Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the USA is losing
A brief recap of his lengthy op-ed in the New York Times.
Pahlavists believe the USA can’t lose. They believe we’re winning this war against Iran and anything that inclines you to believe otherwise is “regime propaganda.” If you need to counter this narrative look no place other than our own Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense that immediately preceded Hegseth who just published this op-ed in the New York Times.
These are direct quotes reproduced in series. They’re only removed from the op-ed for clarity. People need to see that this is exactly what the regime itself is telling the American public in the Iranian Lego propaganda which lambastes and humiliates the American military while conveying our obvious weaknesses.
First, we urgently need a more affordable, more comprehensive approach to countering the drone threat. [...] We need a truly layered defense, one that begins with disrupting drone supply chains and factories, and then uses electronic warfare to stymie drones from afar, deploys interceptor drones and other solutions to defeat drones at a lower cost and reserves pricey advanced missiles for the threats that truly demand them. We must also change how we design, supply and position our forces, including dispersing them more widely and fortifying our bases and infrastructure — both at home and abroad. [...] We also need wider and deeper stockpiles of munitions and the industrial capacity to rapidly replenish them under pressure. [...] We must think seriously about how to deepen our strategic resilience and keep the global economy functioning when an adversary’s strategy hinges on disrupting it. [...] Making the institutional changes to learn these lessons will be hard — but as the Iran war has already demonstrated, doing so is not optional.
That last line is pretty blunt, and it’s what matters. Austin is saying institutional changes are not optional.” Wake up. That’s how big brass is trained to say “what we’re doing isn’t working and we’re losing.”