I'd be arguing first that the operation failed, and has made no meaningful impact on the mountain and esp. the nuclear facilities over 100m under granite.
Generous estimates place relevant bomb capacity in the US at 100, though I believe only ~1/3 of that is confirmed. Reports say ~10 were used. So, speculatively, the US has used 25% of its capacity to bust deep fortifications -- and, imv, failed to make a dent.
Credible estimates I'm aware of talk about dozens of bombs (per similar deep fortification), seriously depleting US capacity. It's unlikely the US would be willing to use up more than 50% of its bombing capacity here -- since a very large number of bombs are required for deep fortifications of this kind.
ie., US capacity is about "destroying two mountains", and it really needs at least to retain capacity to destroy one.
A well-designed nuke could take out the mountain, that's really the best air-supplied shot at taking the thing out.
Either way, none of this can be confirmed without ground forces. So one wonders if at least some of this theatre is to provoke iran enough to react in a way that justifies a ground invasion.
To your point, yes, china would absolutely love the US to degrade as much capacity as it possibly can. One images, even, they'd spin up a nuclear programme in iran very quickly again, just to try to drag the US back in. The US has done much worse.
China's geostrategic goal at the moment is stamp on the rope-pins around the US elephant: ukraine, iran, israel, and so on. Have the US blow as much as possible of its rapidly depleting military arsenal everywhere but around china.
Trump was the first president to really take this problem seriously, it's a little unfortunate that he's found himself in the same trap as every US president for the last 25 years.
I stopped reading after 100 bombs capacity. They are purpose built bombs, we don’t stockpile them as we don’t hit iranian mountain target regularly enough.
The US spends more on military than most of the rest of the world combined. Every conflict there’s a contingent of people claiming the US will soon be out of munitions and can’t continue. Now the statement is made on the first attack. The US is oddly perceived as weak by this contingent, which flies in the face of reason.
The US' military supremacy "illusion" comes from an era when the US had no peer competitors of a similar size -- waging wars in this era is really cheap.
It's highly debatable whether the US can contain china at its present size, let alone in a few years. China is vastly large than the soviet union, in comparison to the US, at the height of the cold war -- and merely to contain a smaller adversary, the US had to significantly outspend it.
The US can dominate its region relatively cheaply (ie., the western hemisphere); but if it wants to retain the ability to project power across the world, and be the primary power in theatres of interest (middle east and china esp.) then it's woefully underspending.
The US is armed to take on a world without peer competitors. If it had to fight a proxy war with china, dominate the middle east, and supply a land war in ukraine -- it would loose all three.
The asymmetry of power needed for the US to dominate the world is enourmous -- this was only cheap when the single adversary was a much smaller russia.
The US does not have the manufacturing capacity to replace 50% of its bunker-buster arms "suddenly". It simply cannot do it. So if a war breaks out tomorrow, where it needs these arms, they're gone.
The west is simply not equipped to wars with peer competitors. It's equipped for the taliban, not nations with fleets of air craft carriers.
> It's equipped for the taliban, not nations with fleets of air craft carriers.
The US has more carriers than all other nations combined, times 2.
> The US does not have the manufacturing capacity to replace 50% of its bunker-buster arms "suddenly". It simply cannot do it. So if a war breaks out tomorrow, where it needs these arms, they're gone.
During a time of war every manufacturing plant capable of being reconfigured to make arms or vehicles is. Just like in WW2.
The rest of this is just silly. The US “owns” the oceans. We go where we want when we want any call it “freedom of navigation“ and nobody stops us.
I’m sorry I offended your country’s capabilities vs the US, but there’s a reason the US hasn’t been invaded yet and it’s because it’s an impossible feat.
> but there’s a reason the US hasn’t been invaded yet and it’s because it’s an impossible feat.
This is so irrelevant to the conversation, that it indicates you don't understand what's at issue or the basic geopoltical terms in which to evaluate US strategic capabilities.
The US isnt trying to prevent invasion, it's trying to dominate every region of the world. It's military is extremely over-sized to merely defend america. It's extremely undersized to dominate every region of the world in 2025. This is why comparing sizes of militaries is irrelevant and extremely misleading. Essentially all other militaries are concerned with only local defence and power projection.
From ~90s to 00s the US military was big enough to dominate the world, because it had no rivals. When you have rivals even half your size, to dominate them, you need massively out-class them. Consider that during the cold war the US spent 10% of its GDP, vastly more in real terms than the soviet union.
China can dominate its region of the world very cheaply compare to the US dominating *china* ! because defence is vastly cheaper than offence and geographically local power projection is relatively cheap. China is not designing a military to contain all of south america -- the US *is*
The US is trying to maintain arms to entirely ensure its own defence under any possible threat *AND* dominate russia in eastern europe, china in the south china sea, the middle east, ensure all shipping lanes are open, staff miltiary bases throughout europe, asia, etc. -- and the vast array of proxy countries in which it maintains a military pretence. There are 100k troops in europe, 40k+ in japan, and so on.
The US doesn't evaluate its military capability in terms of "what happens if mexico invades"
> The US spends more on military than most of the rest of the world combined.
In absolute numbers yes, as a fraction of GDP that is currently not true (US ranks 8th place there). US doesn't even spend the 5% Trump demands other allies should spend.
Generous estimates place relevant bomb capacity in the US at 100, though I believe only ~1/3 of that is confirmed. Reports say ~10 were used. So, speculatively, the US has used 25% of its capacity to bust deep fortifications -- and, imv, failed to make a dent.
Credible estimates I'm aware of talk about dozens of bombs (per similar deep fortification), seriously depleting US capacity. It's unlikely the US would be willing to use up more than 50% of its bombing capacity here -- since a very large number of bombs are required for deep fortifications of this kind.
ie., US capacity is about "destroying two mountains", and it really needs at least to retain capacity to destroy one.
A well-designed nuke could take out the mountain, that's really the best air-supplied shot at taking the thing out.
Either way, none of this can be confirmed without ground forces. So one wonders if at least some of this theatre is to provoke iran enough to react in a way that justifies a ground invasion.
To your point, yes, china would absolutely love the US to degrade as much capacity as it possibly can. One images, even, they'd spin up a nuclear programme in iran very quickly again, just to try to drag the US back in. The US has done much worse.
China's geostrategic goal at the moment is stamp on the rope-pins around the US elephant: ukraine, iran, israel, and so on. Have the US blow as much as possible of its rapidly depleting military arsenal everywhere but around china.
Trump was the first president to really take this problem seriously, it's a little unfortunate that he's found himself in the same trap as every US president for the last 25 years.