Nancy Youssef analyzes the Iran war's strategic ambiguity, noting undefined end states despite claims of hitting 11,000 targets. She highlights a critical munitions shortage where $30,000 Iranian drones force allies to ration million-dollar Patriots, while questioning if regime change is feasible given the IRGC's intact core principles. Youssef argues Iran pursues asymmetric survival tactics threatening the Strait of Hormuz, complicating U.S. readiness for China or Russia due to diverted Ukraine aid and tightened Pentagon press rules that obscure the conflict's true scope. [Automatically generated summary]
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And we've got Nancy Youssef, who is a staff writer with The Atlantic, to talk about the latest in the Iran war.
Nancy, welcome to the program.
Great to be with you.
So, your initial assessment of what you just heard at that press conference?
So, we got a couple new details.
What I heard the chairman in particular say is that the U.S. has military objectives that are defined as making sure that Iran can't pose a threat to its neighbors and region.
That the way the U.S. wants to do that is by reducing their ballistic missile and drone capability, namely.
He talked about labs for the nuclear program, but he didn't say, the chairman didn't say nuclear weapons specifically.
He mentioned 11,000 targets that had been hit, but what they didn't define is what that state looks like, how many strikes have to happen for Iran to no longer pose a threat, and does that mean that they have to hit 100 percent of their capability, 90 percent of their capability, 11,000 out of how many targets, for example, and Does removing those capabilities then allow for the U.S. and its partners to find ways to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, for example?
Does it make it- They didn't talk about the Strait at all, which is strange.
That's right.
And between that and the president's social media post this morning saying that it's on Europe to reopen it, it seemed to suggest that they believe that once the Iranians are weaker militarily, that it'll be harder for them to close the Strait, and therefore Europe can come in afterwards and sort of negotiate the.
The ways to reopen the strait.
They also didn't talk about proxies.
Is it such that the U.S. wants to make sure that the Iranians cannot provide capabilities to its proxies?
And so we heard a sort of smattering of details about what the U.S. has been able to do militarily, a broad definition of military success.
What we didn't hear is what that end state looks like.
What is an acceptable outcome for the United States and Israel?
He talked a lot about the defense industrial base, both in Iran and in the United States.
You wrote an article, and the title is this The One Variable That Could Decide the War.
What is that?
Munitions.
The Iranians right now are using drones primarily along with ballistic missiles.
Each of their drones are called Shahid drones, cost about $30,000.
The defenses that we're using, the missiles we're using to shoot them down, cost somewhere between one and five million each.
And oftentimes they're launching more than one.
And there's a limited supply of them, not only for the United States, but for its Gulf partners that the Iranians are also targeting.
And so there's real concern that between the limited supply, The munitions that have already been provided to the Ukrainians and the time it takes to restock U.S. supplies of those, that there is a battle of munitions, that there could come a point where the U.S. is having to,
and Israel and its Gulf partners are having to make decisions about what to shoot down and what not because of that cost difference between what the Iranians can produce quickly and at a relative cheap price and how long and expensive the U.S. and allied defense is.
So let's drill down a little bit on that.
On the U.S. side, How long does it take to make one of these missiles, like the Patriot missile and the system that goes around it?
Several years in some cases.
And it's not only that the U.S. needs it and its Gulf partners need it, but there are a number of countries who have sought to.
Purchase it as well.
So there's already a backlog and high demand for it.
If you talk to U.S. commanders, they'll say we don't have enough Patriots and THAADS, which is the other defense system.
And so there's a very high demand, and each system can take several years to produce, and they're very costly.
And so for the Iranians on the other side, it can take just a matter of days or weeks to produce some of those drone capabilities that they're using.
And they've been able to watch in the war with Russia and Ukraine.
The use of those drones as a way to combat more advanced systems.
So, Iran actually can just keep making them since they're easy to make and they're made quickly and maybe outpace the U.S.'s ability to make those defensive weapons.
That's right.
And so, that's why you heard General Kane saying that they're focused on the supply chain because the best way they can combat it is to go after the factories or the places in which they build them.
The challenge becomes how much do they have now and how is that enough supply to keep them in the war days?
We haven't gotten any fidelity on that from the United States military.
Well, the president spoke on Sunday about on Air Force One about regime change in Iran.
So I want to ask you about that, but we'll play it first and then get your reaction.
