Tariffs Weaken American National Power
The Trump administration drops the D.I.M.E.
NATIONAL POWER IS A DIFFICULT THING to define. But in teaching and studying strategy at all our military’s war colleges, our senior military and government civilians use the acronym “DIME” to describe the diplomatic, information, military, and economic elements of national power. Students learn that these four elements are interdependent and are mutually reinforcing strands in a web that defines how nations exhibit power, exert influence, and secure their interests.
Taken together, these elements of power can generate something greater than the sum of the parts: trust. When the United States has well-understood diplomatic goals and positions, takes in and sends out intelligence and properly messages information, maintains a strong and effective military, and wields a thriving economy, our allies and our adversaries know to take our words and actions seriously. They trust us. In military operations, in international partnerships, in messaging our values and ideas, and in high-stakes diplomacy, trust is always the real coin of the realm. It’s expensive and difficult to gain trust—but not nearly as costly as operating without it.
Alone, each one of these elements is important; together, they help us exhibit strength and leadership as a nation. And each specific element of national power depends on the others. Too often, Americans think of power in isolation. We debate military readiness without considering diplomatic blowback. We think of informational messaging campaigns without considering their diplomatic implications. We sometimes impose economic sanctions without regard for allied cooperation. We make drastic cuts to the military to save money, which costs us in the long run; or we spend huge amounts on the military without serious ideas of how to pay for it. When one strand frays—whether by unintended action, neglect, short-sighted policy, or outright sabotage—it weakens the others. It erodes trust.
Today, we’re seeing the effects of a radical tariff policy hastily applied and widely seen as uncoordinated and unfair. Our financial markets responded with predictable volatility, then the ripple moved outward. Trading partners retaliated. Countries lost trust in our economic policies and the future power of the dollar. Investors, both foreign and domestic, grew wary and then angry. The world began to lose trust and confidence in the United States as a stable, predictable economic leader. One strand began to fray, and it has the potential to increasingly affect the other three.
I’ve seen and experienced this firsthand as a soldier. As the commander of U.S. Army Europe during the European debt crisis, I watched trust deteriorate with several of our European partners at different times. Italy’s financial crisis was exacerbated when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi faced a criminal trial for a series of scandals. While my Italian military counterpart was a good friend and trusted ally, it became increasingly difficult to coordinate with him because of what was going on in his government. Plans were delayed. Communication suffered. The rot in the economic and political arenas tainted the military. Trust was damaged.
The situation was worse in Serbia. To start with, Serbia wasn’t an ally. Despite promises of reform, their government was still harboring war criminals from the Balkans conflict, and I could never fully trust my Serbian military counterparts. Their unwillingness to confront their past—and their manipulation of information about it—corroded any possibility of a reliable military partnership.
And of course, there was Russia. Long before the invasion of Crimea, intelligence painted a clear picture: Vladimir Putin was pursuing a policy of imperial resurgence and territorial expansion. His use of disinformation, cyber operations, energy coercion, and even assassinations of his political rivals were clear signals that he knew how to combine DIME into a coherent whole to achieve nefarious objectives.
Which brings us to our current situation. The execution of the Trump administration’s new tariffs appears sloppy and self-defeating. The administration promised “shock and awe,” and predictably, those bold, dramatic actions meant to stun an adversary into submission have revealed an absence of strategic foresight and a lack of coordinated planning and risk mitigation. In military operations, failing to account for the enemy’s likely response is a cardinal sin. Yet we are witnessing that same shortfall in the economic domain. The countries affected by the tariffs—many of them longtime trading partners and allies—are not absorbing these decisions quietly, as the administration had hoped they would. They are responding in kind, adjusting trade routes, seeking alternative partnerships, and questioning the dependability of the United States as a global economic anchor. Implementing sweeping tariffs without understanding short- and long-term second- and third-order effects is not a demonstration of strength. It’s a gamble, and it appears we don’t have the cards.
When our economic actions lack transparency or coherence, when they seem impulsive rather than strategic, we alienate allies and embolden adversaries. Our diplomats are left scrambling to explain policies they had no part in crafting (and for which they have no rational explanation). Our public information channels, lacking accurate candor and now broken, become mere spin, and our military partners begin to question the consistency of our government and our global commitments. To satisfy a political impulse, we have weakened not just our economy, but our overall national power.
What’s worse, this economic self-immolation comes after a systematic dismantling of some of the other most effective tools of national power. Career diplomats have been dismissed or marginalized. Institutions like USAID and the Voice of America—once beacons of American values—have been gutted. Our intelligence community, most recently the National Security Agency and Cyber Command, have faced waves of internal disruption and increasing public and international distrust.
Trump promised to strengthen the military, but it’s important to realize the military never operates in a vacuum and certainly can’t carry the other three elements of power. We depend on diplomats to build coalitions, on intelligence to shape the battlespace, on information to help gain trust by messaging our ideology and policies, and on our economy to support a military that gives us an unfair advantage over any potential enemy. We used to have all of this, and so we had trust internally and externally. It is why we have so many enduring alliances. It is why foreign militaries sought joint training and exercises with us. It is why international development agencies followed our lead, and why our diplomat’s words carried weight in global forums. But that trust is not infinite, and as we’ve seen, it can squandered.
National strength is not just measured in GDP, in carrier strike groups, in radio broadcasts or votes at the United Nations. It’s in all these things, and more, when they are synchronized and complementary.
Trust strengthens each element of DIME. Break that trust, in one or more of the elements in big or small ways, and the nation loses.
 | A guest post by
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