The CCP learned four lessons from the American-Iranian War:
1. Attempting reunification by force through conventional warfare would result in a crushing defeat for the CCP
Both Iran and Venezuela deployed Russia’s S-300 air defence missiles and China’s supposedly high-tech radar — claimed to be capable of detecting stealth aircraft — yet American and Israeli warplanes swept through as if entering an undefended land. After two weeks of high-intensity airstrikes, the US and Israel achieved complete air superiority over Iran. Not a single aircraft has been shot down by Iranian forces to this day.
Russia’s most advanced S-400 air defence missiles have repeatedly been destroyed in Ukraine by US-made HIMARS rockets developed twenty years ago and Army Tactical Missile Systems developed thirty years ago. By contrast, Russian forces once fired over a dozen of their latest hypersonic missiles in saturation attacks against Ukraine’s Patriot air defence systems — which entered service forty years ago — and every single one was intercepted.
This demonstrates that Russia’s air defence capability is little more than scrap metal against the US military.
It is true that there have been reports of a US F-35 sustaining combat damage and making an emergency landing at a US airbase. But this does not indicate any deficiency in US technology. In the later stages of the Pacific War, the Hellcat fighter — designed specifically to counter Japan’s Zero — enjoyed a crushing advantage over it. American pilots grew ever more experienced while Japan’s veterans died out, with new pilots thrown into combat having barely learned to take off. In the Battle of the Philippine Sea on June 19–20, 1944, experienced American pilots flying Hellcats that utterly outclassed the Zero shot down more than 300 Japanese aircrafts with ease, producing ten ace pilots in a single day. One pilot returning from the mission said: “This wasn’t aerial combat — it was a turkey shoot." And so the battle became known as the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot." Yet even in this total dominance, the Americans still lost nearly thirty aircrafts. In contrast, during this all-out war against Iran, US forces flew thousands of sorties, struck between 5,000 and 7,000 targets, suffered combat damage to only one aircraft — which still flew back and landed — and lost not a single pilot. This, precisely, demonstrates the crushing technological superiority of the US military.
It is universally acknowledged — and Chinese military experts themselves admit — that China’s radar technology lags Russia’s by ten years. This means that if the US military were ever to launch a large-scale assault on CCP forces, the PLA’s air defence systems would make Russian scrap metal look sophisticated by comparison. If the PLA were to launch a conventional attack or blockade of Taiwan using warplanes, warships, and missiles, the US military and Taiwan’s forces — equipped with the latest American weapons — would thrash the PLA beyond recognition.
In fact, in my October 2021 piece “Predicting the Full Course of a Taiwan Strait War," I was forced to artificially invent a scenario in which Russia supplied the PLA with an extremely advanced S-600 missile system, causing Taiwan to lose its self-defence capability and compelling it to seek US assistance. Without that invention, Taiwan’s own forces would be enough to thrash the PLA, leaving no need for US intervention — but in that story I wanted the US to intervene, so I could show readers how the war would evolve from that point.
2. The US military’s counter-drone capability is critically deficient
The reason Russian forces cannot destroy Ukraine’s Patriot systems is that Ukraine long ago developed comprehensive countermeasures against Iran’s Shahed drones, rendering them unable to threaten the Patriots, which can therefore concentrate fully on Russia’s high-end ballistic and cruise missiles.
By contrast, of the eight THAAD high-altitude missile defence systems deployed by the US in the Middle East, four have been destroyed or damaged by Iran — because THAAD is designed to counter high-altitude, high-speed ballistic missiles and cannot deal with Iran’s low-altitude, low-speed Shahed drones, and the US military’s capability against such drones is far inferior to Ukraine’s.
China’s scientific and technological capability, electronics capability, and artificial intelligence level are a hundredfold superior to Iran’s. China’s drone technology is unmatched in the world — DJI monopolises the global commercial drone market — and China’s manufacturing scale is without parallel. They are fully capable of developing drones a hundredfold more advanced than Iran’s Shaheds: for example, drones that do not rely on remote control, instead using pre-set GPS to approach the combat zone and then autonomously identifying targets through electro-optical sensors. During a military reunification, thousands of such intelligent drones flying across the strait — even if Taiwan’s various missiles achieved a 100% hit rate — would destroy only half of them at most. And China can dispatch thousands more every day. Taiwan’s air defence missiles would be exhausted, its various air and sea radar systems destroyed, and its Harpoon and Hsiung Feng anti-ship missiles rendered blind.
The same drone swarms could devastate Japan’s offensive capability, US military bases in Japan, and carrier battle groups at sea.
Four years ago, when the Ukraine war began, the US military understood that drones had completely rewritten the rules of the battlefield. Yet to this day, they remain unable to prevent the THAAD system — strategically significant, costing three to four hundred million dollars per unit, with a production cycle of four to five years — from being destroyed en masse by drones.
Taiwan’s situation is ten times worse than America’s. The US military has at least been closely tracking the Ukraine war; US weapons have faced Russian drones in actual combat; US intelligence agencies at every level have maintained close contact with the Ukrainian military. Taiwan, by contrast, has no combat experience whatsoever. The CCP’s Fifth Column in Taiwan — the KMT, which sells out Taiwan without the slightest concealment, faithfully following CCP directives step by step — means that a large proportion of Taiwanese people cannot even distinguish friend from foe. This is why the KMT, despite its blatant betrayal of Taiwan, can still win elections. As a result, Taiwan’s politics has long been in a state of semi-paralysis, incapable of the flexible responses seen in the US or Ukraine. The probability of Taiwan rapidly developing counter-drone swarm technology and deploying it at scale within two to three years is zero.
