I agree with most of what you've written here. However, this is not the topic (I thought I) was responding to. I was disagreeing that America's issues in Iran

I agree with most of what you've written here. However, this is not the topic (I thought I) was responding to. I was disagreeing that America's issues in Iran "has exposed many limitations and weaknesses in America's defense capabilities" - because the Iran situation is somewhat of an edge case, as I detailed. If the point you were originally making (I now infer) was something more like "some of the challenges that the US has faced in its war with Iran may also apply to a potential future war with China, should China invade Taiwan, such as..." then with respect that's what you should have written, rather than assuming your readers would just guess correctly. (There are also major differences between the cases of Iran and China, which would warrant more detailed analysis.) > You're treating an inability to strategize as a strategic blunder and not weakness. You should reconsider that. No... you're conflating cause and effect. The strategic blunder was an outcome, the cause of which we can debate; an "inability to strategise" would be one potential cause.