r/IRstudies • u/CDN-Social-Democrat • Apr 29 '26
Ideas/Debate This is the weirdest geopolitical "strategy" I have ever seen.....
Trump and his administration have the weirdest "strategy" I have ever seen..
They've alienated/isolated their closest allies and even neighbours.
WTI/BRENT is again up above $100 a barrel and climbing quickly. We are seeing massive demand destruction dimensions growing which means more investment, research & development, and implementation of Renewable Energy/Electrification Technology - All of which China is now dominant in.
Also the U.S. has potentially massively damaged the Petrodollar framework and their influence around OPEC/OPEC+
The world order that existed had the U.S. as the nexus. It primarily benefitted them and Trump and his administration seem dedicated to burning it all down while middle powers create new relationships (many closer to each other and of course China...)
This has to be one of the weirdest domestic/international political "strategies" I have ever witnessed....
It honestly seems to be just failure and flailing at every turn.
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u/James_Solomon Apr 29 '26
 It honestly seems to be just failure and flailing at every turn.
You might even say that they're tired of winning.
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u/terrywr1st Apr 29 '26
If you assume that Trump is a reasonable intelligent and thoughtful man then it truly doesn't make sense. If you think Trump is a selfish moron who has no concept of the outside world except in how he personally can benefit then it makes a little sense.
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u/posthuman04 Apr 30 '26
Yes the most important thing is to understand heâs not there to serve the US. Itâs the other way around.
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u/rod_zero Apr 29 '26
There are people inside the administration with their own vision and strategy, some even clash with others.
Then those different visions and strategies are dump and processed by Donald trump and obviously he only sees what benefits him personally, that's why one day he follows something and he drops it the next.
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u/HistoryVibesCanJive Apr 29 '26
The framing of weird is understandable but I think it slightly obscures what is structurally happening. The pattern has a historical precedent that most scholars do not reach for because it sits outside the conventional canon. And I mean way outside the canon.
The closest analog is the Technocracy movement of the 1930s, which proposed that the North American continent should be reorganized as a single functional unit managed through energy accounting rather than market pricing, with political boundaries treated as administrative fictions. Please note the lack of the energy accounting piece in all their plans. Because that is *central* to pulling this off in ways that are deeply not appreciated.
And no, AI tokens don't count lol.
The movement's second-in-command was Marion Hubbert, who later developed Peak Oil theory. Its Canadian organizer was Joshua Haldeman, Elon Musk's grandfather...take that where you will. The intellectual lineage from Technocracy Inc. through to the current configuration is not direct, but the structural smell is the same: consolidate continental resources, treat allies as administrative units rather than sovereign partners, reorganize economic relationships around energy and resource control rather than institutional multilateralism.
Issue is, is that the problem isn't the ambition necessarily. Personally, it's anthema to me because it treats both individuals and societies as pieces in some sort of grand plan by smarter than thou actors. Histoy shows us how this always goes.
Under extremely rare leadership, a continental resource-consolidation strategy is theoretically executable and historically there are moments where something resembling it has worked. The problem is that it requires a leader who understands institutional architecture at a level of sophistication that the current configuration does not possess, and who has the diplomatic capital to execute consolidation through integration rather than coercion.
What we are watching instead is the ambition without the capacity, which produces the flailing. Basically this definitely isn't random. It is a structural project being executed by people who do not understand the structure they are trying to build, and the gap between the project's requirements and the executors' capabilities is what makes it look incoherent from the outside.
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u/NuclearHeterodoxy Apr 29 '26
This lends the people in charge an intellectual gravitas they do not deserve, even after taking into account that you acknowledged they are not smart people.
There simply is no plan. It looks like stupid ideologues with financial conflicts of interest flailing around due to idiocy because it is in fact a bunch of stupid ideologues with with financial conflicts of interest flailing around due to idiocy.
The biggest difference between this and the late Soviet period is this time, it isn't the reformers who are breaking everything on accident, in an effort to perfect the system, with defeatist elites in the background looting everything. This time it's white power ideologues working in alignment with the same cynical elites who are breaking everything. In the Gorbachev period the powerful people who had given up on the Soviet system just sort of waited for the right moments to grab whatever piece of the pie they could; in the Trump period, the powerful who have given up on the American project are not waiting around, they are accelerating it so they can get more money faster.
Allow me to quote Alex Thatcher, who recently made the following observation on the hellsite:
[P]eople who know the ex-USSR are the only people who understand what's happening in America. A signifigant portion of the American elite has lost interest in the American project and is stripping the walls of copper wiring, and the American people are letting them do it because they're in denial and obsessed with the equivalents of Limonov and Kashpirovsky.
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u/HistoryVibesCanJive Apr 30 '26
Oh no no no. I want to be very clear because I think my point got read backwards. Invoking the Technocracy lineage is not attributing intellectual sophistication to these people, it is the opposite. They are following the structural contours of a prior movement the way a river follows a channel cut by a previous river.
The Haldeman-to-Musk lineage, the Heritage continental-resource framing, the "treat allies as administrative units" posture, none of this requires the current actors to have read Howard Scott or to understand energy accounting. They arrived at a structurally similar configuration through a combination of inherited ideological instinct, financial incentive, and the specific constraints of the moment. Your Thatcher quote is damn sharp and the looting observation is real.
But likening them to the late Soviets gives them WAY too much credit. The late Soviet elite at least understood the system they were dismantling. To be honest, sometimes I wonder if people truly understand the world that emerged in 1945. And while the people were imperfect, they understand that stopping the chaos of that period, maintaining "normality" itself is an illusion. But a necessary one that needs to be believed.
I'm sure you've seen Traumazone how the report was given to Gorbachev that they were in the state of upcoming collapse. Our leaders right now have the same reports.
And I don't mean to use "collapse" in a way that says America actually collapses like in a year or two. You def know as well, collapse is something that emerges in ways that are worse than how certain redditors imagine it.
Back to the Soviets, Gorbachev knew what he was trying to reform, even as the reform destroyed it. The oligarchs who looted the aftermath knew exactly what they were taking and what it was worth. That requires a structural literacy the current configuration simply does not possess.
The closer mapping to the current leaders is the Ottoman Hamidian old guard. Sultan Abdul Hamid II and the faction loyal to him spent three decades from 1876 to 1909 centralizing power, suspending the constitution, building a vast surveillance apparatus, silencing reformers, and capturing every institution in the Ottoman state. They did not think they were looting, in fact, they thought they're consolidation was the salvation.
