Cheap Iranian drone downed $25M US Army helicopter–maybe by chance

I understand the US doctrine, which is also fine-tailored to buying very expensive systems from certain corporations that have few to none competitors and feel no real pressure to innovate.

"Arguably, the current Iran conflict is a proxy war against the PRoC."

That is stretching it. The vast majority of weapons that Iran deployed were of their own build, and China sends nowhere near as much equipment to Iran as, say, Europe to Ukraine.

"Future military spending is focused on countering China, not on the style of conflict Ukraine is facing."

Which is part of the problem. As a wanna-still-be-superpower, the US will face a lot of diverse conflicts in the world, with various characteristics.

"The US is not optimized to fight such a war."

The US is not optimized to a bombing campaign against countries the size of Iran anymore either. You are literally running out of things to throw at them after mere weeks have passed.

Good luck fighting China then, with its 16x as big population and 100x as big economy than Iran has.

"The US (and Russia) could always win their current conflicts with ICBMs, but choose not to. That is a calculated choice, not an inability to win as you claim."

War is continuation of politics, not just destruction for its own sake. To win the war does not mean "utterly destroy a certain region", but "make the opponent do as you wish, at least in some aspects, against his will, while not suffering catastrophic consequences elsewhere".

If political constraints stop you from deploying WMDs, and you cannot achieve your political aims with conventional weapons, that counts as an inability to win the war. Can the US make the Iranian leadership drop their nuclear ambitions? It does not seems so. Can the US wipe Iran off the map? Yes, but at the cost of becoming a pariah nation, which is worse than ayatollahs having a few nukes. Only a fool would call the latter "victory".

US-produced Hornets (ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt is the CEO) are very modern and are now destroying Russian logistics to Crimea. From what I have heard, they are iterating fast based on what the Ukrainian operators report back.

This shows that the US private sector can well produce contemporary drones on a compressed time scale.

It is the Pentagon which is not interested in overhauling settled vendor relations.

You obviously don't understand US doctrine, since earlier you were complaining how the US hasn't adapted its arsenal regarding drones in just four years.

Iran would not be able to pursue nuclear weapons nor missiles without China's assistance. The precursors of the missile fuel, the precursors of yellowcake processing, the chips and hardware of Iranian drones, all come from China with its assistance and blessing.

China has provided military equipment and weapons to Iran. China has military personnel in Iran operating air defense systems. It is accurate to call this a proxy war.

The fact you are unaware of any of this, demonstrates your lack of understanding of the conflict.

Further proof you do not comprehend US doctrine, is that the US can always escalate the conflict and pursue a ground war. But is hesitant to do so simply because Trump does not want war. Trump prefers quick, surgical operations; and does not want to drag the US into a forever war like Bush Jr and Obama did.

You keep claiming the US is "inable" to win the war, yet you do not understand the definition of this word. Choosing not do pursue a strategy for political reasons is not inable. The US would win a ground war against Iran, full stop. Your analysis fails to consider this option. But it would win at the cost of thousands of lives, and likely the US would need to occupy the country, which is politically challenging, and Trump is savvy enough to be hesitant to pursue this option.

You also lack historical understanding of war. You forget that total destruction and capitulation was the default strategy of war for millenia, see strategies of the Mongols or the war against Japan, where the US firebombed and leveled Japanese cities, even nuking them, until capitulation.

> You keep pretending Iran is the agressor here.

> It is actually defending itself, attacking countries in its vicinity that harbor US forces.

Azerbaijan has no US military bases, it has no Israeli military bases, it has no ties to the current conflict, yet Iran still fired drones at a school in Azerbaijan, completely unprompted.

Oman was negotiating a peace agreement between Israel and Iran, it was actively advocating on the side Iran for a peace deal, Oman tried their hardest to remain neutral towards Iran in this conflict, yet Iran betrayed them and still fired drones at ports in Oman in the opening days of the war.

Iran has attacked all of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jordan, Iraq, Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Cyprus just this year.

Iran's actions betray each of your claims.

Iran makes poor foreign policy decisions. Iran made the conscious choice to attack these countries. Iran chooses a hostile foreign policy toward its neighbors. None of these countries want conflict with Iran, all of them want peace, yet Iran attacks them anyway.

Definitely not.

You don't seem to know about the wars Russia fought even in the last 30 years, and the ways they did.