“There are several stages to the escalation trap,” said Robert Pape,
a US historian who has studied the limitation of air power and has advised a number of US administrations.
“What we saw with the initial attack was tactically almost 100% success,” he said.
“The problem is that when that doesn’t lead to strategic success … you get to second stage of the trap.
“The attacker still has escalation dominance, so there is a doubling down,
which then moves up the escalation ladder and that still does not lead to strategic success.
Then you reach stage three,
which is the real crisis,
where you are contemplating far riskier options.
I would say we are stage two, and on on the cusp of stage three.”
He said the Trump administration had become mesmerised by the initial attack
and had an “illusion of control” based on the accuracy of its weapons.
All of this has pushed Tehran towards its own model of escalation,
one with a far wider global economic and political impact, Pape and other critics say.
By targeting the Gulf states and shipping in the strait of Hormuz,
Iran has demonstrated it can escalate the costs of the war for Washington far beyond its military capabilities to meaningfully counter the US-Israeli attack directly.
Iran’ strikes “are designed to create wedges between the US and the Gulf states by in turn creating wedges between the Gulf states and their societies,” Pape said.
“They are forcing the publics in the Gulf to ask:
‘Why are we paying the price of a war that appears driven by expansionist Israeli policies?’”