An appropriate description of President Donald Trump’s grand strategy has been widely debated. While it has been labeled anywhere from one of “reciprocity” to “illiberal hegemony,” his second term suggests a more volatile reality: “predatory hegemony.” Indeed, the strategy of the Trump administration seems to be one that seeks whatever it can extract from the international stage. Yet, it is fundamentally problematic. In his pursuit of such a strategy, Trump has compromised the American coercive capability in foreign policy through failing to consistently issue credible threats and assurances: Washington is now viewed by both allies and adversaries alike as too unreliable to deal with. More consequently, to be a poor coercer is to instead rely on costly action and brute force—making every deal harder, every crisis riskier, and every goal more expensive to achieve.
Two grand strategies dominated most of post-war foreign policy thought in the United States. The first is one of liberal hegemony, or “leaning forward”: to use America’s international dominance to promote and preserve the liberal international order. The second is one of restraint, or “leaning back”: to limit military intervention and overseas commitments in a bid to focus on securing domestic security interests. Neither approach adequately describes Trump’s foreign policy. Although his National Security Strategy echoes the rhetoric of a restrainer, his actions lean forward—admittedly not to protect liberal values, but rather to coerce allies and adversaries alike. He has conducted an intervention in Venezuela, launched strikes in Iran and Nigeria, mused about annexing Greenland, toyed with the notion of making Canada the 51st state, and so on.
It is not surprising, then, that political scientist Stephen Walt describes the second Trump administration as deploying a grand strategy of predatory hegemony: to “lean forward,” but instead to exploit and extract whatever one can from both partners and rivals. Foreign policy decisions are thus calculated from a zero-sum standpoint. Trump has reneged on agreements set by both himself and his predecessors, levied tariffs against adversaries and allies alike, and even rewarded those who flatter and benefit him personally. Long-term strategic interests frequently fail to enter his political calculus.
That said, there is some strategic logic in Trump’s approach to foreign policy. Behaving like a “predatory hegemon” makes the United States “predictably unpredictable.” While such a strategy may be far from what one conventionally considers to be rational and far-sighted planning, it can bolster the credibility of threats when deployed correctly. Coined and adopted by former President Richard Nixon, the madman theory suggests that concessions can be gained by acting in a volatile manner. And this has grounding: Economist Thomas Schelling argued that the belief that one is not fully rational may aid in deterring adversaries; military theorist Herman Kahn once suggested that opponents may yield to a seemingly irrational and unstable nuclear-armed leader simply out of fear of being annihilated. One need not look far to see that Trump deploys such tactics: In fact, he himself once issued the following statement on striking Iranian nuclear sites, saying “I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.”
But to be entirely “mad” is misguided. Without a correspondingly credible assurance, it is unlikely that states would yield to arm-twisting. As political scientist Reid Pauly argues in The Art of Coercion, the credibility of threats and assurances are two key components in determining coercion outcomes. Both must be addressed for coercive success. If a threat to do X is insufficiently convincing, the target has no incentive to comply; they will defy the coercer’s demands, for the threat X is not credible. If the target believes punishment is not contingent on their behavior and will occur regardless of compliance, they will be more likely to defy the coercer’s demands anyway, for the assurance is not credible. In this case, after all, they are “damned if they do, damned if they don’t.”
Trump has created that very quandary for both American allies and adversaries alike. For starters, he pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—also known as the Iran nuclear deal. Notably, this deal was originally a product of successful coercion; sanctions were first imposed but subsequently lifted, after Iran complied with demands to restrict their nuclear development. It is unsurprising, then, that Iran refused to comply with the second round of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, despite them being more stringent and punitive. Furthermore, between 2018 and 2019, the United States applied harsh sanctions and military threats to pressure North Korea into de-nuclearizing. But during negotiations, Trump threatened to deploy the “Libya model,” in which punishment could happen even if Pyongyang complied. That is far from the ironclad promise of a credible assurance needed for effective coercion.
Not only does predatory hegemony abandon consistently credible assurances, but it also abandons consistently credible threats. It seems Trump backtracks when the threat is too costly to carry out. In 2017, he threatened Pyongyang with “fire and fury” lest the nuclear program be stopped. When North Korea continued testing, the threat swiftly evaporated into talks (which, as suggested earlier, led to no concrete outcomes). Earlier this year, Trump delivered a 48-hour ultimatum to Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran called the bluff and threatened “unlimited retaliation” against desalination plants and energy grids. Washington did not carry out its threat. As Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Affairs argues, Trump, in fact, rarely follows through on threats. In a sample across 22 occasions in threatening force, he has only followed through on two of these: He resembles a “playground bully” that “while outwardly powerful…fears the use of force in any situation even vaguely resembling a fair fight.”
The lack of credible threats and assurances fits neatly into the framework of predatory hegemony. As Walt suggests, Thucydides’ statement of “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” captures the essence of such a grand strategy. That serves as a satisfying explanation: Trump backtracks on threats when he deems it too expensive to follow through, and opportunistically backtracks on promises to extract more from those he views as unable to resist. Effective coercion requires both credible threats and credible assurances. Predatory hegemony can issue neither.
If the United States cannot coerce, so what? After all, it remains dominant on the international stage. Why not simply just take what it wants? First, brute force is expensive relative to coercion. Indeed, it requires both outsized and prolonged military expenditure—all for the mere possibility of achieving the same goals. For as long as the target can resist, brute force has to be continuously exercised, thus making coercion more efficient. Moreover, there are real, unenviable consequences to poor coercion. For example, during the lead-up to the Pacific War in 1941, the United States created dangerous uncertainty. President Franklin Roosevelt aimed to “slip a noose around Japan’s neck, and give it a jerk now and then” in the form of escalating and uncertain oil sanctions, placing Tokyo in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. Coercive assurance was also consistently undermined despite Tokyo’s demonstrations of its willingness to make concessions. The attack on Pearl Harbor that subsequently followed should thus be unsurprising; for Tokyo, it represented nothing more than a desperate but necessary operation that it was forced to undertake. A similar—though not identical—parallel can be observed in Trump’s handling of Iran. Indeed, coercive assurance was again undermined: Despite Iranian concessions (in the form of the JCPOA), the United States has demonstrated a lack of commitment to keeping the noose off Iran’s neck by reneging on the deal. Tehran’s defiance, therefore, should be similarly unsurprising as Tokyo’s was 80 years ago. Unless Trump wishes to court disaster, he needs to learn the art of coercion. Such an ability is not one that leaders can brush off the table with hand-waving.
As Pauly states, “the United States predates at will. So why should any weaker state ever be so naive as to strike a coercive bargain?” Broken promises need not happen to every state: Countries have a plethora of examples to look to as to why one cannot take the Trump administration’s word as gospel. Allies and adversaries alike will be hesitant to trust Washington once again. And, to consistently backtrack on threats deemed as too “risky” will only discredit future ones. Either way, reputational costs are incurred over time. As credibility breaks down, so too does countries’ willingness to negotiate. The irony in predatory hegemony is that, in seeking to extract maximum value from every interaction, it destroys the conditions that would have made coercive extraction possible in the first place. This strategy, in other words, devours itself.