Kamal Ghorui
Trump’s second term starkly illustrates a rapidly intensifying imbalance, between consent and force in America’s hegemonic strategy. Historically, US favoured waging a patient struggle for hearts and minds, through soft power. Trump’s escalating military campaigns, however, exemplify coercion without restraint. But how far can Trump push such a coercive strategy, and what restraints, if any, remain on a president, who seems to have dismantled the guardrails of American liberal democracy?
Trump’s actions signal not just geopolitical adventurism, but a profoundly risky reconfiguration of US hegemony. One that may further alienate allies, erode domestic consent, and ignite counterhegemonic forces globally. Given Trump’s ego-driven persona, we should be prepared for wars to continue.
The ‘imminent threat’ argument | Trump’s illegal Iran offensive began with precision strikes on nuclear facilities, escalating to attacks on missile sites, and naval assets. While disputed by Trump, strikes also included an Iranian girls’ primary school, killing 165 children. Claiming to neutralise an unproven “imminent threat”, Trump has refused to rule out ground troops or regime change. However, Trump’s director of National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, resigned yesterday, saying he could not back the Iran war because the country posed no imminent threat to US. Trump, so far, has ignored this development. But this is part of a pattern in his second term, where he has ordered strikes in Somalia, Gaza (bolstering Israeli operations), Venezuela, and the Caribbean. He has also threatened to secure Greenland.
This represents a shift from post-World War II US hegemonic methods, built on consensual alliances, via institutions like Nato and UN, to a coercive unilateralism. The America First doctrine seeks to manufacture domestic consent for these manoeuvres, by portraying them as defensive necessities against ‘radical regimes’.
Yet, this is US hegemony in crisis: the liberal international order, once sustained by elite networks of foundations, think tanks, and organic intellectuals, is fracturing under Trump’s assault.
Big power games | How far can Trump take these wars? Hegemony endures through a careful balance of force and persuasion. Trump’s campaigns, however, could expand into full-scale regional conflagrations, drawing in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. In fact, Trump’s war strategy could extend far longer than rationally necessary, as he leverages the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), to bypass Congress, stretching executive power to authoritarian lengths.
A total war of destruction on Iran, however, profoundly threatens Russian and Chinese interests – disrupting Beijing’s discounted oil supplies, endangering shipping through Strait of Hormuz, and potentially drawing Moscow deeper into West Asia entanglements. Both countries have condemned the strikes as aggression, but offered only restrained diplomatic support to Tehran. Neither Russia nor China seeks direct confrontation with a US demonstrating overwhelming force.
Still, Trump, ever the dealmaker, may work to limit the conflict to degrade Iran’s capabilities, without triggering broader great-power involvement, which could embolden counter-hegemonic blocs, or complicate his transactional diplomacy with Xi and Putin.
Resisting counter-pressures | Yet, contradictions in Trump’s ‘art of the deal’ transactional approach, are mounting. Witness Trump’s flip-flops on allies, as well as on stated adversaries. After denouncing Starmer for rejecting military support for the war on Iran, he has requested allies, as well as China, to send warships to Strait of Hormuz, to protect shipping, as oil prices spike, and Trump’s approval ratings suffer.
Hence, restraints are mounting, driven by fissures within Trump’s own coalition. Even his MAGA base and its ideologues, wary of endless wars, are rejecting this military interventionism. Polls show Trump’s core supporters, who cheered America First as a pledge against Bush-era entanglements, now denounce the betrayals in Gaza, Venezuela, Greenland, and especially Iran. Influential voices like Tucker Carlson, and Vance surrogates, have publicly criticised escalations as draining resources from domestic priorities.
This portends challenges in midterms, where many Republican incumbents face primary threats from anti-interventionist challengers, and voter turnout dips amid disillusionment. This could possibly hand Democrats major Congressional gains later this year.
Force and political scarecrows | True, Trump’s coalition – corporate elites, populist nationalists, and military-industrial interests – will likely still challenge the neoliberal consensus, by using coercion where consent falters. Ultimately, Trump’s wars will extend as far as fractured consent allows. However, with MAGA defections, midterm perils, mass protests, and the spectre of great-power backlash, constraining escalation, Trump’s hegemony may crumble.
Even if Trump can mobilise a large part of his MAGA base through portrayals of Iran as an existential antagonist, elite cohesion is thinner than during earlier interventions. Internationally, the credibility gap is wider, and allies are less willing to fall in line.
The structural machinery for consensus still exists. Yet, its capacity is diminished. Fragmented institutions, polarised publics, and global scepticism limit how far any administration can go. It may simply be too late to recreate a US-led fully manufactured consensus of the old kind.
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