The preponderance of conventional military power around precision strikes (including raids) creates a strategic culture that favors quick tactical fixes—ostensibly low-cost but inherently very high-risk—over long-term strategic planning and execution. This institutional bias has been further amplified by the maturation of the precision strike regime, with the US still the leading power in this domain. What emerges is a “strike-as-strategy” paradox that continues to infuse US military culture: the substitution of episodic kinetic action for comprehensive strategic design, now reinforced by a political culture under the Trump administration that favors—indeed demands—televised displays of quick tactical fixes and precision strike capabilities. All of this creates a critical trade-off, however: while the recent US military action against Venezuela represents an awesome display of military prowess unmatched by any peer competitor, this very dominance could have the paradoxical consequence of making the US less ready for sustained, large-scale conventional war. Large-scale conventional warfare demands strategic depth—robust industrial mobilization, sustainable logistics, force regeneration capabilities, and the political resilience to absorb costs over extended periods, above all a coherent theory of success at the operational level linking it to a favorable political outcome at the strategic level—capacities that atrophy when military and strategic cultures become excessively oriented toward technologically sophisticated but strategically limited strike/raid operations.