Defense contractors and investors operate under the flawed assumption that there is a serious, coordinated national effort to reindustrialize for a conflict with China. In reality, this collective vision is absent, with policy being a series of disjointed reactions rather than a focused, generational commitment.
A wargame simulating a Strait of Hormuz conflict just before the actual events accurately foresaw the outcome: a low-intensity, cyclical "drone war" with no decisive military solution. This highlights the value of wargaming in setting realistic expectations for conflicts that lack clear military resolutions.
The high rate of munitions expenditure against Iran, a secondary power, proves the US cannot sustain a conventional, attrition-based war with China. This reality is forcing strategists to develop alternative deterrence concepts that don't rely on winning a "firepower competition" with the PLA.
Massively stockpiling a specific weapon system is a dangerous strategy. As the French army's premier artillery proved useless in 1940, and modern GPS-guided shells are now vulnerable to jamming, anchoring a defense on systems that can be rendered obsolete overnight is a critical strategic error.
Despite years of rhetoric about prioritizing the Indo-Pacific to counter China, the US military remains deeply mired in Middle East conflicts. This reveals a disconnect between stated strategy and operational reality, resulting in a series of "operational level spasms" rather than a coherent global posture.
The US is expending advanced, expensive munitions like JASMs and Dark Eagle on targets in Iran that could be handled by cheaper weapons. This is described as using exquisite tools for mundane tasks, driven more by a desire to showcase new tech than strategic necessity, dangerously depleting critical stockpiles.
The US withdrawal from the JCPOA and other actions have taught the world that American commitments are unreliable. Both adversaries and allies must now operate under the game-theory assumption that the U.S. will eventually defect from any agreement, forcing them to hedge and fundamentally altering global diplomacy.
Contrary to political rhetoric suggesting total dominance, US air superiority in Iran is limited to specific geographic areas and time-sensitive windows. This lack of persistent control forces the use of expensive, high-end munitions to mitigate risk to pilots, further draining valuable inventories needed for a high-end fight.
The preference for using expensive standoff weapons stems from a command level that is both highly risk-averse and has, to some degree, forgotten how to synchronize complex operations like Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD). This avoids pilot risk but prevents the use of more plentiful, cheaper munitions.