In today’s post I’m going to pick up where I left off yesterday to bring context as to how we got to this point with the Iranian regime.

Controversy is always attendant to military engagement and the current war with Iran is no exception.  However, there is a pattern in American foreign policy that most people, especially younger generations don’t fully grasp.

From the end of the Cold War until today, with two exceptions the United States has adhered to a remarkably consistent playbook – isolate your primary rival, apply sustained pressure, and force it into choices it can neither accommodate nor afford.

After the Second World War in order to outmaneuver Moscow and shape the geopolitical environment to Washington’s advantage American policymakers began to build a global framework to block Soviet expansion.   A strategy that came to be known ‘containment.’  Here’s how it worked.

The United States constructed a network of alliances anchored by NATO in Europe and SEATO in Asia to form a strategic perimeter around the Soviet bloc.  Military cooperation, economic partnerships, and diplomatic ties worked together to limit Soviet expansion.

Then in 1972 Richard Nixon exploited one of the Kremlin’s greatest vulnerabilities- its then uneasy relationship with China.  His rapprochement with Beijing began driving a wedge between the two communist powers and ensuring there would be no unified communist front – an action that fundamentally shifted the East/West balance of power.

Later in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II  joined together and applied what might best be described as sustained competitive pressure.  Reagan rebuilt the American military and challenged Soviet legitimacy, Thatcher reinforced Western resolve on the continent, and Pope John Paul II undermined the moral authority of communism in Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland.

Reagan’s military buildup forced the Soviets into a competition that pushed their system beyond its limits, and by the mid-1980s, the USSR was devoting an unsustainable share of its GDP to defense.  Its economy stagnated, and its system collapsed despite Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika.

~ Present Day ~

Today we are witnessing a modern version of that strategy, but with a different adversary—China.  And make no mistake, every action Donald Trump takes in the geopolitical arena is focused on China.

But concentrating on China didn’t originate with Trump.  In different ways, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all operated within the same strategic framework—using different tools but pursuing similar objectives. 

However, there were exceptions.  Barack Obama placed a greater emphasis on engagement and multilateralism—approaches that assumed cooperation would moderate adversarial behavior, while the Biden administration engaged in policies that lacked any semblance of strategic cohesion.  And both allowed China to expand its economic and geopolitical reach.

Then came Trump, who views the world through an economic lens and leans heavily on leverage.  Save for Operation Midnight Hammer and currently Epic Fury, his tariffs are the most visible piece of that strategy.  His tariffs are really about reshaping supply chains, reducing dependence on Chinese manufacturing, and forcing a reordering of global trade to disadvantage Beijing.

The president doesn’t confront China head-on.  Instead, he applies pressure on countries that have supported its rise.  Venezuela, for example, has long served as both an energy asset and a geopolitical foothold for Beijing.  Removing Maduro didn’t just target Caracas—it constrained a Chinese-aligned node in our hemisphere.  That same strategy is currently at work regarding Cuba.  This is ‘containment’ updated for the 21st century—focused not on ideology, but on supply chains, energy, and strategic geography.

Energy has become the central lever of geopolitical competition.  Expanding U.S. production while constraining China’s access to global energy supplies—and reducing the revenue streams that sustain partners like Russia and Iran—are all part of the same strategic equation.

Meanwhile, the Abraham Accords aren’t just about the normalization of relations between the Arab states and Israel to counter Iranian influence.  They’re about building a regional alignment that tilts toward the United States and away from China.

~ Two things can be true at the same time ~

Eliminating Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities while absolutely critical to our national security goes beyond Tehran—it also disrupts a key link in the chain connecting the Middle East to Beijing’s long-term energy security.  Each of these strategic moves reinforces the same objective: limit China’s ability to convert economic power into geopolitical dominance.

There are, however, important differences between the Cold War and today’s geopolitical struggle.  During the Cold War the Soviet Union was largely isolated from the global economy, whereas today, China is deeply embedded in it—making this strategy eminently more complex and disruptive.  Decoupling supply chains and reshaping global energy flows comes at a cost to every nation, including our own, something the entire world is now feeling.

So, the question isn’t whether this strategy is disruptive—it is.  The question is whether failing to act would be even more dangerous.  And nowhere is that question more immediate than Iran.

To be continued…