There are some simple rules that history keeps repeating, without us ever really listening to them. Among them: never attack without being prepared for the worst.
We live in a world where the balance of power is no longer where we think it is. Power is no longer measured in armored divisions, military budgets or aircraft carriers. They lurk in the interstices of value chains, in maritime straits, in the invisible dependencies we have built ourselves.
Power is no longer frontal; it is oblique. It strikes not where we look, but where we depend.
China has understood this better than anyone. Attacked commercially by the United States, summoned to bend under the weight of tariffs, technological restrictions and sanctions targeting its most emblematic companies, it could have responded symmetrically. But it didn’t. Instead, it chose a different terrain. The one where it is indispensable. Where it silently keeps the rest of the world on a tight leash. For China not only produces goods; it controls the very conditions of their production. It refines the bulk of rare earths, the materials without which no energy transition is possible, no modern aircraft can fly, no missile can be guided. It dominates battery production lines, and holds key positions in access to strategic minerals, from Congolese cobalt to South American lithium. It can slow down, steer, suspend. It can, without firing a single shot, disrupt entire economies. So, when it raises the possibility of restricting its exports of gallium, germanium or graphite in the face of the US President’s tariffs, it is a reminder that the most effective response is not one that responds blow for blow, but one that strikes where the adversary cannot defend itself.
Faced with this, the United States hesitated, retreated and sidestepped. They were not prepared for the worst. They had no idea that China could ruin most of their businesses in the space of a few months. They are now trying to rebuild an industrial and technological sovereignty that, out of hubris, they allowed to crumble. But this will take decades. Dependence, on the other hand, is immediate. Yet China, aware of its absolute strength, has not sought to exploit this fatal weapon to the end. Because it thinks in the long term.
Iran, on the other hand, is playing a different game. More brutal, more risky, but based on the same logic. Militarily attacked, its very existence threatened, the regime of the mullahs and the pasdaran is not only seeking to compete head-on with an infinitely superior power. It shifts the conflict to survive. It chooses its terrain. The Strait of Hormuz, of whose existence the American president seemed to be unaware: a narrow passage, barely a scar in the world’s geography, through which almost one-fifth of the world’s oil transits and supplies the countries that border it. Closing it, even selectively, is enough to cause tremors and, if prolonged, a recession and inflation that could bring down the global economy. For this, the Iranian regime only needs a few sea mines, a few speedboats, a few coastal missiles and drones, and the support of a few groups, such as the Houtis. And where China holds back its hand because it knows it is strong, the mullahs’ Iran, threatened with extinction, could be tempted to make full use of it to get the Americans to leave the region. And even more.
This is a reminder of the obvious, as Niall Ferguson recently reminded us in a private conversation: power is never symmetrical. It is made up of cross-dependencies, unstable balances and hidden vulnerabilities. Vietnam demonstrated this to the United States. Russia showed it to Europe, using gas as a political lever. So many other examples down the centuries say the same thing: the strong man’s weak point is always where he’s not looking.
Added to this is another obvious fact, just as often forgotten: the adversary is almost always a partner. China is the United States’ biggest trading partner. Iran, despite the regime’s horror and its willingness to destroy its people rather than disappear, is a major energy player, a great power in the making. And we can only attack it seriously if we are aware of the risks involved.
From these two situations, so different in appearance, emerges the same law. A law that the Cold War had already elevated to the rank of doctrine: deterrence. Don’t attack someone who can destroy you without weighing up the risk. Even if he’s weaker. Especially if he’s weaker.
This is not just the logic of states. It’s also the logic of our lives:
Before thinking about attacking a competitor of any kind, whether in the marketplace or in our private lives, we need to start by identifying what we can do to harm ourselves.
Understand what the other can destroy without destroying ourselves. Assess not their apparent strength, but their real capacity to cause harm. Be prepared to suffer the consequences of the risks you take. And only engage in battle when it’s worth it, especially in defense of values.
In literature, as in film, tragedies are often born of this original error: attacking someone whose hidden power is unknown, without having the means to counterattack. Macbeth, in seeking to secure his power, unleashes the forces that will doom him. In The Godfather, those who think they can weaken the Corleones provoke a war they can no longer control, leading to their destruction.
Wisdom is not about avoiding conflict.
It’s about knowing which ones are worth engaging in, and lucidly assessing the risks you’re willing to run.