China is not involved directly in this war, has not fired a single bullet, has not lost a single soldier, but is reaping tremendous benefits, just watching and just taking notes in comfort in a military establishment in China. Many analysts are now saying that China is the biggest winner of this conflict. I tend to agree.
But much actually depends on those preparations China was already making before the war even started. And all that preparation is making sense now. China's ambition of electrifying its transport system - high speed rails and the mass migration from ICE vehicles to EVs have reaped great returns from its investments. That has cut off a chunk of its dependence on fossil fuel. China is still building hydropower dams all over, nuclear power stations, solar farms and wind turbine farms. When oil was cheap, China stockpiled in preparation. All these are not white elephants for show. They are projects of National Security significance. Not building of massive data centers which are power guzzlers, needing more fossil fuel to upkeep and upending the decision to be less dependent on more fossil fuel going forward.
Apart from reaping the benefits of preparations that were made decades earlier, China has gathered important military strategies from this war. It has found great effectiveness with its anti-aircraft hypersonic drones and missiles and how to deter such aircraft carriers from moving closer to shore to launch fighter jets to carry out carpet bombing. As the range of those hypersonic drones and missiles are refined to have even longer range, that might even spell the demise of aircraft carriers, which were the masters of the sea during WW2. Such aircraft carriers were still used by the USA to threaten other countries leveraging on its projection of power, but its function has now been crippled by Iran. That they were called 'sitting ducks' years ago has now been exposed by reality.
As I said before, China is also using Iran to test its satellite system, its hypersonic drones and missiles, which have so far enabled Iran to target strategic sites like radar systems, interceptor batteries, military bases, USA linked assets, all done with precision, unlike in the past when Iran was using GPS system. It was perhaps foolish for Iran to use USA GPS system knowing it had been greatly compromised and interfered with. But then, Iran had no other choice until switching to BeiDou while fighting the war in June 2025.
Well, so much strategic information has been revealed by this war, and it will shape China's PLA strategy in future wars, with everything like satellite target fixing, hypersonic missiles, homing devices all built inhouse and not subject to outside control or interference.
Anonymous
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The USA has yet to realize that it has exposed some of its vulnerabilities just fighting this war against Iran. In fact, those are vulnerabilities that directly affect the National Security of the USA.
The USA is now realistically short of weapons to carry on a prolonged war against Iran. Trump is just desperately still using empty threats hoping that Iran will crumple, and he can get out and proclaim a victory. Iran is not allowing him that avenue to retreat.
The signs of weapon shortage are abundantly clear from its inability to protect even its own military bases due to shortage of interceptors. Even more instrumental was the math problem of using highly expensive interceptors to take out cheap drones and missiles, costing a fraction of those interceptors.
The USA carrier fleet has also been unable to conduct bombing missions closer to Iranian shore for fear of hypersonic missile attacks. That was evidently clear from the movement of the Abrahim Lincoln aircraft carrier away from Straits of Hormuz/Gulf of Oman to the Arabian Sea. That has been another lesson for China to learn and to execute, using the same deterrence that the Iranians are using in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.
These are vulnerabilities to be exploited in future wars against the USA. When aircraft carriers cannot project the power that it was built for, the whole advantage to be gained has been curtailed. The USA had always been using the projection of power by its aircraft carriers to instill fear among its foes. That perennial threatening mantra is going to be consigned to history in wars against bigger and more powerful opponents.
Well, USA can still use its aircraft carriers to go after drug smugglers, like in Venezuela. Never mind if it is just using a big gun to kill a mosquito. It did very well against unarmed boats as gloated by Trump.
So, no, aircraft carriers will not go the way of the dodo bird.
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