What are the dimensions of war?

You need to understand how complicated war is. It's not as simple as saying, "Let's nuke that guy." There are a lot of constraints, a lot of stakeholders involved.

There are four major dimensions.

The first major dimension is narrative. Narrative is basically world opinion. The second is political. Political just means the relationship of nations to each other, and the relationship of the government to the people. The third dimension is economic, and the fourth is military.

What's really important to understand is that the military dimension is probably the least important. These four factors determine how the United States and Iran move up the escalation ladder.

Your purpose is to control the narrative—justify why you're doing what you're doing. Political means you still have to maintain good relations with other states. As the United States is fighting this war against Iran, the United States is still talking to China. The United States is still talking to Russia. That political discussion determines the contours of this fight.

Economic means that as the fight is still happening, nations are still trading with each other—and that factors into how the military is fought.