{"id":67144,"date":"2026-06-08T09:01:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T13:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=67144"},"modified":"2026-06-08T09:01:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T13:01:25","slug":"has-trump-opened-pandoras-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=67144","title":{"rendered":"

Has Trump Opened Pandora’s Box?<\/i><\/b><\/h1>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by John Rosenburger
\nEisenhower Media Network<\/p>\n

The limits of U.S. military power are now fully exposed.<\/h2>\n

2.5 months in to the U.S.-Israeli war against a nation that posed no threat to the United States\u2019 vital interests, justified by a pyramid of lies, several things are abundantly clear.\u00a0President Trump failed to define clear and viable political objectives to achieve in our role as Israel\u2019s proxy in yet another war of choice.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cViable\u201d here meaning objectives that are realistically attainable through the military means at a nation\u2019s disposal.<\/p>\n

In his classic work\u00a0Strategy<\/a>, British theorist B. H. Liddell Hart emphasized that a political leader\u2019s foremost duty is to ensure that war aims are grounded in military reality. As he famously warned, political objectives must \u201cnot demand what is militarily impossible.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet that is precisely the error President Trump committed.<\/p>\n

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Credit: Wikimedia Commons &\u00a0Amazon<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Without clearly defined political objectives, it is impossible to construct U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which is in charge of military operations in West Asia and appears to be moving from one ineffective tactic to the next without any unifying operational design.\u00a0The repeated bombing of military\u2011related targets across a country the size of Western Europe with more than 90 million people is not a strategy; it is a tactic untethered to any discernible operational or strategic end state.<\/strong><\/p>\n

By limiting ourselves almost entirely to the use of airpower\u2014fully aware that the American public will not accept another protracted ground war in the Middle East, particularly on behalf of Israel\u2019s interests\u2014the Trump administration has boxed itself into an approach with no historical precedent for success. No regime of Iran\u2019s scale has ever been overthrown through airpower alone, and there is no reason to believe this conflict will be the first.<\/p>\n

Despite repeated assurances that the war is being won, President Trump has provided no stable or coherent definition of what \u201cvictory\u201d actually means. Is it regime change and internal overthrow of the Iranian government? Is it unconditional surrender of Iran\u2019s armed forces? Is it the seizure of nuclear material previously claimed to have been obliterated? Take your pick.\u00a0The absence of a clear, consistent political end state leaves military commanders struggling to determine what they are supposed to achieve.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Credit: Evan Vucci, @realDonaldTrump\/Truth Social<\/em><\/p>\n

History shows that wars fought without well\u2011defined political objectives, matched with a viable military strategy, tend to devolve into wars of attrition\u2014conflicts that favor the side with greater resilience and willingness to endure. We see that historical truism unfolding before our eyes.\u00a0We fail to appreciate that Iran is waging a fundamentally different kind of war, one rooted in national survival, and that resolve has shaped the character and trajectory of the conflict.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is also clear that this war was based on a host of flawed assumptions. The Trump administration assumed that by assassinating the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, the IGRC and security apparatus of the nation would collapse, and the Iranian people would flood into the streets to violently overthrow the government. How they would do that while being unarmed defies logic. That overthrow, of course, didn\u2019t happen. It had the opposite effect. The government and the people have never been more unified.<\/p>\n

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Credit: Hamshahri Photo\/Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n

The Trump administration assumed that the massive armada of air power it would employ would quickly destroy Iran\u2019s capability to retaliate.\u00a0It didn\u2019t<\/strong>. It assumed that the Iranian armed forces would not attack U.S. bases and embassies in the region.\u00a0They did<\/strong>. It assumed that Iran did not have the capability to hide and accurately employ thousands of ballistic missiles and drones for days and weeks on end.\u00a0It did;<\/strong>\u00a0another gross failure of both U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies as the Iranians pound Israel\u2019s cities, U.S. bases, and Gulf nations night after night.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration assumed Iran was incapable of closing the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. military destroyed Iran\u2019s naval surface fleet. They ignored the fact that Iran had several other means of interdicting the movement of any ships through the Strait\u2014a plethora of different mines, small attack submarines designed to operate in shallow water, swarms of armed fast boats, multiple types of attack drones, and an arsenal of ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Equally concerning, the administration overlooked the fact that Lloyds of London and other maritime insurance companies would not underwrite the loss of tankers and cargo ships that attempted to cross the Strait.\u00a0Iran will ensure the Strait remains closed using its arsenal of asymmetric weapons they\u2019ve designed for just that purpose, giving them powerful leverage in future negotiations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Credit: MassLive, AP, CalMatters<\/em><\/p>\n

