Overwhelming Firepower, Elusive Victory: Why the U.S. Keeps Struggling to Win Wars

The United States has spent more than two decades at war over the past quarter-century, engaging in three major conflicts across the same region — first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, and now in Iran. Each time, American presidents promised that overwhelming military firepower would bring a swift resolution. Each time, that promise went unfulfilled.

Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. military needed only weeks to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in 2001 and to oust Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003. Under President Trump, a U.S. bombing campaign — conducted with Israel's assistance — killed many of Iran's leaders on the first day of the conflict and struck the country at will.

Yet despite these initial military successes, raw firepower has repeatedly failed to translate into the political outcomes Washington sought. The Taliban are back in control of Afghanistan. Iraq has achieved a degree of stability but continues to struggle after years of brutal warfare. Iran's theocratic government remains in power, and the war there remains unresolved.

A Pattern of Breaking Things Without Planning the Peace

Peter Bergen, a national security analyst at CNN and author of the new book All The Presidents' Wars, which examines U.S. conflicts over the past 25 years, said the United States excels at the opening phase of war but consistently falls short when it comes to ending one.

"We generally do a pretty good job of the breaking things and killing people at the inception of the wars," Bergen said. The problem, he explained, is what comes after.

"We, the United States, tend to not plan for the day after — the peace that follows the war," he added.

Bergen said the U.S. has been behaving like an empire while resisting the commitments that role typically demands. Empires, he noted, require people to learn local languages, remain in place for extended periods, and invest in long-term presence — things the United States has been reluctant to do.

Paul Salem, a Middle East analyst based in Lebanon with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, offered a similar critique. He described the U.S. as having "an imperial appetite, but a tourist's approach to it." This contradiction, he said, defined the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now repeating itself in Iran.

Salem pointed out that countries in the region lack the deep, stable institutions that would allow for a simple change of leadership to produce lasting results. "Their recent history is not one of stability and deep institutions that you can just come in and change somebody at the top and everything works out," he said.

Maximalist Goals, Minimal Commitment

President Trump campaigned on a promise to keep the United States out of "forever wars." Yet by attacking Iran, he took on the largest and most powerful U.S. rival in the region. He has pursued this strategy without deploying ground troops, which has kept U.S. casualties lower than in earlier conflicts.

Douglas Lute, a retired Army lieutenant general who served as the so-called "war czar" coordinating efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan under Presidents Bush and Obama and later as U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a critic of the Iran war. While he does not support sending ground troops, he warned that a bombing-only campaign paired with maximalist objectives is a recipe for failure.

"When we launch only a bombing campaign but we retain maximalist goals, like regime change, you don't have any prospect for success unless you're just lucky," Lute said. "And being lucky is not the place to start a military campaign."

At various points, Trump has called for eliminating Iran's nuclear program, toppling its government, and destroying its air force, navy, and missile capabilities. Lute sees troubling parallels with earlier conflicts, citing "repeated disconnects between ends, ways, and means" and "a lack of sufficient understanding of what we were getting into."

Salem noted that diplomatic input has been consistently sidelined. "Advice from the State Department was kind of brushed aside as too weak and too wimpy," he said. "We've seen it again in this war. There's barely any State Department input or advice."

The Rise of Asymmetric Warfare

For all its military might, the United States has encountered limits on the battlefield. Groups fighting on their own territory have found ways to neutralize American advantages even when they cannot match U.S. firepower.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, militants relied on roadside explosives and suicide bombers to keep American forces off balance. In Iran, the military has deployed low-cost drones and effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, even though the U.S. has decimated Iran's conventional navy.

Harvard professor Stephen Walt, writing recently in Foreign Policy, argued that warfare has been gradually shifting in favor of local defenders, even when they face seemingly superior adversaries. He noted that the United States possessed command of the air, real-time battlefield surveillance, and overwhelming firepower superiority in both Iraq and Afghanistan — yet still could not secure lasting political victories.

A War That Worked: Lessons from 1991

The analysts pointed to the 1991 Gulf War as a conflict with valuable lessons. The objective was narrowly defined: drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. President George H.W. Bush rallied international support at the United Nations and assembled a large coalition before launching the campaign.

Lute, then an Army major in a cavalry unit, described it as the last time the U.S. pursued genuinely realistic objectives. American forces bombed Iraqi troops for five weeks, then launched a ground offensive that lasted just four days before Iraqi forces fled Kuwait.

"We had admittedly limited objectives, which was to liberate Kuwait," Lute said. "It was not to take on Baghdad, not to overthrow Saddam, not to replace the Iraqi government."

As Trump seeks to end the Iran war, Salem cautioned that however the conflict concludes, it is unlikely to be the final chapter. The U.S., he noted, retains the ability to strike Iran whenever it chooses, but Iran can still impose costs on the global economy and, indirectly, on the U.S. president. "I think there will be future wars and confrontations," Salem said.

With no clear resolution in sight, the question of whether the United States can break its cycle of military intervention without lasting political success looms larger than ever. If this analysis helped you understand the patterns behind America's post-9/11 wars, consider sharing it with others who follow global affairs.

Source: NPR – World