Here is the hard truth about Trump's fiasco
Two fiascos reveal how future wars will be decided
Here is the hard truth about Trump's fiasco
The factors you should look at – to determine what happens next
That this is roughly where the Iran war would end was extremely predictable.
But behind the US fiasco lies a deeper truth.
It is now possible to clearly see how future wars will be won – and lost.
The reason why the low-intensity war in the Middle East has taken so long to end is simple.
Basically, the strategic stalemate has been the same since shortly after the war began.
The US and Israel's only chance of victory was regime collapse or popular uprising, ideally both.
When that didn't happen, and Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, the US had only two options left:
A forceful escalation to open the strait – or concessions in a negotiation.
Despite all the noise from the White House since early March, that's exactly where we've been, because the US has not dared or been able to take either of the two paths that were available.
Instead, they clung to the hope that victory would just fall like some kind of gift from above. For example, by the real collapse of Iran's economy.
We who have been forced to endure repeated promises of Russian economic armageddon for over four years know that if there's one thing consolidated authoritarian systems can do, it's endure pain. And Iran has more practice than most.
If Trump had the nerve to escalate, we would have seen it months ago.
So concessions remained.
We do not yet know the details of the so-called peace agreement, but about the long-term solution, only one thing is certain:
It will involve things that the US did not really want to give up.
While vi wait for the fine print, we can grapple with the deeper truth of this conflict.
The US war against Iran has, just like Russia's war against Ukraine, shown the limitations of military force.
Both wars, despite extremely ambitious goals, were supposed to be quick.
But both superpowers, despite their military superiority, soon got stuck in their own unwinnable wars.
There are two reasons why this happened.
The first is military-technical.
In the eternal race between means and countermeasures, sometimes a stalemate occurs, where technological development makes the defense too strong and the offense too weak.
Barbed wire, machine guns and grenades locked the fronts of the First World War, before tanks and bombers opened them wide 20 years later.
Drones have strengthened defenses in the same way now. Holding the Strait of Hormuz hostage is easier and cheaper than ever. The offensive will probably catch up, but it hasn't happened yet.
The second reason is domestic politics.
Putin could mobilize more soldiers, but has clearly judged that the consequences for his own power would be too great.
Trump could have entered Iran with ground troops to open the Strait of Hormuz by force, but has not wanted to deal with all the flag-draped coffins that would result.
Neither in dictatorship nor democracy seems to be able to gain acceptance for existential wars, where the resources of the entire society are mobilized.
It does not always have to remain that way.
Perhaps some societies will soon accept that millions of their sons and daughters are sent to their deaths.
Until then, wars will be about endurance.
About who can minimize the suffering of their own society, while denying the opponent the opportunity to do the same.
Such wars are only won secondarily by weapons.
First and foremost, they are determined by functioning internal markets, their own means of production, access to raw materials and energy, and control over critical junctions such as the Sound, the Suez Canal, and the Strait of Hormuz.
These are the factors you should look at if you want to assess who is actually strong and who is weak.
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