Commenting on U.S. President Donald Trump’s successful brokering of a cease-fire between Israel and Iran on June 24, a Ukrainian pundit observed: “Donald Trump has demonstrated to Donald Trump how to negotiate an end to a conflict from a position of strength.” But does Trump’s Middle East success suggest a more fundamental new approach—perhaps an emerging doctrine—for his conduct of foreign and security policy going forward?
Given that Trump’s foreign-policy views are often instinctive, situational, transactional, and unpredictable, the idea of his administration pursuing a consistent doctrine may seem far-fetched. Yet above all, Trump values success, and his experience intervening in the Middle East could give momentum to a more muscular foreign policy in the coming months.
Commenting on U.S. President Donald Trump’s successful brokering of a cease-fire between Israel and Iran on June 24, a Ukrainian pundit observed: “Donald Trump has demonstrated to Donald Trump how to negotiate an end to a conflict from a position of strength.” But does Trump’s Middle East success suggest a more fundamental new approach—perhaps an emerging doctrine—for his conduct of foreign and security policy going forward?
Given that Trump’s foreign-policy views are often instinctive, situational, transactional, and unpredictable, the idea of his administration pursuing a consistent doctrine may seem far-fetched. Yet above all, Trump values success, and his experience intervening in the Middle East could give momentum to a more muscular foreign policy in the coming months.
In three successive presidential campaigns, Trump tried to straddle the wide gulf in his electoral coalition between traditional national security conservatives and MAGA isolationists by supporting significant increases in defense spending while emphasizing his reluctance to use force that might entangle Washington in “forever wars.” The Reagan-era slogan “peace through strength” was Trump’s means of keeping both parts of his coalition contented. In the Middle East, geopolitical realities may have led him to conclude that peace does not always come from strength alone, but from the strategic application of that strength.
Indeed, Trump’s recent actions in Iran and support for NATO at the bloc’s recent summit in The Hague dispel the notion that the United States has entered an isolationist phase. Instead, they point to the contours of a new foreign and security policy with ramifications that go far beyond the Middle East.
Addressing a Republican audience on June 25 in Lima, Ohio, Vice President J.D. Vance took a stab at defining what might be called the Trump doctrine: “Number one, you articulate a clear American interest, and that’s, in this case, that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. Number two, you try to aggressively diplomatically solve that problem. And number three, when you can’t solve it diplomatically, you use overwhelming military power to solve it, and then you get the hell out of there before it ever becomes a protracted conflict.”
Vance’s narrow description of Trump’s actions in Iran deserves a broader interpretation. Indeed, the administration’s approach to Iran may be a harbinger of an evolving doctrine for the limited use of U.S. power to assist vulnerable allies at a crucial tipping point of a strategically important conflict. This doctrine also underscores the United States’ readiness to help those countries that, like Israel, are seriously committed carrying the main burden of their own defense.
This approach was on full display at the NATO summit in The Hague last week. There, an upbeat Trump, basking in the success of the Iran mission, signaled robust support for NATO in the context of its members’ commitment to major increases in defense spending. Against all expectations, Washington endorsed an alliance statement recognizing the looming Russian security threat to Europe and confirming NATO members’ ongoing commitment to assist Ukraine in its effort to resist Russian aggression.
There are four reasons to believe that Trump’s intervention in the Middle East could lead the administration toward a new approach to the Russia-Ukraine war.
First, nothing succeeds like demonstrable success. And the initial success—in creating space for a cease-fire agreement—of Trump’s decision to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities convincingly demonstrates that conflicts involving an aggressive and brutal tyranny cannot be resolved solely by an appeal to reason, comity, or commercial interests, but require the exertion of intense U.S. pressure and power.
Second, Trump’s attack on Iran has deflated the arguments of semi-isolationist voices inside the administration, including Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. These are now shifting to Trump’s embrace of a more activist U.S. posture. He has also sidelined isolationists in the MAGA sphere, such as U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, media personality Tucker Carlson, far-right ideologue Steve Bannon, and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (who has pushed back against the label but nonetheless opposed aid to Ukraine). Most of these have either outright opposed NATO and Ukraine or been lukewarm in their support.
Third, as recent polling by the Ronald Reagan Institute clearly shows, the emerging Trump doctrine aligns with the views of his base. Most Republican voters do not reject U.S. engagement in the world. They understand the threats posed by China, Iran, and Russia. Moreover, many Republican voters deeply respect martial courage and admire Ukrainians and Israelis for their commitment to their own self-defense. What Trump voters don’t want is a direct engagement in the conflict by U.S. forces. They expect major burden-sharing by U.S. allies.
Fourth, the glad-handing diplomacy practiced by U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff—who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “great leader” and offered him a slew of unilateral U.S. concessions—has reached a dead end. Indeed, Witkoff’s approach has frustrated Trump’s peacemaking ambitions and contributed to an upsurge in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s main cities, with hundreds of civilians deliberately killed and wounded far from the front line. And much of this has occurred with the use of Shahed drones provided by Russia’s strategic ally, Iran. While Trump continues to hold open the possibility of a peace “deal” with Moscow, as underscored by the U.S. decision on July 1 to halt some weapons shipments to Ukraine, Putin’s indifference to Trump’s peacemaking ambitions is likely to revive tensions with the Kremlin in the near term.
As his conflict with Elon Musk demonstrates, Trump is capable of rapidly turning on his allies and counterparts. Consequently, the glaring contrast between the failed concessions and inducements to Putin on the one hand and the successful, tough-minded measures against Iran on the other could open the door to a muscular new approach to Russia. This, of course, does not mean direct U.S. military engagement. But it should mean the application of hard-hitting economic sanctions on Russia and the enhancement of Ukraine’s defensive and offensive capabilities, a two-pronged approach that gained momentum at the recent NATO summit.
Europe has greatly raised its financial obligations for self-defense and significantly increased its support for Ukraine, compensating Trump’s deep reductions in U.S. support. But if Putin is to be stopped in his tracks, then Europe will also need Trump’s consent to purchase U.S. arms for Ukraine, and Washington will need to continue sharing intelligence with Kyiv. Indications from the NATO summit point to U.S. willingness to do just this.
The best way to deter Putin is to show that the alliance is committed to supporting Ukraine’s defense over the long haul. And the best way to do this in a way that meets the self-help requirement of the emerging Trump doctrine also rests with Europe. Its banks hold the bulk of $300 billion in frozen Russian hard currency reserves, whose confiscation is advocated by various European leaders and parliaments as well as U.S. experts such as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, former State Department counselor Philip Zelikow, and former World Bank President Robert Zoellick.
These Russian reserves represent the equivalent of many years of U.S. funding for Ukraine and would allow Ukraine to defend itself from Putin’s massive recent attacks on civilian targets. A bit of Trump-induced pressure could be decisive in driving Europe to stop prevaricating and finally make use of these assets, which in turn would relieve the United States of any major financial burden for the war. Using Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s defense—including for buying U.S.-made weapons—is, in its essence, a very Trumpian idea: the geopolitical equivalent of getting Mexico to pay for a border wall.
On the heels of his success in achieving an Israel-Iran cease-fire—and with isolationist sentiment waning within his MAGA base—Trump has the political capital at home and the diplomatic heft abroad to implement this new approach. Its application to the Russia-Ukraine war could dramatically reverse the dire trends of recent weeks by ratcheting up pressure on the Kremlin. If the administration pursues this path, then Putin will be far more likely to settle a peace and provide a second major foreign-policy success for the U.S. president.
