The US continues to be the militarily more powerful side, but it has still not managed to compel Iran to accept the terms that would end the war in line with Washington’s objectives. It is precisely here that the explanatory power of the theory of “asymmetric conflicts” lies.
When the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran in February of this year (2026), military superiority was clearly on their side. The military operation was aimed at destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, its navy, its nuclear programme and its military infrastructure in general. President Donald Trump also presented the operation as an opportunity to encourage broader political change in Iran and in the region.
More than five months later, this US military advantage over Iran remains unchanged. However, as the war continues, Washington has still not managed to translate it into a political outcome that would bring the war to an end.
This mismatch between military power and political outcome can be explained through Ivan Arreguín-Toft’s theory of “asymmetric conflicts”.
In his study “How the Weak Win Wars”, he argues that a large disparity in material power does not necessarily determine the outcome of a war. What matters to him in particular is the way in which the strategies of the two opposing sides in a war interact. When the stronger and the weaker actor fight head-on, the material advantage usually favours the strong. But when the weaker actor avoids that kind of confrontation and chooses a different strategy, the stronger actor’s superiority becomes harder to convert into victory.
In his analysis of asymmetric conflicts between 1800 and 1998, Arreguín-Toft finds that the actors that were stronger won in 76% of the cases in which both sides used similar strategic approaches. When the strategies were opposed, the weaker actors won in 63% of the cases.
Source: Envato
This logic also helps to understand the way in which Iran is responding to American military superiority. Tehran cannot be compared with the US in terms of air power, technology and military capabilities. However, in order to achieve a favourable political outcome, Iran does not need to defeat the American military in the classical sense. It is enough for it to retain the capacity to strike back, to prolong the conflict and to raise Washington’s cost of continuing the war.
In this respect, Iranian strategy has not been confined solely to striking back against American military attacks. Tehran has been seeking to extend the cost of the war beyond its own territory, by attacking American bases in the region and the energy infrastructure of the Gulf states. Nevertheless, the most important instrument of pressure remains the Strait of Hormuz.
Before the war began, around one fifth of the world’s transport of oil and liquefied natural gas passed through this strait. Restricting traffic in this corridor does not inflict military losses on the US in the traditional sense, but it raises the economic costs of the conflict, affects its regional partners and widens the number of actors with an interest in the war coming to an end. In this way, Iran’s geographical advantage is turned into an instrument of pressure against a militarily far more powerful adversary.
But the most important element in the theory of “asymmetric conflicts” is time. According to this theory, the weaker actor’s strategy is not necessarily aimed at destroying the adversary’s military capabilities, but at prolonging the conflict to the point at which the costs of the war affect the stronger actor’s will to continue it.
The costs of the war for the US are already measurable. By the beginning of August, the war had cost the American budget more than 30 billion dollars, while eighteen members of the American forces had lost their lives. At the same time, a public opinion poll showed that only 35% of Americans supported the war.
The prolongation of the war is also being reflected in American military stockpiles. According to Reuters, the US has used the greater part of its high-precision missile capabilities such as ATACMS, while around 65% of Patriot interceptors have already been expended. Such a depletion of military resources has raised concerns about the readiness of the US to respond to other global crises at a time when Washington continues to regard China as its principal strategic challenge.
It is well known that these costs do not change the balance of power between the US and Iran. Nevertheless, they do affect the political calculations of continuing the war. The longer the conflict drags on, the less its outcome is determined solely by the initial balance of power.
In a conflict of this kind, the weight that each side attaches to the outcome of the war also matters. For the US, the objectives in Iran are strategically important, but for Tehran the war is directly bound up with the survival of the regime, the preservation of its military capabilities and Iran’s position in the region. This increases its readiness to bear greater costs, and to bear them over a longer period, making time an ever more important element.
The US continues to be the militarily more powerful side, but it has still not managed to compel Iran to accept the terms that would end the war in line with Washington’s objectives. It is precisely here that the explanatory power of the theory of “asymmetric conflicts” lies, underlining the fact that military superiority may determine who dominates the confrontation on the battlefield, but not necessarily who achieves the political outcome for which they entered the war.
