Much like from revolutions, it is often too early to draw definitive strategic lessons from a war, particularly when the fighting represents only one episode in a much longer conflict.
Nevertheless, analysts, scholars, and policymakers can find it impossible to resist the temptation of offering “expert” insights to a public already saturated by a 24-hour news cycle.
Claiming wisdom is a seductive pursuit. On the eve of the ceasefire declaration in the Iran war, General Lloyd Austin III, former US secretary of defence under the Biden administration, authored a guest essay for the New York Times asserting that this conflict finally reveals the true face of modern warfare
This essay serves as a classic case study of how the US military establishment conceptualises conflict. It suggests that wars are viewed not merely as a means of achieving strategic gains, but as “laboratories” for future engagements.
In this view, the battlefield becomes a testing ground where tactics, weaponry, and doctrines are verified for the next iteration of combat. While this reflects a commitment to continuous learning and the modernisation of a “deadly and effective” military machinery, it also carries a significant risk.
Unless these case studies are read correctly, accounting for geography and politics rather than just technology, the “lessons” learned will be wasted, or worse, harmful, leading only to the repetition of past failures under the guise of progress.
Regarding the ongoing conflict with Iran, Austin argues that it mirrors the Russia-Ukraine war rather than the protracted counterinsurgency operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. He identifies three defining shifts in this “modern” character of warfare.
First, the proliferation of cheap, one-way attack drones has created a “cost exchange” imbalance, where expensive US interceptors are used against low-cost threats. Austin advocates for a “layered defence” strategy utilising electronic warfare and supply chain disruption.
Second, the war confirms that modern conflicts “burn through” munitions faster than predicted. Consequently, Austin emphasises that the US must expand industrial capacity and co-produce weapons with allies to sustain a prolonged fight.
Third, he highlights Iran’s strategy of imposing massive global costs by making the Strait of Hormuz impassable. This mirrors Houthi disruptions in the Red Sea but at a significantly more dangerous scale.
His essay, while acknowledging the shifting character of modern warfare, thus reflects a profound structural bias in American strategic thought: the belief that warfare can be reduced to a series of engineering problems. He treats conflict as a mathematical equation to be solved through optimised production lines and “expendable autonomous systems.”
This perspective largely ignores the structural determinants of war, such as geography and demographics, while overlooking the role of “good strategy” in connecting military force to clear political ends. Furthermore, the Iran war highlights a persistent cognitive dissonance, where a reliance on high-tech solutions often proves futile in achieving ultimate victory.
Finally, while Austin’s assessment rightly highlights the significance of the economic factors in today’s conflicts, it downplays the complications of these as he aims at conducting wars without economic cracks.
In his observations on the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1916, T E Lawrence, then serving as a British attaché in the region, identified the “algebraic” elements as the decisive, quantifiable constants of warfare. He defined these as the fixed material variables, such as geography and space, which remain independent of human will or morale.
In the recent US conflict with Iran, these elements have staged a significant “revenge” against modern doctrine. The war has demonstrated that technology remains far less effective at altering the fundamental geographic facts of combat than previously assumed. Instead, Iran has successfully leveraged its vast, complex terrain as a form of natural fortification and a physical reality that even the most advanced AI-driven surveillance and high-tech platforms cannot fully negate.
While the high-precision weaponry deployed by the United States and Israel in the war proved highly effective at neutralising key political and military leaders, as well as devastating Iran’s urban centres, infrastructure, and industrial capacity, this physical destruction failed to erode the regime’s political coherence or the resilience of its population.
On the contrary, the onslaught served to harden the regime’s militaristic core, particularly the Revolutionary Guard. Furthermore, threats to “obliterate” Iranian civilisation left the citizenry with little choice but to rally behind the state, at least for the duration of the conflict, while simultaneously or effectively discrediting and fracturing the diaspora opposition.
These outcomes demonstrate that demographic and political variables must be prioritised in any calculation of modern or future warfare. Much like geography, these human elements are the true constants of war, and they remain as decisive as ever.
STRATEGIC ABSENCE: Curiously for a senior political and military leader, Austin’s assessment ignores how the absence of a coherent American strategy led to prolonged military operations and significant mission creep.
The war’s objectives steadily regressed from seeking regime change to merely degrading military capabilities, ultimately centring only on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Austin’s analysis remains tethered to a mindset that conflates the viability of strategy with the effectiveness of weaponry. He prioritises tactical and operational efficiency such as superior drones and accelerated production over the fundamental requirements of grand strategy.
While a “good strategy” must define a clear political end-state, Austin admits the “strategic outcome is still far from certain”. Despite this admission, he focuses his recommendations on procurement and “strategic resilience” rather than on the diplomatic or political manoeuvres required to conclude the war effectively.
Furthermore, the war has demonstrated the staggering costs incurred when cognitive dissonance dominates the US decision-making process. This phenomenon occurs when military and policy leaders ignore data that contradicts established American “way of war” doctrines or challenges their preconceptions regarding the nature of conflict and the resilience of the adversary.
It is evident that the Russian leadership’s flawed assumptions about Ukraine have led to a prolonged war of attrition in that country; similarly, the ill-tested ideas of the US regarding Iran, whether from personal convictions or poorly vetted intelligence from allies, are the primary cause of the current impasse in the US-Israeli war on the country.
Austin fails to address this internal failure in his essay, nor does he explore how technology could be utilised to test and refine a leader’s assumptions about both himself and an opponent. Authentic military learning from case studies must move beyond a narrow focus on hardware; it must scrutinise how systems function, coordinate, or fracture under the extreme pressures of time and violence.
Finally, in discussing the economic dimensions of the war triggered by the turbulence of the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Austin envisions a future where global powers can conduct high-intensity conflict while insulating the global economy. This logic is akin to making an omelette without breaking eggs. It treats economic disruption as an external “threat” to be managed rather than an inevitable, structural consequence of war.
Furthermore, while the essay views shipping disruptions as a mere tactic used by adversaries like the Houthis or Iran, it fails to address the deeper geoeconomic roots of the conflict itself. War is often the “final argument” of economic competition; hoping to “deepen strategic resilience” to bypass these pressures ignores the reality that war is economic destruction.
In both current and future conflicts, the economy is not a side effect; it is one of the primary arenas of confrontation.
Even after the dust of the Iran war settles, its lessons will likely not reveal themselves fully or easily. Those tasked with analysing the conflict must be prepared to rigorously test and revisit their fundamental assumptions about the nature of war and how it evolves.
It is a core imperative of warfare that while every conflict follows a shared logic, each possesses its own distinct “grammar”. This inherent uniqueness makes distilling definitive lessons an arduous feat for policymakers and scholars alike.
Effectively learning from the Iran war and other global conflicts necessitates a return to the fundamentals: understanding the constants of war is essential before focusing on the shifting methods of combat or the latest instruments of destruction.
The writer is head of the Strategic Foresight Programme at Future for Advanced Research and Studies, Abu Dhabi.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 7 May, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: