Trump's New Doctrine of Precision Deterrence

On January 3^rd, 2020, President Donald Trump eliminated Iran’s Qassam Soleimani. On January 3^rd, 2026, Trump seized Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. These two divergent events, separated by exactly six years, reveal a new dynamic in American foreign and defense policy. With his 2020 strike on Soleimani, President Trump established an approach that has become clearer in his second term with the bombing of Fordow (Operation Midnight Hammer) and the remarkable raid to seize Nicolas Maduro (Operation Absolute Resolve). I call it Precision Deterrence: a dramatic level of force typically reserved for large scale operations, unconventionally constrained to limited aims.