Iran has long possessed the ability to survive decapitation and respond to an existential threat by closing the strait. It’s why no US President tried it before now. Ukraine was more of a surprise than Iran, but Russia not realizing that their own neighbor wouldn’t be a pushover the second time was still a danger that they could’ve foreseen. In both cases, deterrence didn’t work because the invaders were greedy and irrationally confident.
As someone pointed out, this is understandable if you’re from the USA.
Otherwise, I see it like this:
Every country has an army.
Their own, or the one of another country.
The baseline is that going to war is bad, having a defensive army is absolutely not (and will prevent deaths as russia won’t dare attack you).
Having a formidable army has clearly not deterred global superpowers from attacking you, especially if they get too cocky like in Iran and Ukraine
Neither Ukraine nor Iran had a “formidable” army when they were attacked.
Russia was supposedly the second army in the world too.
Iran has long possessed the ability to survive decapitation and respond to an existential threat by closing the strait. It’s why no US President tried it before now. Ukraine was more of a surprise than Iran, but Russia not realizing that their own neighbor wouldn’t be a pushover the second time was still a danger that they could’ve foreseen. In both cases, deterrence didn’t work because the invaders were greedy and irrationally confident.
Sometimes, but do you let your neighbor waltz in and subjugate you?
I have a standing subjugation appointment with my neighbor every Thursday in fact. Don’t knock it til you try it.