America’s ‘Reverse Suez’ Problem: Winning the Battle, Losing the Century

Modern U.S. interventions that win tactically but fail politically (like the author's 'reverse Suez' analogy) expose a deeper problem: military success no longer translates into durable political outcomes, and such operations may instead accelerate systemic decline by eroding alliances and legitimacy. This reframes certain interventions not as isolated failures but as markers of strategic erosion. — If policymakers and publics adopt the 'reverse Suez' lens, it shifts debate from tactical victories to assessing whether interventions restore or hollow national power and alliance cohesion.