My input is that when I received orders to deploy to Desert Storm, I did not have the complete understanding of US airpower.
Yeah...When I was on the F-111 then on the F-16, our squadrons flew in a few exercises with some NATO allies, the Brits, the Germans, the Italians, and the Turks. But they were small and local exercises designed to train in hypothetical situations that were narrowly focused like defending a particular region. Been twice to Red Flag but Red Flag is similar in kind.
It was Desert Storm that not just Americans but the world saw what airpower could do. It is not that airpower was unknown. Definitely WW II was the introduction. But what modern airpower could do can quickly be transmitted by modern media technology and now air forces all over the world do not need to wait months or yrs or even decades to study what an air force did right and wrong in the execution of its air war doctrines. Today, CNN gave the raw information and air forces all over the world consumed that raw information like a starving man.
The world's air forces saw what Americans did and inevitably compared against their own. Countries that have no naval aviation have a greater difficulty in incorporating naval air war doctrines into how to support land based air war doctrines. Air forces that do not have air refueling have greater difficulty envisioning the reach of how far US flyers can go and their pilots tries to imagine the endurance, mental as well as physical, that US pilots have be readied to do. Pilots that have never experienced AWACS support can only imagine what they can do against their opponents if they could see that far.
Most airmen -- and I use the word generally to includes everyone in the world's air forces -- finished their careers never seen what his/hers contribution to what airpower can REALLY do. After Desert Storm, like our WW II ancestors, no airman is the same in understanding the concept of airpower itself and the terrible destruction an air force like the USAF can do. I certainly changed and now I look at my F-16 with even greater appreciation on what that little jet can do even more.
Can you hit US? Definitely.
Will you hit US? Definitely. We are not invulnerable.
But this is what WILL happens, like Ali who dodged 21 punches, we will absorbed that you give out and returns 10 fold in ways you will not expect.
This is why you were a grunt and not someone sitting in a command center.
Analysis is not for you because you can’t move outside of kinetic damage. You haven’t faught an enemy that can spread the battlefield across a continent and hit you in both non-conventional and conventional ways. You haven’t faught an enemy that holds a noose around the world economy.
Who has more to lose:
Iran: 400 billion economy, already in deep recession, high inflation, worst economic conditions since Iran-Iraq war. Current debt to GDP around 40%
US: 20 Trillion dollar economy, low growth but in economic expansion, low inflation, Debt to GDP 110%, 20+ trillion in national debt
Since the time you were saying “Yes sir and no sir” the world has changed a lot and not to the advantage of the US.
Much like Israel, Iran holds a Samson option on the world. It isn’t nuclear, but rather economic. Iran could potentially destroy oil production of the top OPEC countries during war. Who cares about tankers (small fries) when you can hit pipelines, refineries, oil terminals.
Imagine a loss 3 or 5 or 10 million barrels A DAY of oil production off of the markets (Iraq, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait). The exact amount no one actually knows because war is unpredictable and never in the history of war has an adversary had such a massive ballistic accurate arsenal that was non nuclear.
US and NATO strategic oil reserves cannot stem that wave for long.
There is no magical US “Toy” to quickly repair massive damage to energy infrastructure while fighting the biggest multi front war since WW2.
So again, Iran doesn’t have much to lose its already being chocked to death. But the rest of the world has a lot to lose.
The rest of the world is up to their eyeballs in debt and this type of global war can tip major economies into recession.
So you sit and count your punches, but at the end of the fight you just might realize your fighter has a brain hemmorage.
