It's time once again for our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.
Overhauls are Falklands Part 1, The Spanish-American War Part 4, LCS Parts one, two and three, A visit to Texas, and for 2025, Orbital Missile Defense and Carrier Operations Parts one, two and three.
Comments
https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/china-can-sink-the-navys-13000000000-ford-class-aircraft-carrier/
Curious what your thoughts are on this (other than it's a rather blatant "fund us" ploy, which makes this feel like an approved leak).
My first encounter with "National Security Journal" was last year, when Google pushed me a notification about an article discussing how the Boeing X-32 would fare against the Chinese J-20. I don't know if that was AI slop or just someone being extremely dumb, but it has made me extremely suspicious of anything published there.
The leak went to the NYT, so... (I don't have a subscription). https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/08/opinion/us-china-taiwan-military.html
At the moments, my thoughts are "I'm not sure I'm supposed to look at that, because it seems like the underlying documents are classified". With a side of "my brain is full, and likely to remain so for a couple days".
Could Russia provide any material naval assistance to Iran in the current ... whatever it is?
Being an ally of Russia hasn't meant much this decade. Armenia, Bashir al-Assad, Iran (June 2025), Venezuela have all discovered that when Putin says Russia stands behind you, he means a very long way behind. So I don't expect Russia to be providing Iran with AA missiles, fighters, or surface to surface missiles: they don't have any to spare.
But maybe torpedoes and mines? Ukraine doesn't really have a navy to use these against. Are the Russians likely to have enormous stocks of torpedoes and mines left over from the Cold War? Would these be something Iran could use?
Does Russia even have the logistics to get assistance to Iran?
Russia can ship stuff to Iran across the Caspian sea: Russia has a big inland river/canal network with ports on the Caspian.
In WW2 Iran was a major supply route for supplies to the Soviet Union (why the Brits and Russians occupied Iran in 1940). The railways are still there.
So yeah Russia could, they're still exporting stuff around the world.