Delhi’s wedding season has a way of throwing together strangers under chandeliers and soft music, where casual conversation drifts effortlessly from décor to geopolitics. Lately, one question keeps surfacing—often from people I have never met before: When, if at all, will the US attack Iran?

The interesting thing is that most who ask the question already have an answer in mind. They believe it is all brinkmanship—another escalation ladder being climbed for effect rather than outcome. That Donald Trump will push matters one or two notches higher, but no further. Wars of this kind, they argue, are unwinnable.

I usually reinforce their instinct by pointing to Israel’s ongoing experience in Gaza. Despite overwhelming military superiority and extraordinary asymmetry against Hamas, Israel has not ‘won’ in the sense the public understands victory. That is not a criticism; it is a reminder that there are immutable elements in warfare that technology, firepower, and intelligence cannot override.

Much depends on what you are trying to achieve. If the objective is total annihilation, seizure of territory, regime overthrow, and the symbolic unfurling of one’s flag on an adversary’s soil, then conventional war—as popularly imagined—still has relevance. But if the aim is more ambiguous—to influence a population, weaken a hostile ideology, coerce a regime into behavioural change, or ‘bring a wayward state back onto the rails’—then brute force is usually counterproductive. People do not rally to those who destroy their cities, even if........

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