Afrasianet - Dr. Mohamed Ayyash - The United States of America senses a number of imminent dangers, and therefore must determine the appropriate strategy to stand up to dangers and move to the stage of strengthening confidence in stability and hegemony, with the firm belief that the matter will not be easy at all, due to its policy of double standards, which has led to the exacerbation and explosion of crises regardless of the personality of the president or who resides in the White House.
Giving the highest priority to the protection of U.S. territory and vital interests in the Western Hemisphere (the Monroe Doctrine), deterring major adversaries (Russia-China), focusing on deterring major challenges, specifically in the Indo-Pacific region through military force and balance rather than engaging in direct and open wars of attrition, calling on allies and regional and international partners to assume greater responsibilities in their self-defense, reducing the financial and military burden on Washington (Europe as a model), strengthening industrial and military capabilities, and developing the technological and defense arsenal within a broader domestic industrial renaissance.
The principle of "peace by force" and flexible realism, relying on strong military deterrence while adopting a flexible political realism, tends to reduce direct conventional military interventions and manage conflicts through strategic balance of power without a tactic is the slowest path to victory, and tactics without a strategy is the uproar that precedes defeat.
This famous quote by the Chinese military commander Sun Tzu accurately summarizes the philosophy of military and political power-building, and is clearly reflected in the development of American strategy throughout history. In military and political science. Strategy is the long-term plan to achieve major goals, while tactics are the daily and operational steps and procedures to implement this plan.
When we apply the phrase "the slowest path to victory" to U.S. strategy, the U.S. often adopts grand strategies that rely on long-winded, contained, and slow but decisive depletion of adversaries, especially if they are followed by large-scale military operations (Iraq).
Historically, Washington has adopted the concept of the long breath, as the United States is not always looking for a quick tactical decision, but rather prefers to build a strategic collar that strangles the adversary economically, politically, and militarily for decades.
This path is considered the "slowest path to victory" because it requires enormous patience and huge resources, but it ensures the complete collapse of the adversary in the end, (the Cold War) against the Soviet Union, America did not enter into a direct tactical confrontation (all-out war).
Instead, the "containment strategy" formulated by George Forrest Kennan, who for years was a member of the U.S. Department of Foreign Affairs. As a foreign policy planner in the late 1940s and 1950s, he was considered the "architect" of the Cold War by calling for the containment of the Soviet Union.
This slow road took about 45 years, but it led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union without World War III, which also relies on tactics of economic sanctions and blockade of supply chains (such as what it is currently doing with China in the field of semiconductors, or with Russia).
It is a very slow strategy, the results of which do not show results in days, but it limits the adversary's ability to develop in the long term, and the danger of relying on grand strategy alone is that the absence of flexible and effective tactics makes the road slower and may turn into a drain for America itself.
In these wars, America had overwhelming tactical superiority (technology, air power, training), but the lack of a clear strategic vision of the nature of the terrain and domestic politics made "tactical victory" merely a clamor and a delay for a strategic defeat or a disorganized withdrawal.
U.S. strategy faces the challenge of balancing long-term planning (such as containing China's rise in the Indo-Pacific) with quick and direct tactics (such as the use of artificial intelligence, cyber warfare, and proxies).
Washington understands that strategy is the compass, and that tactics are the engine; if the engine moves too slowly without flexible tactics, the "slowest path to victory" could turn into a quagmire of attrition. By adopting a policy of economic strangulation on Iran, and persuading European partners to trench the economy, while remaining the military option as a limited deterrent in response to the IRGC's threat to the Strait of Hormuz's navigation route.
The strategy will settle on this slow situation, perhaps until the midterm elections, which is sufficient time to monitor the effects on the Iranian economy, but taking into account the volatility of Trump and his troubled team.
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