31st August 2026
When Donald Trump launched his war against Iran, the underlying assumption appeared to be that overwhelming American military power would produce a relatively rapid result.
Six months later, that assumption looks increasingly questionable.
The war is still going. The Strait of Hormuz remains at the centre of the confrontation. American ships and aircraft remain committed. Iran continues to have the capacity to respond. And the cost to the United States has risen into tens of billions of dollars.
Perhaps the most revealing sign is not another missile strike or another statement from Washington.
It is the strain being placed on the people expected to fight the war.
The USS Abraham Lincoln, one of America's enormous nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, has spent more than 200 days continuously at sea during its extended deployment supporting operations in the Middle East. The ship is now being relieved by another carrier. Reports have raised concerns about the effect of the prolonged deployment on sailors and their living conditions.
That is an extraordinary length of time for thousands of people to spend away from home.
And it raises a question which is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid:
Was this really the short war America expected to fight?
The cost is mounting
The financial figures are becoming difficult to ignore.
By July, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had told Congress that the war had cost the United States approximately $37.5 billion. The administration was seeking a further $87.6 billion in supplemental funding, with roughly two-thirds of the defence portion associated with the Iran war and other related requirements.
The proposed money is not simply for new weapons.
It is needed for the enormous cost of conducting military operations, replacing munitions, maintaining equipment and rebuilding stocks.
And that produces an important distinction.
Having money is not the same as having military capacity.
Congress can approve another $20 billion for missiles.
It cannot instantly manufacture those missiles.
Factories have to exist. Components have to be available. Skilled workers have to produce them. Weapons have to be tested and delivered.
The same applies to ships and aircraft.
You can fund another deployment.
You cannot instantly create another trained crew.
The human cost is becoming visible
The Abraham Lincoln illustrates the problem.
An aircraft carrier is not simply a large warship. It is effectively a floating town containing thousands of sailors and Marines, together with aircraft, weapons, fuel, food, medical facilities and enormous amounts of equipment.
Keeping such a ship at sea for months on end is an extraordinary logistical undertaking.
And eventually the people have to come home.
Recent reports have described concerns about conditions aboard the Lincoln, including claims relating to food and personal supplies and serious concerns about the wellbeing of some sailors. US lawmakers have sought information from the Pentagon about the reports. Those allegations should be treated carefully until all the facts are established, but the fact that they have triggered congressional concern is itself significant.
This is the part of war which is easily forgotten when viewed from a television studio.
Politicians can talk about aircraft sorties and missiles.
Sailors still have to spend months living on the ship.
Their families are still waiting at home.
And if the operation continues, another crew has to take their place.
That is where Europe enters the story
When Trump asked European countries to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he expected America's allies to step forward.
They didn't.
Britain, France and Germany were among the major NATO countries which rejected the request to join an American naval operation in the Strait.
Trump subsequently criticised European allies, including Britain, Germany, France and Italy, accusing them of providing insufficient support during the war.
From Washington's perspective, there is an understandable frustration.
The United States has carried an enormous proportion of the military burden of the conflict.
Why, it asks, should European countries benefit from the protection of the international trading system while American personnel take the risks?
That is a legitimate question.
But there is another equally legitimate question.
Why should Britain and Europe become directly involved in a war which they did not start and which they did not believe was necessary?
Staying out was not necessarily doing nothing
This distinction matters.
European governments have not necessarily been saying that the Strait of Hormuz should remain closed or that international shipping should be abandoned.
They have been trying to separate protecting freedom of navigation from joining the offensive war against Iran.
That is a significant difference.
If Britain sends warships into the Strait as part of a defensive international effort to protect shipping, it can argue that it is defending an international principle.
If British ships become directly involved in attacks on Iranian forces, the country becomes a participant in the war.
Those two things may look similar on a map.
Strategically and politically, they are very different.
Perhaps Europe saw something Washington didn't
There is a possibility that Europe's refusal will eventually look less like weakness and more like restraint.
European governments have their own economic problems.
They face Russia.
They have responsibilities towards Ukraine.
They have limited military resources.
They are trying to rebuild defence capabilities after decades of relatively low spending.
And they are dealing with populations which have not necessarily been persuaded that another major Middle Eastern war is in their national interest.
Sending European warships into the Strait of Hormuz could also expose them to Iranian attack.
A British ship could be hit.
A French sailor could be killed.
A German aircraft could be shot down.
At that point the political question becomes much more serious.
Would Europe then escalate?
Would it retaliate?
Would Iran attack European bases elsewhere?
Would shipping become even more dangerous?
And where would the escalation stop?
These are not theoretical questions.
They are precisely the sorts of questions governments are supposed to ask before committing their armed forces to war.
There is also NATO to consider
Trump's criticism of European allies creates an awkward problem for NATO.
The alliance is supposed to provide collective defence.
But NATO is not automatically an organisation for fighting every war in which the United States becomes involved.
That distinction matters enormously.
A Russian attack on Britain or Poland is one thing.
