Why the United States can't win wars

Washington has immense military power at its disposal—but no idea how to secure a meaningful victory
By Isabel Hilton
March 26, 2026

Donald Trump is confused about whether the United States has “won” his war on Iran or not. It almost certainly hasn’t.

It’s hard to know if you have won if you don’t know what winning looks like. And that is difficult if your objectives are not clear. Even when they are, reality rarely conforms to common expectations: video games and heroic movies present a version of war in which lantern-jawed warriors inexorably prevail against uniformed adversaries and are garlanded by grateful civilians. They also give sweets to the children. Episodes such as the careless slaughter of more than 100 schoolchildren tend not to make the cut.

The US boasts a formidable arsenal, even if it is not always accurately targeted. It is still the richest country in the world, and its defence budget exceeds $900bn, substantially more than China’s estimated $300bn. The US also has 1.3m active-duty troops, fewer in absolute numbers than China’s two million, but many more as a proportion of its population. Among its most important assets—and it would be helpful if someone could mention this to Trump—it operates 750 military bases across 80 countries. Just in the last three weeks, US bombers, drones and ships have depended on bases in the UK, Germany, Por­tugal, Italy, France and Greece. It is its allies that allow US forces to operate in every theatre.

With all these assets, why is the USA so bad at winning wars? It’s a question worth asking in this moment of global peril and commander-in-chief confusion. Trump and his secretary of state for war, Pete Hegseth, may labour under the delusion that allies are an unhelpful burden, but in the last 100 years the US has conducted only three solo military operations—not wars—that could be counted a win.
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https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/united-states/72821/why-the-united-states-cannot-win-wars