Iran and the New Rules of Global Power

Navy aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Panama in Panama City, Panama, March 2026 Enea Lebrun / Reuters ROBERT A. PAPE is Professor of Political Science and Director of the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats. He is the author of Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War. Pape Share & Download Print unlock this feature or Sign in. Save Sign in and save to read later Copy This is a subscriber-only feature. or Sign in. Chicago MLA APSA APA Chicago Cite not available at the moment MLA Cite not available at the moment APSA Cite not available at the moment APA Cite not available at the moment Request reprint permissions here. Most wars disappear into history. A few divide history into before and after. For the post–Cold War world, the Gulf War was one of those moments. The conflict resulted in the liberation of Kuwait and then launched the age that followed, one commonly referred to as an era of U. S. unipolarity, when peerless American military power undergirded globalization, growing prosperity, and relative stability. But that age has now come to an end. The United States no longer enjoys the sort of military advantage it possessed in 1991. Thanks to globalization, the systems necessary to conduct precision warfare are no longer the preserve of a handful of great powers: they are accessible to a range of actors who are now able to stand up to much stronger states. Indeed, the Iran war exemplifies this turning of the wheel. Where the Gulf War demonstrated American dominance, today’s clashes around the Strait of Hormuz reveal American limitations. A new era beckons, one in which the assumptions of the post–Cold War period are turned on their heads. The United States is not capable of bending others to its will through the exercise of force at low cost. Far from guaranteeing stability and predictability, American power has become a source of volatility. Weaker powers have learned the virtues of defiance and disruption, and they possess the tools to impose huge costs on the United States and its allies and partners. The coming era will be one of more frequent crises, higher costs for protecting global commerce, and intensifying competition over the world’s strategic chokepoints. The rules of power that governed the post–Cold War era have withered away, and a more dangerous international order awaits. GREAT EXPECTATIONS Major military victories do not often create new international orders.