There are unjust wars, wrong wars, and avoidable wars. But there is a worse one: war without purpose. This is where we find ourselves.
For decades, the United States has exercised its power with a combination of ambition and prudence. They have made devastating mistakes, yes, but within a framework that demanded at least an alibi: a narrative about the values of the "free world," a justification, a minimal coherence before the world and before themselves. This framework has vanished.
With Donald Trump, war ceases to be an extension of politics to become a demonstration of will, of power. It is not about winning, nor about building, nor even about imposing an order. It is about striking to humiliate without foreseeing the medium-term consequences. Trumpist foreign policy is not imperialism in the classic sense; it is a foreign policy devoid of purpose, a form of nihilism that uses force without asking why or for what.
The difference is not minor. Imperialism, with all its brutalities, aspired to control. This new model only aspires to intervene. There is no plan for what comes next, no horizon, no responsibility. There is only immediate action and the ephemeral satisfaction that accompanies it, which often manifests in the frivolity of a bully's quip on social media.
This external void reflects an internal void. The war outside corresponds to a war against the truth inside the US and its administration. The power exercised by Trump is not limited to distorting reality, but to replacing it. Contradictions no longer erode the discourse: they are an essential part of it. And when reality resists, those who explain it are discredited.
What is most disturbing is not the style, but the disappearance of limits. For generations, American power was subject, albeit imperfectly, to real constraints: alliances, institutions, public opinion, international legitimacy. These limits did not make the system just, but they did make it predictable.
The war with Iran is not just another episode in a long history of tension. It is the symptom of a deeper change: the transition from a power that calculated and had a narrative about common values to one that improvises. Where there was once strategy, there is now impulse. Where there was once fear of consequences, there is now indifference and cruel jokes.
Indifference is dangerous because unchecked power is not only more aggressive; it is also more erratic. And being erratic, when combined with unprecedented military capability, ceases to be a weakness and becomes a systemic threat.
It would be comforting to think that all this is an exception, a temporary deviation. But Trump does not appear out of nowhere. He is the extreme expression of a trajectory that has been gradually eroding the mechanisms of containment. The difference is that he no longer feels the need to hide it.
And in doing so, he has exposed an uncomfortable truth: that power, when it ceases to justify itself, also ceases to be limited. It unfolds without restraint and in an unpredictable manner, and therefore, it is dangerous and loses the capacity for de-escalation, which is basic in any conflict.
The great paradox is that the same order that for decades allowed the United States to project its global power – with all its abuses – also imposed restrictions on them. By abandoning them, freedom of action has not been gained; a sense of purpose and capacity for conflict management has been lost. War today is a tragedy, but also a dynamic of trumpism, and it is no longer a question of whether there will be more conflicts, but of when and how far they will go. With total disregard for the rules of the game that had been set after World War II and the imbalances after the fall of the USSR and the rise of China.
Trump has a weak and capricious personality that can only be stopped by the harshness of the markets and an inflationary spiral in the US. A month after the attack on Tehran, the mullahs' leadership has disappeared, but the regime remains standing and the regional escalation threatens a devastating global energy crisis. The only one with clear objectives is Netanyahu, and they involve destabilizing the entire region without calculating the global consequences. For him, it is a matter of life or death, and Trump has fallen into a trap from which he does not know how to escape and in which with every move he can become more bogged down.
