As we write this you don’t have to look hard to find headlines in the media containing
the words U.S. and Iran and conflict.
The BBC writes that the USA has just sent 1,000 troops over to the Middle East because
according to the the American Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, Iran has been
acting hostile.
Iran has been accused of oil tanker attacks and the country it’s said will also soon
breach a 2015 deal regarding its uranium stockpiles.
The New York Times has called this a “new confrontation with the West.”
How bad could this get?
What kind of a threat would Iran be?
Is there really a threat at all when compared to the might of the U.S. Military?
Let’s now have a look.
If you’ve watched many of our military comparison shows, then you are likely already an expert
when it comes to the arsenal of the U.S. military.
You will know that the U.S. spends more on defense than any other country by a long,
long way.
Sources differ, and it’s hard to get the exact spending down to the last dollar, but
in 2018 it’s reported that the USA’s defense budget was somewhere between 587 billion and
597 billion dollars.
But if you go to the actual U.S. department of defense website one of the first things
you’ll read is that President Trump planned to pump an extra 160 billion dollars into
defense.
The prediction from the DoD., right from the horse’s mouth, is that by the end of 2019
defense spending will have reached $686 billion.
Where does all this cash go?
Well, the DoD website just breaks it down simply into various departments.
The army, navy, air force, marine corps, coast guard and joint chiefs.
If you are wondering what joint chiefs are, well, they kind of run the show.
Part of their mission statement reads: “The future operating environment will place new
demands on leaders at all levels.
Our leaders must have the training, education, and experience to meet those demands.”
It’s not all about spending money on killer toys of course, because you have a lot of
paychecks at the end of the week.
The U.S. military has 2,083,100 personnel.
1,281,900 work as active personnel and 801, 200 reservists.
On top of that you have all kinds of special units and specialists to pay.
It’s not free when the U.S., say, wants to buy artificial intelligence technology
to scan faces, go through hours of drone videos, etc.
Research and development, according to the U.S. military, eats up a great deal of money.
Thankfully, someone else has broken down the budget for us and it goes like this:
A little over $205 billion goes to the navy and the air force will get basically the same
at 204.8 billion.
$191.4 billion will go to the army and $116.6 billion will go to projects spread across
the DoD. $104.3 billion will go to research, development, test and evaluation.
$143.1 billion will go to buying new things, such as expensive aircraft and ships.
$155.8 billion will actually go to the actual men and women of the military through the
paycheck budget.
$22.5 billion will go to building houses for personnel and other military construction
projects.
$292.7 billion, the biggest part of the budget, is for maintaining the military.
If you add all this up, though, it comes to more than the actual budget.
That’s because some of the spending overlaps, such as research, purchases, or wages that
might be accounted for as part of the individual forces’ budgets.
If you look at what the military has been buying or trying to buy you see that F-35
Joint Strike Fighters are a big item on the shopping list.
These things also get sold of course, but as we write this, Japan, according to some
reports, is no longer looking at buying many more of them because it has created its own
aircraft that it sees as superior.
Nonetheless, if you follow military news you’ll know these things are still selling like hot
cakes.
The US currently has around 200 plans to build a staggering 1,763 more.
As we have said before, the US no doubt has the most powerful air force in the world,
and we just cannot list everything that is in its arsenal of flying machines.
But some of the most powerful beasts include fleets of F-22 Raptors, F-15E Strike Eagles,
F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and F-16 Fighting Falcons.
Some of the newer machines are 15 KC-46 Tanker strategic military transport aircrafts and
also the B-21 stealth Bomber.
So, can Iran afford to spend billions and billions of dollars on just one plane alone?
Well, the answer is a resounding no and in fact recent news reports tell us that the
country has slashed defense spending to the equivalent of $43 billion.
Compare this to the reports that 2019 that the U.S. navy just paid Virginia shipbuilder
Huntington Ingalls $15 billion to start construction on the new Ford-Class Aircraft Carriers.
Also bear in mind the billions spent on new aircraft, or the 2 Fleet Replenishment Oilers
at $1.1 billion.
The 5,113 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles costing $2.0 billion or the M-1 Abrams tank modifications
setting the U.S. back $2.7 billion.
Just one new Columbia Class Submarine will cost $3.7 billion and the military has requested
$6 billion for some DDG-51 Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers.
The list goes on and on, and we cannot possibly tell you everything on that shopping list.
But all in all, you have over two million personnel, around 13,400 military planes and
counting, including about 5,700 helicopters.
Add to that 6,287 tanks for land based operations.
