this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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The Iranian Minister of Defense traveled to China to take part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) defense ministers’ meeting and holding bilateral talks.
Despite the relative lack of military cooperation, this may still end up being a significant development.
With the talks it's too early to say, but it was Iran who turned them down last time so there is reason to be optimistic. I would assume there is someone around to point out that isolating your country is bad. This article is a direct response to Israeli disinfo but it was treated by someone as more than that, maybe they didn't click through
Iran why are you being such fucking losers about this
It's disinformation that ought to be cleared up. The entire Twitter shitstorm about China not swooping in was people who didn't know that Iran already turned down military collaboration years ago (when it would have had time to play a part in this war) and only imperial core countries have their logistics set up for foreign military interventions. Part of why these militaries so bloated and falling apart. Everyone moved on like they hadn't come to blows with others before doing basic research
One thing i think they miss too is Iran is actually decently far away from China. Like Chinese fighter planes launched from western China could only make it to Iran if it's a 1 way trip. What exactly are they meant to do? Send their pilots in to suicide for Iran?
China does have a small region where i think it is fully prepared to face the US if need be, but that region does not include Iran. If the US ever tried something like this against Laos, Vietnam, or the DPRK though? I would bet money on a swift reaction from China. Iran might be China's strategic partner, and they might be willing to offer material support, but the idea that China is going to go all in on a war to defend Iran and leave itself, and the AES states around it vulnerable is silly.
The best actual support China could give would be to wait until the US fully commited to an Iranian invasion, and then funnel weapons to them. Through central asian partners. Which oh wow look at that Xi was visiting right as all this was happening. Almost as if China knows what it's doing or something.
People don't understand warfare and don't understand logistics.
People are too used to western militaries showing up around the world. It's become sort of a military version of commodity fetishism. They don't realise that even most western militaries have to use American help/infrastructure to get around.
It's impossible to just plug and play with foreign weapon systems on that level. If you want to be like Pakistan it takes years! We're not talking about funneling small arms + ammo to people here
Honestly in a drawn out conflict that's probably what would happen. After awhile Iran would run low on its advanced systems, and it would just be Iranians using guerilla tactics and small arms to make the Americans bleed for every inch. Shoulder mounted AA, Rifles/ammo, and food in plentiful supply from China/Russia would be all Iran needed to win probably. Maybe some quadcopter drone systems from DJI they could strap explosives to, and fly into American positions. They have a great terrain advantage, and plenty of underground infrastucture to operate out of. It's why America doesn't want to go in. It would be worse than Vietnam for them.
Theres really no way the US could win imo. At first it would look like the US was winning. They'd probably occupy the oil ports, and Tehran pretty quickly. Taking heavy losses sure, but they'd spin it as a win in their media. But over the months/years to come they'd lose more, and more people, and equipment. The Iranians would be spread throughout the mountains and harrassing them everywhere. Eventually the US would have no choice but to pull out. If they can't hold Afghanistan then they certainly wouldn't be able to hold Iran.
In that scenario the aid would be very important ya. I meant before getting to anything that catastrophic at all. That's a really interesting train of thought but I'm really leery about all this until I have a super ironclad understanding of the historical forces at work. This is mostly an effort to find good educational material
I think one of the best things to study in regard to it is Afghanistan. Very similar terrain and Iran is like a bigger, more advanced version of it in many ways. Theres a lot of info on how much the Americans struggled in Afghanistan and i think those problems would be much worse for them in Iran.
You got any recs? Open source social media is cool in theory but in practice it's hard to steal other people's reading and music libraries compared to Xitter and DiSSkkkord
I'll list some books that might be interesting. Keep in mind many of these will be written from an American perspective so will have biases in how they frame information, but if your able to ignore that, and simply get the information about the US's failures from them it can be useful info.
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock contains info from internal US documents so take with a grain of salt, but it shows a lot of the mistakes the US made
No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes by Anand Gopal Gets into how the US's actions directly led to their own defeat by empowering the Taliban. Has a lot more actual Afghan perspective.
Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins by Andrew Cockburn This one gets into how the illusion that high levels of tech will make wars easier to win is just that. an illusion. Focused more on the US's strategic errors.
Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield by Jeremy Scahill This is only partially about afghanistan but gets into how special foces actions contributed to destabilization.
Thanks for the recommendations I will be in touch
I know how to treat Scahill's writing 🪓😄 though he is useful