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「戰爭」與「反戰」 -- 開欄文
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瀏覽2,313 ｜回應19｜推薦1 |
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2023年我收到傅大為、盧倩儀、馮建三、和郭力昕等四位教授發起的《我們的反戰聲明》時，就想專闢一欄刊出該聲明，並收集網上以及我自己討論「戰爭」與「反戰」的文章。但是，由於這個題目很大，我一時三刻間寫不出一篇提綱挈領的「開欄文」；所以作罷。後來將該聲明和拙作《「我們的反戰聲明」爭議淺見》分別單獨刊出。
現在想想這其實不是個充分理由。最近讀到一篇介紹雷博教授著作的文章(本欄第三篇)，覺得有寫篇評論的必要(本欄第四篇)；寫作過程中，由於搜查相關資料，又看到史投克教授的大作(本欄下一篇)。我認為它值得介紹，就決定以這三篇文章為基礎而開此欄。
史投克教授的大作不但分析了「全面戰爭」這個「概念」，他借這個分析來強調：使用「明白清晰」的概念在建構理論和政策上非常重要。史投克教授在該文中並簡明的闡釋了韋伯「理想型」概念；軍事學之外，全文在「方法論」上也頗有參考價值。
我一向認為論述中所用詞彙和「概念」需要明白易懂，以及其「所指」應該確定而無岐義；我曾經說過和史投克教授同樣的話：
「如果一個詞彙或概念『無所不指』，則它實際上就會變得『無所指』」。
我不敢說和史投克教授「英雄所見略同」；或許，理性、務實的人在思考邏輯上都是同路人吧。
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歷史上導致戰爭的12種原因 -- Mark Cartwright
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下文作者歸納出歷史上導致戰爭的12種原因；附錄1則列舉對史上7個重要戰爭的分析。請自行參考；並可與本欄2025/07/06和2025/07/13兩篇貼文對照。
Causes of War in History
Mark Cartwright, 05/16/25
This collection of resources examines the causes of various conflicts in the last millennium, from religious and civil wars to revolutions and global wars. The origins of conflict through history are often many and varied; they often, too, include simmering causes of discontent between the parties involved, which have existed long before any fighting ever took place. Common causes of wars throughout history include:
1. the desire for land and resources
2. disputes over borders
3. the disputed succession of a ruler
4. differences in religion
5. nationalism
6. a desire for independence (e.g. from a colonial power)
7. a desire to remove a tyrannical or incompetent ruler
8. self-defence against a perceived aggressor
9. the personal ambitions of leaders
10. the need to distract from domestic problems
11. revenge for a previous act (e. g. an assassination), exploitation, or lost conflict
12. treaty obligations
Mark Cartwright is WHE’s Publishing Director and has an MA in Political Philosophy (University of York). He is a full-time researcher, writer, historian and editor. Special interests include art, architecture and discovering the ideas that all civilizations share.
Articles & Definitions
1. The Crusades: Causes & Goals
2. Causes of the Hundred Years' War
3. Causes of the Wars of the Roses
4. Causes of the English Civil Wars
5. Causes of the American Revolution
6. The Causes of WWI
7. The Causes of WWII
External Links
* Timeline Of 20th And 21st Century Wars - IWM
* The Five Reasons Wars Happen - Modern War Institute
* War - National Geographic
For More Readings Like This
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人工智能與未來戰爭進行模式 - Katrin Bennhold
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請參考：
* Anthropic
* Judge rejects Pentagon's attempt to 'cripple' Anthropic
* The Cost of Conscience: What the Anthropic-Pentagon Feud Means for AI Governance
A Fight About the Future of War
A.I. is already reshaping warfare, but there are big disagreements over what guardrails are needed.
Katrin Bennhold, 03/04/26
If there’s a war unfolding somewhere in 2026 — and there are currently several — there’s a good chance that artificial intelligence is playing a part in it.
A.I. is being used in fighting in Iran and Ukraine. The U.S. used it when it captured the leader of Venezuela. Israel used it during its war in Gaza.
And the use of A.I. on the battlefield is only just getting started. That’s why another battle that unfolded last week between the Trump administration and Anthropic, an American A.I. company, is so important. I asked my colleague Julian E. Barnes what the fight means for the future of warfare, for Americans and for the world.
A fight about the future of war
Anthropic is one of the world’s leading A.I. companies. Its Claude model has been widely used by the Pentagon to collect intelligence, identify targets, map out operations and more. But the fight last week wasn’t about how A.I. is currently being used. It was about how it could be used.
Anthropic’s contract set out two restrictions: The government could not use its technology for surveillance of U.S. citizens. And it could not use Claude with autonomous weapons that kill without human involvement.
The Pentagon balked. It said it didn’t want to use A.I. for domestic surveillance or autonomous killer robots. But it refused to let a private company put restrictions on how the military uses its product.
The standoff has been a messy mix of contract dispute and culture war, a focal point for fears about A.I. and worries about U.S. competitiveness in the global race for A.I. pre-eminence.
On Friday, after negotiations failed, President Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic. The Pentagon also labeled it a “supply-chain risk to national security,” potentially barring any military contractor from doing business with the firm.
Julian, who writes about intelligence and national security, was covering the fight between Anthropic and the Pentagon before he started covering the war in Iran. (He’s been busy.)
Julian, how much is A.I. already integrated into warfare and national security?
It’s totally integrated. The use of A.I. in warfare is no longer theoretical. A.I. is on the battlefield. We do not believe that large language models are being used to command drones or fire weapons yet. But A.I. is deeply embedded in the process of collecting intelligence and using it to shape strategic decisions.
And what exactly is Anthropic worried about?
One of their concerns was that the government could use A.I. to analyze commercially available data on U.S. citizens. Our web browsing data, our telephone metadata — commercial firms can scoop that up and use A.I. to figure out where you’ve been, what you’ve visited, what you purchased.
Anthropic is also worried about this idea of killer drones.
And why is the government objecting to these red lines?
The U.S. says it will always have a human in the loop when artificial intelligence is making decisions around whether or not to kill someone. But there are problems that go along with that, because whoever can observe, think and decide faster is going to win in a battle, and humans can slow that process down.
The central question here is the role of humans in future warfare. And that will probably look very different than today. We still need them, but we haven’t decided what their role is going to be. And that makes it hard to write A.I. rules in advance.
What does the law have to say about A.I. and warfare?
The Pentagon says that the existing laws that govern the conduct of war should be enough. Because the principles of ethical warfare are the same if I’m dropping a bomb or using software to improve my targeting.
But Anthropic says A.I. is not like other weapons. Other weapons are confined by their hardware. This plane flies to this spot, and drops a bomb. This plane flies to this spot, and shoots another plane.
Large language models are different. You can have them analyze data for insights. You can have them suggest places to bomb. You could have them design a cyberattack. Their use constantly evolves.
Anthropic’s line is that this is special technology and we need to have special guardrails on it.
So if we boil it down, what is this fight really about?
It’s about politics and about principle — on both sides.
Anthropic wants to show that it’s a responsible, safety-minded company. That’s their brand. And the Pentagon is saying: This is the woke A.I. company! We’re cracking down on woke! That’s the MAGA brand.
As for principles, the Pentagon is saying there is one standard for all companies who do business with us: We are constrained by the lawful use of this technology, not by any conditions dictated by private companies.
And Anthropic is saying that existing laws are not fit to regulate A.I.
How does this fit into the bigger A.I. race between the U.S. and China? I assume Chinese companies don’t ask the government to put in place guardrails.
Definitely not. Chinese law commands Chinese companies to give up their technology to the state. That’s also why the threat of China hangs over what just happened in Washington. Because the U.S. believes that if there is a war with China over Taiwan, the opening battle will be a battle of drones over the Taiwanese Strait. The drones that can move and decide faster are going to win.
No guardrails also means the Chinese government has asked A.I. companies to develop mass disinformation tools. It has used A.I. for mass surveillance. It has used large language models to identify dissidents. So how China has used A.I. is the actual nightmare scenario that Anthropic is warning about.
Related: OpenAI, Anthropic’s primary rival, signed a deal with the Pentagon immediately after Trump’s order. On Monday, OpenAI said it was amending the contract to say its A.I. systems “shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals.”
