America’s worst-case planning assumption worked out during the last two to three decades, for a perceived global order is no longer valid post-war; it is a reality in motion now. Central to this assumption was the eventuality of Iran, Russia, and China acting en bloc. Not war-gamed in its true essence, the USA now finds it staring right in its eyes. What Iran’s response to the imposed aggression has triggered is not only a stand-alone military outburst but a paradigm shift. Surprisingly, the world has been viewing it as a regional flare-up of late. Hypothesised in isolation and war-gamed on only maps, probably, USA missed out on the capability of this tri-nation bloc to complement each other’s weaknesses and supplement mutual strengths. It was never a singular threat, in fact. Iran’s nuclear program, Russian expansion, and Chinese economic rise, each carried risk, but each had a counter. What had no clean counter was Iran, Russia, and China concluding that coordinated action against American primacy was their best available path. Henry Kissinger named it the paramount threat in multiple national security framework documents. Every major diplomatic initiative from the Iran nuclear deal to managed competition with China and support to Ukraine against Russia was partly aimed at denying these countries posing a united front to the USA, but they do so now.

What Russia lacks is manufacturing at scale and the demographic resilience to absorb sustained casualties without economically and socially disruptive mass mobilisation, as noted by credible think tanks like Carnegie Endowment, Atlantic Council, and the Free Russia Foundation.Pakistan Culture Exploration

What Russia lacks is manufacturing at scale and the demographic resilience to absorb........

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