U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term has been marked by the kidnapping of Venezuela’s leftist president Nicolas Maduro, a joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran that killed the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and hundreds of others, and new threats to other leaders in Latin America and even Europe.

The policy is testing alliances, legal norms and the idea that shock operations abroad have predictable results at home. At its core is a message that Trump has repeated in different ways: “We can reach you — but if you don’t do what we want, we may not be able to protect you.”

Trump speaks directly to foreign leaders, promises swift punishment or personal favors, and casts himself as the only U.S. president who goes “no gloves.”

While his supporters see strength and candor, critics highlight threats and deals aimed at domestic politics and foreign capital.

doctrine built around the enemy

Trump’s decision to attack Iran has been described as “the biggest foreign policy gamble of his presidency”, with analysts saying he has moved away from “quick, limited action like last month’s lightning strike on Venezuela” towards a conflict that is likely to be more protracted and has turned into a wider regional war.

His doctrine is based on identifying adversaries – Iran, China, Russia and North Korea – as well as Venezuela, Cuba, certain Latin American leaders and a range of actors including drug cartels, Hezbollah and Hamas.

Analysts at the Atlantic Council said Trump’s national security strategy “increases great power competition with China and Russia while treating Iran and North Korea as rogue regimes” and reflects an organized map of enemies in his rhetoric and actions.

The Foreign Policy Institute described Trump’s strategy as “a deeply transactional document,” arguing that security guarantees and pressure on adversaries are structured around what other countries “pay” or concede to the United States.

Iran and the regional spread of war

The Pentagon named its campaign against Iran “Operation Epic Fury” and Trump insisted the United States “did not start this war” but intended to end it – a claim Iran’s foreign minister denied in an interview with Al Jazeera.

Trump said the U.S. military would “destroy” most of Iran’s military, deny Tehran nuclear weapons and “give the Iranians a chance to overthrow their rulers.” Some media reported that he privately claimed that Iran “will soon have missiles capable of hitting the United States,” although intelligence assessments did not support this.

Analysts say Trump hopes the U.S.-Israeli strikes will foment a popular uprising and overthrow Iran’s rulers, although outside airpower has never directly achieved a change of government without ground troops. The Atlantic Council warned that an Iranian attack could plunge Washington into a broader regional war with “no clear outcome.”

A briefing note from Britain’s Royal United Services Institute said that if Iran’s retaliatory actions caused heavy casualties in the United States, Washington would be under intense pressure to expand the epic fury into a larger-scale military operation.

Meanwhile, hawks in Washington saw an opportunity. A report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said the attack on Iran provided “a historic opportunity to help bring about the fall of the Islamic Republic.”

Trump told US media that military action could take “four weeks or less,” although his defense secretary admitted it could be shorter or longer depending on the response of Iran and its allies.

Within days of Iran’s attack on Saturday, fighting has spread across the region, and Israel said on Tuesday it had launched a ground operation in Lebanon. Meanwhile, Iranian retaliatory attacks have targeted U.S. assets and even civilian infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and other Gulf states.

This is exactly what experts on escalation warn about: attacks aimed at targeted beheadings of Iran’s leadership are now involving a weakened Hezbollah and even Lebanese civilians, reinforcing the perception that the United States is willing to put an entire region at risk to prove it can strike down a single individual or topple a regime.

As he did in Venezuela, Maduro was captured in an in-and-out raid in Caracas following a CIA tip – an incident that analysts say has emboldened similar ideas elsewhere.

‘Troubling precedent’

The raid in Caracas came against the backdrop of a “maximum pressure” operation that included high-profile actions such as sanctions, criminal cases and asset seizures. Maduro’s kidnapping gives the United States considerable control over Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies called Operation Maduro “a military victory with no feasible ending,” arguing that while the president’s escape was a tactical success, the structural drivers of Venezuela’s crisis remain.

A Brookings Institution analysis warned that the raid “sets a disturbing precedent for U.S.-led special forces regime change,” suggesting other Latin American leaders may view it as a potential “template” for the U.S. rather than a one-off.

For example, Colombia, whose president Gustavo Petro was called “sick” by Trump, suggested an intervention like the one in Venezuela “sounds good to me” and warned Petro to “watch out for his a**.”

Petro said in January that the United States was acting like an empire that treated Latin American governments as subjects and warned that Washington was at risk of shifting from “world domination” to “isolation from the world.”

Killing or kidnapping leaders or celebrities of other countries violates international law. Experts say Trump’s expanding doctrine of “targeted killings” has weakened the taboo against assassinating political leaders and made reciprocity more reasonable.

Protection is transaction

When it comes to allies, Trump is less animated but no less forthright.

Trump once boasted of telling Nato partners, “You didn’t pay? You defaulted… No, I’m not going to protect you. In fact, I’m going to encourage (Russia) to do whatever they want.”

The comments sparked panic in European capitals and prompted analysts to call it a NATO effort to “stop Trump” by locking in higher defense spending and deeper political commitment.

The European Council on Foreign Relations claims that Trump has “exported MAGA to Europe” and turned NATO into a “veritable protection fee” in which security guarantees appear to be conditional on the political and financial alignment of allies.

A White House memo declassified in 2019 remains the clearest example of how Trump’s dealmaking logic extends to partners. Memo shows Trump responding to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s request for more weapons.

“But I’d like you to do us a favor,” Trump allegedly said before asking Zelensky to investigate former U.S. President Joe Biden and his son – a conversation that led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Who might be next?

The combination of Maduro’s raids, Iran’s attacks, threats to oil companies and pressure on NATO suggests who might be next: Latin American leaders soft on drug cartels; Iran-aligned groups in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon; or smaller European countries that Trump has labeled “criminal.”

US media reported that Trump’s advisers urged him to focus on the domestic economy and warned that a prolonged confrontation with Iran could alienate some of his “America First” base, who are skeptical of unlimited war.

Trump’s supporters, meanwhile, see rising NATO spending, Maduro attacks and Iran attacks as evidence that Trump “means what he says.” Some believe that even without regime change, downgrading Iran’s nuclear program will still be viewed as a victory for Trump.

However, critics worry that the Iranian operation could escalate into the largest U.S. military campaign since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq because some of Trump’s statements about Iran are not supported by intelligence.

Whether U.S. power can produce lasting results in Iran, Lebanon, Latin America and within the United States without counterattack will be a key test for Trump in the coming days.