If you watch Mark Felton's series on the Yangtze Incident you'll forget to come back. So please click on the link after I set today's scene. I will explain why the United States might be in a similar situation to Britain in 1949 when it sails the Red Sea or Straight of Hormuz in 2024.

The Basics: There are many reasons the U.S. won't attack Iran directly. 1) It's a mountainous country with tens of thousands of ballistic missiles and drones safely hidden underground. Missiles they've improved to the point that they can reach most U.S. bases (if not New York City); in short, a ground invasion is out. 2) Destroying Iran's oil infrastructure would cut China off from oil. They'd ultimately respond as Japan responded when we cut off their oil supply in the 1941. 3) Russia would love to bleed off the U.S. military in the middle east, pulling resources away from Ukraine.

The question is how well can an Iranian proxy do against the U.S. if Iran goes all in?

Israel, once a buffer between the U.S. and Iran is now in full self-destruction mode. (Worse — dark irony — it's dragging the U.S. into a Middle East war.)

No real results in Gaza. Just more, "we'll wipe them all out tomorrow!" Netanyahu pounding on the desk to an Israel public that slowly, day by day, begins to realize the weakness that led to the Hamas attack isn't being fixed, only covered up.

I haven't heard a single combat veteran argue that Israel can eliminate Hamas in the way Netanyahu has promised. Sure, plenty of Israeli generals say they'll do it. Well, the history books are full of over-promising leaders and generals lying on TV. It's one thing two kill a couple of hostages waving white flags. Quite another to compound that mistake by chasing a third one down and killing him too!

Some perspective. In the 2003 Iraq war it took 9 months for the U.S. to capture Saddam Hussein. I have to laugh when Netanyahu says Israel will kill Hamas leaders wherever they are in the world (including Qatar I assume) when they can't even get the ones a few thousand feet away (underground).

Okay, that's the first component of the situation. Israel is strategically unhinged in the Middle East. Let's turn to the mindset of Israel and the U.S. when it come to military power.

Israel's weakness is simple to understand if you just look at the current capabilities of modern warfare and policing. When it comes to controlling cities, towns or farms over a wide area, advanced military hardware remains useless against experienced fighters with sufficient transport, guns, grenades, anti-tank missiles, landmines and drones.

The mainstream media doesn't report the above because there's no conclusive evidence proving it true. The short proof is Afghanistan. Anyway, you have do the 2–2 there.

Anyway, Israel's boomer-leadership believes it can wipe out Hamas with F-35 fighters because the Israeli leadership simply can't comprehend how something that cost billions to develop has become a military paper-weight.

Does Biden believe he can bomb the Yemen fighters hard enough to stop them from attacking ships? The U.S. has already tried that by providing Saudi Arabia with all the bombs it wants to attack Yemen, which it has been doing for eight years.

That ships must sail around Africa today is all you need to know about how that worked out.

But Saudi Arabia ain't the originator and master of "shock and awe". The U.S. can do it if it wants! (can it?)

Whenever plans are drawn up to attack Yemen there's probably one military person who says, "if we try to take out their infrastructure and they fire hundreds of missiles at one of our ships we can't guarantee that ship will survive."

It will be pointed out that the same cheap technology that drove the Russian Black Sea fleet out of Sevastopol could also be used against the U.S. Navy in the middle east.

You might ask, if these missiles are so powerful why hasn't Iran or one of its proxies taken out a U.S. vessel now? The answer is this: if you're gaining strength in the region slowly, with almost no risk, why try to do it quickly in a high-risk way?

Don't forget Iran would love to get the U.S. in a compromised position. The U.S. assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani at a public airport. (The U.S. broke international "law"). What did Iran do? Bide its time. Israel assassinates nuclear scientists in Iran — also afoul of international "law" — Iran bides its time. Ever improving, expanding, adding to its missile and drone technology. Ever strengthening its ties to the largest industrial might in the world — China.

However, if the United States were to start attacking Iran, or one of its proxies, Iran would be forced to respond.

I want to be clear, I'm not a naysayer on the U.S. potential to get the upper-hand in military technology over Iran or China. I'm a naysayer in that the U.S. continues to invest in military hardware, like stealth fighter jets and oversized aircraft carrier groups, which are 2nd-order needs in securing territory.

Today, the U.S. might get humiliated in a real fight, pitting the Navy against Iranian (Chinese/Russian) missile technology. No, Iran's technology is not nearly as good. But it has enough capable missiles to use them like "artillery" against U.S. ships. Just my opinion, of course.

Intelligence, drones, special forces, transport — not big tech items — is the only way to root out all the missiles floating around the world. Even that is sugar coating it. Americans would have to die re-taking middle east interests if the U.S. wants them back again. Americans would have to die if it wanted to remove Russia from Ukraine.

Just my opinion. For all I know the U.S. and allies can knock out all the missile threats to the Red Sea. For all I know, 100 Iranian missiles could be fired at Navy ships and all of them either miss their target or get shot down. For all I know things will settle down.

Some more reasons why I believe manned U.S. air power will be ineffective. Russian jets aren't flying over Ukraine; Ukrainian jets aren't flying over Russia. Recently, some of Russia's most advanced aircraft, SU-34s, were shot down because they flew too close to the border.

One might say, well, that's because the Patriot system is the cat's meow. I'd say Russia just screwed up. Ukrainian F-16s would meet the same fate from Russia's S-400s (or whatever they use). The U.S. understands this which is the real reason they're held back.

Better the media complaining "Ukraine could win the war with F-16s" than "Ukraine is not winning the war with F-16s" Biden will eventually send the planes anyway (it has, 61 will eventually arrive from many European countries). Then it will be "Ukraine could win the war with more F-16s"

Again, what we know for near-certain, is that for whatever reason, no one is flying over anything with anti-aircraft systems and especially not in the daytime. When you read of Israel attacking Syria it's always at night. Even there, it has had some close calls.

Regional powers will eventually threaten U.S. power projection. Much of that "power" is based on expectations that the U.S. can scare off anyone it fires at. But if the U.S. can't stop missiles from sinking ships. If one of its own ships is sunk. That power is gone — for decades, maybe forever.

Britain, the superpower before the United States, had its superpower card torn up in 1949 Yangtze Incident, where the HMS Amethyst was practically sunk by one of the competing Chinese armies. Britain sent in other ships to help. It only added to their humiliation.

Prediction is a fools game, as I always say. But no fun without them. I predict there will be a catastrophic failure of United States weaponry to protect U.S. power.

Protect shipping in the Red Sea with the Navy? "Operation Prosperity Guardian"? More like operation humiliation guarantied.

Here's a recent video of Ukrainian drone warfare that demonstrates why merchant ships are no longer safe from drones.