After United States launched devastating strikes on Iran, Xi Jinping may have received the most chilling warning of his rule. Cyber warfare, stealth bombers, and thousands of coordinated attacks showed how quickly a nation’s defenses can be blinded and shattered. For China, with Taiwan still in its sights, the implications are terrifying. If this is what America can do to Iran, what would happen in a real U.S.–China war? The answer may shock you.
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00:00It's full-on panic stations in China.
00:02President Xi Jinping has just watched the military that he has spent decades building
00:06get the most brutal wake-up call imaginable.
00:10Xi never expected this.
00:11When the U.S. started bombing Iran, he thought China was safe.
00:15But what Xi has seen terrifies him,
00:18because it tells the Chinese president one very important thing,
00:21China isn't ready.
00:24It isn't ready for the military might that the U.S. has just proven it can bring to bear,
00:28which will terrify Xi, as analysts believe he'll be ready to launch his invasion of Taiwan in 2027.
00:34But China also isn't ready for the geopolitical storm that it would face if it ever went to war
00:38with the U.S.
00:39We'll be covering the geopolitical aspect later in the video, but on the military side of things,
00:44the U.S. has shown us several things during its short war with Iran that will have Xi shaking in
00:48his boots.
00:49First up, the U.S. has proven that it can blind the eyes of an entire nation ahead of its
00:54attacks.
00:55That's what it did in Iran, as intelligence analyst and cyber security expert Ryan McBeth
01:00reveals in a video posted to YouTube.
01:03The U.S. was able to coordinate air, space, and cyber actions designed to disrupt sensor
01:07networks, as well as command and control, leaving Iran with a reduced capability to see and
01:12coordinate and respond, McBeth says.
01:15Indeed, the first few hours of the joint U.S. and Israeli strikes in Iran were characterized
01:18not by the bombs and missiles dropping, but by a coordinated effort to shut down Iran's
01:24systems, thus improving the chances of the U.S. finding its targets without Iran being
01:28able to do anything about it.
01:30Law Fair Media says these cyber operations were key to the early elimination of Iran's
01:35supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, as they allowed the U.S. and Israel to determine when Khamenei
01:39would be meeting with key senior officials, providing the perfect timing for strikes.
01:43Other cyber and intelligence operations ensured that the U.S. had shut down a huge portion
01:49of Iran's air defense network before it sent its bombers and fighter jets into the arena.
01:53By the time Iran was even able to think about a response, thousands of targets had been
01:58destroyed, and Iran was already on the back foot.
02:01We'll be coming back to the scale of America's attack in a minute, but in shutting down Iran's
02:05eyes and ears, the U.S. showed China exactly what it would do in the event of a war between
02:10the two nations. This doesn't only matter for the power and scale of the U.S. strikes,
02:14it's also a problem for responses. If you're a crew on an anti-ship missile team and nobody's
02:19on the other end of the phone telling you to fire and where to fire, you're not going to fire,
02:23Macbeth says.
02:24And that's the point of what the U.S. did in Iran that Xi has to take very seriously.
02:29You can build one of the strongest arsenals of missiles, as China is believed to have done.
02:33On the intercontinental ballistic missile front alone, Newsweek says that China has 550 launchers
02:38and about 400 missiles. But none of that matters when command and control have been shut down
02:43so effectively that the operators at these sites, and China's many other launch sites,
02:47can't communicate with military leadership. This is bad news for Xi in a fight with the U.S.
02:53It's even worse for Xi when you bring Taiwan, which is Xi's most likely target, into the mix.
02:57As Macbeth explains, China's plan for Taiwan is less about landing soldiers on the beaches,
03:02though it will try to do that. The plan is to bombard Taiwan with missiles, and for that,
03:06command and control have to be working properly. The U.S. proved in Iran that it can shut down
03:11all of that before it even launches an attack, and that is a brutal wake-up call for Xi.
03:16Now, we mentioned targets a moment ago. That brings us to the second issue that Xi faces
03:21after what the U.S. has done in Iran, pure shock and awe. With Iran's eyes and ears shut down,
03:27the U.S. overwhelmed Iran's entire military infrastructure. The U.S. showed that it can scale
03:32up day one to strike so massive that they hit around 1,000 targets right off the bat.
03:37After about a week of the conflict, Breaking Defense is reporting that the U.S. has conducted
03:41more than 3,000 strikes against Iran, hitting 43 of its ships in the process.
