Most people are still comparing Iran to Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam, and former U.S Navy SEAL Matt Bracken says that's a fatal mistake.
In those wars, America could spend years burning money, munitions and lives before eventually deciding to leave.
This war doesn't give Washington that luxury, because every week it continues, the world economy loses more oxygen.
The U.S can't simply fight for another decade and then fly home, because the battlefield isn't confined to Iran; it's the entire global trading system, and that's before you even get to the military economics.
Every inexpensive drone and ballistic missile forces the U.S and its allies to launch interceptors worth millions of dollars: it's an exchange ratio that heavily favours Iran.
Even if Washington succeeded in turning Iran into a failed state, Matt argues the price could be catastrophic.
For more than a century, U.S and British strategy was built around controlling the world's sea lanes and preventing the great powers of Eurasia from consolidating.
Now, he argues, America's foreign policy has done the opposite.
Russia, China and Iran are drawing closer together.
At the same time, cheap long-range missiles and drones are pushing the U.S Navy farther away from hostile coastlines.
America once projected power deep into Asia with gunboats, but today, Matt argues, even non-state actors can force billion-dollar warships to keep their distance.
@matt_bracken48