And we will probably, I think we'll make a deal with them, pretty sure, whether it's possible or we won't.
But we've had regime change, if you look already, because the one regime was decimated, destroyed.
They're all dead.
The next regime is mostly dead.
And the third regime, we're dealing with different people than anybody's dealt with before.
It's a whole different group of people.
So I would consider that regime change.
And frankly, they've been very reasonable.
So I think we've had regime change.
I mean, you can't do much better than that.
The regime that was really bad, really evil, was the first one.
That was done.
The second was appointed.
And they're gone.
They're all dead.
Other than one who may have a little life.
And then they're really in the third group.
And the third group of people that seem to be much more reasonable, it truly is regime change.
He said regime change several times.
The challenge is yes, there are different people in charge than there were a month ago, and we've seen several iterations of people in charge of defense, intel, and of course the Ayatollah himself.
But it's the same regime in that you still have the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, you still have A government that has core values that the United States said that it was seeking to combat at the start of this war.
This is not a government that is going to be ready to negotiate in the ways that I think the United States was hoping when it started the war.
This is not a fundamental change in principles in terms of governance within Iran.
And I think we're seeing that in terms of how the war is playing out.
You are not hearing a regime come forward and say, we are interested in negotiations, we are open to the president's optimism about talks.
We are hearing government elements say, We are not interested in talks.
We don't trust this United States government because when we negotiated with them in the past, they conducted strikes against us twice, June and then again last month.
We are not hearing a change in tone from the government or a hardening or lessening of their positions in terms of what they're seeking to achieve in this war.
Both the United States and Iran are still sort of holding on to some would argue maximalist aims that they're trying to achieve in this war.
The United States wants.
To eliminate Iran's military capability.
The Iranians are seeking payment for the damage that has been caused, potential control of the Strait of Hormuz going forward.
And the promise that the United States will not strike again.
So while the people have changed, we have not seen evidence that the core principles that have governed Iran have changed.
And Nancy Youssef is our guest from the Atlantic.
If you've got a question about Iran, you can start giving us a call now.
Democrats are on 202 748 8000, Republicans 202 748 8001, and Independents 202 748 8002.
Nancy, how does Iran define winning this war?
It's a great question because They are fighting what I would describe as an asymmetric war.
As we've discussed, they don't have the military capabilities that the United States and Israel are bringing to this fight.
They don't have the sort of advanced systems, the kinds of technology.
What they are using are cheaper weapons along with ballistic missiles, and they are seeking to survive the attacks, to keep the country intact.
In many ways, they are fighting for the next day so that they are able to sustain and endure the campaign by the United States and Israel.
Longer than Israel and the United States are willing to conduct it.
And they're seeking to make the cost of this war higher and higher for the United States and Israel, both practically speaking in terms of the attacks that they're conducting on Israel, on U.S. allies and partners in the region, but also by closing the straits and saying there's an economic cost to global energy markets by attacking us.
And so I think the Iranian mission is one, to survive, and two, to send a message that it is too costly.
For the U.S. and Israel to conduct future strikes on us again anytime soon.
So, what do you make of their attack on that Kuwaiti oil tanker?
It was fully loaded.
It was like a million barrels that's on fire right now in the port of Dubai.
What they are trying to say is that we have control over the world's energy markets, that while countries may try to go around us or try to find alternative ways to distribute oil and through the world market, that we maintain an ability to cause Pain to the economic market.
And I think they're also trying to put pressure on Kuwait, which is a U.S. ally, to say to the United States, this war is costing us too much in terms of security and our economy for you to sustain it.
Can we please find an off ramp?
We talk about the Gulf and how some Gulf partners want to see the United States keep fighting because they believe that if an Iranian government stays in place, that that poses a long term risk to their security and to the neighborhood security.
But not all Gulf partners look at this war in a monolithic way.
Some are worried about the economic cost to them.
Risks to their infrastructure, risks to their security.
And so I think what Iran is trying to do is find breaking points where they can create more pressure, more costs to the United States and Israel for conducting this war over time.
So President Trump posted on Truth Social that if there is no deal made with Iran, that the U.S. would obliterate, that's his word, their energy infrastructure, their desalination plants.
What do you make of that as far as will that be enough to get Iran to make concessions?
Well, you raise a great point because, on one hand, we hear the United States say that it wants to reach a deal, but we also hear increased threats.
