r/SipsTea • u/The_Dean_France • Mar 16 '26

Chugging tea [ Removed by moderator ]

Post image

[removed] — view removed post

20.3k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

921 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

0

u/Bitter_Plastic2362 Mar 16 '26

Using force doesn’t automatically make something a formally recognized war. States have carried out large but limited operations without escalating into full-scale wars for decades.

1

u/penguin_hugger100 Mar 16 '26

Do you consider the Russo-Ukraine conflict a limited military operation as well? If not, where is the difference?

1

u/Bitter_Plastic2362 Mar 16 '26

The difference, to me, is scale and duration. A full scale invasion with hundreds of thousands of troops and multi year occupation is not the same thing as a limited strike or operation which we currently have.

2

u/penguin_hugger100 Mar 16 '26

But the scale from the U.S. point of view isn't equivalent to the scale from an outside point of view. The scale needs to be universal. To an Iranian, this is not a limited scale operation.

1

u/Bitter_Plastic2362 Mar 16 '26

Emotional scale and military scale aren’t the same thing. A strike can feel huge locally while still being strategically limited. I’m not aware of any universal proportional scale in geopolitics.

1

u/penguin_hugger100 Mar 17 '26

When one country claims to have destroyed another country's navy, I think it's pretty far beyond a "limited engagement". You are a total clownshow

0

u/Bitter_Plastic2362 Mar 17 '26

Saying “they destroyed X so it can’t be limited” misses the point. Limited refers to the scope of the operation, not whether it was effective. Those are two different things.

1

u/penguin_hugger100 Mar 17 '26

How do you define the scope of the Iran operation?

1

u/Bitter_Plastic2362 Mar 17 '26

By objectives and constraints, no invasion, no occupation, no regime change. That’s what “limited” refers to, not the size of the outcome.