I think they're missing the point on strategy, but everyone has an opinion. I'm also not convinced the world knows everything about our stockpiles of weapons.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/What-Beijing-Is-Learning-From-Operation-Epic-Fury.html
Some excerpts from the article:
Operation Epic Fury, launched Feb. 28, has given China’s military planners an unprecedented real-time window into how the United States wages high-end warfare, according to Mick Ryan, a retired Australian major general and senior fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. “The US military is still a very powerful organization,” Ryan told RFE/RL this week. “It can deploy overwhelming force and conduct sustained precision operations, at least from the air and from the sea.”
That part is not reassuring to Beijing. But the fuller picture is more complicated, and potentially more useful to Chinese planners.
Ryan says the Trump administration has demonstrated a critical limitation alongside its firepower: it can manage one major war at a time, and it has stripped out much of the institutional decision-making architecture that would normally govern a conflict of this scale. “These decisions look to be being made much more on impulse,” Ryan said, pointing to what he described as shifting and inconsistent strategic objectives since the campaign began.
For Xi Jinping and the People’s Liberation Army, that combination — overwhelming capability paired with constrained strategic bandwidth — is worth studying carefully. If Beijing has a clearer strategy than Washington does, Ryan argues, that gap matters as much as any hardware comparison. “Strategy is even more important than battlefield performance,” he said. “Having the right strategic assumptions and the right strategic decision mechanisms for executing that strategy is something the Chinese might think that they’re better at than the United States at the moment.”
The strategic implications extend well beyond tactics. China receives roughly a third of its crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz. The closure has forced Beijing to scramble for Russian and alternative supplies even as it publicly opposes the war and calls for de-escalation. Iran, notably, granted Chinese-flagged vessels passage through the strait on March 26, a gesture that underscored the careful line Beijing is walking: rhetorical opposition to Washington, functional diplomacy with Tehran, and eyes fixed on the Taiwan question.
One of the more alarming data points for Western defense planners is the pace of US missile interceptor depletion. American and allied forces have expended an estimated 2,000 interceptors in the campaign so far, and production rates are nowhere near sufficient to replenish them quickly.
Ryan is more cautious about the immediacy of that threat. Trump’s unpredictability, while analytically frustrating for Beijing, is also a genuine deterrent. Unlike any of his predecessors, Trump cannot be reliably war-gamed. “The Chinese can’t really war game what his reaction to any kind of event might be because he just really is all over the place,” Ryan said. That uncertainty, he argues, probably induces caution in Xi.
Bottom line: everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
While true, the very nature of war requires adaptive behavior once punched. Trump does more than adapt, he punches back even harder.
Underestimate the US at your peril.
If these are the kind of lessons that the Chinese are learning, then they are fools. We didn’t even use our cool toys and we didn’t want to hit the infrastructure too hard so the new Iran could recover fairly quickly.
After a few days, China would be saying to themselves: Maybe this was a very bad idea.
One hint: China’s strength is also their weakness. And we can always remove the prize.
I think there's a lot of speculation and propaganda in the article. Which is why I worded the title with commentators.
Adaptation on the fly is not something that the Chinese do well. The PLA has a rigid centralized top down command structure, unlike the US where lower commanders are given the authority to make necessary decisions when the situation dictates due to changes - which in war is a given. In addition, there is more collaboration that takes place in the US military versus the PLA that simply obeys orders, unquestioned or challenged in any way. In the PLA command structure, no one acts unless permission to do so has percolated down through the entire command chain from on high - even if the battlefield situation changes. Their command structure is so layered that quick adaptations on the battlefield are nearly impossible. Independent thought is not allowed and can even get a soldier in trouble. Loyalty over competence.
Much of the US's military doctrine, equipment, and structure, has been built on years of real wartime experience and the lessons learned there. The Chinese do not bring to the table the wealth of experience won through trial and error and combat experience. You can steal the blueprints, but you can't steal the experience and the lessons learned through development over the years built on intimate knowledge. That cannot be leapfrogged.
