trench warfare

Noun

• a type of armed combat in which the opposing troops fight from trenches that face each other
  • instead of the war ending quickly, it became bogged down in trench warfare
    

• a struggle (usually prolonged) between competing entities in which neither side is able to win
  • the hope that his superior campaigning skills would make a difference evaporated in the realization that electioneering had become a form of trench warfare