By Noah Rothman
Friday, June 19, 2026
The president clearly hopes that his memorandum of
understanding with the Islamic Republic will put the Iran war in the rearview
mirror. It might, although it is by no means a given that Tehran, emboldened by
America’s retreat, will refrain from testing Donald Trump’s commitment to
pusillanimity.
For now, however, the conflict has cooled to the point
that there is space to thoroughly evaluate the war, the “cease-fire,” the peace
(such as it is), and how it all reflects on America’s tactical capabilities and
strategic thinking. The United States won’t be the only nation conducting
after-action assessments. America’s adversaries abroad will draw their own
lessons from the war.
After an embarrassing 70-day cease-fire that only the
United States observed — a mortifying spectacle that culminated in the even
more humiliating MOU — Americans might be tempted to dismiss the kinetic phase
of the war as inconsequential. But America’s near-peer competitors cannot
afford to ignore American tactics even if they conclude, with good reason, that
the U.S. has no stomach for its own grand strategy. For Beijing and Moscow, the
40-day combat phase of the war was surely a sobering experience.
Strategists inside the Kremlin and Zhongnanhai were
probably familiar with the pre-war scenarios forecasting how bloody and
destructive a U.S.-led war with Iran would be. They were therefore equally
likely to have been impressed by the U.S. military’s performance, which
exceeded even the most sanguine projections.
The Iran war was a contingency sparked by Tehran’s
slaughter of tens of thousands of protesters in late December and early
January. There was no nine-month buildup ahead of Operation Epic Fury, as there
was prior to the invasion of Iraq. Trump began filtering assets into the
theater only in late January, with combat operations beginning on February 28.
In the space of just six weeks, the U.S. projected overwhelming air and naval
power to the other side of the earth and sustained that exercise in power projection
for weeks. That’s a feat no other nation on earth could match.
Equally unnerving for America’s enemies was the way the
war began: with decapitation strikes that neutralized Iran’s senior civilian
leaders and much of its ranking military and intelligence officials.
Decapitation strikes are difficult to pull off, as the outset of the Iraq War attests. They are successful
only when real-time intelligence-collection initiatives are matched by
overwhelming technological supremacy. Again, none of America’s enemies or even
a coalition of them could achieve that.
And we know from evolving nuclear weapons doctrine
during the Cold War that the threat of decapitation clarifies the thinking
among the cadres that govern totalitarian states. Conveying in no uncertain
terms to the Soviet leadership that it would not survive a nuclear
confrontation with the United States was key, for example, to disabusing the
Kremlin of the emerging notion that the Soviets could “fight and win a nuclear war,” as Richard Pipes explained in
an influential 1977 essay.
America’s tactical prowess during the combat phase of the
Iran war was no less impressive.
At the war’s outset, Iran had a missile arsenal in the
thousands, and it retains much of its pre-war ballistic missile capabilities.
But missile launches declined by
92 percent by the end of the war because Iran could not deploy them. Even
in a “use it or lose it” scenario, logistical bottlenecks limited Iran’s
capacity to rain ruin down on U.S. assets or the Gulf’s civilian infrastructure
— bottlenecks to which no military is immune.
The U.S. Navy’s performance during this engagement was
equally impressive. America’s enemies have watched the U.S. wage several land
wars over the course of this century, but they have not had the opportunity to
assess how America conducts combat at sea. The rapid dismantling of the Iranian
navy, in which the U.S. disabled or destroyed over 60 vessels, including each
of Iran’s most modern Soleimani-class warships, is certainly of keen interest
to Beijing.
So, too, was the alacrity with which the U.S. established
air superiority over Iran. Just as was the case in Venezuela, U.S. Air Force
and Navy jets rapidly disabled Russian and Chinese anti-air and stealth radar
assets. From there, American airpower crushed the Iranian air force and
crippled its air bases and runways. That allowed U.S. forces to transition
rapidly away from “exquisite, stand-off munitions” (e.g., cruise missiles)
toward cheaper, more abundant precision-guided gravity bombs.
Iran secured its own battlefield victories, of course.
The enemy always gets a vote. But its successes were tempered by American
martial acumen.
Yes, Iran managed to shoot down one F-15E Strike Eagle
fighter jet, stranding its two pilots deep inside enemy territory. The rescue
operation that followed was nothing short of astounding. It was a massive operation
involving almost every branch of the armed forces as well as U.S. intelligence
services, and it culminated in the establishment of a forward operating base on
the ground inside Iran utilizing a clandestine airstrip developed by U.S.
Special Operations forces.
Iran downed several U.S. aircraft over the course of this
conflict, but it was deprived of American captives each time; the U.S. even
used unmanned vehicles in one rescue operation, signaling a shifting U.S.
doctrine on the use of unmanned platforms for contingencies like that.
All of this must be taken into account by any great power
that would directly challenge the U.S. military. That’s what makes Trump’s MOU
so maddening. The weakness it projects will tempt America’s enemies, and the
precedents it sets are likely to outlast the memory of America’s victories on
the battlefield.
Donald Trump has proven, once again, that America is a
fair-weather friend with no stomach for a prolonged fight. Between this
capitulation and Joe Biden’s bloody withdrawal from Afghanistan, U.S.
inconstancy has become a reliable, bipartisan tendency.
Iran has demonstrated that even the modest application of
force to a contested waterway is sufficient to close it to maritime traffic
indefinitely. Moreover, the economic disruptions that closure produces do all
the necessary negotiating on the aggressor’s behalf. China is almost certain to
test this proposition in the Taiwan Strait with more sophistication and more
firepower.
It is clear that our democracy — or any democracy, for
that matter — is so sensitive to economic conditions that its leaders can be
expected to turn against its embattled allies, as Donald Trump and his administration are turning on Israel. That’s bad news
for the nations, like Taiwan or the Baltic states, in the shadow of
expansionist powers. The threat to their independence is now so acute that some
elements within their governments must be wondering whether their best course
would be to make accommodations with their aggressive neighbors at America’s
expense.
Of course, the munitions shortages America experienced
during the war — particularly the newest class of ballistic missile
interceptors — have been a wake-up call for policymakers, and not just those in
Washington. America will adapt, innovate, and rearm, but a window of American
vulnerability is now open. It won’t stay open for long. That factor, in
combination with this president’s reluctance to sustain a fight to a durable
conclusion, will alter thinking in adversarial capitals.
These competing influences — America’s tactical prowess
versus its strategic ineptitude — are likely to inspire heated debates within
the Chinese and Russian defense establishments. One of the two will prove more
persuasive. The Iran war’s ambiguous end is likely to encourage
miscalculations. And big wars can result from miscalculations.