03:47Beyond the command and control centers, we've already mentioned, the U.S. has hit Iranian drone
03:51and missile manufacturing and launch sites, to the point where, according to some sources,
03:55Iran's drone launches are now down 83 percent, and its ballistic missile attacks are down 90 percent
04:01compared to the first attempts that Iran made to respond. This sheer scale is a message to anybody
04:07who may cross the U.S. in the future. The U.S. strikes on a scale that nobody thought possible.
04:12Instead of a hurricane followed by a tidal wave like an Operation Desert Storm,
04:16we give the adversary 1,000 tornadoes on the first night, is how Macbeth categorizes it.
04:21And he's right. The U.S. has demonstrated its ability to coordinate its jets and bombers with
04:26its space, cyber, and naval divisions, which showcases the sort of combat-tested capabilities
04:31that China simply doesn't have. Xi may think that China could do something similar,
04:36but China's enormous military hasn't been tested at any point during the modern era.
04:41The U.S. has proven what it can do in Iran. And that means Xi knows that the U.S.
04:46could do it
04:46all again to China if he's foolish enough to launch an invasion of Taiwan that gets the U.S.
04:51involved. There's a lot more as we'll be covering as we move through the video. Next on the list is
04:56America's long-range stealth capabilities. Though the U.S. is now taking a sledgehammer
05:01approach to shattering Iran using its old non-stealth bombers, the initial hours of the war
05:05saw the U.S. deploy its B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. Those bombers conducted surgical strikes right under
05:11the collective nose of Iran's air defenses, which is impressive enough. However, it's the sheer range
05:16of this stealth assault that would have grabbed Xi's attention.
05:20America's B-52 bombers completed 37-hour round-trip flights from the continental U.S. to
05:26Iran to carry out precision strikes against several of Iran's facilities during the initial hours of
05:31the campaign. They were kept in the skies due to the U.S. having a large fleet of aerial refueling
05:37tankers. Think about what this means to Xi. He now knows that U.S. pilots are trained to such a
05:42high
05:42level that they can fly for about a day and a half with no stops, still carry out their strikes
05:47perfectly, and then get back home. There is no China is out of range that comes into the equation
05:53here. If the U.S. decides to bomb China, as it might in the event of an invasion of Taiwan,
05:58there's nothing that China can do about the B-2s outside of hoping that its air defenses,
06:02which have already been mitigated by the U.S. strategy of shutting down China's eyes and ears,
06:06could do something about them. Does China have a similar capability?
06:10It has the H-20, possibly. That's a stealth bomber designed to rival the best that the
06:15U.S. has, but Aerospace Global News reports that the bomber dropped off the radar, figuratively
06:20speaking, in 2025, and it will be at least a few years before it can pose any sort of threat
06:25to the U.S. And even if it was available today, we come back to the point we made earlier.
06:30The U.S. just proved what its stealth bombers can do in Iran. Chinese capability is mostly
06:35theoretical right now, so Xi has to deal with the fact that he knows that the U.S.
06:39has long-range stealth, but he isn't truly certain that he can say that China can match
06:43the U.S. in that department. And somehow it gets even worse for Xi. So far we've covered
06:48how the U.S. has proven itself time and time again on the military front. It can hit thousands
06:53of targets in a matter of days, deploy long-range stealth, and shatter the eyes and ears of an
06:58opponent. However, there's a far more existential threat that is presented to Xi by what the U.S.
07:09has to approach any war that could potentially prompt U.S. involvement.
07:13And by the way, there's a lot more where this came from, so if you're getting value
07:17from the military show, make sure you are subscribed to the channel.
07:20What the U.S. has shown Xi in Iran is that it will target a country's senior leadership
07:24from the moment that a conflict arises.
07:39So that raises some interesting questions for Xi. Can China protect its senior leadership?
07:45Iran couldn't, and we know that Iran had a huge network of underground bunkers designed
07:49for that very purpose. China may have something similar, but it knows the U.S. and Israel can
07:54hit them anyway. All it takes is for the U.S. to learn about one meeting, one moment
07:58of exposure, and then it's done. Xi will be out of the picture, and he knows it.
08:03But it gets even worse for China's president. The U.S. and Israel have shown that they're
08:07not stopping at the top of the food chain. Political and military leaders all across
08:11Iran have been eliminated in vast airstrikes targeted at the country, which means Xi can't
08:16even rely on others to continue his work if the U.S. comes calling with missiles and bombs.
08:20As Sky News reports, Israel claims that about 40 of Iran's top military commanders were taken
08:26out of the picture during the initial wave of strikes with the U.S.
