Every analysis is inference - evidence is US stopped overflight/airspace control efforts because we can infer from operational behavior and how it relates to stockpile levels and expenditures that US cannot maintain air superiority posture. Standoff strikes is definitionally NOT air superiority strikes, mounting news of US keep draining standoff stock pile to hit Iran is not reflection US has superiority but more evidence US does not. CENTCOM CONTINUING CONDUCTING STRIKES =/= AIR SUPERIORITY, WHICH DEFINITIONALLY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ABILITY TO CONDUCT STRIKES. Go to pedantic layer and draw from formal DoD definitions (counterair operations manual), US operationally at "air parity" (below air superiority/supremacy), one can argue US has stockpiles reestablish superiority/supremacy but US operational behavior right now suggest theatre is at parity.

Interceptor stocks is not strained. It's functionally finished. US unlikely move more to CENTCOM without breaking US global security architecture, everything that can reasonably be repositioned has been. The fact that Iran fires getting through regularly = what is there is not enough. This last reply, feel free to disagree.

US produces more oil, but PRC massive SPR = PRC functionally a larger supplier by being able to release more, at drop of hat, than US aggregate supply lever [drilling + spr]. PRC simply storing a fuckload of oil - SPR seems enough to buffer large global disruption for months = PRC gains huge pricing power.

PRC electrifying only increases their oil swing buyer leverage - they are not going to let their billions in oil infra and built out SPR to the waste. Electrification frees up refinery surplus for export and additional price control as SPR buffer / time increases. If they can backstop regional disruptions i.e. 5-10mbd per day like in Iran for few month they're functionally a "producer" with +/- $50 USD per barrel vote.

Important to note this not temporary, this permanent leverage as long as PRC has world's largest oil refining capacity and largest SPR.

PRC also has electrification and domestic coal to petchem stack, i.e. if oil over $70, PRC gets permanent discount on industrial inputs. Right now PRC has 30% discount, using coal to do job of oil. This another drag producer power ability on top of PRC renewable wiping demand - renewable export supply lever. Ultimately upstream oil producers are not selling barrels to consumers, they're selling finished products (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel - energy), if PRC simply stores enough buffer, and have massive refining and have massive petchem, massive electrification to displace domestic demand, and massive renewable export - and it is important to recognize scale of all these categories in PRC are massive - then PRC actually has massive oil power leverage. Maybe even the greatest, because functionally they are the greatest supplier for everyday markets, including conflicts / disruptions that does not empty their SPR.

>You still haven’t shown evidence that Iran denied US control of the air. You’re inferring that from force preservation and munitions usage.

The evidence is drumroll, US no longer overflying Iran, when in every other war in recent memory US had not just air superiority but air supremacy. The evidence is also US expending high % of global interceptors, which means US is functionally not capable of defending CENTCOM land basing. If US cannot defend CENTCOM land basing, US can not operate force multipliers, i.e. tankers, awacs at scale/tempo to sustain air control. Keep in mind Iran is 5x the size of Iraq and during Iraq US had more carriers and regional coalition assets to sustain a longer / broader air campaign. Taken together signs point to Iran's continued ability to generate fires, or rather US inability to defend against Iranian fires + inability to blunt Iranian fires to make CENTOM land basing viable.

The TLDR is US does not have enough stand off munition to defang Iran from hitting CENTCOM and not enough interceptors in CENTOM to blunt Iranian fires. Ergo US does not have the force posture for air supremacy anymore, and the only time it did was when it had ample standoff munitions, ample interceptors that could keep Iranian fires comprehensively suppressed. Now it has neither, so it is not in a state of reestablish air superiority let along supremacy, unless there is global stockpiles to try again, but ineffectively shifting more earth while Iranian drones and TELs chill in hardened tunnels is something something insanity doing same thing expecting different results, expect keep doing same thing undermines US global posture.

Your article just demonstrate operations continued, but we now know with hindsight those operations are standoff operations i.e. they're not air superiority operations. Or else Hegseth would be bragging about #s of JDAMs dropped along with energy drinks consumed instead of articles about "virtually all" of high end precision strike being depleted.

My assessment comports with reality - Iranian attrition made US abandon air space control, aka air superiority bombing campaign which US force structure can sustain indefinitely for standoff war which US can't sustain for more than a few months. Being able to standoff strike Iran =/= air superiority, overflying Iran enmass and dropping cheap bombs is air superiority. US is not overflying Iran enmass, and it's not because detente, it's because US can't operationally justify/sustain it. US can't operationally sustain air superiority because CENTCOM land based force multipliers are too vulnerable, and without force multipliers you're left with carrier aviation, that itself Iran pushed to standoff range and hence can only deliver stand off munitions.

