> A short-term rotation away
One of those better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt kind of situations. Replace fool with incapable.
A short term rotation that revealed US isn't just overstretched but systemically incapable of honoring mild security obligations. US failing to protect CENTCOM vs Iran... an opponent like 2% of PRC GDP and even less industrial output. Abandoning CENTCOM infra to IR counter attacks, running out of interceptors... losing regional ABM shield assets... Ultimately it's still Iran, and US has overmatch if sufficient will to power through... (insert at what cost meme). On paper, anyone not retarded knew US posture in 1,2IC not sustainable or US MIC not calibrated to fight adversaries more than 50% it's GDP, let alone PRC 150% by PPP (more by industrial capacity). There is functionally no doubt US can't protect 1IC vs PRC if it has to dedicated this much hardware to Iran in CENTCOM. SKR and PH are going to have hard time convincing their constituents where even delulu can only sustain so much cognitive dissonance, all while paying war premium of MENA fossil, whatever that leaks through, which again breaks retarded narrative that they are unsinkable aircraft carriers vs PRC... who is in fact a land power with resources capable of sustaining regional hegemony, and in Indopac war, US partners would starve/suffer/be blockaded long before PRC suffers. US no longer sole superpower, when it tries to insist upon itself, current aligners are seeing limitations of power and cost of alignment.
Not to mention what US+Israel has normalized... PRC has munitions in 1/2IC to decapitate/gaza US partners, which is now permissible.