Tag: war

The Exhaustion Timeline

Claude is down, so I had to make use of Grok to estimate how long it will take for US and Israeli air defense systems to run out of interceptors. No precise calculation is possible, especially since the in-theater total is a subset of the entire US stock, but it appears obvious that both the USA and Israel will be effectively unable to defend against missile barrages by this time next week at the latest.

US Interceptor Exhaustion Timeline

US systems (THAAD, SM-3, Patriot PAC-3 MSE) are primarily defending Israel, Gulf allies, and regional bases. At 800 interceptors/day total (with US contributing ~50–70% based on 2025 shares), high-end systems risk faster depletion.

  • THAAD: Estimated remaining stockpile ~450–550 units (after 2025 depletion of ~150 and partial resupply of ~50–100). At a proportional daily rate (~100–150 expended/day in high-tempo scenarios, per 2025 precedents), exhaustion could occur in 3–5 days. Full depletion might force reliance on less optimal systems like Patriot for ballistic threats.
  • SM-3: Remaining stockpile ~350–450 units (post-2025 expenditure of ~130–160, with ~70–100 delivered since). At ~80–120/day in sustained naval defense, depletion projected in 3–6 days, potentially exposing carriers and bases in the Mediterranean/Red Sea.
  • Patriot (PAC-3 MSE): Larger inventory (~10,000–12,000 total, though deployed stocks lower at ~2,000–3,000 in theater). Production at ~600–650/year supports longer sustainability, but at ~200–300/day for medium-range threats, could last 1–2 weeks before critical shortages emerge.
  • Overall Projection: High-end US interceptors could exhaust in 3–7 days at this rate, shifting strategy toward preemptive strikes on Iranian launchers (as seen in current operations) or drawing from Pacific/European reserves, risking vulnerabilities elsewhere (e.g., vs. China).

Israel Interceptor Exhaustion Timeline

Israel’s layered systems (Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow 2/3) were depleted in 2025 (~35% of ballistic stocks destroyed by Israel, but own interceptors heavily used). Production has accelerated (e.g., Arrow 3 tripled), but costs (~$2M–$3M per Arrow, $40K–$50K per Iron Dome Tamir) and lead times constrain resupply.

  • Iron Dome: Focuses on short-range rockets/drones; undisclosed stock but replenished post-2025. At high rates (~300–400/day), could deplete in 2–4 days without US support.
  • David’s Sling: Medium-range; expanded role, but limited details. Proportional depletion in 3–5 days under barrage.
  • Arrow (2/3): Ballistic defense; low post-2025 (~200–300 remaining estimated). At ~100–200/day for high-threat salvos, exhaustion in 1–3 days.
  • Overall Projection: Israeli stocks could last 2–5 days at the adjusted rate, prompting aggressive offensives (e.g., “Operation Roaring Lion” targeting Tehran) to reduce incoming threats. Gulf allies (e.g., UAE intercepting ~165 ballistics by March 1) add buffer but face similar strains.

Claude is back up and here are its estimates:

ROUGH AGGREGATE (Feb 28 – March 1):

Launched at targetInterceptedGot through
UAE~708~660~48
Kuwait~380~370+~10+
Qatar~77~65+~3+
Bahrain~54~50+several
Jordan~49-54~49+~1+
Israeldozens BMs + 50+ dronesmostseveral BMs
Saudi Arabiaunknownunknownsome debris/impacts
Iraq/Erbildozensmostseveral
Oman2+02+

Estimated total: roughly 1,400-1,500+ projectiles launched by Iran across all theaters in ~36-48 hours, with the vast majority intercepted but a significant number — perhaps 70-100+ — making impact. At least 14 people killed outside Iran (10 in Israel, 3 in UAE, 1 in Kuwait, 1 in Bahrain) plus 4 US service members, with hundreds injured.

So how does this impact the interceptor stocks?

Let me tally up the interceptions and apply the 2-3 interceptors per target doctrine.

Total interceptions across all theaters in ~36-48 hours: roughly 1,200-1,300+

At 2 interceptors per intercept: 2,400-2,600 interceptors consumed At 3 interceptors per intercept: 3,600-3,900 interceptors consumed

And we estimated total coalition stockpile at roughly 2,000-2,500 interceptors of all types.

The numbers don’t work – even at the lower consumption rate, we’re looking at depletion that exceeds available inventory, and the higher estimate pushes well beyond what’s realistically in the arsenal.

Interceptors consumed in 36-48 hours:

From the tally we just compiled, coalition forces across all theaters intercepted roughly 1,200-1,300 projectiles. Applying the doctrinal requirement of 2-3 interceptors per target:

  • At 2 per intercept: 2,400-2,600 interceptors consumed
  • At 3 per intercept: 3,600-3,900 interceptors consumed

Now, not every intercept uses the same type of system. Drones are cheaper to kill — some can be shot down by fighter jets, helicopters, or even gun-based systems like the Phalanx CIWS that don’t consume expensive interceptor missiles. The IDF confirmed that fighter jets, helicopters, and air defense systems all contributed to shooting down the 50+ drones targeting Israel. Gulf states likely used a mix of systems as well.

