The Spoilers’ Gambit

Power, Asymmetry and the Unravelling of Imperial Confidence
When technological sophistication advances faster than political wisdom, the machinery of progress can become an instrument of destruction. The confrontation with Iran offers a sobering illustration of how domestic political calculations, military overconfidence and the changing economics of warfare are reshaping the limits of global power.
The paradox of human progress
There is something deeply unsettling about the times we live in. Humanity has acquired an extraordinary capacity to understand, calculate and influence the world around it. We can map the human genome, explore distant planets, develop artificial intelligence and process information on a scale unimaginable to previous generations. Yet, when it comes to settling our differences, we continue to fall back on impulses that have accompanied human civilisation for centuries: territorial ambition, fear, tribal loyalties and the desire to dominate.
The problem is not that humanity lacks knowledge. It is that knowledge has not necessarily produced wisdom. We have become exceptionally proficient at developing the means to exercise power, but considerably less successful at understanding when its exercise becomes counterproductive.
The ongoing confrontation involving the United States, Israel and Iran brings this contradiction into sharp focus. What began with military objectives concerning Iran's nuclear and military capabilities has evolved into a wider contest involving regional security, maritime access, economic stability and the credibility of competing powers. Beneath these familiar geopolitical calculations, however, lies another question that deserves greater attention: how much of the continuation or escalation of a conflict is determined by national interest, and how much by the domestic political survival of the leaders making the decisions?
It is an uncomfortable question, particularly when the consequences extend far beyond the countries involved.
The politics behind the battlefield
The United States and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran on 28 February 2026. Iran retaliated across the region, while the Strait of Hormuz became one of the principal pressure points in the confrontation. An April ceasefire and a subsequent June memorandum, facilitated through Pakistani mediation, failed to produce a durable settlement. The memorandum eventually collapsed, and limited military exchanges resumed. The Congressional Research Service recorded US military expenditure of approximately $38 billion up to 1 August, while also identifying serious concerns about ammunition expenditure and replenishment capacity.
Global Conflict  created a difficult poltical environment for both Washington and Jerusalem.
For Donald Trump, the November 2026 American midterm elections have produced a substantial political setback. Democrats have secured control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, ending Republican control of Congress. The election results reflected widespread dissatisfaction with the administration, with the cost of living, inflation and the Iran war among the issues weighing on voters.
The implications are significant. Congressional control brings the opposition greater powers of investigation, oversight and resistance to the President's legislative programme. It does not automatically deprive the President of his authority over military operations, but it changes the political environment in which that authority must be exercised.
Trump now faces a familiar dilemma for a leader whose political standing has suffered a serious setback. A negotiated settlement could offer an opportunity to claim that American military pressure has produced sufficient concessions. Alternatively, an escalation could be presented as an attempt to secure a decisive outcome before the new Congress assumes office in January.
Neither possibility should be treated as inevitable. But the danger lies in allowing domestic political considerations to influence decisions whose consequences may be irreversible.
Israel presents a different, though equally complicated, political picture. The October election has left Benjamin Netanyahu without a parliamentary majority. His bloc holds 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, while parties opposed to him collectively command 67, although their ability to form a functioning government remains uncertain. Netanyahu continues as caretaker prime minister, retaining considerable executive authority, including over security matters.
It would be premature to conclude that military escalation is necessarily a strategy for his political survival. Netanyahu's office has rejected such allegations. Nevertheless, the coincidence of political uncertainty and continuing regional confrontation raises legitimate questions about the incentives confronting political leadership.
The distinction is important. A country's security interests are legitimate matters of statecraft. But when those interests become inseparable from the personal political fortunes of its leadership, the risk of miscalculation increases.
When diplomacy becomes an instrument of humiliation
Wars are not sustained by military capabilities alone. They are also sustained by the language leaders use, the expectations they create and the political space they leave themselves for compromise.
Diplomacy has traditionally recognised a simple but often overlooked principle: an adversary must be given a way to retreat without appearing to surrender its dignity. This is not an expression of weakness. It is an essential instrument of negotiation.
The Cuban Missile Crisis offers a particularly instructive example. In October 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union came dangerously close to nuclear confrontation. The eventual resolution involved public and private understandings, concessions and considerable diplomatic discretion. Neither side obtained everything it wanted, but both found a way to step back from the brink.
The opening to China in 1972 similarly demonstrated that even deeply antagonistic relationships could be altered through carefully managed engagement.
Such examples are worth remembering at a time when public ultimatums, personal insults and threats of total destruction increasingly occupy the diplomatic space.
A leader who publicly humiliates an adversary may win applause at home, but the consequences are less predictable abroad. The other side may find compromise politically impossible without appearing to have capitulated. Its leadership may then feel compelled to respond, even when a negotiated outcome would better serve its national interests.
