Some words to the wise.
Analogy: Trump’s war against Iran might be the geopolitical equivalent of Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn. Built on arrogance born of easy bullying in lesser conflicts, he has overestimated his capabilities and grossly underestimated his opponent. Iran may be Trump’s Sitting Bull, but the analogy holds only if Custer had a malevolent manipulator like Netanyahu leading him to his ignominious comeuppance.
Axiom: History shows that the side that prevails in war is not always the one that can deliver greater punishment to the adversary but the one that can absorb the most punishment and keep on fighting. Superior weapons do not always overcome determination and will.
Remember that “asymmetrical warfare” does not only refer to differences in weapons capabilities, kinetic mass and quality of forces brought into battle. It also refers to the motives and commitment that adversaries bring to the fight.
The US is an instant gratification, short attention span culture with a low social pain threshold and technology fetish, especially when it comes to gadgets, weapons and war-fighting (which feeds into the other cultural traits). Iran is the birthplace and seat of a 6000 year old Persian culture that invented chess and carpet weaving. Both of these endeavors require consummate patience, imagination, complex multidimensional thought and extended foresight. At the behest of an international pariah client-state partner unable to “go it alone,” the US has launched an opportunistic expeditionary war of aggression against Iran during a midterm election year. Iran is fighting an existential defensive war of attrition in and from its ancestral homeland against the US and its regional (Arab and Israeli) allies, including the pariah state.
Given these differences, the axiom could well explain the analogy.
Wise words indeed. Thanks, Pablo.
Thanks Di. I also appreciate your support for KP on the Bluesky.
I like the wordplay :-)
To which I add ‘alliteration’ lol
The A’s have it!!
(… and there’s probably lots more which could be added … ‘added’ haha)
Yes Barbara,
I thought that the title rolled off the lips pretty easily.Certainly better than “this is the mother of all clusterf***s in the making.” :-o
I used to associate Imperial Japan with making a strategic blunder, amid diplomatic negotiations. Japan’s road to defeat in WW2 begins with Pearl Harbor.
However, given how Trump entered a school yard fight/started a war with Iran, he has put Japan’s bungling in the shade.
Pablo,
I rather like that alternative lol
Whoever invented that term had a gift and imagination for the language … it certainly has currency.
Barbara:
I learned that phrase from the US military during my time working with them. It was used a lot, which tells you something about their level of planning, preparation and readiness, or perhaps more truthfully, that of the civilian policy-making elite. The situation is far worse now.
Oh gosh *** sinks into the Slough of Despond*** ….
Is it that old?
(Don’t take that personally, I’m a similar age/cohort/generation …. )
PS I have recently asked our library to get in the book by the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb – ‘The Triangle of Power – rebalancing the New World Order’.
I saw him interviewed on youtube and was impressed.
It covers the emergence of the new world order between the global west, east and south. I haven’t seen any books about this – and he seemed quite articulate in a way I can understand as a lay person.
Do you have any comments about him or the book, thanks.
Barbara,
I do not know much of Stubb other than some of his comments, which seem well-informed. He and Mark Carney appear to be leaders of the post-liberal “Northern” approach to reconstituting the new international order. I hope they think seriously about how to bring the Global South into their proposed reforms.