08:30Right now, Iran has already selected a new supreme leader. After a brief period in which
08:35a three-person interim council assumed the duties of leadership, the Assembly of Experts moved
08:41quickly to appoint Moitabah Khamenei, the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
08:45But that just means the Assembly of Experts now has a big jar of paint and a brush ready
08:51to paint a target onto somebody else's back.
08:53If Xi went down to similar strikes, would anybody in China even want the job while the
08:58U.S. is on the attack? What Xi is seeing in Iran is a coordinated effect to decapitate
09:02an entire country's regime, and it's working. For Xi, the timing couldn't be worse, because
09:07he has been chopping away at the top of China's military structure for some time now.
09:11On March 3, the BBC reported that China had removed three experienced military generals,
09:16Gao Jin, Liu Lei, and Han Wei Guo, from a top political advisory board. Just three days
09:22before that, on February 27, the BBC also reported that China had removed 19 officials, including
09:28nine who served in the People's Liberation Army, as Xi looked to consolidate yet more power.
09:32After what's happened in Iran, Xi might be looking at these moves as major mistakes. Experienced
09:38officials have been removed, likely to be replaced by toadies who will do exactly what Xi tells
09:42them. That's fine for Xi while he's alive and in power, but what happens when he's
09:46gone, due to the U.S. sending a bomb right into one of his bunkers? China's entire military
09:50and political structure collapses, just as we're seeing in Iran.
09:53Still China has something going for it. Like Iran, China has a missile-based strategy that
09:59it can use to fend off the U.S. And there's no denying that China is stronger in this department
10:04than Iran, as it's been building massive missile stockpiles in preparation for its Taiwan invasion,
10:09as well as to defend itself against attacks. You mentioned China's ballistic missile stockpiles
10:14earlier. Iran has massive stockpiles of its own, with some in Israel believing the country was on
10:19course to amass 8,000 ballistic missiles by 2027 prior to the U.S. and Israeli strikes.
10:25Taking out command and control centers has drastically reduced Iran's ability to launch,
10:30but it hasn't eliminated that ability entirely. Xi will be relying on that fact to prop up his own
10:35missile-based strategy. However, China will also need to defend its launch sites, as the U.S. has
10:40shown a propensity for striking Iran's sites. For Xi's ambition of invading Taiwan, this is a very
10:45bad thing. That means those Chinese ballistic missile sites will need surface-to-air protection,
10:50Macbeth explains, adding. That means fewer units can be deployed to Taiwan to actually cover the
10:55invasion. It also means that these ballistic missile units are a lot less mobile. China will get painted
11:00into a corner, just like Iran was on the surface-to-air missile front. It needs to keep moving its
11:05launchers because every missile strike attempted gives off a massive signature that can be used to
11:09target the launchers soon after. The problem this presents for China is that its launchers spend
11:13more time on the move than they actually do firing, which means Xi's missile capacity is degraded
11:18without the U.S. even necessarily having to fire shots. Fear of the response would mean that China's
11:23past plans of overwhelming an enemy with missile attacks would have to be shelved in favor of less
11:28frequent strikes and a whole lot of movement. Plus, China offers up a lot of targets to the U.S.
11:33Beyond the 550 intercontinental ballistic missile launchers that we mentioned, Business Insider
11:39reports the Pentagon believes that China has 300 medium-range ballistic missile launchers.
11:44Add 150 launchers for ground-launched cruise missiles, 250 launchers for short-range ballistic
11:50missiles, and 300 for intermediate-range ballistic missiles, and you get a total of 1,550 ballistic
11:57missile launchers. That amounts to a lot of targets for the U.S. to hit.
12:01For China, having so many launchers does mean that it would be able to keep up a missile-focused
12:05strategy longer than Iran. However, that strategy would be degraded constantly as the U.S. has shown
12:10that it prefers to strike the archer rather than the arrows. In other words, and we said the same
12:15about command and control centers, missiles don't mean much when you don't have launchers you need to
12:19send them flying. Add everything that we've covered up to now and you get a whole lot of military
12:23challenges that now stare Xi in the face as he watches what the U.S. is doing in Iran.
12:29China's president knows that making any moves that lead to U.S. involvement would lead to his
12:33country facing the same shock and awe type of strategy. And though China is in a much better
12:37position to absorb the brunt of this strategy than Iran, there's another element that will
12:41have Xi shaking in his boots. Iran has shown Xi that the U.S. taking the power-based approach to
12:47building global geopolitical influence has worked. In response to the U.S. strikes on its territory,
12:52Iran has been attacking U.S. bases and military-adjacent targets in the Gulf region.
