Apr 24, 2026 The Trump ReportFormer National Security Advisor John Bolton joins Maddie Hale to discuss Donald Trump’s claims the US “fully controls” the Strait of Hormuz while ordering the US Navy to ‘shoot and kill’ any Iranian boat laying mines, Iran warns the US of “an eye for an eye” and Trump lashes out a reporter who questioned the timeline for the Iran war. Welcome to the Trump Report, join this channel to get access to perks –
Let’s begin with a simple question that rarely gets a straight answer: what would victory over Iran actually look like? In Washington and Jerusalem, the answers tend to sound definitive: eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability, break its regional power, perhaps even force political change at the top. It’s the language of decisive war, the kind with a clear endpoint.
But shift the perspective to Tehran, and the definition changes completely. Victory, for Iran, is survival. That asymmetry shapes the entire conflict. In wars like this, the side that needs less to claim success often has the advantage – and, right now, Iran needs far less.
There is no denying the military imbalance. The US and Israel can strike with extraordinary precision and reach. They have demonstrated that repeatedly – targeting infrastructure, leadership and strategic assets.
But tactical success has yet to translate into political outcome. Iran’s state hasn’t fractured. Its governing system remains intact, and its networks – military, regional, ideological – continue to function. Even its most sensitive capabilities, including nuclear expertise, remain resilient.
The deeper miscalculation lies in assuming Tehran is playing the same game as Washington. It isn’t. Iran is not trying to defeat the US or Israel outright. It is trying to outlast them, complicate their objectives and raise the cost of progress until it becomes unsustainable.
This logic is visible in how the conflict has unfolded. The battlefield extends beyond direct confrontation into shipping lanes, energy markets and regional alliances. Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz are not incidental – they are pressure points with global consequences.
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Iran’s strategy is not about dominance but entanglement. It doesn’t need battlefield superiority if it can draw its adversaries into a conflict that is too costly to resolve and too complex to conclude.
When wars stall, the instinct is to escalate: more bombing, strikes on energy infrastructure, even, in extremis, “boots on the ground”. The assumption is that more force will finally produce a different outcome.
But Iran is not a passive target. It has already shown a willingness to retaliate across the region, including against Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, as well as targets in Jordan and Iraq. Strikes on Iran’s energy systems would not stay contained – they would invite retaliation against these same states, widening the conflict.
There is another constraint: American is estimated to have already used up around 45% to 50% of key missile stockpiles, including roughly 30% of its Tomahawk missile inventory. So the stark reality is that escalation is no longer just about willingness, but capacity — and in any wider war, the question may not be how far the US can go, but how much it has left.
The consequences would also extend beyond the battlefield. Iran’s response would be sustained attacks on neighbouring countries, on their power, fuel, and water systems, rendering parts of the region increasingly unlivable as temperatures soar over summer. Huge numbers of people would be forced to leave, risking another large-scale displacement crisis.
Even then, the core reality remains unchanged. Iran is built for endurance – any ground campaign would likely become prolonged and attritional. More importantly, escalation misses the point – the problem is not a lack of force, but the absence of a political objective that force can realistically achieve.
An Indian-flagged carrier, Jag Vasant, arrives off Mumbai carrying liquefied petroleum gas aftr being allowed to transit the Strait of Hormuz by Iran under a ‘friendly nations’ exemption. EPA/Divyakant Solanki
Compounding the problem is a quieter but equally significant reality; the US and Israel do not appear to be fully aligned in their end goals. Israel’s posture suggests a pursuit of maximal outcomes – deep, possibly irreversible weakening of Iran’s system, if not outright regime collapse. The US, by contrast, appears to oscillate between coercion, containment and negotiation.
These are not just differences in emphasis – they are differences in strategy. Wars fought without a shared definition of victory rarely produce victory at all. What they produce instead is sustained military activity without strategic convergence – constant movement, but little progress toward resolution.
No conclusion in sight
At some point, it becomes necessary to describe things as they are. This is no longer a war moving toward a decisive conclusion. It is a conflict settling into a pattern – strikes followed by pauses, ceasefires that hold just long enough to prevent collapse, and negotiations that advance just enough to avoid failure.
And those ceasefires tell their own story. Their repeated extension reflects not progress, but constraint. Washington, under Donald Trump, has strong incentives to keep talks alive, avoid deeper escalation, and end the war sooner rather than later. The alternatives – regional war or global economic shock – are far harder to manage. That dynamic gives Tehran leverage. It does not need to concede quickly when delay itself strengthens its position.
Time, in this sense, is not neutral. The longer the conflict drags on, the more it intersects with the most sensitive pressure points of the global economy. Energy markets are stressed, with supply routes under strain and reserves tightening. Industries that depend on stable fuel flows – aviation, shipping, manufacturing – are increasingly exposed.