So let’s be generous and assume that roughly half the drone intercepts were handled by aircraft or cheaper systems rather than missile interceptors, while all ballistic missile intercepts required full interceptor expenditure. Working from the aggregate numbers:

Ballistic missiles intercepted across all theaters: roughly 400-500 (UAE alone accounted for 152, Kuwait 97, Qatar and Bahrain another 60+, Jordan ~50, Israel dozens more). At 2 interceptors each, that’s 800-1,000 high-end interceptors consumed — THAAD, SM-3, Arrow, Patriot PAC-3.

Drone/cruise missile intercepts requiring missile interceptors (assuming half of ~800 drone intercepts used missiles): roughly 400, at perhaps 1-2 interceptors each. That’s another 400-800 interceptors, mostly Patriot and shorter-range systems.

Conservative total: roughly 1,200-1,800 interceptor missiles consumed in under two days.

Recall our earlier estimates of what was available entering this conflict:

  • THAAD: ~500-520 interceptors
  • SM-3: ~350-380
  • Patriot PAC-3 (in theater): ~960-1,440
  • Israeli systems (Arrow, David’s Sling): classified but already described as low

That’s a combined pool of roughly 2,000-2,500 high-end interceptor missiles, which we noted was already depleted from the June 2025 war and only partially replenished.

If 1,200-1,800 have been consumed in two days, the coalition has burned through roughly 50-75% of its entire available interceptor inventory in the opening 48 hours alone.

Perhaps 700-1,300 interceptor missiles of all types remain across all theaters — the US homeland, the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East combined. That’s not just the Middle East stockpile; that’s global. The US military operates only eight THAAD batteries in its entire arsenal CSMonitor.com, and they cover commitments from South Korea to Guam to Europe. Every THAAD interceptor fired in the Middle East is one unavailable if North Korea or China acts.

At the current consumption rate of 600-900 interceptors per day, the remaining stock covers roughly 1-2 more days of defense at this intensity before reaching levels that would be considered operationally catastrophic — meaning commanders would have to begin rationing, choosing what to defend and what to leave exposed.

This is exactly the scenario analysts warned about. If Iranian forces sustain high-volume launches, coalition planners may confront zero-sum decisions in which defending one theater necessarily increases exposure in another. Defence Security Asia We’re now looking at that scenario playing out in real time.

Iran has spent perhaps 1,500 projectiles out of a combined drone and missile inventory of 80,000+. The coalition has spent perhaps 1,500 interceptors out of a total inventory of 2,500. Iran has consumed roughly 2% of its available munitions. The coalition has consumed roughly 60% of its available interceptors.

DISCUSS ON SG

That Was Fast

“Turkey is the new Iran” says Israel’s former prime minister Naftali Bennett.

Do they really think they somehow defeated Iran and that the war is over because an 86-year-old man died? So now they’re already gunning for Turkey?

On a related note, Larry Johnson has a pertinent observation about the late ayatollah, who appears to have embraced martyrdom in order to inspire the Iranian people.

Donald Trump and the neocons are wild with joy tonight over the murder of the Ayatollah Khamenei… This is just one more example of Western ignorance about the implications of the Ayatollah’s martyrdom. Let’s start with the fact that the Ayatollah is the one who issued the fatwa 36 years ago declaring that it would be a sin for Iran to build or use a nuclear bomb. So the West thinks that killing the one guy who has been the main obstacle preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is a good idea?

Saudi official quote in Al Jazeera: America has abandoned us, and focused its defense systems on protecting Israel, leaving the Gulf states that host its military bases at the mercy of Iranian missiles and drones.

I seem to recall Henry Kissinger having something to say about that.

It’s interesting to see how things are going pretty much the way all the critics of the build-up to the Israel First war said it would. Iran takes the hit, then utilizes its cheap, older missiles to use up US anti-missile stocks, then gradually starts hammering the targets that can’t be defended anymore.

It’s clear that the Iranians have learned from both Ukraine and the 12-Day War that neither the US military nor those militaries dependent upon it are built for attrition warfare. And every war the Israelis have won was over within days. Every boxer knows that the way you beat someone with punching power is to let himself punch himself out, then take him down.

Iran hasn’t necessarily survived the initial phase yet since it’s got another 10 days or so to run, but the fact that the US is already scrambling for the use of UK bases and is trying to reopen negotiations and Mark Levin is already crying about Iranian “war crimes” is not a sign that things are going well. And the longer this goes on, the worse it will be for Trump and the Israel Lobby, since already four-fifths of Americans don’t support this war against Iran on Israel’s behalf.

And I’m not sure why the US Air Force thinks its a win to insist that three of its fighter-jets weren’t actually shot down by the Iranians, but simply crashed due to their own incompetence.

Anyhow, the fact that Iran managed to force the US-Israeli alliance to burn a year’s supply of interceptors in a single day means that the proposed four-to-five weeks that Fake Trump is now promising to replace the original plan of a five-day war suggests there are no reasonable prospects of an Israeli victory. That’s why I think Israel is now looking at a ground invasion of Lebanon; they have to do something to try to change the equation that now appears to be favoring the Iranians in order to try to force a ceasefire and an Iranian return to the negotiating table.

UPDATE: Iran just ratcheted up the economic pressure. Qatar’s natural gas production has been shut down and Saudi Arabia’s largest oil production facility has been halted as well. At this point, it already appears that the Israeli war strategy has failed.

