alt Hacker NewsThe author explains that this problem is actually adversarial, in the sense that the attacker gets to observe defenses and allocate warheads and decoys accordingly.
Thinking of our current circumstances, this suggests another cost of war: our offensive capabilities, as well as our defensive capabilities become more observable. Our adversaries are studying our strengths and weaknesses in Iran, and they will have a much improved game plan for countering us in future conflicts.
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It doesn't have to be, defender reveals everything and attacker chooses best strategy.
1. The defender could use both electronic and physical decoys, use air and sea mobile platforms that are always in motion and are difficult to track.
2. The defender can fire at decoys, to convince the attacker the decoys work when they don't.
3. The defender could mix in cheap decoy interceptor missiles that miss so the attacker concludes defenders need 10 missiles to intercept when the real number if 3 and the attacker thinks the defenders are running low on interceptors, when in fact the defenders have held most of their interceptors in reserve.
4. Defender can pretend that expensive systems have been destroyed so that attacker adapts their strategy. For instance, if your defense hinges on a small number of extremely expensive fixed X-band radars and the attacker targets them. Allow some of them to be appear to be destroyed when in fact, you have disassembled them and moved them somewhere else to use later in the war.
I see no evidence anyone is doing any of this today, I'm not making any sort of claims about deception operations in the current conflict.
On the other hand, the best way to improve your capabilities is to use them frequently.
The Russian army assumed a state of readiness for the Ukraine invasion that turned out to be, well, less. Their special forces floundered, their logistics were (are still!?) unpalletized - using bespoke metal containers and wooden crates! Whereas the US military learned an awful lot from its (mis)adventures over the last decades.
Or perhaps they will learn they are outmatched, lack the resources and technological capabilities to compete, and deterrence will have been established.
there is a benefit as well, though, as it makes your threats credible.
While this is true it's also impossible to avoid.
So you could also argue that this war will help the US to gain experience it didn't have before which might be favorable in future conflicts with parties that didn't have this experience.
Take China for an example. No one knows China's true military capabilities, because they're rapidly evolving and because they virtually never use them. If there's an element of surprise to be had, they have it. But that cut's both ways, because China itself doesn't have experience exercising those capabilities. The learning curve could be noticeable. Meanwhile, no one doubts the ability of the US military to execute.
Did I miss this ? Missing from the discussion is that Iran's cluster munitions in each single missle have absolutely overwhelmed Israels defense and would likely do the same to US military as well. Also to consider, Iran's $20,000 drones versus our $1 million dollar interceptors.
who is our/us?
Veterancy is more valuable. Observers can tell only a certain amount about what you can do, but you know your limits much more deeply and you can adapt. In fact, it's much better we get our nose bloodied repeatedly now¹ so that we learn how fallible we are and make sure our processes involve aircraft carriers not being put out of commission during wars because of dryer lint fires.
¹ in a military sense; in a geopolitical sense obviously it's clear that Iran has been a misadventure
That seems like an acceptable trade off to get some real world experience with what works and what doesn't with regards to massed drones and swarming. There is a lot we can learn in this conflict with relatively low stakes
If we really want to put a certain hat on we can also say those adversaries have an incentive to not prevent (or even incentivize) those wars for that same reason. Even if that's by helping along a guy that is easy to manipulate through a childlike ego become president.
In strategic circles, this was a common thought in the 12 day war: Iran was essentially mapping and testing defenses.
As evidence of this, the US was forced to hastily move THAAD ground station radar from South Korea because Iran destroyed a bunch of them in the Gulf [1][2]. Bear in mind there aren't many of these and they cost half a billion dollars each.
Further evidence of this is how quickly it happened. Iran most likely had detailed contingencies and battle plans for this kind of event.
As an aside, this is what militaries do. They plan for things. So whenever you see some conspiracy about how government X reacted to situation Y quickly and thus had foreknowledge, you can ignore it. Military planners are paid to make up fictional situations and figure out how to respond. That's what they do.
Weapons are the ultimate export. You use them and blow them up and the customer has to come back and buy more.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/11/redeployment-u...
[2]: https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/05/middleeast/radar-bases-us-mis...
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This is absolutely true, but there is a strong counterpoint: You also learn the limits of your own systems and how to operate them most effectively yourself (and better than adversaries can, too).
Just to pick a recent example: Russian air defense in the early stages of the Ukraine war was dismal (more specifically: defense against big, slow drones like Bayraktar), despite having sufficient AA capability "on paper"-- the war allowed them to visibly improve.
I'd expect much more value from validating and improving your equipment and its handling than the actual "cost" of revealing its capabilities to adversaries in almost every conflict.