This is how diplomatic space gradually disappears.
The purpose of diplomacy is not to make adversaries like one another. It is to prevent disagreement from becoming a permanent justification for confrontation. A strong leader understands that allowing an opponent an honourable exit can be more valuable than forcing a public admission of defeat.
The recent US strikes on Iranian air-defence installations on Qeshm Island illustrate the difficulty of separating military necessity from political interpretation. Washington described the 2 November operation as defensive, arguing that Iranian surface-to-air missile systems had threatened American assets. Reuters reported that the strikes appeared limited and did not constitute a resumption of major combat operations.
That explanation deserves consideration, but the word 'defensive' cannot, by itself, settle the larger legal or strategic question. The circumstances, necessity, proportionality and consequences of military action must be assessed independently.
Language should not become a substitute for scrutiny.
The changing economics of warfare
Perhaps the most consequential development in the present conflict is not the number of aircraft, missiles or naval vessels deployed. It is the changing relationship between the cost of attack and the cost of defence.
For much of the modern era, military superiority rested on industrial capacity, technological sophistication, financial resources and the ability to sustain operations far from home. The United States built an extensive global security architecture around these advantages.
But the economics of warfare are changing.
A relatively inexpensive drone can compel an adversary to deploy an interceptor costing several million dollars. A comparatively modest investment in missile technology can threaten sophisticated military installations, commercial shipping and critical infrastructure. The attacker does not necessarily need to defeat the defender's entire military establishment. It may be sufficient to impose continuing costs that the defender finds increasingly difficult to sustain.
This is the emerging reality of what might be called the democratisation of kinetic asymmetry.
The term does not suggest that military power has become equally accessible to all countries. It has not. Advanced aircraft, intelligence networks, satellite systems, naval forces and sophisticated weapons remain enormously expensive and difficult to develop. Nor has conventional military superiority become obsolete.
What has changed is the ability of less powerful actors to challenge that superiority selectively and impose disproportionate costs.
The Iran conflict has exposed this vulnerability. A September 2026 assessment reported that the heavy expenditure of American munitions had produced strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed weaknesses in the industrial base responsible for replenishment. Separate reporting has highlighted concerns about the depletion of Patriot missile stocks in Europe following transfers to the Middle East, although US and NATO officials have disputed some of the more alarming assessments.
The larger lesson is difficult to ignore. Military superiority is not simply a question of possessing the most sophisticated weapons. It is also about how long a country can sustain their use, at what cost and with what consequences for its other security commitments.
The Strait of Hormuz makes this particularly clear. A narrow maritime passage through which a substantial proportion of the world's oil trade normally travels can become a strategic pressure point for the entire global economy. Its disruption does not require the destruction of a superpower's navy. The uncertainty surrounding safe passage, insurance, shipping and energy supplies can itself produce consequences far beyond the immediate theatre of conflict.
In such circumstances, a country may win individual military engagements while losing ground in the wider economic and political contest.
The imperial burden
History offers several reminders that the greatest danger to an established power may arise not from a single military defeat but from the cumulative cost of maintaining its position.
Ancient Athens discovered the limits of expansion during the Peloponnesian War. Britain experienced the consequences of overstretch and declining financial capacity in the decades following the Second World War, with the Suez Crisis of 1956 becoming a particularly revealing moment. The Soviet Union, too, struggled under the combined weight of military commitments, economic weaknesses and political rigidity.
These historical experiences are not identical, and it would be simplistic to suggest that the United States is following an inevitable path towards imperial collapse. Its economic strength, technological capabilities, institutional depth and network of alliances remain formidable.
Nevertheless, a recurring historical pattern deserves attention: the cost of preserving dominance can eventually undermine the very foundations on which dominance rests.
A prolonged military engagement consumes resources that could otherwise support domestic development, infrastructure, healthcare, education and technological investment. It also places pressure on public finances and political consent.
The American electorate's response in the recent midterms is a reminder that foreign policy cannot be insulated indefinitely from domestic economic realities. Voters may initially support military action in the name of national security, but their tolerance can diminish when its costs become visible in everyday life.
Nor is the problem confined to the United States. European governments face their own economic pressures, political divisions and public dissatisfaction. A prolonged regional conflict, with higher energy costs and uncertainty over trade, is unlikely to find an unlimited reservoir of public patience.
People have their own priorities. They want employment, affordable energy, secure homes and a reasonable expectation of peace. They are not necessarily interested in sustaining an indefinite geopolitical contest simply because their leaders regard it as a test of national prestige.
The arithmetic of public consent is often less complicated than the calculations of military planners.
The algorithm is not the answer
The growing role of artificial intelligence adds another dimension to this changing landscape.