You’re reading The World newsletter. Your daily guide to understanding what’s happening — and why it matters. Hosted by Katrin Bennhold, for readers around the world.
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無人機滿天飛之制空權新生態 - Ibrahim Naber
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請參考：本欄2026/03/02、2026/03/16、和2026/03/21等三篇貼文。
Iran's drone war is exposing deep cracks in US and allied air defenses
Ibrahim Naber, 03/29/26
There is a sound — a low, persistent buzzing — that links Iran's asymmetric warfare against US and Israeli targets in the Middle East to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
It is the sound of a terrifying weapon that symbolizes a new economy of war — cheap, expendable, and mass-produced — and makes its presence known long before it strikes.
In Ukraine, they call them "flying mopeds."
The engines on the Iranian-designed Shahed drones — cheap weapons which cost as little as $20,000 to $50,000, have a wingspan of nearly 10 feet, have a range of up to 1,000 miles, and carry up to 90 kilograms of explosives — whine as they blast and incinerate their targets, from apartment blocks to industrial plants.
That same buzzing now rumbles across the Middle East.
In the opening weeks of the war, Iran launched more than 3,600 of these exploding drones across the region — a campaign that not only reshaped the battlefield but exposed its vulnerabilities.
A Shahed slammed into a radar dome near the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain.
A blast ripped through a luxury district in Dubai.
A Saudi refinery burned; Kuwait reported similar strikes on its energy infrastructure.
What is unfolding goes far beyond regional escalation. Iran's ability to sustain near-daily drone barrages — often combined with missiles — has prolonged the conflict while increasing pressure on critical infrastructure and global energy markets. Leading military analysts and Ukrainian operators say it exposed a structural vulnerability: advanced Western militaries accustomed to defeating enemy fighter jets and missiles are struggling against a threat that outnumbers their defenses. Even as the United States, according to US Central Command, targets Iran's "one-way attack drone capabilities," it has so far failed to decisively shut down its Shahed attacks.
"I don't think that any military in the world has learned sufficiently from Ukraine about what is required to deal with the kind of drone threat posed by Russia — or, frankly, the drone threat posed by Ukraine to Russia, which is also extraordinary," said David Petraeus, a retired general and former CIA director, in an interview with Business Insider.
Only weeks ago, Petraeus returned from a trip to Ukraine, where he accompanied an air defense unit outside Kyiv defending against Shahed drones. What he saw, he argued, points to the beginning of a broader military transformation that will require fundamental changes to how armed forces are organized, trained, and equipped.
The United States, despite its technological edge, has not adapted fast enough. What is now playing out in the Middle East is not a surprise — it is a warning.
The economics of air defense reveal the imbalance. Even the high-end systems face hard limits: an IRIS-T launcher carries eight missiles, a Patriot launcher up to sixteen — meaning a single drone wave can quickly exhaust ready interceptors. Iran's drones are cheap and easy to produce at scale, allowing Tehran — and Russia — to sustain high volumes of attacks. Countering low-cost Shaheds with $3-4 million Patriot (PAC-3) interceptor missiles is economically unsustainable — a reality that defies easy solutions.
Recent operations have exposed how quickly stockpiles can be depleted. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the US-led campaign against Iran is consuming large numbers of scarce interceptor missiles, forcing Washington to shift air defense assets across regions to keep pace. The implications extend beyond the Middle East: Europe, too, remains heavily reliant on US interceptors to counter ballistic missiles. Lockheed Martin is on track this year to produce more than 600 PAC-3 missiles for the first time and plans to increase annual capacity to 2,000 in the coming years, according to a January announcement.
As governments across the Middle East scramble for solutions, Kyiv has become a hub of expertise. More than 200 Ukrainian drone specialists have been deployed abroad in recent weeks, advising partners across the Middle East, including on the protection of US installations. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine has sent drone experts to help protect US military bases in Jordan.
Even as President Donald Trump has suggested the United States does not need Ukraine's help in drone defense, the battlefield is telling a different story.
"Ukraine has built what is arguably the world's most combat-tested, multi-layered drone defense architecture," said the influential military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady, who regularly visits Ukrainian front-line units and advises European governments. "Its uniqueness lies in the acceptance that no single system — no silver bullet — can defeat a mass drone threat, and that the answer must be a diverse, layered and economically sustainable ecosystem of capabilities."
The war with Iran is making that impossible to ignore— and pressing.
How Ukraine Takes on Shaheds
To understand how Ukraine counters Iran-designed Shahed drones, it helps to travel to eastern Ukraine — the main theater of Russia's war.
On a remote field outside Dnipro, less than a 50-minute drive from the front line, Ukrainian pilots are testing what has become the most cost-effective weapon in Ukraine's arsenal: interceptor drones. A unit of the elite drone brigade "Magyar's Birds" operates here, using aircraft that cost as little as $5,000 to hunt down Russian systems worth many times more. These rapidly evolving systems are reshaping air defense. They now down roughly one in three Russian aerial targets — and, over Kyiv, more than 70% of Shahed drones.
"It has 200 grams of explosives," said a soldier with the call sign "Kusto" in an interview with Business Insider, holding up the interceptor. He and his comrades wore balaclavas to avoid identification by Russian forces. "This warhead is capable of destroying the enemy's main reconnaissance drones, as well as Shahed-type drones. If the strike is carried out correctly, it can take them down."
Operators adjust the payload depending on the target. One option is a heavier charge — the equivalent of 500 grams of TNT. Another combines a smaller explosive load with fragmentation, designed to burst metal fragments outward to maximize damage against reconnaissance or strike drones such as Zala, Lancet, Molniya, Orlan or Supercam.
In some cases, a single interceptor armed with a fragmenting warhead can take out multiple targets. "If we launch a drone to destroy an Orlan or a Supercam and a Shahed is flying nearby, we can destroy the Shahed as well," Kusto says. "That's enough — there are fuel tanks inside. The fragments pierce them, it starts to burn, and the drone is destroyed."
The principle is simple: intercept the threat midair — and destroy it before it reaches its target. The process is more complex, requiring radar operators to locate incoming drones early and relay them to dispersed interceptor crews.
Every movement is drilled. At the training site, the soldiers rehearsed each step up to launch — typically using a catapult system with a tensioned elastic cord, though the drones can also be launched by hand. At the front, seconds can mean survival. Their rule is strict: the drone must be airborne within three to five minutes.
"They fly at speeds of 150 to 200, even 220 kilometers per hour," said Kusto. "That means they can catch up with standard Shaheds."
The sheer scale of Russia's campaign is unprecedented, with attacks reaching up to 900 drones a day across Ukraine — far exceeding anything seen in the Middle East. Flight paths show swarms approaching from multiple directions, designed to stretch and overwhelm air defenses. According to assessments by Ukrainian and European intelligence agencies, Russia is capable of producing between 3,000 and 5,000 Shahed-style long-range attack drones per month. The Russian-made systems are called Geran drones.
In response, Ukraine has been forced to build a multi-layered system, combining interceptor drones, helicopters, fighter jets with guns and missiles, ground-based air defenses, heavy machine guns, and electronic warfare. In March, President Zelenskyy said Ukraine can produce at least 2,000 combat-proven interceptor drones per day — roughly double the military's needs, leaving up to 1,000 daily units available for allies.
"What is required is a comprehensive concept — a comprehensive plan — that uses all types of systems," said Petraeus, co-author of the book, "Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine" and someone regarded as one of America's foremost military strategists. He pointed to Ukraine's extensive network of radars, acoustic sensors, and other tools feeding into a shared sensory map of aerial threats.
This means the decisive factor is not any single weapon, argues military analyst Gady. "Without an integrated architecture — one that fuses radar feeds, early warning systems, and command-and-control into a single real-time platform — effective employment of interceptors at scale is nearly impossible," he said.
This is why exporting Ukrainian interceptor drones alone is not enough. What's decisive is the combat experience and operational know-how behind them — the expertise of elite Ukrainian units like Magyar's Birds — and the ability to translate it into a fully integrated drone defense system night after night.
