The Disease of Incompetence
US vs Iran - How political failures lead to military failures
Incompetence, it starts as a scratch you brush off. Then, before you know it, it’s a pus-filled wound that’s infected and is slowly killing you. You wrap a bandage on it and call it handled, but that won’t help. If you wait too long, you might just lose that entire limb or, worse, your life.
Today we’re going to continue talking about the US-Iran war. This war, I think, really encapsulates the current state of America better than any documentary or book ever could.
Where do I start? Well, we already covered how the war started in a previous post, I highly suggest that your read that one first:
Let’s talk about the planning of this war. I know for a fact that the Pentagon has run some tabletop wargames on a potential conflict with Iran. The Pentagon, as an organization, for sure understands everything they would need to fight a successful war against Iran. So what happened here? Well, political incompetence.
The DoD had about a month and a half, give or take, to do a force buildup after Iran killed protesters and Trump forced himself into a corner with his completely unnecessary truth social posts.
For a proper war against Iran, you would probably need, at minimum, a year of preparation that includes moving tons of equipment, fortifying bases in the region, training and helping allies set up layered drone and missile defense, setting up proper deconfliction protocols and more. The US lacked so much coordination that Kuwait, a US partner, was shooting friendly US F-15s out of the sky. The planning was so bungled that during the opening move, something the US are masters at, we hit a school with children in it. The OPENING STRIKES. Were they using Claude for the targeting?
Operation Desert Storm, one of the cleanest wars and greatest displays of combined arms warfare in US military history, took about a year to plan, coordinate, and stage. What possessed the US administration to do something like this without proper preparation?
You can have the most competent military in the world, but if your politicians are not up to par, then you have nothing. As a military, if the goal you’re given to accomplish is stupid, no matter how brilliantly you go about it, the end result will always stupid.
Political Constraints
When the war started, I was asked if Iran would be able to close the strait, and my response was no. Of course not. If the US planned to wage war on Iran, they would have a contingency in place to keep the strait open. It’s been known for decades that Iran’s biggest lever is the strait. The Pentagon has war plans for the strait stashed somewhere, and then they decided to do absolutely nothing about it. Nothing at all?
In light of this, no one could make the argument that this wasn’t hastily put together. Again, a hastily put together war under zero real urgency. What is the point of this? It’s not like when Argentina was taking over the Falkland Islands and the Brits had to rush to slap some ships together and send them. The only urgency here was artificially created by Trump’s ego. Why was he tweeting those things? This was all so unnecessary.
In light of all this, the US should still have been able to open the strait, right? No, not with the buildup we had.
There’s a quote in Frank Herbert’s Dune novel that goes something like, “If you can destroy something, you control it.” As long as Iran has the ability to destroy ships passing by, they control the strait. To stop them, the US would have to do a full million-man invasion of Iran. Unfortunately, the admin has neither the political capital to pull off a full invasion, nor does Trump himself want it. Trump likes easy “in and out” adventures where he can claim victory on social media, like Venezuela. The US public is also sick of Middle East wars. Republicans also have an upcoming midterm to win. No matter how you look at it, having a war at that time made zero sense.
The Trump administration, thinking they could engineer a solution around these constraints decided to opt for the next best thing, air power. This makes sense, right? Just bomb the hell out of them until you get your way. Unfortunately you can’t hold ground from the air. Air power is there to support your ground and naval forces, not to replace them. So while they could do a lot of damage and destruction, their use of air power failed to change the politics of Iran. If anything, this war probably made Iran’s government even more evil, because it vindicated the extremists.
Underestimating the Enemy
Another thing I’m forgetting to emphasize is how much they underestimated the Iranians. Trump himself said he thought the war would be over in a matter of weeks. Unfortunately, Iran didn’t get the memo. The Iranian government is a complex organization with resiliency built in. You can’t just topple it by killing a few people. The Iranians also have elaborate networks of tunnels and bunkers. These are not dumb Latin American leaders who don’t understand warfare. They know what they’re good at, and they play to their strengths.
They showed the entire world how you survive a force that has superior air power. “Yeah, it’ll be bloody, but you’ll survive if you take these x measures.” This is one of the many reasons why one should not half-ass wars. You’re giving your adversaries an opportunity to learn your tactics, improve and spread the knowledge.
Honestly, If the US were to get into a war with China today. I expect the Pentagon to pull off what Ludendorff did for Germany in WWI, shove the incompetent Kaiser to the side, and take the war into their own hands.
The greatest military on Earth deserves smarter and less impulsive politicians.