And on the Iranian side, while the president says we're closer to negotiations, we've actually seen an escalation in the targeting of Israel and Gulf partners.
And so I think this is a reflection of the president's negotiation style, where he is trying to sort of say to allies and partners to put out a threat, to come up with means to incentivize them to come to the negotiating table.
I think the challenge is the one that we spoke about earlier.
Iran is seeking not just to stop the war, but to make the war so painful that Israel and the Gulf states don't consider coming back at them in a few months or a few years from now.
You'll remember that.
The U.S. conducted along with Israel strikes in June and then, of course, these strikes.
And I think Iran is looking to set the conditions such that there is less incentive to come back at this so that they can use potential revenue that they get from the Strait of Hormuz to reconstitute themselves.
And so they are both trying to defend themselves and keep the regime in place, but also to make the war as costly as possible.
So I'm not sure if those threats, in and of themselves, The Iranians already see this as a fight for their survival.
And then I would also say targeting civilian strikes, infrastructure is not allowed.
If something is used for the purpose of war, it can be targeted.
But infrastructure that is targeting civilians is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
And so it's interesting to me that he's mentioning desalination plants because there's not a clear tie between those and the conduct of the war.
To your point about benefiting off the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. did lift sanctions on Iranian oil that was already out.
I guess the estimates are $14 billion that the Iranians could gain from that.
Is that substantial?
Is that something that could help them prosecute the war?
So, in one way, yes, but not immediate, right?
Because it takes time for the sort of economic benefits to weave its way into the Iranian system.
It does help in that it Two ways, I would argue.
One, Iran is suffering economically.
The Iranian people are suffering economically.
And I think one thing the Iranians want to be able to come back and say to the people after this war ends is they have reaped some sort of economic benefit, that the Iranian people have gained something for all the suffering that they've endured throughout these strikes.
So there's that.
But also, I think what the United States may be signaling to the Iranians is that the closing of the strait is causing us pain, that we are experiencing it.
And so it opens.
An opportunity, one would argue, for Iran to see this as a point of leverage that they can use in future negotiations because we are saying we are feeling the pain so much so that we are willing to lift sanctions, which was one of the conditions that the Iranians had sought before the start of the war.
Let's talk to callers.
We'll start on the Republican line in Laurel, Maryland.
Damien, good morning.
You're on with Nancy Youssef.
Good morning.
Thank you.
There's a YouTuber named Ryan Macbeth.
I think he's a CIA.
ICIA analyst, but he posted a lot on YouTube.
And he pointed out a mistake we made in the beginning where we parked all our airplanes on one tarmac and then Iran hit it and they blew up one of our seeing eyes in the sky plane.
And they're pretty expensive.
And he noted that, hey, we got to learn from Ukraine because Ukraine did the same thing to Russia when Russia planted all their planes on the tarmac.
So that's one big thing we did.
So I hope they learn from that.
And the other thing is, have you heard anything about resistance? groups rising up in Iran.
Missing War Plans00:13:27
I've seen YouTube videos where they're just picking off guards one by one, but I haven't heard of a leader or anybody resistance.
Thank you.
Hi, Damien.
Thank you for your great question.
So on the start of the war, we did see a huge influx of U.S. aircraft across the region.
So many so that they reached a point where it was hard to find places to park them because I think what the United States was trying to do was strike with overwhelming force.
And we saw the Ayatollah killed shortly afterwards, such that you would see a rise up of the Iranian people and a potential quick end to the war.
That, of course, didn't happen.
But I think when you go into these conflicts, I think what you're getting at is for all the planning you do and all the Thought processes you bring to it, wars become unpredictable the minute they start.
And so while I think the U.S. had that calculation, they were willing to do so knowing that it could put its aircraft at risk.
Now, relatively, the United States has not suffered tremendous costs to its infrastructure in terms of its planes.
Where we've seen the real damage happen is at bases across the region, particularly in Bahrain.
But there have been a loss of several aircraft, of course, the three fighter jets in Kuwait.
The KC 135 over Iraq and the fighter jet hit in Saudi Arabia.
That's what we know of.
But I think relatively, the United States hasn't lost a large number of aircraft because of keeping them at those bases.
And to your question about defections, it's interesting.
Secretary Hegseth today, for the first time, mentioned defections within the Iranian military.
This is the first time we've heard him talk about a real consequential effect in terms of personnel leaving.
And that becomes important because.
If that is happening, that is a key metric in terms of whether the regime can survive.
Because if you start to see mass defections in their key components like the military, it makes it much harder for the Iranian government to stay in place.
But what we haven't seen is a rise of people.
What we've heard instead is that the Iranian regime is working very hard to make sure that people don't feel safe to come out, that there are checkpoints throughout the country.
And of course, people are in the middle of facing strikes, so it's harder for them to come out.
There also isn't an organized opposition leader within the country because, in part, the Iranian government has worked very hard to make sure that those kinds of elements don't exist within the regime.
Al in Harrison, New Jersey, Democrat, you're on the air.
Good morning.
I'm a Democrat from New Jersey.
My question, though, is one of the major reasons that the president has explained that we've entered into this conflict, this war, is to neutralize.
Iran's nuclear capabilities.
That was done, I thought.
The president pounded his chest back in July and categorically announced that the strikes that were inflicted on Iran in July were obliterated, was his word.
That's one of his favorite words now.
That their capabilities were obliterated.
So now, one of the justifications for the current war is that we need to obliterate.
Iran's nuclear capacity.
How can we trust his word when he said eight months ago that the mission was accomplished, the nuclear capacity was obliterated, but now he's justifying, and I think in our national interest that's an important justification, that he's justifying the war, that he has to obliterate Iran's nuclear capacity?
I thought that was done already.
So how does the American public trust?
Whatever comes from the administration now about that particular issue.
Thank you.
Thank you, Alan.
Thank you for your question.
You're right.
Last June, he used the word obliterate to describe Iran's nuclear program.
But the intelligence community came out shortly afterwards and said that it had been damaged, but far short of obliterated.
And I think what we saw in June was a damaging of the facilities, the enrichment facilities.
What remains in place in Iran is the enriched uranium, which would be presumably used.
For a nuclear weapon.
But having said that, I think you're getting at a much broader and a very important point is that in the run up to the U.S. strikes on Iran, we didn't have a large public discourse about the need for this war, the expectations for this war, what the United States was trying to achieve.
And since then, we've heard Various descriptions, sometimes in the span of 24 hours, that it's about regime change, it's not about regime change, it's about nuclear capability, it's not about nuclear capability, it's about ballistic and drone capability, it's about opening the Strait of Hormuz.
And I think the lack of sort of discourse about the aims of the war has made it hard to make assessments of whether the United States is achieving the outcomes that it wants.
That coupled with the fact that we're not getting the kinds of details about these operations, we're getting statistics here and there, but not a clear Understanding of what the United States has been able to achieve.
Having said all that, remember that as of yet, Iran, there's been no evidence that they have a nuclear weapon, but that they were aspiring to build one.
And so the question becomes can strikes kill that aspiration?
Can it do enough such that Iran doesn't seek to continue to try to build the program in the post period after the strikes end?
The Washington Post is reporting that this week the U.S. is considering diverting Ukraine.
Ukraine military aid, which is the munitions to the Middle East.
What do you think of that and the message that that sends?
Well, I think they are spot on because there is such a shortage.
I mean, hundreds of munitions that the United States went through just in the first three days of the war.
I think the figure was 850.
That alone would take years to restock U.S. stockpiles with.
But at the same time, the munitions that the United States has provided Ukraine has been essential to their fight against Russia.
So, what I think this ultimately speaks to is how much in demand these munitions are in these various conflicts, and the reasons for them are actually connected.
That both in Ukraine and in the war in Iran, we are seeing adversaries use smaller, less expensive ordnance, fire multiple forms of them, and really force the U.S., Israel, and Ukraine to go through expensive munitions to defend themselves against attacks.
And so, I think it raises the questions about is there a plan going forward to find ways, cheaper ways, To combat these kinds of weapons.
Jim, a Republican in Idaho.
You're on the air, Jim.
Jim.
Thank you for taking my call.
My question is I know the costs are high now, but Iran's goal is always to have a nuclear weapon.
So if this wasn't being done now, what would be the cost monetarily and in human life when Iran did achieve a nuclear weapon?
That's what I have.
Thank you very much.
Hi, Jim, and thank you for the question.
You raised an important point.
Iran has posed a threat to its neighbors and to the United States for decades, going back for the United States all the way back to the 2003 invasion of Iraq when it was supplying deadly weapons that killed U.S. troops and the proxies that it has throughout the region.
