Over the past several weeks, coverage of the conflict with Iran has followed a consistent pattern. Media reports have focused primarily on airstrikes, missile sites destroyed, drones intercepted, and other visible measures of military activity. While this coverage captures viewers’ attention and offers a snapshot of events, it risks reinforcing the perception that tactical military success equates to "winning," even as the strategic outcome remains unclear.
No military strategy can succeed without success at the tactical level. Tactical actions are complex, demanding, and often conducted at great risk, requiring a high degree of competence and professionalism. Yet the issue is not whether such actions matter. It is how they align with broader objectives that contribute to a desired political endstate.
Tactical success alone rarely achieves desired political outcomes. While tactical actions may achieve key military objectives, those objectives must still support a national strategy that extends beyond the destruction of enemy forces. Not all regimes respond the same way to military pressure. Approaches that work against fragile political systems may prove insufficient against more resilient ones. Long-term success requires a comprehensive approach rooted in well-defined political objectives, alignment across all elements of national power, and a clear understanding of what conditions must exist after military action subsides. Without that integration, even the most decisive military operations address only one part of a much larger and more complex problem.
The United States has seen this dynamic play out before. In 2003, U.S. forces dismantled organized Iraqi resistance in a matter of weeks. I was part of a Marine Corps unit that helped spearhead the advance toward Baghdad and witnessed what appeared to be decisive military success as the regime collapsed. Within days, however, it became clear that removing a regime was far easier than replacing what it had held together.
As that success unfolded, the systems that sustained daily life for Iraqis—security, governance, and basic services—were disrupted or ceased functioning altogether. Initial goodwill proved difficult to sustain as stability failed to materialize, creating conditions for a costly insurgency and civil war. Although the military achieved its primary objectives, those gains were not matched by efforts to establish favorable long-term conditions in other key areas. What was missing was a clearly defined and achievable political endstate, one that went beyond merely removing the regime and accounted for what Iraq needed to function as a stable partner in the region.
U.S. involvement in Afghanistan reflected a similar pattern, as initial military operations rapidly degraded Taliban capabilities and forced them to cede power. Over time, however, gaps between military success and sustainable political and economic frameworks became increasingly apparent. The outcome of 2021 was less a function of poor tactical execution over the previous two decades than a flawed strategy that, despite periodic gains in some areas, failed to produce a durable political and economic system capable of sustaining itself without extensive, continuous external support.
Recent statements about avoiding nation-building in Iran are understandable but difficult to fully reconcile with the conditions likely to follow the use of force. Those conditions will emerge whether planned for or not. If a regime’s military capability is dismantled, its political leadership removed, and its economy severely degraded, stability will be nearly impossible to achieve without some form of large-scale, whole-of-government effort. Power vacuums, fractured governance, and internal or external competition for influence are likely outcomes.
If the U.S. remains firm in its desire to avoid nation-building, it must still account for how military success translates into desired regional and global outcomes. A well-developed strategy accounts for these factors from the outset. It integrates actions across time and space, aligns all instruments of national power, tests assumptions, and mitigates risk. It also considers second- and third-order effects beyond the immediate battlespace, including impacts on regional stability, global energy markets, and maritime trade. Absent such a strategy, the U.S. risks creating conditions it is neither prepared to shape nor willing to sustain, leaving a weakened but unstable state that may require continued external pressure or repeated military action to manage.
Instead of focusing primarily on tracking the destruction of Iran’s military capabilities or the systematic targeting of its key leaders, the U.S. should shift its attention to how those actions will contribute to long-term stability. While degrading an adversary’s ability to wage war achieves military objectives, “winning” will ultimately depend on how the international community addresses the consequences of a weakened state of more than 90 million people facing economic instability, political fragmentation, and uncertain governance.
The United States has consistently demonstrated that its tactical capabilities are among the best in the world. That has rarely been the problem. The enduring challenge is ensuring that those actions are part of a coherent strategy that accounts for what follows. Tactical success can win battles, but it cannot, by itself, determine how wars end.
Craig Wonson is a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel and infantry officer with over 30 years of service. During his career, he served in a variety of operational and leadership roles and led the planning for numerous large-scale military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This article reflects his personal views and not those of the U.S. government or the Department of Defense.