What began as a regional conflict has morphed into systemic risk. Even limited disruption can ripple outward, affecting prices, supply chains and political stability. The longer the stalemate persists, the greater the cumulative strain and the closer it edges toward a broader economic shock.
Who really holds the advantage?
In purely military terms, the answer is obvious: the US and Israel retain overwhelming superiority. But wars are not decided by capability alone. They are decided by how goals, costs, and time interact.
In that equation, Iran’s position is stronger than it appears. It has set a lower threshold for success, demonstrated a higher tolerance for prolonged pressure, and shown an ability to impose costs beyond the battlefield. Most importantly, it does not need to win. It only needs to prevent its adversaries from achieving their aims. So far, it has done exactly that.
Which brings us back to the original question: can the US and Israel win this war? If winning means forcing Iran into submission or fundamentally reshaping its strategic posture, the answer is increasingly difficult to avoid – they cannot.
What they can do is continue. Manage the conflict, contain its spread and shape its margins. But that is not victory. It is endurance.
The real danger is not defeat, but the persistence of a belief that just a little more pressure, a little more escalation, or a little more time will produce a different result. If that belief is wrong, then this is not a war on the verge of being won. It is a war that cannot be won at all. A forever war.
Bamo NouriHonorary Research Fellow, Department of International Politics, City St George’s, University of London
Inderjeet ParmarProfessor in International Politics, City St George’s, University of London
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BIG NEWS: Iran’s State TV has released a list of new energy facilities that will be targeted when the war resumes The list: – The RasGas and Ras Laffan LNG facilities in Qatar – Das and Zirku Islands in the UAE, major hubs for offshore oil and gas – The Abqaiq, Safaniya, and Khurais facilities in Saudi Arabia, considered the jewels of Saudi energy infrastructure – The Burgan oil field in Kuwait, the world’s largest oil shale deposit.
Meghan O’Sullivan (from left), Laura S. H. Holgate, Matthew Bunn, Rose Gottemoeller, and Graham Allison.Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer
Christina Pazzanese
Harvard Staff Writer
April 22, 2026 6 min read
Experts assess threat landscape amid war, lapsing treaties, declining faith in U.S. security guarantee
Iran’s nuclear ambition, which is at the heart of its military conflict with the U.S. and Israel, is just one of several challenges that threaten to unravel decades of global nuclear security, scholars and practitioners said during an event at Harvard Kennedy School last week.
The discussion, moderated by Meghan O’Sullivan, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the School, reflected on the shifting framework of nuclear nonproliferation around the world and its critical importance to American national security, particularly as China accelerates its nuclear arms program in an effort to get on equal footing with the U.S. and Russia.
“I think there’s a very serious danger that we’re going to be in a new, probably more slow-moving but still, a new nuclear arms race competition” as a result, said Matthew Bunn, James R. Schlesinger Professor of the Practice of Energy, National Security, and Foreign Policy at HKS.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy predicted a nightmare scenario in which perhaps 15-20 countries could have nuclear weapons by the 1970s. That panic led to the landmark Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. With 191 states signed on, it remains the foundational agreement that guides the use and spread of nuclear weapons and promotes disarmament around the globe. Limiting the spread of nuclear weapons, whether to adversaries or allies, remains a critical objective of U.S. national security.
“We don’t want to be in a world with 20 or 30 fingers on the nuclear button because there’s going to be much more chance that the nuclear button is going to get pressed and that the United States might be dragged into whatever takes place,” said Bunn.
“We don’t want to be in a world with 20 or 30 fingers on the nuclear button because there’s going to be much more chance that the nuclear button is going to get pressed and that the United States might be dragged into whatever takes place.”
Matthew Bunn
That only nine countries today — the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea — are known to possess nuclear weapons is one of the “quiet successes” of global nonproliferation efforts over the last 60-plus years, panelists agreed.
But a recent Belfer Center task force and report on how the U.S. ought to approach nuclear proliferation today found broad, bipartisan consensus on the view that the steady, post-Cold War regime of treaties, institutions, and deterrence strategies has begun to break down.
In addition to the dwindling number of nuclear treaties, many of which have lapsed without replacement — including the New START treaty earlier this year — changing political attitudes have added a new hazard to nonproliferation efforts, analysts said.
The U.S. has begun warming to the notion of “allied proliferation,” in which it would be acceptable for friendly countries to have limited nuclear capabilities so they could defend themselves if attacked. It’s a view that upends decades of American policy in which non-nuclear allies had agreed to forgo weapons development in exchange for protection under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, a strategy known as “extended deterrence.”U.S. allies have grown increasingly uncertain about the credibility of that once iron-clad promise.
