Trump’s war exposed the military’s growing weakness: NYT

The harsh "reality" of President Donald Trump's war with Iran has exposed "the vulnerabilities" that have been growing within the U.S. military for the whole world to see, according to a new piece from the New York Times Editorial Board.

In the piece, published Thursday morning, the board observed that, "on paper," the U.S. military going to war in Iran should have resulted in an easy victory, given the substantial mismatch at play. While that expectation was largely met during the early days of the campaign, now, things are looking much different and much more dire for the U.S.

"Iran has taken control of the Strait of Hormuz of the Strait of Hormuz, and its missiles and drones still threaten America’s allies in the region," the NYT board explained. "While President Trump seems eager for a negotiated truce, Iran’s leaders do not. Somehow, the weaker nation is in the stronger negotiating position."

The board continued: "That reality exposes the vulnerabilities in the American way of war. Tactical success has not yielded victory. Mr. Trump’s recklessness in conducting the war is one reason. But the problem is bigger than any single commander in chief. The United States has left itself unprepared for modern war."

As the piece explained, the U.S. military "has spent hundreds of billions of dollars" on building state-of-the-art hardware that is designed to be competitive against similarly well-equipped adversary superpowers. Iran, meanwhile, is relying on "cheaper, mass-produced weapons," ones that the U.S. is "ineffective" at dealing with.

The U.S. is also short on the industrial capacity it would need to produce enough weapons and munitions to wage a war, and "the country has struggled to fix these problems because of a sclerotic government and a consolidated defense industry that resists change."

"Three months before Mr. Trump attacked Iran, we warned that the United States was at risk of being overmatched in the wars of the future. The last two months have shown that alarm was justified," the board wrote. "The war in Iran, unwise as it is, should serve as a warning about the rising threats to American security and an incentive to fix them."

It later concluded: "The good news is that Congress, the administration and the Pentagon can all now see our military shortcomings. The bad news is that our adversaries can see them too. Washington can no longer just talk about reforming the military. It has to do it, or risk making the disappointments in the Iran war become a preview of far worse."