When Petraeus was out one night recently with a drone unit near Kyiv, he saw how that works in practice. On Ukraine's integrated air picture, every incoming threat was visible. "We could even see glide bombs — that were launched over Russian airspace — and then track the bombs themselves coming in, in that case toward somewhere around Kharkiv," he said.
The rapid evolution has exposed a gap Western militaries have yet to close. In Ukraine, electronic warfare systems designed to scramble frequencies used to control Shahed drones often have to be updated every few weeks — sometimes even days — or risk becoming obsolete.
Russia has adapted. Many Shaheds now cruise at higher altitudes, sometimes reaching up to 13,000 feet, to evade interceptors and penetrate deeper into Ukrainian territory.
But Ukraine has adapted, too.
"These interceptor drones can climb to four or even five kilometers," said Kusto, the latter the equivalent of 16,000 feet. "And destroy them there."
Operators monitor the sky through screens, scanning for incoming threats while guiding their interceptors in real time; higher altitudes put a premium on more advanced notice of an incoming threat. Increasingly, they rely on artificial intelligence to support targeting.
"Artificial intelligence helps identify and highlight the target," said Vitaliy, another soldier in the unit. Once the system locks on, he explained, the operator initiates the attack — and the rest is automated.
The technology is developed in close cooperation with Western partners and constantly refined using combat data. Ukrainian teams run test flights, collecting footage from every possible angle, which is then used to train neural networks abroad. "We send the data to Germany," Vitaliy said. "There, they teach the system what is a Shahed and what is not — building a model of the target from all perspectives."
Beyond Shaheds
How deeply Ukraine has embedded drone defense across every level of its military was clear at a secret training ground in northeastern Ukraine.
New recruits from an infantry unit of the 47th Brigade spread out across an open field, rifles raised — waiting for the sound. Suddenly, a drone rushed toward them, a yellow balloon attached in place of an explosive charge. "Fire, fire!" a Ukrainian instructor shouted as the drone zigzagged.
Shooting down these small aircraft — often costing only a few hundred dollars — can mean the difference between life and death. Online, countless videos show Ukrainian and Russian soldiers staring at incoming one-way attack drones, pleading for mercy in their final moments.
"To reach a position today, you need the ability to take down enemy drones," said a Ukrainian unit commander, call sign "Musician." "You have to stay concealed, remain undetected, move quickly — and ideally make it to your position alive."
For soldiers on both sides, survival increasingly depends on those skills. Thousands of First-Person-View (FPV) drones laden with warheads have turned the battlefield into a place where there is almost nowhere left to hide. The immediate kill zone — the area under constant high drone threat — now extends roughly 15 to 20 kilometers, or about 12 miles, from the front line on both sides.
Even electronic warfare is no longer a guarantee of safety. Traditional jamming systems are bypassed by a new generation of fiber-optic drones — tethered systems guided via cables that can stretch for miles across the battlefield. Immune to electronic interference, they can only be stopped by being shot down.
The threat is no longer confined to Ukraine. Videos posted by Iranian-backed militias in March appear to show FPV drones striking hangars and a helicopter near a base in Iraq. It is another reminder that distance and high-end defenses no longer guarantee protection — as creative tactics and mass-production bypass even well-defended positions.
Militaries that want to compete at the cutting edge will need deep reforms. In summer 2024, Ukraine became the first country worldwide to establish an Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) as an independent branch of its armed forces. The USF is tasked with the development, integration, and deployment of unmanned platforms in the air, on land, and at sea, while also serving as a direct bridge to domestic manufacturers.
The United States — and especially Europe — are lagging behind, according to experts.
"You have to adapt your organizational structures to modern drone warfare and to the way you train and operate," said Petraeus, the former CIA director. "You also need to revise all of your leader development courses — for commissioned, warrant and non-commissioned officers. You obviously have to dramatically change your material requirements and what you buy. Yet none of these changes are happening remotely fast enough in countries outside Ukraine."
For now, the skill of drone pilots still shapes the outcome of combat. But that advantage is fading as the battlefield shifts toward increasingly autonomous systems.
"The next major development in the war in Ukraine will feature far more autonomous systems — not just individual autonomous drones, but systems of autonomous systems that can think for themselves and carry out the orders they've been programmed to follow," said Petraeus. Such systems, he warns, will pose a fundamental challenge to existing defenses.
"You cannot defeat a drone swarm with current counter-drone capabilities."
Militaries are racing to respond. Directed-energy weapons — especially lasers — are often seen as a potential breakthrough: fast, precise, and far cheaper per shot than interceptor missiles. Even more promising are high-powered microwave systems capable of disabling multiple drones at once.
"The only element that is just now emerging is high-powered microwave systems," Petraeus said. "If you look at one of the leading new systems, it's called Epirus. It's relatively short-range, and thus point-defense rather than area defense, but it is incredibly effective, and it can deal with what is coming next — autonomous systems, drones that can operate in swarms."
For the United States, the lesson is clear: the drone defense playbook exists — but it is being written by Ukraine.
Ibrahim Naber is a foreign correspondent who has reported from Ukraine since 2022. In October 2025, he and his team were injured in a Russian Lancet drone strike in Dnipro. In 2025, he received the George Weidenfeld Prize for his coverage of global conflicts and crisis zones. He wrote his dissertation at King's College London on the psychology of modern drone warfare.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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飛彈有時而盡蠢夫無處不有 -- Rhian Lubin
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「有時而盡」出處。
US has fired 850 Tomahawk missiles into Iran - leaving some officials concerned about dwindling supply
The rate at which the U.S. military has used the Tomahawk missiles in the Iran war has reportedly prompted internal talks about increasing supplies
Rhian Lubin, 03/27/026
US has fired 850 Tomahawk missiles into Iran - leaving some officials concerned about dwindling supply.
Key takeaways Powered by Yahoo Scout. Yahoo is using AI to generate key points from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.
Pentagon officials are concerned about the low supply of Tomahawk missiles in the U.S. military after firing 850 into Iran.
Some Pentagon officials are concerned about the “alarmingly low” supply of Tomahawk missiles remaining in the U.S. military’s arsenal after firing 850 of the weapons into Iran, according to a report.
The rate at which the U.S. military has used the Tomahawk missiles in President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, now in its fourth week, has prompted internal talks about increasing supplies, according to The Washington Post.
U.S. officials told the newspaper that the number of Tomahawks left in the Middle East was “alarmingly low.” Another official told the outlet that the U.S. supply of Tomahawks was closing in on “Winchester,” military slang that means almost out of ammunition.
Many of the Tomahawks, which can be launched from submarines and Navy warships, were used during the first days of the war, which began on February 28, people familiar with the matter told the Post. Each missile is estimated to cost more than $2 million.
A Tomahawk missile was likely responsible for the strike on the elementary school in the southern Iranian city of Minab during the first weekend of the conflict that killed 175 people, including children, according to preliminary findings from an investigation.
Some Pentagon officials are concerned about the ‘alarmingly low’ supply of Tomahawk missiles remaining in the U.S. military’s arsenal after firing 850 of the weapons into Iran, according to a report (US Navy) Tomahawk飛彈照片
Inventory numbers for the Tomahawk missiles are classified, but analysts told the Post they estimate 850 or so was approximately “a quarter” of the U.S. military’s stockpile.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the U.S. military “has everything it needs to execute any mission at the time and place of the President’s choosing and on any timeline” in a statement to the outlet, and said the media was “obsessed with portraying the world’s strongest military as weak.”
Parnell added that the media’s scrutiny over weapon supplies in the Iran war inaccurately suggests that the Pentagon has failed to provide its service members “every advantage to be successful” while attempting to “frighten and sow doubt in the minds of the American people.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth previously said the U.S. military has “no shortage of munitions” and supplies would “sustain this campaign as long as we need to.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also asserted that there was “more than enough munitions, ammo and weapons stockpiles to achieve the goals of Operation Epic Fury laid out by President Trump — and beyond.”
US officials reportedly said that the number of Tomahawks left was ‘alarmingly low.’ Preliminary findings from an investigation appear to show that a Tomahawk missile struck an elementary school in Iran during the first weekend of the conflict (pictured) (ISNA/AFP via Getty Images) 小學被炸後慘狀
The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that the Navy may have had around 3,000 Tomahawk missiles on hand at the beginning of the war last month.
Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the think tank, told the Post that if more than 800 Tomahawks were used in Iran, it “would leave a large gap for a conflict in the Western Pacific” and would “take several years to replenish.”
Trump announced on March 6 that his administration held a “very good meeting” with U.S. defense manufacturing companies that included the contractor of the Tomahawk missiles, Raytheon.
The president said the companies agreed to “quadruple production of “exquisite class weaponry…as rapidly as possible.”
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誰知道：伊朗戰爭實況？ ---- Harlan Ullman
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下文可以歸類為「訊息大雜燴」；或者說：由於「文不對題」，作者讓人搞不清楚他的「主旨」到底是什麼。
不過，從他的分析我們再度了解到：制空權和制海權並非「勝利」或「達到軍事/政治目標」的「充分條件」。「軍靴踏上敵國土地」才能畢「戰爭」之功；也就是曹松說的：「一將功成萬骨枯」。
How the war with Iran is actually going
Harlan Ullman, 03/23/26
While President Donald Trump has told Americans that Operation Epic Fury is “way ahead of schedule,” how well are the U.S. and Israel doing in compelling Iran to submit to our demands, no matter how confusing they may be in declaring the outcomes we seek?
According to press reports, U.S. officials confirmed five KC-135 tankers crucial to refueling striking aircraft were damaged at an airbase in Saudi Arabia. One had a mid-air collision and crashed killing its aircrew. And an F-35 was reportedly damaged but made it safely to base. In addition to three F-15’s downed by friendly Kuwaiti fire, over 200 American service personnel have been wounded or killed by Iranian missiles and drones.
So, despite Trump’s reports of destroying Iran’s Navy and Air Force, Tehran is still conducting missile and drone strikes against U.S. and local allies in the Gulf. The question must be what Iran’s strategy is and is it working or failing? At this stage, there are no answers to that or to whether the U.S. and Israel will achieve their political objectives based on the use of military force. Trump has already reprimanded Israel for attacking Iranian gas production facilities. But here is a classic irony.
Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz. As the administration considers lifting sanctions on Iranian oil, Trump has signaled that the flow of energy from the Gulf must be kept open, as U.S. gas prices surge near $4 per barrel. His policy is contradictory. The only leverage Trump has is to threaten Iranian energy production facilities. But to do so, he is merely increasing energy costs that could redound against him in the November elections.
From the U.S. and Israeli side, after conducting over 7,000 strikes, finding appropriate targets must be an issue. Since the energy infrastructure seems to be off limits and much of Iran’s military capability was destroyed or is unreachable because it is buried so deeply underground, where are all the bombs and missiles headed? Further, since rearming U.S. warships at sea with Tomahawk and other missiles is not possible, how are the surface escorts going to be replenished? And after fire sent the USS Ford back to Crete for repairs, it will take time for USS Nimitz to replace it.
The U.S. is sending a Marine Expeditionary Unit to the Gulf. While a Marine Expeditionary Unit consists of at least three ships — in this case an LHA “lightning carrier” and two dock landing ships of some 2,500 sailors and Marines — only 800 Marines are in the infantry battalion.
To think that such a small force, despite the air power that could be mounted from the Gulf to support it, could seize control of the Strait of Hormuz or capture Iran’s uranium at Natanz brings back memories of “Blackhawk Down” and the fiasco in Mogadishu to capture a Somali warlord in 1993 that led to 19 U.S. deaths and 79 wounded.
While it can be argued that Iran has mounted a brilliant campaign to win by not losing, using a combination of missiles and drones to punish Gulf states while blocking the Strait to impose huge economic pressure on the U.S., why was it unable to prevent the U.S. and Israel from devastating its conventional forces?
Surely Iran had months to react to the Midnight Hammer bombing that “obliterated” its nuclear ambitions, if Trump is correct. But it made no attempts to use decoys and cover to protect its air force and navy. It had three capable Kilo class Russian built submarines. Apparently, none was operational. Why not? And knowing that USS Ford had to transit Suez and the Red Sea, why did Iran not mobilize its Houthi allies to disrupt that passage?
Over time, all these questions may be answered. If one recalls, the initial assaults into Afghanistan by NATO forces and Iraq in 2003 were hugely successful. However, do those operations have any consequences for Iran? While the Taliban and Saddam’s army were routed, who has all the time and not the watches in Kabul? And who is running Iraq?
Going to war sometimes is too easy, especially with a compliant Congress. Ending wars, as the U.S. learned in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq after 2003, did not go well. The question is whether President Trump is being told the realities of this war. Or are his advisors merely reinforcing his decisions, as Lyndon Johnson’s and George W. Bush’s team led the march of folly into failure and defeat?
Harlan Ullman, Ph.D., is UPI’s Arnaud deBorchgrave Distinguished Columnist, a senior adviser at the Atlantic Council, the chairman of two private companies and the principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. He and former United Kingdom Defense Chief David Richards are the authors of a forthcoming book on preventing strategic catastrophe.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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戰爭成本之「日費千金」 --- Jason Ma
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Trump’s War Is Burning Through Years’ Worth of Multibillion Dollar Stockpiles
這是除了「決勝於千里之外」，現代戰爭或「高科技戰爭」的另一個特質。不過，老祖宗早有先見之明：
「… 則內外之費，賓客之用，膠漆之材，車甲之奉，『日費千金』，然後十萬之師舉矣。」(《孫子》•作戰第二)
The U.S. has the world’s most advanced military, but the unforgiving economics of wars in Iran and Ukraine show quantity has a quality all its own
Jason Ma, 03/22/26
The U.S. war on Iran has laid bare a dichotomy in the world’s most advanced military: high-tech weapons and AI have delivered stunning blows at unprecedented speed, while defending against the swarm of missiles and drones launched in retaliation have come at unsustainably lopsided costs.
Led by a massive air campaign, the U.S. has claimed more than 7,000 strikes on key sites, with Israel conducting a comparable number of sorties, as AI tools like Anthropic’s Claude recommend targets “much quicker in some ways than the speed of thought.” The relentless bombardment has decimated Iran’s military and leadership.
But helped by the mass production of cheap drones, the forces that are left still retain enough combat power to attack Gulf neighbors and scare away commercial tankers from the Strait of Hormuz, keeping 20% of the world’s oil bottled up.
Iran’s retaliatory barrage has also forced the U.S. and its allies to draw down expensive stockpiles of interceptors. The tactic highlights the brutal economics of the current war: missiles that cost millions of dollars each are shooting down drones that cost tens of thousands of dollars. In other words, it’s like the U.S. is using a Formula 1 racer to fight off a used car.
U.S.-style warfare doesn’t come cheap. The first six days of the Iran conflict have cost the U.S. more than $11 billion, though a switch to less expensive bombs has since slowed the daily bill.
Pentagon leaders insist the U.S. has enough munitions, though the exact size of the inventory is classified. Still, the heavy usage has raised concerns about the remaining supply, especially as allies consider what’s needed in the event of war with Russia or China.
But lawmakers got sticker shock on reports the Defense Department was seeking an additional $200 billion for the Iran war. Part of the Pentagon’s calculus, however, was to address the shortage of precision munitions and spur the defense industry to quickly restock supplies, sources told the Washington Post.
President Donald Trump summoned top contractors to the White House earlier this month to push them along. But ramping up to high levels of output could take years. For example, Lockheed Martin made 620 PAC-3 interceptors for the Patriot air-defense system last year and plans to make 650 this year. But its goal of producing over 2,000 annually won’t be reached until 2030, according to Bloomberg.
The current dilemma brings to mind a quote attributed to Joseph Stalin during World War II as he weighed the Red Army’s numerical advantage against Nazi Germany’s superior weapons: “quantity has a quality all its own.”
Ukraine tranforms warfare
The U.S. has long prioritized cutting-edge equipment to maintain superiority against any military rivals. But as the pace of technological improvements accelerated in recent decades, costs ballooned and the Pentagon struggled to keep up. During the Iraq war, acquisition officials looked to “off the shelf” commercial options that could be integrated into the military quickly.
