Is anybody surprised by what’s going on right now?

The most “alpha male” that I know is a short, soft-spoken man in his 70s. Most people can take him in a fight, but nobody would ever try – he has too many friends! Everybody loves him, and when he speaks, everybody listens and respects every word. He is incredibly smart, shows tremendous insight, and has been enormously successful in life. He doesn’t need to raise his voice or flex his muscles for people to take him seriously. In 2026 he was ranked #63 on the Forbes 400 (after he started gifting billions). His name is John Doerr, and here’s a picture of us together.

But for some reason, many in the USA think that true leaders should look like this:

There’s a difference between being a “bold leader” and being a bully, but that line has become blurred. People think that unless you look like one of the bros above, that you must be a DEI hire. But in what meritocracy would any of the above be your first choice for an important leadership position?

As many chant the mantra of meritocracy, I’m confused why these same people voted for (and mostly still support) Donald Trump as President. And in what world would his cabinet be considered the people who merit these positions the most? He actually nominated Matt Gaetz as the Attorney General (a pick too controversial even for the Republicans)! Pete Hegseth as the Secretary of Defense is almost as controversial. He did serve in the National Guard for 20 years, but his highest rank was a Major and he has no experience running a large-scale organization (let alone the DoD who has 3 million people and a $850 billion dollar budget).

When he called all generals to a meeting in Sept. 2025, he made it clear that things were different at the temporarily re-branded “Department of War”. The new warrior ethos is to be less thoughtful and more lethal, and he demanded two things: loyalty to President Trump and that the generals be physically fit and physically intimidating. Failure on either of these would lead to their immediate termination. We rely on generals to make plans, contingencies for those plans, and to execute those plans. We care about their minds much more than their body fat composition.

Since taking office, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth have:

• Strained and severed relationships with our long-held allies.
  • He said that we wouldn’t protect them anymore and that they are now entirely on their own.
  • Stabbed Ukraine in the back while they are fighting for their lives (saying they don’t “hold any cards”).
• Started and threatened to start many unprovoked military actions (many of which are considered war crimes).
  • We blew up boats in Caribbean claiming they were carrying drugs.
  • We threatened Canada.
  • We threatened Greenland and Denmark.
  • We attacked Venezuela.
  • We blockaded Cuba (the the extent that they have no electricity) and are contemplating attacking.
• Used the military against US citizens and are looking for any viable reason to invoke the Insurrection Act.

The US was seen as a stabilizing force in the world, and while we often made mistakes, we were seen as principled. Now, most of the world’s government see China as a much more reliable partner than the USA. We have become the bad guys.

And then we decided to attack Iran for no good reason. Trump claims that Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons (even though he claimed to have “obliterated” their program with his June 2025 airstrikes), although I suspect that it was meant to distract from the Epstein Files.

The problem is that no scenario has been “war-gamed” more in the last 20 years than an all-out war with Iran. We knew what would happen, how quickly we would sever their infrastructure, how long they would hold out, how difficult regime change would be, and the consequences of them closing the Strait of Hormuz. Literally nothing that has happened so far is a surprise (apart from having to use so many $3 million dollar tomahawks to take out swarms of $20,000 Iranian drones).

Trump and Hegseth were so convinced that they are the world’s “alpha males” and that Iran would quickly roll over, that they were both caught off guard when Iran fought back, closed the Strait of Hormuz, and refused to re-open it. Initially they didn’t anticipate the drone strikes (even though Russia has been using Iranian drones to attack Ukraine for years). Zelensky proved to be a much bigger man than Trump when he sent experts to help them deal with Iran’s drone attacks (I guess now Zelensky holds the cards?)

“No problem”, says Trump – the US can escort tankers thought the Strait of Hormuz. And then the military explains how dangerous that is and how much damage they would take.

OK, then let’s call our allies and get them to help open the Strait of Hormuz. Many have said “no”, a few said that they would think about it, but none have said “yes”. And why would they? What is Trump doing for them and the things that they care about? Even if we stop waring against Iran, they said that they won’t re-open the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is in this for the long haul.

So we have started a long-term war with no forethought, no real goals, no exit strategy, and no allies. And he’s still arguing that he’s bring down gas prices.

Somebody made the argument that Trump is playing 5D chess because this is really about hurting China, who relies heavily on oil from the Persian Gulf. The only problem with this argument is that Iran sees China as much less evil than the USA and they are allowing their oil tankers free passage through the Strait. So China is fine – this is only hurting us and the rest of the world.

The kicker is that since the world is so heavily impacted by the sudden (and probable long-term loss) of 1/5 of the world’s energy supply, that Trump is lifting sanctions against Russia to allow them to sell more oil. Russia takes that money and uses it fight Ukraine and to fund Iran. So we are helping Russia fund both the war on Ukraine and the Iranian airstrikes against us. How is that for 5D chess?

Consequences.