A Businessman and a Brilliant Strategist

March 17, 2025 by J.B. Shurk

Business schools and military schools borrow extensively from each other’s academic literature. Although the workings of the boardroom and the battlefield might seem mismatched, there is considerable overlap. Both require leaders capable of assessing assets and liabilities dispassionately, developing short-term strategies that complement long-term objectives, and comprehending an adversary’s point of view. Both demand critical thinking.

Organizational theory, as a scholarly discipline, reflects the shared language of businesspeople and military planners. Business executives “go to war” against rivals and cordon off associates in “war rooms” when their firms’ interests are “under attack.” Military commanders seek to maximize “opportunity” and “leverage” while minimizing “loss.” Allocating resources efficiently and avoiding waste are crucial for both vocations. Just as an accountant is essential for a healthy business, a quartermaster is essential for a healthy army. In business and war, technical knowhow, tactical skill, and logistical expertise separate winners from losers, victors from the vanquished.

What is striking about President Trump’s return to the White House is how completely he embodies this business-military mindset. If a plan of action (a government program) is ineffective in achieving its goals, then the Trump administration terminates it immediately. If government bureaucrats within the Executive Branch’s ranks serve no purpose or fail in their day-to-day missions, then they are relieved of their duties. Just as fat, incompetent armies devour supplies and lose battles, bloated, incompetent bureaucracies devour resources and sabotage nations. Military commanders have no time to worry about an individual soldier’s feelings when operational success and lives are on the line. The chief executive of the United States has no time to worry about an individual bureaucrat’s feelings when the nation’s success and all Americans’ lives are at stake.

Anybody with a connection to the world of business or the armed forces recognizes in Trump certain qualities that successful CEOs and battle-hardened commanders often possess: a penchant for plain speaking, a no-nonsense attitude, and a steady focus on the larger mission. Don’t get me wrong; President Trump might just be the funniest, most entertaining man to ever hold the office. But he uses humor strategically. With a single rhetorical jab, he lifts friends up and destroys enemies. His humor is particularly effective because he pulls no punches. He paints and demolishes targets in quick succession. Before his opponents regain their balance, Trump has already changed directions and readied another attack. As Democrats in Congress have slowly come to understand, it is very difficult to defend your position when you can’t even stay on your feet.

Trump’s no-holds-barred return to the presidency has taken the Democrat party by surprise. Democrats have controlled the permanent administrative state for nearly a hundred years. During this prolonged occupation, their Marxist colleagues in the State Department have steered the country’s foreign policy, and their ideological comrades in the courts have rewritten the Constitution to advance Democrats’ socialist policies. Barack Obama and Joe Biden used the IRS and FBI to target political opponents. They used the DOJ and regulatory bodies as weapons to force DIE, ESG, and other “woke” pathologies upon private businesses. They directed the Intelligence Community to spy on and censor American citizens. Because Democrats have controlled the permanent bureaucracy for so long, the Obama and Biden administrations received astonishingly little pushback against their efforts to complete America’s transformation into a one-party state.

From Democrats’ point of view, President Trump’s opening salvo against the administrative state is inexplicable and abhorrent because they have long labored under the delusion that only they may wield government power. If you believe the unelected bureaucracy is a threat to the U.S. Constitution and the American Republic (as I do), then the war that the Democrats and their administrative state friends have waged against the American people this last century has been entirely one-sided. They have been the only army occupying the battlefield, and no one has effectively contested their bureaucratic siege of the country.

President Trump has only just begun to land blows on the Deep State blob, but the Democrat party is already losing what’s left of its collective mind. Although Trump’s victory over the administrative state is far from certain, Democrats never expected anyone to fight back. The unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy has advanced uncontested for so long that the mere arrival of an opposing commander willing to face it on the field of battle is unsettling. The Trump administration’s clear preparation for the larger war to reclaim Executive Branch powers illegitimately seized by the Deep State has left Washington’s Establishment Class deeply afraid.

If the Democrat-controlled Deep State in America is struggling to defend itself from President Trump’s MAGA insurgency, foreign governments are faring no better.

For eighty years, the United States has expended tremendous military resources in defending Canada and most of Europe. At the same time, the U.S. has permitted Canada and the European Union to construct tariff walls that keep American exports out without imposing reciprocal tariffs of its own. In effect, the U.S. has been subsidizing Canada’s and Europe’s economies since WWII, while paying for their collective defense. Although this arrangement has kept Western allies united under America’s leadership, American households have borne a great cost in lost jobs and transferred wealth. The arrangement — combined with international trade “deals” that only further accelerated the offshoring of American jobs — has severely diminished America’s once-formidable industrial and manufacturing self-sufficiency.

President Trump has thrown a whole hardware store’s worth of wrenches into this arrangement. He is implementing reciprocal tariffs that help balance the economic playing field and is insisting that nations benefiting from America’s security umbrella pay for the privilege. By the way Canadian and European politicians are freaking out over Trump’s demands, you’d think all these “proud and sovereign” nations believed they were entitled to American military protection and economic welfare.

In business and war, you cannot fight an opponent effectively without understanding that opponent’s motivations. Fortunately for Europe and Canada, President Trump has been exceedingly clear: economic security is national security. Therefore, the Trump administration will do whatever it must to rebuild America’s manufacturing and industrial strength. Increasing the incentives for entrepreneurs to invest in the United States furthers this goal.

Europe and Canada have made no effort to understand President Trump’s goals. How do we know? Because their politicians have done nothing but threaten new tariffs. Tariffs are no threat, however, to a country that is blessed with abundant natural resources and striving to reclaim its self-sufficiency. A “tariff war” exacerbated by European and Canadian politicians gives President Trump and his economic team what they want — an opportunity to fuel American investment and bring blue-collar jobs back to the United States.

President Trump is a remarkably creative problem-solver who approaches obstacles from many different (and often unexpected) angles. He intuitively puts into practice something President Eisenhower famously advised: When you run into a problem that you can’t solve, make it bigger. Where Trump’s critics see chaos, business and military minds see brilliance.

How do you rectify America’s industrial vulnerabilities as quickly as possible? You set in motion tough-love trade battles that force American entrepreneurs to rebuild. How do you prepare “Fortress America” for future conflicts in a multipolar world? You re-energize the Monroe Doctrine by asserting American power north to the Arctic via Greenland and Canada and south to Central America via the Panama Canal. How do you end an unnecessary nuclear standoff with Russia that consumes valuable military resources? You expand economic cooperation agreements that turn old foes into unexpected business partners.

Strategic minds solve problems by playing parts of the board that others don’t see. His detractors will deny it, but President Trump is a master strategist. That’s why he’s winning.