The Cold War deterrent is being replaced
A tenet of the Cold War was the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD. This constrained Americans and Russians alike, with both sides maintaining relative peace until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Trump’s version of MAD is “hard power”: cross America and you will be destroyed. This could be a potent deterrent, but deterrence only works when the rules are clear, and under Trump, they are not. The ad hoc application of hard power offers no assurance to friend or foe, signalling that the era of the rules-based international order, and the American security guarantee, may be over.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the European democracies cut back on military expenditure. Instead, we talked about shared values and the rules-based order. However, that talk did not deter Russian aggression in Ukraine. It is therefore difficult to argue with the assertion by War Secretary Pete Hegseth that “We can talk all we want about values… but you can’t shoot values… There is no replacement for hard power”. American hard power under Trump has come in the form of bombing the Houthis after they attacked shipping, sinking drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean, and the removal of President Maduro in Venezuela.
What are the limits of hard power? It is no reassurance to hear Trump say the following, in a recent interview with the New York Times: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me”. While “hard power” is a deterrent, it is negated by the lack of clarity over how it is applied. Instead of the doctrine of MAD, we now have the doctrine of what the Joint Chiefs Chairman, General Caine, calls ‘F-A-F-O’. As he says, without adding any clarity, “If necessary, our troops can translate that for you”. A quick Google search might be safer. In any case, foreign policy made up on the hoof, or by “jarheads”, makes confrontation more likely, not less.
The attack on Iran exemplified this unconstrained approach: it was undertaken during diplomatic talks, with minimal allied consultation, no congressional approval, and opaque goals. The hubris from success in Venezuela has led to the lessons of earlier debacles in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Lebanon, and Vietnam being ignored.
While Iran’s neighbours may not have mourned its government, many Middle Eastern countries are privately alarmed by a war that has made them targets. The Middle East may rally behind America for now, but some allies may decide that a closer relationship with China is less combustible.
America’s NATO allies now face higher fuel prices and tariffs, all after Trump threatened to invade Greenland and trolled their leaders. This environment has spurred greater defence spending, but many NATO countries are looking for ways to reduce their reliance on a perfidious America. President Macron recently spoke pointedly of “alliances facing headwinds” and outlined a new nuclear doctrine of “forward deterrence”, extending France’s nuclear umbrella across Europe in cooperation with Germany and several other countries, outside the control of US-led NATO.
In 2020, fighting broke out between India and China, and it appeared as though India would be pushed into the Western orbit. However, that prospect faded with Trump’s punitive tariff policy. Allegedly, Trump punished India with higher tariffs for not supporting his bid for the Nobel Peace Prize. Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, countries that look to the US for support, were all alienated by Trump’s tariff policy and the minimal support offered in the face of local Chinese pressures.
The beneficiary of the Iran war is Russia. Russia has had sanctions relaxed and is obtaining higher prices for its oil, sustaining its war in Ukraine. Another winner is China, which has emerged as the champion of the rules-based order, leveraging its Belt and Road Initiative and growing trade dominance. Unsurprisingly, European leaders like Prime Minister Starmer and Chancellor Merz have made recent visits to Beijing to hedge their bets.
Outside Iran, greater uncertainty in international relations will be accompanied by hard domestic choices. Increased defence spending will be financed by a combination of taxation, spending cuts and higher borrowing. For now, the war remains on distant shores in the eyes of our domestic electorate, something that could add to the anger at an establishment that is already vulnerable. We can hope that future US administrations act in a less arbitrary manner, but it would be folly to expect a return to the old status quo. Prudence demands that we prepare for more surprises at home and abroad.
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