At this very moment, the CCP is certainly pouring unprecedented resources into suicide drone development.
This is one consequence of Trump recklessly starting a war in defiance of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Intelligence Council: exposing to the whole world the greatest vulnerability of the US and Taiwanese militaries — their lack of counter-drone capability — while China happens to be the world’s undisputed king of drones.
3. A new phenomenon in the history of warfare: winning victory simply by absorbing punishment
When Trump took office in January 2025, US national debt stood at $36.2 trillion.
Today, US national debt has already surpassed $39 trillion.
Meanwhile Iran’s attacks on surrounding nations are escalating, and it has just fired an intercontinental missile with a 4,000-kilometre range for the first time. Trump is overwhelmed with no solution in sight.
So even as Iran ratchets up the intensity of its counterattacks step by step and the Strait of Hormuz is completely cut off, Trump has begun talking about withdrawal.
China’s territory is six times Iran’s, its military personnel four times Iran’s, and its military strength twenty to thirty times Iran’s (according to Gemini’s estimates).
Even if the US military could destroy every piece of PLA equipment at zero cost to itself — by the time it had achieved complete air superiority over the Taiwan Strait and China’s coastal provinces and fully suppressed the PLA’s missile and drone capability — America’s national debt would certainly have surpassed 50, perhaps even 60 trillion dollars.
And that’s assuming US losses would be far greater than in the Iran war — which they certainly would be.
America would go bankrupt before the debt even reached 50 trillion.
And before America went bankrupt, the American people would have already voted out the government that decided to intervene militarily in the CCP’s attempt to retake Taiwan by force.
When China launches a military reunification, US intelligence will have long since gauged the CCP’s resolve and readiness for war. If the CCP merely wanted to test the waters — and Taiwan and the US are frightened off, making reunification easy — it gains a huge windfall. If the other side fights to the death, the CCP can pull back. In that case, the US would need to project an image of firm, armed intervention, hoping to frustrate the CCP’s ambitions through a swift, overwhelming victory.
However, if America finds that the CCP is like today’s Iran — absolutely determined to recover Taiwan no matter how great the losses, no matter how long it takes, no matter how many die — then America already knows it simply cannot afford this war, and therefore would certainly not intervene from the outset.
Past US presidents did not start wars lightly precisely because they didn’t need to wait for these consequences to materialise before recognising them. They had the ability to see five moves ahead on the chessboard, while redneck rabble cannot calculate moves at all — driven by fear and vanity, they play one move at a time.
This is the second consequence of Trump recklessly starting a war: exposing to the whole world America’s vulnerability — that it cannot sustain a medium-scale war.
Having seen clearly this vulnerability, the probability of the CCP making the decision to recover Taiwan at all costs, burning all bridges, has increased dramatically — because they now firmly believe this approach can deliver final victory.
Every Taiwanese political commentator, except Professor Ming Chu-cheng, is a Trump worshipper. I believe that even when Five-Star Red Flags and PLA tanks are all over the streets of Taiwan, these people will still be saying on Taiwan’s internet — more tightly controlled than the mainland’s:
“Uncle Trump allowing the PLA to occupy Taiwan is part of a great chess game to destroy the CCP. Taiwanese people simply need to patiently endure hardship and wait."
4. More than half of Americans are stupid
Because Gulf nations and the US military could not cope with Iran’s suicide drones, the US military turned to Ukraine for help. But this wounded Comrade Vladimir Trump’s vanity — too big to fit in the solar system — and so he said:
“The last thing America needs is Ukraine’s help."
Britain had been prepared to deploy its carrier battle group to the Middle East. Vladimir said:
“America has already achieved total victory — what are you British doing showing up now? America doesn’t need it."
Two days later, he begged Britain to send that carrier battle group to help. Can you guess what Britain said?
Beijingers have a dedicated term for someone like Vladimir — and it is the most fitting term possible. That term is “shǎ bī" (stupid c**t).
And this stupid c**t was not sent down by God — he was elected by more than half of Americans, and those people still firmly support him to this day.
The stupidity of Americans is matched only by that of Iranians.
Conclusion
If the CCP has seen these four points, and if Xi Jinping or his successor has the courage to burn the boats and forge ahead — rather than being a mediocre horse reluctant to leave its feedbag — then the fall of Taiwan is almost inevitable.
Unless China implodes due to its internal reasons. I will discuss this topic in the next article.
Iranian missiles struck Qatar’s world’s largest natural gas facility and Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery, which will take five to ten years to recover from, with losses in the hundreds of billions. The image of a safe haven painstakingly built by Middle Eastern nations over twenty years was shattered in an instant; Dubai, paradise for the wealthy, looks like a ghost town. The US stock market lost $3 trillion; oil prices soared across Europe and Australia, driving up all manner of costs; Australia’s central bank was forced to raise interest rates, and the economy faces recession after overheating.
In other words, America itself and all its allies have suffered deeply.
So in this world — who came out ahead?
Do you remember just two years ago? It feels like another era. Back then, America’s coalition against the CCP was as tight as an iron barrel; the CCP was like a rat crossing the street internationally; Biden had repeatedly made clear that America would militarily intervene against forced reunification. Back then, the CCP did not know America’s rare earth vulnerability or its other weaknesses. Back then, forced reunification was a pipe dream that couldn’t last much longer.
And now, Taiwan is already in the CCP’s pocket.
As oil prices double, Russia’s war funding surges — an extra $5 billion in fiscal revenue every month.
MEGA — Make Enemy Great Again.
