Matthew Hoh – A Diminishing Special Providence

A plea for humility and self-awareness prior to war with Iran

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

Cross-posted from Matt’s Substack

Photo: US Airforce   Copyright: Public Domain

God has a special providence for fools, drunkards and the United States of America.

~Otto von Bismarck (attributed)

It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda tours. Sometimes it is a comfort to me to think that the aeroplane is altering the conditions of war. Perhaps when the next great war comes, we may see that sight unprecedented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him.

~George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

I have a rational fear, and I say rational to distinguish myself from the war mongers and fanatical Islamophobes who see enemies and Muslims under their beds and in their closets, that the US is vulnerable not only to defeat in overseas warfare but is exposed to attack from its adversaries here at home.

Regarding defeat in war against foreign states, I’ve spoken before about the US military’s failure and underperformance in the last few years:

• 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.

The examples above, again, are only from the last few years. We can go back farther and examine the failures of the Afghan, Iraq, Libyan and Yemeni wars, review the multitude of counterproductive and ruinous outcomes of past regime change operations, or weigh the decades-long systemic and structural weaknesses of the US military (enlistment, retention, size, procurement, etc), but I think the point is made.

The American military is overextended, limited in its resources, unable to be reliably resupplied by US industry, and commanded by incompetent generals and admirals. It is a military in grave danger of defeat over the course of a campaign and of failing to achieve US objectives. War with Iran would not just be another illegal and immoral war, but another unwinnable and stupid one as well.

All that I have said above regarding the US military needs to be juxtaposed against the strategic success of the US and Israel in separating their adversaries in the Middle East from one another in order to deter, diminish or destroy them. Conditions in the Middle East are different than a year ago and dramatically different from two years ago. This political and strategic success in the region to advance Israeli dominance doesn’t contradict my critique of the US military and my belief that it will lose a war in the future. The means utilized to defeat enemies, while solidifying support among regional allies (essentially the entire region except for the Axis of Resistance), was not US warfare in a traditional sense, but primarily the use of proxies and regional partners (Syria), sanctions and threats of more sanctions (Iraq), and the Israeli Dahiya doctrine of mass war crimes committed as a blitz (Lebanon). Where US military forces were employed, the results were defeat in the Red Sea and a hasty truce with Iran, engineered by a theatrical B-2 display, as US munitions stocks were quickly expiring.

We may not see a regime change attempt against Iran that resembles what we conventionally imagine. Last month’s kidnapping of Maduro, which provided the policy effects of regime change while leaving the Venezuelan government intact, is very instructive, and so there might be alternative efforts to achieve US and Israeli ambitions in Iran without war. Based on the regime change efforts in Iran last June and last month, sabotage, assassinations, cyber attacks and other destabilizing attacks would be likely, as well as using sectarian pressures. Last month, it seems much weight was put by the US and Israel on utilizing Kurdish separatists as belligerents to, if not achieve regime change, cause a Syria or Libya-esque civil war. Classic US: abandon an ally in one place and give them guns and pledge them our support in another. I am sure the Syrian Kurds have some advice for their cousins in Iran. As Henry Kissinger said, it’s dangerous to be America’s enemy, deadly to be its ally.

Enter Bismarck and Orwell

Long gone is the world of Otto von Bismarck, who stated: The Americans are a very lucky people. They’re bordered to the north and south by weak neighbors, and to the east and west by fish.

Those Americans in favor of these wars see themselves as immune to the consequences. So a defeat in the Persian Gulf (or the South China Sea to gaze a little farther into the future) is not reckoned to harm those who want these wars most. Previous wars haven’t touched them; if anything, those wars improved their bank accounts and gave them a bloody flag to wave on TV and social media. Yet war is changing and evolving, as warfare does, and those who celebrate and promote war should be paying attention to that, as the US, within its boundaries, is becoming increasingly more vulnerable.

This week on Judging Freedom, Judge Nap asked:

How is the average American going to be harmed if the Straits of Hormuz are closed because Donald Trump has attacked Tehran?

My response (transcript edited for clarity and correction):

Well, our gasoline prices, Judge, will go up to five or six dollars. That’ll be the immediate consequences. But there’ll be the continuing devaluation of the American dollar, the continual flight from American treasuries, a continuing pursuit of alternatives to the American monetary and financial and economic world order that will have great effects on the American people in the coming decades in terms of just a very decreased quality of life; which is really tough to say as more than 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck now.

What’s it going to be like when we don’t have the world’s reserve currency? What’s it going to be like where nations aren’t lining up around the block to buy our treasuries to fund our debt? I mean, so what’s going to happen then when our country, that doesn’t really manufacture much, except for weapons, essentially, is [unable to provide for its citizens]…and we are a massive importer. What’s going to happen to American families when inflation is a constant seven, eight, nine percent because the dollar has crashed? We can’t manufacture what people need and it costs a fortune to import [due to a devalued dollar]. So there’s these long range things, not just this immediate pending war with Iran, but the overall trajectory of American foreign policy.