AI-enabled systems can process enormous quantities of information, identify patterns, assist military planning and improve the speed of intelligence analysis. They can also support simulations of possible diplomatic outcomes, helping decision-makers understand the likely consequences of different courses of action.
Yet there is a danger in treating technological sophistication as a substitute for political judgement.
Artificial intelligence is not inherently impartial, nor is it immune to the assumptions and biases embedded in the data and objectives supplied to it. An algorithm can calculate the probable consequences of a military decision, but it cannot independently determine the moral legitimacy of that decision. Nor can it assume responsibility for the lives lost when its recommendations are acted upon.
Indeed, the integration of AI into military systems can introduce new dangers. Faster target identification and compressed decision-making timelines may leave less opportunity for human intervention, verification and restraint. Research on autonomous weapons has identified precisely these concerns, including the potential for accelerated escalation and uncertainty over responsibility.
The more useful proposition, therefore, is not to surrender diplomacy to algorithms but to employ technology in support of better human decisions.
Imagine systems capable of modelling the economic consequences of a prolonged blockade, the regional impact of a military strike, the cost of disrupted energy supplies and the possible benefits of negotiated concessions. Such analysis could help identify practical alternatives before political rhetoric makes them unacceptable.
An algorithmic bridge to peace is worth exploring, provided we remember that the bridge must ultimately be built and crossed by human beings.
The paradox of concentrated power
There is one further complication. Political systems with highly concentrated executive authority can sometimes become the greatest obstacles to peace. A single leader may override institutional caution, marginalise professional advice and turn national security into an extension of personal political conviction.
Yet concentrated authority can also provide an opportunity.
A leader with sufficient political capital can make difficult compromises, withstand criticism and sell an agreement to a domestic audience. What appears politically impossible under a divided leadership may become achievable when one individual has the authority to make and defend the decision.
The challenge, therefore, is not simply to restrain powerful leaders. It is to create institutional and political incentives that make restraint a mark of strength rather than an admission of weakness.
This requires credible parliamentary oversight, professional diplomatic channels, independent assessment of military claims and a willingness among political opponents to recognise that national security cannot be reduced to partisan advantage.
Above all, it requires leaders to understand that the survival of a government and the security of a country are not necessarily the same thing.
Conclusion: The price of refusing to read history
The confrontation with Iran has exposed more than the vulnerabilities of military hardware or the limits of conventional superiority. It has revealed the growing difficulty of sustaining dominance in a world where technology, geography, economic interdependence and asymmetric capabilities have altered the traditional calculations of power.
The United States remains a formidable military and economic force. Israel retains substantial technological and military advantages. Iran, despite the damage inflicted upon it, has demonstrated an ability to impose costs and complicate the strategic calculations of much stronger adversaries. None of these realities guarantees a particular outcome.
But they collectively challenge the assumption that overwhelming military superiority can deliver a lasting political settlement.
The answer cannot simply be a withdrawal from every conflict or an unrealistic belief that all international disagreements can be resolved through goodwill. States have legitimate security interests, and military deterrence may sometimes be necessary. The more important question is whether the use of force produces a political outcome worth the human, economic and strategic price.
A policy of restraint, negotiated coexistence and non-interference wherever possible is not an idealistic luxury. It is an increasingly compelling strategic necessity. Call it a no-war model if one wishes, but it must be supported by credible deterrence, international cooperation and functioning diplomatic institutions.
The ultimate measure of leadership is not the ability to threaten destruction, but the judgement to recognise when destruction serves no worthwhile purpose.
We have reached a curious point in human history. Our technologies are becoming more sophisticated, our weapons more precise and our capacity to inflict damage more extensive. Yet the wisdom required to govern these capabilities remains stubbornly uncertain.
Perhaps the most dangerous illusion of an established power is the belief that its ability to inflict damage is proof of its ability to prevail.
History suggests otherwise. Empires are not necessarily defeated when their weapons become inferior. Sometimes they begin to decline when the cost of maintaining their supremacy becomes greater than the benefits it delivers.
And when political leaders confuse their own survival with the survival of the nation, the consequences are rarely confined to them.
The world does not need another demonstration of how efficiently modern technology can wage war. It needs leaders capable of understanding why, in an increasingly interconnected and technologically asymmetric world, the pursuit of absolute dominance may be the surest route to diminishing it.
The question is no longer simply who possesses the greater power. It is who has the wisdom to understand its limits.

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(kgsharma1@gmail.com; Mobile: 9811340809: The writer is a retired officer of the Indian Information Service and a former Editor-in-Charge of India’s national broadcasters. Also worked as an international media consultant with UNICEF Nigeria and contributes regularly to various publications.)