"Oh, when will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn?"

@Burnley123
FYI:

No Allied battleship/battlecruiser was sunk at sea by air power during World War II until the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battle cruiser HMS Repulse of Force Z sailed without air cover and were sunk in the Gulf of Thailand on December 10, 1941 by an overwhelming force of Japanese land-based torpedo and bombers.

No Allied battleship/battlecruiser was sunk at sea by air power in World War II after that!

@beckyromero FYI, It was carriers that won the war in the Pacific because they were much more useful as a weapon than battleships.

Now missiles and drones are the military technology that is most effective.

@Burnley123

And who had the carriers after Midway? 😉

They were "much more useful as a weapon than battleships" because we commissioned 17 full-sized aircraft carriers (CVs) between December 1941 and September 1945. In contrast the only non-conversion fleet carrier that Japan commissioned during that time that was similar to our Essex-class carriers was the 29,300 ton Taiho. The IJN commissioned Taiho on March 7, 1944. Taiho took 32 months to complete. USS Essex took 20 months to complete.

And that doesn't even count our light aircraft carriers (CVLs) or the British contribution to the Pacific War effort.

Also, we had to rely on them after Pearl Harbor. We also sent many of our experienced carrier pilots back to the mainland to train new pilots while the Japanese kept relying on their most experienced pilots in battles (where they often died). Japan started the war with the most highly trained carrier force, in both equipment and personnel. But we swiftly surpassed them

As far as winning the war in the Pacific, our submarines choked off imports of basically everything to Japan. That was more important that the conventional bombing campaign (which only ramped up around mid-1944, once we had bases to hit Japan with our B-29s). That's another reason why winning the Battle of Midway was critical to our success. Had the Japanese captured Midway, we would have lost an important submarine base leading to increased transit times for our subs and less time on station in Indonesia.

@MoveAlong
Taiwan would be screwed.

@Burnley123

Iran must not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.

But this war was not well-thought out, nor planned well. And there doesn't seem to be an end game. That's Trump for you.

Bombing Iran every couple years is NOT a strategy. It is a recipe for disaster.

Unfortunately, Trump has now set us down a path which does not leave favorable choices. Declaring "victory" and pulling out will almost guarantee Iran will have nukes (that is, if they don't get them from North Korea thru Russia in the meantime). Launching a massive invasion against a nation of nearly 100 million people is foolhardy. Regime change is the best of a lot of poor options.