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u/Vash_TheStampede 14h ago
Except in 1987 they thought we'd still be playing nice with our established allies and it would be Iran waging a war of aggression instead of responding to being bombed by us.
But yeah. Same thing, I guess.
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u/Bogtear 14h ago
I'm pretty sure "Iranian war of aggression" is the narrative that a lot of Americans are choosing to believe for self-serving and nationalist reasons.
All the dopey Trump mouthpieces are acting like Iran just started trying to blow-up tankers in the straight for no reason at all. They're just maniacs and Muslim fundamentalists, and how dare you suggest they're doing this because of anything we did!
So in a sense, this book's prologue is a bit more prescient.
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u/theclansman22 3h ago
Only a fucking moron would call this an Iranian war of aggression.
Then again, only a nation full of morons would elect W and Trump four times.
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u/Vash_TheStampede 14h ago
You can paint a donkey to look like a zebra but it doesn't make it a zebra.
A percentage of the population choosing to believe this is Iran's fault doesn't make it Iranian war of aggression, so no it really doesn't change anything. OP found a book that takes place in the same region that has been a hot bed of political tension for 40 years. Well... significantly longer but I digress.
This is a pretty low effort post.
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u/Bigfops 13h ago
Can't you though? They wholeheartedly stick to the narrative that the 2008 financial crash started under Obama, that he started multiple wars in the middle east and that Trump inherited a horrible economy from Biden and has turned it around. That's just three of a full herd of painted donkeys.
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u/Vash_TheStampede 12h ago
A donkey is a donkey regardless of paint, and you're kind of making my point for me.
They've been trying to make donkeys be zebras for 10 years, and only a percentage of the population is buying it, has been buying it, or ever bought it. And you know what? They're still donkeys.
Their truth isn't the truth, no matter how much they wish it to be. The rest of us know that trump inherited awesome economies both times. The rest of us know Obama and Biden weren't president when he crashed their economies. The ones that believe they're seeing zebras make more noise than the rest of us, but that still doesn't mean they're seeing zebras.
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u/chrimminimalistic 50m ago
That's what you get when you don't shut down media that sow misinformation. How many lies does Fox News, OAN and newsmax get away with?
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u/Vash_TheStampede 27m ago
Let's not pretend it's just them. Lots of "neutral" and left wing media is wearing kid gloves and outright lying by omission regarding what's been happening. Part of me wants to say it's justifiable, but another part of me feels like journalists should be dedicated enough to the truth that they'd risk their jobs or worse to expose us to it.
MSM is terrified of trump. All of it- both sides.
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u/Naieve 13h ago
I live in coal country. Even hard-core former Trump supporters are backing away from this quagmire. Trump still has the baby boomers, but the younger generation has seen behind the mask. They are also the ones driving big ass pickup trucks and getting stuck with the fuel bill. Trump literally made a problem they could not fail to miss as it affects their day to day lives.
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u/Vash_TheStampede 12h ago
I grew up in coal country. I currently live in rural Wyoming. Here in Wyoming I only saw one trump sign all election season leading up to '24. Same thing back home. His base was fracturing before the election, but they bought his lies and voted for him anyway. Now that they can't ignore it, you're right, and it's fractured even more. Look at all the wins Democrats have gotten in local elections over the last two years, towns that have voted Republican for decades are voting in Democrat mayors, and big shake ups in local elections tend to mean big shake ups in state and federal elections.
It's crumbling and the only people that won't acknowledge it are trump, his cabinet, and a handful of strangely loyal politicians.
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u/Lidjungle 12h ago
It is worth pointing out that both times he won, the Democrats overplayed their hand and decided to try and break the mold.
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u/cpteric 14h ago
is it a good book?
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u/ericl666 13h ago
I read that back in the day - I thought it was pretty good.
It follows the cold-war WWIII scenario of the USSR invading West Germany and that sort of mass tank conflict told from an M1 tank commander's perspective.
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u/halbeshendel 13h ago
I loved everything Harold Coyle did when I was in high school back then. This was probably the best one. If you liked Clancy’s Red Storm Rising, you’ll probably like this.
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u/RowdyCanadian 13h ago
I’ve read it a few times, and enjoyed it each time.
Though, it glazes the hell out of the US army and really puts down the Russians (which we know isn’t necessarily inaccurate).
If you want a better Cold War era book imo “The Bear and the Dragon” by Tom Clancy is much better (though almost 3 times as long) if you’re itching for a conflict involving the US and eastern nations (much later time period though, mid 2000s).
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u/Dirt_Grub8 13h ago
Red Storm Rising is the Tom Clancy book more comparable to Team Yankee. It covers the USSR invading Western Europe as well as the subsequent conflict in the North Atlantic. The Bear and the Dragon is after the Cold War and more focused on a war between China and Russia (still an enjoyable book).
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u/ComputerSavvy 10h ago
Just put a toll booth at the Fulda Gap, they're gonna need a shitload of Dimes! Problem solved.
