On September 30, the US military formally completed its handover ceremony with the Government of Iraq. The moment closes the book on more than 20 years of large-scale American troop deployment. Among the photos circulated by various parties, one image drew plenty of attention: a United States Marine Corps special operations operator dressed in PLA Type 07 desert camouflage.
A Farewell Photo That Raised Eyebrows
The kit reads all-American at first glance. The weapon in his hands is a US-made M4A1 carbine. The patch on his arm is the insignia of US special forces. The helmet and night-vision device are standard issue too. The lone exception is the camouflage uniform, a full Chinese-style set.
Put that combination together and the contrast is striking. It has also raised questions about where exactly this uniform came from.
Public information suggests the photo was taken around 2022. The soldier in the frame belongs to Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC).
His face is pixelated, but the square patch on his right arm is easy to make out. It carries a cross star and a red dagger on a blue background, the unit's identifying insignia. On his head sits a FAST tactical helmet, a lightweight type that is a common configuration across US special operations units.
US commando wears Chinese-style desert camo on mountain mission.
The photo's backdrop is the mountainous terrain of northern Iraq. Judging roughly from the scene, a US special operations team was leading Iraqi counterterrorism forces or Kurdish fighters on clearance missions. The target zone: areas where remnants of extremist organizations were still active.
This playbook, US advisers leading the way while local fighters take point, was common in counterterrorism operations after 2014. The scene in the photo fits that background.
Tracing the Uniform to Iraq's Golden Division
So where did this camouflage uniform actually come from? That question demands an answer. According to analysis by a US website, the Iraqi special operations forces cooperating with US troops at the time included a 1st Special Operations Brigade, commonly known as the Golden Division.
This unit has worn the Chinese-style camouflage for years. The supplier is a company in the Chinese Mainland, and the uniforms were specially customized.
The cut differs from the version the PLA issues to its own troops. It leans closer to US military uniform styling, favoring a frog suit design with tactical insert-style elbow pads and angled sleeve pockets. Those details show the buyer communicated with the manufacturer and modified the original, rather than simply copying it.
Iraq's Golden Division switches to improved Chinese desert camo.
In other words, the Iraqi military and the US military alike most likely bought these civilian-version uniforms from Chinese private enterprises through e-commerce channels.
The reason: the PLA's own Type 07 desert camouflage is strictly controlled military materiel. It is never sold externally, and genuine versions are very hard to buy through open channels even in the Chinese Mainland.
That makes the camouflage in these photos, in essence, the same category as the replica products military fans use for cosplay. The only difference: this gear comes closer to actual combat use in cut, fabric and workmanship.
The Golden Division's own origins also need explaining. It is a force the US military trained and armed single-handedly after 2014, with the chief mission of encircling and suppressing extremist organizations. Its combat effectiveness ranks among the best in the Iraqi government forces, but its logistics support has always been quite weak.
Extremist organizations were already rampaging through Iraq and Syria. Frontline units burned through equipment at extraordinary speed, and supplies such as camouflage uniforms were desperately scarce. The US military's formal foreign military sales and aid pipeline, spanning bidding, approval, production, factory delivery and transportation, routinely took at least a year, far too slow to meet an urgent need.
Faced with high-intensity combat consumption, local Iraqi armed forces and US military advisory units turned to commercial channels. They placed custom orders directly with private factories in China's Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong, among other places. Goods could reach the front line within weeks, making this the lowest-cost and fastest-responding supply option on the battlefield.
China's Light-Industry Edge and a Growing Market
China's complete light-industry system is the foundation that makes orders like these possible. The catalog runs deep, from tactical vests, gloves, knee pads and helmet covers to every kind of textile camouflage uniform. Production cycles are short, and prices often run at just a fraction of comparable US equipment.
Once an order is placed, Chinese manufacturers routinely finish production within a week or two and ship it to the Middle East by international express. For frontline buyers, that means speed, low prices and modifications on demand. Add it all up, and there is almost no reason not to buy.
Desert camo pattern matches Middle East arid terrain for concealment.
This one Iraqi special forces unit was not an outlier. Syrian government forces, Kurdish armed groups and defense units across many Middle Eastern countries all bought replica Type 07 desert camouflage uniforms and matching gear from Chinese private enterprises. Together they built a market that was anything but small.
Interestingly, the Type 07 desert pattern itself is a carefully worked design. The segmentation and transitions of its color blocks suit arid, rain-scarce terrain, and the pattern fits the Middle East's sandy, rocky, yellow-earth environment remarkably well. Its camouflage effect is hardly poor; in fact, it sits closer to the local landscape than some of the US military's own uniforms.
