Raymond J. de Souza: The world grapples with the limits of military force

VIENNA, Austria – Was Tuesday’s Washington, D.C., funeral for Sen. Lindsey Graham a requiem for an era of which Graham was a champion? The use of military force to achieve geopolitical goals is facing limits not evident even five years ago. Have the war hawks been grounded?

“Lindsey liked war, to be honest with you,” U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News on the morning of Graham’s funeral. “I jokingly say, and there’s nothing funny about it, but he’s never seen a war that he didn’t like.”

I followed the ceremonies in Washington while travelling from Warsaw to Vienna, historic capitals where history invites reflection on what it means to be the victim of imperial forces, and the limits of imperial power.

(Summertime trivia for those who like geography questions: how many sovereign countries have capital cities beginning with W in their own languages? Five: Washington, Warsaw, Wien (Vienna), Wellington and Windhoek, Namibia.)

Another W question, put to music back in 1970: “War, what is it good for?” Several important things, actually, beginning with defending sovereignty, liberty and justice. Not always, though, as war can be used for conquest, oppression and injustice. And war always brings suffering, destruction and death.

Another question: What if even a war with just goals doesn’t work? Then what is it good for?

Graham’s funeral brought two wartime leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to Washington. Two wars, two continents, two Oval Office meetings, but one common theme: the limits of pure military force are becoming evident.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was launched on the premise that the relative balance of armed forces greatly favoured the larger invader. Moscow did not count on the bravery of the Ukrainian resistance and, while it claimed territory in the east, Russian military force was simply not capable to seizing the centre of the country. Rapid technological transformations have turned the war moderately toward Ukraine, though Russia is still able to send missiles into residential neighbourhoods, which used to be recognized as a war crime.

Between 2014, when Russia seized and annexed Crimea without much effort, and 2026, the limits of military power have become more evident. Graham, the last of the soaring war hawks, died just as that new reality was dawning, not only in Ukraine (to his delight), but also Gaza and Iran (to his dismay).

After the Hamas invasion and massacre of October 2023, Netanyahu launched a crushing operation in Gaza, defending it against accusations of “war crimes” on the grounds that Hamas had deliberately embedded its fighting forces among civilians. The Israel Defence Forces, with total control of Gaza’s borders, absolute control of Gaza’s airspace and the ability to send ground troops wherever it wished in the tiny territory, had no limit on its power and reduced wide swaths to rubble.

Nevertheless, after two years of pulverization, when the ceasefire was declared in October 2025, Hamas was still in power in Gaza, with effective control of the territory not under direct IDF occupation. If the might of the IDF could not eliminate Hamas after two years of intense fighting in Gaza, it may well be that sheer might is not mighty enough.

In Iran, Trump infamously threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” There is no doubt that American-Israeli air strikes could eliminate all of Iran’s bridges, major roads, ports, electrical grid and refineries. Hundreds of thousands of civilians could be killed and millions more could die from disease, hunger and lack of water access. That hasn’t happened because those would be clear war crimes.

Yet it also hasn’t happened because it is not clear that it would achieve the military objective. Set aside the evidently false claim that Iran was “weeks away” from a nuclear bomb — the nuclear program was already “obliterated” in last year’s Operation Midnight Hammer, according to Trump — the war is now about opening the Strait of Hormuz and protecting America’s allies from lesser, but real, damage from Iran.

Former U.S. president Ronald Reagan used naval power to keep Hormuz open nearly 40 years ago when Iran tried to close it at the end of the Iran-Iraq War. The original “peace through strength” president succeeded and it stayed open for four decades until Trump began his war. But Reagan did not have to worry about Iran’s missile and drone arsenal — or the Houthis using the same to cut off Red Sea access to the Arabian Sea.

It is not evident that even the pulverization of Iran — an enormous territory of over 90-million people — could put an end to attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, as well as attacks on ports, airports, refineries and desalination plans.

Consider Kuwait, which hosts a massive American military presence. It would be impossible now for any neighbour to invade it as Iraq did in 1990. But Iran needn’t invade. Kuwait gets 90 per cent of its drinking water from desalination, and Iran has hit its facilities, though they have been repaired. What if they were taken out? Kuwait exports all its oil — two-million barrels daily — through Hormuz. Iran has largely closed it for months.

Similar, though less severe, situations prevail in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Hence Trump and Netanyahu’s conundrum. They have the force. But force may no longer be enough, even against a much weaker rival.

Their military power is formidable. War has changed. After Gaza and Iran, even as the late senator Graham was buried, it may be that the flight of the hawks has ended.

National Post