Armies can cross borders; they cannot command geography. Mountains do not yield to military budgets, distances do not shrink before advancing divisions, and narrow seas do not widen to accommodate a superpower’s ambitions. From the deserts of North Africa to the jungles of Vietnam and the maritime passages of West Asia, geography has repeatedly challenged the assumption that superior force must deliver victory.
“If you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete,” wrote Sun Tzu in The Art of War. His counsel remains relevant in an age of precision missiles, drones and satellite surveillance. Technology has transformed the reach of military power, but the terrain on which that power operates continues to shape its possibilities and expose its limits.
The confrontation between Iran and the United States, alongside the escalating conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, demonstrates this enduring reality. Washington possesses overwhelming military capabilities. Riyadh commands resources and sophisticated weapons far beyond those available to its Yemeni adversary. Yet neither preponderance guarantees a decisive political outcome. Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab allow weaker combatants to impose costs disproportionate to their conventional strength.
A military conflict becomes asymmetric when one side enjoys a substantial preponderance in troop numbers, weaponry, technology or the resources required to sustain warfare. That asymmetry becomes strategically significant when the weaker side exploits the stronger adversary’s vulnerabilities while avoiding direct contests in which superior force would prevail. Concealment, dispersed operations, selective strikes and prolonged resistance can then become more consequential than matching armies or fleets.
The parties may also face different measures of success. The stronger power must translate military superiority into the political outcome for which it fights. The weaker combatant may retain leverage by surviving, preserving the capacity to strike and making that outcome increasingly costly. Geography supplies the leverage; endurance preserves it, and effective targeting gives it force.
History offers instructive precedents. El Alamein and Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union were conventional campaigns rather than asymmetric wars in the contemporary sense. Nevertheless, both exposed the constraints geography imposes on military ambition. Vietnam subsequently demonstrated how difficult terrain could sustain resistance against a technologically superior power.
At El Alamein in 1942, Erwin Rommel encountered a geographical restriction on the manoeuvres that had made him formidable. Across the North African desert, open space had allowed his armoured formations to turn defensive positions and strike from unexpected directions. At El Alamein, the Mediterranean anchored the northern flank, while the largely impassable Qattara Depression secured the southern flank. Between them lay a narrow corridor through which the advance towards Egypt had to pass.
The salient geographical fact was the denial of room to manoeuvre. Rommel could no longer assume that a defensive line could be bypassed through a sweeping desert movement. His offensive was channelled towards a defensible front, where exhaustion and inadequate supplies further constrained his options. Allied resistance halted the advance in July; the subsequent offensive broke the Axis threat to Egypt. Geography helped turn retreat into a defensible stand and deprived Rommel of the freedom on which his earlier successes had depended.
Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union confronted a different reality: immense strategic depth. Hitler’s expectation of a rapid victory required the destruction of Soviet resistance before distance exhausted the offensive. Each advance instead lengthened supply lines and enlarged the territory across which armies had to be sustained. Seasonal mud impeded movement, while severe winter intensified the burdens of a campaign already operating beyond its assumptions.
Soviet depth provided space for withdrawal, recovery and renewed resistance. Geography did not defend the country independently of its people and armies. Soviet endurance, adaptation and counteroffensives made that depth strategically effective. Territory offered opportunities to survive, while sustained resistance turned the invader’s growing distances into accumulating liabilities. The campaign’s disastrous outcome exposed the gulf between the ambition to conquer a continent and the capacity to sustain armies across it.
Vietnam brought this relationship into a more recognisably asymmetric struggle. Dense jungle, mountainous terrain and concealed routes complicated American efforts to locate an adversary and hold him in place. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces used their knowledge of the environment to disperse, conceal movements and sustain operations despite devastating firepower.
The jungle mattered because resistance forces knew how to operate within it and possessed the organisation and determination to continue. Difficult terrain helped them choose when to engage, when to withdraw and how to recover. Vietnam’s outcome had political and military causes extending well beyond geography, but its lesson remains clear: destructive capacity does not ensure strategic success against an adversary able to survive, regroup and prolong the contest.
Hormuz now presents a maritime expression of this asymmetry. Iran’s position along the northern side of a restricted passage gives it proximity to shipping whose security matters far beyond the Gulf. Tehran does not need to match American naval strength vessel for vessel. It needs to retain sufficient striking capability to make commercial passage uncertain and its protection expensive.
Commanding the sea and guaranteeing its safe commercial use are different undertakings. A powerful navy can destroy weapons, escort vessels and protect particular movements. Establishing enduring confidence along a threatened route requires sustained protection. The disruptive force may impose costs through intermittent attacks or credible threats. Shipping can therefore remain physically possible while becoming commercially hazardous.
Iran’s endurance gives its geographical position continuing military value. Proximity to the strait would offer little leverage if its operational capabilities disappeared after the opening attacks. The preservation of dispersed weapons and the ability to employ surviving capabilities allow pressure to continue despite substantial losses. This complicates any assumption that inflicting greater destruction will necessarily deliver Washington’s preferred political settlement.
