Indirectly suggesting an answer =
Slate, Aug. 31, 2026, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/08/pete-hegseth-generals-worried-reserves-military.html
Beginning:
A remarkable story in Monday’s Washington Post dramatizes how deeply the Iran war has degraded the U.S. military’s ability to fend off attacks by adversaries elsewhere in the world. The story is based on the leak of a little-known classified document, which itself signifies that we’ve reached a new stage in the growing turmoil among the senior officer corps over the chaotic reign of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The leaked document reveals that the three four-star commanders in charge of U.S. military operations in Europe, the Pacific, and South America, as well as the Navy’s top admiral, all informed Hegseth that because so many of their planes, ships, and other weapons systems have been diverted to the war in Iran, they could no longer perform their tasks if a war broke out in their part of the world.
These senior officers were responding to the Aug. 14 edition of the Secretary of Defense Orders Book. As Post reporters Alex Horton and Tara Copp describe the book:
The SDOB, typically produced twice monthly, outlines the worldwide availability of U.S. warships, aircraft, personnel, and weapons systems. It reflects the president’s priorities for the force, which are carried out by the defense secretary.
In response to that August edition, the top officers issued a comment of “non-concur.” This means they no longer had the number of ships, planes, personnel, or other weapons systems that, according to the SDOB’s calculations, would be needed to carry out the president’s priorities in the event of a war. These priorities spell out what steps the commanders should be able to take if, say, China assaulted or blockaded Taiwan, or North Korea invaded South Korea, or Russia mounted an incursion in the Baltics, or an attack of a certain scale was mounted against Israel.
Two other senior officers, the top generals in the Army and the Air Force, concurred with the estimate of resources at their disposal but still noted that the risks involved in carrying out missions had grown.
The Post story comes as the United States and Iran resumed firing missiles at each other’s ships after a month of relative calm, though it tracks conditions from weeks prior.
It has been widely reported that in the six months of this war (and even over the course of its first month), the U.S. depleted a high percentage of its most vital munitions, including more than half of its cruise missiles and advanced air-defense missiles. The military has had to redeploy one of the most advanced weapons—its Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles—to the Middle East from South Korea. It has also had to reposition the USS George Washington vessel and its escort warships to the Persian Gulf from Japan—thus removing the Navy’s only aircraft carrier in the Pacific.
The SDOB specified that the 50,000 U.S. troops and much of their hardware must remain in the Middle East at least through September, and in some cases well into next year. The subsequent “non-concur” statements warned that U.S. military readiness couldn’t be sustained if the war in Iran goes on for much longer.
Parallel coverage, Jerusalem Post, Aug 30, 2026, https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-907059 -- ending:
The Washington Post reported that the navy’s top admiral, along with the leaders from America’s European Command, Pacific Command, and the Southern Command, responded with “non-concur,” which means that they do not agree with Hegseth’s order, but will execute it regardless.
Leaders from the US Army and Air Force both noted that the extension of their forces comes with significant risks.
One person familiar with the matter said that US military leadership believes that the war in Iran has been “too much for too long.”
“Decisions regarding the scope and duration of specific force commitments to any Combatant Command are made based on the current threat assessment, strategic priorities established by the President, and the advice of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Combatant Commanders,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to the Washington Post.
He added that the Pentagon “does not discuss internal operational processes,” such as the SDOB, “or specific concurrences, non-concurrences, or risk assessments provided by the Services or Combatant Commands during force allocation deliberations.”
See also, this.
Then, earlier there is https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117046698987056229
Now, back to the used car question, what's your gut feeling?
Aside from the simplistic style of that last item, aimed at other morons being likely, the earlier quotes are sobering and this sort of so-called TRUTH approach has little to argue in its favor.