Mutual Assured Destruction...in the Trump Era

Political Notes

by Jon Fuhrman

Wednesday, April 8. Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) was the linchpin of Cold War strategy. Both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed enough nuclear weapons to annihilate each other – truly to destroy each other’s civilizations. Each side knew the other had those weapons, indeed enough weapons such that, even after a surprise first strike, the victim could still wreak utter destruction upon the aggressor. So it was a stalemate, because neither side would willingly endure such overwhelming devastation. Each side believed the other to be, at their core, rational decision-makers. That’s why the stalemate worked, and neither was tempted, intentionally, to start a nuclear war.

But what if the decision-makers are not rational? Might one side be tempted to launch an attack, daring the other side to respond, heedless of the potential consequences to their own nation and its economy?

This is Mutual Assured Destruction, in the Presidency of Donald Trump. We appear willing to eradicate the Iranian civilization, blithely ignoring their likely, perhaps inevitable, response: mining the Strait of Hormuz; encouraging the Houthis to block the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the bottom of the Red Sea, thereby blockading the Suez Canal; using the thousands of drones they still have, and the hundreds of missiles, to attack oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf States, the desalinization plants, the Saudi’s major oil fields and refineries -- essentially to end for years the oil, gas, fertilizer and helium exports of the region, thereby plunging the entire world into a major recession, if not a depression.

Thus, the sixty-four dollar question: is President Donald Trump rational? Is his plan based upon a maximalist bluff? Or was he, in fact, willing to go all-in, flatten much of the Iranian infrastructure, and suffer the Iranian retaliation?

Perhaps fortunately, we may never know. The Iranians, with help from Pakistan, suggested a two-week truce with further negotiations. They have a ten-point plan; President Trump is talking about their 10-point plan, but the two sets of 10 points don’t seem to align very well. In the next two weeks, we may discover if the two sides are willing to compromise on fundamental principles. The Iranians are willing to allow shipping to resume, but only with a hefty per-ship “toll” of about a million dollars each (in bitcoin, by the way). The United States demands the Strait be open to all shipping, implicitly free of charge. It’s not obvious how one reaches a compromise here. (That toll, by the way, would generate more revenue for Iran annually, with zero net cost, than all their oil shipments.) The United States wants to prevent Iran from attaining, or even coming close to attaining, a nuclear weapon, and to do so wants Iran to give up all the enriched uranium it currently has. Iran insists they have a right to enrich uranium for peaceful, civilian purposes and will not give it up. Again, these goals are so directly conflicting that it is hard to imagine a viable compromise.

President Trump has extended his deadline by two weeks, and that deadline will probably slip again and again as talks drag on. At some point, the President may tire of the negotiations, but by then he may have succumbed to the pressure from foreign allies, from Congressional Republicans worried about the mid-terms, from business leaders (including oil and gas executives), and even from within his own Administration to find some excuse, some off-ramp to extricate the United States from this quicksand. To predict the outcome, one must grapple with the fundamental underlying question: Is Trump a rational decision-maker?

The American people, or at least those who bother to vote in special elections, do seem to be rational decision-makers. In Wisconsin Tuesday night, the voters elected another Democrat, Chris Taylor, to their Supreme Court, creating a 5 – 2 liberal majority that will last at least through 2030. The vote was close to an honest-to-goodness landslide: 60% to 40%. That stands in marked contrast to the 2024 Presidential results (49.6% Trump to 48.7% for Harris) and even the 2025 Supreme Court election where the liberal Democrat won with a 55% margin.

Even more impressive than the 60% mark was the fact that this vote came not just from the heavily Democratic counties around Madison and Milwaukee, but from the entire state. Of the 53 counties in Wisconsin, 52 swung toward the Democratic side, compared either to the 2024 Presidential race or the 2025 Court race. For example, Taylor carried Jefferson and Wood counties, which President Trump carried by 16% and 20% respectively. The only county that didn’t swing our way was Menominee County, the smallest with a total of 673 votes cast; they voted 80% for Harris in 2024, but “only” 62% for the Democratic candidate this year.

Wisconsin has 8 Congressional Districts, 6 with Republican incumbents and 2 represented by Democrats. Democrat Chris Taylor, in her Supreme Court race, won a majority vote in 4 of the 6 districts with GOP incumbents. WI-03, with Republican incumbent Derek Van Orden, was already seen as Toss-Up race; but the other three GOP incumbents are currently ranked as Leaning Republican or Likely Republican by the Cook Report. That assessment may well change after Tuesday’s results. Further, the results weren’t limited to the Court race. For example, in Waukesha, a Milwaukee suburb historically a GOP stronghold, a Democrat was elected Mayor by a 51% - 49% margin.

Additionally, Georgia had its special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene, who resigned from her seat in Congress. This is the most Republican district in Georgia, so it’s not surprising that the Democratic candidate lost. However, Democrat Shawn Harris held the margin down to 56% - 44%, a 10-point improvement compared to his 2024 run. Similarly, in a special election for Georgia’s 53rd State Senate District, the Democrat lost, but improved his performance by 10% compared to President Trump’s margin in that district in 2024.

If Democrats improved their showing state-wide by 10%, not only would Sen. Jon Ossoff easily be re-elected, but two other incumbent GOP Congressmembers might well lose their seats as well, although those districts are currently assessed as “Solid Republican” districts, and a boatload of state legislators would likely be in trouble as well.

So perhaps it is only our President who has an apparent deficit in the rational decision-making category. I wonder if that showed up on any of the cognitive tests he supposedly aced?