But there’s also something else I want to bring up, Judge, and my friend Rich, who’s a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, he makes a very compelling argument about this, about just how vulnerable the United States within our borders is to attack. Whether it’s things that have been brushed aside, not spoken of during the war on terror, they occur, and then they disappear. I’m talking specifically about things like the attempted Times Square bombing, the Pulse nightclub massacre, just a year ago when the guy with the Islamic State flag on his truck ran over and killed, what, a dozen, 14 people in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve.

None of those attacks, and there are others, are carried out by men who are saying convert or die. What they’re saying is that you’re now getting a part of this war. What they’re saying is stop attacking my country. Stop attacking my faith. Stop attacking my people. And the inability of the American people to understand that…I think most Americans still probably don’t realize that the 9/11 attackers had three motivations for their attack: American support for Israel, the American sanctions and bombing of Iraq, and the American troop presence in Saudi Arabia. All pretty much solid motivations. You don’t have to agree with them, but they’re reasonable. And none of [those attackers] are saying convert or die.

And so my friend Rich’s point is that we live in a country that has a lot of soft targets and, particularly in this day and age where you don’t need the sleeper cells anymore that have been part of the neocon fever dreams of the last 40 years, that there’s Iranian or Hezbollah sleeper cells all over the United States. You just need a handful of like-minded folks, people who are inspired by what they see on television, people who are inspired by Iranians being massacred by American and Israeli bombs, to pick up a rifle and start doing some damage.

And Rich’s point is specifically about our electrical infrastructure. A couple of years ago, we had a couple of guys shoot up a power station in North Carolina. They never caught these guys. And it caused great trouble for that part of North Carolina for a pretty long time several days. And so imagine what if just a handful of people around the countryside grab rifles and go out and start shooting up our electrical substations? How could that cripple the United States for days, for weeks, cause long-term problems, and cause real problems for Americans here at home? I mean, just one example of how we’re vulnerable.

And I’m reminded, Judge, that George Orwell, writing about the Spanish Civil War, and the Spanish Civil War, for folks who aren’t too familiar with it, that was the first real concentrated use of aircraft to attack civilians, to attack targets behind the front lines. And Orwell wrote, after being on the front line himself: I’m comforted by the evolution, by the introduction of airplanes into warfare, because it brings the war behind the front lines. And I think his comment was, it’d be great to see some jingoists with bullet holes in them.

This idea of those who support the wars the most, they’re usually the furthest from the front lines and they’re usually facing no threat whatsoever. I think that’s something to keep in mind as we go forward here [with this potential war with Iran], that whether it’s a [Senator] Blumenthal or Graham, or McConnell or Fetterman, these are men and women in Washington, D.C. who, by and large, are immune from the harm that they’re causing with their policies overseas.

The airplanes Orwell referenced that could put bullet-holes into jingos have evolved into drones. Drones, one part of this latest generation of war, have irreversibly changed warfare, just as the airplane itself did. The prospects are dystopic. This scene from 2019’s Angel Has Fallen is no longer speculative:

Five years ago, I critiqued a Chris Pratt action film set 30 years in the future as failing to incorporate drones adequately. If that film were set in the present day, it would be just as inaccurate. It is not just that drones have turned the frontlines of the Ukraine-Russia war into no man’s lands where units larger than 3 or 4 men can’t operate, but their presence far beyond the frontlines that is this century’s revolution in military affairs. The Ukrainians last year launched drones from the back of a truck far from the frontlines in Russia. We have trucks and drones here. The same AI programs that enable Israeli drones and warplanes to kill Palestinian resistance fighters when they are present with their children can be duplicated or designed. What would keep that, or anything else adversaries can imagine, from happening here? Adversaries being either foreign or domestic.

Immediate (and long-term) economic shock, men with rifles shooting up power stations or nightclubs, and drones assassinating politicians and media figures are just a few possibilities of war with Iran that I don’t believe the American people understand. As much as the thought of some modern-day American jingos ending up with bullet-holes in them pleases me, I don’t think the risk to innocent Americans is worth that form of justice. Certainly, the great harm that will come to the Iranian people, and people throughout the region, isn’t worth any of this.

So far, whether it be luck or Providence, and Bismarck offers both, the United States, except veterans and their families, has largely avoided the harsh and cruel reality of the wars it wages overseas. Those twin guardians of the United States, luck and Providence, are diminishing. Luck, because its nature is to run out, and Providence, because we do not deserve such a blessing. History applies to us all, we are no exception, and in this age, the once-great fortress walls of the Atlantic and Pacific can no longer defend us. However, more than the technologies that enable an adversary to disregard thousands of miles of ocean, it will be our government’s actions that are to blame for future wars brought to the American people on their own soil. Iran has not come across the world to fight us; we are the aggressor. If war with Iran comes, what comes of it is of our making, whether it be defeat abroad or loss at home.

One last quote, from Abraham Lincoln (emphasis mine):

Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.

BRAVE NEW EUROPE is one of the very few Resistance Media in Europe. We publish expert analyses and reports by some of the leading thinkers from across the world who you will not find in state and corporate mainstream media. Support us in our work

To donate please go HERE