Thomas Friedman is making questionable claims about the current conflicts in the Middle East. In an Aug. 15, 2026, column, Friedman examined what he called “The New Physics of Power.” Friedman claimed that the recent conflicts in the Middle East – the U.S.-Israel war against Iran, Israel vs. Hezbollah and Israel’s war with Hamas – all demonstrate these supposedly new “physics” (he also noted Russia’s war with Ukraine).
The gist of Friedman’s argument is that current conflicts present a novelty in terms of the balance of power between opponents: actors that appear “small” can now use accurate, inexpensive weapons and means to inflict significant damage on the “big” – namely – countries that bear “the burden of vast legacy arms systems.”
The question is: why does Friedman think his theory is novel? What he is basically saying is that weaker, often non-state actors engaged in asymmetric warfare find ways to hurt their more powerful enemy. Or, in the case of Iran, that a state with a relatively weaker conventional army finds ways to harm a superior opponent. Friedman appears to believe he has discovered something that has been obvious for thousands of years.
The so-called “smalls” of the Middle East conflicts have their own advantages: Iran has large stockpiles of ballistic missiles and drones that are cheap and can cause significant damage and disruptions when launched against more powerful enemies. Friedman also suggests they might have advanced capabilities developed by the Russians; capabilities that allow the Iranians to change the course of a missile while in flight.
Geopolitically, Iran can and has caused major global disruptions by effectively blocking the Strait of Hormuz. The Houthis have ballistic missiles and drones and can rattle global markets by blocking the Bab el-Mandab Strait. Hezbollah has drones, as well as a sizable arsenal of missiles and rockets, some GPS-guided, which it used to inflict casualties and heavy damage on Israeli civilians and military targets. Hamas has rockets, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, drones, and a vast network of tunnels that allows it to use civilians as human shields in the Gaza Strip.
So, the “smalls” can use these advantages to inflict pain on the “bigs” which, Friedman suggests, make power dynamics between adversaries more complex and fluid than they seem.
This revelation is certainly not a novelty. Even a very partial, cursory list of other conflicts where these dynamics already appeared makes Friedman’s “new physics” very old: the French in Vietnam during the 1940s and 1950s, the U.S. in Vietnam in the 1960s-1970s, the Soviets in Afghanistan in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, Israel’s decades-long conflicts with the Palestinians and in Lebanon, and the U.S. in Iraq during the early 2000s. One can go back thousands of years ago to the Jewish revolt against the Seleucid Greek Empire around 167 BCE. In all these cases, the so-called “small” caused significant casualties, damage, and forced withdrawals of the so-called “big.”
Friedman opens his column by claiming that by blocking off Hormuz, Iran has taught the U.S. the limits of its power. What he succeeded in showing instead is the limits of his analytical prowess. What might be new about the current wars are some of the means being used, such as GPS-guided weapons. But even then, Hamas and Hezbollah still use guerrilla warfare, which was used by many other parties in other conflicts. And Hamas’ tunnel network drew parallels to Vietnam.
Friedman has been reporting for a very long time on the Middle East, and he claims to know history. He should have known by now that the “new physics of war” is very old news.