Matthew Hoh – A Diminishing Special Providence

Matthew Hoh is the Associate Director of the Eisenhower Media Network. A former Marine and State Department official who resigned in protest over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

The US Navy had to retreat from the Red Sea not once but twice against Yemen’s Houthis. Both Biden and Trump administration officials, civilian and military, seemed to delight at the prospects of the naval campaign, invoking WWII-style battles and promising Houthi capitulation. In 2024 and again in 2025, the campaigns ended in face-saving “truces”, but the results were clear: Houthi control of the Red Sea.
US industry can’t produce munitions to keep up with wars in the Middle East and Europe, a weakness going back to the US air campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria a decade ago, and one of the chief reasons for Donald Trump’s intervention in last year’s 12 day war between Israel and Iran (both the Israelis and Americans were running out of missiles to intercept Iranian missiles and drones). The inability of the US weapons industry, along with European weapons companies, to meet the needs of Ukraine is made all the more alarming as the Russians, despite the largest sanctions regime in history, not only are satisfying their armament needs, in the largest conventional war since WWII, but exporting weapons for considerable profit.
The US Navy is unable to keep enough of its 11 aircraft carrier battle groups at sea to allow President Trump to threaten both Venezuela and Iran at the same time; note the belated entry into to the Persian Gulf theater of the Abraham Lincoln battle group. The Navy-Marine Corps amphibious ready group (ARG) that would normally be in the Mediterranean, and able to transit to the Arabian Sea to support operations against Iran, is in the Caribbean. An ARG is necessary, for many things such as providing search and rescue for downed pilots, the seizure of vessels or oil platforms, serving as a floating base for commando missions, like the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro, reinforcing ground units, or evacuating American citizens from the region. Traditionally, there is an ARG on station in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf/Arabian Sea, but that ARG seems to have only left the US west coast recently. With 175,000 Marines, nearly 300 ships and a trillion-dollar budget, you’d think the American war machine would be able to have 3 ships with 2,000 Marines and some helicopters anywhere in the world it wants, let alone the Middle East, but it can’t.

It’s very possible that the US-Israeli regime change operation that blended into and then hijacked organic and legitimate Iranian protests last month was unable to be realized due to the lack of American naval forces in the area.
IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir stated last week, after meeting with US generals in Washington, DC, that the US would carry out military strikes against Iran in 2 weeks to 2 months. That time frame may coincide with weather conditions in the region (recall both Iraq War I and II began late winter/early spring, and despite technological advancements from 35 and 23 years ago, weather does still matter) and the desire of the Trump administration to go through with at least a few rounds of negotiations with the Iranians, but it is likely the timeframe primarily has to do with getting US forces in position in the region.
Just as Donald Trump, a year ago at his first press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu, asserted the US would take over the Gaza Strip…and will own it, which is being realized through Trump’s Board of Peace, Trump also made a firm commitment regarding Iran. At that meeting last February, I believe Trump and Netanyahu agreed to carry out regime change in Iran. A year’s worth of planning, preparations and operations went into aligning regional conditions and Iranian domestic unrest. This included:

Last June’s 12-day war against Iran, itself a regime change attempt;
further weakening and fracturing Lebanon with over 1,000 Israeli airstrikes, IDF occupation of parts of Southern Lebanon – essentially cleansing parts of Southern Lebanon of its population, and American political pressure meant to increase division within Lebanon;
supporting Syria’s reformist al-Qaeda government in its consolidation of power, not the least, by the US abandoning its Kurdish allies once again (at the same time that Damascus consolidates power, Israel carries out continual bombings, occupation of parts of southern Syria and incites sectarian violence to bolster Israel’s regional dominance
pressuring the Iraqis to clamp down on and control the mostly Shia Popular Mobilization Units as well as manipulate Iraq-Iran relations, particularly through the American control of Iraqi oil revenue, which accounts for 90% of Iraq’s budget;
getting the Europeans to re-introduce the draconian snap-back sanctions on Iran last fall, which were critical to ensure the economic conditions needed to get Iranians on the streets in protest;
and resolving the Gaza genocide with a victory for zionism, billionaire real estate developers and genocidal settlers.

