What Questions Should Leaders Ask Before Going to War

Council on Foreign Relations | James M. Lindsay

Operation Epic Fury, a U.S. military campaign against Iran launched by President Donald Trump, has entered its eighth month, exposing critical vulnerabilities in American defense planning. The conflict has degenerated into a costly quagmire, demonstrating the limits of national power and highlighting the strategic risks of relying on small numbers of hard-to-replace weapons.

This operational setback reflects a historical pattern of American presidents, from James K. Polk in 1846 to Woodrow Wilson in 1914, launching military interventions under the flawed assumption of rapid victory. To address these recurring failures, military strategist Eliot Cohen outlines seven critical questions in his book, The Strategist: How to Think About War and Politics, designed to force policymakers to rigorously test their assumptions before committing forces. Surprise is ubiquitous in warfare. While these analytical inquiries cannot guarantee battlefield success, they cultivate the historical humility necessary to navigate unexpected tactical disruptions and avoid predictable strategic blunders.

Comment

The operational quagmire of Operation Epic Fury exposes how the Joint Chiefs of Staff repeatedly fail to reconcile military objectives with the realities of protracted conflict. By relying on a defence strategy optimised for small numbers of high-tech, exquisite munitions, Washington remains structurally unprepared for attritional warfare. This doctrinal blind spot directly mirrors the planning failures identified in Eliot Cohen's framework in *The Strategist*, where political leaders routinely bypass critical assumptions about adversary resilience.

Specifically, the failure to establish a clear theory of victory against Iran's decentralised proxy network demonstrates how bureaucratic groupthink overrides operational flexibility. This institutional rigidity prevents the integration of Cohen's seven strategic questions into active planning cycles at U.S. Central Command. Consequently, the lack of rigorous red-teaming ensures that operations like the 1914 invasion of Veracruz or the current campaign in the Persian Gulf remain highly vulnerable to early tactical disruption.

Strategic Question for Discussion

Which structural factor within U.S. Central Command poses the greatest barrier to integrating Eliot Cohen's seven strategic questions during the planning phases of campaigns like Operation Epic Fury?

The primary barrier is the deeply entrenched bureaucratic incentive structure within the Joint Staff, which prioritises consensus-building over rigorous red-teaming. The historical pattern suggests that military planners often treat strategic checklists as compliance exercises rather than genuine intellectual challenges. Consequently, unless operational commands decouple career advancement from policy alignment, frameworks like Cohen's will likely remain marginalised during active crises.

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