The Trump Doctrine

The U.S. attack on Venezuela, much like its attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities last summer, was an operational masterstroke that undermines China, Russia, and Iran.  It may undermine deterrence.  America’s adversary’s may conclude that the Trump Doctrine, which has now been employed twice, means the U.S. acts with decision only when the United States faces a sufficiently vulnerable enemy, and only if it can fulfill specific operational criteria.  China, in particular, may assume it can simply present too thorny a target for American power to crack.  The solution is for the Trump administration to move beyond tailored strikes, and to wage a large-scale effort against America’s enemies through economic, intelligence, and alliance means.

Indeed, Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE was remarkably similar to Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER, the U.S. strike on Iran’s Fordow nuclear complex.  In each case, the U.S. employed the full spectrum of intelligence capabilities to identify the target.  In each case, the U.S. used an asset without peer – its B-2 stealth bombers delivering Massive Ordnance Penetrators against Iran, Delta Force operators against Venezuela – with the support of perfectly synchronized conventional, electromagnetic, and cyber capabilities.

Crucially, in each case, the target identified was a highly specific operational one – albeit with strategic implications – not a truly strategic target in itself.  The Islamic Republic has been significantly wounded, principally through Israeli airstrikes and intelligence operations.  Its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza are badly degraded or destroyed.  Moreover, MIDNIGHT HAMMER badly damaged the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, embarrassed Russia and China, and more broadly undermined a vexing long-term U.S. adversary.  But the Islamic Republic still exists.  It still retains a significant ballistic missile production capacity.  It still supports Russia’s war effort in Ukraine and sells oil to China.  It likely still supported Venezuela’s Maduro.  Israel may solve the Iran problem this year through renewed airstrikes and assassinations that, combined with popular unrest, could throttle the theocracy in Tehran.  Yet its window remains relatively narrow, with elections impending by the autumn, and a reconsolidation of its offensive striking power.

Brining Maduro to justice similarly damages Russian and Chinese interests.  It demonstrates Russia’s inability to protect its partners – after all, Venezuela is a key Russian military and intelligence ally, with Russia providing Caracas significant counterintelligence support.  It also undermines China, with valuable Venezuelan crude now potentially under U.S. control, and Chinese infrastructure investments now vulnerable to U.S. pressure.  In turn, Cuba becomes much more vulnerable: the communist regime in Havana, another hostile whose partners include Russia and China, is at risk of collapse without Venezuelan discounted oil.

However, as it stands, the Trump administration has decided not to support a serious transition in Venezuela that ensures the United States maintains enduring strategic advantage.  Instead, backed by CIA analysis – rather than operations – the White House is inclined to work with Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s vice president who is equally enmeshed in narcotrafficking and illegal oil exports, remains a committed Chavista, and has long-standing partnerships with China, Russia, and Iran.  Delcy will maintain the narco-infrastructure that has made Venezuela a persistent strategic problem for the United States and by extension provided Russia, China, and Iran invaluable access into the Western Hemisphere, at best making cosmetic concessions to U.S. oil companies.  A more durable approach would actually demand a transition in power, using the enormous U.S. military contractor community to mitigate downside risks.

The greatest strategic problem the U.S. faces in the next decade is Chinese expansionism.  Chinese Maximum Leader Xi Jinping remains committed to absorbing Taiwan, a move that would shift the western Pacific balance of power in Beijing’s favor.  It would prime China for even greater expansion, placing U.S. interests at risk between the First Island Chain and Guam, in time menacing Hawaii and allowing China to access the Western Hemisphere.  Using force against Venezuela and Iran have surely given Xi and his coterie pause.  If the U.S. is willing to use force against these targets, then perhaps Washington would execute a similarly aggressive strategy against China as hostilities over Taiwan intensified.

However, there is a serious risk that, by year-end, they draw the opposite conclusion: that the U.S. only uses force when faced with a vulnerable target.

The solution is not simply or exclusively to engage in a military buildup, although a larger defense budget – principally to fund air, naval, and space forces – is crucial to maintain U.S. military power over the next half-decade.  It is instead to apply the significant heft of American power against other targets.  Three steps are crucial.

First, the Trump administration can impose meaningful sanctions on Russian and Iranian illicit oil smuggling.  This would slash both regimes’ bottom lines and give U.S. domestic producers. The administration can build off the momentum of its intelligence success in Venezuela, giving the CIA and intelligence community more broadly authorization to execute covert action against Russian and Chinese affiliates, whether in Africa, Southeast Asia, or the Middle East.  Third, the U.S. can back allies – like Israel – to solve long-term strategic problems, endorsing actions like renewed Israeli strikes on Iran.

The balance in great power competition is measured not only in its contestants’ strength, but because the accompanying and often derivative effects—international influence, economic pre-eminence, technological innovation—succor a global climate that is either friendly or hostile to differing and opposing political ends: China and Russia exemplify the latter. A Trump doctrine that aims at nullifying the most dangerous threats to U.S. security would help accomplish this.

Seth Cropsey is president of Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy Undersecretary of the Navy and is the author of Mayday and Seablindness.