The result? Cascading and disastrous effects.\u00a0<\/strong>The U.S.-Israel war against Iran initiated a\u00a0global economic crisis<\/a>, strangling the production and transportation of oil, liquid natural gas, urea, helium, and aluminum from the nations surrounding the Persian Gulf. The war further increased U.S. national debt, which is just shy of\u00a0$39 trillion dollars and growing<\/a>. The Trump administration increased our national debt by\u00a0$1 trillion in the first 5 months<\/a>\u00a0of this year, and borrowed another $343 billion last month alone. Now, the Department of War is asking Congress for another\u00a0appropriation of $200 billion<\/a>\u00a0to cover the unexpected costs of this war of choice.\u00a0For the first time in our nation\u2019s history<\/a>, our debt-to-GDP ratio is 122 percent, with no sign of decreasing. The consequences could be catastrophic to our economy in the months and years ahead if left unabated.<\/p>\n

This war of choice has practically exhausted the U.S. military\u2019s inventory of offensive and defensive missiles,\u00a0inventories that cannot be replenished for years<\/a>. It\u2019s increased our country\u2019s strategic vulnerability and reduced the Pentagon\u2019s ability to deter other threats around the globe.\u00a0The limits of U.S. military power are now fully exposed.<\/strong>\u00a0Russia and China smile with glee.<\/p>\n

Nine U.S. military bases in the Gulf States have been destroyed or abandoned. The Gulf States are unlikely to ever welcome American forces back into their countries, as the Trump administration has demonstrated that the United States cannot and will not protect Gulf Arab allies. The administration has essentially destroyed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) coalition and also managed to alienate most NATO allies in the process.<\/p>\n

Russia is enjoying a windfall in oil and natural gas sales and revenue as it becomes the principal supplier of oil to China, India, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and other nations that relied on oil from the Gulf nations. Airlines across the globe are rationing jet fuel and reducing flights. Prices for gas and diesel are exploding at the pump here in the United States, which will thrust additional inflation on the American people\u00a0struggling to afford<\/a>\u00a0the costs of food, housing, transportation, and medical insurance.<\/p>\n

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Credit: U.S. Department of State\/Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n

Furthermore, given that the U.S. attacked Iran with no warning twice during earnest negotiations the past year,\u00a0Iran has no reason to ever trust us again and negotiate an end to this conflict.<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019re witnessing the unintended consequences of a war of choice that was poorly conceived and poorly planned, driven entirely by hubris. In two short months, Iran has gained the operational and strategic initiative and will determine the outcome of this war. It seems the Trump administration has opened Pandora\u2019s Box.<\/p>\n

Lastly, the administration has failed to define a path to victory that culminates in the restoration of a durable peace in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Professor Donald Stoker captures this imperative in his illuminating book Why America Loses Wars, noting that \u201c\u2026if the political leadership has done its job, their definition of victory [the political objective] includes a clear vision of what they want the post-war situation to look like. Ultimately, as Cicero tells us, war is about the restoration of peace; if it does not seek this, the war is not just. Union General William Tecumseh Sherman insisted that \u201cThe legitimate object of war is a more perfect peace. War is fighting for the peace we want.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All were right.<\/p>\n

Absent an effective political and military strategy that restores stable and enduring peace between nations in the region, this war risks becoming yet another U.S. exercise in violence untethered from purpose; a war ending in failure, useless destruction, and economic depression that will require years to overcome.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

____
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