Even if the peace holds the whole thing feels like a definite L for the following reasons:

Materiel - a huge amount of expensive and long lead time to replace missiles/interceptors expended - a $300,000,000 radar station destroyed - like 30 Reaper drones (approximately 1/5 of the total) - 1 AWACs destroyed and 3-5 others heavily damaged (we only have about 20 of them - tons of damage to infrastructure in the area (like refineries, ports, chemical plants)

Geopolitical - primacy of American military power shown to be truly questionable (I consider this as the biggest part of the L; can't decide if it's an unforced error or it was bound to happen under any administration) - Iran now knows it can leverage its drones and missiles to influence the region and world; they don't even need a nuke anymore to project power

I guess if there is a silver lining it's that the conflict has exposed how unprepared some of our doctrines and orders of battle are when dealing against an adversary that needs to operate on a more asymmetric level. But also it feels like that should be already known after years of monitoring the Ukrainian conflict.

> Iran now knows it can leverage its drones and missiles to influence the region and world; they don't even need a nuke anymore to project power

Tehran probably needs nukes to project power. As in reärm its proxies and have them go off and start being a nuisance again without real fear of facing any consequences for it.

What Iran has learned–and globally demonstrated–is America is willing to pay more to its enemies than it's willing to spend defending its allies. (We're discussing arranging financing for Iran in an amount equal to what it costs us to support NATO for a decade.)

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/088c14d3-f708-44d8-a306-7996aa521...

… and let's not forget about Iran's Lego videos!

> conflict has exposed how unprepared some of our doctrines and orders of battle are when dealing against an adversary that needs to operate on a more asymmetric level

That is known for almost 25 years since Millennium Challenge. However US military decided that to cove their ears, close their eyes and start screaming

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

If anything I think that demonstrating how worthless all this “war materiel” is, well it s a good thing. Can we please cut “defense” spending in half and just let me keep more of my own money or better yet stop going into so much debt?