WASHINGTON—War is a serious endeavor. And, make no mistake, Operation Epic Fury is a war. Its current scale and the scope of its desired outcomes render the suggestion that it is anything less than war implausible.
Epic Fury features the largest concentration of US military power in the region since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Though subject to different official narratives, the conflict seems focused on eliminating—or inspiring an end to—Iran’s current regime, neutralizing the coercive structures that enable it, and destroying Iran’s capability to threaten US interests. Epic Fury’s conduct, ongoing impacts, and strategic outcomes are globally significant. And finally, the Iranian regime seems to perceive Epic Fury as an existential threat and is fighting as though this is the case. This all adds up to a real war, and US officials should not consider it anything less.
In practical terms, preparing for a war means that US policymakers should have performed thoroughgoing strategic risk assessment before hostilities and apply similar risk logic to adapt their approach as they proceed. As policymakers, we have lost sight of this fact before. Moving forward, it would be wise to ensure we not do so again.
How to think about risk
As a defense and military strategist with experience advising senior leadership in a wartime theater and, most recently, as a Pentagon official from 2022 to 2024, I know there is one aspect of conflict and rivalry that cannot be ignored: War is an exercise in risk management. Risk connects wartime objectives, the ways and means to pursue them, and preferred strategic outcomes. Moreover, wartime strategic risk assessment should be clinical—avoiding preference, and instead using facts and reasonable assumptions to consider the likeliest, the most dangerous, and the most disruptive outcomes.
At its best, risk-informed strategic planning focuses on one animating question: What is the likelihood that the chosen approach will deliver the desired outcomes at acceptable cost? Given how Epic Fury has unfolded so far, it is unclear how much this question informed prewar decision-making and, even now, ongoing US actions. This operation may have been judged as high-risk, high-reward and, therefore worthy of pursuit. But inadequate risk assessment of an endeavor this complex and this consequential can make it a gamble.
Six “gray rhinos”
Experience suggests that war has far fewer of author Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “black swans,” or high-impact and unpredictable events, than it does author Michele Wucker’s “gray rhinos,” or highly probable, high-impact yet neglected threats. The latter are foreseeable, prone to derail the best intent, and core to strategic risk assessment. Here are six important strategic risk factors US policymakers should consider to remedy any earlier oversights.
- The war is being conducted by a coalition of two—the United States and Israel—and they may not be pursuing the same ends against a rival that has so far chosen the only version of “total war” within its reach. Iran’s “mosaic defense” strategy—which prioritized decentralization and asymmetric warfare—might not be an operational war winner. However, it may just be enough to outlast the US-Israeli coalition strategically. Iran’s continued resistance—potentially ultimately made more complex by future political destabilization and civil conflict—may extend US and Israeli commitment longer than either preferred or anticipated. It may also create irreconcilable asymmetries between the two governments’ approaches to terminating the war.
- The war is rattling troubled US alliances. Washington reportedly did not meaningfully consult its partners before US-Israeli strikes began on February 28, and the war is having a profound and unanticipated impact on many of them. Given the latest US national security and defense strategies, many NATO allies in particular are already adapting to an emerging US strategy perceived as transactional and hostile to their interests. Downstream, US allies also know that they may have to enter hostilities without the benefit of prior consultation just to protect their own interests and defend against or contain escalation. In combination, these factors complicate already tenuous foreign partnerships, both making them less secure and undermining relationships that the United States relies on to solve many other consequential security challenges. In short, Epic Fury may only widen the “rupture” in trust recently described by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
- The war offers US rivals opportunities for strategic mischief. Many US rivals, too, did not see Epic Fury coming (at least not as it has unfolded) but they are certain to avail themselves of any advantages it might offer. US commitment in Iran is an open invitation for rivals to materially tie down and deplete US power. Under circumstances where US activism matters most (especially, in Ukraine/Europe and the tense Indo-Pacific), postwar US exhaustion (material, political, and moral) may engender US self-deterrence to their benefit. Finally, another US Middle Eastern war opens doors for rival military and economic opportunism contrary to US interests. The usual suspects are important to watch here: China, Russia, and North Korea.
- Both the scope and consequences of the war are expanding. Iran’s regime will try to open new threat vectors against the United States whether precision strikes end in days, weeks, or months. The Iranian regime’s goal is survival. Therefore, it is likely to try and make the United States’ problem bigger and more costly. It has already closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked targets regionwide.
Iranian allies, proxies, and customers can also be useful extensions of its “mosaic defense,” which employs a decentralized military strategy to help ensure battlefield continuity. Though the United States is currently on the offense against Iran, its proxies, allies, and customers are vulnerable to US offensive action, too. However, they might also perceive exploitable opportunities in the war, as well. They can support Iran directly or free ride on the war for their own purposes. Either way, they complement Iran’s war aims with active resistance or latent threats. For example, a Hezbollah-Israeli second front along the Lebanese border already exists, and Shia militias have attacked US interests in Iraq. The Houthis in Yemen are a wild card. While they have been quiet so far, they are capable of threatening the Red Sea, Israel, and the Arabian Peninsula.
Finally, the US homeland itself may not be safe from direct retaliation from Iran or its sympathizers via kinetic proxy military strike, cyberattack, and terrorism. The United States has been mostly immune to the effects of foreign conflict since the immediate post-9/11 period. But save for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States has not presented an existential threat to any capable rival since. Iran’s perception of total war in an existential fight portends unique approaches to dislocate US security and sentiment. Iran’s threats to the US homeland may not be either credible or materially strategic, but that does not necessarily limit their psychological value. - The war has induced a shock on commerce and the global economy. There are enormous direct military costs that will trigger substantial postwar defense investments to reset the Joint Force. However, the big story is Epic Fury’s global economic disruption. Like US partners and rivals, markets were hit by Epic Fury with little warning. The private and public sectors were not prepared to buffer their assets against sharp but ephemeral adjustment (in the best case) or a structural disruption extending across multiple sectors over time (in the worst case). The war’s unexpected economic costs will have global impacts, and their scope and scale are highly dependent on the war’s duration.
- The war is unpopular. Less than a month into the war, more than half of Americans oppose it, according to recent polling, and history shows that many conflicts lose support over time. While unpopular wars are not necessarily unjustified, favorable public opinion is the currency of continued military freedom of action. Failure to turn it around will affect the United States’ ability to fight now and, perhaps, more importantly, later, when the stakes are higher and the interests more compelling.
The work ahead
Wartime strategic risk calculation is homework that separates success from failure. It balances the downstream impacts of military action against the nation’s broadest strategic objectives. Risk does not decide. Risk informs. High-risk is not a stop light. It is a warning sign. Leadership heeds and acts on risk—or ignores it, often at the expense of desired outcomes and the safety of those in harm’s way.
My experience suggests significant working-level risk assessments occurred prior to Epic Fury. However, it is not apparent that work drove US leadership toward meaningful risk mitigation. The six factors above are among the key areas of strategic risk that would have benefited from the prior attention of senior US officials. They certainly merit attention now, as well.