That was enough to tempt some US troops into borrowing a set to wear. In the field, after all, staying hidden matters more than dressing neatly.
US special forces mixing in other countries' gear is hardly rare. Unlike ordinary units and their strict requirements, Tier 1 and Tier 2 US special forces hold a high degree of autonomy in equipment selection and can buy what a mission demands. Paying out of pocket to add kit and mixing products from different countries are both common, and that in itself is pragmatism at work.
Wearing camouflage available on the local market lets them blend into the environment and trims logistical headaches. It also saves the time and paperwork of transferring supplies from the homeland.
Why Chinese Camouflage Wins the Field
So why Chinese camouflage, of all things? The reason, in truth, is that China's supply chain has already burrowed into every corner of the globe.
In the niche arena of tactical gear, Chinese private enterprises hold their own against the official suppliers of the U.S. and European militaries. In some general-purpose and consumable equipment, they even carry an edge.
This camouflage has earned recognition from Iraq, Syria and some U.S. troops. To a degree, that endorsement itself attests to the pattern's practicality and design level.
Consider the journey. A uniform originally designed for the environment of China's Western Theater Command performs well in the Middle East, and that crossover shows from one angle how much experience China has accumulated in military uniform design and garment manufacturing.
Uniform design must weigh terrain, climate, light and a host of other factors. The ability to adapt across regions is itself a mark of design caliber.
As for the old days, when military enthusiasts could only envy U.S. military equipment? Those days are slowly changing.
The Art of Stopping War
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
US Ambassador to China David Perdue broke the news on Fox News. During the Xi-Trump meeting, he revealed, Donald Trump took the initiative to ask whether China was interested in buying American weapons.
A Trial Balloon on Fox News
Diplomatic probes built on a businessman's instincts are nothing new. But putting arms sales on the table at China-US talks still startled quite a few people. US arms sales to China are a distant memory, and a sitting president personally pitching weapons and equipment to the Chinese side is worth a closer look in itself.
Set the political barriers and legal prohibitions aside for a moment, and judge the equipment on technical performance and system compatibility alone, the Chinese military has little interest in most of the products the US military can offer for export.
Decades of defense modernization and independent breakthroughs tell the story. In core areas such as surface warships, fifth-generation stealth fighter jets, unmanned combat platforms, and hypersonic strike weapons, China has built a complete, efficient, and scale-advantaged system for independent research, development, and mass production.
Ships, Jets, Hypersonics
Naval surface warships offer the most vivid yardstick. The US shipbuilding industry is mired in a severe deindustrialization crisis. Dry docks are aging, a generational gap yawns in the skilled workforce, and build cycles for Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and new frigates keep slipping. Late deliveries and cost overruns have become the norm.
China's shipbuilders hold clear advantages in production scale and construction efficiency. They also excel at integrating dual-band phased array radars, integrated electric propulsion and universal vertical launch systems. The pace at which Chinese warships are launched and commissioned has caught the outside world's attention.
Take the Type 055 destroyers. The lead ship, Nanchang, entered service in 2020. By the time the ninth and tenth hulls finished the full journey from launch, outfitting and testing to commissioning, It took barely five to six years.
China's Type 055 destroyers: rapid production, fast commissioning.
Aviation tells the same story. The J-20 and J-35 have entered service one after the other and moved into mass production. China has ample production capacity and technological autonomy in stealth fighters.
The American-made F-35 does carry long-accumulated strengths in sensor fusion and its data-link ecosystem. But maintenance costs run high, supply chain problems keep flaring up, and delivery efficiency is hardly ideal.
A US Government Accountability Office report shows all 110 F-35s delivered by Lockheed Martin in 2024 were late, by an average of 238 days. Dragged down by the TR-3 upgrade package, large numbers of aircraft leaving the factory were semi-finished products. Products like these hold little technical allure for China.
Hypersonic penetration weapons? China has already pushed its deployments on land-based, sea-based and air-based platforms into a normalized state of combat readiness.
The YJ-21 anti-ship missile aboard the Type 055 destroyer reaches beyond 1,000 kilometers. Its average flight speed is Mach 6. In its terminal attack phase, it can reach Mach 10.
The US military, by contrast, keeps watching its hypersonic programs slip and its tests stumble. In this field, it is the United States scrambling to patch its own shortfalls.
