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ToggleU.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has formally requested reinforcements from the Pentagon, asking for additional military intelligence officers to be deployed to its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to bolster battlefield intelligence gathering capabilities for operations against Iran. According to an internal memo obtained by Politico, the deployment of these intelligence personnel will last at least 100 days, indicating that the military is preparing for a much longer-than-expected operation.
It is worth noting that this emergency request for reinforcements itself reveals a key signal—when the U.S. military launched Operation Epic Fury against Iraq on February 28, its intelligence capabilities were insufficient to support the operational needs of such a scale. In other words, the Trump administration may have initiated this military conflict before it was fully prepared.
Hegseth: "We've only just begun," the operation will continue to expand.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated at a Pentagon briefing on March 2 that the operation against Iran "has only just begun," emphasizing that it is "not a repeat of the Iraq War." According to military data, in the first 100 hours after the operation began, Iran's theater ballistic missile launches decreased by 86% compared to the first day, and one-way attack drone launches also decreased by 73% .
However, despite the Pentagon's emphasis on smooth military progress, Politico's report reveals a disturbing fact: frontline intelligence support is far behind the pace of operations. CENTCOM needs more specialized intelligence officers to process battlefield information, analyze Iranian military movements, and coordinate allied operations—all of which require a significant investment of time and manpower.
The Pentagon and the White House have conflicting accounts.
More noteworthy is that, according to Newsweek , an unnamed Pentagon source stated in a closed-door congressional briefing that there is no intelligence indicating that Iran plans to launch a preemptive attack on U.S. forces. This contradicts the Trump administration's characterization of military action as "preemptive self-defense" and raises questions about the legitimacy of the war.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military is preparing to provide escort protection for oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure that the global oil supply chain is not affected by the war. The Strait of Hormuz carries about 20% of the world's oil shipments, and if it were blocked, international oil prices would face drastic fluctuations.
How will the crypto market react to escalating geopolitical risks?
From the perspective of the crypto market, the continued escalation of the US-Iran conflict and its impact on Bitcoin warrants attention. A previous Bloomberg analysis pointed out that after the initial airstrikes, BTC briefly fell to around $63,000, but subsequently rebounded quickly to above $70,000, indicating that the market's sensitivity to geopolitical conflicts is decreasing.
However, if the conflict continues to escalate as Hegseth suggests, coupled with reports of insufficient Pentagon intelligence preparation further eroding market confidence, investors may need to reassess geopolitical risk premiums. It's worth noting that open interest in oil and gold perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid has reached an all-time high, considered one of the most sensitive indicators of safe-haven demand in the current crypto-native market.
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