U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as he speaks to reporters onboard Air Force One, on travel from West Palm Beach, Florida, to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., February 16, 2026. REUTERS Elizabeth Frantz
According to distinguished security scholar Phillips P. O’Brien, the leadership of President Donald Trump has set the United States on a downward spiral in which it is “weaker every day.” Perhaps even more alarming, the US “may never come back” from the diminished state Trump will leave it in.
O’Brien — whose book War and Power is widely cited by strategy experts — asserts that there are several factors driving the country’s decline under Trump, but the most looming is the president’s decision to launch war with Iran.
“The US does not control its own destiny at this point in the war,” writes O’Brien. “Indeed every day the American position is weakening. The US is in a far weaker state than it was when the ceasefire was announced on April 7, and will be in weaker position next week when I write this (unless Trump surrenders)... Recently we are seeing arguably the greatest example of the growth of American global weakness that Trump has accelerated. Trump has shown that the USA cannot control either Iran or Israel — indeed that he is panicking as those two states are doing what they want regardless of his threats or wishes. The idea of the USA as either the indispensable partner or unstoppable enemy is gone. It may never come back.”
O’Brien says evidence of this weakening can be seen by looking back to June 2025. After the U.S. joined Israel in a bombing campaign against Iran, the Israelis wanted to continue the attack, while Trump wanted it over fast. When he ordered Israel to stop, at the time, the country yielded.
No longer. “In the last few weeks Trump has tried to do something similar and the Israelis are basically not reacting, but doing what Netanyahu wants to do,” specifically in Lebanon. Israel has not only persisted in attacking its neighbor but has seized sizeable territory, complicating peace negotiations. “This Israeli military action has been driving Trump nuts,” says O'Brien, but “unlike last year, however, Trump cannot simply order the Israelis to turn around — and as such is getting desperate,” lashing out at Netanyahu in a screaming, curse-laden phone call. Israel has only continued to step up its military efforts. “This is what I mean about the USA getting weaker every day,” says O’Brien.
At the same time, Trump keeps insisting that a deal is close, even as the Iranians say they’ve cut off talks. And all the while, the president is posting that everyone should “just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end — it always does!”
“Look closely at the power imbalance here,” notes O’Brien. “It is the US government that is desperate to keep up the fiction that the negotiations are going well, that Iran is making major concessions and that a deal is close. The Iranians, on the other hand, are happy to project the opposite image; that they can walk away from the talks and are happy to let this string for longer.”
What’s more, writes O’Brien, “This weakness ties into what Trump is doing with the GOP and the federal government…People need to ask themselves why Trump is prizing absolute subservient loyalty over anything. It's not just that he wants to punish his enemies… Trump is setting up a parallel system to protect himself and maintain his power, and that is based on total control of the GOP and executive government. This might actually be the thing that makes U.S. decline unstoppable. He is, as always, willing to destroy the country to save himself.”
O’Brien points to many domestic circumstances that are weakening the country, all driven by Trump’s efforts, from the collapsing economy, to his electoral revenge campaign, to the appointment of inexperienced, incapable loyalists to key positions, to his wildly corrupt slush fund.
“Why is Trump doing what seems to be decisions to make himself less popular and less politically secure going forward?” writes O’Brien. “The answer is not because he is stupid…it is because he is adopting what could be called a scorched earth strategy to protect himself and his power going forward. He wants absolute and total control of the GOP, even if that means he might lose a seat here or there. And he wants a federal government that will do whatever he wants when he wants.”
O’Brien ends with a dire warning: “It sets him up to corrupt either the November vote or its results. People are being too blase about this election. Trump has a party that is completely under his sway and a federal government that is staffed by uber loyalists. It gives him terrible and powerful options to subvert democracy.”