How Iran Helped the U.S. Prepare for a Pacific War: As the United States is reinforcing its military posture across the Indo-Pacific, Iran just inadvertently gave U.S. air defense forces valuable experience as tensions in the region continue to rise.
China’s aggression toward Taiwan, North Korea’s expanding missile arsenal, and increasingly assertive moves by both powers in contested air spaces and seas have prompted U.S. officials to accelerate readiness efforts, from expanding air and missile defense capabilities to rotating advanced aircraft to frontline bases.
Iran Gave U.S. Patriot Missile Units Valuable Experience
When Iran responded to U.S. B-2 strikes on its Fordow nuclear site in June, the ballistic missiles it launched at the Al Udeid Air Base gave U.S. Patriot missile crews valuable experience intercepting missiles from hostile foreign forces.
The strike, which saw 14 missiles launched at the Qatar-based U.S. facility, became a life-fire training event for crews who now stand watch in Northeast Asia.
General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that two Patriot batteries remained manned at Al Udeid during the strike. At the same time, other personnel were evacuated shortly after Tehran informed Qatar and the United States of their intentions.
Together with Qatari forces, the crews launched approximately 30 Patriot interceptors at incoming Iranian ballistic missiles – costing $111 million in missiles alone. Caine described it as the “largest single Patriot engagement in U.S. military history.”
That experience is now directly benefiting U.S. air defense forces deployed to the Indo-Pacific, where two Patriot missile brigades—the 38th in Japan and the 35th in South Korea—are stationed to defend against Chinese and North Korean threats. The lessons learned at Al Udeid, from threat tracking to interceptor coordination under pressure, can now be applied in a region where air defenses are quickly becoming the most important military asset for the U.S. and its allies.
Speaking to Newsweek, Timothy Walton, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, also said that the incident helped sharpen the readiness of U.S. air defense personnel. Walton also stated that the Army plans to expand its Patriot force.
“In response to the high demand for air and missile defense units, the U.S. Army plans to grow its force of Patriot batteries and add new Indirect Fire Protection Capability and other counter-air sensors and effectors to its force,” Walton said.
Upgrading U.S. Air Fleets in the Indo-Pacific
Missile defenses aren’t the only systems the U.S. is upgrading. On July 12, two of the Air Force’s newest fighters – the F-15EX Eagle II – arrived at the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, marking the beginning of a long-anticipated transition from the aging F-15C/D fleet.
The new jets, flown from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, are currently undergoing integration and training exercises with units stationed at Kadena. The rotation is part of a broader modernization effort that began in 2022, when the U.S. began phasing out the 48 F-15C/D aircraft that had been stationed in Okinawa for nearly five decades. In the interim, Kadena has hosted a rotating mix of F-22s, F-35s, F-16s, and F-15Es.
The F-15EX offers enhanced payload capacity, advanced sensors, and improved survivability, giving the U.S. more flexibility in projecting power across a region where airspace is contested and geography matters. Located just 400 miles from Taiwan, Kadena remains one of the most strategically important bases in the U.S. military’s Pacific footprint.
The full deployment of 36 Eagle IIs is expected by spring next year.
What Next?
While the Indo-Pacific continues to be a stage for global powers to demonstrate their military readiness and advanced weaponry, it was an Iranian missile barrage in the Middle East that unexpectedly honed America’s edge.
The experience gained in just the last few months could prove decisive in the years ahead.
About the Author:
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society. His latest book is The Truth Teller: RFK Jr. and the Case for a Post-Partisan Presidency.
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Jim
July 25, 2025 at 7:06 pm
The article’s rundown on various rotations, experiences under enemy fire, and equipment are fine. The United States needs to be prepared.
But the title to the article claims Iran’s missile attacks failed.
The drone & missile attacks surprised Israeli military & political leaders with their effectiveness, its ability to hit targets with accuracy, both military & infrastructure to such an extent it led to Netanyahu agreeing to a cease fire.
Some sources claim Netanyahu was desperate for a cease fire.
Military censorship prevented reports with supporting videos of military targets, but of the hits that were videoed, the damage was extensive.
The Port of Haifa was shut down due to missile hits and an oil refinery was set on fire and heavily damaged.
It’s a dangerous mistake to claim Iran’s response failed, on the contrary, it established Iran has credible & significant deterrence.
Not Israel’s nuclear weapons, but Iran does have hypersonic, maneuverable missiles (which Patriots can’t hit), and supersonic ballistic missiles which are difficult for Patriots to hit.
(Patriots are not the best surface to air interceptor missiles in the business, that title likely belongs to the S-400 Russian system, historically, Patriots were originally designed as aircraft interceptors, they’ve been playing catch up on ballistic missiles.)
(Nobody has an effective surface to air interceptor for hypersonic missiles with variable flight paths.)
The headline of the article turned out to be click bait as nothing in the article addresses or provides evidence why Iran’s missile attack failed… just a bald, naked assertion in the headline.
Jim
July 25, 2025 at 8:26 pm
What’s this article about: preparations for China.
Okay. But we don’t have hypersonic missiles.
And, no anti-missile system known can stop hypersonic missiles with maneuverable, variable flight path ability.
China has such weapons, they claim (and we believe), as Iran has already demonstrated, and Russia has been using hypersonic missiles in the field for some time, it’s not clear whether they have variable flight path ability.
We need a hypersonic missile. As fast as possible.
(Yes, we’ve seen and recorded the flight paths of these weapons and feed it into the computer’s profile flight path data base, but if these missiles change flight paths in a random way [as it appears to the interceptor] then the “bullet hits a bullet” idea breaks down.
At hypersonic speeds having a computer face a probability field makes that extremely difficult calculation.)
We need practice hypersonic weapons to test whatever ideas can be applied to intercept hypersonic missiles, say, 70 percent of the time.
We don’t have them… the adversary does… and you want to stick our nose in against China… potentially Russia, too… over Taiwan…
You don’t have your ducks in a row my friend.
Zhduny
July 26, 2025 at 7:40 am
Iran’s missile salvo has zero bearing on coming major US war plans against china.
For the US war plans against china, the KEY word, or MAGIC word, is N-U-C-L-E-A-R, or use of nukes.
What kind of nukes.
B61, B83, LRSO, HACM, etc.
Those nukes are luggable by both fighter aircraft and bombers.
The plan is to take down or obliterate the first-line defense, and then advise beijing:
“Better to surrender now, otherwise your mega cities are next.”
Look at the western pacific, a map of it, that is.
The US has a ring of steel around china, from japan, korea, philippines, singapore, and all the way to australia.
The US doesn’t have to worry about chinese missile barrages. All those locations in the western pacific are fully expendable, as they don’t have loads of US citizens or civilians unlike places like ramstein in europe.
Why do you think that sandia now, today, is designing mobile containerized vaults for fetching nukes overseas for the US DoD.
For the coming pacific war, What else.