The predominance of Western military superiority in weapons systems is unraveling and the increasing dissonance in the US military complex coming to grips with existential changes in how peer competition in war is evolving is causing tremendous reduction in both both confidence and orders placed for US aircraft.

Western arms are expensive and stuck in a doom loop of anachronistic 20th century warfare techniques and materiel that are dead and buried.

A war with Iran would be vastly more complex than the Iraq or Afghanistan campaigns. Iran is well-armed, deeply networked, and battle-hardened through proxy conflicts. Its missile program has already proved capable of hitting U.S. bases with precision. China, on the other hand, has scaled its military-industrial capacity to levels the West cannot match in a short war. The J-10C is only one example of this: a domestically produced, cost-effective, and combat-capable fighter that is already shaping the regional air power balance.

The global arms market is shifting, not just economically but ideologically. Countries are starting to believe, with growing evidence, that they don’t need Western weapons to win wars or defend sovereignty. They are witnessing cheaper, faster, and sometimes more effective systems coming out of China, Iran, Russia, and even Turkey. These countries are offering not just weapons, but independence from Western political strings.

Western military doctrine is built around assumptions that no longer hold. The belief in total technological superiority has created an overconfidence that is now unraveling. Real war exposes real capability, and right now, the J-10C and its counterparts are showing that the West may no longer hold a monopoly on high-performance warfare.

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