It’s quite possible that as everything aligned for an attempt at regime change last month, the Trump-Netanyahu plan for Iran was not fully realized because the US naval forces, including those needed to defend Israel from Iranian missiles and drones, were 7,000 miles away in the Caribbean.

The Air Force has its own manpower and maintenance problems, and its ability to surge additional squadrons to the Middle East is further constrained by commitments worldwide. In 2024 (latest data available), 2 out of 5 Air Force planes were unavailable due to maintenance. That’s almost 2,000 aircraft, which I guess is ok because the Air Force is also about 2,000 pilots short. We should note before going further that the US Air Force hasn’t faced an opponent capable of inflicting significant losses or contesting control of the sky since the Vietnam War. This century, only one Air Force plane has been shot down by enemy forces, an A-10 in Iraq in 2003 (a second plane, an F-15E that crashed in Iraq in 2003, was not confirmed to have been shot down).

The above 2 out of 5 number reflects what are called Mission Capable rates, meaning the plane can do at least one of the tasks it is assigned to do. For example, if the lights on your car don’t work, it would still be considered mission capable because you could drive it during the day, just not at night. So, a fighter plane that can’t fire its weapons would still be considered mission capable. The full mission capable (FMC) rate is more important, as it tells us how many planes can actually do the job taxpayers paid for them to do. The Air Force’s F-35A, which costs well more than $100 million each, has an FMC of 36%. That means barely 1 out of 3 Air Force F-35s are available to carry out any assigned mission. Somehow, though, an FMC of 36% is better than most of the rest of the Air Force’s other fighters and bombers. Support aircraft, limited in number and incredibly vital to any operation, are just as unreliable.

As this 2024 Air Force report notes, 61% of KC-46 aerial refueling tankers deemed mission capable include those with broken booms that cannot refuel other aircraft. When those tankers that can’t refuel other airplanes are removed, the mission capable rate falls to 37%. A refueling tanker literally has one mission: refuel other planes. Yet, when a tanker can’t do that, the Air Force still says it is mission capable. Going back to the analogy of your car, according to the Air Force, your car is still mission capable even if it is missing all four wheels because you can still listen to the radio. I am going at length here with regards to Air Force maintenance rates to not simply demonstrate why taxpayers should be outraged, but to ask: Do you think an Air Force that understands itself through such mendacity is going to perform well in a war against an actual opponent? As detailed last year in The New York Times, Russian generals defeated American generals operationally in the Ukraine war. While the last two years of the Ukraine-Russia war have been more or less an attritional slug fest dominated by drones and small units along the frontlines, the first two years saw attempts by both sides at some form of more traditional combined arms, large unit warfare, including the catastrophic 2003 summer offensive by the Ukrainians. The men commanding the big arrow movements of the Ukrainian forces were American generals in Germany. This may not have been a surprise to those of us who understood this war as a US proxy war, but the disturbing thing is not the continued refusal by many Western military commentators and analysts to accept this definition of the war as a proxy war, but to acknowledge this operational defeat of US generals by Russian generals. Have no doubt, the result would have been the same if the men dying under American generals were from Colorado Springs, El Paso or San Diego rather than Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih or Lviv.
Even the successful campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, this century’s greatest example of blowback, did not come under the command of American generals but was the result of coalition efforts in both Syria and Iraq, with Russian and Iranian generals commanding the bulk of the ground forces and overall campaigns. The Americans certainly played a critical role in both Syria and Iraq, especially with air support and logistics, but you can say the same for the Russians in Syria. The Iranian leadership role, especially in Iraq, was paramount. So, the one successful American military campaign of this century that realized its objectives, which is all that ever matters in the end, was a victory in which American generals had, in Syria, a shared role with Russian, Iranian, Syrian and Kurdish commanders, while in Iraq, American generals were effectively subordinate to Iranian generals.

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2026-02-06 | Geopolitics, National Politics, Article | English |