“There is no question Donald Trump has shaken the faith of our allies in the U.S. willingness to come forward in the terrible event that they are attacked with nuclear weapons” and to “respond with a U.S. nuclear weapon to that attack,” said Rose Gottemoeller, lecturer and research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford who helped negotiate New START.
That promise, known as the extended nuclear deterrent guarantee, is a major aspect of U.S. treaty relationships with NATO, Europe, allies in Asia, Australia, and others. “So, everybody’s worried. I’m worried, to be honest,” she said.
On the other hand, she said, NATO’s capability and the physical infrastructure in Europe has “never been better,” thanks to the U.S. deployment of its most advanced warhead to Europe, the refurbishment of U.S. nuclear bases and handling facilities in Europe during the first Trump and Biden administrations, and allies’ agreement to buy F-35 fighter jets from the U.S. for nuclear missions.
To ensure the guarantee remains a strong deterrent to adversaries like Russia, Gottemoeller added, allies must “do everything they can to prove that it is an alliance that is ready to act” and that allies are well-trained and ready to participate alongside the U.S., if necessary.
Key nonproliferation institutions, like the International Atomic Energy Agency, which conducts nuclear weapons verification inspections, are becoming politicized by China, said Laura S.H. Holgate, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center who served during the Obama administration on the National Security Council and as ambassador to the IAEA from 2022 to 2025.
China, she said, has overwhelmed the IAEA with staff in a bid to leverage its development budget, “co-opt” the agency’s credibility, and advance China’s geopolitical influence and infrastructure gambit, the Belt and Road Initiative.
But there are steps the U.S. can take, outside of treaties, to ensure the past nonproliferation successes endure, the panelists said.
With a fourth generation of nuclear power reactors now under development, Holgate said now is the time to redesign them so they are both safer and less useful as a front for covert weapons-building.
Calling for the U.S. to be a more reliable partner to its allies, Bunn said the use of force to try to deter countries like Iran from developing weapons is not only “illegal,” it’s “ineffective.”
“I fear that the current war, while it has set back Iran’s nuclear capabilities somewhat, has greatly increased their motivation” to develop a nuclear weapon, Bunn said. He added that the probability Iran will have a nuclear weapon within 10 years is much greater today than it was just a year ago.
The event was the first in a new series of “convenings” by the Belfer Center named in honor of Albert Carnesale, a nuclear nonproliferation public policy specialist who spent more than two decades at the Kennedy School and mentored many of today’s top experts in the field.
Geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer reveals the two most likely scenarios for how the Iran war ends and explains why Trump keeps saying he wants to “take the oil.” He describes Karg Island, a piece of land half the size of Manhattan that sits just off the Iranian coast and handles 90% of Iran’s oil exports, explaining that US Central Command estimates it can be taken with 12,000 to 15,000 troops and that thousands of additional American ground forces are currently being deployed to the region. He lays out the more likely scenario: the ceasefire gets extended, more substantive talks follow the 21-hour negotiation in Pakistan, and Iran eventually compromises on nuclear enrichment in exchange for maintaining a privileged toll position over the Strait of Hormuz. He explains that Iran would frame the toll payments as reconstruction reparations for the war damage they suffered, and that this outcome, while ugly, avoids further escalation and eventually allows European and Indian naval escorts to create a secure shipping environment.
Discover: • Why Trump keeps saying he wants to “take the oil” and what that actually means • The tiny island responsible for 90% of Iranian oil exports • The two most likely scenarios for how the Iran war ends • Why Iran might concede on nuclear weapons but keep control of the strait • How Russia is making more money now than before the war started • Why weapons meant for Ukraine are being redirected to the Middle East • The 30-year mistake that caused Europe’s decline on the global stage 📺 Watch the full episode here – • The Global Politics Expert: The Real Globa…
On one of Paris’s most prestigious avenues stands the former home of Jeffrey Epstein. As the world has discovered, the late convicted paedophile’s activities went way beyond simply owning real estate around the world. In a special edition, Annette Young speaks to survivors and their supporters who are urging French authorities to deepen their investigation – not only into Epstein’s actions in France, but also those of his associates. They reveal how parts of the Paris modelling scene in the 1990s and early 2000s may have been used as a front for sex trafficking. Survivors are also calling on France to abolish the statute of limitations on sexual crimes.
Israel is marking its 78th Independence Day amid continuing war and internal political divisions. Official celebrations in Jerusalem were met with alternative events reflecting differing views on the country’s future.
Following a Hamas‑led terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel’s subsequent military operations in the region have deepened internal political divisions and fueled uncertainty over the country’s future.
Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, but the holiday is observed according to the Hebrew calendar. It immediately follows Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s memorial day for fallen soldiers and civilian victims of attacks — a deliberate pairing intended to link national celebration with remembrance.
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