And so we should be clear that this is a war that was started in part because of the threats that Iran poses to the international community.
I think it's hard to answer what would have happened if the U.S. hadn't struck because At the time, the Iranians had an 86 year old Ayatollah as leader.
We were starting to see fractures within the society about the future of the country.
Would it have gone a different way on its own had the strikes not happened?
It's a hard question to answer because we're now in a new period.
But I think what, if nothing else, I think the war has certainly weakened the regime such that even if it doesn't collapse now, you could see a scenario where years from now that the effects of the war.
And the battering that the regime has taken has made it weaker so that we could see different outcomes for Iran in the future in terms of the kinds of governance we'll see.
In Baltimore, Maryland, on the Independent line, Edward, you're on with Nancy Youssef of The Atlantic.
Hey, Nancy.
Good morning, you all.
I was wondering, I have really two questions.
The first one is I teach journalism, and I find it very difficult to talk to my class about being objective when I hear reporters not reporting the full scope of the story.
It's very one sided.
I know that we're Americans and American journalism and all of that, but at some point, the intellectual dishonesty doesn't serve the American interest.
There were reports that Israeli agents were part of the civil unrest.
They were arrested.
We don't hear that in American media.
We hear about American strikes, but we don't hear about Iranian strikes or the number of U.S. dead.
Where does American journalism sever its ties with the administration to deliver the truth to the people?
Thank you.
Hi, Edward.
Thank you for the question.
It is hard to follow the news on or on because, in some ways, we have so much information that I think we're seeing elements of all the Facets of the war, I think sometimes it can be hard to find that information because there's so much of it and there's not sort of an agreement in terms of what objectivity looks like anymore in our industry.
The other thing I would notice that this war, unlike any war of recent history, is very, very hard to cover.
The U.S. has not made it possible for reporters to go on ships, on bases, to embed with troops, to even go inside the Pentagon.
The Iranians have closed off.
Internet access so that there's no clear way to get information from inside Iran or talk to everyday Iranians.
And certainly, other than a few reporters, there are not independent media inside Iran.
And the Israelis have put out limited information about what they're doing.
We're not getting a full scope.
And so, when it comes to covering this war and really getting fidelity in terms of what's happening, I think it's been one of the most challenging because in past wars, we could at least have reporters on the ground.
And in this case, it's become much, much harder to see the front lines of these conflicts.
Tell us more about your access to the Pentagon, especially in light of the Supreme Court's decision.
So, there was a ruling by a district court judge, and he basically said that the U.S. decision to, I should rephrase, Hegseth's decision to say that we had to sign a form saying that we would not publish information that, unless it was authorized by the Pentagon, violated First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights and ordered that the rules essentially be changed.
So, the Pentagon did change them, but they actually put more restrictions and they closed the corridor in which the Pentagon Press Corps worked and moved us to an annex, not even in the building.
And the challenge is to get to the annex, you have to go through the building, which, under the path that they proposed, we couldn't do.
And so, it would have been actually even already harder to go to the building.
So, it was sort of in the building in name only, but not really in the spirit of what the ruling was seeking to achieve, which was to make it such that we could talk.
And gather information to inform the American public about what's happening.
And so there was a hearing yesterday in which the New York Times, which brought the lawsuit, has raised those concerns with the judge, and we'll wait to hear from him about that.
But based on my friends who were there, it seemed that the judge was quite frustrated by the administration's response to his ruling.
So when we see the press conferences that, for instance, we just saw, and we aired it completely on C SPAN 2, There are reporters there and they're asking questions.
Yes, but we're not allowed in the building.
So when we go to those press conferences, we're escorted in, we're escorted out.
There are assigned seats in those rooms.
They're pre chosen in some cases, which journals will be able to ask questions.
And we're not getting the kind of details that I think one would expect.
If you go back and look, for example, in the early days of the 2003 invasion, you had generals coming forward, not just the chairman, but generals who were involved in the war, explaining the conduct of the war, explaining what the missions are.
That's not happening in these cases.
These are happening occasionally.
And I think it's demonstrated by the fact that Hegseth, in today's press conference, said he went to the Middle East and didn't take any reporters with him, which In the past, it would not have happened.
We would have been able to travel and see for ourselves what the troops were telling him, how he was seeing the war.
Congressional Readiness Questions00:06:19
On the Republican line in Las Vegas, John, good morning.
