Major Powers Use Strategic Ambiguity to Gain Global Leverage

The United States, China, Russia, and Iran are increasingly utilizing strategic uncertainty and ambiguity as weapons to secure geopolitical and economic advantages. Under Donald Trump, the United States employs inconstancy in trade and foreign policy, using unpredictable tariffs and export controls to pressure foreign entities to manufacture goods within America.

China leverages its dominance in critical industrial inputs, such as rare-earth elements, by implementing export controls and long-arm laws to force companies to produce finished goods in China. Meanwhile, Russia engages in hybrid warfare against NATO to befuddle European governments, and Iran conducts hard-to-attribute cyber-attacks.

On November 9, the French Republic attributed a series of cyber-attacks to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Research and Self-Sufficiency Jihad Organization. These attacks caused fires in European supermarkets by remotely overheating freezers.