8 takeaways from the US-Iran war

The war in Iran is effectively over. Although the dust has yet to settle, some lessons are already visible.
First, US President Donald Trump has waged a personal war at the world’s expense. Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu warned that arms are ill-omened tools, employed only as a last resort. Trump, who has admitted he doesn’t like to read, may not realise this. Few people know why he ordered a strike on Iran. Maybe kidnapping president Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela was too easy or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was too persuasive.
Russia’s war on Ukraine may be described as “Putin’s war” but four years on, the Russian president’s domestic approval ratings remain high at around 60-75 per cent while Trump’s have plunged to below 40 per cent. After just four months, Trump has squandered billions of taxpayer dollars, depleted US military stockpiles and strained alliance ties – all for very little gain. His ceasefire memorandum of understanding with Iran is spinning a costly misstep as a diplomatic win.
Second, military strikes cannot fix political problems. Clausewitz argued that war is a continuation of politics. But war does not guarantee a settlement to political questions. Post-ceasefire, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said that while Iran would never develop nuclear weapons, it retained its sovereign right to enrich uranium. Sound familiar? That’s because we are back to square one.
Compare that with former US president Barack Obama’s 2015 deal with Iran which, as he recently pointed out, “got 97 per cent of their enriched uranium out”. “There’s no dispute that it worked,” he added. “And we didn’t have to kill a whole bunch of people or shut down the Strait of Hormuz.”
Third, the solution to problems at sea lies on land. Contrast the US Navy’s failure to blockade and control the vital waterway with Iran’s domination of the northern coastline of the strait. Its coastal anti-ship missiles, offshore drones, fast-attack craft and land-based radar surveillance networks cover every inch of the chokepoint. For America, full-scale land bombardment or a ground invasion would be the only way to eliminate Iran’s coastal threats – a step Trump rightly refuses for fear of escalation.

Fourth, a “decapitation” military strategy is not a silver bullet. In the last two decades, Israel’s covert and wartime strikes reportedly eliminated dozens of core Iranian figures, spanning top nuclear scientists, senior Revolutionary Guard commanders and national security leaders. Yet these strikes have never crippled Iran’s nuclear ambition.
Instead, they encouraged Iran’s national solidarity, fuelled cycles of cross-border retaliation, destabilised the Middle East and imposed long-term strategic losses on Israel and the United States. If anything, Iran looks stronger than before.
Fifth, low-cost asymmetric tech is reshaping global warfare. Inexpensive, accessible military systems are rewriting battlefield rules. This trend, visible in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the Ukraine war, also surfaced in the latest Iranian battles. Iran uses cheap drones, commercial satellite imagery and basic cyber tools to offset America’s technological supremacy.
The AI-enhanced drone and missile tactics refined in Ukraine and the Middle East are expected to proliferate worldwide. Crucially, the Iran conflict pioneered a new war model: a middle power can hold global supply links hostage to counter a superpower. In this way, regional conflict can paralyse the whole world.
Sixth, America’s maritime hegemony is coming to an end. The decline is obvious: the US naval fleet has shrunk drastically, from about 7,000 vessels right after the second world war to fewer than 300 today. The underinvested US shipbuilding industry is unable to replace its ageing warships affordably.
Meanwhile, cheap drones, sea mines and unmanned naval vessels and missiles have bolstered the strength of regional powers. Despite having its air force and navy almost wiped out, Iran still managed to paralyse 20 per cent of the global seaborne oil trade with cheap mines and shore-based anti-ship missiles.

Looking ahead, one wonders how the US Navy can simultaneously sustain its commitments across the Gulf, Western Pacific and Indian Ocean. The next time the US declares a freedom of navigation operation, try not to laugh.
Seventh, US allies are cats that cannot be herded by their master. No ally stepped forward; some, like France, Britain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, only committed to clearing sea mines after the war was declared over. But what is the importance of allies if they only show up after the war?
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth described the inaction of America’s Nato allies as “shameful” and threatened to slash troop deployments across Europe. If this is proof the US cannot fight its wars without its allies, it is also evidence that its allies won’t necessarily fight for America. If no one offered military support in the war with Iran, why would anyone stand with America in a far more intense conflict with China?
Finally, nuclear weapons are irrelevant in the limited and asymmetric nature of modern warfare. Countries are not necessarily stronger because of nuclear weapons.
For all its nuclear weapons, the US has not decisively won a war since before Vietnam in 1975; neither has the possession of nuclear weapons delivered victory for the Russians in Afghanistan or Ukraine. Iran does not appear weakened just because America has destroyed its nuclear facilities.
That nuclear weapons have lost their relevance in modern warfare is good news for non-nuclear-weapon states. It is also food for thought for those seeking protection under a nuclear umbrella or aspiring towards nuclear weapons of their own.