Matt Bracken

"Operation Economic Fury" is unworkable, because China’s non-compliance law guts it. On the military side he argues Iran’s steerable ballistic missiles can now hit high-value moving targets, proven out to Jordan range, and that Tehran is deliberately firing called shots rather than seeking a mass-casualty event. Now says Iran’s missile-city and tunnel complexes plus mass-produced rockets are grinding US forces down and pushing them back, that nobody can claim the United States is winning, and that Washington is out of cards short of a nuclear weapon.

Only via the symmetry argument — Russia arming Iran mirrors the West arming Ukraine.

Israel over-extended, "a Chihuahua taking on a pitbull and a Rottweiler", and gets zero U.S. backing against Turkey. Also argues Israel effectively steers US and Saudi policy and wants a ring of wrecked neighbouring states in order to preserve its own regional dominance.

Iran’s only economically relevant partner; supplies terminal-guidance tech that threatens carriers. Argues China’s missile arsenal is far more advanced than Iran’s, so a US war with China would expose the same vulnerabilities more severely.

The U.S. is losing by the map, with forward bases pushed back to Israel/Jordan and the Navy overstretched, reflecting broader doctrinal decay: a military still fighting a 20th-C war in a 21st-C world. That gap shows concretely in "20th vs 21st-century warfare," where U.S. active/interceptor defense loses to Iran’s tunneled, dispersed doctrine. Gulf and Asian states are hedging away from Washington through the Mecca Accords, BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Says the United States brought an obsolete 20th-century power-projection force of carriers, forward jets and refuellers to a 21st-century missile war, that the force-projection paradigm has collapsed, and that terminally guided ballistic missiles are on course to make the carrier obsolete. Now, drawing the parallel to Nasser’s 1952 Egypt and Gaddafi’s Libya, expects Gulf oil monarchies including Saudi Arabia to see colonel-style coups as the oil-funded patronage system that keeps rulers in power breaks down.

Dollar weaponization is accelerating de-dollarization, with Iran already settling oil in yuan. On the energy side, the SPR is near "Deadpool," he endorses $95 to $110 oil, and he disputes official Hormuz throughput using Kepler tanker data. Holds that US economic sanctions have failed to push Iran toward the negotiating table. Now argues Saudi Arabia’s damaged East-West pipeline will stay down well past the "few weeks" some are estimating, since the specialized pumping-station hardware cannot be replaced quickly, and says the line will always be vulnerable to further Houthi strikes as long as Riyadh stays at war in Yemen.