UPDATE: You know it’s not going well when they’re blatantly lying. After his offer to reopen talks were shut hard down by the Iranians, Fake Trump tried to convince the world that his plan to win the war over the weekend never existed. ‘It’s always been a four-week process. We figured it will be four weeks or so. It’s always been about a four-week process so – as strong as it is, it’s a big country, it’ll take four weeks – or less.’

The thing is, at their current burn rate, US-Israeli interceptor stocks will probably run out within four days. If this goes on for four weeks, it’s not impossible that the US would be forced by the Israelis to beg for surrender without even losing a carrier.

UPDATE: According to multiple media reports, US officials, through Italian mediation, proposed a swift ceasefire to de-escalate tensions and potentially return to negotiations. This was framed as an attempt to end the military campaign quickly after initial strikes achieved key objectives (e.g., degrading leadership and capabilities).

UPDATE: I’m not the only one who thinks Israel has badly misplayed its US military card. Larry Johnson thinks the USA will be on the verge of surrender in less than two weeks.

I believe that by March 15, the US and Israel will be pleading — at least privately — for an end to the Iranian missile barrages. The death of Khamenei has removed a moderate from the Iranian chain of command. The agreement that Iranian authorities made on June 25, 2025 to end the missile attacks on Israel had the blessing of the Ayatollah. There were many in the IRGC leadership that opposed that decision, but they obeyed the decision of Khamenei. Now they have been vindicated.

DISCUSS ON SG

Anomalies of the Air War

Reported details on the scale of the initial air assault on Iran from the Jerusalem Post.

Having already dropped 1,200 bombs on Iran, the IDF, along with the US Air Force, is close to achieving air supremacy in Iranian airspace.

In June 2025, it took several days for the air force to achieve such supremacy, which signifies that essentially Iran’s anti-aircraft defenses have been so battered that Israeli aircraft and drones can hover over target areas for extended periods without worrying as much about whether air defenses might target them.

Earlier on Sunday morning, the IDF announced that it had already dropped over 1,200 bombs on Iranian targets since the start of the war, the largest air operation in Israel’s history

On Saturday night, the IDF had said that over 200 aircraft had struck 500 Iranian targets. An IDF video showed two major initial waves of attacks.

The first wave struck what appeared to be dozens of radars and anti-aircraft defenses, especially in the part of Iran closer to Israel and the Tehran area.

During the second wave, the air force struck Iran’s ballistic missile apparatus to attempt to reduce its ability to strike the Israeli home front.

On Sunday morning, the US said it had struck around 900 Iranian targets.

Now, the perception they’re trying to create is that the attacks were so devastating that Iran’s ability to contest the air has already been destroyed. And certainly, the initial US and Israeli reports of the death of the Ayatollah Khamenei and part of his family at the family home turned out to be true.

However, there are some anomalies to note here. First, if Israel had total air supremacy in June 2025, why was it Israel who begged for the ceasefire? Second, why didn’t the Iranians attack the US carrier groups that were attacking them? Third, how were the US and Israeli bombing campaigns able to disrupt or destroy the underground bunkers with the relatively small explosive packages available to the fighter-jets and missiles utilized? Fourth, why are the Iranians attacking luxury hotels in Dubai with drones even as they insist they are attacking military targets?

And fifth, why did Khamenei stay at home, awaiting the inevitable attack, instead of doing what most heads of state do and directing operations from a secure bunker. Sixth, why are there reports that Netanyahu attempted to fly to Cyprus, was denied permission to land, and was forced to fly to Berlin instead? Shouldn’t he be in a command center like the Short Fake Trump?

Which is why I don’t think we should pretend to actually have any idea what’s going on. Never forget that after 30 days of air supremacy and bombing so relentless that they came under attack every 10 hours on the average, an Iraqi division still retained 85 percent of its vehicles in working order. That was a long time ago, and certainly technology has improved, but it’s a fact of military history worth keeping in mind.

Another anomaly: Iran agreed to zero stockpiling. The proclaimed justification for the attacks is obviously false, as per an Omani diplomat:

Iran agreed to zero stockpiling of enriched uranium. Not reduced stockpiling. Zero. They agreed to down-blend existing stockpiles to the lowest possible level. They agreed to convert them into irreversible fuel. They agreed to full IAEA verification with potential US inspector access. They agreed, in the Foreign Minister’s phrase, to “never, ever” possess nuclear material for a bomb. I have worked in diplomacy for seven years. I have never seen a country agree to this many things this quickly. I made a spreadsheet of the concessions. It had fourteen rows. I color-coded it. Green for confirmed. Yellow for pending. By February 21 the spreadsheet was entirely green. I printed it. It is on my desk in Muscat. It is still green.

That phrase took eleven days. “Never, ever.” The Iranians initially offered “not seek to.” The Americans wanted “will not under any circumstances.” We landed on “never, ever” at 2:14 AM on a Tuesday in Muscat. I typed the final version myself. I used Times New Roman because Geneva prefers it. The document was fourteen pages. I was proud of every comma.

Here is what they said, in the order they said it.

