by Colonel (Retired) John Rosenberger

“No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.”

General Carl von Clausewitz, On War

Here we are seven months into President Trump’s undeclared and un-Constitutional war against Iran; another war justified by lying to the American people telling us that an Iranian nuclear strike against the U.S. was imminent; this after President Trump declared we had “obliterated Iran’s nuclear capabilities” 8 months before. In truth, this is an undeclared war being fought at the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, goaded by the demands of wealthy Israeli supporters who contributed millions to Donald Trump’s campaign, and the clamor of the powerful Israeli lobbies such as AIPAC whose political contributions control most members of our House of Representatives and Senate. What has the combined might of our political, economic, and military power of the United States achieved? Time to take stock.

· Eighteen (18) soldiers have been killed and seven hundred fifty-seven (757) severely wounded by Iranian precision ballistic missile and drone attacks.

· Nineteen (19) U.S. air, ground, and naval bases in GCC countries and Jordan have been destroyed or severely damaged. Losses in the billions of dollars.

· Iranian air defense assets, coupled with ballistic missile and drone attacks, have destroyed approximately 60 manned and unmanned U.S. aircraft of various types costing billions of dollars: MQ-9s, MQ-4C, F-15E, KC-135s, A-10, MC-130Js, AH-64s, UH-60s, HH-60s, F-35. Our Navy operates 400-500 miles south of the Gulf of Oman for fear of being struck by Iranian highly accurate long-range hypersonic missiles and drone swarms ensconced under granite mountain complexes throughout its provinces.

· Our longstanding relationships with the six GCC nations and Jordan have been shattered. Iran has exposed the fact that we are incapable of protecting them from ballistic missile, cruise missile, and drone attacks. They have rightly concluded they cannot count on the United States to protect them anymore.

· President Trump has alienated and fractured the NATO alliance demanding they assist in joining this unprovoked and unjust war against Iran. The majority of NATO nations have adamantly refused to join the fiasco.

· The Congressional Budget Office estimate puts the direct operational cost of the Iran War at $38.0 billion dollars and growing—all unprogrammed—all borrowed money—adding to our national debt now over $40 trillion dollars and growing. All of our military services have been forced to curtail training and maintenance operations to pay this bill severely decreasing combat readiness across the Joint force.

· We have dangerously depleted our stocks of air defense and air attack munitions reducing our ability to deter other potential threats we face, such as Russia and China. It will take years to replenish these stocks given the neglected condition of our defense industrial base, the lengthy time to assemble, not to mention the billions of dollars it will cost. Just one PAC-3 PATRIOT missile costs $5.0 million and at least 2 years to build. One Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile costs about $12 million and takes three years to build. And neither the PATRIOT or THAAD missiles can acquire and intercept any of the various Iranian hypersonic missiles. The limits of U.S. military power have been starkly exposed. More evidence our armed forces were unprepared for this war or wars of similar nations in the future.

· Global shortages of diesel and aviation fuel are driving increases in the cost of goods and airfare. Since 28 February, the national average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. has risen from $2.92 to $4.44 (a 52% increase). A gallon of diesel—the fuel that underpins the stability of the U.S. economy—has risen from $3.81 to $6.40 (68% increase) with costs continuing to grow. U.S. jet fuel has surged to $4.43 a gallon, up 96% since the war began driving up the cost of airfares and air freight.

· Our U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve held 415.4 million barrels of oil when the war started on 28 February. Since then, the Trump administration has sold 130 million barrels in a fruitless attempt to reduce the cost of oil on the global market and the price of gas and diesel at the pump. Our strategic reserve now sits at about 40% of its 714-million-barrel authorized capacity, its lowest level in decades.

· Numerous polls indicate about 70% of Americans oppose this unprovoked war of choice by a President who promised the American people during his campaign he would never commit us to another endless war in the Middle East. Trump’s approval rating has dropped to 33%, the lowest approval rating of any U.S. president the past 50 years.

· Most importantly, given the strategic leverage it provides, Iran has closed and firmly controls ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, stifling shipments of oil, diesel, aviation fuel, liquified natural gas, sulphur, helium, urea, and other critical commodities needed by the global community. Prices for these commodities have soared, pushing the global economy towards recession. Furthermore, in the past week, Iran’s proxy in Yemen, Ansar Allah, or the Houthis as they’re called, have seized control of the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait striking and damaging multiple Saudi Arabian oil tankers and it’s vital East-West pipeline to the Red Sea—shutting down and additional 5% of global oil supply— further exacerbating the shortage of oil and distillation products on the global market.

