The Failure of Strategy in the Iran War

Effective strategy requires navigating complex, shifting political landscapes through a rigorous framework of seven fundamental questions. Israel views the ongoing conflict with Iran as an existential, long-term struggle, contrasting sharply with the U.S.'s often fragmented, short-term approach to regional stability. Strategic failure frequently stems from ignoring broader context, misjudging adversaries, or lacking a clear theory of victory, as evidenced by the U.S.'s recent struggles with Iranian drone threats and inadequate base defenses. Former Johns Hopkins dean and CSIS chair Eliot Cohen argues that successful strategy demands intellectual honesty, humility, and the ability to tell a coherent story. He highlights Winston Churchill’s wartime memoranda as a model for this approach, emphasizing that true strategy is a byproduct of the capacity to fight and win, rather than a static end state or a purely bureaucratic exercise.