Effective target selection strengthens that leverage. In asymmetric warfare, a strike’s significance extends beyond the physical damage it causes. Threatening a consequential vessel can influence shipping decisions, insurance costs and confidence in an entire route. Comparatively accurate weapons increase this capacity, but the argument does not require every attack to succeed. Sufficient demonstrated capability to make the threat credible can produce consequences far exceeding the resources expended.
Geography has consequently entered the negotiations. Discussions over reopening Hormuz are linked to ending hostilities and addressing other demands, with intermediaries facilitating the exchanges. Iran has carried its ability to disrupt a restricted passage from the battlefield to the bargaining table. American military superiority has not eliminated the need to negotiate the conditions under which reliable maritime security can be restored.
That leverage has limits and carries responsibilities. Iran needs economic recovery, functioning commerce and stable relations with neighbouring states. Disruption harms countries whose cooperation it requires and populations with no responsibility for the war. Its geographical advantage should become an instrument for securing accommodation rather than a continuing source of regional insecurity.
The Houthis exploit a comparable relationship between location, endurance and targeting. Yemen’s mountainous interior offers depth and concealment. Access to the Red Sea coast creates opportunities to threaten shipping approaching Bab al-Mandab. Together, these conditions allow a movement with far fewer resources than Saudi Arabia to impose costs extending beyond Yemen’s borders.
Control around the strait remains contested, with recent fighting producing territorial changes and competing claims. Yet holding every relevant coastal position and retaining the ability to threaten passage are different measures of power. A tactical reversal does not necessarily extinguish the capacity to sustain maritime insecurity. The decisive question is whether a force retains the means to make passage dangerous.
The Houthis’ endurance makes this distinction consequential. Difficult terrain, local knowledge and dispersed capabilities complicate efforts to eliminate the threat through superior firepower. Their selection of maritime targets and Saudi infrastructure adds economic pressure to military resistance. Successful attacks against airports and other consequential facilities can interrupt activity and spread uncertainty well beyond the immediate point of impact.
Claims of uniformly precise weapons require scrutiny. Nevertheless, a limited number of successful strikes can demonstrate enough capability to sustain a credible threat. The stronger side must protect numerous potential targets continuously; the weaker side can concentrate its resources on selected vulnerabilities. Geography helps determine where this imbalance is most pronounced.
Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab also interact through the geography of energy exports. Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline carries crude to the Red Sea, providing an alternative to Hormuz. But shipments travelling south towards Asian markets must still pass through Bab al-Mandab; those heading north towards Europe follow a different route. Diversification reduces some vulnerabilities without removing all of them. Pressure at one passage can therefore increase the strategic importance of another.
This interconnected geography limits the promise of a purely military solution. Reclaiming territory, intercepting missiles and protecting infrastructure are legitimate defensive tasks. Their strategic value ultimately depends on whether they establish durable security. Repeated tactical successes can coexist with an adversary’s continuing ability to inflict disruption. Winning an engagement is an achievement; ending the conditions that reproduce insecurity is a larger undertaking.
Saudi Arabia has every right to defend its population and territory. Its ambitions for investment, tourism and economic transformation also require predictability. A prolonged exchange of attacks undermines those ambitions even when Saudi forces possess vastly greater destructive power. Negotiations with the Houthis should therefore form part of a strategy for lasting security, supported by reciprocal commitments against cross-border attacks, safeguards for shipping and an inclusive Yemeni political process.
Such a settlement cannot allow the Houthis to determine Yemen’s future alone. Their capacity to endure makes their participation necessary, while the rights and interests of other Yemeni constituencies remain equally relevant. A sustainable peace must address both Saudi security and Yemen’s internal political fragmentation.
Washington faces a related imperative. It should revive and implement the Islamabad Peace Memorandum of Understanding through reciprocal, verifiable steps with Tehran. The framework links the cessation of military operations, removal of the American naval blockade, restoration of commercial passage through Hormuz and negotiations on outstanding issues. Its underlying value lies in connecting maritime security to political accommodation rather than expecting one to emerge independently of the other.
Iran must honour its obligations within that arrangement. Pakistan and Qatar’s mediation can help establish a workable sequence of commitments, but the parties themselves must choose compliance over recurring coercion. A credible implementation mechanism should give each side confidence that restraint will be reciprocated and disputes addressed before they produce another military escalation.
Geography is an arbiter because it tests whether political ambitions are compatible with the conditions under which force can operate. At El Alamein, it restricted manoeuvre. In the Soviet Union, it burdened invasion through distance and depth. In Vietnam, it helped sustain an elusive resistance. At Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab, it concentrates commercial vulnerability within narrow passages.
These lessons should inform decisions before further devastation makes them unavoidable. Saudi Arabia needs a negotiated peace with the Houthis within a wider Yemeni settlement. Washington and Tehran need reciprocal implementation of the Islamabad framework. Neither course requires abandoning legitimate security interests. Both require recognising the limits of pursuing them through force alone.
The map will remain when the missiles have fallen silent. Iran will still border Hormuz; Yemen will still overlook Bab al-Mandab. Any durable peace must accommodate these geographical realities and the security interests of those who live beside them. Military power can punish resistance, but statesmanship must resolve the conditions that sustain it. The wisest leaders will read the map before adding another chapter to the history of wars fought against its lessons.
