On March 2, 2026, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stood in the Pentagon briefing room and declared a phrase already etched into strategic consciousness: “American deterrence is back.” Beside him sat Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine. Together, they described Operation Epic Fury – the ongoing US military campaign launched two days earlier against Iran’s offensive capabilities: its ballistic missiles, production infrastructure, navy, and security apparatus.
“We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump we are finishing it,” Hegseth told reporters. “The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused: Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure, and they will never have nuclear weapons. We’re hitting them surgically, overwhelmingly, and unapologetically.”
The briefing made clear that Epic Fury is not nation-building or an open-ended occupation. It is a limited, high-intensity campaign with a defined objective and a doctrine behind it that Washington has been quietly assembling for months.
‘America First’
Many interpreted “America First” as strategic withdrawal and self-isolation. Operations such as Epic Fury and the sustained pressure campaign against Venezuela prove that reading wrong.
What we are witnessing is a fundamental shift in US military-political doctrine: away from the large, diffuse, and costly coalitions that defined the Obama era and the American trauma of Iraq and Afghanistan, toward small, focused, deeply integrated partnerships with allies willing to sacrifice, share intelligence at unprecedented levels, and jointly build operational capabilities aimed at striking the enemy at its points of maximum vulnerability.
Israel is the living example. Deep intelligence and operational cooperation, joint planning, and the application of precise American power grounded in Israeli capabilities, all to achieve decisive strategic effect in minimum time and with minimum entanglement. This draws directly on lessons learned from Israel’s own campaign in Gaza since October 7, 2023, and the Russia-Ukraine war.
Days before the escalation, at the Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio placed this logic in its global context: “We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength. We want Europe to be strong.”
US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz, speaking in a separate interview, said: “NATO is stronger today because we demanded reforms.”
Xi’s oxygen
The deepest layer of the doctrine is aimed at the greatest threat of all: China. President Donald Trump and his team understand clearly that American dominance – economic, military, and diplomatic – will endure only if the United States acts now to sever Beijing’s strategic lifeline, above all its access to cheap oil, long before the 2027 window that experts identify as Beijing’s preferred timeline for action against Taiwan.
Publicly available energy data indicate that Iranian and Venezuelan crude together can account for roughly 15% to 17% of China’s seaborne oil imports. These discounted flows enhance Beijing’s economic flexibility and strategic resilience in a crisis.
Constraining the military capabilities of one supplier does not eliminate China’s energy access, but it raises costs and reduces redundancy. In strategic competition, marginal cost increases before a crisis can matter more than dramatic moves after one begins.
Every move observed in recent months – from pressure on Venezuela to the strikes in Tehran – serves one purpose: the systematic dismantling of the Sino-Russian-Iranian-Venezuelan axis in secondary theaters, to raise the price of a major Chinese war before it ever starts.
‘Final blow’
Hegseth did not go to the Pentagon to explain. He went to declare. “Many presidents dreamed of delivering the final blow to Iran’s nuclear program. None could until President Trump.”
The concept of the “final blow” has been absent from strategic discourse for far too long. In its place, we have grown accustomed to terms like “rounds,” “temporary deterrence,” and “conflict management.”
Genuine victory alters the physical and psychological reality of the enemy in a way that cannot be reversed. Victory is not a compromise – it is the complete elimination of the enemy’s capacity to carry out its designs.
The unconditional backing Hegseth extended to his operational forces is itself a critical strategic instrument.
“I could not be more proud of the way this building performed to the highest standards of the United States Armed Forces,” he said. An adversary that sees a secretary of defense take unqualified pride in his soldiers understands: There is no crack in this wall through which to enter.
Foundation for peace
“Iran has learned that when the president says he seeks peace and negotiation, he means it or the nuclear capability will simply cease to exist,” Hegseth said. He then issued a warning that bears no ambiguity: “Any retaliatory action by Iran against the United States will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed tonight.”
This is not aggression for its own sake. It is the erection of an iron wall, moral and military alike. He who holds the hammer and is willing to use it is, in the end, the one who truly delivers peace.
Hegseth closed with words of faith: “We give glory to God for His providence … God bless our warriors, and God bless America.”
That connection is not incidental – it confers upon the military act a moral and spiritual authority that transcends any tactical order.
The doctrine is still young but is already changing the rules. It rests on three pillars: narrowly defined military objectives; deep integration with allies that bring substantive capabilities, not merely political endorsement but action; and early action in secondary theaters to shape the conditions under which great-power competition unfolds.
To sustain and succeed, Washington must deepen operational integration with Israel, continue demanding genuine burden-sharing from NATO members, and maintain maximum economic pressure on nodes that feed China’s economy, all while signaling clearly and repeatedly: The 2027 Chinese window will not be free. American deterrence is back. This time, it is active.■
Sagiv Steinberg is CEO of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), a Jerusalem-based think tank dedicated to strategic and foreign policy research. He previously served as spokesperson to ambassador Dore Gold and held senior editorial and managerial roles in Israeli and international media organizations.