No, Iran and China Are Not 'Winning'

For years, much of the American media has operated under a peculiar assumption: that the best way to confront adversaries such as China and Iran is to accommodate them. If the United States applies pressure, the narrative quickly becomes that America is overextended, losing leverage, or somehow empowering its enemies.

That narrative has resurfaced during President Donald Trump's confrontation with Tehran and Beijing. According to outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, both Iran and China are supposedly emerging stronger from the current conflict.

Iran's senior military leadership has been decimated. Its regional proxy network has been weakened. Its economy remains in severe distress, and its military capabilities have been heavily degraded. Yet much of the media coverage treats Iran's mere survival as evidence that it is somehow winning.

The New York Times recently argued that Iran had "succeeded in confounding U.S. and Israeli expectations for a speedy victory," suggesting that Tehran had created a kind of stalemate. But modern wars rarely end with formal surrender ceremonies or total collapse. By the standards of contemporary warfare, weakening an enemy's military leadership, degrading its economy, and limiting its regional influence would traditionally be viewed as significant strategic gains.

Instead, media coverage often defines victory so narrowly that any continued resistance by Iran becomes proof of American failure.

The Times also suggested that Iran had "maintained control" over the Strait of Hormuz. But if Iran truly controlled the Strait in any meaningful sense, it would be freely exporting its own oil and profiting from commercial traffic through the region. It is doing neither. Iran's threats against shipping lanes reflect desperation and leverage-seeking behavior, not dominance.

In fact, instability in the Strait creates problems not only for the United States and its allies but also for China, which depends heavily on imported oil flowing through the Gulf. That reality complicates the simplistic narrative that Beijing somehow benefits automatically from chaos in the Middle East.

To be sure, the Trump administration has exercised restraint in certain areas, particularly regarding direct attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure. But that restraint reflects strategic calculation, not weakness. Completely destroying Iran's energy sector could devastate the Iranian population and eliminate the economic foundation for any future moderate government.

The Post recently highlighted a reported intelligence assessment claiming that Beijing is exploiting the Iran conflict to maximize its advantage over the United States. The report pointed to Chinese weapons sales, diplomatic messaging and China's ability to study American military operations.

None of that is surprising. Great powers routinely study conflicts and attempt to exploit geopolitical openings. That does not mean they are winning.

China still faces the same structural problems it faced before the conflict began: slowing economic growth, demographic decline, mounting debt and heavy dependence on imported energy. Prolonged instability in the Middle East threatens Beijing's economy as much as Washington's.

The Post also emphasized concerns that the conflict is depleting American munitions stockpiles that could be needed in a future Taiwan contingency. That concern is legitimate. But it reflects years of inadequate defense production and military downsizing under previous administrations, not some strategic triumph by Beijing.

Critics of American foreign policy often argue that China can portray the United States as an aggressive power in decline. But China's own behavior makes that argument difficult to sustain. Beijing continues threatening Taiwan, tightening control over Hong Kong, expanding military influence across the Pacific, and pressuring neighboring countries throughout Asia.

The idea that China is positioned to win a global moral argument against the United States requires overlooking much of Beijing's conduct.

Ultimately, the broader media narrative reflects a longstanding tendency in parts of the American press to interpret nearly every assertion of U.S. power as evidence of American weakness. Military action becomes proof of overreach. Economic pressure becomes recklessness. Adversaries surviving become adversaries winning.

Whatever criticisms one may have of Trump's foreign policy, the central premise of his approach remains straightforward: American strength deters adversaries more effectively than accommodation does.

History suggests that argument deserves more serious consideration than much of the current media coverage is willing to give it.

"Watched this last night... is it AI?

https://youtu.be/z9wKNoiMym8"

USS Lincoln Combat Information Center
similar to ones seen in video:

I watched it.
Yes, assume they're all AI.
Unless you see a real person behaving and speaking normally, it's an AI imitation, in some respect.
That doesn't make it false information, and some are better than others -- some are very poorly done.
Yours was interesting but has problems that better human supervision would have corrected.

Here are some real humans (ex-military) reporting on military subjects:

Ryan McBeth (Army): https://www.youtube.com/@RyanMcBethProgramming
Cappy Army: https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisCappy
Task & Purpose (Marine): https://www.youtube.com/@Taskandpurpose
Sub Brief (Navy): https://www.youtube.com/@SubBrief
Sandbox (Air Force): https://www.youtube.com/@SandboxxApp

Can't argue with little Bennie here although I'd like to.

Attacking the media is solid ground for any so-called "conservative".

It may be un-Christian of me, but it's hard to forgive and forget.

