The Bunker: Waging war across three domains

This week in The Bunker: The U.S. weighs the need to send ground troops into Iran as the air campaign fails to get Tehran to capitulate; meanwhile, back at the Pentagon, SECDEF Pete Hegseth steps up his carpet-bombing of the press; and more.

FIGHTING ON THE GROUND

Are we headed for another land war in Asia?

An air war can kill, but it can’t compel. That’s why, after hitting more than 10,000 targets inside Iran over the past month without ousting the regime or re-opening the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump is weighing the use of U.S. ground troops inside the country. On the combat chessboard, as bombs and missiles pulverize Iranian targets from above, U.S. land forces are moving into position down below.

About 5,000 Marines are heading to the region, along with 2,000 paratroopers with the 82nd Airborne Division. Another 10,000 troops are reportedly on deck as part of a potential “final blow” to supposedly wrap things up. Most scenarios involve U.S. forces seizing Kharg Island, a key piece of Iran’s oil economy in the Persian Gulf, or other small Iranian islands near the Strait of Hormuz. One-fifth of the world’s oil passes through the strait on its way to consumers. There are also plans to send U.S. troops into mainland Iran to seize its 972 pounds of highly-enriched uranium.

This is a far smaller force than the 150,000 the U.S. dispatched to invade Iraq in 2003. But instead of occupying the country, some officials in the U.S. government apparently believe U.S. and Israeli air forces can coerce Iran to do their bidding with risky surgical land strikes. Unlikely, sure, but not impossible. Even if Trump doesn’t order any kind of invasion, the threat of one — don’t think stories popping up about such plans aren’t encouraged by the Pentagon itself — could affect Iran’s strategy.

This isn’t so much a war as it is a race: Iran is betting it can cause Washington to back off. If it inflicts enough economic pain by keeping the Strait of Hormuz nearly closed and driving a gallon of gas toward $5, Tehran is betting that the U.S. will scale back its war goals of regime change, no nukes, and re-opening the waterway. But launching a ground campaign is likely to lengthen the war, and put the U.S. into an ever-tightening financial vise. Trump is finger-crossing on the Iranians to cave. “Otherwise,” he said March 23, “we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out.”

Trump said he’s considering cranking that air war up. But his threat to attack civilian targets inside Iran could constitute a war crime. His flailing — and, to be clear, that’s precisely what it is — has another downside. Just as important as U.S. military might is U.S. stability and credibility. While American troops may be doing a bang-up job of hitting their assigned targets from the air, their nation’s credibility and stability are in tatters. It’s doubtful that going in on the ground is going to stitch them back together.

Echoing the flawed “body counts” of the failed U.S. effort in Vietnam, the Pentagon is relying on aerial body counts in Iran to show progress. “U.S. forces have struck more than 10,000 military targets,” Admiral Brad Cooper, chief of U.S. Central Command, said March 25. “In fact, we hit the ten-thousandth target just hours ago.” Retired Marine General Jim Mattis, who served as Trump’s first defense secretary during Trump’s first term, isn’t impressed. “Targetry never makes up for a lack of strategy,” he said. “There have been significant military successes, but they are not matched by strategic outcomes.”

More than 60% of Americans oppose sending U.S. ground troops into Iran. Some Republican lawmakers are fretting about the electoral impact of such a move. But not all: “We did Iwo Jima, we can do this,” Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said (6,781 U.S. troops died fighting Japanese troops on that Pacific island).

There was more than a quarter-century between the U.S. misadventures in Vietnam (the last combat troops left on March 29, 1973) and Afghanistan (the first combat troops arrived on October 19, 2001). Hard to believe the U.S. government is weighing another land war in Asia, less than five years after the last American soldiers fled Afghanistan on August 30, 2021.

FIGHTING IN THE SKY

More munitions up there doesn’t mean victory down below

After more than a month of raining missiles and bombs down on Iran, the U.S. military finds its stockpiles evaporating. The heavy use of the Navy’s Tomahawk cruise missiles — roughly 850 of a total arsenal of perhaps 3,500 — has the Defense Department concerned. Now that Iran is sending its own drones into the Strait of Hormuz and at U.S. bases in the Middle East, the Pentagon is beginning to pay more attention to the drone revolution that has darkened the skies over Ukraine for the past four years. It’s also considering diverting air-defense interceptors from Ukraine battling Russia’s invasion to its own war on Iran. One outside estimate pegs the cost of the munitions fired at Iran in the war’s first 16 days by the U.S. and Israel at $26 billion.