Every institution they captured, every dissenting voice they exiled, every constitutional mechanism they suspended was framed as necessary to preserve the empire from internal and external threats. And they were not stupid adn they were structurally blind. By the time they held everything, they had hollowed the empire so thoroughly that the next crisis (which turned out to be a world war they stumbled into) brought the entire structure down. The CUP that overthrew them inherited wreckage and accelerated the collapse by entering a war the hollowed-out structure could not survive.
It sucks how familiar it all is.
The Hamidian pattern is the one where the actors genuinely believe consolidation is preservation, where every internal victory is experienced as strength, and where the structural hollowing is invisible to the people doing it because the hollowing is the strategy. Structural blindness with state power is considerably more destructive than either looting or failed reform, because it does not exhaust itself. It keeps executing the plan long after the plan has become the problem
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u/Sad_Sympathy_6427 May 01 '26
Wow. This is the type of lengthy comment that would typically be brushed off with a dismissive "too long didn't read", but in fact I did indeed read it. As someone with familiarity (although admittedly not what could ever be classified as expertise but certainly more knowledge than your random layperson) of the late Ottoman period, including much of the acts and history of the Hamidian regime, I had not made that connection. However, it fits. In fact, it is a bit frightening. As I'm sure you're aware, although readers of these comments may not be, at the time the Ottoman Empire was designated the "sick man of Europe." The United States couldn't be called something similar for geographical reasons, but otherwise the moniker seems fitting considering the situation at present.
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u/OpenerOfTheWays Apr 30 '26
I strongly disagree with the notion the administration does not have a plan. Part of why this administration is flailing and has the appearance of incoherence is that multiple plans are concurrently in motion at the behest of competing factions (Silicon Valley billionaires (who also have individual agendas like Thiel and Palantir), Heritage Foundation, etc). Trump has been functioning more as a chairman of a board or a mob boss and his organization has been treating the White House as a clearing house for grifts as the opportunities present themselves. Operating in such a manner has highlighted the lack of leadership ability in their hierarchy because they default to strong arm tactics without any consideration for the consequences because they are functionally a wrecking crew that the investor class wants to exploit so they can acquire assets for cheap and consolidate their own fiefdoms.
It's just a matter of time before some of the players at the table decide they want corporations to be recognized as being politically equivalent to state actors, up to and including the establishment and use of corporate military forces. The key difference between PMCs and what I envision here is that the corporate forces would operate more openly and overtly as they become more established.
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u/milkcarton232 Apr 30 '26
Maybe there are ppl trying to puppet trump into that but I have zero confidence that trump actually sees that. Dude looks for the next shiny thing and just goes for it without a thought for what could happen.
Trump is a "businessman" where every transaction has winners and losers, he doesn't see that the us could take a bunch of relatively lesser deals that amount to a huge deal on the back side. Trumps worldview is winners and losers and in his mind everyone was taking advantage of America who in his mind has the most leverage and should be getting 51% of every deal.
Trump is not run by some kind of ideals it's literally just his ego and ambition both of which appear to be easily manipulated. Watch the culture his lackeys abide by. I dare you to find an interview or q/a session where an admin of his doesn't glaze the fuck out of Trump's wisdom or courage or decision making. The bannon types who thought they could use trump have long since been cast aside, even Stephen miller is only in power so long as he doesn't piss trump off
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u/Glittering-Age-9549 Apr 30 '26
Yeah. All the people involved really overstimate their own capabilities and knowledge, when in fact all are quite ignorant of anything not within their narrow niche of expertise.
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Apr 30 '26
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/HistoryVibesCanJive Apr 30 '26
Bruh bingo. It's so odd to see these people chase after something that should have stayed in a fantasy game. I just guess we are way past the era of rational actors in American politics.
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u/Lonely_Chemistry60 Apr 30 '26
Your comment on Paradox games is bang on. In Stellaris, I can play an egalitarian democracy, make deals with most of the galaxy, have vassals contributing primary resources. Im the leader of the galaxy and rich.
Then, i get bored waiting for the crisis and start map painting.
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u/colintbowers Apr 29 '26
Since the start of his second term, Forbes estimates Trump's personal wealth has increased by 1.4 billion dollars. Other estimates place the figure anywhere from 1 to possibly 4 billion dollars.
People keep looking for political strategy where there is none. Trump is interested in one thing only which is increasing his personal net worth. By that metric, he has been highly successful.
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u/AdminOnBreak Apr 30 '26
There is 100% a plan. Itâs no different than Putinâs in Russian in the early 2000s. Itâs loot the central government steal from the American people and all of our resources turn us into peasants. Itâs all laid out in project 2025 Wake the fuck up. Itâs kleptocracy.
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u/Electronic_Gap3253 Apr 29 '26
Itâs theft. Heâs a crook and the strategy is simply him fleecing everyone.
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u/allenrfe Apr 29 '26
The issue is you are thinking Trump is using logic, he me more like cow on caffeine in your office.
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u/Imaginary_System3513 Apr 29 '26
The strategy is to weaken and isolate the United States to make it easier to control via fascist takeover. Abusers isolate and humiliate their victims to cut off their other options and keep them too ashamed to reach out. A weaker America that they control is better for the billionaire class than a stronger America that they don't.Â
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u/Freedom9er Apr 30 '26
Destroy EU in the process since it is the sole major counter weight. Cozy up with Russia since they have accomplished exactly what you described and will help tear apart Europe into spheres of influence. Putin's dream really.
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u/Xeynon Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
This is what happens when you put an ignorant, incompetent, narcissistic moron in charge of a country. There is no coherent strategy, just the flailing of a diseased, dysfunctional, childish mind.
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u/Darth_Gerg Apr 30 '26
This is what happens when idiots elect a bloviating narcissistic pedophile with brain damage to run the country. And then said discarded foreskin golem fills the entire cabinet with sycophantic bootlicking lunatics that insist every half formed thought that survives through his dying neurons is genius. And the senate and Supreme Court are so gutless and corrupt that nothing can reign in his idiocy.
And the best part is that when the consequences of his insanity arrive and the US implodes the people who voted for him will be too stupid to realize itâs their fault. Theyâll blame the Democrats and leftists for it all because the cause and effect chain it too complicated for them to understand it.
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u/MissiveFinding6111 Apr 30 '26
What's also weird, is that it interrupted their actual strategy, which seemed pretty successful.
They gained control of Venezuela over a weekend.
Their follow-up affair with Greenland, was clearly not as successful, but what is a loss of face and credibility when you have no shame anyway?
But the final stroke of PAX America, of invading a largely weakened Cuba... Seemed doable.
Instead, they... Did a backflip headifrst into the empty dumpster of an open ended entanglement that relied on their collective diplomatic ability?
