March 25 (UPI) -- General of the Army Douglas MacArthur believed that the reason why wars were lost was explained by "too little, too late," meaning failure to anticipate the enemy and act in a timely fashion. Perhaps more appropriately and accurately, wars are lost due to strategic ignorance.
Strategic ignorance arises from two factors. The first is failure to comprehend the contradictions in decisions that assure defeat. The second is the absence of a thorough and, in some cases, any understanding and knowledge of the circumstances requiring the use of force.
History is replete with warnings and examples, some that directly apply to the "excursion" as President Donald Trump calls the attacks on Iran launched by the United States and Israel.
It was inconceivable that in striking Iran the most obvious outcome underscored by decades of war games, the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, was ignored. Clearly, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assumed that the decapitation of Iranian leadership would immediately collapse the regime. It did not.
But even someone with a basic recollection of the past might recall Japan believed that by sinking the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the isolationist mood in America would mandate an immediate negotiation granting Tokyo its gains.
