The world has known for awhile that things were shifting toward drone warfare, but China just showed off, Air recon/strike craft and VTOLs, Naval surface and subsurface drones, Ground light forces(robo dogs), and heavy forces(mini drone tanks).
They could effectively wage a war without losing a single soldier. Combined with their industrial capacity, and the defensive capability they showed off (Directed energy anti missile systems for example). Its now clear that China would defeat the US in a conventional war. Many of the things shown off in Chinas parade are technologies still in the prototyping phase in the US. The tech gap is closed. Or honestly in Chinas favor at this point.
They had for example drones integrated into their heavy tank forces. With launch platforms on top, and likely piloted from inside. So their tanks can now get a birds eye view of their surroundings at all times. This philosophy is likely an example of how theyll operate in general. With large armored ships, and vehicles acting as mobile control platforms for their vast drone forces. Its the modern equivalent of the air craft carrier. Drone warefare taken to its logical conclusion.
Our comrades in the PLA arent fucking around.
The U.S had supplied Israel and armed their own bases with a significant amount of expensive interceptors that require a vast amount of rare earth minerals that are currently being choked by the trade-war between China and the United States.
When Iran and Israel had that spat; with Iran throwing missiles towards U.S bases; a significant amount of interceptors were spent and since then have been struggling to refill. Some projections don’t predict until 2040s-50s at current production. We all know how well U.S does with war-time production these days.
All of that with a couple hundred dollar drones and some cheap decoys.