The Dangerous Certainty of War Analysis

In our 24-hour news cycle world, we crave instant analysis of complex wars. "This is Iraq all over again," pundits declare. "Air power can't topple regimes," others insist. "It's Trump's war," critics conclude.

But what if our rush to judgment reveals more about our mental shortcuts than military reality?

The Iraq Analogy Trap

The most common frame for understanding the Iran war is the Iraq comparison. Sure, the initial bombing looks successful, the thinking goes, but soon America will be trapped in a protracted ground campaign against multiple insurgents, suffering thousands of casualties while leaving Iran worse off than before.

This analogy feels satisfying because it's simple. But it misses a crucial point: the Trump administration has no desire to repeat what it sees as its predecessors' mistakes. If this war becomes a disaster, it'll be a different kind of disaster than Iraq.

Raids to secure nuclear sites or destroy missile launchers are conceivable. But no plausible scenario exists for sending an expeditionary force to Iran. The administration seems determined to make its own mistakes, not repeat old ones.

When Numbers Don't Tell the Story

Another cognitive shortcut judges the war's success by casualty counts. Iran has launched missiles at U.S. bases, Israel, and neighboring countries. People have died. Therefore, the war is failing.

All casualties are tragic. But losses on the scale suffered so far aren't evidence of defeat—they're war's inevitable consequence. Iran's reckless broadening of attacks may prove to be Tehran's major strategic misjudgment.

The real questions are more complex: Have Iran's missile-launch rates increased or decreased? Do these changes reflect coherent command and control, or just implementation of past plans? Are Americans and Israelis hitting empty buildings or the right targets? Have they eliminated one level of Iranian leadership or several?

The Air Power Orthodoxy

Then there's the historical wisdom: "Air power cannot overthrow a government." This sounds profound—fighter jets can't take palace keys, after all. But it's also demonstrably false. American air campaigns brought down regimes in Yugoslavia and Libya without ground forces.

This assertion becomes even more dubious when it roots claims about present capabilities in past limitations. The idea that fast airplanes could routinely knock out individual tanks was absurd during World War II. Today, it's self-evident.

Modern air power has become increasingly precise, empowered by weapons tailored for specific effects. Some penetrate deep, others saturate large areas with submunitions, still others precisely target a corner of a building.

The U.S. and Israel deploy hundreds of strike aircraft daily, plus drones, all guided by astonishingly detailed intelligence. This doesn't guarantee success—mistakes will occur—but it makes this war different from past conflicts.

The Leadership Distraction

Claims that "It's Donald Trump's war" or "It's Bibi's war" tell us nothing useful. Reasonable people's loathing for both men can impair our ability to assess whether they're succeeding.

Henry Kissinger once asked in perplexity: "Why are the wrong people doing the right thing?" The Trump administration's bungling in presenting a consistent case for war doesn't necessarily spill over into the military's apparently effective conduct of it.

Incompetence and competence can coexist to a frightening degree.

The Questions That Matter

So how should we think about this war? The beginning of wisdom is recognizing that all wars are individual. As Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz put it: "Every war is rich in unique episodes. Each is an uncharted sea, full of reefs."

Wars resemble each other more than anything else, but each must be understood on its own terms. As British military historian Sir Hew Strachan observed, it's pointless for politicians to ask historians for answers to contemporary problems. "What history and historians can provide are, perhaps, some useful questions."

The best historical questions are often "How is this different from that?" and "Where did this come from?" History is about understanding change, not finding eternal truths.

Wars are filled with contingent events—accidents, personal quirks, shifting luck. Outcomes are never predetermined. Much of the Trumpian theory of victory rests on individuals who will succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and whether they'll survive the promotion.

The Bigger Picture Questions

Widening our aperture helps us understand what really matters: Will this war strengthen or diminish Russian and Chinese influence? How is it affecting neighboring Arab states' attitudes? Is it enhancing or detracting from American and Israeli military reputation?

Most crucially: Is an Islamic Republic stripped of most military assets likely to pose the same kind of threat as before?

These questions matter far more than conclusions drawn from the latest missile salvo. We can't answer them definitively now, but they'll prove far more important long-term than immediately satisfying declarations about what's happening.