Power Politics & The Iran War
On 3 April 2026, I was on “The Bottom Line,” Al Jazeera’s popular show hosted by Steve Clemons. We talked about the Iran war and how it relates to international politics broadly defined. Steve was especially interested in how I thought about the effect of the war on the balance of power. In particular, will the US’s troubles in Iran cause it to lose relative power?
My argument is that what is happening in that war and what is likely to happen in the months ahead will have virtually no impact on the US position in the global balance of power. The reason is that a country’s military power is largely a function of its wealth and population size, which is not going to be affected by the Iran war in a way that will weaken America’s standing in the global distribution of power. Remember that the US suffered a decisive defeat in the Vietnam war, and that humiliating loss hardly affected US power. Indeed, 14 years later, the US won the Cold War and soon thereafter became the only great power on the planet.
What is being affected by the Iran war and President Trump’s policies more generally is the US’s ability to effectively project its awesome power around the world, which obviously matters greatly. The ongoing disaster in Iran certainly calls into question the basic competence of the US and raises all sorts of questions about whether other countries can trust Washington to protect their interests. Moreover, trashing allies, diplomacy, international institutions, and international law, as Trump regularly does, markedly diminishes the US ability to wield its power effectively.
Steve and I also talked about a host of other issues involving the Iran war.
The primary font of US power is not military or population, it is the petro/pedo dollar because it decouples economic power from population size. Absent that fiat luxury, the US military cannot exist at its current magnitude and absolute US power is diminished significantly.
The US military was in a position to exert such power over the region in the post WWII era not so much because of population, but because of comparative military and economic advantage specific to the time. The US economy was one of the few industrial economies left standing, if not strengthened relative to destruction and lack of development elsewhere. The threat of nationalization by the Soviet Menace created the Gulf monarchy dictatorships as petrodollar outposts, bulwarks and adjuncts of the US empire, and enforced it with bases.
What do you think if US adversaries begin to think: this must be THE MOMENT TO …..?
No ubdefeatable Navy, no invincibility of airpowerrrrr?