[Telekinetic-Potato]

I would not be interested in anymore flashy conflict. Laws would be broken, lines would be crossed. In fact, I'd try to incentivize corperate growth there while slapping sanctions strategically till I effectively have control of the country.

I would get world leaders to quietly sign a piece of paper about how we'd be doing it over mutual interest so that if someone else tries the same thing to me, I've set the precedent that it had to be effectively put to a vote.

[abc3643]

Attacking satellites is a bit more difficult than one realizes. And, furthermore, systems of satellites are called constellations and they are rather robust because of ”in-orbit spares". For instance, when I was working on GPS in the early '90s, I knew that GPS had at least 3 in-orbit spares.

[lightbulb27]

yes, I've seen the designs of bombs that send out bb's all over space, to knock out stuff in many directions. totally trash space, but would take out a few. It be a mess...

[katiesmuff]

With what, seems this very carefully planned envasion of Iran missed on on point "Finding out just how much ammunition we had ready to go" and how quickly to replace what we use. Hedgehog the military genius didn't realize that stuff just doesn't come out of our ass.

[lightbulb27]

definitely not thought out by great minds. maybe they were a bit too egocentric? things never go as planned, even if planned. we were already low given ukraine, they are pulling stuff out of other countries. Makes south korea a bit vulnerable...
now were in a pickle... not easy to be in the military right now.

[Kelley1]

Russia and China can attack our satellites, which would result in too high a cost for us.

[abc3643]

They won't do that unless it was an existential war. Attacking satellites is a form of suicide so you'd only do that if you're going for a Pyrrhic victory.

[Kelley1]

@abc3643 That is what I meant. If, as suggested, the USA attacked the satellites of Russia and/or China, they would probably attack our satellites. That would be a cost that is too great for us to consider.

[abc3643]

That's not the reason...

This is hard to explain...

Space may be vast, but there's only a certain amount of space that's valuable; that space is like beachfront property - exclusive and highly valued.

Unfortunately, when a satellite is destroyed, it will create debris and that debris is going to float in more or less same orbit as the satellite. But some of that debris is going to be floating at just different enough of an orbit that the orbit speed will be different. That debris is then basically shrapnel which will collide with anything in its path... thus destroying that and creating even more debris etc.

I didn't explain this well because you sort of need knowledge of celestial mechanics for this to be intuitive. However, watch the movie Gravity to understand what I am talking about. The crisis in that movie is caused by something I just described.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDeZyRtPJvI

[abc3643]

What I mean by beachfront property is that satellites are generally in the same orbits but just spaced so they don't collide. These orbits are chosen because of very specific parameters. Think of it sort of like airport runways. You can have a plane takeoff and another land on the same runway at practically the same time but as long as they are spaced apart enough you can get away with it to avoid collisions. Too close and you're going to have problems of either collisions or airplane wake interfering with the flight of another plane.

Think of geostationary satellites... the ones that look like they are permanently overhead... They have to be in the same plane as the equator AND have to be a very specific distance out so that the orbital period is exactly one day. (That distance is about 6.6 Earth radii.) So, everybody wants this sort of real estate in space. Geosynchronous / geostationary satellites are rather far from the Earth, but most satellites are much closer. We call it "LEO" - Low Earth Orbit. It's crowded. And, with almost 70 years of satellites, there's a lot of debris already.

[abc3643]

Not something you want to have happen...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J356yG2joUg

[abc3643]

Anyway, if you blow up an enemy satellite, you are likely to destroy your own.

It's like living on beachfront property, and using a small nuclear weapon on your next door neighbor because you are pissed at them.

[Kelley1]

Thank you for the MHO.

[RavVid]

Too complex for yes or no. I would be planning to blockade the Malacca Strait as well as Hormuz plus target their oil tanks in case China gets naughty.

It is a good time to give China some taste of real world realism and they might revise any invasion plans as a consequence.

[exitseven]

it would depend on how difficult it is to shoot down a surveillance sattelite.

[CaptainObivous]

No, as commander in chief we wouldn't be in this Iran situation as I would have never allowed Israel to drag the US into another senseless war.

[lightbulb27]

you can't go back in time in this question, only forward.

[CaptainObivous]

In that case, I'd cut all ties with Israel, and work on ending the conflict through negotiation.

[FreyaRed]

And how do Chinese satellites block this strait?

[lightbulb27]

ships and satellites are giving the targeting information that makes the drones effective to control the whole region.

[loveslongnails]

If I was Commander-In-Chief, none of this shit would have happened in the first place. I wouldn't have been the CAUSE of all this - E V E R.

[lightbulb27]

you have to go forward in time only...

[loveslongnails]

Sorry, I can't do that, because I can't imagine having been so stupid in the first place as to end up contemplating a question like this. LOL Best I can tell you is if I inherited that kind of fuck up, I'd resolve it peacefully.

[lightbulb27]

that's fair.

[darkcloud1945]

Iran gets its satellite info from Russia & China. Iran has no satellites. I don't think it would be smart to shoot down their satellites unless you're looking to start a real war.

[Texaskid1]

As Commander in Chief I would tell a certain middle - eastern nation to go pound sand. Then I would leave Iran alone.

[Pohjolan]

They don't need satellites to target ships at that distance dumbass.

Also if you start attacking Russian/Chinese satellites, you think they won't respond quid pro quo?

[msc545]

Wow. I think you need to go back to school. One does not need a satellite to Target a missile.

[lightbulb27]

possibly, heard that from military source but not so sure. radars can be blown up...

[msc545]

You don't even need a radar to fire a missile. The missile has a radar inside of it. Along with GPS and everything else you need.

[lightbulb27]

GPS operates by satelites, yes? Do an AI search and you'll see that the accuracy is enabled by the satelites. Remove those, they are lobbing bombs, less accuracy. Still a threat, not as much as they are now where they can pick off whatever they want.

[msc545]

Well, yes, as a matter of fact, GPS does operate by satellites, or at least is updated by satellites, so you pretty much need a satellite signal to operate a GPS. Although some of them also operate on ground stations.

[msc545]

I use GPS in the marine environment and I also use it in small airplanes. You are correct in what you said in that it's extremely important to me that the GPS operates properly.

[lightbulb27]

Ok good. So see my point about the decision in the big chair... a solution to this, which would make a huge mess... taking out satelittles. I hope he doesn't... but that is the next battleground, and we do have a space force, thus the inspiration to challenge people to consider.

[msc545]

I'm not sure that taking out satellites is all that easy. Is it actually doable at all in a practical sense? Right now, I think all the Iranians are doing is laying a lot of mines in the Strait of Hormuz, which is going to make it impossible for anybody to pass safely. I don't think there is any way of making sure that the mines only pay attention to ships of a certain nation. No way now that I think about it. I suppose there is a way of maybe broadcasting a certain kind of signal to the mines to tell them to leave you alone, essentially. Unless, of course, you don't have the ability to broadcast that signal, in which case they might just blow up your ship. That doesn't seem completely beyond the reach of technology at this point, does it?

[lightbulb27]

no. its beyond my knowledge of what tech they have.

[msc545]

I just sort of dreamed that up, and now it occurs to me that it might be actually viable.

[NathanDavis]

no... but I am not an idiot

[Godihateyou]

As commander in chief I'd nuke Washington DC to open the Hormuz

[DryGermanGuy]

Dude! I would totally attack Greenland! 🤪

[Anonymous]

Nope

[888theGreat]

That is world War 3 all the way

[Anonymous]

No I wouldn't.