Smart missiles have changed war as much as smartphones have changed peace. Today we are used to having packages delivered to our door, and in the same way we get deceased. In this age when bombs deliver themselves, human bombers appear more and more anachronistic. Out of time and out of place. Today, the American military looks like Nokia circa 2010. Technically #1, but technologically beaten.

The American Model

The American model of war is Top Gun. Very expensive aircraft, supported by even more expensive aircraft carriers, dropping very expensive bombs on poor people. Since the 1980s, America bet on stealth, the ability to fuck around and never find out about it. It's fitting that they rebooted the recruitment film Top Gun because they're still using the same tired strategy. America's preferred strategy is still to penetrate deep with a manned aircraft, then release a somewhat smart bomb for the last few kilometers.

The other part of this model is missile defence, what used to be laughed at as 'Star Wars' in my day. Missile defense is the crazy idea of shooting down a missile with another missile, like Robin Hood splitting arrows. The crazy thing is that it actually works (until it doesn't). You can theoretically shoot down any missile, but you can't shoot down every missile. But America never faced that situation so never thought about it. Stealth plus missile defence plus picking on poor people gave America a bloated sense of confidence for decades. Within what passed for strategic thinking in America, the 1990s marked the end of history and the end of military history as well. The US comfortably pre-ordered F-35 stealth fighters until the 2070s. But as the saying goes, pre-orders goeth before the fall.

The Iranian Model

The Iranian model of war, on the other hand, is bottom bullet. As Ayatollah Khamenei said, “Possessing missiles doesn’t solve every problem, but it destroys the greedy fantasy of our enemies.” Iran has no air force to speak of and no fancy navy. Instead, they shoot missile salvos from (relatively) cheap trucks and disappear underground just as quickly. Iran bet the farm on missiles in the 1980s and now it's borne fruit across the region (they effectively open-sourced the technology). They started from shitty, modified Scuds, but now modern Resistance missiles are higher quality than western models, much cheaper, and produced in much higher quantities. Quantity is its own quality, and Iran's layered attacks (mixing dumb decoys and smart munitions) can flood the best air defense systems around them. That includes all American bases and aircraft carriers in the region, including 'Israel'.

The other part of the Iranian model is tunnels. Iran's missile launchers hide inside tunnels until they're needed. But Iran is no longer weak on the surface either. Iran has sophisticated air defenses and open collaboration with best-in-class Russia. However, the best defense is not being there at all. So after they fire, Iran's missile launchers are just gone. Iran's modern Katuyshas (missile launchers) are basically just trucks, and Iran has built hundreds if not thousands of hardened parking garages underground. These trucks pop-out, fire missiles, and then disappear. Hitting them is literally like hitting whack-a-mole.

The Strategic Conflict

Before we get into tactics, understand that there are deep strategic differences that make America's fate a fait accompli.

The standard strategic rule (a rule in the board game Risk) is that defence has an advantage over offense. America somehow cheated this rule for decades by attacking defenseless people, but countries like Iran have grown up. If you look at America's force and matériel projection in the Middle East they are clearly Carbon Crusaders a long way from home, while the so-called terrorists (really terroirists) are of the land and dug in. The Resistance is clearly a defensive system and America is clearly offensive, and the old rule is starting to matter again.

Being a defender gives you natural advantages. Iran can use the terrain and strategic depth to their advantage while America has to hang out in floating parking lots, praying for magic missiles to protect them (from the consequences of their own actions). Iran can fire missiles from solid land, while America has to do it from ships and airships. And Iran has actual friends in the area, while America has only suck-ups with hostile populations.

Being a constant offender also gives America disadvantages. The American military is designed to attack anybody, anywhere, but is not good for any particular battle. America's military is a jack of all trades, master of none. Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp is built for this battle and battle alone. As they wrote on their first rockets, “Death to America, Death to the Soviet Union, Death to Israel, Death to Saddam.” Two out of four ain't bad, they're halfway home.

At the same time, America has pressed its disadvantage by being involved in not one, but two land wars in Asia (Ukraine and Palestine), and trying to start another (Taiwan). This has thrown all of its Asian enemies into an alliance, leading to a strategic clusterfuck. Now advanced Russian air defense systems (and likely operators) are in Iran while American supplies are being incinerated on two fronts. These are all huge strategic errors that no amount of last century's recycled tactics can escape from.

The Tactical Results

As you can see, the strategic direction of this battle was set in the 1980s. The tactics are just how it plays out.