Yeah, good morning, you guys.
Hey, great show as usual.
I want to ask this lady Did you make the statement that going into this war, there was no clear plan?
Did you make that statement earlier?
What I said was that there's no clear plan.
Aim that the United States has in terms of where, at what point it believes that Iran has been nullified to the point that it can't pose a threat to the United States and its Gulf partners.
You couldn't be more wrong.
You don't know what you're talking about, and you need to watch C SPAN and Fox News and other cable news places because you don't know what you're talking about.
So tell us why, John.
Explain.
Okay, I'm going to explain it right now.
First of all, Over and over again at the beginning, Trump asked these idiots, the Ayatollah or whoever, that we want to come in and we want to make sure you do not have a nuclear weapon.
We want to do it peacefully.
They rejected it.
He must have had four or five or six different plans to do this peacefully at the beginning.
So the first thing I'm going to tell you, lady, is go back to the beginning.
Number two is we surprise attacked them.
And after we did that, we asked them, Lay down your arms and surrender.
Trump has tried over and over again not to have a military plan.
Our military plan is well executed and extremely confusing to the enemy.
They don't know what we're doing and we're taking them down.
And I don't understand where you come up with this opinion.
So, John, you outlined why the war started and the attempts to prevent it from escalating in the beginning.
What I'm asking is, what is an acceptable end state?
For example, if Iran can still launch ballistic missiles at its Gulf partners once a week, twice a week, is that an acceptable outcome?
If it can't launch it at all, ever, is that an acceptable outcome?
If its drone capabilities are brought down by 95%, but there are still factories in place in which they can produce them going forward, is that an acceptable outcome?
I think you outlined some of the efforts to try to reach some sort of settlement in the run up.
To the war and the initial aims to remove the regime.
But what I'm asking is, at what point does the United States decide that Iran is no longer a threat to the region?
And that hasn't been outlined because we don't know what that end state looks like.
At what point is Iran so weak that it cannot pose a threat, as the United States defines it, to the U.S., to the Gulf partners, to Israel?
Lucius in Alabama, line for Democrats.
Good morning.
Lori.
Go ahead, you're on the air.
Yeah.
With this war that's going on, who gave Donald Trump a plaudit to Solomon?
Authority to start the war?
So, you ask a great question because obviously, under Article I of the Constitution, the authority to declare war falls to Congress.
But I think in the post Cold War period and over time, and certainly since the global war on terrorism, we have seen more ambiguity around that such that presidents have been allowed to conduct strikes on countries in Iraq, in Syria, and in Iran in the past.
Himself has launched attacks on seven countries so far in his first year.
And so I think there are some questions about whether the president had a responsibility to go to Congress and seek authorization given the scale and scope of the war.
What I've seen in my time is that we've increasingly defined these things not as war as we think about it, but as strike campaigns, which has created this sort of legal ambiguity for it.
The other thing I would notice while there are Democrats on the Hill who have raised concerns about this, we haven't seen this sort of Bipartisan call for the president to come forward and state clearly what this is, what he's seeking to achieve.
We heard frustration from Republicans, but not so much to sort of cut off funding for the war or do other things to limit the president's ability to conduct it.
And last question for you, which is you know, this we talked about the burn rate essentially of American munitions.
Could this impact readiness for future?
possible future conflict with China or with Russia?
I think it can.
We don't have fidelity on the numbers, but the U.S. has said that it wants to be prepared for threats from the Western Hemisphere, threats from China to support Ukraine, threats from the Middle East.
And these are some of the most coveted weapons when it comes to air defense.
And given that we've gone through so many of them so quickly and the time it will take to reconstitute them, I think there are real questions about readiness.
But I wouldn't limit readiness to just the munitions.
The strain on the force, the USS Gerald Ford has been out deployed, it'll be nearly 11 months.
That puts a strain on the sailors and on the ship itself.
The USS Abraham Lincoln, the other aircraft carrier in the region, has been deployed for several months.
The rotations on the force, those all put strains on the force and can affect readiness.
So I think as we think about this, How we prepare for future conflicts, the strain we're putting on both munitions, the equipment, and the personnel should be affected.
Now, the counter that some would argue is that by having troops engage, we are also learning and adapting in ways that could be applicable to addressing threats from China.
And that's Nancy Youssef, staff writer for The Atlantic.
You can find her work at TheAtlantic.com.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
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