The Minab strike was the end of American Hegemony. This will be the inflection point for the history books that marks the decline of the American Empire. It’s the first time AI was used to cause a mass human casualty event. It galvanized Iranian resistance and allowed hardliners to seize the military cells that closed the strait. It ensured no “coalition of the willing” would form in Europe to legitimize the attack, which resulted in enmity between the US and Europe that is actively exploited by China.
With the US out of allies, the conventional war profiteering strategy of “embroil our military partners in a hardware clearing sale” didn’t occur. The US carried on and depleted 10 years of missile production in 3 months, with the same hallucinating AI systems guiding strikes to dig deeper craters instead of actually disabling air defenses. The result was an inability to deny Iran from closing the strait. After the F-16 shootdown over Iran, air operations shut down and the window of opportunity was closed. At this point, Iran has enormous leverage, and the world realizes that American hard power has eroded just as far as soft power has, with USAID turned into a shadow of it’s former self. There’s no more reason to put up with the sanctions, threats and bullying that have worked for 100 years. Once the dollar is discarded as the world’s currency (and why wouldn’t nations use renminbi at this point, that’s where everything comes from anyways) the US will transition into a “middle power” and we’ll be entering a much more chaotic world.
This one AI hallucination has undone 150 years of US geopolitical supremacy. Even during the height of the cold war, when the USSR was an effective counter in public perception, they were nowhere near the same level of soft power projection. Palantir is gonna get away with it too. Their stock price has been juiced by the AI craze, despite their defense programs being the heart of the AI slop grenade that poisoned the golden goose.
I mean, of course. But the AI “defense system” that masqueraded as accurate intelligence, sold by a company that is lying through its teeth about its efficacy, is the inflection point.