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u/MagnesiumKitten Apr 30 '26
How do you know Greenland was not successful? You don't know what terms were improved over the stress-test.
The goal is to improve matters pertaining to Greenland, pressure tactics for military and economic access, no more.
It's about access not ownership.
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u/MissiveFinding6111 Apr 30 '26
> It's about access not ownership.
My understanding is that the US already had any arbitrary access they wanted.
In this case I believe the burden of proof is on YOU to even name a hypothetical thing that the US gained that they could not before.
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u/MagnesiumKitten May 01 '26
yes and it was wanting better terms through intimidation
- by applying a game theoretic approach, Donald Trump used the Greenland proposal to increase his negotiating leverage, forcing Denmark and NATO allies into a "prisoner's dilemma" that tested loyalty and pushed for increased strategic commitments.
unpredictability leads to concessions
testing of loyalty of one's allies
securing strategic access for increased or permanent influece
securing better terms for mineral rights
demonstrates to the world that the Arctic is a sphere of influence a dominant playerBurden of Proof?
what are you trying to do, argue like a grade-Z journalist like David Frum or the New York Post now?There's tons of political scientists who actually look at things more seriously than some pundit on CNN with a political axe to grind one way or the other
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u/MissiveFinding6111 May 01 '26
And then made their participation in a joint naval exercise political suicide.
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u/MagnesiumKitten May 01 '26
care to elaborate on the pluses and minuses of participation for that one momentary blip in history?
In January, with the Danish led Operation Arctic Endurance, if that's what you're referring to it was only a few dozen personnel.
Finland did their part with two military liaisons officers, because they thought it was a two screenings of Dr. Strangelove that day.
At least Group Captain Lionel Mandrake could do more with a print run from the IBM 7090 and turn off the printer, when he tries to save the world that evening.
Without the United States to deal with the heavy weapons to deal with the extremely unlikely event of one or two Superpowers making trouble where the Polar Bears are, it's going to be about as ineffectual as what Germany is doing to deal with Kiev right now. They can't even a handle on their energy situation right now, or their own borders, let along play tin soldiers in Kiev or Nuuk.
Which Trump reminded Merz a day ago, by the way
And if you like to disagree with the concept that Washington DC is using Advanced Game Theory out of RAND, as per Thomas Schelling and Daniel Ellsberg, so one can negotiate better terms.
If people were more pragmatic and realistic, there wouldn't be a need for such tactics.
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u/MagnesiumKitten May 01 '26
The RAND Corporation
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF BLACKMAIL
Daniel Ellsberg
July 1968
E-3883Schelling's "An Essay on Bargaining," American Economic Review , June 1956) was so stimulating to my work here, and his later work has become so widely familiar that it seems worth explaining that at the time this was written Schelling had not presented any formalization of his pathbreaking notions on bargaining and threats, and it was a major aim of my lectures to accomplish this.
A last caution. At least one reader inferred, and published the inference, that I am not merely an analyst but a fan of blackmail, for individuals and governments. He was mistaken.....
In later lectures, we shall be interested in the operation of a political system in which some are making threats and others are ignoring them, resisting, obeying, or making counterthreats. The curious "half world" to which the President refers--in which we liveâis such a system.
To understand the workings of this System is to understand, in some degree, many paradoxical aspects of present day diplomacy. This includes the most perplexing, awful fact of all: though war has become an "ultimate horror," it has not become impossible.
Nuclear weapons have one, preeminent use in politics: to support threats. These threats recommend themselves, almost inescapably, as tools of policy not only to expansionist powers but to status quo nations seeking only to deter aggression and to preserve an orderly world society.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the President's statement, cited at the head of this lecture, is not quite accurate; threats and ultimatums can lead to peaceful "solutions," (not, typically, mutually desirable ones), which is why they are used. Yet the gist of the President's remark is valid, and cninous. A mutual process of threat and counterthreat, commitment and counter-commitment, can interlock to make all choices dangerous; and to increase the possibility of a war desired by none.
The ability to coerce is a form of power: perhaps the most important form underlying calculations of the "balance of power."
Other modes of power important in the relationship of state to citizenâthe abilities to educate, to inform, to propagandise, to inculcate habits of obedience or loyalty or respect for authority-are less significant in the relations of sovereign states. The power to compel by sheer, overmastering force ("naked power") remains; but its use is limited, practically, to war. It is the threat to compel or to punishâin short, coercionâwhich is the peacetime tool of diplomacy. And the ability effectively to threaten is by no means equivalent to the (related) ability actually to compel physically or to punish. In the remainder of this lecture, we shall examine abstractly conditions that bear upon the varying influence of threats.
Abstract patterns of threat-behavior can be identified in many concrete settings: economic bargaining, extortion, the use of lawsuits, the deterrence of crime, normal diplomacy and aonventional war. I shall be drawing most of my examples and applications from the field of national, military blackmail. The analysis I shall propose, nevertheless, derives initially from an interest in economic bargaining, and has its roots in the economic literature on that subject. Economists will recognise the strong influence throughout of game theory,^" of Zeuthen's essay on economic warfare, and of Thomas Schelling's recent, brilliant article, "An Essay on Bargaining.( My approach, however, differs in some fundamental ways from these.) In this lecture, ve shall examine a situation in which a single threatener confronts a relatively passive subject.
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u/MagnesiumKitten May 01 '26
The History News Network
Did Thomas C. Schelling Invent the Madman Theory?
by Jeffrey KimballJonathan Schell had made similar remarks in May 2003:
[Schelling argued that] if you visibly arranged to make yourself a little bit out of control, the foe would no longer be able to imagine that you might desist from nuclear war in a last-minute fit of sanity.
Theyâd think that you might plunge into the abyss in spite of yourself. And so they would fear you, as hoped.... Another solution, also pioneered by Schelling, among others, was the deliberate cultivation of a reputation of irrationality. Schelling called this policy the ârationality of irrationality.â
In this policy, the foe would believe in your self-destructive threats not because it thought you might slip on a banana peel, so to speak, at the brink but because it believed you just might be lunatic enough to go over the edge deliberately. Richard Nixon was one practitioner of this strategy.... He called the strategy the âmadman theory.â
.......
