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Opinion
US war on Iran isn’t likely to go as planned
US war planners have overlooked viewing their adversary through realpolitik in the past. They now face a far more organised opponent
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Sameed Basha is a defence and political analyst with a master’s degree in international relations from Deakin University, Australia.
Many American wars begin with the assumption that brute force will lead to a swift and decisive victory. While the US military is highly effective at conventional deterrence, it has consistently struggled to defeat adversaries employing asymmetric tactics. In conflicts such as Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, Washington repeatedly underestimated its adversaries by assessing their strength based on their ability to fight conventionally.
Iran represents the most dangerous iteration of asymmetric warfare: a state that has developed over more than 45 years to survive US power without direct confrontation. US President Donald Trump now risks revealing the same American vulnerabilities as before: reliance on doctrines and technologies that cannot read or adapt to the changing battlespace, which now includes Iran targeting US assets and bases in the region.
Take Millennium Challenge 2002, one of the largest pre-Iraq-invasion war game simulations. Here, the US faced an adversary in the Persian Gulf using asymmetric low-tech warfare. US battle formations constituted a naval fleet of 19 ships, including an aircraft carrier, similar to Trump’s armada, which consists of about 20 ships, including two aircraft carriers.
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