Operation Epic Fury and the Spectacle of Imperial Incompetence

Empires are supposed to plan for eventualities. That is the entire point of empire. Vast military establishments, sprawling intelligence networks, and trillion-dollar defense budgets exist precisely so that the unexpected does not happen. America is supposed to be the greatest empire in history. Iran, by contrast, was long portrayed in Western discourse as a brittle regional state—isolated, sanctioned, technologically inferior, and permanently on the verge of collapse. Yet the opening weeks of Trump’s war have revealed something deeply embarrassing for Washington. The Iranians planned for this war far more carefully than the Americans did. And they have been planning for it for decades.

The intellectual foundation of Iran’s defense strategy was forged in the catastrophe of the Iran–Iraq War between 1980 and 1988. That conflict killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians and nearly destroyed the revolutionary state. But it also taught the Iranian military a lesson that shaped everything that followed: centralized armies die quickly. When the command structure collapses, the army collapses with it. Iraq learned this in 2003 when American forces decapitated Saddam Hussein’s command structure and the entire state imploded within weeks. Iranian planners concluded they would never allow that to happen to them.

Among the officers shaped by those lessons was Mohammad Ali Bagheri, who would later become Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces and one of the principal architects of modern Iranian military doctrine. Bagheri and his colleagues studied their enemies carefully—especially the United States. They asked a simple question: How does a weaker power survive confrontation with a vastly stronger one? The answer was not brute strength. It was structure.

Out of that thinking emerged what analysts later called the “mosaic defense doctrine.” Rather than relying on a centralized chain of command, Iran reorganized its forces into a decentralized territorial system. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) created provincial commands across the country, each capable of operating independently if national leadership were destroyed. Each province became its own defensive node. Each regional command had authority to act without waiting for orders from Tehran.

Farzin Nadimi, a defense analyst at the Washington Institute, once summarized the concept bluntly:

“Each province is a mosaic. The commanders have the authority to make decisions.”

The implications were radical. If the capital were bombed. If the Supreme Leader were killed. If communications collapsed. If. If. If. The war would not pause. Local commanders would continue fighting immediately. The state had effectively built a military system designed to survive decapitation. Cut one node and the network continues.

The mosaic doctrine extended beyond command structures. Iran invested heavily in systems specifically designed to frustrate technologically superior adversaries. Missile forces were dispersed and often hidden in underground facilities carved into mountains. Mobile launchers were designed to relocate constantly. Drone programs were expanded to produce thousands of inexpensive strike platforms. Naval strategy focused on swarms of small craft, mines, and anti-ship missiles capable of threatening shipping in the Persian Gulf.

And most importantly, Iran prepared for the weaponization of geography. The Strait of Hormuz—through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply passes—became the centerpiece of that strategy. Iran never expected to defeat the United States militarily. Instead it planned to impose unbearable costs. If attacked, Iran would threaten global energy markets and destabilize the regional economy. In other words, it would make war too expensive to sustain.

Trump appears to have understood almost none of this. His own generals reportedly warned him before the war began that Iran would respond to American strikes by targeting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. The warning was obvious to anyone familiar with Iranian doctrine. But Trump brushed it aside. He believed Iran would “quickly bend” under pressure. Instead Iran implemented exactly the strategy its planners had designed decades earlier. Tankers were attacked. Shipping routes were disrupted. Oil prices surged. The International Energy Agency released emergency reserves to stabilize global markets. In effect, Iran activated the insurance policy its strategists had built into the system.

What makes the situation especially humiliating for Washington is that the United States possesses vastly greater resources. The American military budget exceeds $800 billion annually. Iran’s defense budget is roughly $8–10 billion. Yet despite that disparity, the United States appears to have launched the war without a coherent plan for dealing with the predictable consequences. Even members of Congress have expressed shock at the lack of preparation. One senator recently described the administration’s planning as “pretty shocking.” There was no serious strategy for protecting shipping in the Strait. There was no clear endgame, no realistic understanding of how modern asymmetric warfare operates.

Trump’s public statements reflect that confusion. One day he declares Iran “completely decimated.” The next day he asks other countries to send warships to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Empires do not normally ask outsiders to rescue them from enemies they have utterly destroyed.

The deeper lesson of the conflict may be technological. The Ukraine war already demonstrated that expensive military platforms—tanks, aircraft, air defense systems—can be threatened by cheap drones and decentralized attacks. The Iran war reinforces the same lesson. A drone costing tens of thousands of dollars can destroy equipment worth millions. A naval mine costing far less can disrupt shipping worth billions. Small dispersed systems can exhaust the resources of vastly richer opponents. In this environment the traditional advantages of military superpowers begin to erode. And that is what Iranian planners anticipated.

Yet Iran’s strategy carries its own dangers. A decentralized military designed to continue fighting after catastrophic losses may prove extremely difficult to control once conflict begins. Systems built to survive decapitation can also resist de-escalation. When authority is widely distributed, stopping the war can become harder than starting it. Victory and chaos can arrive together. A system designed never to collapse may also be a system that refuses to stop.

And yet the broader historical lesson may still be hopeful. If the Iran war proves anything, it is that the age of effortless military domination is ending. Weaker states now possess tools that allow them to impose enormous costs on stronger ones. Drones, missiles, cyberwarfare, and infrastructure attacks have radically changed the economics of conflict. For decades powerful nations launched interventions with little fear of consequences. That era may now be closing. And if the cost of invading weaker countries continues to rise, the incentive to launch such wars may begin to fade.

Sometimes the greatest enemy of empire is not defeat. It is the discovery that victory is no longer cheap.