The U.S. Is on Track to Lose a War With China

""in the dead of night, in fair weather or foul, to go to dangerous places to find those who would do our nation harm, and deliver justice on behalf of the American people in close and brutal combat if necessary," Hegseth said. "In this profession," he went on, "you feel comfortable inside the violence so that our citizens can live peacefully. Lethality is our calling card, and victory our only acceptable end state.""

"This stress on bravery and lethality in hand-to-hand fighting evoked Spartan and Roman warriors who stared their enemies in the eye and killed them with spears or swords. But the U.S. military is not going to confront the Athenians or Carthaginians in its next war, and the results of that war will not be determined by individual valor. Indeed, if the United States goes to war with China, its closest competitor and greatest geopolitical challenger,"

"The course of Russia's war on Ukraine-which looks more and more like the prototype for wars of the near future-is being determined not by the valor or lethality of the average infantryman, but by the ability of Ukraine and its allies to inflict pain on the Russian economy, and to waste Russian battlefield and home-front resources through the manufacture of millions of drones, artillery shells, and long-range weapons systems."

Industrial-scale warfare in the 20th and 21st centuries is decided by production capacity, logistics, and technological advantage rather than individual battlefield valor. Bravery and close-quarters lethality are less relevant against near-peer competitors like China. Military victory depends on the ability to sustain manufacturing of munitions, drones, and long-range weapons, and to degrade an opponent's economy and logistical base. The Russia-Ukraine conflict demonstrates that sustained production and allied support of materiel can shape outcomes by imposing attritional costs on an adversary's battlefield and home-front resources, not by singular acts of infantry heroism.

Read at The Atlantic