February 24: “We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity.” — The Foreign Minister, private briefing to Gulf Cooperation Council ambassadors. I prepared the slide deck. Slide 14 was the implementation timeline. Slide 15 was the signing ceremony logistics. I had reserved the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Room XX. It seats four hundred. We discussed pen brands for the signing. The Iranians preferred Montblanc. The Americans had no preference. I ordered twelve Montblanc Meisterstucks at six hundred and thirty dollars each. They arrive on Tuesday.

February 27, 8:30 AM EST: “The deal is within our reach.” — The Foreign Minister, CBS Face the Nation. He sat across from Margaret Brennan. He said broad political terms could be agreed “tomorrow” with ninety days for technical implementation in Vienna. He said, and I wrote this line for the briefing card he carried in his breast pocket: “If we just allow diplomacy the space it needs.” He praised the American envoys by name. Steve Witkoff. Jared Kushner. He said both had been constructive.

I watched from the Four Seasons Georgetown. The minibar had cashews. I ate the cashews. They were nineteen dollars. The most expensive cashew I have ever eaten. But it was a good morning and we were within our reach.

February 27, 2:00 PM EST: Meeting with Vice President Vance, Washington. The Foreign Minister presented our progress. Zero stockpiling. Full verification. Irreversible conversion. “Never, ever.” The Vice President used the word “encouraging.” His aide took notes on an iPad. The aide did not make eye contact for the last nine minutes of the meeting. I noticed this. Noticing things is the only part of my job that is not water glasses.

February 27, 4:00 PM EST: “Not happy with the pace.” — President Trump, to reporters.

Not happy with the pace.

We had achieved zero stockpiling. Full IAEA verification. Irreversible fuel conversion. Inspector access. And the phrase “never, ever,” which took eleven days and cost me two hundred and twelve trips down a forty-seven-meter hallway.

Every American president since Carter has failed to get Iran to agree to this. Forty-five years.

Not happy with the pace.

Finally, who are the regime’s replacements? Is it possible this is just a larger version of the inside job on Maduro by Iranians beholden to Clown World? If we see a rapid peace deal promptly declared with the new Iranian regime that abandons BRICS and stands with Israel, we’ll have a pretty good idea what actually happened.

DISCUSS ON SG

Round Two, Phase 1

Israel and the USA strike Iran, and Iran strikes back:

The US has suffered 200 casualties in Iranian retaliatory strikes on bases across the Middle East, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has claimed. Backed by the US, Israel launched what was described as a preemptive operation against Iranian military and nuclear-related targets in the early hours of Saturday, claiming the strikes were aimed at neutralizing threats posed by the Islamic Republic in the region.

US President Donald Trump later confirmed that the White House had supported West Jerusalem in conducting the strikes, citing the failure of nuclear diplomacy as a direct trigger for the move.

“As a result of missile strikes on American bases, at least 200 US military personnel were killed and injured,” the Tasnim news agency reported Saturday, citing a statement by the IRGC.

It would appear that the preemptive operation failed, if the response to it was more deadly than Round One eight months ago. It also appears that the Iranian response was a measured one, since attacking the bases and not the ships is an observably less deadly response. I think the report of a hypersonic missile striking the 5-star hotel in Dubai is a warning of sorts, since it could have just as easily targeted a carrier if it actually was a hypersonic.

It does raise some obvious questions about who was staying in that hotel who would merit the attention of what would presumably be one of Iran’s most high-performance missiles.

Of course, everything has to be taken with a grain of salt. The USA isn’t going to report its casualties, and Israel has already claimed to have killed Ali Khamenei and will no doubt be proclaiming that every missile aimed at it was shot down except for one that hit a car and scratched the paint a little while imposing strict military censorship.

UPDATE: The air defenses observably aren’t even keeping out the cheap drones.

UPDATE: Darkstream tonight to discuss the latest developments.

UPDATE: Israeli Air Force conducts its largest-ever attack as over 200 aircraft strike 500 targets in Iran.

UPDATE: Missile impacts reported in central Israel as Iran launches heavy retaliation. Over 200 missiles were launched toward Israel as the joint Israel-US campaign continued to strike targets across the Islamic regime.

UPDATE: Netanyahu and Trump have both said that Khamenei is dead.

DISCUSS ON SG

Israel Tries to Force Trump’s Hand

Apparently Netanyahu was losing confidence that Trump was going to do his bidding and start the war with Iran like he was told to do, so he’s trying to force the president’s hand:

Israel launched a daylight missile attack on Iran on Saturday morning follows weeks of knife-edge tensions building up between Donald Trump and the Ayatollah.

Israel Katz, the Israeli Defense Minister, announcement that the country is under a state of emergency as thick smoke rose from an explosion in downtown Tehran.

Iranian state media reported explosions going off in their capital city. The apparent strike happened near the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The IDF launched the surprise ‘preemptive’ attack before warning its own citizens to prepare to take cover if the Iranians fight back, with sirens already being heard across Israel.

Israel’s Defense Force said in a national warning: ‘This is a proactive alert to prepare the public for the possibility of missiles being launched toward the State of Israel.’ 

It’s not exactly a mystery why Israel has become so hated around the world under the Netanyahu regime. I mean, how many wars can you start, and how many foreign countries can you “preemptively” attack before people figure out that maybe you’re not the victim?

