Myths of Battlefield Triumph Are Destroying the U.S. Military

Foreign Policy | Gil Barndollar, Jason Dempsey

Six months into President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran, thousands of airstrikes have destroyed Tehran’s air force and navy without securing strategic capitulation. Instead, Iranian disruptions to maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz continue to interrupt global supplies of oil, gas, and refined fuels. This operational stalemate highlights a persistent U.S.

tendency to mistake tactical attrition for war-winning strategy. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has accelerated this pattern by removing legal restraints on force, firing military lawyers, and defunding Pentagon offices tasked with reducing civilian harm. Far from breaking enemy resistance, these measures increased Iranian national unity following civilian casualties, such as the initial strike in Minab. Armed conflict is rarely decided by military asset tallies. Subsequent Pentagon directives now eliminate civilian faculty tenure at service academies and require Joint Warfighter Evaluation testing for senior promotions, institutionalising a narrow focus on battlefield lethality over durable strategic objectives.

Comment

Elevating battlefield lethality over political objectives reflects a structural drift in U.S. operational doctrine. Institutionalising tactical metrics through screening mechanisms like the Joint Warfighter Evaluation risks entrenching a friction-blind approach to professional military education. When operational doctrine prioritises immediate destruction over political end-states, force employment fails to generate coercive leverage against resolute adversaries.

This doctrinal bias creates long-term vulnerabilities for joint command structures established under the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Senior commanders evaluated primarily on strike throughput will struggle to align military force with diplomatic strategy. Consequently, CENTCOM operational planning remains vulnerable to strategic failure when Iranian political resistance absorbs tactical attrition.

Strategic Question for Discussion

Which carries more weight in determining campaign outcomes — the tactical strike efficiency measured by the Joint Warfighter Evaluation, or the political resilience generated across an adversary's civil-military hierarchy?

The available evidence points toward political resilience and structural cohesion as the decisive variables in long-term conflict outcomes. While tactical metrics like those assessed in the Joint Warfighter Evaluation verify immediate strike performance, they consistently fail to account for how external pressure consolidates internal regime stability. Consequently, overwhelming firepower often produces strategic stalemate rather than political compliance.

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