The myth of British military power ended at Suez. The myth of American military power may be ending at the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump’s war against Iran has no clearly defined strategic objectives, no endgame, and no obvious way of judging success or failure. It is, above all, an exercise in image-building: projecting American strength, and more importantly, presenting Trump himself as a strongman. America went to war not out of strategic necessity, but because Trump is weak — easily dominated by stronger figures like Xi, Putin and Netanyahu — and desperate to join their club.
He will now attempt to present the past month as a success, despite failing in its stated aims, triggering an energy price shock, and splitting his own political coalition. The only clear winners were those positioned to profit from volatility — the insiders who anticipated Trump’s reckless decisions.
The Strait of Hormuz is open again, but that is not a sign of American strength. It is open on Iranian terms. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards now exercise effective control over the waterway, able to threaten or disrupt global energy flows at will, and raise billions in tolls. They also get to keep 60% enriched Uranium. American intervention has not diminished that power — it has exposed it.
Before the bombing, control of the Strait was contested but stable. Now it is explicit. Iran has demonstrated that it can absorb military pressure, survive it, and emerge with greater strategic leverage. The United States, by contrast, has shown that it can strike, but not shape outcomes. Iran enters talks for a permanent deal with a stronger hand, the US much weaker. Whatever deal Trump strikes it will be much worse than the Obama deal he regularly denounces. Ships passing through the Straits of Hormuz will pay $2m per ship to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, meaning that US sanctions have been eased.
The British Empire was the dominant military power for nearly two centuries. From Pondicherry to D-Day, Britain rarely lost a battle, never mind a war.
America’s period of military dominance has been shorter — from 1945 to roughly the present day — and far less consistent. Vietnam was the most notorious defeat, but it was not unique. Time and again, the United States has failed to convert overwhelming technological superiority into lasting victory.
The reason is not simply tactical, but structural.
When Mao defeated the Japanese, he did so through what he called a “base area strategy”: lightly armed forces embedded within civilian populations, indistinguishable from them, and sustained by them. Fighters farmed, built infrastructure, and vanished when necessary. The only way to defeat such a force was to wage war on the population itself — something that would violate the laws of war and erode legitimacy.
From Vietnam to Iraq to ISIS, variations of this model have repeatedly defeated American military power. Vast expenditure on advanced weaponry has not solved this problem, because it is not a technological problem.
But America’s failures run deeper still.
The Pentagon Papers, published more than fifty years ago, exposed the lies used to justify the Vietnam War. The stated objective — preventing a domino effect across Asia — was never the real motivation. The war was about projecting power, particularly towards China. Without clear strategic objectives, defeat was always likely.
The lies did not begin with Nixon, nor did they end with him. They stretched back through successive administrations, creating a political culture in which truth became secondary to narrative, and facts became tools rather than constraints.
Britain had its own moment in Iraq, when the dossier used to justify war collapsed under scrutiny. But that scandal still belonged to an era in which truth and falsehood were meaningfully distinct.
We no longer live in that era.
The deeper weakness that has undermined American military power — the prioritisation of image over reality — now defines its entire political system
The Trump administration has constructed a political world built on conspiracy, paranoia and manufactured grievance. Dissent is treated as disloyalty. Institutions are reshaped to serve the will of the leader. Agencies like ICE are not aberrations but expressions of that logic: enforcement arms of a political project that demands submission.
Trump recognises no authority beyond himself. Reality is whatever he declares it to be.
The outcome in Iran reflects this. A war launched to demonstrate strength ends in ambiguity, with the regime intact and little achieved. The performance of power has replaced its substance.
Trump may leave office — though it is far from certain he will relinquish power in the usual way. But the deeper problem will remain. A political culture detached from reality cannot correct itself without shock.
That shock may come in the form of another military defeat abroad, or conflict at home.
American conservatism has long contained a strain of apocalyptic thinking — a belief that liberal democracy represents decline, and that Western civilisation is under existential threat from immigration and cultural change. Under Trump, that strain has moved from the margins to the centre.
And it is that mindset — paranoid, performative, and detached from reality — that now shapes both American politics and American power.