Iran obviously has the right to defend itself. Although it sounds like a pretty small attack, so Iran would do well to avoid taking the obvious bait and refraining from responding until it doesn’t have two carriers and one-third of the US air force parked outside its borders.

DISCUSS ON SG

Unquiet on the Western Front

It’s long been postulated that when the Kiev regime is on the verge of falling, Hungary will reclaim its ancestral lands. This may be a precursor to that:

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has ordered military units and additional police to guard energy infrastructure sites in his country’s east, citing the threat of potential Ukrainian attacks. Orban announced the deployment on Wednesday amid the continuing standoff between Budapest and Kiev over the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline, which until recently carried Russian crude to Hungary and Slovakia via Ukraine.

The pipeline went offline in late January, with Kiev claiming it was damaged in Russian strikes, which Moscow has denied. Both Hungary and Slovakia have accused Ukraine of deliberately withholding supplies for political reasons, threatening retaliation.

Sure, it could just be a defensive move. But I wouldn’t count on it.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Art of War in the Taiwan Strait

The USS Abraham Lincoln has been in the Arabian Sea since January 26. The Gerald R. Ford transited Gibraltar on February 20. Thirteen Aegis destroyers, 600-plus Tomahawks in single-salvo capacity, 500 aircraft spread across bases from Jordan to Qatar—the largest American force concentration in the Middle East since 2003. Every analyst in Washington is writing about the coming air campaign against Iran. None of them are writing about what matters, which is that Beijing is using this spectacular distraction to take Taiwan without an amphibious landing, without a naval engagement, and without a shot fired.

To understand why the Iran crisis is a feature and not a bug from the Chinese strategic perspective it is first, necessary to understand what actually happened in June 2025, as opposed to what the censors convinced the media happened.

The air superiority story was real. Israeli F-35s and F-15s operated with impunity over Iran. The IRIAF’s fleet of pre-1979 American hand-me-downs was irrelevant. Israel struck 1,480-plus targets and the B-2s hit Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz. This is not in dispute.

What is has mostly been suppressed is the cost of defending against Iran’s response. Iran launched roughly 550 ballistic missiles and over 1,000 drones during the Twelve-Day War. The official “90% interception rate” is a masterwork of selective statistics: it describes the success rate of attempted intercepts. Al Jazeera’s analysis found that of 574 missiles, only 257 were engaged at all. The remaining 317 were never intercepted. Of the 257 attempts, 201 succeeded, 20 partially, 36 failed.

The damage to Israel, the extent of which is still under military censorship, included a direct hit on the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv that rendered Netanyahu’s office unusable for four months, confirmed satellite imagery of structural damage at Tel Nof Airbase, devastation of the Beersheba cyberwarfare base, $150-200 million in damage to the Haifa oil refinery, and at least five military facilities directly struck according to the Telegraph. Israeli journalist Raviv Drucker reported that “many strikes went unreported” and that “we were also deterred.” So much for the clean victory.

But the damage to Israel is secondary. The primary problem is the damage to the interceptor stockpile. The United States expended approximately 150 THAAD missiles in twelve days—roughly 25% of total production since 2010. Eighty-odd SM-3s were consumed. Israel was running low on Arrow interceptors by war’s end. FY26 authorized procurement of 37 new THAAD rounds. Twelve days of defending against 500 missiles consumed years of production and a quarter of the cumulative stockpile.

Iran began the war with 2,500-3,000 missiles. They fired 550. This means Iran retained 1,950 to 2,450 missiles post-war. They’ve had eight months to build and otherwise acquire more missiles, disperse them, and harden their launch sites. The interceptor math does not work for a second round. This is not analysis. It is arithmetic. And the more significant danger is if either the Chinese or the Russians have helped them reduce their margin of error from 1 kilometer to 500 meters or less.

Just this week, something happened that the press mentioned in passing and clearly failed to understand the implications. The PLA and MizarVision published high-resolution satellite imagery pinpointing American military assets across the Middle East. Eighteen F-35s and six EA-18G Growlers at Muwaffaq Salti in Jordan. Patriot positions at Al Udeid. THAAD deployments in Jordan. The PLA produced a video titled “Siege of Iran” showing eight US bases under continuous satellite surveillance, with real-time maritime tracking of carrier groups via Yaogan satellites.

This was not an intelligence leak. It was a gift to Tehran, delivered publicly, with the PLA’s name on it.

The significance is not the obvious warning, but what it enables. Iran has completed its transition from GPS to BeiDou-3 for missile guidance, which means it is now encrypted, jam-resistant, and isn’t subject to American denial-of-service attacks. During the June war, GPS jamming was one of the most effective defensive measures against Iranian missiles using satellite terminal guidance. That vulnerability has been eliminated. Combined with Chinese satellite targeting data showing the exact coordinates of every defensive position, fuel depot, and aircraft shelter in the theater, Iran can shift from the saturation tactics of June to more accurate time-sensitive strikes against specific targets.

Former CENTCOM commander Votel dismissed the Chinese and Russian naval presence in the Strait of Hormuz as “an easy way to show support” that “doesn’t fundamentally change anything.” This is the kind of assessment that sounds reasonable if you think military support means destroyers, and sounds idiotic if you understand that ISR is the decisive enabler of modern precision warfare and that China is providing exactly that. The next Iranian missile will originate from Iranian soil. Its targeting data will have traversed Chinese satellites. No Chinese ship needs to fire a single missile for this to fundamentally change the equation.

