Trump's Global Gunboat Diplomacy Leaves the U.S. Overstretched

Those hoping for a calmer new year have experienced a rude awakening in 2026. Rather than follow through on promises to centralize restraint and peace, President Donald Trump’s second term has largely reconstituted a form of 19^th century gunboat diplomacy, launching numerous military operations or threats of them around the globe. The next target could be Iran as Trump turns to a dangerous form of US military power that risks further overextending Washington’s capacities.

Strikes on Venezuela and Syria occurred in the new year. Trump has threatened additional strikes on Iran and Greenland – alongside Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia – just this month. This degree of militarism reflects Trump’s so-called “peace through strength” approach to foreign policy, in which the president utilizes massive and rapid force to achieve a stated policy objective.

Trump has opted to increase the U.S. military’s presence in the Middle East to counter Iran. Washington struck the Islamic Republic in June, a move which sparked an Iranian retaliation on a U.S. base in Qatar. Iranian officials have warned that any new strikes in support of the country’s latest protest movement would warrant a far worse exchange of fire, going beyond the clearly choreographed summer strikes.

That warning, alongside pleading from regional leaders to not strike Iran, is possibly why Trump has wavered on an attack. The bigger reason, however, is that U.S. officials almost certainly do not believe they have the proper assets in the region to deter a brutal Iranian response or defend U.S. troops and partner countries from that response – including and particularly Israel. The issue at play is clear: the United States lacks the military capacity to conduct overt and ongoing military operations at scale in every theater of the globe, having moved significant resources – including a carrier strike group – to the Caribbean for its Venezuela operations.

That another carrier strike group is redeploying from East Asia only creates a new and worse strategic gap in the name of adventurism well outside of true U.S. interests. The U.S. military in the Pacific operates in a theater that should be a higher focus for U.S. officials given China’s position as the only near-peer rival to U.S. power. Yet Iran hawks and Israeli leaders continue to advocate for U.S.-facilitated violent regime change in the Islamic Republic, pushing interests in Tel Aviv over the real interests of Washington and the American people.

Herein lies the fallacy of the global policeman role, in which the world’s strongest state must operate everywhere and always, especially for certain so-called “partners.” Even the world’s strongest military has limitations, and in this case, that goes beyond the absurd fiscal cost of overextension. Indeed, the issue is logistical – the United States cannot possibly deploy adequate resources to cover strategic gaps that conveniently exist in every corner of the globe. Even with a bloated budget of $1.5 trillion – which Trump has proposed granting the military next year – it cannot afford its current and supposedly inadequate spending in the first place.

Understanding this reality is paramount to a strategically wise and pragmatic foreign policy. The Trump administration does not need to deploy more military assets to the Middle East to illegally strike Iran in the name of a half-baked regime change “strategy” that will likely do little to change that regime. Washington does not owe Israel such a strategy, nor U.S. taxpayer funded defense for its poor choices – including bombing most of its neighbors with the understanding that Uncle Sam will always come to its rescue.

A sound grand strategy understands that the Pacific and the Western Hemisphere are real strategic priorities for the United States. It does not accept creating problems in these important arenas in the name of adventurism in other parts of the world, especially considering the long list of U.S. failures in places like the Middle East. To meet its interests where they truly count, U.S. officials should understand the risks of overextension, recognizing that Washington does not have the mandate, resources, or political capital to solve every global problem by military means. 

Alexander Langlois is a Contributing Fellow at Defense Priorities.