Performing 'power': the dangerous gap between bravado and strategy in Iran

“Never has a modern military been so obliterated,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told reporters last week speaking about the US attack on Iran. He boasted of the "overwhelming firepower" the US unleashed on its adversary, and painted a picture of a president who simply “unties the hands” of his warfighters to destroy the enemy “viciously.” It is a compelling narrative of US dominance, decisive, cinematic, and tailor-made for a political base that values strength above all else.

But in the high-stakes theater of international relations, there is a difference between performing power and projecting power. While the administration’s mix of bombast, braggadocio, and bravado plays well on cable news, it is actively undermining the currency that matters most: US prestige.

The administration’s rhetoric relies on three distinct, dangerous modes of speech. First, there is bombast, inflated language used to mask a lack of substantive progress. To call the Iranian military “obliterated” while the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed to global shipping is a stylistic flourish that ignores the tactical reality on the water.

Second is braggadocio, the verbal boasting used to signal dominance. This "truthful hyperbole," as the president called it in Art of the Deal, seeks to intimidate through exaggeration. Then there is bravado, which he also promoted in his book, an overestimation of one's ability to win a fight without a backup plan. Internationally, this translates into a "go-it-alone" show of force that assumes the adversary will simply crumble under the weight of his ego.

History warns us that when these three elements combine, the result is hubris. We saw this in Vietnam and the Second Gulf War, where successive administrations mistook technological superiority for an inevitable "mission accomplished." In both cases, the language of easy victory hid a fatal weakness: an underestimation of the enemy’s will to resist.

Today, the administration is repeating those mistakes. Secretary Hegseth claimed to have "foreseen every contingency," yet the president publicly scrambled to secure the world’s most vital energy artery. The administration stated that the US "does not need anyone," yet they found themselves requesting that allies escort the very vessels the US claimed they could protect alone.

This isn't just a matter of semantics. In international politics, prestige is built on the belief that a superpower’s word is its bond. When the administration claimed that the Iranian nuclear program was "obliterated," but the fact was proven otherwise, the US lost prestige. When the US demands the world follow its lead while failing to secure the basics of maritime safety, the US loses prestige.

Past leaders like Eisenhower and Bush 41 understood that true power is the ability to get an opponent to do what they don’t want to do, using the least amount of force possible. They built coalitions and spoke with a measured gravity that didn’t need to shout to be heard. They knew that power is a contest of wills and wits, not bombast.

Posturing can be a tool of diplomacy, but it is not a substitute for a coherent strategy. If the US continues to confuse "performing power" with "executing policy," we risk going into this conflict half-cocked. To win, as Sun Tzu famously noted, one must know both oneself and one's opponent. Currently, we seem more interested in looking the part than doing the work.

Jose E. Mora, PhD, is a former Professor and Chair of Global Affairs of the American University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Mora and his wife, Melissa, recently moved to Berea in order to be closer to their four adult children.