An American decision to attack Iran is another.
If European countries are expected to participate in every American military operation simply because they are NATO members, then the alliance becomes something quite different from a defensive pact.
That does not mean Europe should abandon America.
Quite the opposite.
Europe needs a strong relationship with the United States.
But a healthy alliance must also allow its members to say no when they believe a particular military operation is unwise.
And the longer the war lasts, the stronger that argument becomes
This is perhaps the most important point.
If the war had lasted a few weeks and produced a clear strategic outcome, the argument might look very different.
But it hasn't.
The conflict has consumed enormous quantities of ammunition.
It has required prolonged deployments.
It has placed additional demands on American military personnel.
It has required the Pentagon to seek additional funding.
And there is still no obvious end point.
The United States has therefore found itself in precisely the situation which military planners traditionally try to avoid.
A short, intense operation has gradually become a prolonged commitment.
And prolonged wars consume resources in ways that are difficult to predict at the beginning.
The Navy cannot simply keep going indefinitely
America has the world's most powerful navy.
There is no serious suggestion that the US Navy is about to collapse.
But even the US Navy has limits.
Ships need maintenance.
Aircraft need servicing.
Missiles need replacing.
Crews need training.
Sailors need leave.
Families need to see them again.
And ships deployed in the Middle East cannot simultaneously be doing something else in the Pacific.
That last point may ultimately prove particularly important.
America has another major strategic problem.
China.
The United States cannot simply concentrate its military attention on Iran indefinitely while ignoring the Indo-Pacific.
Every aircraft carrier tied up in the Middle East is an aircraft carrier which is not available elsewhere.
Every missile fired at Iran is a missile which cannot be used for another contingency until it is replaced.
Every sailor kept at sea for another month is a sailor who needs recovery and leave before another deployment.
That is the arithmetic of military power.
Europe has its own arithmetic
Britain and Europe have finite resources too.
That is one reason why their decision to stay out of the offensive war may not have been foolish.
They have spent years being told that Europe needs to do more for its own defence.
Now it is doing so.
Britain is supporting Ukraine.
European countries are increasing defence spending.
NATO is strengthening its eastern flank.
Countries are expanding ammunition production and rebuilding military stocks.
Those are expensive commitments.
Should they now divert additional resources into an American war with Iran?
There is a reasonable argument that they should not.
Perhaps Europe has decided that the best way to support its security is to strengthen its own defences rather than become directly involved in another conflict.
That does not mean Trump is entirely wrong
It would be too easy to turn this into an anti-Trump argument.
He is right about one thing.
America has carried a disproportionate military burden for decades.
European countries have benefited from American military protection while often spending much less on defence.
That imbalance was unsustainable.
Trump's pressure has helped force Europe to take defence more seriously.
But that does not mean every American military decision should automatically receive European support.
There is a difference between saying:
“Europe must spend more on defence.”
and saying:
“Europe must join America's war.”
The first proposition is increasingly difficult to dispute.
The second is much more complicated.
Perhaps the real mistake was the assumption of a short war
This may ultimately be the most important lesson.
Wars rarely follow the timetable politicians expect.
The enemy gets a vote.
Iran has demonstrated that it can absorb enormous punishment and continue fighting.
The Strait of Hormuz remains strategically important.
And America's military superiority has not automatically produced a quick political settlement.
That is the problem with overwhelming military power.
It can destroy targets.
It cannot necessarily create the political outcome you want.
And if destroying more targets requires keeping thousands of sailors and other personnel deployed for months longer than expected, the cost continues to rise.
So was Europe right to stay out?
Perhaps.
That is not the same as saying Europe should abandon America.
Nor does it mean Britain should refuse every request for assistance.
It means that governments should distinguish between supporting an ally and joining an unnecessary war.
Britain and Europe may eventually decide that the Strait of Hormuz requires a multinational defensive naval operation.
If so, that should be based on a clear objective, a defined mission and an understanding of how the operation ends.
What they should be extremely cautious about is drifting into the war itself simply because Washington is demanding greater support.
Because once European sailors are in the firing line, getting out becomes considerably harder.
The United States is now discovering the difference between starting a war and sustaining one.
The Abraham Lincoln and its crew provide a human illustration of that difference.
Billions of dollars provide another.
The depleted stocks of sophisticated weapons provide a third.
And the continuing need to deploy ships and personnel provides perhaps the most important warning of all.
America may have the resources to continue.
But that does not mean continuing is necessarily the wisest choice.
And Europe may have been criticised for refusing to join.
But there is another way of looking at its decision.
Perhaps European governments looked at America's enormous military power, the risks of escalation, the cost of the conflict and the difficulty of seeing how it ends and concluded that staying out was not cowardice. It was judgement.
Trump wanted allies to help him fight his war.
Europe appears to have decided that its first responsibility was to avoid becoming part of it.
After six months, that decision may deserve rather more respect than it initially received.
And UK and Eurpoe ar already paying substantially to help Ukrainewith as yet no end in sight.