The advent of cheap commercial drone technology changed equation dramatically, as demonstrated by the Ukrainian military’s adoption of new tactics to fight off the Russian invasion.
The four-year-old conflict has transformed warfare. Unmanned weapons are now responsible for most battlefield casualties as small first-person view drones hunt down individual troops or vehicles. Ukraine’s defense industry has also evolved to mass produce inexpensive drones that can take down Russia-launched Shaheds from Iran.
Once such drone, the P1-Sun, costs a little more than $1,000 and can fly above 30,000 feet as 3-D printers crank them out in Ukrainian factories.
“The future of warfare is Ukraine producing 7 million drones per year right now,” former CIA director and retired Gen. David Patraeus said earlier this month. “This past year, they produced 3.5 million. That enabled them basically to use 9 to 10,000 drones per day.”
And when combined with AI that makes drones more autonomous, the result will be swarms that are “really, really hard” to counter, he added.
Defending against an onslaught like that may require energy weapons, like high-powered microwaves, that can take down large swathes of drones at once.
“We are not actually where we should be relative to that, based on what we should have been learning from Ukraine for a very long time,” Patraeus warned. “And they’re learning back and forth. They make software changes every week or two, hardware changes every two to three weeks.”
Gulf countries facing Iranian attacks have sought Ukraine’s help in combating the Shahed drone. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country can produce at least 2,000 “effective and combat-proven” interceptors a day.
The Pentagon also understands the new economics of warfare and has even incorporated a copycat version of the Shahed in the U.S. military, using the American version against Iran during the war.
Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said at an industry conference on Tuesday that the Pentagon plans to go big with the new LUCAS drone.
“After only a few years, we continue to refine that and make that something that we can mass produce at scale,” he said. “They’ve worked very well so far and it’s proven out to be a useful tool in the arsenal.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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星鏈技術決定戰場上的勝敗 -- T. Pultarov/H. Cheshire
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請參考：本欄2026/03/16貼文。
The Race to Replace Starlink on the Battlefield
Starlink,SpaceX,Ukraine
Tereza Pultarov/Hannah Cheshire, 03/18/26
With Starlink no longer available to unauthorized foreign actors in Ukraine, Russia is racing to find a replacement to keep troops and drones connected. It’s an uphill battle.
For months, Ukrainians had been quietly campaigning for SpaceX to allow the government of the embattled country to control who can use Starlink terminals in Ukraine’s territory. It was a matter of life and death as evidence kept mounting that Russia was buying Starlink terminals on the black market, using them to guide deep strike drones to hit civilian targets and infrastructure in Ukraine.
In early February, the deal was finally reached, a few days after reports had emerged that a Russian Geran drone fitted with a Starlink terminal hit a passenger train near Kharkiv, killing five people on board.
Ukraine’s Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov publicly thanked Elon Musk and SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell for “their swift response” in a LinkedIn post, announcing the new registration initiative that requires all Starlink users in Ukraine to whitelist their devices with the government.
Within weeks, it became clear how important that agreement was.
Without Starlink, Russian forces began to fumble, the momentum appearing to swing toward Ukraine.
"I think they lost 50% of their capacity for offence," a Ukrainian drone operator said. "That's what the numbers show. Fewer assaults, fewer enemy drones, fewer everything."
Starlink has played a key role in Ukraine’s ability to ward off the Russian invasion since the early months of the war. Shortly after the invasion on February 24th, 2022, SpaceX famously turned on Starlink services in Ukraine, dispatching thousands of satellite terminals to the post-Soviet republic to keep its troops and civilians online after the Russian army began destroying terrestrial internet infrastructure. Since then, access to Starlink has become a cornerstone of Ukraine’s defence and counter-offensive. At the same time, the reliance on an asset controlled by a single person — whimsical billionaire Elon Musk — is raising concerns not only in Ukraine, but also in Europe, which, according to analysts, may need to brace itself for a possible Russian attack in the coming years.
The conflict has ignited a race, with Ukraine and Russia in the lead, to develop alternatives to the SpaceX-owned megaconstellation.
Starlink Advantage
Within weeks of the arrival of the first Starlink terminals in 2022, Ukrainians realized that the nimble devices, weighing around one kilogram each, could be mounted onto reconnaissance and kamikaze drones to extend their range.
Commercial drones, previously used by filmmakers and hobbyists, redefined war-fighting doctrines in Ukraine within months of the invasion. Those devices are by default controlled by radio-frequency links that have a range of only a few miles and are easily jammed. With Starlink, drones could cover distances of hundreds or thousands of kilometers. Since Starlink satellite links cannot be easily jammed, these drones are also hard to stop, providing a significant advantage to those who have access to the constellation’s connectivity.
Today, Ukraine is by far the largest user of Starlink terminals in the world. According to Ukrainian satcom expert Volodymyr Stepanets, some 250,000 terminals are active in the country. Out of that number, 100,000 are in the hands of the military. They are used to keep troops connected and to guide drones and ground robots across the grey zone, the ravaged no-man’s strip of land along the frontline.
Hundreds of devices are connecting to the constellation every day along the frontline, with the high demand creating bandwidth bottlenecks, diluting the constellation’s peak bandwidth of 200 Mbps to a mere 10 Mbps per terminal, affecting drone and robot mission execution.
Still, the useof Starlink forcombat operationshas been a game-changer.
No other system currently exists that could replace Starlink on drones. The Eutelsat-owned One Web low-Earth-orbit constellation lacks in capacity, featuring a mere 690 satellites compared to Starlink’s 10,000. On top of that, the most compact One Web terminals weigh in excess of 10 kilograms, way too much to be placed on a maneuverable drone, and cost in excess of $7,000 compared to the $300-$500 for a Starlink mini terminal, which makes them a no-go for single-use attack missions. Prices vary depending on where and when the Starlink device was purchased.
Old-school geostationary communication satellites, suspended above a fixed spot above the equator some 22,000 miles away from the planet, can offer connectivity to troops, but they suffer from signal delays that make it difficult to use them for drone control. The terminals designed to receive their signal, too, are way too clunky for lightweight UAVs.
Russia Catches On
Although Starlink services have never been enabled in Russia, the Russian military could, until early February, use the terminals along the frontline in Eastern Ukraine in the same way that Ukrainians do. Those terminals could be registered in other countries with the roaming setting switched on.
First reports of Russia attaching Starlink terminals to long-range attack Shahed drones date back to late 2024. Stepanets told Supercluster the situation had become increasingly serious by mid-2025, forcing Ukraine to campaign for a registration scheme that would allow only whitelisted terminals to operate in the country.
Anecdotal evidence that has emerged since the registration requirement shows how critical Starlink access is on the frontline. Unable to use their unregistered terminals, Russian soldiers were falling prey to a brazen Ukrainian phishing scheme. Pretending to offer Russian users the opportunity to register their terminals with the Ukrainian government via Ukrainian proxies, a group of Ukrainian cyber warriors extracted payments from the desperate Russian troops as well as locations, which were later used to guide drone and missile strikes.
Scrambling to restore frontline connectivity, Russia has deployed stratospheric balloons fitted with 5G communication terminals to connect troops and drones via relays in the stratosphere 12 miles above Earth’s surface. The project, called Barrazh-1, is, however, bound to face literal headwinds as the predominant atmospheric flow above Eastern Europe moves from west to east, meaning the balloons are likely to quickly drift deeper into Russian aerospace.
Iurii Vysoven, CEO of Ukrainian company Aerobabovna, which is producing tethered aerostats that serve as communication relays along the frontline, said in a blog post on the company’s website that such high-altitude platforms would be restricted “to short-duration operations” and would have a significantly limited “usefulness for military applications, particularly as a replacement for satellite communications.”
Russia’s Own Starlink
Russia is making up for the loss of Starlink for basic frontline connectivity and communications among troops with the use of its own geostationary satellite systems.
But the services can hardly compete with Starlink.
Russia’s Yamal satellite constellation currently consists of five satellites stationed above Russia and surrounding regions. Another satellite is expected to launch this year. The five satellites already in orbit have been purchased by Russia from the European manufacturer Thales Alenia Space years before the invasion of Ukraine.
