Second island chain becoming increasingly important, Iran War shows U.S. military’s mileage: Analyst

HAGATNA, 27 OCTOBER 2026 (GUAM PACIFIC DAILY NEWS) — A senior military analyst says the Iran War reveals much about how the U. S conducts warfare today, especially how a future conflict in the Pacific would play out. Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis at Washington, D. C-based foreign policy think tank Defence Priorities, said U. S foreign policy today is “in a period of rapid change and flux” and that dynamic has implications on global security. One of the biggest developments in U. S foreign policy is its war with Iran. Kavanagh said the country’s performance over the past eight months has exposed the limits of U. S military power and the armed forces’ vulnerabilities. “It certainly remains the most powerful military in the world, but we’ve seen that the U. S military lacks endurance,” she said.

Over the course of the Iran conflict so far, the military is running low or has run out of key munitions. These include most of its hypersonic and interceptor missiles, Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Air Defence munitions, and Tomahawk and other precision weapons. Kavanagh added this is against the backdrop of a conflict against a “pretty weak” adversary. Generally, the way U. S wages wars depends on its network of bases that allows it to project power globally, she said. Those bases aren’t survivable. In the Iran war, U. S bases in the Middle East were struck to the point where they no longer became assets to U. S military power, Kavanagh Said. Instead, they were liabilities, something that has implications to the first island chain. The first island chain is a Cold War-era line drawn up by American war planners to contain China. It includes the major Pacific islands from Malaysia to Japan. “Realistically, we have to look at those bases now as…