A maximally preopositioned/prepared/postured US + Israel suckering punching Iran was able to briefing maintain air superiority through select regions, but the minute Iran reorganized and hit CENTCOM basing, US lost sortie generation rate to maintain air superiority. Land basing / sustainment ~70% of theatre sortie generation, US carriers / long range bombers good supplementary door kickers, but they can't sustain enough fires generation to suppress Iran, hence US forced to burn standoff stockpile - because shit tier air defense network + theater level precision strike complex (missiles) allows even crippled Iran to deny US air superiority and ability to prosecute cheap dump bomb war. Reminder to get even to the temporary air superiority (which was only established on select areas) US+Israel had to expend mass amounts of high end munitions, and push high tempo logistics to shape battlefield, can't do that anymore without land basing, and US logistically incapable for sustaining / surging 6-8 carriers to backfill sortie.

Now highend standoff munitions are functional substitute for air superiority for hitting targets, not whole tactic replacement, i.e. no CAS, hence it's an expensive fallback, but only if there is enough munitions to sustain, which currently there isn't.

There is no part of TW that is not within PRC land base munition range, every inch can be hit within 7 minutes. Of course PRC would hit US ships in blockade scenario which is by definition war. If USN doesn't blockade, then FONAP does nothing, anything supply ship to west TW would be trivially sunk, NVM legally any ship during PRC TW blockade scenario is running PRC blockade (read: entering sovereign One China waters) and can be treated as hostile. US either tries to blockade (goto war with PRC who will run blockade / test US resolve), and if turns hot, risk its westpac / global replenishment chains (including CENTCOM/CONUS) being blown up, or CONUS hits. Just hitting USN replenishment ships, which are exquisitely vulnerable (has to spend hours in port) means USN becomes single deployment assets, i.e CSG in high tempo operations will exhaust fuel (escorts), munitions in days. USN expeditionary model simply isn't viable vs peer who can cripple US logistics tail within ~10000km radius of PRC. Or US does functionally nothing, i.e. FONAP in TW blockade scenario is theatrics.

Reasonably sure given US RoE vs Iran has been extremely permissive, even more permissiveness just means depleting highend munitions faster for same marginal effect. reality is US simply doesn't have the standoff stockpiles - US can go Vietnam / close air but then you'd be dealing with more down pilots and peanut gallery unavoidable. Given that VS PRC is forgone, ROE has nothing to do with fundamental US techstack/stockpile (mis)allocation. If US cannot defeat high end hypersonics at scale then expeditionary model with exquisite tooth/tail logistics cannot survive to reach theatre to deliver standoff munitions, and given most US standoff munitions subsonic, even if they could deliver theoretically they face near 100% interception rate. US would also have to retool basically entire delivery systems around supersonic munitions, which are more expensive, larger, i.e. reduced fire bandwidth. These are geometric not RoE constraints.

The one thing we have learned in recent wars is highend hardware can shoot down subsonic munitions reliably, highend missiles can penetrate high end defense reliably. AKA PRC is uniquely positioned to blunt most of US fires (subsonic munitions) while having tons of highend fires vs US defense. But really PRC doesn't even need highend fires for TW scenario, see their subsonic cruse missile / drone gigafactory (like proper not ghetto tier) that can churn 1000s per day, i.e. even with pure subsonics PRC can fully saturate entire US posture/basing structure in 1IC/2IC.

US in westpac has been thoroughly functionally cooked for years. It just took Iran performance for sensible people to realize how cooked. Not just how not up to task i.e. force balance, but how US tech stack uniquely vulnerable to PRC, who TBF has spend past 10 years of modernization strictly on this issue. NVM PRC can now conventionally hit CONUS as recognized by recent Pentagon China Power report, something PLA watchers have known for years, meanwhile said report still assumes PRC highend missile stockpiles is about size of Irans which is kek territory if not delulu.

TLDR people should stop hopiuming about PRC and evaluate consequences of commodity precision fire for mid tier operators. What Iran can do today, most of Americans can do in 10-15 years, i.e. we are entering a world where CONUS is vulnerable due to tech again (remember US project almost extinguished to wooden British boats). CONUS isolation/security as much man made as god/geographic given. It relies on US expeditionary model containing everyone ability to project fires to their shores. Once that's done, entire US defense model post war breaks. All of which is to say, forget Iran, anticipate Monroe wars in the future.

Where PRC comes in is they have large amount of USD reserves (and shadow USD from trade) used to parallel lend to governments (BRI etc) which replaces marginal FED USD demand with recycled PRC USD supply, which forces FEDS to find more market buyers, by increasing rates further to clear auctions. Every USD from PRC reserves that goes towards bilateral lending is one not bought from FED that has be be replaced by market buyer at higher yields. Net effect is PRC has functional influence over US treasury yield. Now fed has infinite power to move slider to compete on yield... but in practice that slider can only go the direction that makes US debt servicing more onerous. PRC leverage (JP limited geopolitically) = FED has little power to reverse debt trap but some power to go broke faster. Some power because at some point of $$$ brrrt printing buyers will realize US may not be able to honor commitments and price risk accordingly.

Business models fail all the time, trillion business models that underpins entire macro economic growth engine exploding and causing massive contagion happens rarely, not even generationally. But when they do the leading bubble mathematic indicators are more clear.