The increasingly intractable conflict between the U.S. and Iran is revealing American military and strategic vulnerabilities — and offering important lessons to its biggest rival.
China is watching as the U.S. fails to cut through an Iranian blockade and expends heavy firepower, the Trump administration struggles to extricate itself from an unpopular war, global gas prices soar and the Pentagon’s strategic documents reveal that warding off Beijing is no longer the top priority.
As President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping prepare to meet for a high stakes meeting next week, the U.S. is caught in an uncertain ceasefire. And with frustrated allies refusing to assist and a war driving political trouble for Trump at home, current and former U.S. defense officials fear China is heading into the meeting holding the cards
“The Chinese would be well within their right to say, ‘What do you have left to build deterrence with?’” said a former defense official. “In order for a grand bargain to work, you would have to have the muscle to put behind it. You can’t bluff on this question.”
The meeting between the two leaders comes two months after Trump postponed the initial gathering in Beijing, citing his need to focus on the then-nascent war. But the U.S. military campaign appears to have shifted from one bent on destroying Iranian nuclear programs to a messier, more protracted conflict focused on who controls the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil supply flows.
“China’s military is absolutely closely studying our operations against Iran to identify vulnerabilities they can exploit in a conflict with the United States,” said a defense official, who like others interviewed, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.
The official said China looks at how U.S. military commanders plot operations and put their plans into action, down to the pace of missile strikes and intelligence gathering.
The Chinese Embassy, Pentagon and White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Beijing, which has been rapidly building up its long-range missile and drone stockpiles, has almost certainly noticed the U.S. struggles to reopen the strait or stop Iranian attacks on Navy ships and allies throughout the region. The rerouting of ships, air defenses and troops from the Pacific to the Middle East is also a sign that the U.S. arsenal is not unlimited.
The Pentagon “is still showing strong tactical performance,” said a defense official. “But without clear policy, strategy, we’re suffering at the operational level of warfare. The question that they have to answer is whether that’s unique to the current [administration] or a broader issue in American warfare.”
American defense officials have insisted publicly that the moved assets, which include an aircraft carrier strike group and several Navy ships carrying 2,500 Marines, have not decreased U.S. readiness in the Pacific.
“I don’t see any real cost being imposed on our ability to deter China,” Adm. Samuel Paparo, who heads the military team overseeing the Pacific, told lawmakers last month.
Paparo has said that the operational and combat experience gained by the U.S. ship crews would prove invaluable, especially compared to Chinese forces that have less experience in having to defend themselves.
While Chinese forces are far more advanced than Iran, Tehran has proven especially adept at using cheap, one-way attack drones to conduct large scale attacks and overwhelm some air defenses.
The Chinese missile stockpile is likely much larger than the one Iran has on hand, so “they can treat some of their missiles in the way that Iran has treated their drones,” said Becca Wasser, a defense strategy expert who served on the congressionally appointed National Defense Strategy Commission.
“They don’t need to use drones to confuse air defense radars and overwhelm systems in quite the same way,” she said. “So there would be no real husbanding of assets, at least in the early phases of potential war with the U.S.”
Beijing has its own struggles. China has not fought a war since invading Vietnam in 1979 and is in the middle of an extensive military purge that led to two former defense ministers, Li Shangfu and Wei Fengh, sentenced to death this week. The crackdown has resulted in the dismissal of more than 100 senior military officers since 2022, according to a tally compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
But just as the U.S. has monitored Beijing’s military growth, the Chinese government has conducted detailed studies of American troops for decades. This dates back to at least Operation Desert Storm when it saw the U.S. use precision-strike weapons for the first time. China began launching its first aircraft carriers after the 2008 global financial crisis, and invested heavily in long-range missiles to keep the American military at bay.
“They know how we project power,” said a second former defense official. “They know about our dependence on tankers, on bases, how we conduct our air strikes, our non-kinetic strikes, the use of electronic warfare, the use of cyber warfare. They study all of that very closely. This is an opportunity for them to go to school on the U.S. way of war.”
And China is also likely watching how fast America burns through its high-end missiles, from Tomahawks to Patriot air defenses.
“They know that every missile being used in Iran is a missile that can’t be used to deter in the Indo-Pacific,” the former official said.
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