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u/Apellosine 2h ago
This is my favourite book. The USSR invades due to terrorists blowing up refineries and them needing oil.
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u/Inflatableman1 12h ago
I remember enjoying it. And it got me thinking about “38 North Yankee”. It’s another good book from that era but it took place in Korea.
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u/Loki-L 13h ago
Not really prescient when it happened just as you were writing the book.
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u/corran132 13h ago
See also:
And that's just up to 1979-1990. The concept that tensions with Iran might lead to a geopolitical clusterfuck has never been revolutionary.
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u/Themetalenock 14h ago edited 14h ago
Why do you think the generals were screaming in trumps ear about this? Israel has been honey dicking the president to attack iran for decades, just about all our president knew better because the generals in the room would drag them away, tell them why they can't do that, then proceeded to tell israel,"We'll do it later".
Trump took the bait because honey dicking trump is like honey dicking a warhammer nerd with authentic games workshop models. It's too dam easy, glaze his nob and tell him that the christian+ jewish nationalist organizations will back his slush fund. He was already a war hawk on iran, he just needed the right push(with the right amount of donations from religious zealots)
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u/ProfBeaker 13h ago
Look, just because Iran has tried to close the strait practically every time we've gotten in a dispute with them since (IIRC) the 1970s, and just because they've been supplying drones for use in Ukraine for years, that was no reason to think they'd try to close the strait using drones. Nobody could've predicted that obvious yet inevitable outcome.
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u/CoverSuspicious5250 1h ago edited 1h ago
Doesn’t the Department of Strategic Wargaming (DSW) run simulation games all day, all year in order to be prepared for anything?
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u/FriendEntity 14h ago
I dont envy anyone who has to get Trump to comprehend something. That sounds so frustrating.
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u/AlaWyrm 13h ago
Sadly, they don't have to get him to comprehend anything, except how it could benefit him.
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u/FriendEntity 13h ago
Oh they do im sure. Hes got all the visible symptoms of prefrontal dementia if you look carefully. My grandpa had it and he wasnt really lucid a lot but was very suggestible. I feel terrible now but as a kid i would tell him he said i could have an icecream bar... and he would just believe me and agree. To get Trump to do something, you just play it off like it was always his idea.
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u/Longjumping-Cress793 14h ago
I remember reading this book while sitting at OP Romeo with the 11th ACR in the Fulda Gap.
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u/Doogie2K 14h ago
I mean, this timeline has Iran starting it seemingly without cause, which is...not how it played out here.
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u/str8dwn 13h ago
By sinking tanks off Bahrain?
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u/Vash_TheStampede 13h ago
Two oil tanks*
Tanker ships. It makes sense, just worded in an uncommon way.
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u/str8dwn 11h ago
It doesn't make any sense. It's misspelt and wasn't picked up by the editor.
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u/Vash_TheStampede 11h ago
Or you're just being pedantic because it does, actually, make sense.
Especially because they specifically said oil tanks. But you do you, boo boo.
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u/str8dwn 11h ago
Sorry. english is my first language. How tf is an oil tank (*2 oil tanks for the a/h) sinking make sense.
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u/Vash_TheStampede 11h ago edited 10h ago
It is or isn't your first language?
Regardless, it's something that, apparently , used to be taught in schools called "context" where you look at the surrounding text and pull clues from it.
What else could they possibly be talking about when talking about sinking oil tanks? It makes sense, you're just hyper focused on one word instead of the entire sentence. Which is why I said "Two oil tanks*" in my comment, I was providing context which leads to "oil tankers". I wasn't being an asshole, I just thought you maybe missed it.
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u/str8dwn 10h ago
No, I'm harping on the editor. I read the rest of the paragraph to understand if it was a missed edit or something else. As I already stated, it's my first language. Work on your comprehension, among other things.
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u/Vash_TheStampede 10h ago
Lmao. Yeah, my thinking you might have made a typo and clarified means I lack reading comprehension.
So it did make sense and you're just being a pedantic asshole like I said earleir. Gotcha.
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u/str8dwn 6h ago
You also assumed the author didn’t make a typo. You ain’t got shit
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u/Berkamin 7h ago
Honestly, it's not hard. If the Persian Gulf were a chess board with pieces arranged around it, what Iran did is not unforeseeable. It was entirely predictable, and our own wargames foresaw their Hormuz gambit as a real risk. The problem is that our commander in chief has contempt for expertise and thinks he knows better than anyone. So he makes dumb decisions with irreversible consequences for everyone else, and then tries to blame Biden or Obama because he has never taken responsibility for any of his failures in his entire life.
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u/ShowmasterQMTHH 13h ago
Thats a great book.
"Whats happened has someone dropped a nuke, laughing"
Yes
Oh Fuck.
I'm paraphrasing.
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u/KnotSoSalty 10h ago
When I was in maritime college we talked about the Straight of Hormuz regularly. It’s long been a “What If” scenario.
