Negotiations continue in Geneva, at least for now. However, the magnitude of the US buildup in the Middle East – the largest since the 2003 invasion of Iraq – certainly makes it appear that President Donald Trump is preparing for a war with Iran.
However, what we are seeing is not necessarily what we will get.
And that’s not just because Trump has been weighing a variety of options, diplomatic and military; nor because of his top general’s words of caution about the possible dangers and difficulties in a full-scale war.
Why do we write this?
President Donald Trump has rewritten how the United States uses its military power. The new strategy may help explain its approach toward Iran as the United States increases its firepower in the Middle East.
It is due to President Trump’s fundamentally redesigned vision of US military power: his dramatic break with his predecessors over how to wield that power and what it is for.
While his often bellicose rhetoric might seem to point toward all-out war, a deeper look at this “Trump Doctrine” and how it has been implemented since he returned to the White House a year ago suggests a more complex picture.
Yes, an all-out war could still occur.
But if it does, it is more likely to be due to miscalculation than intention: the result of a mismanaged or unmanageable spiral of escalation between the United States and Iran, rather than a deliberate choice by Trump.
The belligerent tone has been unmistakable. Trump has praised US military power. The name of the Department of Defense has been changed to the “War Department.” His Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has stressed the need for an “ethical warrior” in the US military.
Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ridge Leoni/US Navy/AP
Trump especially delights in celebrating the most powerful and cutting-edge weapons in the U.S. arsenal: the bunker-busting munitions dropped by U.S. warplanes against Iran’s nuclear facilities last June, or the electronic countermeasures that helped special forces arrest and kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last month.
But that has been part of a political message that he clearly sees as a key function of American military power. He has used it to emphasize his insistence that the world today belongs to those nations that, to use his favorite phrase, have more “cards to play.”
And that militarily no one has more aces than the United States.
Still, despite their strongly worded messages after the bunker attacks and Maduro — and the large-scale buildup of forces beforehand — both were deliberately limited.
They were short, sharp operations with a finite objective.
And even as tensions between the United States and Iran rose in recent weeks, the administration offered timely insight into why that more limited model could appeal to Trump if he opts for force.
The idea emerged in the quadrennial US National Defense Strategy (NDS), released late last month by Secretary Hegseth.
He pledged to “restore” a “warrior ethic.” He said the military’s “fundamental and irreplaceable goal” would be to win wars “decisively.”
But the document also outlines what kind of wars it envisions, implying a strong reluctance to risk a full-scale conflict with Iran in favor of the more limited type of attack mounted last summer.
And despite Trump’s social media posts expressing sympathy for anti-government protesters or reflecting on the overthrow of Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he was explicit in rejecting such politically motivated military operations.
The NDS almost scornfully dismissed previous presidents’ attempts to “build a great nation” and their advocacy of “cloud castle abstractions like the rules-based international order.”
“The Department will no longer be distracted by interventionism, endless war, regime change, and nation-building,” the document states.
It remains to be seen how Trump applies that lens to decide when and whether to use force against Iran.
The NDS survey of security concerns portrayed Iran as a continuing concern, highlighting its conventional weapons, its apparent determination to keep open the possibility of reviving its nuclear weapons program, and its ties to proxy forces such as Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
However, the NDS deliberately omitted any reference to the regime’s human rights abuses or its brutal crackdown on protesters.
The NDS also cited the proven willingness and ability of “model ally” Israel to defend itself, with “critical but limited support from the United States.”
And he praised the success of last year’s joint attack on Iran, which culminated in the US airstrike on bunker-protected nuclear sites, even repeating Trump’s claim at the time that they had “destroyed Iran’s nuclear program.”
However, perhaps the most relevant guidance that the NDS offers is found in its final section.
In it, Hegseth describes the United States’ prowess in making and winning wars as a way to achieve “peace” terms that secure the “reasonably conceived interests” of the United States and its allies. He adds, in a formula that will likely be tested in the latest Geneva talks with Iranian officials this week, that such terms should be compatible with “the interests of our potential opponents, Yeah They keep their demands reasonable and discreet.”
But? Then, the U.S. military “will be ready to fight and win the nation’s wars.”
Even so, the NDS adds an important addition: not just any war.
They only qualify “necessary wars,” “in ways that make sense to Americans.”
That may be the critical test President Trump applies as he decides what to do with the enormous arsenal of American firepower now concentrated at Iran’s doorstep.
