Attrition has re-emerged as the defining feature of contemporary armed conflict. Across deeply polarized global flashpoints—most notably in Ukraine and the Middle East—wars have devolved into grinding contests of endurance. Instead of swift maneuvers and decisive breakthroughs, victory is increasingly determined by which side can systematically exhaust its opponent’s military capacity, economic resources, and political will.
While each theater possesses its own unique geopolitical drivers and historical context, their converging trajectories reflect a profound structural shift in how modern warfare unfolds. Throughout the conflict in Ukraine, frontline artillery crews have repeatedly found themselves in possession of functional weaponry and verified target coordinates, only to be paralyzed by a shortage of physical shells. Ukrainian combat engineers have watched newly deployed drone models neutralized by rapid Russian electromagnetic and technological countermeasures within weeks, completely eroding any brief tactical advantage. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the United States has successfully degraded adversary military infrastructure and struck deeply buried nuclear installations, yet has fundamentally failed to resolve the underlying political grievances that rendered those weapons a strategic threat in the first place.
Each of these operational dynamics exposes a distinct systemic gap that helps explain why modern states increasingly gravitate toward strategies of attrition—or find themselves helplessly trapped within them. The first is a stark disconnect between the nominal military capacity countries possess on paper and the actual usable power they can deploy and sustain in the field. The second is the widening chasm between traditional principles of large-scale maneuver warfare and a hyper-technological modern battlefield where rapid counter-adaptation makes decisive breakthroughs nearly impossible. The third is the persistent mismatch between military means and the elusive political ends they are ostensibly intended to achieve.
When combined, these systemic mismatches inevitably push modern conflicts toward protracted attrition. When nations fail to generate and regenerate enough military power to decisively overwhelm an enemy, war invariably degrades into a raw test of endurance. When tactical breakthroughs remain elusive, commanders find themselves drawn toward pursuing incremental territorial gains and the steady, grinding destruction of enemy capabilities. And when the ultimate political end goals of the combatants remain muddy or uncompromisingly maximalist, imposing costs indefinitely often feels like the only viable alternative to total capitulation.
For the United States, this reality poses a unique strategic challenge. As American military and political leaders increasingly seek short, decisive operations, the United States will likely confront adversaries that recognize distinct advantages in prolonging conflicts. Washington may not consciously choose a war of attrition, but it must be rigorously prepared to fight and win conflicts in which its adversaries do precisely that.
The Long and Grinding Road
Military power has traditionally been quantified by static national inventories: the sheer volume of troops, weapons platforms, and munitions stockpiled in peacetime. However, recent wars have brutally exposed the cavernous gap between nominal power and usable military capability. In his influential 2015 book, How the War Was Won, historian Phillips O’Brien argued that even during World War II, capturing the major battlefields of popular imagination had become secondary to dominating what he termed the "super-battlefield"—the vast, systemic expanse of factories, supply chains, and industrial networks over which military power is continuously produced and transported.
In the decades since, the ability to generate and sustain military power has only grown more critical. Modern militaries consume materiel at an astonishing rate, while adversaries have grown increasingly adept at targeting and disrupting the fragile production and supply networks required for replenishment.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, it appeared to possess overwhelming military superiority. Just days before the assault, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff informed lawmakers that Kyiv could fall within 72 hours. Concurrently, Ukrainian commanders expressed deep pessimism to journalists, believing their forces stood little chance against the more than 100,000 Russian troops massed on their borders. Yet, because Moscow could not swiftly translate its vast nominal resources into sustained combat power at the front, it failed to employ its capabilities effectively and capture the capital.
Nevertheless, Russia’s sheer material and manpower reserves allowed it to absorb these early operational setbacks. Moscow mobilized additional personnel, drew upon massive legacy ammunition stocks, ramped up domestic weapons manufacturing, and forged military partnerships with external actors such as North Korea to sustain the fight. Russia subsequently developed a clear theory of victory: it did not need to defeat Ukraine decisively if it could simply outlast it, wearing down Kyiv while waiting for the political commitment of European and American backers to fracture. Attrition granted Russia a decisive military advantage. Simultaneously, it exposed a critical vulnerability among Ukraine’s powerful NATO allies—namely, that aggregate economic and military power does not automatically translate into the capacity to sustain a prolonged, high-consumption war.
The United States and NATO command vastly superior economic and military resources compared to Russia. However, a war of attrition measures power through a different lens. Gross Domestic Product cannot be fired from artillery tubes, and total defense spending cannot, by itself, intercept incoming ballistic missiles. The defense industrial bases of Ukraine’s Western partners were never architected to replace munitions at a high operational tempo; instead, they were organized around lean, peacetime production schedules. Consequently, these nations struggled to rapidly convert their latent industrial potential into physical shells, air defense interceptors, and other vital combat capabilities.
