War is always a gamble. That is true even when leaders call it something else, like “special military operation” (Russian President Vladimir Putin’s evasive name for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine) or “excursion” (U.S. President Donald Trump’s preferred term for his attack on Iran).

Of course, high stakes gambles do sometimes pay off. The U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran may yet produce a radical change in that country’s politics, allowing for a more tolerant regime that will open the country, engineer an economic miracle, clear the landmines and supply the world with oil. If this came to pass, Trump would look brilliant, or at least like a high-stakes gambler who had pulled off the big one.

As the excursion drags on, however, memories of past failed gambles will start to stand out, offering depressing precedents for the current crisis of American power. For example, one might point to the drama of 1914, when the leaders of crumbling imperial systems in Russia and Austria thought they could stabilize things with a “short victorious little war” (at least they called it what it was). But two more recent experiences are even more striking and relevant: those of Britain and France in Egypt in 1956 and Putin’s own blunder in 2022.

The first began on Oct. 29, 1956, when Israel launched an attack on the Sinai Peninsula to break an Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba. Two days later, without consulting the United States, Britain and France........

© The Japan Times