A good piece on how wars are won and lost
Apr. 25th, 2026 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hudebnikhttps://www.thebulwark.com/p/will-wins-wars-were-forgetting-that-ukraine-russia
Power = will * resources
Will = domestic support + ally support + perceived legitimacy + various other things
Resources = (military equipment + industrial production) * military manpower
The US has lots of military equipment, lots of military manpower, lots of industrial production capacity. On a smaller scale, the same can be said of Israel. The US has enormous resource superiority over Iran... but the Trump administration completely skipped the steps of developing domestic support, nurturing alliances, developing a perception of legitimacy, etc. so there is very little Will. Iran has no allies to speak of, except terrorist groups that it funds, but it can legitimately say it was attacked without provocation by the United States and Israel, twice, both times in the middle of negotiations. That kind of thing tends to shore up the domestic support of even the most repressive regime.
As the author points out, sometimes a militarily superior country wins a lot of battles, but loses an asymmetric war: that's what happened in the American Revolution, that's what happened in Viet Nam, that may be happening in Ukraine, and it's probably happening in Iran. We've been at war with Iran for eight weeks (of a conflict that Trump said would "probably last two or three weeks"), and regardless of which of the Administration's dozen or more stated reasons for the invasion you choose, we're no better off than we were before. The Strait of Hormuz was open to shipping; now it's mostly closed. One elderly Supreme Leader was killed, and now we have a younger, healthier, more-extreme one. Iran had enriched uranium and (probably) a plan to develop nuclear weapons, and it still does, with even more motivation than before to develop a deterrent to the next unprovoked US attack.
There is one exception : US oil companies are doing very well selling oil and LNG at war-inflated, monopoly prices around the world. (Russia, Iran, and various Arab states are selling at the same war-inflated prices, but a lot of their production and shipping capacity have been destroyed by either Ukrainian drones, US/Israeli bombs, or Iranian missiles respectively, so they're not really better off than before. Australia, I gather, produces a lot of LNG, but its production capacity took a hit a few months ago from severe storms.) Which means other countries have to acquire dollars to buy that oil and LNG, which drives up the dollar, which makes other US exports less competitive, weakens other US industries, and increases the trade deficits Trump has always crusaded against. The US is moving towards "petrostate" status, its economy built on exporting petroleum and using the military to maintain monopoly power over petroleum, leaving the rest of the economy to stagnate.
Naturally, other countries don't want to be dependent on a monopolistic (and politically mercurial) petrostate, whether the US, Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, or Russia, so they're redoubling their efforts to shift to renewables. China is the leading producer of solar, wind, and battery technology, so it stands to benefit from this shift, while also leading the shift itself. ("In 2024, China added 333 GW of new solar capacity, exceeding the rest of the world combined.") So while the US tries to lock in its dominance of 20th-century resources, it's handing the 21st century to China on a semiconductor platter.
Power = will * resources
Will = domestic support + ally support + perceived legitimacy + various other things
Resources = (military equipment + industrial production) * military manpower
The US has lots of military equipment, lots of military manpower, lots of industrial production capacity. On a smaller scale, the same can be said of Israel. The US has enormous resource superiority over Iran... but the Trump administration completely skipped the steps of developing domestic support, nurturing alliances, developing a perception of legitimacy, etc. so there is very little Will. Iran has no allies to speak of, except terrorist groups that it funds, but it can legitimately say it was attacked without provocation by the United States and Israel, twice, both times in the middle of negotiations. That kind of thing tends to shore up the domestic support of even the most repressive regime.
As the author points out, sometimes a militarily superior country wins a lot of battles, but loses an asymmetric war: that's what happened in the American Revolution, that's what happened in Viet Nam, that may be happening in Ukraine, and it's probably happening in Iran. We've been at war with Iran for eight weeks (of a conflict that Trump said would "probably last two or three weeks"), and regardless of which of the Administration's dozen or more stated reasons for the invasion you choose, we're no better off than we were before. The Strait of Hormuz was open to shipping; now it's mostly closed. One elderly Supreme Leader was killed, and now we have a younger, healthier, more-extreme one. Iran had enriched uranium and (probably) a plan to develop nuclear weapons, and it still does, with even more motivation than before to develop a deterrent to the next unprovoked US attack.
There is one exception : US oil companies are doing very well selling oil and LNG at war-inflated, monopoly prices around the world. (Russia, Iran, and various Arab states are selling at the same war-inflated prices, but a lot of their production and shipping capacity have been destroyed by either Ukrainian drones, US/Israeli bombs, or Iranian missiles respectively, so they're not really better off than before. Australia, I gather, produces a lot of LNG, but its production capacity took a hit a few months ago from severe storms.) Which means other countries have to acquire dollars to buy that oil and LNG, which drives up the dollar, which makes other US exports less competitive, weakens other US industries, and increases the trade deficits Trump has always crusaded against. The US is moving towards "petrostate" status, its economy built on exporting petroleum and using the military to maintain monopoly power over petroleum, leaving the rest of the economy to stagnate.
Naturally, other countries don't want to be dependent on a monopolistic (and politically mercurial) petrostate, whether the US, Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, or Russia, so they're redoubling their efforts to shift to renewables. China is the leading producer of solar, wind, and battery technology, so it stands to benefit from this shift, while also leading the shift itself. ("In 2024, China added 333 GW of new solar capacity, exceeding the rest of the world combined.") So while the US tries to lock in its dominance of 20th-century resources, it's handing the 21st century to China on a semiconductor platter.
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