This idea of incremental escalation was first developed in the 1960s by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and his so-called whiz kids in the Pentagon—often PhDs with impressive credentials but little common sense. By carefully calibrating military pressure, they believed that North Vietnam would realize that the cost of war outweighed its benefits. Having demonstrated such resolve, America would be open to negotiations, but the terms of the agreement would be defined by Washington and not Hanoi.

The problem with this kind of approach is that it discounts the enemy’s ability to absorb punishment and adapt to changing circumstances. Bombing campaigns fortify the will of the leaders and often galvanize the population behind the cause of resistance. The adversary, in turn, responds by matching escalation with escalation, setting in motion a cycle that steadily widens the conflict.

In Vietnam, this strategy ultimately led America to drop more bombs than it had in all its previous wars combined on a country slightly larger than New Mexico, with a staggering casualty figure of approximately three million dead Vietnamese.

It is still not entirely clear why President Trump launched the war in Iran in February. The administration’s explanations have shifted and the goalpost has constantly moved. It appears that two events in January convinced the president that he could score an easy victory in the Middle East.

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America, joined by Israel, began the war by killing scores of Iranian officials, including the elderly Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. But the system held, and the theocracy’s multilayered elite maintained control. The reconstituted regime viewed the conflict as a life-or-death struggle and took the fight into the Persian Gulf, mauling America’s allies and disrupting maritime traffic through critical waterways.