Comments by "Regis" (@Timbo5000) on "What damage could Iranian military do to the US?" video.

Not to mention Russia watching as one of their allies is taken out? Or perhaps even China would do something? Iran is geopolitically too complex to cover like this imo. A lot of things could happen and it's probably a bad idea for the US to see what will.
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Yen Feng Nah, in both WW1 and WW2 (especially WW1) your troops were massively outnumbered by other allies and would have little to no chance of taking over the areas we liberated. Your WW1 numbers are downright pathetic if you'd seriously want to attempt such a thing and while numbers in WW2 were considerable (3 million) you couldn't even take the UK if you wanted (7 million men in army and home guard not even counting any Empire forces that could be used, plus the Royal Navy was the primary force protecting all US shipments coming over the Atlantic from the Kriegsmarine, so....). Even France had more troops in Europe mere months after being liberated. Counting up the UK and all smaller allies (let alone the USSR which I haven't mentioned yet), the US would have no chance occupying western states like the USSR could in the East. The USSR was completely unopposed after defeating the Nazis in the areas they took, the US would have to contend with the British Empire and several smaller allies, plus a 3+ million strong French military in 1944-45 (poorly and quickly equipped, though), plus the US Navy depended on the Royal Navy to even get safely to Europe at all (US Navy dealt with Japan, RN fought the battle for the Atlantic plus dealt with European axis navies. Both had only relatively small amounts of ships in the other theatres), plus the USSR would inevitably seize the opportunity to mix in the fights. All in all, nope. And I could write even more about how the statement that the US "saved" Europe is ridiculous in WW2 and even more ridiculous in WW1, but I'll leave it at this for now.
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@kurousagi8155 Fair enough, the US did bomb the Syrian government anyway while trying to circumvent hitting Russian forces, I forgot about that. They'd probably do the same in a scenario with Iran. So Russian presence would at best keep a few key positions off the US bombing list and at worst close to nothing.
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@glennsmith1676 The British Empire outproduced Germany, the US and USSR massively outproduced Germany. It is exaggerated to say that "nearly every" bullet came from the US. The US supplied certain much-needed things like rubber for truck wheels, but in terms of for example tanks the USSR outproduced the US, in terms of several things like mortars and armoured cars the British Empire outproduced the US. And the British Empire also supplied the USSR with vital supplies they didn't have. The British Empire was dependent on outside supplies for sure because they were continuously bombed. The USSR was partly dependent on supplies because they didn't have certain resources that Britain and the US could supply them. The US was probably the only fully self-sufficient ally, even though some of the things they could produce locally were of lower quality than elsewhere (like European steel vs US steel), but if they needed to they could produce everything themselves. It is important to note that every ally, the USSR and US on top and the British Empire a bit behind them, produced A LOT and the difference is not huge. Especially not between the US and USSR. So it wasn't like one industry was supplying everyone, but I would definitely call the US industry the best of the three and the one that aided the others the most. Mainly because the other two got bombed continuously and the US industry was safe behind two oceans. But yeah, let's also not forget that the UK actually traded something for access to the US industry: technology. With the Tizard mission, the UK gave the US highly valuable tech like the theory of creating a nuclear bomb, jet engine tech (literally only Germany and the UK had this tech at the time, both the US and USSR got it from the UK), radar (US did not have this at the time, which would put them at a huge disadvantage towards the Germans and radar in naval ships was also one of the main factors why the US Navy curbstomped the Japanese, so this is pretty big) and many more highly sensitive tech. The UK paid dearly for their supplies (literally bankrupted themselves) and also gave away they hugely valuable technological secrets to the US in exchange for their supplies. And I don't know what the US fighting chance would have been without some of that tech. And the UK and Germany were the two leading countries in tech at that time.
