There is no moral comparison between Ukraine and Iran: The former is a liberal democracy, the latter a vicious dictatorship whose rulers kill their own people to stay in power. But in purely military terms, there are a number of parallels between the wars they are fighting against much larger adversaries — Russia and the United States.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump launched wars of choice because they thought that Ukraine and Iran, respectively, would be defeated in a matter of days. But both countries have proved much more resilient and resourceful than expected. Neither Moscow nor Washington has achieved its objective of regime change. In recent months, however, the military situation on the ground — or at sea — has shifted slightly in favor of the larger powers.
Russia is producing ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones in large numbers, while Ukraine’s air defenses are badly depleted — in large part because Trump has expended so many Patriots against Iran. The result is that Russian missiles and drones are increasingly disrupting daily life in Ukraine and inflicting more civilian casualties. The United Nations reports that more Ukrainian civilians were killed and injured in July than in any month since May 2022. The fear is that the situation could get even worse over the winter, when the Russians will again seek to turn off the lights and the heat.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military has been experiencing some success in shutting down Iranian oil exports while allowing more oil from other nations to exit via the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s official statistics show 80 percent inflation year over year, and the International Monetary Fund estimates that its economy will contract by 5.4 percent this year, making this the worst year for Iran’s economy since the dark days of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
There is some dispute over how much non-Iranian oil is getting out of the Persian Gulf, but by one estimate an average of about 5 million barrels a day of crude oil was exiting between early August and early September, while another 2.5 million barrels were going out via ports on the Gulf of Oman. That represents only about 40 percent of prewar volumes, but it’s an improvement over a few months ago when almost no oil was flowing.
Those results are enough for both Putin and Trump to publicly claim that they are winning their wars. Maybe they even believe it. But not so fast.
While the Russians are able to inflict more civilian casualties from the air, they have not been able to advance on the ground. The Russian offensive has stalled out, and Ukrainian troops have successfully counterattacked around the town of Lyman in northeastern Ukraine. British intelligence estimates that nearly 500,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since 2022. That’s more than the number of Americans killed in World War II.
And, while Ukraine is suffering from Russian air attacks, it is inflicting considerable damage on Russia’s economy with its own drones and cruise missiles. Soon, Ukraine says, it will be firing its ownballistic missiles, too.
Last week, Kyiv’s drones struck Russian gas plants nearly 1,800 miles from Ukraine’s borders. Such strikes have caused Russia’sworst fuel crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union and have cut into the revenue Putin needs to continue his assault despite higher oil prices caused by the U.S.-Iran war.
Meanwhile, Iran is able to strike back against American attempts to suffocate its economy. The acting secretary of the U.S. Navy, Hung Cao, acknowledged last week that, earlier in the war, Iran “blew the hell out of [the U.S. naval base in] Bahrain.” Last week, Iran fired ballistic missiles at U.S. ships and at a U.S. air base in Jordan. There was no loss of life, but several aircraft were reportedly damaged in Jordan.
U.S. forces in Jordan fired more than 30 Patriot missiles to defend their base, further exacerbating the critical shortage of these precious munitions and thus raising the odds that future Iranian attacks will be more successful. The Wall Street Journal reports that Tehran is manufacturing ballistic missiles again.
Even more concerning is the offensive being mounted in Yemen by Iran’s Houthi allies. Last week they captured a key port on the Red Sea — Mokha — and a key island in the Bab al-Mandab Strait — Perim— while drones apparently launched from Iraq closed down a key Saudi pipeline moving oil to the Red Sea. All of that means that the Houthis are in a prime position to interdict the most important oil route being used by U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Little wonder that oil prices shot above $100 a barrel last week, while the average price of diesel in the U.S.hit an all-time high of $6 a gallon on Friday.
In sum, while Russia and the United States are doing somewhat better in their conflicts, neither Ukraine nor Iran is anywhere close to defeat. Indeed, it appears increasingly unlikely that anything either Putin or Trump can do militarily can deliver their ambitious objectives. Both Iran and Ukraine have every incentive to keep fighting, because both of their governments know that defeat could be fatal for them.
The only realistic way to end these wars is via diplomacy, and that will require Trump and Putin to make difficult concessions. For Putin, that means giving up hopes of conquering all of the Donbas region and accepting a ceasefire in place. For Trump, it means giving up hope that economic pressure will force Iran to capitulate and agreeing to a deal that would leave Iran with a large degree of control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Those are unpleasant concessions for either man to make, but even worse is to continue costly conflicts with no realistic hope of success.
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