Stuck Up: Getting Caught in the War Trap

We explore wars ranging from the American Revolution to the current situation in Iran and explore how nations get stuck.  

Transcript

Stuck Up:  Getting Caught in the War Trap

May 2026

The troops will be home “before the leaves had fallen.” 

Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1914, upon the mobilization of the German Army

“The war has ended, quite differently indeed from how we expected. Our politicians have failed us miserably,” and “treachery!” 

Kaiser Wilhelm in 1918 after losing World War I and facing his abdication

“Four or five frigates will do the business without any military force.” 

British Prime Minister Lord North, on dealing with the rebellious American colonies in 1774.

“Oh, God! It is all over!”

Lord North, upon learning of Yorktown in 1781. 

In my kidhood, many decades ago, there were two examples of stickiness that have gone by the by for very different reasons.  The first was fly paper—a sheet of paper with a sticky surface on one side.  The unknowing fly would land upon a seemingly innocuous sheet, never to take off again.  Today, everything from bug zappers to aerosols to Orkin-style prevention has sent fly paper to the garbage bin of lost products like butter churns, Doan’s pills, and landlines.  

The other is a bit of entertainment.  Song of the South, a Disney animated movie released in 1946, was once in regular rotation along with Pinocchio and Fantasia.  No longer.  We may live in an era of pushback against political correctness, or woke, or whatever you want to call it, but Disney no longer shows Song of the South due to its racist stereotypes, portrayal of African-Americans, and romanticized depiction of the Reconstruction-era South.  I am not a PC guy, but I can see the issues that concern Disney.  Yet there is a sequence in the movie that strongly reminds me of nations getting stuck in wars. 

When central character Br’er Rabbit comes along, he addresses what he thinks is a fellow traveler, but is in fact a tar “baby” (one of those racial terms that has led to the movies shelving). The Rabbit is amiable but receives no response. Br’er Rabbit becomes offended by what he perceives as the tar baby’s lack of manners, punches it, and, in doing so, becomes stuck. The more Br’er Rabbit punches and kicks the tar baby out of rage, the worse his dilemma becomes.  Of course, the Rabbit is being driven by emotion and not reason.  If those attributes had been reversed, he might have understood the nature of what he was addressing and taken a different approach.  

For example, had the British better understood the need for greater representation and not treated the colonies as recalcitrant children, they would have been in a better position to keep them.  

The great Barbara Tuchman states in The March of Folly, “Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense, and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggest? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?”

And she offers this little gem:

“No one is so sure of his premises as the man who knows too little.”

Yet Tuchman was not talking about basic government, such as the provision of public services or the management of the economy, but primarily about war.  Of her four major follies, three involved severe miscalculations regarding the conflicts.  Only the Renaissance Popes, in their pursuit of riches and their disregard for fundamental reforms, created the Reformation.  The rest of her examples, the Trojan Horse, the American Revolution, and America in Vietnam, were about getting stuck in a war that belied predictions.  

Why does this happen?  Precedent for one.  Wars in which a nation, often in possession of a dominant military, seems to predict that because one war was won, the next and next will follow suit.  Take two of Tuchman’s examples.  The British emerged from the Seven Years’ War, having bested France and Spain, and went on to possess a global empire that stretched from the Americas to the West Indies and to India.  Prior to Vietnam, America had not lost a war, unless one counts stalemates in 1812 and Korea.  And even those were negotiated with America having achieved its strategic goals of standing up to Britain and containing communism, respectively.  

I quoted the Kaiser above.  In the Franco-Prussian War, German Mobilization commenced in July of 1870, and by August, they had routed the French armies, including taking 100,000 prisoners at the Battle of Sedan.  The Kaiser, who was all of 11 at the time, concluded that surely what happened 40 years earlier was rinse and repeat.  He and his advisors failed to fully appreciate that in 1914, they would need to keep forces in the East against Russia, or that the British would be sending in troops, or that the plan initiated (a variation on the famed Von Schefflen Plan) would mean going through Belgium, making them an enemy, and adding days to a very strict timetable.  All of this meant that the German offensive stalled, and all the nations became stuck, and 19 million people died.  

When the Athenians took on the Spartans in 431 BC, both nations could look to victories over the much larger Persian Empire.  If we can beat Persia, surely that city-state and its allies will be easy pickings, or so they surmised.  30 years later, both cities were shells of their former selves.  

Another reason for unanticipated stickiness is the ill-considered purpose of the war itself.  Unlike World War II, World War I was fought for several reasons. I have cited Wilhelm’s hubris, but the Austrians were smarting from the assassination of their heir, and also wanted to keep the Slavs within the Habsburg empire, a much larger group than the ruling Germans, in line.  Russia needed a distraction from domestic issues.  Britain wanted to curb German naval buildup, and France wanted revenge for 1870 and the loss of two provinces—none of the reasons provided involved existential threats.  

