The website American Greatness published on the 26th an article by Dr. Victor Davis Hanson titled “Is There a Trump Great Game?” He noted that while the foreign and security policies of current U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term may appear “chaotic” to outsiders, they actually have a central strategic goal: to reduce China’s power and influence, thereby creating a strategic gap between Russia and China on the global stage.
Hanson, a senior military historian and commentator at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, known for his expertise in military and strategic history, believes that Trump’s foreign actions have deeper geopolitical intent; his strategy is not improvised but has begun to show results.
Dr. Hanson states that critics of Trump’s second-term foreign policy—typically leftists and some neo-isolationist conservatives—claim it is reckless, inconsistent, and lacks a coherent overall strategy.
However, whether in Trump’s first-term National Security Strategy or in its second-term updates, he consistently emphasized a disregard for overseas ground wars, nation-building, and isolationism.
A more accurate description of U.S. strategy across Trump’s two terms might be called “Jacksonian” or “preemptive deterrence.”
Success
You are now signed up for our newsletter
Success
Check your email to complete sign up
In other words, Trump’s foreign policy neither ignores crises nor responds merely defensively. Instead, it seeks favorable cost–benefit scenarios to weaken strategic enemies and strengthen allies. Its goal is to prevent major wars like those that occurred under the Obama and Biden administrations.
Past overseas deterrence appeared weak
Under Obama and Biden, U.S. overseas deterrence appeared indifferent and weak, resulting in four major conflict zones during their terms: Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the occupation of most of Donbas in 2014, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the Middle East wars of 2024–25.
Typical strategic examples from Trump’s first term include the lethal strikes against Iranian general and terror orchestrator Qasem Soleimani and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; the 2018 destruction of Wagner Group forces in Syria; and the 2018–19 air campaigns that reduced ISIS to insignificance. These actions also restored U.S. deterrence in the Middle East.
Trump’s warnings to China and Russia—don’t touch Taiwan, don’t invade Ukraine—were effective, as was the ultimatum to North Korea to stop reckless missile tests.
By contrast, the subsequent Biden administration’s hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan, unclear pre-war signals to Putin, attempts to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, and alienation of Israel weakened U.S. deterrence and ultimately allowed major conflicts to erupt. Biden’s cognitive decline, open-border policies, Pentagon “woke/DEI” programs, and lack of clear foreign policy leadership further deepened America’s image of instability both domestically and abroad.
Trump’s second-term strategy focuses on reducing China’s power and influence, pressuring Russia while offering a path to détente with the West, and eliminating Chinese-Russian-backed terrorist proxy states.
For example, confrontations with Panama over substantive violations of the Panama Canal Treaty curtailed China’s ambitions to access or control the canal. In Venezuela, removing the Marxist Maduro government and restoring the Monroe Doctrine reasserted U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere—again at China’s expense. Closing the U.S. southern border, issuing stern warnings to Mexico, and blocking China from supplying fentanyl precursors to drug cartels further weakened China’s reach in the Western Hemisphere.
Restoring US dominance in the Middle East
Reducing the Iranian nuclear threat, potentially affecting the theocratic regime itself, and ending Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria—all supported by North Korea, Russia, and China—also restored U.S. dominance in the Middle East. Record U.S. oil and gas production depressed global prices, harming Russian and Middle Eastern interests; blocking Venezuelan and Iranian sanctioned oil shipments further restricted China’s influence, nearly choking Cuba.
Trump’s “passive-aggressive” hard-love talks with NATO members pushed Europe to raise NATO spending from 2 percent to 5 percent and include strategic members like Finland and Sweden. Leveraging Europe’s self-interest and inherent anti-American chauvinism helped rearm the region, deter Russia, and free U.S. resources to strengthen its Indo-Pacific presence.
Suppressing Cuba and Iran limits their anti-Western proxies and terror operations in Latin America and the Middle East, frustrating China again. Shifting the defense budget toward weapons quantity and quality, prioritizing battlefield effectiveness over social agendas, and expanding defense contractors will enhance U.S. combat capability.
Quietly supporting Ukraine ensures it does not collapse while signaling to Putin the limits of Russian self-interest, helping restore a strategic balance between Russia and the West relative to China. Domestically, conservative, pro-American governance spreads in South America, Japan, and future Europe, to China’s disadvantage.
Media focuses on tariffs, provocative tweets
Media attention has focused on Trump’s tariffs and provocative tweets, but his and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s work in countering China and its terror clients and proxies surpasses that of any administration in living memory.
An Associated Press report on Jan. 23 stated that the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy aims to reaffirm U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere while maintaining deterrent military advantages in the Indo-Pacific and sensitive areas like Taiwan. The report noted that while this strategy provokes debate among allies, its core goal is to curb China’s rapid expansion and strategic influence through hard power and regional balance.
In short, Trump’s diplomacy is not lacking strategy. Based on “preemptive deterrence” and “Jacksonian” principles, it precisely targets the greatest strategic rival—the Chinese Communist Party. By weakening its economic, energy, geopolitical, and proxy networks, while offering Russia a “dignified exit,” Trump is creating a structural gap between China and Russia, preventing them from forming an unbreakable anti-American alliance.
This is not traditional containment but a cost-minimizing, high-return “divide and rule.” In the long run, if Trump continues advancing this “Great Game,” the U.S. could avoid repeated major wars and achieve a new period of strategic advantage—one where China’s influence is curtailed, Russia is forced to reposition, and the West is rearmed. This may well be the true 21st-century embodiment of “American Greatness.”