According to available reports, the roll-out of Yamal terminals to replace Starlink on the battlefield has earned criticism from Russian troops. The antennas have been described as too large and hard to set up, and the data speeds are too slow to meet the needs.
Stepanets told Supercluster that Russia is believed to be conducting experiments with controlling drones through the newest satellite of the Yamal constellation, Yamal 601, launched in 2014.
“This is a very modern satellite with a good coverage that covers Europe too,” Stepanets said. “It has a good capacity and a good technological level.”
On top of that, Russia is already working on its own low-Earth-orbit communications constellation that could enable the control of drones in the absence of Starlink.
“They have managed to put into low Earth orbit an experimental formation of small satellites, which they are actually already testing,” Eugen Rokytsky, the CEO of the Ukrainian Innovation Spacetech Clusters Alliance, told Supercluster. “The sole purpose of this constellation is to control drones.”
The constellation, dubbed Rassvet, currently has three satellites in orbit, according to Gunter’s Space Page, all launched in 2023. However, according to available information, an are expected to be launched in the coming months. By 2027, the constellation could grow to over 300 spacecraft.
With these developments, Rokytsky remarked, Russia is leaping ahead of Europe in its ability to control battlefield assets without reliance on Starlink.
Europe Lags Behind
Ukraine is already taking its own steps to reduce its dependence on Starlink, having learned from the unpredictable mood changes of the Trump administration not to take access to U.S. technology for granted.
“We understand that our dependency on Starlink is a big vulnerability for us,” Stepanets said.
In collaboration with western partners, Ukraine has developed a dedicated geostationary satellite terminal, UASAT GEO, which, according to Stepanets, “provides an alternative for many use cases” on the battlefield and has already been tested on the front line.
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烏軍無人機戰術的小兵立大功 - Verity Bowman
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Ukraine’s plan to cut off Russia’s front-line troops is working
Kyiv’s drone campaign base has expanded the ‘kill zone’ without sending soldiers to battle
Verity Bowman, 03/14/26
Ukraine knows it cannot match Russia’s relentless waves of manpower.
Refusing to throw troops into the grinder, Kyiv has taken a different path to victory – one defined by precision, patience and technology. Now, that strategy is starting to pay off.
A relentless and meticulously planned drone campaign is choking Russia’s front-line forces, expanding the so-called “kill zone” threefold in some areas.
It has turned areas once considered safe behind the front line into deadly no-go zones.
The aim is simple: make it impossible for Russian forces to move men and equipment forward fast enough to sustain offensive operations.
A soldier from one of Ukraine’s unmanned systems battalions, who remained anonymous for security reasons, told The Telegraph: “The drones are constantly watching, constantly striking. It slows them down, it breaks their rhythm and it gives us the space to control the battlefield without sending men to die.”
Ukraine stepped up its precision drone campaign earlier this year, focusing on destroying Russian drone defences to allow its own drones to operate deeper behind enemy lines.
Ukrainian drones are now able to strike targets from up to 93 miles away from the front line, compared to around 31 miles a few weeks ago, expanding the kill zone to unprecedented depths, according to experts.
The kill zone is the area behind the front line where Ukrainian drones can strike Russian troops, vehicles and logistics, making movement hazardous or impossible.
Its boundaries are fluid, shifting along a zigzag pattern depending on the positions of Ukraine’s elite drone units.
Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War, said: “This takes time and a tremendous amount of planning,” adding that the campaign was a turning point in the conduct of drone warfare on the battlefield.
“It is becoming much more systematic. Based on geo-located footage we are observing and frequent reports from Ukrainian officials about successful strikes – not just precision strikes against vehicles travelling along roads, but also attacks on Russian drone positions, assembly areas, storage facilities and other key targets.”
At the heart of Ukraine’s new drone war is its Deep Strike Command Centre, a unit created in early 2026 by the Unmanned Systems Forces to co-ordinate and improve the management of drone strikes on targets behind Russian troops.
Experts say its founding represents Ukraine’s transition to a network-centric model of warfare, where planning and the sharing of real-time information allow forces to strike effectively across the battlefield without relying on massed troop movements.
Anton Zemlianyi, senior analyst of the Ukrainian Security and Co-operation Centre, said: “Precision, co-ordination and technological superiority play a key role.”
This year’s campaign began with the deployment of heavy bomber drones, such as Nemesis, a Ukrainian-developed heavy attack system that has become one of the most feared assets in Kyiv’s drone arsenal.
Russian forces refer to it as “Baba Yaga”, in reference to the figure in Slavic folklore, because of its ability to strike silently and effectively at night.
These heavy bombers have been deployed to target key Russian systems, including electronic warfare units, air defence installations and equipment that allows Russia to strike or intercept drones.
Ms Stepanenko said: “Heavy bomber drones give an advantage because they are able to pursue specialised targets.
“By undermining and suppressing these Russian assets, Ukrainian forces create conditions in which more drones can fly at greater distances without being intercepted or jammed.”
The destruction of Russian air defence systems, including Buk, Tor, and Pantsir‑S1 models, has weakened Russian defences in the occupied territories, opening up the skies to unprecedented numbers of lighter drones, which are most affected by jammers.
The shortages of air defence capabilities have also pushed the Russians to rely on antiquated equipment, soldiers on the front line told The Telegraph.
Dimko Zhluktenko, a soldier and analyst at Ukraine’s 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment, said: “In some cases, Russian units have reportedly removed multi-barrel machine-gun mounts from old Soviet attack helicopters ... and installed them on improvised gun trucks to fight drones.”
The 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment is one of Ukraine’s cutting-edge drone warfare units, serving as the tip of the spear for many tactical and technological developments.
Russian war bloggers have claimed that Ukraine’s efforts are paying off.
“The enemy has once again taken control of the ‘lower sky’,” one said on the app Telegram, adding: “The situation is difficult.”
Experts have said that infractions have been made across the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk front lines, with successful campaigns in Dobropillia, Huliaipole, Kupiansk, Petrovske, Kostiantynopil, among others.
So far, Russian attempts to push back Ukraine’s dominance in the skies have been largely unsuccessful.
Outages from Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service in Ukraine, are making it harder for Russian forces to operate their own drones, sometimes forcing operators to move into the open to rig communications equipment to lamp posts or trees to maintain control.
Ukraine has been able to secure an advantage over Russia as analysis of its drone operations is paving the way for technological advancements.
Mr Zemlianyi said: “Ukraine continuously analyses battlefield data, including operational reports and signals intelligence, to determine which technologies and tactics work effectively and which are vulnerable.
“Based on this feedback loop, Ukrainian engineers and operators adapt drone systems, communication links and control frequencies to make them more resilient to electronic warfare.”
He said as a result, drones were evolving not only tactically but also operationally, and that in many cases they were beginning to perform roles traditionally associated with long-range precision weapons systems.
Many of the heavy bomber drones also have machine learning or artificial intelligence capabilities, according to Ms Stepanenko, while the range of lighter drones has steadily increased.
Ukrainian forces are not only expanding the kill zone with large numbers of drones, but are using the opportunity to conduct a targeted campaign against Russian vehicles and logistical hubs to make it harder for Moscow to move equipment closer to the front line.
The goal, according to Ms Stepanenko, is to force Russian troops to travel long distances on foot to reach their positions, eventually weakening their ability to hold defensive lines.
By extending the reach of its drones and systematically targeting the systems that protect Russian logistics, Ukraine is attempting to reshape the battlefield without matching Moscow’s manpower, according to Mr Zhluktenko.
“I think the results speak for themselves,” he said. “Russia is losing crazy amounts of rare air defence systems, radars, and there is no way to quickly replenish them.”
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現代空防戰略及戰術 – Adam Gramegna
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FAFO："Fuck Around and Find Out" 的縮寫；中文通常翻譯為：「不作死就不會死」。
下文重點在以當下的美、伊戰爭為實例，說明：
戰爭不但要比誰的武器精良，還要比誰的武器便宜(當然也得比誰的武器製造周期短)。
故將其置於此欄；請見：‘Paranoid’ Pentagon Officials Are Secretly Panicking。
Lessons Learned: How Iran was able to bruise the US Navy’s 5th Fleet
The battle of cheap, slow drones has begun.