12:57On March 8, CNBC noted that Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and several other states that
13:02Iran classifies as allies of the U.S. have been attacked with drones and missiles.
13:07This is a miscalculation by Iran. It's attempting to bully these states as its entire military
13:12infrastructure crumbles and the approach could end up solidifying U.S. allegiances in the Gulf region
13:16rather than ruining them. Iran is turning itself into a geopolitical martyr because it's trying to hurt the
13:22U.S. by attacking other countries. Xi knows that China would find itself in a very similar position
13:27if it went to war with the U.S., as Macbeth explains. Within a few days of this conflict,
13:31more allies are starting to realize that Iran is an existential threat to the Middle East,
13:35and China should take notice of that, Macbeth says. He points out that the U.S. military has bases in
13:40South Korea and Japan, along with rotational bases in Australia and the Philippines. Xi would have to
13:46strike these bases in an attempt to weaken the U.S. attack should war ever come. But all that achieves
13:51is bringing those four nations into the fight, giving China an even bigger problem to deal with.
13:56Imagine that all of this happens as a result of Xi following through on his plan to invade Taiwan.
14:01What should be an invasion of a small island nation would lead to China fighting Taiwan and the U.S.
14:07And in attempting to battle back against the U.S., China invites more powerful nations into the war,
14:12all of which will oppose it. As for allies, Russia is thousands of miles away and may well remember
14:17that China hasn't directly supported it in its Ukraine invasion. Iran is already being turned
14:22into a non-factor, and China's approach of building geopolitical influence through investment
14:26isn't going to be enough to convince small countries to get involved in such a massive fight.
14:31What we see here are two divergent geopolitical strategies at play. The U.S. is focused on might,
14:38as seen by the hundreds of military bases it's built around the world. According to
14:42Al Jazeera, the U.S. has around 750 bases spread across 80 countries. China, on the other hand,
14:48has one publicly acknowledged military base outside of its own territory, which is in Digibuti,
14:53and serves more as a logistics base than anything else. China has instead focused on plowing billions
14:59of dollars into helping smaller nations develop, which is fine as a very long-term plan, but it's not
15:04going to do much for China in 2027 if it does choose to invade Taiwan and the U.S. gets
15:08involved.
15:09What China has left itself with is a situation where it gets pinned into its own territory by
15:14a country that has bases in many major nations that surround China. And just like we see with Iran,
15:19those bases would be a target for China, which only stirs up geopolitical tensions more,
15:23resulting in a war that spirals well out of Xi's control.
15:27Perhaps the diplomat puts it best, as it's stated on March 7th.
15:30Having tracked China's regional partnerships over the last decade, we have found that Beijing's
15:35influence consistently peaks at signing ceremonies and fades when security risks arise.
15:41Beijing has built a Middle East strategy centered on influence without military presence,
15:45the outlet reports. We're seeing that right now in Iran, as China isn't rushing to do much of
15:49anything to help what is supposed to be one of its more powerful allies.
15:53What message does that send to the many countries that are much smaller than Iran,
15:56militarily speaking, about what China would do for them if they got drawn into a war with the U.S.
16:01It doesn't send a great message, and it means that China's money-based strategy of influence pales
16:06in comparison to what the U.S. offers its allies. Security and power are everything in a wartime
16:12scenario. China offers neither to its many partners and allies, and Xi knows it. What's happening in Iran
16:17has proven it. China's inaction speaks louder than any of the money that it distributes.
16:22Sooner or later, Macbeth says, China will be forced to strike a non-aligned nation in a war with the
16:27U.S.,
16:28just as Iran has been. And when that happens, Xi will wake up to the fact that the U.S.
16:32has allies
16:33that will fight. As for China, not so much. With nobody on his side outside of his own country,
16:38Xi is watching Iran and seeing the ghost of wartime future if he picks a fight with the U.S.
16:43An invasion of Taiwan would amount to just that, and the wake-up call that Iran has delivered to China
16:48over little more than a week may just force Xi to completely reconsider everything that he's been
16:53planning for years. Xi knows that the U.S. has a strategy that works. He also knows that the U
16:58.S.
16:58has a plan to crush China, as we reveal in our video. Check it out if you want to learn
17:02more,
17:03and if you enjoyed this video, make sure you're subscribed to The Military Show,
17:07as we dissect war scenarios like this one every single week. And thank you as always for watching.
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