By Russia Today | Created at 2026-09-22 19:05:15 | Updated at 2026-09-22 19:39:51
35 minutes ago
Russia and Iran have pulled back the curtain on the myth of American dominance in the defense sector, Larry Johnson has said
US military might has turned out to be an illusion in the style of ‘The Wizard of Oz’, former CIA analyst Larry Johnson has said.
The myth of American dominance in the defense sector was shattered by the Ukraine and Iran conflicts, Johnson said in an interview with RT’s Sanchez Effect on Monday.
Before the escalation between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022, “Russia had the perception that the US was very powerful militarily, that it had strategic depth, that its industrial base was such that it could support and sustain a modern war,” he said.
However, the opinion in Moscow has changed since then as Russian forces were able to “solve and defeat” all of the systems supplied by Washington to Kiev’s military, the former CIA analyst told host Rick Sanchez.
“I’m calling this ‘The Wizard of Oz effect’... just like in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at the end when the curtain gets pulled back and the great and powerful Oz turns out to be this little old guy with a drinking problem behind the curtain. That’s the US,” he said.
Johnson mentioned a recent report by the Pentagon’s inspector general, which sounded the alarm over “shortfalls” in munitions and a bottleneck in resupply of key weapons.
It was also “an embarrassment” when in August General Dynamics lost a $530 million contract with the Department of War to manufacture shells, the former CIA analyst said.
“They produced exactly zero. Meanwhile, Russia is producing as many artillery shells in one month as all of NATO does in a year,” he stressed.
According to Johnson, Iran has also delivered “enormous damage” to US capabilities in the Middle East since the American-Israeli attack on the country in early February.
Rebuilding the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, which was crippled by Iranian strikes, “doesn’t make economic sense” as Tehran has shown that it’s capable of hitting it again at any moment, he said.
”The US has been effectively expelled from the Persian Gulf,” the former CIA analyst noted.
Watch Rick Sanchez’s full interview with Larry Johnson here.
