US Wins Wars Quickly but Can't Secure the Peace
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- Peter Bergen, CNN national security analyst and author of the new book "All The Presidents' Wars," argues the U.S. excels at "breaking things and killing people" at the start of wars but consistently fails to plan for "the peace that follows the war."
- Paul Salem of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says the U.S. has "an imperial appetite, but a tourist's approach to it," noting that State Department advice has been "brushed aside as too weak and too wimpy" across three administrations.
- Retired Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, who served as "war czar" under Presidents Bush and Obama, warns that pairing a bombing-only campaign with "maximalist goals, like regime change" offers "no prospect for success" — and Lute opposes deploying ground troops in Iran.
- Iran has effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz using low-cost drones despite the U.S. decimating its traditional navy, illustrating what Harvard professor Stephen Walt calls "a broader shift in favor of local defenders, even when facing seemingly superior foes."
- The 1991 Gulf War is held up as the rare success — President George H.W. Bush secured UN backing, assembled an international coalition, and limited objectives to liberating Kuwait before a four-day ground campaign ended the fighting.
Why it matters: The pattern identified by these analysts — maximalist goals, sidelined diplomacy, and no ground troops — directly applies to Trump's current Iran war, where he has simultaneously called for regime change, elimination of Iran's nuclear program, and destruction of its military. Salem's warning that Iran "is able to inflict a cost on the global economy" while "there will be future wars and confrontations" underscores that the strategic mismatch carries economic and geopolitical costs even before the current conflict ends.
