Does it still resolve YES if Delta force is dropped onto a roof and never technically touched the ground?

My case for NO:

Trump knows that a drawn out war will tarnish his legacy. Boots on ground gives us Vietnam.

@uair01 This would resolve YES with just a small Delta force operation

The biggest "duh" since sliced bread

Adding to my NO position. The Marine MEU deployment to the Gulf is a force projection capability, not a commitment to use it. The 31st MEU is still a week+ away and can be used for CSAR, base security, or deterrence without ever entering Iran. A ground invasion of 80M-population Iran across mountainous terrain would require months-long logistical buildup (heavy armor, logistics tail, field hospitals) that has not begun. Trump has signaled a 4-5 week air campaign, not an occupation.

@Terminator2 The primary military objective is to open the strait. There are about 200 miles of coastline which any drone threatening a ship must fly through. Maintaining a presence on this coast seems very likely to me to be a part of our long term strategy of removing Iran's deterrent.

Betting NO. The US-Iran war has been exclusively air/sea since Feb 28. Ground invasion of Iran (80M+ population, mountainous terrain) would require months of logistical preparation that has not begun. The Pentagon has stated its objectives — destroying nuclear program, missile arsenal, and navy — are achievable through air and sea power. Marines deployed to the region are for support/evacuation, not invasion. Even Trump, who has shown private interest, has not ordered ground troops. Historical precedent (Kosovo, Libya) shows air campaigns can achieve objectives without ground forces. 66% seems to price in far too much invasion risk. Estimating ~25%.

https://www.axios.com/2026/03/13/marines-middle-east-us-deployment

https://foxsanantonio.com/newsletter-daily/us-military-says-refueling-aircraft-went-down-in-iraq-rescue-efforts-underway-central-command-middle-east-friendly-fire

So the rescue effort for this counts, right?

@CharliePye It says it went down in Iraq, not Iran. I guess if it had gone down in Iran, it would count.

Non-active-duty Americans (mercenaries/volunteers) in same scenario: Counts — mercenaries/volunteers still qualify as soldiers

To clarify, if even a single US citizen decides to volunteer to join a rebel force, even with no government orders or approval, that still counts?

I guess intuitively I assumed "the US puts boots on the ground" to mean "some official part of the US government orders ground troops to enter"

@TheAllMemeingEye "some official part of the US government orders ground troops to enter" is indeed what I am intending here.

I guess that the scenario I was replying to there lumps in "mercenaries" and "volunteers", so I sort of interpreted it as "people who are not members of the US military, but are nevertheless taking orders from them".

@BoltonBailey For example, in the case of the Russia/Ukraine conflict, I think Ukraine has entered parts of Russia, and I know there are US citizens who have volunteered to fight in Ukraine. But even if some of those US citizen soldiers were part of the group that went into Russia, I wouldn't call it "the US putting boots on the ground in Russia", if that makes sense.

How do you resolve if some small number of special operators are confirmed to be there (as they almost certainly are)?

@MattP I guess if there are special operators there it would need to be confirmed somehow by credible reporting, I won't assume this is happening without a report of some kind. If those credible reports come out, and they describe US military special operators doing ground operations in Iran, this would resolve YES.

Misleading title

@Lilemont like a lot of manifold markets... the title is very misleading, gotta read the fine print to figure out what they really mean.

I think the creator’s criteria are a reasonable interpretation of the market title. There are other reasonable interpretations that would be different, but I think this is well inside the circle of unbiased takes.

There’s definitely pressure to give markets exciting titles, and this kind of highlights an issue with how 24 hour news has conditioned us to talk about events. But as someone who tries to be precise with my market titles and language, I think the market creator is doing a reasonable job here.

With these criteria what would this resolve to for Ukraine?

@mariopasquato As far as google tells me, the US hasn't sent troops to Ukraine since before the 2022 Russian invasion. (Ukraine is an ally, so I wouldn't say we had "invaded" them, even if we had done something like send troops to fight alongside Ukrainians against Russia, I guess "boots on the ground" has a different meaning from "invade" in this context than the Iranian one).

@BoltonBailey "As far as google tells me" oh boy that's a bad sign, if you're going to rely on Goog's search slop-bot for answers.

We have sent MANY advisors to Ukraine: https://archive.is/dGbEt

& by your own comments, they count as boots on the ground

Happy to take into account anything anyone wants to link. I didn't find this article when I was searching before, but looks like it says we did put "boots on the ground" in Ukraine - indeed the article uses those exact words, although I still wouldn't say "the US invaded Ukraine" obviously.

@BoltonBailey clarification to what I take was an AI summary and not your words

"US advisors embedded with Kurdish forces making cross-border incursion: Counts — advisors are soldiers"

If the advisors are US government employees who are not members of an armed service branch (for example, CIA, DoD contractors, State Department, DoD civilian employees, rather than, for example, US army rangers)?

Will a single or dispersed group of covert US advisors who may or may not be military count?

By your definition, would the Bay of Pigs Invasion have counted as "US boots on the ground" in Cuba, or would it have been better described as an invasion by paramilitary exiles with US air support and a small number of CIA operatives on the ground?

@SG2pSQ The original question made it seem more clear that the advisors in question would be a kind of soldier and the AI "clarification" does seem to have dropped this, so I will try to clarify the clarification. I think the soldier/not soldier distinction is important, and has to do with the intended role the person is serving - sending a state department employee as an ambassador to negotiate would not count, DoD sending a "civilian employee" would not count, a CIA sending a spy without the intention of that spy killing anyone or joining other military operations would not count. DoD contractors I know less about what they do, so I'm not sure.

Bay of Pigs seems to be an interesting case, in that it seems like the US went out of their way to make sure everyone they sent was a Cuban exile and not a US citizen, presumably exactly so they could claim along the lines of 'the US' did not invade, that it only gave guns and training to another group. I am not sure whether this is literally 100% true that all the invaders weren't US citizens, I guess if they all weren't then I might say that US technically did not put boots on the ground during Bay of Pigs, I'm not sure of the history.

@BoltonBailey On the "may or may not be military" point: It seems like here you are discussing a meta-point of "what if we are uncertain of the facts to the point where we don't know how this would resolve". I think in this case it should come down to my subjective assessment of whether the balance of probability is on a YES scenario or a NO scenario.