Shapiro resigned from his position as editor-at-large of Breitbart News in March 2016 following what he characterized as the website's lack of support for reporter Michelle Fields in response to her alleged assault by Corey Lewandowski, Donald Trump's former campaign manager, in spite of video and eyewitness evidence of the assault. In his resignation statement, Shapiro stated, "Steve Bannon is a bully, and has sold out Andrew Breitbart's mission in order to back another bully, Donald Trump; he has shaped the company into Trump's personal Pravda".

I got banned from BB during this time period for being a little too pro-Trump.

Anyways Bennie has done alright for himself and I'm sure once Trump is off the stage he will in like Flynn with Never Trumper GOP establishment who have spent the Trump years in exile.

MarlonRando: "all the numbers that come from China are BS.
The iQ’s, the economy, the modernization.
Its people are too scared to tell the truth so they feed false numbers to their higher-ups."

Chinese shipyards outproduce US by orders of magnitude:

You're not wrong, but you need to be careful about overstating your case.
Researchers at the IMF, World Bank and CIA all scrutinize & adjust Chinese numbers based on their own reality-checks and they still report China's manufacturing economy is huge.
They put Chinese exaggerations in the 10% range overall, not 1/3 or 1/2, meaning: not enough to change the overall picture.

By many objective standards, China is well ahead of the US in production & manufacturing output.

Here is a table listing some key manufacturing commodities, and how China's output compares to the US today.
Sadly, the US only leads in 8 (32%) of the 25 commodities:

China vs. US Manufacturing Economies' Outputs:***

#	Commodity / Metric	China	United States	Difference	Remarks
1	Steel production (Mt)	~960	~80	~12× China	China ~50%+ of world output
2	Aluminum (Mt)	~40–43	~0.6–0.7	~60× China	One of largest industrial gaps
3	Cement (global share)	~55%+	Much smaller	Huge	Proxy for construction activity
4	Electricity generation	~2.5× US	Baseline	~2.5× China	Industrial capacity proxy
5	Renewable electricity (TWh)	~3,400	~1,070	~3× China	Includes hydro, wind, solar
6	Coal production (tons)	~4.7B	~0.5B	~9× China	Energy-intensive economy
7	Coal reserves (tons)	~150–170B	~250–270B	~1.5–2× US	US leads in resource base
8	Oil production (bpd)	~3–5M	~13–14M	~3–4× US	US global leader
9	Natural gas (m³/year)	~250B	~1.1T	~4× US	US dominates global output
10	Automobiles (units)	~30M	~8–10M	~3–4× China	China ~1/3 of global output
11	Heavy trucks (units)	~2.0M	~0.25M	~8× China	Freight/logistics indicator
12	Heavy trucks (alt est.)	~1.5M	~0.22M	~6–7× China	Confirms pattern across datasets
13	Shipbuilding	Dominant	Tiny (~0.1%)	Orders of magnitude	China builds hundreds vs US handful
14	Machine tools ($)	~$27B	~$6B	~4–5× China	Industrial meta-capability
15	Industrial robots (units)	~430k	~44k	~10× China	Automation scale
16	Computers (units)	~330M	~70M	~4–5× China	Electronics manufacturing scale
17	Commercial aircraft	~10–30	~300–350	~10–30× US	High-tech manufacturing leadership
18	Space launches (2024)	~68	~150+	~2× US	Frontier tech indicator
19	Space launches (2025)	~70	~160	~2.3× US	Strong sustained US lead
20	Locomotive production (units)	~1,900+/yr	~200 additions	~5–10× China	China dominant in new production
21	Locomotive stock	~22,470	~37,600 (NA)	US larger stock	US fleet older, China newer
22	Grain (tons)	~715M	Large (not fixed here)	China larger	China biggest total producer
23	Meat (tons)	~93M	~49M	~2× China	China largest global output
24	Beef (tons)	~8M	~12M	~1.5× US	Category where US leads
25	Goods exports ($)	~$3.3T	~$2.0T	~1.6× China	Same currency comparison

Of course, China is said to have 1.4 billion people, the US maybe 345 million, so, per capita, Americans are still better off than average Chinese.
But in terms of total units of production, China's economy outproduces the US in 68% of the categories listed, and in most of those by huge margins, not even close.

*** {data with lots of help from AI}

CCP's 3rd carrier, Fujian:

MarlonRando: "Plus since everyone is worried about war with the Chinese, it’s true that they haven’t fought a major war in a very long time."

Again, you're not wrong, but I would be careful not to exaggerate the point.

Seems to me we've famously made that mistake -- underestimating our enemy -- at least once before, in 1941 for example, and it cost us dearly at Pearl Harbor.

Yes, if your point is simply: "don't overestimate them", then I agree 100%.
China has many weaknesses -- strategic, operational, technical & otherwise -- so there's no need to quiver in fear.
But they remain a serious force and serious threat and so should not be taken lightly, ever.

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