‘How good is our military?’ Donald Trump asked rhetorically when he addressed a group of Republican members of Congress recently. The answer – judging from the first 10 days of Operation Epic Fury – is, in many ways, exceptionally good.
The joint American and Israeli air and missile strikes which began on 28 February have been a masterful demonstration of what happens when advanced and sophisticated technology is combined with overwhelming resources. In the first 12 hours, 400 US and Israeli warplanes carried out 1,500 sorties: that means each aircraft performing an air strike every three or four hours.
Part of that achievement has come from painstaking logistical planning and preparation, having aircraft at the right air bases at the right time. The United States Navy has bolstered this by deploying two aircraft carrier groups, Carrier Strike Group 3 based around the USS Abraham Lincoln, and Carrier Strike Group 12, the flagship of which is the USS Gerald R. Ford. Each includes an air wing of more than 70 aircraft. A further vital ingredient is the ready availability of tanker aircraft to allow thirsty jets to perform several missions without having to land and refuel.
Another critical element of superiority clearly enjoyed by the US and its Israeli partners is intelligence and targeting information. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s former Supreme Leader, was killed on the first morning of the conflict; Israeli aircraft dropped 30 bombs and at least one Blue Sparrow air-launched ballistic missile on Khamenei’s residence and headquarters in central Tehran.
Since last June’s 12 Day War, Khamenei had become increasingly reclusive, spending most of his time in a bunker deep underground in his compound, but CIA intelligence indicated a time when he would be above ground and meeting national security leaders. The audacious daylight raid proved devastating. Dozens of Iran’s hierarchy have now been killed, including the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Major General Mohammad Pakpour, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, and the Minister of Defence, Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh.
This level of military overmatch has a compounding effect. As US and Israeli forces degrade Iran’s defensive capabilities, destroying radar and command-and-control sites and targeting anti-aircraft missile launch facilities, so they are freer to carry out more strikes without risk of opposition or retaliation. Air superiority becomes overwhelming.
Trump has emphasised this in his typically simplistic and bombastic way: ‘They have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no air force. Their missiles are down to a scatter… if you look, they have nothing left.’ The imbalance is no exaggeration. So far, the Israeli Air Force has not lost a single crewed aircraft, while the United States Air Force has seen three F-15E Strike Eagles shot down – but mistakenly, by Kuwaiti friendly fire, with all six aircrew ejecting safely. America and Israel can largely now do as they please.
By the beginning of 1945, with Nazi Germany in its death throes but exacting a terrible cost for each mile of territory, the Western Allies faced a perplexing challenge. The strategic bombers of the Royal Air Force and the US Army Air Force had been so successful and had deployed such overwhelming power against an enemy increasingly unable to retaliate that they had all but run out of militarily significant targets. Finding something to bomb, to put it crudely, was one of the explanations behind the controversial raids on Dresden on 13-15 February 1945, when nearly 1,300 bombers killed around 25,000, including German military personnel and civilians.
A similar problem could soon face the United States and Israel, as they scour satellite imagery for viable Iranian targets. But reaching the end of a nominal list of sites to destroy is not the same as winning: as matters stand, Iran has been severely weakened, many of its senior cadre killed, its economy made more fragile and its military capacity crippled, but the regime remains in control and there is no clear sign of that fact changing. You cannot win a war from the air.
Even more difficult than winning a war from the air is winning a war in which you don’t know what your objectives are. Having initially suggested the conflict with Iran would last four or five weeks, Trump now says America’s victory is “very complete” and while it will not end this week, a conclusion will come “soon. I think soon. Very soon.” By contrast, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had previously told reporters “this is only just the beginning”. When pressed on whether his or the President’s interpretation was correct, he replied, nonsensically, “You could say both”.
Therein lies the weakness of America’s approach to Iran. There has never been a clear, straightforward and unambiguous strategy, let alone an achievable one. Was it to destroy Iran’s development of nuclear weapons? Was it to weaken Iran as a regional power and diminish its influence? Was it to achieve regime change? If you have no metrics, then by definition you cannot succeed; and the later stages of the war in Vietnam should have taught Washington that the simple weight of damage inflicted on the enemy is not a strategy on its own.
One of the President’s remarks was especially revealing.
We could call it a tremendous success right now, as we leave here, I could call it, or we could go further, and we’re going to go further.
Note the words ‘we could call it a tremendous success’. That is not the same as achieving a tremendous success. The White House has been blinded by the reach and power of its military sophistication, boyishly gleeful at how much destruction it can cause. But if you start a war, demand unconditional surrender then walk away leaving your enemy standing, simply calling it success is a delusion. The world can be what we make it, but it is never just what we call it. Trump is suffering from the hollow victory of technology.
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