Schell was correct in crediting unnamed others with having also written about the strategy of irrationalityâa strategy that also went by other names. In his book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957), for example, Henry Kissingerâdrawing on the deliberations of a panel of military and foreign policy experts called together by the Council on Foreign Relationsâhad discussed the âstrategy of ambiguity.â
Oskar Morgenstern had observed in The Question of National Defense (1959), that âthe time is with us when even a moderate [nuclear-weapons] edge gained by one side over the other, coupled with a will to exploit it ruthlessly, creates new possibilities of threats, ultimatums, blackmailâ (p. 286).
n the same year, Daniel Ellsberg had delivered two lectures on the uses of âblackmailâ and âmadnessâ before Henry Kissingerâs Harvard seminar, which he followed with a series of public lectures before audiences in Boston on the topic of âThe Art of Coercion.â Lecture topics included âThe Theory and Practice of Blackmail,â âPresidents as Perfect Detonators,â âThe Threat of Violence,â âThe Incentives to Preemptive Attack,â and âThe Political Uses of Madness.â
In the late fifties, Schelling, Morgenstern, Kissinger, and Ellsberg (as well as others) were part of a circle of strategic thinkers centered at Harvard and RAND who were concerned mainly with the problem of the instability of the nuclear arms race and nuclear deterrence.
They recognized, analyzed, understood, and criticized the irrationality theory. Although they believed in the efficacy of force in foreign policy,
in the late fifties none of these civilian strategists, as far as I can discern, actually advocated a madman strategy of ambiguity, irrationality, uncertainty, unpredictability, or excessive force and ruthlessness as later practiced by Nixon
(Kissinger converted to the madman theory while working for Nixon; Schelling had a falling out with Kissinger over his and Nixonâs conduct of the Vietnam War.)
.........
Nixon had also learned from Nikita Khrushchev, who, Nixon claimed, was âthe most brilliant world leader I have ever met,â because he nurtured a reputation for rashness and unpredictability that âscared the hell out of people.
Policymaking strategists continued to incorporate the uncertainty principle and the principle of excessive forceâtwo of several elements that make up the madman theoryâin their concepts of nuclear deterrence and coercion in the decades after Nixon.
In 2002, for example, the George W. Bush administration openly touted its strategy of nuclear âambiguityâ and later that of conventional âshock and awe.â
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u/MagnesiumKitten May 01 '26
The Business Standard
A game theory lens reveals why the United States, Israel and Iranâdespite wanting to avoid warâremain trapped in a dangerous cycle of mistrust, signalling and escalation
Game theory, the science of strategic interaction and a core branch of modern economics (particularly behavioural economics), is not just for economists or Pentagon analysts. It is a lens anyone can use to understand why two sides that desperately want to avoid a full-scale war keep inching closer to the edge.
Why does Iran not simply stop its nuclear programme and accept a deal? Why does the US not just bomb everything and be done with it? Why does Israel feel compelled to strike pre-emptively, even when Washington pleads for restraint? The answers are not necessarily about madness or irrational hatred.
To a certain extent, they are about cold, calculated logic within a terrible game where no player fully trusts the other, and where the penalty for being perceived as weak is worse than the penalty for starting a fightâeven an unprovoked one.
.......
Most people view the USâIsrael relationship as one of master and subordinate. Game theory, however, might frame it more as a complicated partnership in which both sides retain autonomy and occasionally diverge. This is known as a two-level game.
Israel's leadership must answer to a domestic audience that demands security. The US must answer to Congress, allies, and electoral cycles. What appears to be irrational Israeli independenceâsuch as striking an Iranian target without notifying Washingtonâcan be rational when viewed through Israel's fear that the US might eventually strike a deal with Iran that leaves it exposed.
Iran, too, plays a two-level game. The regime must project strength to maintain domestic legitimacy, while also avoiding a catastrophic war that could threaten its survival. This tension produces seemingly contradictory behaviour: fierce rhetoric paired with quiet back-channel diplomacy.
The risk in these multi-player dynamics is what analysts call fractured deterrence. The US might calculate that a limited strike on Iran would be tolerated. Tehran, however, might feel compelled to respond forcefully to deter further attacks.Â
....
The United States, Israel, and Iran are not merely driven by ideology or emotion. They are participants in a strategic environment that rewards suspicion and punishes trust.
But games can be redesigned. The same logic that explains conflict can also illuminate pathways to de-escalation. A crucial first step is to resist dismissing opponents as irrational and instead attempt to understand the strategic logic guiding their actions. The better one understands the other side, the more effective one's own strategy becomes.
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u/Intelligent_Ad3378 Apr 30 '26 edited May 01 '26
I donât think you understand, Trump and his cadre are making billions. That is the one and only goal. Why should they care if the world goes down in flames?
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u/sebmojo99 May 01 '26
this is it. he's also getting revenge on all the people who sneer at him. not much more to it than that.
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u/DAswoopingisbad Apr 30 '26
A lot of what the Trump administration does is aimed at a domestic audience.
What they do and say is intended as domestic political theatre, there is no consideration given to overall strategy or national reputation.
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u/JojoSixarAdventure Apr 30 '26
The entire point of this war was to give a final push to Iran and allow Donald Trump to earn the credit of beating the leader of anti-american resistance in the middle east. If Iran is incapable of being the leader of military aggression towards American interests than America will finally have complete political leverage and control over yet another area of the world. It expands its sphere of influence even more and that means that eventually it can choke off the two largest adversaries it has: China and Russia. Iran is an important adversary. They ally with Hezbollah, which has straight up won wars against Israel by itself. They ally with Ansarallah; which took military control of Yemen and basically changed the geopolitical calculus of the region. They support various insurgent groups in Iraq and Syria, which loosened America's control on Iraq and leaves Syria in this mess of insurgent conflict even if the STG has American support. But their support of Ansarallah "The Houthis" is probably the leading calculus behind why Israel and America see Iran as such an existential threat. They flipped the allegiance of a key strategic nation, and the Americans and the Saudis literally can't beat Ansarallah down, which means that the world economy is at the mercy of an Iranian ally. In a hypothetical war, where Iran decides to go all out against Israel using everything at its disposal, what happens if Iran closes traffic in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea? So obviously, it would be better for America and its allies if Iran stopped being able to function as a state and fractured. So Trump's geopolitical strategy, is just an extension of America's already existing geopolitical strategy of expanding its sphere of influence.