Ukraine, however, is facing just such a prospect.  But the figure who began the current bloodletting, Vladimir Putin, also wanted distractions from domestic issues.  Why worry about inflation when the Russian people can glory in the restoration of the Tsarist empire?  Yet he is now stuck faster that Br’er Rabbit.  

Today, we see Donald Trump in much the same stuck position.  In fairness, I could make a very strong argument for why Iran needed to be attacked.  Start with the thought of religious fanatics, who believe martyrdom is a fast track to heaven, with nuclear devices.  Say what you want about Putin or the North Korean Kims, those people do not want to die.  Add to that nuclear threat that over the past 49 years, since the inception of the Islamic Republic, Iran has been the number one exporter of worldwide terrorism, including the deaths of hundreds of US servicemen.  When Ruhollah Khomeini first took power after the fall of the Shah, he was clear that Iran’s goal was the export of the Islamic Revolution, in any way that could be accomplished. Their proxy wars, and not just against Israel by the way, but against Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and wherever US troops happen to be, are a constant source of destabilization.  So an attack was initiated, but none of this was explained by Trump to the American people or the world when it began.

As for that previous victory thing, Trump’s triumph in Venezuela taught him the wrong lessons.  That nation was ruled by a socialist tyrant, Nicholas Maduro, whose legitimacy of rule rested on thuggery.  When the US swooped in and kidnapped him, it opened the way for Delcy Rodriquez, the Vice President, to assume power, one thug out, one in.  Switching from Cuban and Chinese oversight to American was not a stretch for someone like her.  Iran is obviously different.  These are Shia fanatics who believe their legitimacy derives not from the people, the army, or some economic control, but from God itself.  Such a belief system does not lend itself well to cutting deals in the Rodriguez manner.  And Iran held a, well, Trump card.  Whereas the regime of Hugo Chavez and Maduro. According to CEIC data, Venezuela’s oil exports have experienced a massive collapse over the past 30 years, driven by mismanagement, lack of investment, and international sanctions. As of early 2026, production and exports are down roughly 70–75% from their peak levels in the late 1990s.  Somehow, the Venezuelans threw away their best leverage, but, per Chavez, there was a socialist paradise to build.  

However, nearly 20% of all exported oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz from the Persian Gulf and into the Indian Ocean.  And Iran can shut down the Strait not with modern naval or air force weaponry, but $10,000 drones, mines, and open-air speedboats that launch devices at passing tankers.  

Either the Trump Administration was unaware of this ability to easily close the Strait, or they were and dismissed it.  Either way, Trump is now stuck.  His options include begin bombing Iran again in hopes the regime will capitulate or collapse, close the straight and basically take 20% of all oil exports off the board with the attendant increase in energy prices, invade the coastline of Iran to prevent attacks which would entail ground forces, escort tankers through the straight using the US navy and run the risk of those $10,000 drones doing serious damage to a $4 billion destroyer, or capitulate to the Iranians acknowledging that they now control something of which they even recently never claimed, ownership of the Strait—no good options.  

Like the Kaiser, Trump had repeatedly made statements belied by the facts on the ground, or, in the strict sense, as it were.  On Saturday, May 2, 2026, he posted on his Truth Social account that news outlets “love saying that Iran is ‘winning’ when, in fact, everyone knows that they are LOSING, and LOSING BIG!”

Perhaps he should get one of those nearly lost copies of the Song of the South and note that Br’er Rabbit, after getting his hands stuck, said: “Tu’n me loose, fo’ I kick de natal stuffin’ outen you,” he said before getting his feet stuck.  “Ef you don’t turn me loose I’ll butt you flat! I’ll scatter yo’ brains! I’ll ruin you, sho!” he shouted before his head got stuck.

Yet for the Rabbit, there is a happy ending.  After getting trapped in the tar, Brer Rabbit is caught by Brer Fox and Brer Bear. He pleads, “Skin me, snatch out my eyes, tear out my ears, but please, Brer Fox, don’t fling me in that briar patch.”  Which, of course, the two predators do, and from which the Rabbit, well knowing the Briar patch, escapes.  

I see the closing of the Strait as an instructive lesson.  We should use this opportunity to examine the one clean, unlimited energy source available to us: nuclear power.  In 5 years, we could render Middle Eastern oil a sideshow in the energy picture.  Everyone from the Saudis, Hamas loving Qatar, the UAE, the Iranians and Putin himself would suffer at such a calamity.  Of course, this reasonable goal will probably not happen.  But I digress.  

It is no longer time for bluster. Trump must be clever, more clever than he has been so far, more clever than the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps now in charge of the place.  It is the only way out of a very sticky situation.