Russia and NATO thus encountered this capacity gap from nearly opposite directions. Russia initially possessed raw capacity without commensurate operational effectiveness, while Ukraine’s Western backers possessed high effectiveness but lacked the industrial depth required to sustain a protracted war of attrition.
The ongoing conflict involving U.S. and Israeli forces and Iran has presented yet another iteration of this dynamic. Iran’s conventional military power cannot match that of Israel or the United States, but Tehran spent decades compensating for this conventional inferiority by projecting military capacity far beyond its own borders. Iran’s network of regional proxies, frequently referred to as its "ring of fire," has allowed Tehran to apply persistent pressure across multiple fronts. This strategy forces Israel and the United States to constantly expend expensive interceptors and maintain punishing operational tempos. By relying on relatively inexpensive drones and missiles, Iran has systematically exposed the limitations of costly interceptors, high-end naval vessels, and cutting-edge aircraft. In this attritional framework, Iran merely needs to keep imposing financial and operational costs while regenerating what it loses.
Adapt and Die
On the eve of Russia’s invasion, a senior U.S. general publicly praised Moscow’s military as a "learning and adaptive force." Yet Ukraine swiftly proved capable of adapting at an even faster pace. Paradoxically, this rapid bilateral adaptation produced a distinct operational stalemate: tactical advantages that once promised breakthroughs were rendered temporary, as neither side could sustain an advantage long enough to secure decisive strategic results.
This reality highlights the second major strategic gap. As technology reshapes modern battlefields, traditional principles of military advantage—such as massing combat power and conducting rapid operational maneuvers—are becoming increasingly difficult to execute, driving conflicts inexorably toward attrition. In an era dominated by ubiquitous aerial surveillance and loitering munitions, massed forces are easily detected and destroyed. The heavy concentrations of troops and logistics required for large-scale maneuver can be identified and targeted long before a breakthrough can be achieved. The element of surprise has become exceedingly rare when the battlespace is under constant observation. While technological innovation continually creates new tactical opportunities, rapid counter-adaptation erases those advantages almost overnight.
While rapid wartime adaptation is not historically unprecedented, the velocity at which innovative tactics and operations are rendered obsolete has accelerated dramatically. In Ukraine, the feedback loop connecting battlefield realities to engineers and manufacturers operates with remarkable speed. QR codes on military hardware allow frontline troops to report equipment malfunctions directly to support teams at manufacturing plants, enabling rapid alterations to production lines. Ukrainian drone developers report research and development cycles measured strictly in weeks. As Russian electronic jamming and faster interceptor drones defeat existing systems, manufacturers quickly alter frequencies, airframes, and propulsion methods before pushing modified systems straight to the front.
As defense strategist Can Kasapoglu observed, unmanned systems, combat data, and human command have fused into kill chains operating at unprecedented speeds, transforming the war in Ukraine from a contest of traditional platforms into a machine-speed battle dictated by algorithms.
Technology is similarly altering how traditional principles of war are applied in the Middle East. Consider the principle of mass. Israel and the United States have utilized advanced intelligence, precision munitions, and long-range strikes to mass operational effects without needing to concentrate physical forces on the ground. Iran has applied this same core principle through different means, employing large, saturated salvos of missiles and drones to overwhelm sophisticated air defense networks. Because both adversaries can persistently generate concentrated effects without concentrating physical forces, destroying the enemy’s ability to wage war becomes exceptionally difficult. The conflict inevitably shifts toward repeated cycles of exchanges, replenishment, and raw endurance, reinforcing the logic of attrition.
Moving the Goalposts
The third and perhaps most intractable strategic gap is that the military means deployed in these contemporary conflicts are consistently failing to produce the desired political outcomes. This disconnect is evident in both Russia’s war against Ukraine and the broader Middle East confrontation involving the United States, Israel, Iran, and its regional proxies. In these theaters, the combatants are not contesting minor adjustments to territorial borders or seeking modest concessions in an adversary’s behavior. Instead, these wars involve maximalist, nonnegotiable objectives. Russia refuses to accept a sovereign Ukraine operating outside its strategic sphere of control, while Ukraine is fighting for its fundamental right to exist as an independent nation. Israel faces regional adversaries that explicitly reject its right to exist. Meanwhile, the United States and Israel view a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat to regional stability, whereas Tehran views its nuclear program and regional network as central to its national security and sovereign power.
