Over the course of the Star Wars franchise, we’ve been treated to some epic battles: dogfights between X-Wings and TIE fighters at Yavin-4, AT-ATs on the frozen wastes of Hoth, jungle warfare on Endor, and Rogue One’s epic battles on the beaches of Scarif. The Last Jedi offers no shortage of skirmishes, either. Except this time, the Resistance’s consistently bad military tactics finally catch up with it.

From a military perspective, one thing has always stood out: The Empire, and now the First Order, have nearly limitless ships, equipment, and manpower, while the Rebels/Resistance have scant resources. With every engagement, this band of rebel fighters grows ever smaller, while there seems to be no lack of available Stormtroopers. At least previously, though, those engagements ended with the destruction of Death Stars and a Starkiller Base, even if unsound Rebel strategic thinking got them there. Now those bad choices are playing out more realistically—and tragically—than ever.

Spoilers ahead.

Win It All

While The Last Jedi mainly focuses on the Jedi order and its fate, perhaps the most striking feature of the film is that the Resistance has finally played its last card. The Resistance—and the Rebels before them—sought the decisive battle, that one moment that would destroy the enemy’s will to fight and bring about peace in the Galaxy. That seemed to be the case after Return of the Jedi, and yet somehow in the intervening 30 years the Republic squandered away all that they had won.

But history shows that decisive battles do little to further a rebel cause. During the American Civil War, Confederate General Robert E. Lee spent years pursuing a decisive battle versus the United States Army. Yet, even after one-sided Confederate successes such as Fredericksburg in 1862 and Chancellorsville in 1863, the US Army of the Potomac remained in the field, inflicting losses that the Confederates could not afford. Lee's search for decisive battle led to his force being winnowed away to nearly nothing. The truly great generals throughout history have realized that seeking a decisive battle only puts one's force in more peril than the risk is worth.

In The Last Jedi, the Resistance lacks truly great generals. Commander Poe Dameron is a skilled fighter pilot but hardly a strategic thinker; he's a hammer who sees a world full of nails. He gambles the Resistance bomber fleet on a shot to take out a First Order dreadnought-class star destroyer. Not only that, but he does so in violation of a direct order from General Leia Organa. The mission succeeds in knocking out the enemy ship, but at the cost of the entire Resistance bomber fleet, for which Poe is reduced in rank.

Seeking that decisive battle with the First Order only resulted in dead pilots and lost resources. It solved nothing in the long term. And as the rest of The Last Jedi makes clear, for every enemy star destroyer or frigate the Resistance accounts for, the First Order can replace it without blinking an eye.

Rather than making massive sacrifices to blow up one big ship, the real strength of the Resistance rests in its ability to survive. The presumed heroics of individuals like Poe and Finn make it hard for them to do even that.

In many ways, the Resistance shares that trait with real-world rebellions throughout history. Most are worn down through the sheer lack of resources and through attrition; a decisive battle becomes their best way to make a grand statement.

In The Last Jedi, the Resistance lacks truly great generals.

The successful counterexample, and a model the Resistance would have been better served following, is the American Revolution. George Washington’s genius lay less in his ability to take the fight to the British—although he excelled at that—and more in the way that he prioritized preservation of troops over seeking out a singular moment of triumph. His ability to exfiltrate units from near-disaster mattered just as much as his offensive strategies.