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@North rock 99 Selling arms to your allies to the point of literally bankrupting them = saving them. Alrighty then. No, that is a simple business transaction, not aid or help or saving. And besides that, I was talking about the actual military contribution to the war in Europe, not bought supplies. By that logic France was 100% saved by Britain in WW1 (even more so than the US "saved" Europe in WW2 because besides the supplies the British also had a huge part in the fighting) because in that war it was the British industry that mainly supplied the war effort. No, they were both extremely important in fighting WW1. It was not one saving the other, they were allies fighting a war, each contributing a very significant amount of manpower and supplies. You need to stop with this absolute "X saved Y" mindset. That is not how war works. And by the way, the British Empire alone had 15 million men in service. Oops, not as much of a difference as you thought.... ;) And to remind you, you started with 300.000 men in 1939 (of which 2/3rds in the National Guard). You took years to build that up to almost 100 divisions in 1944 to help liberate France. France had 94 divisions in 1940. The US military started out tiny and took several years of the war to build up. That is why for most of the war you were either absent or a minor nation supporting other nations that had huge militaries from the start of the war. And finally you came in full force in 1944 with D-day, as planned, when you made up about 40+% of the western allied force. Remember that the US wasn't a superpower back then, the main powers were colonial European nations like the British Empire and the French Empire, who could field millions of men right at the start of the conflict. WW2 is the story of how the US rose to that position of superpower, which it achieved by the end and certainly not the beginning. I'm not saying the US did nothing, I'm saying that all three main allies were hugely important to winning the war and none of them "saved" the others. The US did not save Europe. European powers and minor nations themselves outnumbered US forces in Western Europe (let alone all of Europe), but that doesn't mean the US wasn't an integral part of the victory. The point is: we did it together and there was not one country that distinctly rose above the others in this regard. The British Empire, United States and USSR were the three big allies that won the war together and each was roughly equally important throughout the war.
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@adamking4538 You seriously think the UK would support a US invasion of Danish territory? REALLY?
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Make that 27. It's unsure whether the UK would support us (but if I'd guess they would stand up to any European invasion, even by the US)
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@Kylo_Ren_2033 That's ridiculous. We're talking about an invasion of an EU member state here. Let me remind you that the EU also has an "attack on one is an attack on all" article, it is a military alliance too. The EU letting a foreign country invade one of their member states is simply never going to happen. What I can see happening is that the EU is too slow to respond to such an invasion because it is unexpected, but they'd never just sit by and leave Denmark alone. At the least we would see political and economic sanctions against the US, at the most a fully-fledged military attempt to take back the territory. I think the US definitely can take and defend Greenland if they go for a covert attack. If the EU has time to prepare a defence I don't know who wins.
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@HemlockRidge Mate we are talking about a possible Binkov episode about whether the US could take Greenland from Denmark + EU, this is obviously not a realistic proposition and nobody even mentioned Trump. It's just for fun
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@SRad01 No. The radar tech that the British gave the US was not called "the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores" by some historians for nothing... It was a huge deal and massive improvement over any crude pre-existing "radar". Absolutely central to US naval superiority in the Pacific to the point where you seriously have to consider how things would have gone without it. Jet technology was gotten from the UK, as part of the Tizard mission in 1940. I'd love to know how the US could have had jet prototypes by 1942 (look up: P59A Airacomet) using British engines when they got it from the Germans earlier. ONLY the Germans and British had been developing jet engines since the 1930s and they completed their first operational aircraft within weeks of one another, with the German Me-262 and a few weeks later the British Gloster Meteor. Fun fact: the Soviet MiG-15 used a backwards-engineered British jet engine that the UK granted the Soviets for use in passenger jets. Before that they only had poorly adapted engines inspired by those of the Me-262, though they never quite could copy them well. Jet engines were only developed by the Germans and British respectively, all of the surrounding powers got theirs from those two either by capture or by shared tech. Ah, about the nuclear programme I see you are partly right. I was under the impression it started in 1942 under influence of the Tizard mission, but in reality it was already started in 1939 and while there were little developments, the British shared one of their breakthroughs in 1940 that kickstarted the Manhattan project to greater heights. In 1944/45 the British shared all of their secrets, but these only sped up the process by a few months and weren't central to its completion. The first shared breakthrough, however, was. And finally about the supplies, I agree. I don't see how I said anything different. The US was surely the top industry of the allies and supplied others the most, but at the same time we must acknowledge the huge USSR industry at the time. And I don't know why you're naming Germany as challenging the US. The British produced roughly as much as the Germans in WW2 as far as I'm aware and neither of them held a candle to the USSR and US production rate. Essentially you had two massive industries of the US and USSR and the rest lagged behind. About American steel, American steel ore is as far as I'm aware inferior to European ore. It is not about the capabilities of the US industry, but about the geographical quality of ore. Reports I've read in the past from British records stated that American steel at the time was quite a bit inferior to their own. It's a small geographical limitation compared to for example the USSR and UK being dependent on the US for rubber imports (highly important for wheels and thus a proper supply line, perhaps the most important US supply to the allies of all) and the massive limitation that Europe in general had and still has regarding lack of oil (which arguably is the main reason the Germans lost the war: they failed to reach either Middle Eastern or Soviet oil sources in time and ran out of oil). So all in all the US had a great position in terms of supplies and I believe they were the only actual self-sufficient industry during the war. The rest all had some grave dependencies.
