“They don’t need to use drones to confuse air defense radars and overwhelm systems in quite the same way,” she said. “So there would be no real husbanding of assets, at least in the early phases of potential war with the U.S.”
Beijing has its own struggles. China has not fought a war since invading Vietnam in 1979 and is in the middle of an extensive military purge that led to two former defense ministers, Li Shangfu and Wei Fengh, sentenced to death this week. The crackdown has resulted in the dismissal of more than 100 senior military officers since 2022, according to a tally compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
But just as the U.S. has monitored Beijing’s military growth, the Chinese government has conducted detailed studies of American troops for decades. This dates back to at least Operation Desert Storm when it saw the U.S. use precision-strike weapons for the first time. China began launching its first aircraft carriers after the 2008 global financial crisis, and invested heavily in long-range missiles to keep the American military at bay.
“They know how we project power,” said a second former defense official. “They know about our dependence on tankers, on bases, how we conduct our air strikes, our non-kinetic strikes, the use of electronic warfare, the use of cyber warfare. They study all of that very closely. This is an opportunity for them to go to school on the U.S. way of war.”
And China is also likely watching how fast America burns through its high-end missiles, from Tomahawks to Patriot air defenses.
“They know that every missile being used in Iran is a missile that can’t be used to deter in the Indo-Pacific,” the former official said.