Such profound stakes leave virtually no room for diplomatic compromise, rendering these conflicts deeply entrenched. Attrition continues to exact staggering costs in human lives and economic treasure without narrowing these fundamental political differences. Prior to the 2022 invasion, Ukraine was already mired in a stagnant conflict that began with Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea—a frozen status quo that NATO never seriously challenged by forcing Russia back to its pre-2014 borders. Following the full-scale invasion, Europe and the United States still declined to make the complete expulsion of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory an explicit political objective, nor did they define a clear alternative political settlement. Instead, Western leaders frequently framed their goals around abstract principles, vowing to support Ukrainian sovereignty for "as long as it takes" while refusing to reward aggression. However, effective military strategy must be rigorously organized around a concrete, attainable political end state.
While this strategic ambiguity was understandable—defining a rigid objective and committing direct military means risked plunging NATO and Russia into a direct military confrontation—the resulting strategy became dangerously detached from political reality. The Western approach devolved into an open-ended determination merely to prevent Ukraine’s defeat and impose indefinite costs on Moscow.
A parallel dynamic has emerged in the Middle East. Massive military force has imposed catastrophic costs on Hamas and Iran, devastating their military infrastructure and eliminating top commanders. Yet this destruction has not compelled either adversary to capitulate. Early in Israel’s campaign against Hamas, prominent analysts argued that Israel had effectively defeated the militant group by killing most of its leadership and a majority of its fighters. However, dismantling an enemy’s tactical military capacity is not synonymous with establishing the political conditions required for a durable, long-term peace.
Iran has similarly weaponized international politics as an active component of its attritional strategy, seeking to systematically degrade global support for Israel and foster a diplomatic ring of fire around its adversary. U.S. intelligence disclosures revealed that actors linked to the Iranian government have covertly utilized online platforms to pose as domestic activists, encouraging and financially supporting anti-war protests within Western nations. As international institutions, foreign governments, and global public opinion exert mounting pressure on Israel, its diplomatic isolation has deepened. Although Israel has consistently demonstrated overwhelming military dominance, it has struggled to translate those battlefield victories into a more favorable regional political environment. Deteriorating foreign relationships have increasingly complicated international discussions concerning postwar arrangements for Gaza.
Break the Mold
For the United States, wars of attrition present a profound strategic dilemma. The Pentagon has historically planned and optimized its forces for short, decisive military operations, and U.S. political leaders routinely promise swift victories. Yet contemporary adversaries possess both the means and the strategic incentives to deny Washington that style of conflict, deliberately prolonging hostilities in the hope of regenerating capacity and outlasting American political resolve.
Simultaneously, the United States has constructed a military apparatus heavily reliant on relatively small inventories of highly sophisticated, expensive weapons systems, supported by an industrial base unequipped to replace them rapidly. U.S. defense planners have initiated modest efforts to correct this structural imbalance, but reforming a military posture takes years. The primary danger is not that the United States is fundamentally incapable of winning a war of attrition, but rather that its entire national security apparatus remains stubbornly organized around the expectation that it will never have to fight one.
Nearly four decades ago, military thinker Edward Luttwak proposed a strategy of "relational maneuver," which emphasized attacking an adversary’s internal cohesion and systemic functioning rather than simply grinding down its physical forces on the battlefield. Recently, American leadership has hinted at adopting similar comprehensive strategies, such as economic pressure campaigns designed to target financial networks around the globe. While sustained economic pressure can theoretically weaken hostile regimes or provoke internal collapse, maintaining such resolve through fluctuating global economic conditions is exceptionally difficult. Rising energy prices and downstream economic costs inevitably test Washington’s political willingness to sustain pressure over long periods, often leaving unresolved political stalemates as the most realistic outcome.
Breaking this cyclical pattern will require a fundamental shift in strategic thinking in Washington. U.S. military leaders must deliberately build forces and operational concepts around the realistic assumption that future wars will not be resolved quickly. Simultaneously, political leaders must adopt a sober assessment of whether their stated objectives can realistically be achieved through military force alone within a compressed timeframe. Such adjustments will undoubtedly prove difficult to implement. The greater danger, however, is that the United States will continue to drift into protracted attritional conflicts simply because their initial price tag appears manageable, even as human and economic costs mount. While the American public remains deeply skeptical of open-ended "forever wars," foreign adversaries retain every incentive to deny the United States the swift, decisive campaigns it prefers—and even conflicts that prove relatively easy to sustain can remain extraordinarily difficult to end for good.
