Raymond J. de Souza: The world grapples with the limits of military force

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump, right, attend the funeral for the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

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VIENNA, Austria – Was Tuesday’s Washington, D.C., funeral for Sen. Lindsey Graham a requiem for an era of which Graham was a champion? The use of military force to achieve geopolitical goals is facing limits not evident even five years ago. Have the war hawks been grounded?

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“Lindsey liked war, to be honest with you,” U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News on the morning of Graham’s funeral. “I jokingly say, and there’s nothing funny about it, but he’s never seen a war that he didn’t like.”

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I followed the ceremonies in Washington while travelling from Warsaw to Vienna, historic capitals where history invites reflection on what it means to be the victim of imperial forces, and the limits of imperial power.

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(Summertime trivia for those who like geography questions: how many sovereign countries have capital cities beginning with W in their own languages? Five: Washington, Warsaw, Wien (Vienna), Wellington and Windhoek, Namibia.)

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Another W question, put to music back in 1970: “War, what is it good for?” Several important things, actually, beginning with defending sovereignty, liberty and justice. Not always, though, as war can be used for conquest, oppression and injustice. And war always brings suffering, destruction and death.

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Another question: What if even a war with just goals doesn’t work? Then what is it good for?

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Graham’s funeral brought two wartime leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to Washington. Two wars, two continents, two Oval Office meetings, but one common theme: the limits of pure military force are becoming evident.

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Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was launched on the premise that the relative balance of armed forces greatly favoured the larger invader. Moscow did not count on the bravery of the Ukrainian resistance and, while it claimed territory in the east, Russian military force was simply not capable to seizing the centre of the country. Rapid technological transformations have turned the war moderately toward Ukraine, though Russia is still able to send missiles into residential neighbourhoods, which used to be recognized as a war crime.

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Between 2014, when Russia seized and annexed Crimea without much effort, and 2026, the limits of military power have become more evident. Graham, the last of the soaring war hawks, died just as that new reality was dawning, not only in Ukraine (to his delight), but also Gaza and Iran (to his dismay).

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After the Hamas invasion and massacre of October 2023, Netanyahu launched a crushing operation in Gaza, defending it against accusations of “war crimes” on the grounds that Hamas had deliberately embedded its fighting forces among civilians. The Israel Defence Forces, with total control of Gaza’s borders, absolute control of Gaza’s airspace and the ability to send ground troops wherever it wished in the tiny territory, had no limit on its power and reduced wide swaths to rubble.