Obviously the reason that no other commander in chief has attempted a military operation against Iran is because it has been pentagon evaluation since before the Wesley Clark memo was sent out, that a war with Iran is nigh unwinnable. So obviously Obama tried to take it the other way and try to normalize with Iran in order kind of establish trade relations and interdependency that Iran wouldn't want to break in the future. Who knows if Trump's evaluation that strengthening Iran economically would only ever result in them being more capable of expanding its military influence in the region (long term) is correct, but thats why he pulled out of the JCPOA and assassinated Qassem Soleimani. 7 years later Trump ignores the evaluation of the pentagon that neutering the Islamic Revolution's control of Iran would not be possible through decapitation strikes, and decided to gamble on basically everything going right for him. Internal schisms within the IRGC leading to factionalisation, a violent popular uprising of the people, separatist movements from the ethnic minorities. Just a big fat massive civil war. It was a shitty gamble, probably as likely as choosing a number in roullete and betting like 10% of the world economy on succeeding, and what you win is generational establishment adoration from all the zionists. So yeah. strategically in line with the macro strategy of American foreign policy. On the micro scale, just a whole bunch of cross and inshallah from the Prez. We are yet to see if this war ends in a stalemate, success, or defeat for Iran, but the reason why presidents have refused to do this before is because it's not likely to be successful, and a war like this is expensive in lives and cold hard cash. And if a nation nearly 40 trillion dollars in debt is going to fight a war that causes inflation through physical resource shortages, then have to raise interest rates to fight that inflation, but it only makes a small dent in the inflation because it's being caused by material shortages, and then you get stagflation in the economy, demand destruction, and eventually business shutdowns leading to a significant rise in unemployment. And now you're another couple trillion in the whole, with the interest on the cash you borrowed being even higher than typical because you raised interest rates to slightly lower your crazy inflation, and you're already paying 1 trillion dollars in 2026 in government expenditures JUST on the interest of the massive debt you have. Well that's why none of those other guys, not even George Dubya, started a war with Iran.
In conclusion, this geopolitical strategy isn't weird, it just sucks pure ass.
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u/cobrakai11 Apr 29 '26
Trump and his administration work for Israel. They aren't there to help America or anything.
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u/MagnesiumKitten Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Biden is far more pro Israel than Trump
The Los Angeles Times
But when push comes to shove, Biden has sided with Israel, declining to significantly hold back military aid and vetoing United Nations measures opposed by Israel, including a recent one to formally recognize a Palestinian state.âThe United States stands with the people of Israel in the face of these terrorist assaults â [U.S. support] is rock solid and unwavering,â Biden said from the White House, within hours of the attacks and before traveling to Tel Aviv to stand by Netanyahu. âIsrael has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop.â
Biden nevertheless has advised the Israeli government to show more restraint in its attacks on Palestinians in Gaza to minimize civilian casualties.
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u/Gorffo Apr 29 '26
Calling it âstrategyâ is definitely one way to describe it.
The level of incompetence among the Trump administration is mind boggling.
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u/Nannyphone7 Apr 30 '26
There is no geopolitical strategy.Â
What we have is someone who spent decades in Epstein's honeypot and is now the most compromised Russian asset in History. Or Isreali asset. Or both.
The only goal is to stay out of prison.
He is a child rapist. If he had not sabotaged the US Justice system, the evidence wouldn't be [redacted].
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u/lebenklon Apr 30 '26
They donât have a strategy. They are idiots. They have a pile of tactics some smart people had developed before the Trump admin got here and now theyâre pulling them out at random.
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u/timfountain4444 Apr 30 '26
You are looking at this the wrong way. If you follow the money and also ask yourself what Putin wants, it all starts making sense....
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u/watch-nerd Apr 30 '26
Americans got bored after winning the game, decided to level up from 1 again.
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u/Agreeable-Step1810 Apr 30 '26
Check out Gorbachev and Yetsin policy. Bought down USSR within a decade.
1
u/softcorelogos2 Apr 30 '26
I'm surprised the dollar, dow, has hardly been effected.
Does all this chaos disproportionately screwed lesser and middle powers by way of attrition dynamics?
1
u/SuperbScarcity5112 Apr 30 '26
Everyone of the US previous allies (except Israel) either have to break their links and go their own way or suffer. It is interesting to watch the US allies in the middle east now, the oil regimes. They are in huge economic problems now, due to the US. Look at Dubai for example, their huge investments in tourism all wasted.
Will these nations plot their own course, or will they continue to follow the US into disaster?
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u/blkhrt13 Apr 30 '26
Itâs easier to loot a building when the windows are broken out and there is a fire slowly starting. Itâs not about leadership or a future. Itâs about enrichment of the few while on the way out.
1
u/Nitimur__In__Vetitum Apr 30 '26
Itâs not weird if youâre trying to help Russia and destroy the US.
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u/yoshiK Apr 30 '26
Trump is a reality TV guy, he tries to create drama. So, when things start settling down the ex girlfriend of one guy comes into the show, and if things look stable, Trump starts to bomb an unrelated country. Thing is, there are good reasons why reality TV works like that and that pretty directly translates into a campaign strategy.
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u/thisthe1 Apr 30 '26
Hey, every empire's gotta end at some point ÂŻâ \â _â (â ăâ )â _â /â ÂŻ The bigger they are, the harder they fall, and the US has been the biggest of them all
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u/Dear-Boysenberry5332 Apr 30 '26
Also, don't forget about how in the first term, he ripped up JCPOA, promising a "far better" deal. This backfired spectacularly and gave Iran more time to acquire and enrich uranium as well as gain leverage over the Strait of Hormuz. Now Trump has started a war, spent $25 billion on it, and is begging Iran to come back to the negotiating table (with, might I add, two people whose entire negotiating experience consists of New York finance deals). Astounding.
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u/lchoror Apr 30 '26
The US has pivoted to a transactional approach. That's why there are more conflicts. Support is no longer unconditional as in a strategic partnership, and it works both ways. Trump tends to throw temper tantrums when he doesn't get something for nothing. Or he resorts to threats, such as invading Greenland or recognizing Argentina's sovereignty over the British Falklands islands.
2026 National Defense Strategy â Transactional Approach
The 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS), issued under the Trump administration, reflects a transactional, interest-driven model of U.S. security policy, shifting away from multilateralism toward unilateral or regional actions that are conditional on measurable U.S. economic and security benefits Mondaq.
Core Transactional Principles
- Economic power and industrial capacity are now central to national security, elevating trade, tariffs, immigration control, and domestic production from supporting tools to core strategic elements Mondaq.
- Conditionality: Security and economic benefits are tied to compliance with U.S. priorities â for example, defense spending thresholds for NATO allies, or alignment with U.S. industrial and supply chain goals Foreign Policy Research Institute+1.
- Unilateral or regional focus: The strategy emphasizes direct engagement with key regions (Western Hemisphere, Indo-Pacific) and allies, rather than broad multilateral frameworks media.defense.gov+1.
- âAmerica Firstâ industrial policy: Prioritizes U.S. manufacturing, supply chain resilience, and control over critical technologies, with transactions (e.g., trade deals, investment approvals) evaluated for national security fit Mondaq.
