The new US national security strategy, signed by Donald Trump just months ago, promised to get out of endless wars and abandon the role of global policeman. However, the reality proved diametrically opposite. America was involved in a large-scale and destructive conflict with Iran. Professor James C. Galbraith analyzes this paradox by asking: Has the current administration become the victim of a silent coup or has it simply lost control of its own policies?

According to University of Texas professor James K. Galbraith wrote in his article for Project Syndicate (translation provided by Mediamax agency), the US National Security Strategy (NSS) published in November 2025 was radically different from all previous doctrines. In an accompanying letter, President Donald Trump presented it as a road map for preserving America’s greatness, based on the ideals of the founding fathers, particularly the principle of non-interference in the affairs of other states. The document harshly criticized the former elites for allowing the Allies to shift the burden of defense onto American taxpayers and dragging the country into secondary conflicts.

One of the key messages of the AAR was the withdrawal of the US from the Middle East. The strategy noted that the region was losing its historical importance to Washington due to the growth of domestic energy production. The document’s authors asserted that the era when the Middle East dominated US foreign policy was over, and that threats could be contained ideologically and militarily, avoiding fruitless “state-building” wars.

However, on February 28, the US attacked Iran, a nation of 90 million people with a vast arsenal of missiles and drones, as well as a strong patriotic and religious spirit. Galbraith emphasizes that attacking such a country means starting a large-scale and exhausting war, which is radically contrary to the spirit of the November AAR. The professor rejects the theory that the strategy was merely a campaign ploy by Trump ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, as revealing the lie just three months later would have stripped the move of any political meaning.

Currently, the situation in the Middle East is developing in a catastrophic scenario. The Strait of Hormuz is closed to the ships of the Western coalition, and the world is experiencing an acute shortage of oil, gas, fertilizers and food. American bases in the Persian Gulf have been partially destroyed, and according to the author, the United States has already been pushed out of the region forever, even if Washington refuses to admit it for now. Galbraith offers three explanations for this enormous disconnect between strategy and reality. either the US government has completely lost its ability to function, or there has been a quiet coup d’etat in the country, turning Trump into a puppet, or, at best, America will have to leave the Middle East in a humiliating military defeat and a global economic crisis.

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