deadly for the U.S. Navy.prove to beA maritime matchup against Iran could extremely^ NEWSWEEK.COM 17
YOU SUNK Mdrive speedboats, like the ones they claim could take out sophisticated Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard U.S. warships, at a 2012 ceremony.Y BATTLESHIP
recounted in a private email leaked by two-sided game,” he argued, “it simply the to employ the full extent of the costly, by explaining that it simply wanted succeed, a disgruntled Van Riper later became a scripted exercise.”complex undertaking involving mul-The Pentagon justified its decision Army Times. “Instead of a free-play,
alties mounted in the Iraq War, many just two weeks after the 2003 inva-felt the “great lesson” of the war games was lost. Speaking to ian leader for Mtiple real-life U.S. forces, but as casu-sion, Robert Oakley, the late U.S. career diplomat and Red Team civil-2002, said Pentagon officials “felt illennial Challenge Newsweek
Vietnam and Lebanon. “I think we do that it was unimportant,” something he considered a mistake.to overestimate our sophistication, our superiority in technology, our superi-ority in weapons”—this frequently. We get carried away by our weapons, firepower, superiority, Oakley warned of a U.S. “temptation citing examples inPeople will look for a chink in our we fail to look at the humfurther entrenched in mtechnology, all this kind of stuff, and armor, the same way David found a chink in Goliath’s armor.”U.S. has seen its troops become only the invasion, during which time the Fast-forward about 16 years from urky post-an factor.
9/11 conflicts. On MIran was a much larger country than Iraq, with the Mlast strike.” Mthe U.S. would defeat Iran in “two strikes”—Senator Tomassessment came despite the fact that and experts disagreed, and Cotton’s “the first strike and the Cotton told PBS that any other officials iddle East’s biggest ay 14, Arkansas
admas well as countless mahead of the Iraq Waligned to its revolutionary Shiite ideology across the region.the Bush admfeatured the hawkish influence of standing army and mMany have compared the Trump inistration’s Iran approach to inistration’s missile arsenal, ar, and both ilitia fighters oves
rity adviser. Yet TrumIranian leaders have claimran skeptical of further diplomNewsweektwo countries.John Bolton, now the national secudon’t want a war between their to leave the nuclear deal has left Teh-Still, the W has confirmed that during hite House’s decision p and various ed they acy. -
)(^77 (*ʔ^3 $ 77 $.< 1 $ 5 (ʔ$ Iran at Bolton’s request, further esca-Patrick Shanahan drew up offensive in mid-Mthe Persian Gulf. lating an already tense situation in and retaliatory military options for a National Security Council meeting ay, Acting Defense Secretary