America often prepares for the war it has just fought. Today, the Pentagon is preparing for the next war, in real time, under fire, against the clock.
The Davidson Window marks the period beginning in 2027, when intelligence analysts estimate that China will possess the equipment and personnel to execute a cross-strait invasion of Taiwan. As America focuses on the Strait of Hormuz, it cannot lose sight of the Taiwan Strait. What the U.S. military learns from Epic Fury may determine whether it is ready before hostilities begin in the Pacific. Beijing, meanwhile, is taking notes and making moves.
Over the past year, three high-profile missions have put U.S. military personnel, processes, and equipment to the test. Midnight Hammer tested long-range strike coordination in a contested environment. The Maduro raid tested rapid force projection across domains. The January raid involved more than 150 aircraft and drones, the integration of space and cyber effects, and coordination across multiple intelligence agencies. Epic Fury now tests it all at scale, against an adversary willing and able to fight back. These operations provide more than just combat experience; they are a live-fire stress test of the entire American defense ecosystem, from acquisition to industry, before the window to deter a conflict over Taiwan closes. Each operation generates data that no sterile, static, or synthetic exercise could replicate. The question is whether the feedback loop is fast enough.
The campaign of attrition in Ukraine is also a campaign of learning. Its drone advances did not come from resources alone but sprang from treating the front lines as a product development cycle. The way Ukraine collects, analyzes, and applies data from combat is a model America must replicate. Unlike Ukraine, whose industrial base sits within range of the conflict, America must bridge vast distances between production and combat. What remains unclear is the American industrial base’s ability to produce weapons based on frontline data at the pace of conflict. The Pentagon’s recent push to fund domestic drone production lines indicates it understands the problem and is moving to address it. Whether it can compress the acquisition timeline fast enough before the Davidson Window closes remains the true test.
The demand signal to industry is clearer and more urgent. During the opening salvo of Epic Fury, the U.S. military expended 500 to 700 Tomahawk missiles. Congress responded with a supplemental appropriation to accelerate Tomahawk production, but the long production lead time leaves the joint force seeking near-term alternatives.
Last month, the U.S. Army compressed a contracting timeline to 72 hours in response to urgent needs revealed by Epic Fury. This compression should become the standard, not a crisis response. Epic Fury uncovered gaps in America’s capabilities, including counter-UAS and counter-mining operations. These gaps present opportunities for startups and established contractors to integrate open-source intelligence and frontline feedback to field solutions.
The Pentagon’s tight alignment with Silicon Valley and defense startups goes beyond adopting new products; it demands embracing open feedback loops to drive adaptation. Since Epic Fury began, defense startups have received more orders from the Pentagon. The new director of the Defense Innovation Unit, Owen West, recently asserted, “Drones are the most significant battlefield innovation in generations in Ukraine.” America must couple its tech ethos and software innovation with a manufacturing base capable of turning lessons into warheads.
Silicon Valley iterates because failure is recoverable: a firm can ship a bad product, data flows back, and the next version improves. War is not a sprint cycle. The opening phase of a conflict with China over Taiwan will not offer a second iteration. What Epic Fury can provide is not a rehearsal but a pressure test, stressing the acquisition cycle, the command architecture, and the domestic industrial base before the environment becomes unforgiving. The goal is to win in Iran and ensure that what breaks in the Middle East does not break in the Pacific when the margin for error disappears.
Critics may contend that optimizing for a desert air campaign against a technologically inferior foe could entrench the wrong lessons for a maritime strait fight against a peer competitor. The objective was never to choose this specific test environment; it was to leverage the environment thrust upon it. Epic Fury is not an export of tactics to the Pacific; it is a stress test for the acquisition cycle, command architecture, and the defense industrial base that all-domain fights demand.
Epic Fury remains an evolving operation with tremendous risks. The campaign has revealed how the U.S. military manages its now constant targeting cycle, controls maritime terrain, recovers downed pilots, maintains maritime awareness, and matches munitions to the right targets. America’s adversaries are drawing their own lessons from Epic Fury. This contest of wills is also a contest of learning. What matters now is not just who learns, but who can act on those lessons fastest.
Maj Benjamin Van Horrick is a Marine officer based in Virginia. He serves as the managing editor of The Connecting File. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Navy, or the Department of War.
