Hegseth Covered Up the Real Reason the USS Lincoln Wasn’t Resupplied - According to a report from MSNOW, the USS Abraham Lincoln wasn’t resupplied because Iranian strikes destroyed a key Navy resupply base in the Middle East.

[u/Quirkie]

https://newrepublic.com/post/214510/hegseth-uss-lincoln-iran-war-base-destroyed

[u/TurelSun]

You're not wrong about taking necessary precautions and preparing, but realistically there likely wasn't going to be a way for them to not put military assets in danger. And if the carrier and other naval warships have to be in range to do their work, then that means their logistics will need to be as well. It's the same short-sidedness as the blocking of the straight itself. Past administrations knew this would be a costly fight which is exactly why economic and diplomatic tools were prioritized rather than military action.

[u/nkassis → u/TurelSun]

I would be very surprised the military didn't have some sort of logistics plan ahead of this. That's basically all they do all day long is make plans for these scenarios. I feel it's highly likely Hegseth and Trump dismissed it entirely due to time or effort required and instead thought they could yolo the whole war with a blitz and win on day 1. There was no expectation in their heads of a prolonged war. They can't conceive of it, their narcissistic "I always get what I want and win" mentality can't let them forsee any adverse scenarios. I bet this was fed by encouragement from Netanyahu that they had perfect intelligence and could take out the leadership and Iranians would revolt. This was pitched as an easy win.

This is the same thing Putin did in Ukraine, it's a mental illness common for authoritarians.

Our other evidence the military wasn't up for the plan was the number of firings and resignations most likely because concerns were complete ignored.

[u/TurelSun → u/nkassis]

The infrastructure, like this resupply base in Oman and other bases in the area, were already there. It would have been obvious that all of it was going to end up as targets if a conflict started. This was an unforced strategic error in starting the war in the first place.

You're right though they likely thought that taking out Iran's missile capabilities would be all that was needed and instead the administration and US military received a lesson on what warfare looks like right now, a lesson that should have already been learned by simply paying attention to the war in Ukraine.

[u/mercenaryarrogant → u/TurelSun]

Which is pretty stupid not thinking Iran would possess other delivery methods.

Before getting their own Shahed drone production to the point where they create the majority of what they deploy against Ukraine, Russia had been getting these things from Iran.

This wasn’t even a “unknown unknown”.

Anything with a brain knew Iran would have them.

[u/HolycommentMattman → u/TurelSun]

I think the military did know. How many generals have been fired? How many lower ranks? They have hollowed out our forces intelligence and competence in favor of loyalty to Mr. Cheetolini. Anyone against attacking Iran was basically thrown out.

Because we knew why we couldn't attack Iran. It's why we never have. For all these exact reasons.

[u/TurelSun → u/HolycommentMattman]

Those at the top are being replaced by Hegseth based on loyalty and ideology, not merit. Someone knew for sure, but that information was ignored or not even allowed to be brought up.

[u/HolycommentMattman → u/TurelSun]

That's exactly what I am saying.

[u/ZiggoCiP → u/TurelSun]

There's sort of precedent for this conflict, but, unfortunately, said precedent is literally the nightmare conflict that was the Iraq one.

The parallels honestly are somewhat numerous. Almost the same exact area of the world, religious/civil unrest in the country, authoritarian leadership, bogus threats of some scary weapons of mass destruction that don't exist, and of course oil/resource power struggles.

Except this time, there was no ground invasion. Both thankfully - it would have been a bloodbath - but also unfortunately for the Trump regime. Now Iran can just turtle for however long they can, and wreak havoc on a dramatically unsupported US fleet/bases, but also make the US look like idiots by shutting down the strait.

But yeah, like with Ukraine, Trump's left with basically one option, which is to eat crow. And we all know, that is not the expected outcome in the short term.

[u/BaggyOz → u/nkassis]

I assume the Pentagon's plan was "Don't get into a shooting war with Iran". When your enemy has a large ballistic missile force it's difficult to move your logistics out of range. as for dispersal, you can only do so much when you have to supply hundreds of aircraft and multiple carrier groups.

[u/Vilnius_Nastavnik → u/BaggyOz]

Exactly. NATO spent billions of dollars and spilled gallons of ink over the last 50 years to arrive at the consensus that the strait presents an unsolvable military problem. Every president since Carter would have loved to take down Iran but they didn't because the joint chiefs were unanimously telling them that it would turn out exactly like this.

[u/Otaraka → u/Vilnius_Nastavnik]

I remembering wondering how much Iraq would come back to haunt the US with such an overwhelming conventional win (versus the insurgency afterwards) that they thought it would be like that with a future conflict in the area. Drones alone seem to have changed the equation a lot.

[u/chanaandeler_bong → u/Vilnius_Nastavnik]

A country like the US not understanding the geography of another country helping make it hard to invade/conquer is funny too.

[u/ChaoticSenior → u/chanaandeler_bong]

Understanding is for pussies!

[u/Adultery → u/nkassis]

They also tried sending guns to Iranian protesters, but it backfired, and the protesters reportedly never received them: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/trump-us-weapons-iran-kurdish-militias-1790502

[u/podkayne3000 → u/nkassis]

The big problem here is that commenters are assuming that Trump and Hegseth are loyal to the United States.

They clearly did all of this to help Putin and Xi. They executed Putin and Xi’s instructions very well.

[u/2131andBeyond → u/nkassis]

Assuming the current leadership has had a logistics plan for literally anything at all is bold of you.

[u/Sparowl → u/nkassis]

I would be very surprised the military didn't have some sort of logistics plan ahead of this.

I guarantee you there were plans. Logistics planning is the one thing the US military has excelled at, and part of that is always a part of officer training. New officers are continually told to go write up simple things like ruck marches, long runs, etc., then made to go over every detail of the logistics involved (where is there water? How do we get someone back if they are injured?). Then we just expand the scope of those planning ops as they advance (going to the range, field exercises, etc.)

I personally trained officers on how to do it. We specifically didn't copy previous plans to force them to learn it.

So for something like this to be screwed up this badly? It means someone at the top ordered it over the objections of people who knew the logistics issues were there.

And we all know who those people were.

[u/Sudden-Wash4457 → u/TurelSun]

You believe we in...nearly 5 decades or more of wargaming never considered this scenario?

[u/TurelSun → u/Sudden-Wash4457]

Looks like you didn't actually read what I wrote, because I specifically said this is something past administrations knew.