The Pentagon announced March 25 that it is surging production of several kinds of missiles being used in the war. In a series of press releases, the Defense Department said the move would allow it to “deter and defeat any adversary,” to “outpace any adversary's threat,” to “ensure peace through undeniable strength,” to deliver “a decisive overmatch against any threat,” and to “prevail in any conflict.” This is what The Bunker has come to think of as hardware hubris. The U.S. military has always had the best weapons, but will is something that can’t be manufactured, and is more critical for battlefield success. While weapons can be simply bought, will has to be earned. It cannot be imposed, after the fact, following a president’s unilateral decision to start a war.

Air power can only do so much. Without troops on the ground, there’s no way the U.S. can destroy all of the Iranian drones and missiles targeting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. “They will shoot some missiles,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth conceded March 31. “We will shoot them down.” In fact, the U.S. can confirm it has destroyed only about a third of Iran’s missile arsenal, Reuters reported March 27. Even if the U.S. and Israel wipe out nearly all of that stockpile, the survivors would be sufficient to maintain Tehran’s strait stranglehold. In the perverted scorekeeping so often associated with asymmetrical warfare, that can translate into a military “victory” for the “loser.” Make no mistake: Trump’s suggestion that he might end the war he started with the strait still closed would be a global disaster of the highest order for the U.S.

FIGHTING THE PRESS

Defense chief wages an un-American war

Defense Secretary Hegseth’s war on the press isn’t going any better than his war against Iran. And that, of course, is the central irony of his never-ending battle with the Fourth Estate: The U.S. military and the U.S. press are on the same side. Or at least they were until Hegseth was put in charge of the Defense Department on January 25, 2025.

Hegseth drove the Pentagon press corps from the building last fall after imposing wholesale restrictions (PDF) on reporters toiling inside the building. On March 20, a federal judge ruled the rules unconstitutional, saying(PDF) that the First Amendment lets reporters report “free of any official proscription.” Within hours, the Defense Department said it would appeal. Within days, it declared it plans to kick the Pentagon press corps out of the building and into a nearby annex.

In nearly a half-century of reporting on the U.S. military, and gabbing with everyone from civilian leaders sitting in their E-ring offices to grunts in the mud around the globe, The Bunker has never witnessed the pre-loaded, fire-and-forget fury toward reporters shown by Hegseth & Co.

“Big deal,” you might say. “They deserve it.”

Yet that misses the point. The press and the Pentagon, like France and NATO, have long had a contentious relationship. But they need to be allies for the good of both. Hegseth’s bluster may play well with the audience that used to watch him on Fox News. But it diminishes him, and the troops he is supposedly leading, when he delivers it from the Pentagon podium.

Handled adroitly, the Defense Department press corps can be a force multiplier for the U.S. military. No, they don’t march in lock step. But when both are doing their jobs correctly, the press amplifies and explains what the U.S. military is trying to do. It also serves, as the founders intended, as a cautionary flywheel on military operations. That requires reporters to dig into military missions and policies, and to ask uncomfortable questions of those in charge.

That’s not a flaw in the system. It is the system. The fact that Hegseth, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, can’t grasp the press’s proper role in this democracy suggests that he wasn’t paying attention in class.

WHAT WE'RE READING

Here’s what has caught The Bunker's eye recently

Catching up…

U.S. defense contractors are rushing to develop cheaper missiles to down incoming enemy drones, the Wall Street Journal’s Alistair MacDonald reported March 30.

Another Pentagon door slams shut

For the first time in decades, the Defense Department isn’t planning on issuing its traditional Global Posture Review, which details where U.S. troops are based overseas, Politico’s Paul McLeary, Leo Shane, and Chris Lunday reported March 25.

Blow harder

“More than two dozen wind farms across the U.S. are being delayed as the Trump administration sits on military reviews that were once considered routine,” Amy Harder at Axios reported March 30.

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