Trump runs up against the fine line between military bluster and boots on the ground

(Originally published Feb. 24 in “What in the World“) For all its sophistication, American foreign policy has long relied on good, old-fashion bullying. But as Trump is finding out, bullies can be taken by surprise.

Trump has been using American military muscle to try to intimidate other countries into acquiescing to his demands. When that failed in Venezuela, he abducted its leader with a surgical strike that demonstrated the supremacy of the U.S. military over a middling South American dictatorship.

But Trump is finding out that military threats only go so far. When they pose what their target perceives as an existential threat, they can provoke a dangerous response, like the proverbial cornered animal. So it is that Trump’s negotiators are reportedly mystified why Iran’s leaders won’t submit to his demands to surrender their nuclear enrichment and ballistic missiles programs or face a U.S. attack aimed at deposing them.

What nation, confronted by the mightiest military power in history, would decide to stand up and fight? University of Tehran political scientist Sasan Karimi explained it to The New York Times this way: “Avoiding war is indeed a high priority, but not at any cost… At times, a political state — especially an ideological one — may weigh its place in history as heavily as, or even more heavily than, its immediate survival.”

Trump isn’t the first American president to make this mistake—not by a long shot. Former President Joe Biden thought mistakenly that his own threats and bluster could dissuade Russia from invading Ukraine in 2022. He was tragically wrong, and instead helped fuel the very paranoia that convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade. Combined with Trump’s retreat from the trans-Atlantic alliance, the result is that Europe faces a long and tense confrontation with Russia that could very easily ignite into full-fledged war.

But that’s Russia: a nuclear power whose military might is second only to America’s. Poking the bear was always bound to provoke it. But smaller nations with more to lose have stood up to U.S. bullying, too, even if doing so meant almost certain defeat. North Vietnam comes to mind. North Korea before it. Cuba. Grenada. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. Panama’s Manuel Noriega. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Serbia. Afghanistan’s Taliban.

And now, and not for the first time, Iran. Trump’s top generals are now warning him that attacking might not be as easy as the operation to abduct Nicolás Maduro from Caracas.

This failure to identify when its threats pose an existential challenge has become a consistent flaw in U.S. policymaking. Maybe it derives from having spent so much time as a virtually unrivaled superpower since the fall of the Soviet Union 35 years ago. Or maybe it’s because the U.S. mainland hasn’t been invaded by foreign troops since 1812. The absence of any existential threat to the U.S. makes it difficult for policymakers in Washington to understand the psychology of responding to existential threats made against their own adversaries.

This isn’t just about lacking the empathy to understand your opponents’ limits. It’s about then over-committing to foreign policies in which the stakes are asymmetric—when you have much less to lose than your opponent. This is a point the late statesman (and war criminal) Henry Kissinger often made. Biden made that mistake in Ukraine: failing to recognize that Ukraine was of little strategic importance to the U.S., but of vital strategic importance to Russia. Putin recognizes this and knows thus that ultimately the U.S.—no matter who sits in the White House—won’t go to the mat for Ukraine.

Will Trump go to the mat to de-fang Iran and protect Israel and its neighbors? Probably not. As he did last year, he’s more likely to settle for air strikes that offer a show of force but ultimately fail to provide the boots-on-the-ground ultimately necessary to dislodge the regime. In the latest sign that Trump is about to launch the attack, the U.S. evacuated non-essential staff from its embassy in Beirut.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, plans to accelerate spending of the $152 billion Congress handed it in the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” passed last July. While the money, which is on TOP of the $901 billion annual defense budget approved last December in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), is approved for spending over a five-year period. But the Pentagon isn’t going to wait around with this extra cash burning a whole in its fatigues. Here’s where it’s going to splurge on new firewpower:

$400 million for 90 Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM) (Lockheed Martin / BAE Systems)

$490 million for 245 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM-ER) (Lockheed Martin)

$250 million boost for Tomahawk cruise missiles (800 per year) (Raytheon / BAE Systems)

$1 billion for One-way attack drones (Drone Dominance Program) (Anduril / Teal / Kratos)

$200 million for MK-72 and MK-104 Solid Rocket Motors (SRMs) (L3Harris)

$133 million for Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) (Lockheed Martin)

$133 million for Multi-Mission Affordable Capacity Effector (MACE) (General Atomics / Anduril)

$134 million for Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) (Dynetics)

$24.4 billion total for Golden Dome missile defense initiative (Raytheon / Lockheed Martin)

$2 billion for Ground-based missile defense radars (Northrop Grumman / Raytheon)

$800 million for Next-generation ICBM defense systems (Lockheed Martin / Northrop Grumman)

$7.2 billion for Space-based sensors (SpaceX / L3Harris)

$2 billion for Airborne target detection sensors (Raytheon / Northrop Grumman)

$750 million for F/A-XX fighter milestone decision (Boeing / Lockheed Martin)

$3.1 billion for Lot 7/8 F-15EX aircraft requirements (Boeing / BAE Systems)

$187 million for Viper Electronic Warfare Suites (IVEWS) (Northrop Grumman)

$440 million for 2 C-130J/KC-130J and 2 EC-130J conversions (Lockheed Martin)

$474 million for 10 EA-37B Compass Call aircraft (L3Harris / Gulfstream / BAE Systems)

$2.5 billion for Sentinel ICBM development and supply chain (Northrop Grumman)

$210 million for 6 MH-139 helicopters (Boeing / Leonardo)

$4.6 billion for 1 Virginia-class submarine (General Dynamics / HII / BAE Systems)

$5.4 billion for 2 Guided-missile destroyers (General Dynamics / HII / BAE Systems)

$2.7 billion for 3 T-AO fleet replenishment oilers (General Dynamics)

$1.5 billion for 4 Amphibious warships (LPD/LHA) (HII)

$1.5 billion for Small Unmanned Surface Vessels (SUSV) (Saronic / BlackSea)

$2.1 billion for Medium Unmanned Surface Vessels (MUSV) (Textron / Leidos)

$1.3 billion for Dragonfish LDUUV and other undersea projects (Sea Machines / Northrop Grumman)