Adam Gramegna, 03/01/26
Welcome to 2026. The sky over the Juffair district in Bahrain isn’t so blue; instead, it was a mosaic of gray-black plumes and the white-hot streaks of interception. For years, the armchair generals on social media have been salivating over Operation Truthful Promise 4, the supposed doomsday scenario where Iran’s missile rain finally drowns the U.S. 5th Fleet in its own home.
They told us the Persian Gulf was a kill box. They told us the headquarters at Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain was a sitting duck. As the first Shahed-136 moped drones plodded over the Mina Salman port area over the weekend, it looked like they might finally be right.
However, while the world watched the smoke rise from the service center, our 5th Fleet was fine; the base that houses it took a black eye in the fracas, though.
Here is the after-action report on how we turned a potential Pearl Harbor moment into a dramatic piece of Iranian theater, and why the future of modern defense is about to become a bloodletting for our budgets.
Peaced Out
Before you start mourning the 5th Fleet, check the pier. In a stroke of intelligence foresight, or a well-timed leak perhaps, the U.S. Navy pulled its most valuable cards off the table well before the first siren wailed.
The USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike groups vanished into the “blue water” like Homer Simpson into a wall of shrubbery, out into the Arabian Sea and Mediterranean, safely outside the immediate “kill zone” of Iran’s coastal batteries.
What Iran hit this weekend was, for all intents and purposes, a g-g-g-Ghost Port (If you know, you know). Millions of dollars’ worth of ordnance were spent splashing into static infrastructure, fuel depots, radar domes, and logistics hubs. No sugarcoating it, this was no bueno for our military in future conflicts.
On the other hand, it’s like blowing up an empty garage after the owner drove the Rolls-Royce to a different county. Don’t let the pirrhic victory of the carrier withdrawal fool you; the infrastructure left behind is a technical marvel, and it was being used for target practice.
Mopeds vs. Million-Dollar Missiles
When 71% of the planet is covered in high-quality H2O, the country that can rule it can rule the world. So when our Navy, a walking “FAFO” sign, isn’t a threat anymore, things need to change quickly. The Shahed-136 loitering munition is the one to cause an evolutionary change in American naval power… or else.
This little nugget is a $35,000 lawnmower engine with a warhead attached. It’s slow, it’s loud, and it’s arguably the most annoying weapon in modern history. But in a dense urban neighborhood like Juffair, annoying becomes lethal.
The problem isn’t that we can’t hit them, spoiler alert: we can, it just costs so much money. The Patriot PAC-3 and THAAD batteries protecting the base were screaming today, swatting at dozens of incoming threats in the air.
Unfortunately, here is the power of attrition: we are firing $4 million death sticks at $35,000 drones. Iran is counting on us to “win” every engagement until we run out of ammo or money. They want to deplete our magazine depth with junk drones before they send in the real hardware.
The Hypersonic “Fattah” and the Radar Horizon
Once the Shahed swarms softened the electronic bubble, the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard) sent in the heavy hitters: the Fattah-1 hypersonic missile. Iran calls it “The Conqueror,” and while Western analysts like to dismiss their Mach 13–15 speed claims as dubious at best, the picture on the ground today tells a different story.
Unlike traditional ballistic missiles, which are more predictable in their high-arcing paths (making them fairly easy targets for systems like THAAD), the Fattah-1 is designed for maneuverability within the atmosphere.
Today, that math resulted in at least one confirmed hit on a service center near the base’s command-and-control hub. We didn’t lose a ship, but we lost the untouchable aura our static bases once oozed.
Playing Defense in a Crowded Room
NSA Bahrain isn’t out in the desert like Al Udeid; it’s shoved into the middle of Manama’s Juffair district, surrounded by 20-story luxury apartments. This is a tactical nightmare. Every time a C-RAM (the land-based Phalanx) opens up with its signature wall of lead, thousands of 20mm high-explosive rounds are flying into the sky.
Reports are already filtering in of civilian high-rises shattered by “friendly” shrapnel and falling interceptor debris, thus introducing a major dilemma: the enemy doesn’t have to hit the base to win; they just have to force us to defend it so aggressively that we cause a diplomatic crisis with our Bahraini hosts. This one is simple: if too much damage is done to the civilian infrastructure from American weapons debris, the people will blame America.
A fire broke out in a building targeted by Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles as Iran attacked several buildings in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, on February 28, 2026. (Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images) 照片
“LUCAS” Joins the Fray
Perhaps the grimmest part of today’s after-action report is the irony of Operation Epic Fury. While Iran was hitting us with Shaheds, the U.S. military was simultaneously debuting our new bestie, LUCAS (Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System).
What is the LUCAS? It’s a $35,000, American-made clone of the Iranian Shahed-136. We reverse-engineered their “moped” and started mass-producing it through Arizona-based SpektreWorks. Today, we saw a classic “Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man” moment of 21st-century warfare: two powers using the exact same cheap tech to try and bankrupt each other’s air defenses.
We bought the airspace over the Persian Gulf for a trillion dollars, but today, Iran showed they could rent it for an afternoon with loose change. Operation Truthful Promise 4 never even sniffed the 5th Fleet because we were smart enough to move the ships, but it did leave the “Iron Dome” of the Gulf looking more like a well-worn pair of sweatpants.
Russia’s S-300s in Venezuela were nothing but paperweights because of corruption; the U.S. shield in Bahrain is under pressure because of attrition. We can win the sniper duel, but what happens when the enemy stops bringing a rifle and starts bringing ten thousand rocks?
The smoke is still clearing over Manama, and America’s naval dominance around the globe could be a lot less dominant unless serious attention is paid to defending against kids with toy choppers taking out our bases. Welcome to the era where small supplies of $4 million missiles are the only thing standing between a $30,000 drone and your mates.
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本文於 修改第 3 次
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台海戰爭對美國人民的影響 -- Michael D. Purzycki
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下文從日常生活的角度分析「台海戰爭」對美國老百姓的影響，及其對戰爭結果的間接負面作用。該文分析的重點當然也值得中國領導人思考。畢竟，東、西兩大兵聖(孫子和克勞塞維茲)都強調：戰爭的「全面性」和「整體性」。
No One Wants a War with China over Taiwan
But the U.S. still needs to prepare for one.
Michael D. Purzycki, 01/21/26
The capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro was an impressive feat by the American military but could prove to be a distraction from more pressing geopolitical concerns. President Trump’s decision to seize Maduro, and the attention he must now pay to Venezuela and the Western Hemisphere in the aftermath, makes it likely that the administration could take its eye off a far more powerful adversary: China. Confronting the military of a rival superpower is a much more daunting task than swooping in and arresting one dictator, even with the superb execution of that mission.
On March 9, 2021, Admiral Philip Davidson, then commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, addressed the Senate Armed Services Committee. Pointing to Chinese military preparations as evidence of the People’s Republic’s ambitions, he warned that China would likely be ready to invade and conquer Taiwan by 2027. The long-anticipated confrontation between the U.S. and China over the island was looming on the horizon, he warned.
Since then, the “Davidson window” has been used in national security circles as the timeframe the U.S. has to prepare to fight China for the freedom of Taiwan. It has informed debates over how the American military (especially but not exclusively the Navy) should be structured, what equipment it should purchase, and where its assets should be based. American service members are preparing to give their all to defend a fellow democracy.
Less attention has been paid, however, to preparing Americans outside the military for the effects of war. If the U.S. should come to blows with the PRC, the effects will be felt in many areas of American life, including the economy. With the Davidson window closing a year from now, America’s leaders need to level with the people they serve about what it will cost to keep Taiwan free, should that decision be made.
Preparing for War
Wargames carried out by American experts provide a mixture of hope and worry about the outcome of such a war over Taiwan. While there is a good chance the U.S. would prevail over China, it would do so at a significant cost of its military assets: America is estimated to lose hundreds of aircraft and dozens of warships, including one or more aircraft carriers. If a carrier were to be sunk (something that has not happened to an American carrier since World War II), it would be a severe blow to American prestige even if Taiwan remained free.