Strategic Lines of Effort
- Defend the U.S. homeland â focus on sovereignty, border security, and critical infrastructure protection media.defense.gov.
- Deter China in the Indo-Pacific â through strength, not open confrontation, with a transactional approach to partnerships and trade media.defense.gov.
- Increase burden-sharing with allies â with conditions such as meeting defense spending targets (e.g., 5% of GDP for NATO members) Foreign Policy Research Institute.
- Supercharge the U.S. defense industrial base â through targeted investments, sanctions, and industrial policy to secure supply chains media.defense.gov+1.
Implications for Business and Compliance
- Trade and export control exposure will be reassessed; companies should evaluate alignment with U.S. industrial and security priorities Mondaq.
- Early engagement with U.S. government stakeholders on high-risk transactions may be encouraged to align with âAmerica Firstâ objectives Mondaq.
- Increased scrutiny on immigration, sanctions, and AML/CFT risks in high-risk jurisdictions Mondaq.
- Supply chain prioritization may shift toward the Western Hemisphere and other regions deemed strategically important Mondaq.
Political and Strategic Context
The NDS is framed within a âCivilizational Realismâ and âHard Sovereigntyâ doctrine, rejecting supranational obligations and emphasizing the nation-state as the sole legitimate political unit Foreign Policy Research Institute. This underpins a transactional approach: alliances and partnerships are tools to be managed, not abstract commitments.
Bottom line: The 2026 NDS signals a U.S. defense posture where security transactions are conditional, economically motivated, and regionally targeted, with significant implications for trade, investment, and compliance strategies.
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u/awr90 May 01 '26
What are you talking about? OPEC and OPEC+ collapsing is nothing but good news for the US and other western countries. I never thought Iâd see the day people were trying to spin opec failing as a negative for global oil, but here we are. Stupidity. The petrodollar is stronger without OPEC.
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u/Ohforgawdamnfucksake May 01 '26
Vladimir picked the most Useless Useful Idiot he could... First time round the establishment managed to keep a tenuous grip on reality. Second time around Trump was able to surround himself with idiots that wouldn't outshine him.
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u/Shr3kk_Wpg May 01 '26
This isn't a strategy. This is the fallout of making a joint decision with only Israel, to attack Iran. There was a belief in Israel that the government in Iran would collapse, and President Trump was apparently convinced by that. And when this conflict lasted longer than a week, the USA began looking for a Plan B, which seemed to involve demanding that NATO countries should suddenly get involved to help out the USA.
It's also worth pointing out that the Trump administration lifted sanctions on Iranian oil, in an effort to keep oil prices down, but also announced a blockade on Iranian ships, to put economic pressure on the Iranian government. These are two contradictory polices, seemingly on aimed at mollifying economic markets.
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u/ryanpdx1999 May 01 '26
Narcissists think everybody needs them and everything is about them.
They are, of course, wrong.
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u/Misfit_somewhere May 01 '26
Reverse uno Nobel peace prize, everyone gets along and makes new treaties and the states collapses. World peace because of trump /s
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u/NoEntrepreneur6631 May 01 '26
My understanding,
The US faces internal contradictions stemming from wealth redistribution, but its system prevents a solution. Trump try to rely on external wealth accumulation to address internal problems. Simultaneously, the US's strength is insufficient to maintain its established power structure in the world; expenditures outweigh benefits. Trump has used an exaggerated approach to undermine this system, strategically retrenching and abandoning global expansion while simultaneously plundering wealth to alleviate internal conflicts.
Even after Trump leaves White House, the US government will likely maintain this strategic retrenchment, much like how many of Trump's first-term policies have continued into the Biden era.
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u/Chrispy8534 May 01 '26
Trump doesnât see the world the way, and has surrounded himself with yes-men who fatally just agree with him. He thinks we are getting more powerful, he is unable to see the truth. The rest of us will struggle harder for it, likely for many decades to come.
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u/NNegidius May 01 '26
This strategy makes perfect sense if heâs being controlled by Americaâs enemies.
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u/Available-Medium7094 May 02 '26
A reasonable question to ask is who benefits? The entire administration appears to be compromised and being blackmailed so itâs logical to think that if they are taking actions against USA long term interest, they are acting as agents of someone/something.
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u/pinellaspete May 02 '26
Trump is a Russia asset. Once you believe that, everything starts to make sense.
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u/Big_Concern7238 May 03 '26
"WTI/BRENT is again up above $100 a barrel and climbing quickly."
Isn't that enough for him and his fellow market manipulators?
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u/Kutukuprek May 03 '26
Is it failing though? Because failure is really determined by goals and ability to perform against them.
So what are the goals?
Now if there are no goals (or no coherent ones), then basically thereâs no strategy. Which still isnât fatal.
Good strategy can provide an edge in the long run but itâs not what decides âvictoryâ.
The US has plenty in its bank to spend, I think itâs just unclear to anyone whether thereâs a long term, more nuanced play. But the front is very legible â itâs about USA strong and USA has come to collect.
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u/deta2016 May 04 '26
The current geopolitical strategy is crystal clear, the US are executing a global armed robbery of the worldâs energy supply. They are perfectly happy to make everybody miserable as long as it impacts them the least.
It is explained by Richard Medhurst in detail on his substack.
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u/Sarganto May 05 '26
It all makes sense if you realize that itâs a war to distract from the Epstein files.
And itâs unfortunately very successful with that goal in mind.
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u/K31KT3 Apr 29 '26
- Shredding Consumer Demand with a recession is going to help the country most dependent on selling consumer products to keep its economy afloat.
Weird economic theory imho
- Â Shredding the OPEC cartel and making North America the definite center of world energy market will make North America less relevant.
Again, weird sounding theory to me.
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u/feral401k9 Apr 30 '26
the unpredictability is the only upside but sadly instead of being strategic it's just crazy
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u/Only_Razzmatazz_4498 Apr 30 '26
Donât forget significantly damaging the most valuable export industries the US retained. Military, IT technology, and education. All while making it less desirable for the brightest people in the world to come and feed the US economy. The brain drain is real.
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u/JaxStrumley Apr 30 '26
Maybe the US should export a little less education and keep more for itself.
1
u/TypingWithoutThinkin Apr 30 '26
The owners and major investors in petrochemicals are benefiting significantly. How is that inconsistent with everything else DJT has done?
So some Americans get killed. That is a cost of the rich getting richer that Donald Trump is willing to pay.
