Over the weekend, the United States bombed three nuclear facilities in Iran. Iran has been considered a political risk to America since the 1979 revolution, and President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that it cannot be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. The strikes mark yet another attempt in a long-running US strategy to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

But whether Trump’s strikes will achieve his stated aim of destroying Iran’s nuclear program is unclear. It doesn’t help that his plan around the attacks has felt haphazard. Trump said Iran had a two-week deadline before he would authorize a strike — then attacked only two days later. Even just before the bombs were dropped Trump was telling the press that targeting nuclear facilities may not even be an option, saying “I may or I may not do it.” Trump stated in his 2024 election victory speech that he was “not going to start a war,” yet he has now hinted on social media that regime change could be next.

Trump could be accused of simply being chaotic here. But this is a deliberate strategy. Trump has a history of being intentionally unpredictable when it comes to foreign policy, known as the unpredictability doctrine. Drawing from his experiences in his previous career in business, Trump says being predictable is bad. When the other side doesn’t know what you are going to do, you are in control. His plan is also about creating uncertainty. You make your opponent unsure of what they are facing and unable to make decisions in response, leaving you to take the advantage.

But foreign policy is not business, and a strategy that works with corporations may backfire on the world stage. While nobody knows exactly what will happen next, what can we work out about the implications of Trump’s actions now given what has worked (or hasn’t) before in terms of nuclear arms control?

Strikes now, problems later

Countries may consider military strikes on nuclear facilities when they feel that the other side won’t cooperate in negotiations. For example, Israel, believing that Iraq would never be serious about a diplomatic solution, bombed an Iraqi enrichment facility at Osirak in 1981 to stymie the nuclear program. The preventive attack did serious damage to the facility, and Israel claimed they had

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