Where America Still Leads
Objectivity and restraint are the watchwords when judging the US military. Yes, it lags in shipbuilding capacity and hypersonics. But that is no reason to write off the industrial depth banked over decades.
In a handful of cutting-edge technologies and specific combat domains, the US advantage remains rock solid. Precisely the pillars holding up America's global strategic deterrence.
First on the list: underwater quieting technology and nuclear submarine engineering. The United States has long held to an all-nuclear route in submarines, and its engineering experience runs deep. The portfolio spans Large-diameter vibration-isolation rafts, precision transmission gearboxes, natural circulation reactors and complex underwater acoustic coating materials.
US leads in submarine quieting and reactor tech.
The in-service Virginia-class attack submarines and the under-construction Columbia-class strategic nuclear submarines still sit at the international front rank. They excel at radiated noise control during low-speed cruising, and at the detection sensitivity of towed sonar arrays and integrated sonar systems.
But submarine technology is not an across-the-board US lead. Construction of the first Chinese Type 095 attack submarine is nearing completion, and Western analysts believe its underwater maneuver warfare capability is already approaching, or even surpassing, the Virginia class.
The two countries' design approaches for next-generation attack submarines are also highly convergent. The remaining difference lies mainly in America's accumulated edge in engineering maturity and real-combat experience.
Second comes the stealth strategic bomber and aerodynamic coating technology. From the B-2 to the new-generation B-21 Raider, the US military has stockpiled a trove of engineering data on flying-wing aerodynamic layouts and full-spectrum stealth design.
B-21 flying wing, coatings reveal US stealth mastery.
The B-21 program set out to cure the B-2's chronic ills: fussy stealth-coating maintenance and hangars with strict temperature and humidity demands. The durability and maintenance processes of the new radar-absorbent materials show the US military's deep foundation in materials science and stealth engineering.
Make no mistake: equipment of this class is a US strategic asset. The possibility of export is slim.
Heavy Lifters and Orbital Trump Cards
The US military's edge in rotorcraft and high-end propulsion is just as sharp. The CH-53K heavy helicopter posts a maximum takeoff weight of 39.9 tons and can sling more than 12.2 tons beneath its belly. Three turboshaft engines, each good for 7,500 shaft horsepower, give it a load-to-power ratio that shines in hot, high-altitude environments.
Tiltrotors tell a similar story. From the V-22 Osprey to the next-generation assault tiltrotor V-280 Valor, the US military has cracked the complex aerodynamic interference that hits when shifting between level flight and vertical takeoff and landing. Along the way it has banked a huge store of flight-hour data, with top cruising speeds above 500 kilometers per hour.
But China has not stood still. Domestic tiltrotor designs such as the UR6000 have already broken cover, and their technical path runs close to that of the V-280. The gap sits mainly in the engineering maturity and operational experience of heavy platforms, not in any blind spot on direction.
V-280 tiltrotor: US leads in flight data.
What should command the defense world's closest attention is the US military's accumulated depth in orbital and space combat technology. From a few hundred kilometers above Earth to tens of thousands, the US Space Force keeps a decidedly cutting-edge spread of assets on orbit.
The GSSAP satellites in geosynchronous orbit can fly close escort and run high-resolution surveillance. The PWSA low-orbit mesh constellation, now being pushed by the US Space Development Agency, aims to weave hundreds or even thousands of small satellites into inter-satellite laser links. The goal: continuous global tracking and relayed early warning of hypersonic glide vehicles.
These capabilities form the core trump card of the US military's dynamic space operations. And there is almost no chance they will ever be exported.
Outdated Stock for Sale, Crown Jewels Locked Away
So the crown jewels stay locked in the vault. The assets where the US military truly holds top-tier status, such as nuclear submarine quieting technology, the B-21 Raider bomber, the Boeing X-37B spaceplane and top-class aero engines, are the strategic foundation of American advantage.
It’s highly unlikely that Washington will ever sell them to any country.
What goes on the sales floor is usually something else: outdated capacity that is easily replaced. And the super-heavy helicopter project China is working to master? The US side cannot possibly provide the key technology for that either.
Trump's weapons pitch looks, on the surface, like a trial balloon heavy with commercial flavor. In reality, it exposes a US military-industrial base that cannot keep up with its own strategic ambitions.
As for David Perdue's account of Trump asking China to buy weapons, only his one-sided version exists so far. Even so, judging from the industrial base to the distribution of technology, the room for the US to play the arms-sales card is indeed quite limited.