Judged by this evidence alone, the United States has lost this war. Nothing we have done using our military and economic power has compelled, nor will it compel Iran to capitulate to our demands. Through its brilliant asymmetric military strategy and force structure designed to achieve it, Iran has seized the strategic, operational, and tactical initiative and they will exploit it until the political and financial pain within the U.S. and across the globe becomes so severe, the United States will bend to Iran’s stated demands. We will dance to their tune.

Moreover, it has become a strategic disaster for the United States that has fundamentally changed the geopolitical structure and balance of power in the Middle East, ended U.S. global hegemony it has enjoyed since WW II, exposed the limits of U.S. military power, and strengthened the relationship between Iran, Russia, and China, Iran’s largest trading partner. Furthermore, despite President Trump’s repetitive lie—voiced almost every week—that Iran is begging to negotiate with us, Iran authorities have stated unequivocally they have no interest in ending the war or negotiating with the United States unless their stated demands are met. Our President has lost all credibility; his word cannot be trusted.

This raises the central question: How did we lose this war? The reason, in many respects, mirrors the wars we lost in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

First, the Presidents in these administrations never provided military commanders with clear, stable, and attainable objectives. The desired end state shifted over time, and in all cases, was unrealistic from the outset. Each conflict rested on grossly flawed assumptions about the enemy’s intentions, strategy, capabilities, and willingness to absorb losses and endure. Like Iran, none were authorized by Congress as required by the U.S. Constitution–Congress abrogated its responsibility in each case–and none was prosecuted until a decisive victory was achieved resulting in a durable, long-lasting peace. Instead, each of these wars ended when the political will of the governing political party collapsed. This war with Iran will end the same way.

In addition, commanders in each conflict lacked the resources necessary to defeat the enemy and achieve the political objective(s) desired. Campaign designs were inadequate; operational sequences were disjointed; and tactical forces were often constrained by political considerations that undermined military effectiveness. In short, military force was not applied decisively to achieve the political end state desired. In all cases, a fundamental disconnect existed between the political end state desired, the means provided to attain it, and the way military forces were employed to achieve victory—the fundamental tenets of military strategy. In the case of this war against Iran, however, the failures extend beyond these familiar patterns. If the objective is to lose a war against an adversary like Iran, this is how to do it.

· We conducted two large-scale surprise attacks against Iran within a year during earnest diplomatic negotiations, shattering what trust remained and eliminating any realistic prospect for negotiations to restore a durable peace. President Trump then deepened that mistrust by failing to honor commitments he agreed to in a joint Memorandum of Understanding he signed in June—and quickly abandoned. Iran cannot trust a word he says.

· Our President failed to establish clear, viable political objectives before resorting to war. “Viable” meaning they were realistically attainable through the military means at our nation’s disposal. In his military classic Strategy, British theorist B.H. Liddell Hart warned that a political leader’s foremost responsibility is to ensure that war aims are grounded in military reality. As he succinctly put it, a political objective must “not demand what is militarily impossible.” President Trump vacillated from achieving regime change initially, to the “unconditional surrender” of Iran’s armed forces, to preventing Iran from developing or possessing nuclear weapons, to opening the Strait of Hormuz.

· We conducted the war based on a host of grossly flawed assumptions about Iran’s military capabilities, how it would respond to surprise attacks, its ability to endure a bombing campaign, its response to the murder of 168 young school girls, and misjudged the response of the Iranian people as a result. Our actions solidified unity between the Iranian government and the Iranian people.

· We assumed that assassinating a sovereign nation’s theocratic, political, and military leaders would prompt its citizens to overthrow the government, despite the absence of an organized and well-armed opposition. We failed to appreciate the regime had a deep leadership bench, along with established succession plans, specifically designed to preserve governmental continuity in the event of a decapitating attempt. Iran didn’t miss a beat.

· We assumed that an air and maritime-based bombing campaign—relying primarily on stand-off missiles—would compel a formidable land power of 92 million people, the size of Western Europe, to surrender on U.S. terms. In doing so, we completely disregarded the historical record. Airpower alone has never secured the political end state desired against a determined and capable adversary. We also assumed that Iran would not attack U.S. military installations in the GCC nations surrounding the Persian Gulf and therefore failed to provide our forces sufficient air defense assets to protect them from ballistic missile and drone attack.