With the Communist Chinese it's all about central planning. The Chinese must have a predictable plan. Trump has completely upended the Chinese's war and political strategies because they don't know what he will do next. As soon as they think they can anticipate Trump, he throws them a curve ball and turns their well calculated actions and responses upside down and inside out, often leaving them completely flat footed. With previous presidents, the CCP figured them out and would play them accordingly to their own advantage because they were predictable. Trump is not, and he refuses to play by Beijing's rules of anticipated predictability. The CCP misses Biden and his administration.
The Chinese have been forced to game plan several different scenarios regarding Trump, and even then Trump may do something that they didn't expect and plan for. Many advisors in the CCP have been purged for misleading Xi about Trump. Remember, with the Chinese, it is all about "face." When poor advice causes Xi to lose face on the public stage, that is unforgivable.
What has been made most evident since Trump took office, is the poor performance of Chinese weapons under combat conditions. Real battlefield results have shown that Chinese weapons don't live up to the propaganda hype. Pakistan, Venezuela, Iran in June 2025, and then again starting the end of Feb this year, there have been multiple equipment failures across many theaters of operation. There have been others, but those failures were not as high profile as the ones I listed. The CCP simply dismissed the complaints blaming them on operator failure and misuse - never the weapons themselves - the standard CCP gaslighting line. They were not able to use those excuses given the extent and high visibility of the latest debacles.
There is a glaring reason why Chinese weapons perform so poorly under combat conditions. Rampant corruption is systemic throughout the government, educational institutions, and the industrial sector - both private and the military. From concept to finished product, the entire military industrial supply chain is full of corruption at every level. Documents are forged, materials switched and downgraded, and shortcuts are taken. Everyone in the chain gets a cut of procurement money. By the time it gets down to the product itself, there is very little money left to actually fabricate whatever the contract originally was allocated for. Because of the tofu-dreg weapons this system of corruption produces, the testing is often faked or results are grossly manipulated. Chinese soldiers don't even trust their own weapons.
The Chinese weapons industry has taken a huge hit with this latest round of systems failures in Iran. Xi has lost major face on the global stage. His great Chinese rejuvenation image and the East is rising and the West is declining propaganda narrative has been all but shattered. His military modernization dream has turned into a nightmare. Many within the military industrial sector have been purged, disappeared, died suddenly, jailed, or have been executed. Xi has called for audits throughout the entire arms procurement and supply chain going back decades. This has taken place right when Xi has been purging out the entire military command structure under the guise of rooting out corruption, which was a cover for removing his political rivals because Xi is terrified of a coup. Xi is living with pathological paranoia. There is an enemy under every rock - no one is safe.
China's military command is weakened, their weapons may or may not function, the troops are demoralized, the economy is tanking, BRI is crumbling, the people are desperate, there are fractures within the government itself, they are loosing allies, and China's image in the eyes of the world have been somewhat diminished. Add to all that, Donald Trump!
All good points. As far as Trump's strategy is concerned, I see it as very strategic. It's like moves on a chess board - most leaders push their pawns forward and maybe sacrifice a bishop or a rook while protecting the rear guard. Meanwhile Trump's random moves are carefully setting up the board for a decisive end to the game.
Very much so. What seems to others as random chaotic acts by Trump, are well calculated strategic moves. He understands his opponents better than most. The unexpected can and does happen - like the IRGC's recalcitrance, all with a little help from the the CCP and the Russians. But Trump adapts quickly and countermoves. That is the way war is. In addition, Trump has some of the best American military minds on his team unleashed to do what they do best when they are allowed to execute.
Notice that Iranian cities don't have nearly the # of tall skyscraper apartments and other buildings as Chinese cities have?
If Iranian cities are without power, people can still live somewhat normally. If Chinese cities are out of power, people cant walk up & down 50 flights of stairs. No water or sewage becomes a huge issue in a high rise. No ventilation is a big problem. Knock out power to china's largest cities... and they quickly become unlivable.
While reading this in the back of my mind I hear the one about keeping us fighting each other while the real enemy lurks and sneaks out the back...
u/#pepedetective
They did have to go to Australia to find a credible expert