On one hand, Iran was obviously ready for the Battle of Al Aqsa Flood. I doubt they knew the exact date of the October 7th ghetto uprising, but they knew this day was coming and were ready for it. The tunnels have been dug for decades, the rockets have been stockpiled, and the whole Axis of Resistance has been talking about it. This is from a hostile source, but you can see the spike in testing of Close-Range Ballistic Missiles (CRMB) up to Space Launch Vehicles (SLV) in 2022. The Al Aqsa Flood was coming, and some people built arks.

On the other hand, America was not ready at all. A week before October 7th, National Insecurity Adviser Jake Sullivan said, “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” America has an entire class of people like him, who are professionally wrong and only fail upwards. Insomuch as America had a strategic direction in the Middle East, it was leaving. Both Republicans and Democrats wanted to pivot to China, not fight another Gulf War.

Remember that tactics are just the toilet that strategy shits on, and that America was strategically defeated before they started. America has no strategic answer for fighting men in tunnels and never has. All it can do is bomb the helpless (and militarily irrelevant) men, women, and children above. America also has no strategic answer to inundation attacks against air defenses. In response, a former CENTCOM commander has proposed leaving their Persian Gulf bases entirely to avoid Iran's short range missiles, but where would they go? Iran has medium and long-range missiles also. 'Israel' is Al Aqsa Flooded and has lost fire control all over.

Again, the entire American tactical model is penetrating deep into enemy airspace and dropping bombs. The distance these bombs can go has increased, but America still has to risk expensive jets to deliver them. As you can see from the Precision Guided Munitions report (above), American jets now have to fly within firing range and, worst of all, park within firing range also. As former CENTCOM commander Frank McKenzie said, “the thousands of short-range missiles that Iran possesses are a factor here. There is no strategic depth. An F-35 is very hard to hit in the air. On the ground it is nothing more than a very expensive and vulnerable chunk of metal sitting in the sun.”

This is why 'Israel's' hyped up attack on Iran was aborted after one sortie. They couldn't break Iran's air defenses and had to, instead, fire from outside Iran and do petty sabotage from within. The strategic calculus has completely changed. All that's left for the military industrial complex is accounting fraud.

The Fire Sale Of The Vanities

Genocidin' Joe Biden said show me your budget and I'll show you your priorities. This budget is from the Precision-Guided Munitions: Background (put in one table by me). It's a bit detailed, but it shows the problem.

This report, which stops in 2021, shows that America is strategically oriented towards air bombing with not especially smart bombs. JDAMs (their most numerous munition) are just 'kits' put on dumb bombs. America has no serious ground game at all because they're an invading army, not defending anything at all.

America has made a big show about ground-based systems like ATACMS and HIMARS (launchers) in Ukraine, but HIMARS is a 1990s system and ATACMS are discontinued. What we're witnessing is actually a going out of business sale from the American military, not a resurgence.

The Americans are dumping old junk on Ukraine in an accounting fraud with no hope of winning at all. For themselves, America has replaced ATACMS with PrSM, which is also a non-killing joke. Those missiles cost $1,666 million apiece, and they produced 30 of them in 2021. As of 2024, production is up to 54 missiles a year. What are we even talking about?

Looking at America's supplies, it's no great surprise the type of violence they sow. Their entire military model since World War II has been firebombing cities, from Dresden to Tokyo to entire regions like Southeast Asia and the Middle East. In Gaza and Lebanon they've just slapped new tails on the same bombs (JDAMs) to commit fresh massacres. These fighter jets still have to be quite close to the targets and can't travel very far without refueling. The Americans are also wasting these munitions (and what's left of their reputation) bombing hospitals and refugee camps with no military value. America is winning the genocide and losing the war. All of their vaunted military spending is really a measure of corruption and fraud, not force projection at all.

The Rocket Wars

America has simply missed the boat on a sea change in warfare. While Russia can now beat them in peer warfare, even much poorer adversaries can beat them by firing rockets and hiding underground, a complete 'disruption', in consumer tech terms. Smart rockets have advanced at the same pace as smartphones, whereas jets look like a Nokia with too many buttons. This is the state of America's military, and the giant ship is too big to turn around, even as the Al Aqsa Flood rises around them.

What we're witnessing now, on multiple fronts, is actually a going out of business sale of the military industrial multiplex, with mass murder as mass marketing. What we're witnessing is a fire sale of the vanities, from Ukraine to Palestine. America's reign is ending in strategic defeat, on multiple fronts. Like the Nazis they assimilated into NATO, America will continue fighting and killing after the cause is lost, but the strategic direction of these battles was already set decades ago, and the tactical results have already been proven. This is war in the age of rockets, and America has already been strategically defeated.