The West must win its future wars and not just battles

Last week, the London Defense Conference came to Washington for a second year. Founded in 2022 in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the event “is committed to strengthening defense in the light of evolving threats from authoritarian regimes.”  

This year’s topic was winning future wars, and the unanswered questions remain. Can the West and the U.S. prevail in current and future conflicts? The record beyond winning the Cold War — if it was really won, or if the Soviet Union imploded under the reform efforts imposed by Mikhail Gorbachev — is unimpressive. 

The war in Iran is proving disastrous for the United States. Despite extraordinary heroism and endurance, can 29 million Ukrainians stave off the assaults of Russia, which has a population of over 140 million and has so far sustained 1.5 million killed and wounded?

The West’s only real victory was Britain’s defeat of Argentina in the 1982 Falklands War. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ordered Operation Corporate to sail 6,000 miles to reoccupy a relatively small collection of islands in the South Atlantic that had been seized by Argentina. 

Of course, the world has changed. Warfare has been transformed, and the battlefield has been equalized by drones, missiles and artificial intelligence. Militarily weak states and groups now possess formidable capabilities that, so far, can only be countered by very........

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