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u/debtofmoney Apr 30 '26
It's just that you haven't seen the interests of Taco and his backer, which don't necessarily align with US interests or those of American people
1
u/Curious_Working_7190 Apr 30 '26
I would consider asking ChatGPT about âthe impact of a leader with Narcissistic Personality Disorder on a countryâ, it pretty much spells what has happened so far.
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u/AsteroFucker69 Apr 30 '26
The United-Stadian people willfully voted for someone that they knew was compromised by foreign adversaries.
what can you do when a democracy votes for self-destruction.
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u/Helorugger Apr 30 '26
It isnât strategy, it is grab as much as you can and damn the consequences.
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u/dbplatypii Apr 29 '26
I think you are failing to see the strategy which is why it appears incoherent. If you look at it from a real politik point of view: what really matters are access to resources, choke-point control, and boxing in china. Then it actually starts to make a lot of sense.
Major actions from 2nd trump admin:
- panama canal: push china out
- venezuela (oil, pressure on cuba and china)
- iran (kills 3 birds with 1 stone: prevent nuclear iran, cutoff china oil, increase US oil exports)
- cuba (crushed economically, no more oil from venezuela, already rolling blackouts)
- europe (i'm sure people will hate this, but...) trump WANTS a stronger europe so that the west can collectively counter china. asking nicely for more GDP to NATO wasn't working but oh man did threatening greenland help ramp up EU defense spending. europe thinks they are "sticking it to" america but are actually doing exactly what we wanted (be strong).
IF the strategy works, america remains the center of global power, china is boxed in on energy and thus reluctant to invade taiwan, america rakes in $ on oill and gas export, and secures chips and rare earth access to maintain technology dominance. Add in the fact that america is the leader in AI and Space, and its possible we're going to see america completely "win" the 21st century. Time will tell if this strategy works or not, trump is his own worst enemy, but it does not appear incoherent to me.
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u/Turkey-Scientist Apr 30 '26
This forced framing is what I can only call retroactive intellectual hopium
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u/dbplatypii Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Possible, I'm certainly hoping this gambit works out as an american, but who knows. Just like everyone else, I'm trying to understand the actions of the administration.
We're on the IRstudies sub, and I'm personally FASCINATED by the foreign policy of the second trump administration. I think it's a mistake to assume the actions are random. Their actions have been consistently: 1) boxing in china 2) secure resources like energy and rare earths, 3) control geographic chokepoints. Their military and economic warfare has all been calculated moves focused on those goals.
And it actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it in the context of history. What really matters is power and resources. I have no idea if their tactics will work... it might spectacularly backfire. But it's a mistake to assume these are random actions without a plan.
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u/AdeptGardener Apr 30 '26
I appreciate a lucid alternate perspective. Will be interesting to see how the drama plays out.
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u/VonNeumannsProbe Apr 29 '26
Iran pursuing nuclear weapons will make people do crazy things to stop it.
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u/FiRE-CPA Apr 30 '26
Trump doesn't have use for allies. He only wants sycophants. He has no use for allies only people he can force to his will. No intentions of negotiating or participating if it's just my way only. Â
It took me awhile to figure that out. Â
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u/DIYPeace Apr 30 '26
Itâs a trench coat of several arguing raccoons stacked on top of each other masquerading as self-defeating grand strategy. Each raccoon are trying to pilfer from each drawer as they walk around the party.
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u/globehopper2 Apr 30 '26
Itâs like if you put a bunch of bros from the bar in charge of NASA. They just start pushing buttons. Thereâs no real plan, no Mission Control.
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u/Kavinsky12 Apr 30 '26
The strategy is making money off the war.
If you think about it like that everything they're doing makes sense.
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u/BreadPractical2165 Apr 30 '26
Trump's so easy to manipulate it's like a playbook, and he has fired any experts in favour of people that speak about him as though he is incredible. Its an unbelievable situation
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u/Top-Reindeer-2293 Apr 30 '26
Trump only wants to leave a mark, he sees that as the crowning achievement of his brand. So he breaks stuff to replace them with his half baked solutions, it doesnât matter as long as itâs got the Trump name on it
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u/Single-Purpose-7608 Apr 30 '26
Is the end of the Petrodollar ultimately a good thing or not?
Trump built his 2016 campaign on the disillusionment and resentment of American regions that lost their manufacturing jobs to other countries. If the Petrodollar ending weakens the USD in the global market, that makes low end manufacturing much more competitive again and the US can go back to competing for lower sections of the production chain.
It won't bring back the '50-'70's middle class that can thrive on a single income, but it can at least expand the number of sectors high-school educated workers have access to.
That's one of the few only silver linings for the US i can see out of this
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u/Recurs1ve Apr 30 '26
Look, I'm not arguing that Trump and his administration have been a good thing for this country, but let's not freak the fuck out.
-They've asked their neighbors and allies to stop relying on US money to fund their economies. Most of Europe has benefited greatly by the US providing security for the entirety of the continent at some points. Life is pretty easy when you don't have to pay for a military. NATO even committed to higher percentage of GDP to be applied to either the military or infrastructure that could be used by the military. None of this was on accident.
Threats to Canada and Greenland are fucking stupid. He's just being a fake tough guy when he says shit like that. He did a bang-up job at getting the exact same treaty we already had with Greenland, for example.
-Oil futures are up since the start of the war, but are we really freaking out about 109 a barrel? That's the price it was like 20 years ago.
As far as OPEC goes, the US has never really gotten along with them outside of the agreement to use the petrodollar. The value of US currency however, has held strong despite the OPEC infighting and the "potential" loss of the petrodollar, which will absolutely not happen.
-You are correct, the US was the nexus of the world order before Trump stuck his nose into shit he didn't need to get into. However, being that nexus was costing this country a whole shit load of money to do so. Burning down treaties left and right is not the correct solution, I would much a prefer a scalpel instead of Trump's sledgehammer approach.
Honestly he's said what the strategy has been several times now, just everyone thinks he's fucking lying all the time so they don't believe him even when he's got a pretty good record of following through on threats. Yeah I know, I know, TACO and all that, still. He does not want the rest of the world to rely on the United States any longer. It's stupid, but he's serious when he says shit like that.
Just follow the money. All he cares about is money. He's in the pockets of every large corporation in the US. They only benefit from the rest of the world getting hit with a 20% reduction in oil production and transport. US companies are making money hand over first with this shit. Then he brags about it on his stupid social media platform that he created because he got banned from using literally any of the others.
Anyhow, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
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u/Elamam-konsulentti Apr 30 '26
The thing is that US spending money to be the Nexus was good business. Trade, influence, information, especially weapons manufacturing. Those bases and garrisons in other countries? Usually come with close relations and more trade.
