🇺🇲 Ol' Tanker@OldTankerPhil
Unfortunately, in his article, Mr. Rothman repeats the errors of other casual observers of war. They conflate military objectives with war objectives and tactical success with strategic success.
The error in his article starts with the statement, “To take the full measure of the war so far, we should start at the beginning.” No, to take a full measure of any war, professionals start at the end, what are the desired objectives or end state, and how well do the objectives of the war support national, strategic objectives, those larger than the war.
War is the extension of policy by other means. The success of a war is measured by its political outcomes, how close it achieves its desired end state, and the overall benefit of that end state. At the national, strategic level, military objectives are only the Means to those political Ends.
Those with an understanding of military Means and Ways were never in doubt that the initial air campaign would be militarily successful (despite Mr. Rothman’s reference to some obscure spreadsheet). Numerous prior operations against Iran showed this, including Operation Midnight Hammer last June. But how well has this military success translated into political success?
The problem with answering this is that the political objectives are obscure and, as Mr. Rothman admits, inconsistent (and mentioning subordinates is not a method to recuperate the actions of the Commander-in-Chief). More to the point, until just recently, those objectives all terminated when the last bomb dropped. I.e., they described an end state that Iran would immediately start to overturn. President Trump only began addressing this a few days ago, proposing a post-conflict containment strategy that fully debuts the Trump phase of the forever war. Otherwise, the long-term strategy has appeared to be: bomb then hope, or as Mr. Rothman writes, “gamble” that the in-place regime will be overthrown by some internal power. Of course, this was the hope that ended Desert Storm, one that did not emerge then.
Finally, the military success is now tempered by the issues with the Straits and the movement of land forces into the theater. As any military professional will tell you, war is the realm of friction where what can go wrong, will. The Straits are a critical center of gravity for the combined forces, and Iran is targeting it, with some success. We should expect more unprecedented success by the combined forces in countering this initiative, but as any military professional will tell you, war is the realm of friction, and anything that can go wrong, will.
