COLUMN-From cyber to Middle East, US and allies take stark lessons from 2026

As America's military cyberdefence professionals met for their annual trade meeting in Maryland last Thursday, several top US commanders issued a blunt warning that sustained operations this year had cost ​the US much of its long-built-up advantages in cyberspace. According to US officials, highly sophisticated cyberattacks were at the heart of operations earlier this year, firstly to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ​and then to degrade Iranian sensors and communications in the first days of the US-led "Operation Epic Fury".

Those operations, US officials say, ‌were initially very successful, ​blinding hostile systems and enabling US forces to strike physical targets much more safely. Over time, however, senior officials told the gathering of the Military Cyber Professionals Association, known as Hammercon, their ability to conduct offensive cyberattacks through pre-identified vulnerabilities in hostile systems has begun eroding fast.

"Your cyber magazine of these exquisite fires is empty pretty damn quick," Vice Admiral Heidi Berg, commander of the US Navy Fleet Cyber Command, said in response to a question, referring to the abilities to hack and frustrate or turn off key systems in an opposing nation. At other events this year, senior US officials have called on the ‌US defence industry to find new ways of using cyber and electronic warfare to deter and, if necessary, defeat major US adversaries, particularly China.

But the reality, insiders say, is that finding such vulnerabilities takes considerable time and effort – and conducting direct attacks prompts immediate adaptation by the other side. That, Vice Admiral Berg said, raised serious questions for future long campaigns.

"How are you going to regenerate and continue to develop access and effects... over the course of what will almost always be... a sustained conflict?" she said, according to a report of the event on specialist website Breaking Defense. According to Lieutenant General Christopher Eubank, head of US Army Cyber Command speaking at the same event, demand for direct US cyber support to wider military operations had been "constant" since the conflict with Iran began on February 28. He said that this was the "first time for the cyber ‌force at large" that operations have been at such a tempo.

Those lessons in cyberspace – which had not been widely reported before the Military Cyber Professionals Association event last week – appear to overlap heavily with much wider trends – particularly the overuse of precision missiles, including those for air defence. At the start of August, multiple US military sources told Reuters the Pentagon had used up large stockpiles of ‌ATACMS strike missiles, Patriot air defence systems and Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles, to the point that it would take multiple years to rebuild "magazine depth".

The strain has also been telling on other parts of the US military. Last week, US Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao confirmed in a letter to Congress that eight sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier had attempted suicide during its unusually long 286 consecutive days at sea this year supporting operations in the Middle East. QUARTER OF US REAPER DRONE FLEET DESTROYED

This year’s high US military operational tempo – not just in the Gulf, but also including ongoing military drills and posturing in the Pacific against an increasingly aggressive China, as well as around the conflict in Ukraine – has delivered a stark challenge to the Pentagon. On one level, events this year have acted as a savage and robust reminder of US military strength – no other nation could come close to conducting such operations, particularly with such a low number of friendly casualties: 19 US dead, according to the primary Pentagon count, ⁠roughly equally divided between accidents ​and direct Iranian strikes.

On another, however, they have shown the stark limits of that power – and the damage ⁠to the US military inventory goes well beyond just the used up missile stocks. According to US specialist defence media reports, the US Air Force has lost as many as 40 of its MQ-9 Reaper drones in its operations since the end of February, as much as a quarter of its total airworthy fleet.

“Although we have plenty... today, we are going through them at a rate that is concerning to us," US Air Force chief modernisation officer Lieutenant General Christopher Niemi told reporters at the ⁠Pentagon earlier this month, saying the US was now pushing manufacturers to get a much cheaper alternative to the up to $50 million Reaper into service as fast as possible. Other aircraft losses have also been on a scale unseen in recent US wars, including two KC-135 tankers destroyed and another seven damaged, a wrecked E-3 Sentry airborne warning aircraft, four destroyed F-15E Strike Eagles and another eight damaged. Two MC-130J gunships and an A-10 Warthog were also lost on a ​mission to retrieve a downed pilot.

Those manned aircraft losses remain only a tiny fraction of total US strength – the US Air Force currently fields more than 200 combat-F-15s, with the US and its allies also now operating in excess of 1,000 of the much more capable F-35. Last week, the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt departed San Diego for the Middle East, another ⁠reminder of ongoing US reach.

Still, estimates from the Congressional Budget Office put the financial expense of “Epic Fury” so far as just under $40 billion, pointedly warning it would take several years to rebuild depleted stocks of interceptor missiles critical for deterring any future war with China. This week, US military publication Stars and Stripes noted that the US was moving to store long-range Typhon and High Mobility Artillery Rocket System missiles at Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa.

That move was announced jointly with Japan and likely intended to reassure US regional ⁠allies and ​remind Beijing that, despite a largely friendly meeting between US President Donald Trump and China's Xi Jinping, the US remains ready to fight a war if needed. A new generation of unmanned weaponry, including maritime drones, might redress the balance in favour of the US and its allies – but they are taking time to enter service.

ALLIES FEAR OVERSTRETCH, US TROOPS RETURN TO EUROPE When it comes to supporting allies this year, the US record has been distinctly mixed – with Saudi Arabia, in particular, now turning to wider foreign help despite the presence of what Gulf media say have been more than 100 US advisers on the ground.

According to French President Emmanuel Macron, French troops and missiles are now helping protect the Saudi port of Yanbu, while Riyadh is also publicly discussing further support with treaty allies Pakistan and Turkey. On Monday, ⁠Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi suggested Japan now needed to move past the "taboo" on discussing whether it might need atomic weapons, a discussion that has also quietly become increasingly widespread in South Korea and Poland.

Russian missiles, meanwhile, continue to pound Ukrainian targets, now helped by a lack of US-manufactured interceptors. And whatever the truth behind the apparent incident at RAF Fairford earlier this week, it comes following ⁠a rising number of sabotage and drone incidents across much of eastern Europe and warnings from intelligence agencies of likely ⁠more to come. This summer, the US quietly withdrew troop detachments forward deployed in the Baltic states – but last week saw announcements that some would return, including a pair of tank and engineering battle groups to Lithuania. It was also announced that a small armoured force would again be based in Estonia throughout the coming winter.

That might just suggest a broader shift – a re-learning of lessons, an acknowledgement that sometimes a simple forward deployment of US forces can deter aggressive action – and the realisation that launching conflict is much easier to do than managing the resulting fallout. But it will be a work in ‌progress. On one panel at the Military Cyber Professionals event last week, US ‌Air Force Captain Corey Jones reflected that part of becoming a junior leader was learning to shape the expectations of superiors over what was truly possible.

"Things move superfast," he said. "Just getting the resources that we need ​to do our job is hard. We are consistently asked to do more with less." (Alex Richardson)