The good news is that the last few years have seen an encouraging renewal of awareness of how important maritime strength is for the United States. In a possible war with China to keep Taiwan from totalitarian tyranny, the U.S. Navy will play a leading role; keeping it strong and ready is clearly a bipartisan priority. Under both the Biden and Trump administrations, the Navy has developed plans for dramatically expanding the size of its fleet, which has shrunk drastically since the 1990s.
Such a conflict would have enormous repercussions within the U.S., though, effects that would ripple throughout many sectors of the civilian economy as well as American national security institutions. A war may well be a long one, and the American people may not have the stomach for a long conflict. The sooner American officials begin preparing the domestic economy for the shock of a war over Taiwan, the better. While it will take time, any wiggle room achieved this year can help.
Of the many economic areas that would be hit by a U.S.-China war, three in particular stand out as areas in which the government should begin increasing resiliency:
* Replacing vital manufactured goods that the U.S. would lose access to during a war;
* Ensuring the military has enough oil to fight China without disrupting domestic supplies; and
* Preparing for Chinese cyberattacks in an attempt by Beijing to weaken American resolve.
Manufacturing
Much of the debate surrounding trade with China concerns blue-collar American jobs lost during the last quarter century, rightly so. In reaction, many of America’s major imports from China have plummeted in volume since 2018 due to tariffs under both the Trump and Biden administrations and to an increasing American desire to decouple economically from a rival great power. But it is not only Chinese goods whose flow would be disrupted by a major war.
Taiwan manufactures 60 percent of the world’s semiconductors, including more than 40 percent of the most sophisticated logic chips the U.S. imports. When the price of these chips goes up—say, in response to constricted supply during a war in which a vital exporter of this technology is cut off from the world economy—the prices of multitudes of other goods will go up including computers, tablets, phones, cars, and TVs. In preparation for such an event, the more chips the U.S. can manufacture on its own soil, the better able it will be to withstand such shocks.
In 2022, President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act, which authorized $39 billion in federal aid for semiconductor development on American soil. Companies have responded positively to these incentives: they have made large investments in U.S. manufacturing and related research and development, and a boost in production has created at least 15,000 jobs. While Trump initially derided the CHIPS Act upon returning to the White House, he later signed an expansion of tax credits under the act. There are additional measures the government can take to increase production, such as scaling back environmental permitting rules around manufacturing facilities.
There is also an ongoing push for a revival of the shipbuilding industry along similar lines. The bipartisan Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security (SHIPS) for America Act would encourage major investments in American shipbuilding to reverse the sector’s decline that dates back to Ronald Reagan’s ending of federal subsidies for the industry in 1981. Congress should pass this law, and Trump should sign it.
China’s current dominance of global shipbuilding currently gives it enormous leverage. As Jerry Hendrix, a former Navy captain and longtime defense expert who now heads the Shipbuilding Office at the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in The Atlantic in 2023:
The lack of civilian ships under our own flag makes us vulnerable. Today we remember the recent backlog of container ships in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, but tomorrow we could face the shock of no container ships arriving at all should China prohibit its large fleet from visiting U.S. ports.
Government incentives to increase semiconductor manufacturing and shipbuilding will both take time to reach their full effect. But the mere fact of Washington taking both these industries seriously would be a signal, both to American consumers and to America’s trading partners, that if the U.S. suffered economic blows from a conflict with China, the pains it suffered would be temporary. The world would have good reason to believe that America would bounce back.
Oil
There is a common saying in military circles: amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics. In an era replete with ever-advancing technology, including videos and games that might give civilians some sense of being in a battle without facing any physical danger, it is easy to think of warfare only in terms of shooting. But the far less glamorous role of logistics—getting personnel, platforms, ammunition, equipment, and supplies from point A to point B—is equally important to a war’s outcome. And when it comes to military logistics, energy supplies are critical.
In 2021, Andrea K. Orlowski, deputy director of engineering at the Navy’s Military Sealift Command, wrote an article assessing the Navy’s inadequate oil supplies for its ships and aircraft. She warned that in a U.S.-China naval war over Taiwan, the U.S. would most likely run out of oil first, partly due to a shortage of refining capacity on the U.S. West Coast. The imbalance seems even more striking considering that Russia, whose oil has been sanctioned by the West for the last four years while it militarily batters Ukraine, exports much of its oil to China, giving the PRC a reliable supply from America’s other great power rival. The U.S. could try to shift the balance in its favor by interdicting Chinese oil imports from the Middle East, but sustaining this operation could take too many military units away from either the fight with China or the deterrence of Russia.
The U.S. military’s need for oil is already vast. The Department of Defense is the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. and the top bulk purchaser of fuel among federal agencies. Military oil consumption will increase even further during a full-scale war, such that it may be necessary to take oil out of the civilian economy, potentially raising its price.
Established in the wake of the surge in fuel prices that followed the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is America’s stockpile to guard against spikes in oil prices. The government purchases oil when prices are low, and presidents can sell it back into the civilian economy when prices are high. The SPR came to public attention in 2022, when President Biden tapped into it in response to high oil prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Filling the SPR is consistent with Trump’s desire to boost American oil production. He recently ordered the purchase of one million barrels for it, but this is a truly tiny amount. The SPR is authorized to hold up to 714 million barrels, and as of November 26, 2025, it held 411 million. The administration should go much further than a mere one million barrels.
Cyber
On May 7, 2021, Colonial Pipeline, the largest provider of refined petroleum products in the Eastern U.S., was hit with a ransomware attack. Long lines formed at gas stations in the Southeast, and Colonial was forced to temporarily shut down all its operations. This was the largest-ever cyberattack on American oil infrastructure.
This attack was carried out by criminals looking to make money. Imagine if another attack, doing even worse damage to critical American infrastructure, was perpetrated by China in the middle of a war over Taiwan. How long would Americans put up with disruption—to commerce, to the supply of critical goods, to their own peace of mind—before public opinion would turn against defending Taiwan and in favor of cutting a deal with Beijing?
Chinese cyberespionage against the U.S. has increased in frequency throughout the early 21st century. Victims have included government agencies, major corporations, and millions upon millions of ordinary users and consumers. In all likelihood, China would launch every cyber weapon at its disposal at the U.S. during a full-fledged war.
There is worthwhile legislation before Congress that would bolster America’s cyber defenses against China and other hostile actors. Trump should also reverse his confusing decision from last December not to sanction China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), Beijing’s spy agency and the perpetrator of a major cyber breach of U.S. telecom companies in 2024. As noted by Morgan Peirce in Just Security, letting China off the hook for its cyber aggression undermines Trump’s attempts to get America’s allies to bear more of the burden of their own defenses: “If the world’s largest economy will not confront China’s cyber operations, how can it credibly ask Indo-Pacific allies—who have far less leverage over Beijing—to step up?”
It is not completely guaranteed that China will invade Taiwan in 2027. It is always possible that American deterrence will be so strong that Beijing will conclude that the cost of war is not worth the benefit of conquering the island. It is also possible that China will opt for means other than conventional war to bring Taiwan under its thumb, such as attempting a complete air and sea blockade to isolate the island from the world. Likewise, Russia’s quagmire in Ukraine during the past four years may give Chinese admirals and generals pause about waging a normal war.
Conditions within the United States, however, give Xi Jinping hope that he can subdue Taiwan with enough patience. Americans are so polarized politically and culturally that consensus on anything is difficult for them to achieve. Even war may not be enough to bring our people together. Xi may well bank on Americans’ unwillingness to fight for long as the factor that will give China the ultimate edge in an all-out conflict, especially if America’s leaders don’t prepare citizens to withstand it even as they take steps to prevent it.
Michael D. Purzycki is an analyst, writer, and editor based in Arlington, Virginia. He writes The Non-Progressive Democrat on Substack. Follow him on Twitter at @MDPurzycki.
Michael D. Purzycki
I'm a liberal who's been a Democrat since 2003. Some forms of progress are compatible with liberty and democracy, some are not. Opinions I express here are mine alone, in my capacity as a U.S. citizen. Support Ukraine: https://u24.gov.ua/
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