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@olgajoachimosmundsen4647 Funding =/= strength. The EU has the same manpower as the US, a few less tanks, a few more warships and significantly less airpower. That certainly is not a 30-70 difference. The EU already has its own military missions going on, plus there is at least one French-led mission with only European countries going on right now in Mali. It's a matter of properly dividing the work and areas of operation. In the case of quick-response, only a few larger militaries could deploy to simplify the initial leadership, followed by a more structured introduction of the smaller militaries. Furthermore, the EU's quick response teams are already governed by a single leadership so at least the initial response would be structured. The problem is the following introduction of the national militaries. I agree that the EU has a disadvantage when attacked unexpectedly, a clear one, but to say it is impossible goes too far imo.
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@VisibilityFoggy This is not the 1980s and the US-UK relation back then is not the current situation in Europe. The UK is committed to protecting Europe from any foreign threat, be they in the EU or out. It is simply ridiculous to claim they would possibly support the US as the comment I responded to did and while it is possible that the UK would not militarily intervene it is at the very least a certainty that political and/or economic pressure would follow such a move. I'd even rate the possibility of military aid by the UK as fairly probable, though it would likely be a supporting role only.
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Yen Feng What surplus of troops? You had about the same amount of men in the military as the British Empire alone (British 15 million total served, US 16 million total served), now add roughly 3 million French men by 1945 and whatever the total amount of men that all the smaller allied nations at the time had. You would barely be able to get here in the first place as only the UK had highly advanced anti submarine tech that made German U-boats obsolete by 1944/45 (not sure if they shared this with the US, don't think so) and the Royal Navy was the main force fighting the Battle for the Atlantic. War is not about "sending troops", it is about being able to set up supply lines and bases in strategic areas. The US could do none of that without the UK at the time. Where will you send the troops? UK? Nope. North Africa? Nope, British troops stationed there throughout the war. Do you seriously think you can just ship men all over the Atlantic and stage a highly complex D-day style landing? You can't even do that TODAY, let alone back then. Nobody can do that. There were no "surplus men" to send, there were no logistical possibilities to get them there without the UK and there were no logistical possibilities to supply them without the UK. You can't just invade a continent from across an entire ocean... It was difficult enough from the UK to begin with. It's absolutely ridiculous and this is not even mentioning the USSR that would mix in the fights and kick both our asses, likely ending up taking all of Western Europe.
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@SSPENGUIN1 You get credit as one of three main allies, each of which was absolutely indispensable for the war effort. Without any of the three big allies, the war would be lost. What people like some in this thread do is claim one of the three big allies saved EVERYONE, which is very inaccurate. The three allies did it together. I hate it when the role of the other allies are downplayed. And the UK did pay you back and BANKRUPTED themselves in doing so. It's disingenuous to frame US supplies as something that came from the good of your heart. It was pure business and you surely did good business with it. It almost single handedly bankrupted the richest nation at the time. The US was unmissable in the war effort against the Axis forces, the British Empire was unmissable in the war effort against the Axis forces and the USSR was unmissable in the war effort against the Axis forces. That is the one and only truth about the contributions of the big three allies. You can't claim any of them saved the others. I constantly see comments that either exaggerate how the USSR "saved Europe" and "took on 90% of the Wehrmacht"(lol) or comments that exaggerate the US presence in Europe as if they were like 90% of the forces and "saved Europe" or claim that US supplies were some kind of charity that was more important than the actual fighting. Especially the British Empire contribution is very often downplayed in a disgusting manner, but I also see the US contribution being downplayed by "USSR saved all" type of comments and the USSR contribution being downplayed by "US saved all" comments. It should stop. All three were roughly equally important to the war effort (yes, even the British Empire) and they succeeded together.
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@DS9TREK In your dreams perhaps. Reality is different.
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