Biden’s Iran strategy is a threat to regional partners and US interests

The Biden administration has signaled its intent to weaken or lift sanctions against Iran that it views as “inconsistent” with the failed 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal. Biden’s overhyped campaign rhetoric was critical of the previous administration’s decision to withdraw from the dangerously flawed JCPOA...

Despite Congress being united on tough policy sanctions for decades, the Obama-Biden administration went around Congress to enter into the 2015 JCPOA. By doing so, the U.S. allowed new opportunities for Iran to fund terrorist militias in the region and beyond. And far worse, this deal allowed Iran to beat compliance efforts while it continued to work toward its nuclear ambitions. Iran’s funding of terror attacks and chaos in the region was made possible by the release of billions of dollars in currency from the JCPOA deal.

It’s no wonder that Iran’s regional neighbors are deeply concerned with the possibility of new Biden diplomacy. Iran has never signaled any interest in abandoning its anti-American hostility or its threats of the total annihilation of our allies in the region, such as Israel. With this in mind, there is no way the misguided Biden administration can reenter the JCPOA without sacrificing regional security.

Our “allies” have economies too constrained to have a well-equipped military without assistance from the US. The main issue with relying on the US for anything like equipment, spares, training, etc. is that every four or eight years the US does a 180 and stops supplying those vital requirements. This leaves the “allies” with so much expensive junk. However, if the allies got together and came up with a joint strategy and divided their efforts, they could easily become a huge force, with no reliance on the US.
Problems: (Huge problems, I know, this is just an idea.)
Every country I can think of uses its military manufacturing as a welfare tool. This adds needless politically motivated cost to every item for no military gain. The welfare to weapons policy severely limits what a country can do militarily. This has to go. (Tough sell in any country but especially in a country were votes to build or buy something have to be “bought” with special favors.)

Because military items are built in relatively small quantities, they are almost exclusively assembled by hand, using technology that is mostly out of date. For the most part you won’t find robots, automation or new technology in the build process. This could be countered if enough countries agree to purchase the same item from each other. Say every country needs small, lightly armed patrol craft. (Blocks of the craft would be set aside for individual mods but everything would be designed on the same architecture. A production line could be set up to make, say, three a month, using all the modern mass production capacities that are available to commercial products. The line itself might be set up in South Korea but the component parts could be made in Singapore, India and Israel. Financing might come from Saudi Arabia and a few others. (Something like the Euro fighter, but with less French and more German.) Each country would buy the craft at a price adjusted by how much they contributed. Sales to non-members, say South American buyers, would flow back to the builders by a predetermined formula.

The cost of a small patrol craft can be staggering if produced the way they are made today. Setting up a flexible scheme where countries can buy in like buying shares in a company so the build process can be automated would greatly reduce the cost. Also, using a commercial cost-effectiveness model vs the present model would allow the build process to take advantage of cost efficiencies. In the present military build business models, everything is dictated from above. You will buy the steel from X even though X is charging more than the market price because they have a lock on the business.

This approach could be expanded to any equipment; drones, spare parts, infantry kit, etc.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.