Allies prepare to move on as Trump’s blockade cements US decline as superpower

(Originally published Apr. 16 in “What in the World“) Trump’s blockade is backfiring.

Rather than back Iran into submission, blockading the Strait of Hormuz is only entrenching American entanglement, enforcing an operation that has already enlisted more than 15 U.S. warships, as well as helicopters, jet fighters, and thousands of troops. The U.S. now has more military assets in the region than at any point since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. More are on the way: the Navy is moving two of its last four old Avenger-class, wooden-hulled minesweepers—the USS Chief and the USS Pioneer—from Japan to the Middle East to join its three newer, Bahrain-based minesweepers, the USS Tulsa (last spotted in Malaysia), the USS Santa Barbara (last spotted in Singapore), and the USS Canberra (last spotted in India).

And instead of catalyzing the fall of Iran’s hardline regime, the blockade is reinforcing Tehran’s sense of having triumphed against the Great Satan. The initial goal was to remove senior leadership and enable a more pliant government to take over. Instead, hardliners have consolidated power.

While Trump flails in the Gulf, America’s allies are being forced to regroup without the U.S. Europe’s frustration with Trump is accelerating its own rearmament. Plans are emerging for a postwar coalition to secure shipping through Hormuz that may exclude the U.S. The discussions are just one element in a wider effort to create a more autonomous European defense alliance—a kind of “European NATO.” Europe’s only TNT factory, in Poland, is expanding production and a Swedish company is building the first TNT plant there since the Cold War ended.

Meanwhile, the new Cold War that led to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues its expansion into space. Defense contractors are accelerating investment in satellites that can be maneuvered remotely for combat. The U.S. Space Force projects blasting almost 23,000 more satellites into orbit by 2040, with satellites not only able to track objects on Earth, but also space-based missile interceptors.