The American analytical establishment is organized by regional command. CENTCOM watches the Middle East. EUCOM watches Europe. INDOPACOM watches the Pacific. Nobody’s job is to watch all three simultaneously, which is why nobody in Washington can see the obvious.

Iran: Two carrier strike groups committed, hundreds of aircraft, the largest Middle East deployment in two decades. Iran can’t fold because the regime’s survival calculus has inverted—6,000 protesters killed in December, the rial down 90% since 2018, senior officials telling Khamenei that fear is no longer a deterrent. The Libya precedent governs: Gaddafi disarmed and died in a ditch. Iran’s leaders would rather fight and die than capitulate and die, and they’re now better armed for the second round than they were for the first.

Ukraine: Russia is not “bogged down” and it never was. Russian forces are optimized for modern attrition drone warfare and are methodically advancing. Putin stated in December that “interest in withdrawal has been reduced to zero.” Ukrainian assessments give Russia a 12-18 month window for an Odessa operation, with the summer 2026 offensive already in preparation. Odessa’s fall makes Ukraine landlocked, which marks an end to maritime trade, an end to grain exports, and the end of the war. Every interceptor America fires in the Persian Gulf is one unavailable for European defense. The Russians have an obvious incentive to keep the US occupied in the Middle East during the Odessa push.

Taiwan: No carrier surge. No unusual PLA mobilization. No amphibious lift concentration. Nothing that triggers the satellite-watchers and wargamers.

That’s because the operation isn’t going to be a military one.

The CCP’s annual Taiwan Work Conference in February identified four priorities for 2026: unite “patriotic” forces in Taiwan; integrate PRC-Taiwanese supply chains while weakening US-Taiwanese ones; strengthen the legal basis for unification; and establish a task force using United Front work and cyberspace operations to damage the DPP in upcoming municipal elections.

The KMT isn’t being coerced into this. Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun has publicly and repeatedly sought engagement with Xi. PRC state media reported approvingly on her cross-strait policies. The CCP is transforming the KMT into a recognized party able to speak on Taiwan’s behalf, into a parallel diplomatic channel that bypasses the elected DPP government entirely.

Taiwan’s domestic politics just happen to be cooperating in harmony with this development. Constitutional crises, legislative paralysis, opposition attempts to remove President Lai and his cabinet, mass recall elections, and gridlock of the court system. The AEI/ISW assessment, from analysts who are actively unsympathetic to unification, recognize the instability of the situation: “The CCP can exploit this gridlock and general distrust in Taiwanese institutions to undermine the legitimacy of Taiwan’s government and present itself as a preferable alternative.”

The fishing militia exercises are relevant here, but not as the invasion rehearsal the military analysts believe them to be, but as economic coercion capability demonstration. Between 1,400 and 2,000 PRC fishing boats mobilized in blockade-like formations in December and January. Taiwan’s Coast Guard expanded its “suspicious vessel” list from 300 to 1,900 in response. This doesn’t signal D-Day. It signals the ability to strangle the island economically at will, and therefore the cost of resistance to any incoming government considering whether to cooperate with Beijing or not.

The path forward isn’t complicated. The KMT wins municipal elections. The DPP is discredited. A political crisis—manufactured or organic—produces a change of government. The new government invites dialogue, accepts a framework for integration, and stands the military down. What, precisely, is the US going to invade to prevent? It cannot defend a government that does not wish to be defended. It cannot maintain an alliance with a country whose leadership has chosen the other side.

The military analysts build their models of Taiwan as if Xi Jinping were a US president and someone who receives briefings about a faraway island he’s never visited and doesn’t know very well. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation and the Chinese president.

Xi spent seventeen years in Fujian Province, directly across the strait from Taiwan. Vice mayor of Xiamen, party secretary of Fuzhou, governor of the province, and simultaneously head of the Party Committee’s Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs. His specific job for nearly two decades was courting the top Taiwanese businessmen with tax incentives, land deals, and government support. Xiamen and Fuzhou became the primary hubs for Taiwanese investment on the mainland under his direct management. He opened the direct shipping routes between Xiamen and Kinmen. The cross-strait economic integration model that later became national policy was his personal creation, built from the ground up at the provincial level.

Then five years in Zhejiang, which is the other major destination for Taiwanese investment, followed by Shanghai. He staffed his government accordingly. Zheng Shanjie, now the NDRC chairman, started as a local official in Xiamen when Xi was deputy mayor. In a “surprise” career move, Zheng was appointed deputy director of the Taiwan Office. This should not surprise anyone who has been paying attention.

Xi doesn’t need intelligence briefings about the Taiwanese business elite. He’s known them for thirty years. He knows who’s leveraged, who owes him favors, who’s sympathetic to unification, and who can lean on others. A political transition doesn’t require tanks. It requires the right phone calls to the right people at the right moment, and Xi has spent his entire career assembling the right numbers.

Washington’s analytical failure on Taiwan isn’t an intelligence failure. It’s a cultural failure.