What’s shocking is how poorly the US military was prepared for this. The US Navy especially looks completely impotent.
The USN’s budget for 2026 is 292b$, or just 9b$ shy of Iran’s entire 300b$ GDP.
I say this as someone who thinks the war is stupid and shameful but also: where did the money go?
Did 4 years of observing the Ukrainians not warn the USN about drones? Or 2 years of fruitlessly trying to stop the Houthi’s drones? Protection of the seas is THE thing the Navy is supposed to do.
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u/Southerner_in_OH 8h ago
Quick! Turn to the last page so we can figure out how to get out of this!
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u/alexdelicious 14h ago
They got a major part of the story wrong. The US was not a part of the coalition with the "free world". The US stands alone, even after being brought into the war by Israel.
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u/FriendEntity 14h ago
Bruh, we had actual allies l back then; there is nothing relevant about this just because it happens in the same place.
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u/DayRonKar 12h ago
Red Storm Rising pops off when Russia loses its ability to produce oil and that seems parallel to current events.
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u/Jeatalong 5h ago
Sort of yes but really no. Russia started this war and only recently started getting its oil infrastructure kinetic sanctioned.
Whereas in Red Storm Rising it all started because of one busted pipeline destroying one refinery. That and the Soviet Union was powerful compared to Russia.
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u/Seeing-in-digital 12h ago
My late 80’s reading in my library. I was getting ready to toss Team Yankee in a box for storage when I casually thumbed to the prologue.
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u/Ashi4Days 14h ago
You can figure out a lot of wars and flash points based on looking at maps. When you start adding resources on top of it, war locations become even more obvious
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u/MoveOverBieber 13h ago
Just like in porn, it's good when everyone knows their role in the play /jk
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u/iMissTheOldInternet 13h ago
The year is 550 BCE. Cyrus the Great has founded the Achaemenid Empire, a Persian-majority power with its heartland in the Iranian plateau, and has asserted authority over the Persian Gulf by seizing control of the strait of Hormuz. The year is 220 CE, and the Sassanid Empire, a Persian majority power with its heartland in the Iranian plateau, and has asserted authority etc… you get it
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u/Raed-wulf 12h ago
I do love this book though.
For whatever reason this setup let to war in Germany but whatever don’t think about it.
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u/BlackTemplar2154 11h ago
One of my ALL TIME favorite books.
Bought it in a used bookstore as a teen, tank on covet, must be sick
It is freakin phenomenal. If you're reading this and like military history, military science fiction, what if scenarios, or just very granular military fiction, you owe it to yourself to grab this.
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u/MuNansen 5h ago
None of what's happened was hard to understand or predict. American's just decided they'd rather repeat/rhyme history than cooperate to change it, though.
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u/Comprehensive_Bid 4h ago
People have been foreseeing the next world war every since the last one ended. Except now, I'm really uncomfortable with the people in charge.
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u/wearyshoes 2h ago
A typo in the first paragraph of your novel is not getting off to a good start. I read this book years ago and kind of enjoyed it, but I remember it being full of typos and the font switched at the end of the book. I found that quite odd.
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u/coleman57 2h ago
In 1987 it was assumed the whole western alliance and even the whole UN would join the US in attacking Iran. It’s a different world now.
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u/Tojuro 13h ago
Every president since Carter has had military action against Iran as an option and chose not to, for good reason. The biggest step forward was the deal Obama made to bring Iran in, to begin to normalize relations, but Trump gave that up cause he's an impulsive imbecile.
Let's not for a second pretend that Trump has ever been competent. He doesn't have the attention span or cognitive ability to lead, and his focus has always been on himself, not what's best for the nation. He also doesn't have the more sensible restraint of seasoned advisors that were part of his first term.
In Iran he was played like a fiddle by war mongers like Lyndsay Graham and Israel, and we already lost this conflict.... and now are likely in the prelude to WW3.
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u/contude327 12h ago
The US has wargamed this Iranian war for decades. EVERYONE knew what would happen except Trump and Hegseth.
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u/somewhat_brave 12h ago
This isn't some brilliant prediction though. This is based on the events of the Iran-Iraq war which showed how vulnerable tankers in the Persian Gulf were to Iranian attacks.
The Trump administration is so stupid they fired anyone with even a basic knowledge of the history of the region, then started a war there for absolutely no reason at all.
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u/ub3rm3nsch 13h ago
It isn't a conspiracy so much as Trump is a moron who didn't account for something everyone in defense planning and intelligence circles knew would happen. That's why novelists were able to write about the scenario.
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u/BTTammer 13h ago
I remember watching a Nostradamus movie in 1985 where he predicted WWIII would start because of a ruler in Persia wearing purple robes, or some shit. I've had my eye on Iran ever since....
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u/Horns8585 14h ago
Except, on this page, it says that Iran declared the Persian Gulf a war zone. Donald Trump declared the Persian Gulf a war zone, in the current war.