Unlike at least one war game simulation rehearsed by the US military, Trump’s attack won’t lead to a reset, at least not on American terms
3-MIN READ3-MINSameed BashaPublished: 8:30pm, 3 Mar 2026Many American wars begin with the assumption that brute force will lead to a swift and decisive victory. While the US military is highly effective at conventional deterrence, it has consistently struggled to defeat adversaries employing asymmetric tactics. In conflicts such as Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, Washington repeatedly underestimated its adversaries by assessing their strength based on their ability to fight conventionally.Iran represents the most dangerous iteration of asymmetric warfare: a state that has developed over more than 45 years to survive US power without direct confrontation. US President Donald Trump now risks revealing the same American vulnerabilities as before: reliance on doctrines and technologies that cannot read or adapt to the changing battlespace, which now includes Iran targeting US assets and bases in the region.Take Millennium Challenge 2002, one of the largest pre-Iraq-invasion war game simulations. Here, the US faced an adversary in the Persian Gulf using asymmetric low-tech warfare. US battle formations constituted a naval fleet of 19 ships, including an aircraft carrier, similar to Trump’s armada, which consists of about 20 ships, including two aircraft carriers.
Documents released by the US National Security Agency found that within 10 minutes of starting the Millennium Challenge operation, Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper, commander of the “red team”, sank the US aircraft carrier and defeated the “blue team”, representing the US forces. However, the commanders paused the war game, “refloated” the sunken ships and resumed the exercises as if the red team’s victory hadn’t occurred. They changed the scenario by restricting the red team’s ability to conduct asymmetric warfare, forcing them to fight on America’s terms, which led to a predetermined US victory.
Van Riper’s strategy involved avoiding the interception of electronic and phone communications by using couriers to carry sensitive messages and lanterns to coordinate with aircraft, thus bypassing radio interception. Additional restrictions banned Van Riper from using chemical weapons against US assets.