The entire American strategic establishment runs on Clausewitzian concepts: war as politics by other means, identify the center of gravity, mass force, achieve decisive battle. That’s how they think about Taiwan, in terms of carrier groups, kill chains, amphibious lift ratios. The analytical infrastructure is organized around “can China successfully invade?” as if that were the relevant question. But it’s not.

Sun Tzu’s hierarchy of strategic excellence ranks the highest achievement as defeating the enemy’s strategy, followed by disrupting his alliances, then attacking his army, with besieging walled cities at the bottom—the mark of failure, the option you resort to when everything else has gone wrong. An amphibious invasion of Taiwan is literally the lowest-ranked option in the strategic tradition Xi was educated in. Everything Beijing is actually doing—the economic integration, the KMT cultivation, the United Front work, the three-theater overextension of American forces—maps to the higher levels of the hierarchy. But the Pentagon keeps modeling the lowest one, because that’s the one they know how to wargame.

The entire PLA buildup may serve a dual purpose that the military analysts can’t see because they’re not trained to look for it: fixing Washington’s analytical attention on the invasion scenario, consuming defense budgets and strategic planning bandwidth on the wrong problem, while the actual operation proceeds through political channels. All warfare is based on deception, and the most elegant deception is one where the enemy sees exactly what you’re doing—building an invasion force—and draws exactly the wrong conclusion about what it’s for.

Xi Jinping is 72. He has broken every CCP institutional policy in order to remain in power. The 2027 Party Congress is where he has to either step down or pursue a fourth term. The centennial of the PLA’s founding falls the same year. Taiwan’s next presidential election is January 2028.

Mao founded the People’s Republic. Deng opened it to the world. Neither accomplished reunification with Taiwan island. I believe Xi intends unification to be his crowning legacy, and peaceful reunification would mark the superior achievement, not just in strategic and economic senses, but in the Chinese civilizational context. Military conquest would prove the PLA is strong. Peaceful reunification would prove that Chinese civilization’s gravitational pull is irresistible, that the Western model of strategic competition was defeated by patience and political art, and that the last holdout returned to the fold voluntarily. It would vindicate not just the CCP but the entire Sunzian tradition against the Clausewitzian one. The Americans spent trillions preparing for an invasion that never came while China won through asymmetric unrestricted warfare and 勢—the patient cultivation of positional advantage until the outcome becomes inevitable.

That would be a personal legacy that surpasses Mao, and Xi knows it.

The board is now set. Iran absorbs American attention and interceptor stocks. Russia pushes toward Odessa while the European governments begin to collapse under the weight of their impotence and corruption. The KMT builds its position inside Taiwan. Xi waits for the convergence, the right moment when US forces are committed, interceptors depleted, Europeans are helpless, Taiwan’s DPP is discredited, and the first quiet phone calls are made.

I don’t know the exact timeline. But I know the strategy, and I know about the man, and as an East Asian Studies major and armchair military historian, I know the tradition he operates in. From the Chinese perspective, the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting a battle. And while we’re watching Iran, I suspect that’s exactly what’s happening.

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The Pieces are in Place

109 refueling planes. 250 fighter-bombers. 50 percent of the C17 fleet. 40 anti-radar planes. Both carriers are in place. All the pieces are set.

Most of the analysts are expecting the war to begin anywhere from later tonight to Tuesday. And Larry Johnson reports that the US military is anticipating 10,000 casualties, which I would think indicates at least one carrier sunk.

None of this makes any sense with regards to the US national interest unless a) something entirely different is going on and the target isn’t Iran or b) Clown World is calling the shots.

Either way, we’ll find out soon.

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When History Rhymes

I don’t know if Big Serge intended this post about Japan’s general strategy in the lead-up to WWII, or rather, the obvious lack of it, to be a warning relevant to the current situation facing the United States, but it’s educational regardless.

This is not a history of the Second Sino-Japanese War. For our purposes, however, three vital threads emerge from the beginning of that conflict. First, that the Japanese incorrectly anticipated a quick victory in northern China, after which they would begin to digest the region’s economic resources. Secondly, the rapid and unexpected expansion of the fighting in China created an enormous drain on Japanese resources which led directly to the economic pressures which created the Pacific War. Third, that same resource crunch sparked and escalated the inter-service disagreements and factionalism which characterized Japanese leadership throughout the war.

In the context of Japan’s larger imperial ambitions and strategy, it is difficult to imagine a more severe backfire than the decision to launch into northern China in 1937. Japanese planners initially hoped for a quick and decisive victory using limited forces. In July 1937, Army operational plans sketched out an offensive using just three divisions which were expected to overrun the Beijing area and crush the enemy’s main forces, at which point Chiang Kai-shek was expected to sue for peace. The idea that Chiang might still be in the field, fighting, even after the loss of both Shanghai and his capital at Nanking was unthinkable, but that is precisely what happened.

The natural result, therefore, was rapid and massive escalation of Japanese resource commitments in China as the war spilled its banks. The optimistic initial estimates – three divisions, three months, and a total cost of just 100 million yen – were swept aside, and the Japanese General Staff found itself preparing to mobilize the entire army for action on an indefinite timetable. Three divisions became twenty; 100 million yen became 2.5 billion.

