Iran and Ukraine show that there are limits to the super powers ability to seize territory and dictate terms upon smaller nations.

'Great powers, it turns out, don’t have as much power as they thought.

After taking office last year, President Trump unapologetically pushed a might-makes-right vision to remake the international order around a U.S. sphere of influence, a worldview not that dissimilar from Russia’s or China’s. The future seemed shaped by an oft-repeated line from ancient Greek historian Thucydides: “The strong do what they will, and the weak suffer as they must.”

The saying, originally uttered by invading Athenian forces to the doomed islanders of Melos in 416 B.C., featured prominently in Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech that sent ripples through the international conference in Davos in January, at the peak of Europe’s spat with Trump over his plans to seize the Danish island of Greenland.

Yet now it seems that the weak aren’t as weak as many had believed. The strong can’t really do what they want, either.

Despite spending a significant part of its long-range munitions and killing a large part of the Iranian leadership, the U.S. military hasn’t been able to secure a strategic victory over a middle power such as Iran. Tehran continues blockading the Strait of Hormuz. Its theocratic system is still in solid control and maintains the ability to lob missiles at Israel and Gulf states, with the latest exchange of salvos this week.'

WSJ

Full unlocked article- https://archive.ph/qGn2X