· We assumed that Iran would not close the Strait of Hormuz, nor had the military capabilities to close the Strait, stopping the maritime shipment of critical global commodities, even though this response was predicted by multiple CENTCOM commanders for many years.

· In CENTCOM’s design of a military campaign, it failed to correctly identify the enemy’s center of gravity—the land power of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps—and focus military power relentlessly on its destruction. That, of course, would take a well-trained, well-equipped, ground force 4-5 times the size of the U.S. Army capable of protecting itself from relentless air attacks from thousands of Iranian ballistic missiles, cruise, missiles, and drone swarms. This realization no doubt led to the decision to try air power alone.

· We completely underestimated the warfighting capabilities of the enemy and the form of warfare they would use to achieve their strategic objectives—thousands of very accurate ballistic and hypersonic missiles and swarms of attack drones dispersed and protected under granite mountains throughout a nation the size of Western Europe. We failed to appreciate the asymmetric means and methods the enemy would use to defeat our strengths.

· We grossly underestimated the number and effectiveness of PATRIOT and THAAD air defense missiles required to protect U.S. forces on U.S. installations located in the GCC nations, Jordan, and Israel from repeated attacks by Iranian ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, hypersonic missiles, and swarms of drones. In turn, this caused the Pentagon to transfer stocks of these critical munitions from EUCOM and INDOPACOM severely degrading their ability to deter Russian or Chinese aggression.

These political and operational failures were not isolated misjudgments. They reflect a broader strategic failure: senior civilian and military leaders committed the United States to war without adequately understanding the enemy, aligning objectives with available means, or preparing for the scale and duration of the conflict.

What can future American political and military leaders learn from this world-changing debacle?

Unlike President Trump, do not pursue shifting, maximal objectives without a credible theory of victory, applying military means that could impose costs, but could not reliably produce a desired political end state. This inevitably resulted in an ends–ways–means–risk mismatch, compounded by flawed assumptions about Iran, inadequate force protection, inadequate munitions depth, weak alliance/diplomatic management, and no viable termination strategy.

Furthermore, the military strategy and campaign appears to have confused punishment and attrition with compellence—the ability to make Iran accept U.S. political demands. Striking over 14,000 targets, assassinating leaders of the regime, and degrading Iranian infrastructure may demonstrate tactical and operational capability, but they do not by themselves create a durable political outcome against a large, resilient state like Iran that is willing to absorb costs and is fully capable of retaliating asymmetrically and very effectively. The apparent concept was “escalate strikes until Iran yields.” That is not sufficient where an adversary like Iran can retaliate with greater force and escalate its attacks tit-for-tat against U.S. regional bases, partners, maritime trade, energy markets, and munitions inventories.

Hopefully, we’ve learned that warfare in the 21^st Century has fundamentally changed, exposing the fact that our 20^th Century joint force is an artifact of history, wholly inadequate to prevail in future conflicts against nations with capabilities similar to Iran such as Russia and China. We require wholesale revision of our joint doctrine, joint organization, new formations and weapons, and a joint training system designed to develop and sustain proficiency in new operational and tactical tasks.

It’s also clear that diplomacy and coalition management were treated as secondary to the application of military power. In a regional war, access, basing, overflight, partner confidence, economic resilience, and political legitimacy are operational necessities—not public-affairs concerns. We ignore this critical warfighting requirement at our peril.

Lastly, continuing a military campaign after its central assumptions fail—without narrowing aims, changing the operational approach, or pursuing an achievable settlement—turns an initial error into strategic defeat.

One can only hope future U.S. administrations absorb these lessons—though our historical record offers little confidence. Ending this war will require more than new rhetoric or another round of escalation. It will require the discipline to recognize when a strategy has failed and the resolve to stop compounding the damage. As the old adage puts it: when you find yourself in a deep hole, stop digging.

Colonel (Ret) John D. Rosenberger served 29 years in the U.S. Army as a combined arms warrior and lifelong student of military history and strategy. Among his military assignments, he directed the SACEUR’s training program for NATO CJTF HQs and commanded the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the vaunted OPFOR at the National Training Center. He has written and published extensively on issues related to battlefield leadership, the art of battle command, military readiness, and Joint combined arms training. He recently published op-eds highlighting critical shortfalls in military capabilities in the Pacific. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of JANUS Research Group, Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense