Power Play

How Trump Is Running the Most Aggressive Geopolitical Play in a Generation—and Why It Has to Be This Way

From 1973 to 1977 the National Hockey League was the wild west, and Bob “Gasser” Gassoff—a 5’10”, 190-pound wrecking ball who skated for the St. Louis Blues—was one of the best enforcers in the game. His job was not to score. It was to protect the players who did. High-stick, slash, board or manhandle a Blues skill player and Gasser would drop the gloves and answer the bell, over and over, until somebody turtled or a referee had the stones to break it up. He skated to the penalty box bloodied and sometimes missing his jersey, then flashed a trademark toothless grin that thrilled Blues fans and infuriated every opponent in the building.

Gassoff loved to fight. But he loved winning more. He never worried about being liked. He worried about winning. Sound familiar?

Fast forward to 2026. The United States is engaged in titanic—and very risky—battles of its own, not on a rink but across the global stage. The liberal rules-based order that governed international behavior for the better part of seven decades is over. Not struggling. Not fraying at the edges. Over. The country is tired of policing the world while receiving debt and ingratitude in return. The majority voted for change, and the Trump administration has delivered it with a ferocity that has stunned allies and adversaries alike.

The north star is America First: put American interests—especially national security—ahead of the globalist commitments that hollowed out the middle class, offshored the industrial base, and left the Pentagon dependent on a rival power for critical supply chains. The 2026 National Defense Strategy puts it plainly: “Out with utopian idealism; in with hardnosed realism."

Whether it succeeds depends on factors no analyst can predict: the resilience of American institutions, the competence of execution, the choices of adversaries, and the tolerance of Americans for the short-term pain that any serious power play requires.

The main problem in this strategy, however necessary, is that it relies upon an American populace dumbed-down and brainwashed by its "educational" institutions, from k-12 to mass media "news."

Worse, there are elements of Trump's actions that border upon incompetence (in my opinion), chief among which is that, upon nabbing Maduro, Trump failed to bring Machado into public view to explain how the Dominion based steal of American elections actually works (and continues to operate). It was a critical opportunity for a third-party validation of the theft of the 2020 election at a perfect moment to gain visibility for that alternative reality into which we could have back-filled supporting documentation. It would have deprived the Slave Party of the popular momentum it gained in the likes of Virginia. I think it a terrible mistake.

I agree; it is a fascinating read.

The one thing I’d call out on it is this:

“Beneath the provocations and the bluster, there is a strategy—aimed at preventing China from achieving the kind of dominance that would make American power irrelevant for a generation.”

There are only two real powers these days; America and China. India’s maybe catching up, very slowly. Europe’s declining.

Containing China is a bit pointless if you don’t adopt the same kind of system China has. There’s a reason they’re knocking out cars so cheap that half the world can’t compete. They don’t run their country like America is run.

Nobody seriously expects America to adopt the Chinese political-economic model, obviously.

What’s more interesting is Trump’s relentless fixation with getting Putin onside (or at the very least, not offending Putin), at the same time as breaking his ally’s balls, at the same time as blitzing Iran.

Putin is never, EVER, going to be an ally of the USA. He’s spent thirty years attacking the USA - in effect sponsoring multiple hybrid and cyber warfare attack vectors. He might bend enough to let Americans build businesses in Russia, but after he’s just spent half a decade kicking Western businesses out, that seems unlikely.

Russia and Iran are like two butt-cheeks around the same butt-hole.

The logic presented in the article would suggest the Trump administration is wise to be kicking Iranian ass, but it would be a heck of a lot wiser to stop treating Putin with kid gloves.

This guy sees things the way I do, I wonder sometimes if I am seeing the very large strategic patterns from Trump that I think I see and I hope that I am interpreting them accurately, it is why I am so optimistic and came to see the Russian invasion as so helpful to us in our global goals.

Three major areas, he describes.
CHINA
“Venezuela. Cuba. The Panama Canal. The cartel designations. The deportations. The “51st state” pressure on Canada. The Greenland campaign. The January 2026 removal of Nicolás Maduro—accomplished in less than 48 hours. To most observers these look like random provocations. They are neither random nor unrelated. They are all aimed at the same target: China. “

EUROPE/CHINA
“Why alienate the very partners you need to build a coalition against China? Because Trump uses predictable opposition as a mechanism. European and Canadian elites have a reliable reaction function: they reflexively oppose anything he proposes. So rather than ask them politely—which has never worked—he provokes them into doing what he needs while they believe they are resisting him.

The proof is in the results. During his first term, Trump pleaded with European NATO members to increase defense spending. Defense budgets barely moved. Then he threatened to pull out of NATO entirely. The response was dramatic: Germany hit 2% of GDP for the first time in decades, Poland is building one of the largest armies in Europe, and NATO members collectively committed to 5% in total defense and security spending—a number that would have been considered fantasy five years ago. He did not persuade them. He provoked them.

Elbridge Colby, now Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, laid out the underlying logic in The Strategy of Denial. Preventing Chinese regional dominance in Asia is the non-negotiable core American interest. But the United States cannot concentrate forces in the Pacific while simultaneously babysitting Europe and maintaining commitments around the globe. The math only works if allies handle their own regions—Europe handles Russia, Asia-Pacific allies handle their piece of the Chinese containment line, and America pivots to the decisive theater when needed. Either allies step up or Trump creates conditions in which the cost of inaction exceeds the cost of action.”

Industry/Manufacturing
“ Trump is attempting a reverse transformation of the American economy: shifting it from financialization and consumption toward production, industry, and military capacity. Gorbachev attempted something analogous in the 1980s—introducing market mechanisms into the Soviet command economy to reform it from within. The result was catastrophic collapse. The system could not be reformed piecemeal. Pull one leg of the table and the whole thing falls over. Trump faces a version of the same problem: he needs enough state direction to rebuild American manufacturing without destroying the market dynamism that makes America innovative. The margin is narrow. The state directing capital in the name of necessity rarely gives that power back.

The risks abroad are equally real: a miscalculation over Taiwan; a hot war in the Middle East that draws in Russia; a fracturing of the allied coalition that leaves America genuinely isolated rather than strategically freed. And there is the domestic risk few want to say aloud: all of this requires competent execution. Big plays require big talent.”

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