Blow up their oil refineries.
Let me ask this question to the group: when people complain about diversity hires and other unqualified promotions granted for political purposes, isn't there an implicit assumption that those corrosive policies will eventually lead to reduced fighting effectiveness? Or, is there some kind of disconnect between beltway politics and real, operational capabilities? If that is the case, then why complain; who gives a sh!t if it's just theater with no actual impact on forward troops? However, if there is a real world impact that will eventually lead to actual effectiveness, when does the so-called "eventually" actually occur? Somewhere in the far, distant future, long mast all the armchair warriors complaining in the halls of nursing homes, or perhaps sometimes sooner; in fact, like TODAY.
Secondly, anyone take a look around a notice who the top academic students are? In fact, they so dominate GPA and board test scores that discriminatory policies have been established to reduce their representation. Thirdly, anyone remember that DiFi's driver for 20 fVckin' years was a Chinese spy? Lastly, both the Germans & Japanese thought their codes and security measures were secure. N Africa, N Atlantic and Midway were the defeats they suffered for such erroneous assumptions.
So, let throw this out there: what if the moment where we couldn't back up what we thought we could deliver was suddenly discover to be flawed? What if the Chinese - either through independent (hah!) means and/or stolen technology, had our number? What if the Iranians were able to light up & ID our forces when we geared up for the attack?
Don't be so certain and dismiss such a proposition. If you believe degraded capabilities would eventually occur, when then would that exact time occur? And if the time is now, wouldn't it be best to come up with a good excuse to halt the exercise under some plausible story? Let me provide some insight here: if we find out that a commander has been put on leave, that a combat readiness assessment is being conducted, and/if other shake-ups occur up/down the line, what would be your conclusion?
Because the very last thing the USA can afford is losing face in a failed confrontation, and being exposed as a shell of what it still attempts to parade. Demographics, culture and institutions are what make countries, not the name/geographic location, nor some cargo cult of future "citizens" pretending they are the true inheritors of a once great country.