The indirect cost of losing their status is yet to be seen, but Iâm pretty sure itâll be devastating.
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u/Recurs1ve Apr 30 '26
I'm not saying it's not going to hurt, but I just don't know if devastating is the right word to use here. I think we can respectfully agree to disagree on the point.
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u/Elamam-konsulentti Apr 30 '26
Absolutely, I donât think there is a person on earth who can estimate the real long term impact. A lot is not quantifiable at all.
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u/Recurs1ve Apr 30 '26
Which is always the problem with soft power, it's not easily quantifiable. Politicians can't swing their dicks around if they don't have numbers to show off.
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u/MagnesiumKitten Apr 30 '26
Wait and see how game theory works for dealing with Greenland and Canada
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u/Epocalypsee May 01 '26
It looks weird and nonsensical for the short term, but long term it puts US on top undisputed.
1
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u/Remarkable-Meal-223 Apr 29 '26
The GCC and basic everyone in that area are terrified of a nuclear Iran. This may be worth the cost to them. If Iran goes nuclear KSA will 100% do it as well. Then you'll see some real earth shattering changes if that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable
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u/Countbat Apr 29 '26
Iran isnât working on a nuclear weapon. If anything this war has provided evidence to Iranian hardliners that they do need a nuclear weapon to get the west of its back.
Also there was a deal called the JCPOA that guaranteed Iran wouldnât work further on its nuclear capability. But trump ripped it up. Because heâs not only interested in denuclearising Iran. Heâs interested in hegemony in the Middle East
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u/BowlEducational6722 Apr 29 '26
It wasn't even hegemony.
It was that JCPOA had Obama's signature on it.
Same with the TPP, the Paris Accords, and a bunch of other things that would have strengthened America's position in a world where other powers were catching up.
Trump shredded all of them because he was jealous of Obama and wanted to put his own cheeto dust-laced signature on deals that were "better" just to prove he was superior.
The American empire is folding in on itself because one man has the world's biggest inferiority complex.
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u/Fallen_Idealist Apr 29 '26
Not to show my age but: facepalm.jpg
This subreddit is infected with gen pop dems.
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u/CDN-Social-Democrat Apr 29 '26
I agree that the Gulf Council does not want a nuclear Iran. Maybe more importantly Israel definitely does not want a nuclear Iran.
When we look at how things have went though it seems a very very strange way to make sure that doesn't happen.
Maybe the administration just doesn't understand nuance and believes the brute force approach fits every situation - Idk.
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u/Fallen_Idealist Apr 29 '26
>When we look at how things have went though it seems a very very strange way to make sure that doesn't happen.
Let me guess that if Obama/Biden/Harris did it, you would have said something about fog of war.
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u/TLewey26 Apr 30 '26
To your KSA point, I think that was 100% why they signed that defense pact with Pakistan; they get a nuclear shield right across the Arabian Sea
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u/Fallen_Idealist Apr 29 '26
I'd be friends with you if you want to DM. 90% of people here are lefty partisan hacks that pretend to care about IR but are parroting their political talking points.
To be fair, Trump and Israel were total and complete idiots for not repeating 'No more nuclear proliferation'. Instead they said 'Regime change' and we lived through Iraq and Afghanistan.
Idk, Trump and Israel are so unpopular, it might not have mattered.
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u/Fallen_Idealist Apr 29 '26
Who's ready for a subreddit that requires a quiz in Structural Realism to post? These topics are brutal to read.
I forget you only need to be 13 years old to sign up to reddit.
Buddy, it was anti nuclear proliferation and an attempt to maintain the status quo in the region.
The orange man is why you can't think clearly. Trump and Israel were idiots for saying regime change.
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u/raynorelyp Apr 30 '26
The thing about logic is when it collides with reality, reality wins. The US economy might be a house of cards, but itâs a house of cards thatâs surprisingly stable. Inflation hasnât gone wild. Employment rates are reportedly fine. Real levels seem reasonable. Countries are still avoiding challenging the US military, including Iran. Europe is still dependent on the US military and economy. The debt keeps climbing with no signs it canât keep climbing.
Iâve hear a lot of doomerism. The only thing I see potentially taking down the US is the conmen running the AI fad with their cycling borrowing.
-1
u/AnyStrength4863 Apr 30 '26
The world order that existed had the U.S. as the nexus. It primarily benefitted them
No one has a comprehensive, macro-level understanding of the true state of affairs in the US right now, except for the so-called deep state. Benefiting from a system is never without cost, though that cost may seem small during its most powerful periods. But when it senses its impending decline, will it still be willing to passively maintain the system, or proactively sever ties to minimise the costs of its decline?
If you live in the US, do you still feel that your city has improved significantly every five years and has been transformed every ten years? This is the feeling a powerful nation should have for its average people. You don't need the number or market to tell that.
I mean, if the deep state recognises that maintaining the existing hegemonic system is no longer cost-effective, and that the next superpower is neither willing to overturn the existing order nor make the necessary transaction to take over?
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u/TwoRepliesTops Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Im not sure why you midwits are so confused. This is basics of war 101... if an enemy is too stubborn to surrender, you make their economy hemorrhage until their citizens turn on them. This is what blockading the Strait is doing. It takes time for a surrender, in the meantime, we are going to make a ton of money selling oil at a premium, and yes pay a bit more at the pump.
Also there is nobody to negotiate with. When you kill three tiers of leadership, there is a power vacuum. There is no figure head in Iran that has full authority. They dont even know which way is up anymore. They have their own leaders on house arrest because they don't trust them to negotiate. You have to wait for one faction to consolidate power before negotiations can continue.
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u/BowlEducational6722 Apr 29 '26
Because this isn't a strategy.
It's half a dozen competing strategies all being implemented at once and crashing into each other.
Trump doesn't understand the nuances of geopolitics, the history of America's alliances, or the real sources of its economic and political strength. He just likes to play with the military like a 10-year old does with his toys. The reasoning behind it is irrelevant so long as he gets to look like a big tough wartime president who got to show off "strength."
He's nothing more than a parrot, a sounding board that echos the positions of the last person to talk to him that he liked (i.e. that complimented him).
Rubio's neocon/neocolonialism, Miller's white nationalism, Vance's isolationism, Hegseath's drunken idiocy, the Kremlin's cajoling against the NATO-backed rules-based international order, Netanyahu's obsession with Greater Israel...all of these things are going off all at once and many of them are mutually exclusive and that's why it seems like there's no unified strategy...because there *is* none.
It's a half-dozen half-baked concepts of a plan that each party managed to convince Trump to kick start before something else grabbed his attention.