The extraordinary rescue and extraction operation carried out by the US military in Iran has caught the attention of Chinese military experts, who highlight the “comprehensive capability” of the US and how Iran missed the crucial window to capture the airman.
Song Zhongping, a military commentator and former PLA instructor, hailed the US attempt, stating that the complex manoeuvres performed by the US military and the high cost it paid to extract the crew member reflected how the US practised such a mission extensively.
“The US deployed a large number of special operations forces to rescue the pilots of the crashed aircraft – even at great cost. At the same time, the crashed aircraft were completely destroyed to prevent leaks of classified information. All of this demonstrates the US’s comprehensive capability to assess and extract casualties. They must have practised this extensively in peacetime in order to execute well in wartime. That’s a crucial test,” he told South China Morning Post.
The expert added that the Iranian military, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), missed the crucial window to capture the US soldier to hold him as leverage in negotiations. “The mountainous terrain in Iran exacerbated the difficulty of the race. The US, with its faster and more advanced rescue capabilities, including quicker pilot location, allowed them to expedite the rescue operation before the Iranians,” Song said, adding that this highlighted “technological and tactical challenges” in the race to rescue.
Song said that even though Iran’s air-defence and anti-missile systems had been damaged and fragmented, it still posed a significant threat to US and Israeli aircraft because many “such systems are now operating independently”.
Retired PLA senior colonel Zhou Bo, now a senior fellow with Tsinghua University’s Centre for International Security and Strategy, too claimed the incident was an opportunity for both the US and Iran to “claim their own victories”. “The US demonstrated precise information gathering, coordinated actions and tactical deception in rescuing the airman,” he said.
“Iran has also shown that it still possesses some air-defence capabilities. Shooting down these two warplanes is enough to rally the morale, and can significantly change the perception that it has no air-defence capabilities,” he added.
