Robert Pape wrote the book on how bombing bends nations, and his framework explains this week better than any briefing:
"That's what I call the futile, pointless paying of costs."
States don't quit over pain, he argues.
They quit when pain combines with the belief that no strategy exists to end it.
Vietnam proved it: a decade and 58,000 dead didn't collapse support, but the conclusion after Tet that there was no path to victory did.
Now map that onto today.
Robert sees two daggers: keep Hormuz shut with demands designed never to be met, driving costs onto American consumers, while seizing the initiative so visibly that the costs feel pointless.
The missiles that splashed near the UAE fit the pattern precisely, because Fujairah is a bypass, and Iran is removing the bypasses one by one.
His read on Syria is just as cold: a receding superpower leaves a vacuum, and everyone from Ankara to Jerusalem is carving a piece.
@ProfessorPape
