We don’t even have the tooling to resupply thanks to cronyism in contracting, eg half a billie spent on robot arms that keep setting themselves on fire [0]. We’ve outsourced everything but behave as if we have unlimited resources, not to mention diesel and jet fuel. At least we keep some of that in strategic reserve ;)
But as far as how all these wars are evolving I have my fingers crossed it’s eco-solar punk-terrorists that figured out how to goad the worlds superpowers into destroying each others gas refineries and data centers.
[0] The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust https://www.propublica.org/article/general-dynamics-artiller...
Oh, sure, the Democrats aren't interested in starting a war with Russia (much of Europe falls into this category) but the two sides are emphatically not the same. [0]
https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/42451-putins-invasion-ukra...
It's extremely concerning that the US military basically lost most of it's Middle East presence, had most of it effectively destroyed. We lost massive incredibly complex installations like our AN/FPS-132 radar complexes, huge powerful gigantic phased array systems, and various state of the art AN/TPY-2 and other radar. That basically seem to have been undefended. The TPY-2 could easily have been moved or hidden! Invaluable defense systems that we have absolutely no plans to protect. This is just the tip of the very expensive iceberg. We've basically lost various bases, entire THAAD systems: all similarly targeted and virtually undefended, destroyed. https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/05/middleeast/radar-bases-us-mis...
And the "Department of War" (scoff, but I guess accurate if they are so utterly rankly incompetently unable at all to defend) lied and lied about the extent of the damage and the cost of human lives and casualties. There didn't seem to be any plan at all to protect these people. They were unequipped and not on alert, not warned at all, even as drones and missiles came and destroyed a dozen sites. Even the most milquetoast commentariat, Iraq war defender David French is still somewhat pissed about the endless bullshit and lies from the deny-it-all useless DoW. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/opinion/hegseth-iran-war-...
Department of War indeed. These incompetent losers seem to have not the smallest iota of understanding, not the least cares for what was coming at us. They had no defenses, no preparation. We faced incredible ruin. There's no plans, no idea what we do about any of this. We are in full retreat. It's unclear that we will have any presence left within thousands of miles. We can't even keep our planes in the UK, it's still not safe for us: the US military has essentially nowhere left on the continent it feels like it can leave it's equipment. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2026/0929/iran-war-mi... https://carnegieendowment.org/emissary/2026/10/iran-b1-bombe... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/suspected-plot-at-u-s-run... https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-port-shuaiba-attack-sold...
This administration has been utterly unmoored from reality in every way. They've injured America at home and abroad, again and again, and lied and lied and lied all the time. The rank incompetence really is just the tip of it. The malicious disdain for basic rules of civilization and decency (SecDef No-Tab ordering war crime bombings of civilian vessels, perfidy, on and on). I hope there's a half-competent civilization left to mourn unhinged stupidity and malice these perpetrators against the world have done to us all so dirty. It's all such ultra-compressed stupidity. Absolutely psychotic delusional detached madness.
Even if the clowns in charge think the take-away is 'we need even more bombs, and bigger ones', they're going to learn that when we're expending this much on a relatively minor power like Iran, the economics/resources for this scale of war against a major power simply don't exist. We're looking at Proud Prophet 2.0 [1] which was also a huge victory in defeat for the US. It's unfortunate that in the past we were able to learn from wargames, whereas now we had to see things play out in real life. Perhaps next time when we do a wargame against Iran and lose [2], we shouldn't just change the rules so we can win.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Prophet#Impact
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002#Exer...
You should look into how many air craft carriers the US has, how carrier groups work, and then also look at the air force and the operating range of some of our air craft.
Some of the aircraft literally take off from the Continental us when they run missions in the middle east.
Also there are somewhere between 20 and 28 US military bases in the middle east alone plus 30-40 in europe. All of those could easily host offensive strike craft just fine.
it looks like you don't have a good understanding of the capabilities of the US military or how we operate, so perhaps you should do more research.
Also, just FYI, every single one of the sources you cited has some pretty heavy bias. It might help you to seek out some alternative sources. I think you're in some kind of algorithm bubble and it's distorting your world view.
Air craft carriers such as the USS Abraham Lincoln? Which had to remain at sea for 286 days, including 208 consequtive days without making port. During which time, the military suffered a massive logistical failure to adaquetly supply it, presumably due to them moving their logistical base from Bahrain to Diego Garcia. Then, was relieved only by diverting the USS George Washington and USS Theodore Roosevelt to the region, leaving no carriers in the West Pacific
> Also there are somewhere between 20 and 28 US military bases in the middle east alone
Bases which have been comming under repeated air attack; the extent and damage of which is kept quiete, but appears to be much more substantial than the US military wants to admit. And which are increasingly vulnerable as they loose air defense abilities due to both loss of supporting infastructure, and a depletion of interceptors.
But as the saying goes, the fish rots from the head. When leadership is replaced based on loyalty to one man, and not merit, all that capability is steadily eroded.
Ground news is a site that provides feeds from everyone. They are decent at making sure all sides of a story are represented in their feed.
You can decide for yourself, but I did think this post on its ownership was interesting.
https://literatemachine.com/2026/08/16/is-ground-news-a-righ...
If even CNN are too biased for your tastes then it's probably not them. It's you. Hegseth is also a true believer.