Then on water you have a total of 20 aircraft carriers which are like a travelling army,
and would be very important when fighting a country located on the other side of the
globe.
The USA also has 68 destroyers and 68 submarines, but as you know, more of both are in the pipeline.
As you can see, this is shaping up to be a David and Goliath story.
No one doubts that in terms of equipment the USA has by far the biggest and arguably most
advanced military in the world.
We say arguably because countries such as China, Japan, The UK, India, France, Russia,
also have some very capable military toys.
Iran though, well, you won’t find the country on any top ten lists when it comes to military
might, and some writers have described Iran’s equipment as being Cold War-era machines.
In total, Iran has 523,000 active military personnel, but also around 350,000 reservists.
They own 509 military aircraft, which sounds fairly impressive, but let’s see what kind
of planes these are.
For starters, they have 54 American-made McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs.
Some of these are pretty old, but we are told many have been upgraded.
Joining the list are also some other capable multirole aircraft such as 23 French-made
Dassault Mirage F1s.
As for ground attack, Iran has about 50 Russian-made planes in the Sukhoi SU range, the Su-22,
24 and 25.
Iran is also in the process of building a fifth generation stealth fighter aircraft
called The IAIO Qaher-313, although some experts have cast doubts as to how viable this aircraft
will be.
This is not a weak air force by any means, but much of that strength comes from purchased
American military hardware.
That said, much of this fleet is aging and in need of an upgrade whereas the American
military has never stopped upgrading their equipment, whether they need it or not, as
any American taxpayer can tell you.
As for tanks, Iran has 1,634 of them, but we might ask just how advanced those tanks
are.
Well, again, the country owns quite a few older models bought from the USA, Russia,
and also has some homemade tanks.
But in 2018 Iran's Deputy Defense Minister Reza announced that the country was in the
process of building another 700 to 800 new tanks.
The country also has 2,345 armored fighting vehicles, but compare that to the 39,223 armored
fighting vehicles in the USA which for the most part are much more modern.
But where Iran is really weak is in the water, as it doesn’t have a single aircraft carrier
to speak of.
Remember, the US has 20.
The country has no destroyers either, but does have a 34-strong submarine fleet and
6 frigates.
While Iran really is an underdog to the U.S. military, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a
strong military.
Ranking militaries is difficult and shouldn’t be taken as an exact science.
Iran has had to be strong military presence before and it has a large well-trained military
because of its location in a volatile region.
Reporting has stated that they have a ground force that includes over 1,600 tanks, 725
reconnaissance and infantry fighting vehicles, 640 armored personnel carriers, 2,322 towed
and self-propelled howitzers, and 1,476 multiple rocket launchers
Yes, the numbers can change, since we guess the press doesn’t have a regular tank counter
working all over the world, but we’re guessing these numbers are pretty close to reality.
Much like their air fleet though, much of this equipment is somewhat outdated and likely
needing of either upgrading or full replacement.
Now we already know that the USA has some of the most advanced special forces units
in the world and also is not bad at collecting intelligence through the CIA, NIS, and both
of their cutting edge computer technologies.
But the Iranian forces also have a special branch that is said to be very highly trained
and is an entity to be feared.
The Quds Force, a special ops unit within Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, they number
around fifteen to thirty thousand very skilled agents and work in what you might call unconventional
warfare.
Iran also has the advantage in the event of an invasion of being a geographically difficult
country to assault via land.
It’s a large country and the major cities are mostly located in areas that would be
difficult for land forces to quickly reach.
And now we come back to the start.
What about these new fears of nuclear conflict?
The New York Times writes this: “Iran is still well more than a year away from being
able to build a weapon — perhaps much longer.”
But the experts in that article also said it would take much longer to produce what
the Times called a deliverable weapon.
It’s highly unlikely Iran is thinking about attacking the USA, and many European countries
have blamed the U.S. for putting Iran in a difficult position thanks to harsh sanctions.
We won’t get into the politics, but suffice to say confrontation of military powers with
nuclear weapons is not something anyone wants.
As Newsweek points out, while the U.S. military is by far superior in every way, an invasion
would be a long drawn out affair.
They wrote, “If decades of difficult conflicts worldwide have taught the American military
anything, it is that a mighty armory goes only so far.”
Let’s hope for some diplomacy that works for both nations and the threat of conflict
behind us.
What do you think about all of this?
Many things might have happened by the time this episode is released, but just in terms
of how an invasion would work out what do you think?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video The United States (USA) vs The World - Who
Would Win?.
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.