By Pasquale Preziosa
The deployment of additional U.S. troops to the Gulf signals not only a possible military escalation. Above all, it reveals a deeper transformation: contemporary warfare no longer follows the logic of short campaigns and decisive victories, but rather that of duration, permanent competition, and the political-narrative construction of the outcome.
All scenarios remain open. The deployment can be interpreted as a form of negotiation under pressure, already observed in other theaters such as Ukraine, where military force is used to influence negotiations. It may fall within the scope of operational preparation, or indicate a more concrete possibility: the use of ground forces or special operations missions. All these hypotheses are plausible. What appears increasingly likely is a more significant fact: this war may not be short. Recent history calls for caution. Even the war in Gaza, initially envisioned as a limited campaign, turned into a much longer and politically more corrosive conflict than anticipated. Developments along the Lebanese front, with an Israeli presence extending to the Litani River area, represent a potential vector for regional expansion.
The war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year, confirms the same dynamic: contemporary conflicts tend to defy the logic of rapid resolution and evolve into wars of attrition and systemic adaptation. To this is added a further element: the progressive interconnection between regional theaters. Wars no longer remain confined to the theater where they begin. They spread, linking different spaces and involving energy infrastructure, trade routes, information systems, and indirect actors, transforming into interconnected crises. It is this expansive dynamic that undermines the traditional grammar of conflict. When one calls for a “total victory” or a “definitive end,” one is not merely expressing a political objective, but a vision of war that is now inadequate.
War no longer obeys the twentieth-century logic based on short campaigns and decisive outcomes. For over two centuries, Western strategic thought has interpreted war through a relatively stable framework: war began, was fought, and concluded with a decisive victory. This paradigm stemmed from the experience of major interstate wars, in which the destruction of the enemy’s military apparatus produced a politically verifiable outcome. This framework long guided both theory and strategy. As early as the beginning of this century, however, it began to show its limitations. The wars in Afghanistan, first the Soviet one and then the U.S. one, represented the first major testing ground for this crisis. In both cases, the conflict turned into a war of insurgency and attrition and ended without a stable political outcome. After 2001, the rapid fall of the Taliban regime did not lead to stabilization: twenty years later, the same actors returned to power.
This outcome is not an anomaly, but a foreshadowing of a broader trend: the growing gap between tactical military success and strategic political outcomes. Over the past two decades, war has progressively reconfigured itself into a more complex competition, in which conventional operations, insurgencies, economic pressure, cyber operations, and narrative competition are permanently intertwined. Categories such as hybrid warfare, gray-zone conflict, and cognitive warfare have emerged. All describe the same reality: a continuous strategic competition in which the distinction between war and peace tends to blur. The digital age has accelerated this transformation.
Cyberspace has become a true strategic space. Striking the adversary also means influencing their decisions, perceptions, and consensus. Contemporary warfare is also cognitive warfare: it concerns not only the destruction of material capabilities but the construction of the political meaning of the conflict. Current conflicts, Ukraine, Gaza, and the confrontation between the United States, Israel, and Iran, clearly demonstrate this evolution. In none of these cases does the conclusion appear to be tied to a definitive military defeat.
The military dimension remains essential, but it is no longer sufficient.
Victory tends to shift from a military category to a political-strategic construct.
The confrontation between the United States, Israel, and Iran adds a further element: competition between strategic timeframes. Washington and Tel Aviv favor rapid and decisive campaigns. Tehran, on the other hand, adopts a logic of strategic resistance, in which the duration of the conflict becomes an instrument of power. This is typical of asymmetric wars: the stronger side seeks a decisive outcome, while the weaker side seeks attrition.
In the Middle Eastern context, this dynamic is amplified by the regional and hybrid nature of the conflict. It is within this logic that the U.S. military buildup in the Gulf must also be understood. It is not merely an operational signal: it may indicate that the conflict is entering a longer and structurally different phase. As the war drags on, it expands, interconnects, and involves infrastructure, markets, supply chains, and public opinion.
The crisis ceases to be a temporary interlude and becomes a multi-level strategic competition.
Consequently, the concept of security also changes. In the traditional paradigm, security was a state achieved after the war. Today, it is a continuous process of managing competition. States do not eliminate conflict: they manage its intensity, duration, and spread. Open warfare does not disappear, but becomes integrated into a permanent rivalry. The 21st century does not mark the end of war, but the end of its exceptional nature.
In the new strategic landscape, the problem is no longer merely how to win a war, but how to give it a politically sustainable form before it turns into an endless competition.
The true test is not the ability to deliver the decisive blow, but the ability to manage the duration, contain the spread of the conflict, and transform military superiority into a credible strategic order.
This was first published in Italian by Formiche on March 30, 2026 and is republished with the author’s permission.