THE TRUMP DOCTRINE?
- Paul Hansbury
- Jun 25
- 5 min read
After the US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities on early Sunday morning, US Vice President JD Vance outlined what he called 'the Trump doctrine'. In his words: 'Number one, you articulate a clear American interest [...], in this case that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. Number two, you try to aggressively diplomatically solve that problem. And number three, when you can't solve it diplomatically, you use overwhelming military power to solve it and then you get the hell out of there before it ever becomes a protracted conflict.'
It sounds ingenious. Why has no one thought of it before? Except, of course, they have. The military part is 'shock and awe' with a rapid exit strategy. It is what political leaders and military planners often envisage happening, before finding themselves quickly mired down in a protracted conflict.
Military operations seldom play out as planned on paper. The US toppled the Taliban government in Afghanistan within weeks in 2001, only for the war to endure for many years thereafter. In 2022 Russia's Vladimir Putin almost certainly thought Kyiv would fall in a few days – but three years on and war still rages in Ukraine.
The needle and the damage (not) done
On Sunday, Trump administration officials crowed to the media about the 'spectacular military success' of Operation Midnight Hammer. They employed much Trumpian hyperbole. In fairness, America's B-2 stealth bombers appear to have crossed undetected into Iran's airspace and images show that the strikes were precise. Among the 75 weapons used in the attack, a dozen GBU-57 'bunker buster' bombs were dropped in what was their first use in combat (see previous blog). The execution of the operation was impressive.
Listening to more authoritative voices, however, raised questions about what had been achieved. Whereas Trump spoke of Iran's nuclear programme being 'completely obliterated', the chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff was more measured. He spoke of 'extremely severe damage' to the targets and noted that proper assessments would require time. As mentioned in my last blog, there was never certainty that the GBU-57 bombs would penetrate deep enough to destroy Iran's underground facilities and equipment.