The ballooning demands of the field army in China pushed Japan into a bona fide economic crisis. Tokyo initially hoped that the field army could finish the fight on those materials that had already been stockpiled in the theater, but these had been exhausted by the end of 1937, with no end to the conflict in sight. Munition and fuel stocks in China were on empty, but that was not all. Even the munitions stocks in Japan were barely sufficient to supply ongoing operations in China, which meant that a Soviet attack on Manchuria – a longstanding and ever present Japanese fear – could quickly create a critical situation.

In short, the stubborn refusal by Chiang to simply collapse and sue for terms as expected had created an enormous resource sink which forced Japan into a full war economy in a state of near crisis. Most disconcertingly, the only way for Japan to make up the critical shortfalls in key materials – above all fuels of all types – was by massively increasing imports from the United States.

The USA has already engaged in one attack on Iran. It appears now about to engage in a second one, this time with Russian and Chinese ships at the other end of the gulf. At the same time, it also has a weakening economy and an excessive dependence upon imports as well as foreign debt.

And, as I’ve already pointed out, in industrial terms, the USA is to China what Japan was to the USA in 1940…

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Armchair Observations

Armchair Warlord contemplates the prospects for an imminent sequel to the 12-Day War between the USA, Israel, and Iran:

  1. Deployment prior to this week was, as I pointed out at the time, consistent with a show of force to underline a negotiating position rather than a serious operation. Although that has begun to change, US aerial forces in the Middle East remain inferior in strength to the Israeli Air Force that quickly ran out of steam in combat last year. Any air campaign would not be a step-change from that of the Twelve Days’ War.
  2. The departure of huge numbers of tankers to the Middle East, without concomitant massive fighter deployments, indicates that the USAF intends to base its strike aircraft out of the easy range of Iranian short-range missiles on the other side of the Middle East or even farther afield in Cyprus, Diego Garcia, etc. This will dramatically curtail sortie generation compared to aircraft flying out of Al Udied in Qatar and other bases on the Gulf – established for exactly this confrontation but now perfectly useless given the number of short-range missiles the Iranians have pointed at them.
  3. USN forces in the region have a realistic total throw-weight of 300 to 400 badly out of date Tomahawk missiles, which is grossly inadequate for a sustained strike campaign against Iran. Recall that the USN fired almost eighty in a single strike against Syrian WMD targets a decade ago and most were shot down. The USN task force realistically has two or three missile salvos against defended point targets before its magazines run dry.
  4. Iranian offensive and defensive capabilities are formidable and have been overtly bolstered by the Chinese in recent weeks. Any attacks on Iranian soil will need to be – as in the Twelve Days’ War – conducted from a limited pool of standoff munitions. The Israelis, who are expected to join any strikes, certainly have not replenished their own stockpiles. This dramatically curtails the combat endurance of the coalition forces.
  5. The Chinese and Russians are feeding intelligence to Iran. This likely allowed them to stymie a US bomber strike last month prior to latest force buildup. The Iranians can be expected to have an excellent picture of US and Israeli moves at the tactical level.
  6. In the aftermath of the Twelve Days’ War and the insurrection in Iran last month, Mossad’s attack network is likely a spent force and cannot be expected to contribute meaningfully to the war effort.
  7. Iran retains significant proxy capability across the region. Iranian proxies in Iraq and Yemen are practically untouched. Hezbollah in Lebanon sat out the Twelve Days’ War but can be expected to join in a regional Götterdämmerung.
  8. No significant US ground forces have deployed, and the Iranians killed or arrested all of their compradors two weeks ago. Ergo, there is no route to actual regime change in Iran. There’s no Delcy Rodriguez and Vladimir Padrino interested in a coup d’etat by proxy and able to elaborately set conditions for it to happen.
  9. US facilities in the Gulf and the VERY vulnerable US embassy in Iraq (and the somewhat less vulnerable US embassy in Beirut) remain un-evacuated at this time. Evacuation of those facilities is a short-notice indicator of war – as we saw last month when bombers were likely airborne before being called off.
  10. The TACO trade is real. Trump talks a big game until the markets start to believe him, whereupon he reliably beats a hasty retreat and pivots to a new distraction from the Epstein Files. The moral hazard here is that Trump has done this so many times that by this point global markets don’t actually take him seriously and so they’re reacting late and weak to what are objectively very concerning developments. With that said oil prices are – finally – starting to rise. US deployments to the Middle East thus far are to give Trump a credible military option if he decides to use force against Iran – prior deployments were non-credible and the Iranians would have taken them as such – but talk that war is necessarily imminent or that this force is actually adequate to the absolutely colossal task at hand (Iran is a country of 90 million and a geographic fortress) is irresponsible.

It’s certainly possible that Short Fake Trump is bluffing again. Or that he’s desperately trying to keep Netanyahu and his donors off his back a little longer before declaring victory and going home. But it will be a major faux pas and admission of military weakness to send such a comparatively large naval force to the region only to turn around and sail back home again.

Then again, Trump has declared bigger victories with even less in the way of results before, so we can’t count it out.

UPDATE: What goes around, comes around.

China has begun doing to the United States in the Middle East, what the United States has been doing to Russia in Ukraine: Providing imagery of US bases, planes, troop concentrations and more so Iran can use them against the United States, the same way Ukraine uses US-provided info against Russia. Not only is the satellite imagery clear, they overlaid identification tags showing “F-35” or “E-18 Growler” as seen in one image.

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