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In the days before the surprise U.S. attack on Iran, Politico reported<\/a> that one man in the Defense Department was having an outsized say on Washington\u2019s Iran strategy: Erik Kurilla, the hawkish U.S. Central Command leader known as \u201cThe Gorilla.\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s a big dude, he\u2019s jacked, he\u2019s exactly this \u2018lethality\u2019 look they\u2019re going for,\u201d said an anonymous former official. So long as military advisors \u201ccome across as tough and warfighters,\u201d the source added, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth \u201cis easily persuaded to their point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n Kurilla\u2019s influence illustrates a broader truth about Washington\u2019s current priorities: In President Donald Trump\u2019s second term, hypermasculinity has become the governing logic of U.S. foreign policy. Masculinity in itself\u2014associated<\/a> with traits such as leadership, strength, and courage\u2014is not harmful. But a brand of traditional masculinity defined by<\/a> aggression, lack of emotional regulation, and poor impulse control is, and it has become a driving force in an administration that favors preemptive attacks in pursuit of national self-interest<\/a> over U.S. values.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n In the days before the surprise U.S. attack on Iran, Politico reported<\/a> that one man in the Defense Department was having an outsized say on Washington\u2019s Iran strategy: Erik Kurilla, the hawkish U.S. Central Command leader known as \u201cThe Gorilla.\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s a big dude, he\u2019s jacked, he\u2019s exactly this \u2018lethality\u2019 look they\u2019re going for,\u201d said an anonymous former official. So long as military advisors \u201ccome across as tough and warfighters,\u201d the source added, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth \u201cis easily persuaded to their point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n Kurilla\u2019s influence illustrates a broader truth about Washington\u2019s current priorities: In President Donald Trump\u2019s second term, hypermasculinity has become the governing logic of U.S. foreign policy. Masculinity in itself\u2014associated<\/a> with traits such as leadership, strength, and courage\u2014is not harmful. But a brand of traditional masculinity defined by<\/a> aggression, lack of emotional regulation, and poor impulse control is, and it has become a driving force in an administration that favors preemptive attacks in pursuit of national self-interest<\/a> over U.S. values.<\/p>\n The U.S.-China tariff war\u2014a symbolic contest grounded in masculine tropes of refusing to back down<\/a> or betray weakness<\/a>\u2014exemplifies this dynamic. But its apex so far has been the Trump administration\u2019s approach to the Iran conflict. As Trump\u2019s decision to strike Iran\u2019s nuclear program makes clear, hypermasculinity now directly shapes U.S. tactical moves, overriding considerations of diplomatic fallout or escalation risks.<\/p>\n World leaders have begun policing each other\u2019s legitimacy based on how convincingly they perform their role as hard-line protectors of national interests. Consider Trump\u2019s dismissal<\/a> of Iran\u2019s \u201cvery weak\u201d retaliatory attack on Monday, or British politician-turned-academic Rory Stewart noting<\/a> that \u201cIran\u2019s legitimacy depends on trying to launch a backlash against the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n This logic isn\u2019t new. Even more traditional negotiation tactics in U.S. history featured masculine rhetoric. (President John F. Kennedy famously bragged<\/a> that he \u201ccut [Nikita Khrushchev\u2019s] balls off\u201d during the Cuban missile crisis.) But its ubiquity might be. Today, foreign policy is increasingly turning into a zero-sum contest where leaders are incentivized to perform a brand of masculinity signaling dominance, control, and strength\u2014or risk appearing weak.<\/p>\n In the aftermath<\/span> of World War II, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower set out a moral architecture for U.S. foreign policy that prioritized diplomacy. Advocating for peace and cautioning against unnecessary entanglements, he opposed<\/a> striking first and the notion of \u201cpreemptive wars.\u201d In his 1961 farewell address, Eisenhower warned<\/a> against the growing influence of the \u201cmilitary-industrial complex.\u201d<\/p>\n That view is largely at odds with the Trump administration\u2019s embrace of hypermasculinity. Once dominated by social elites, diplomacy tends to rely on a tight script of how to behave and act. As one scholar of early modern England has noted<\/a>, that code is inherently removed from traditional displays of manliness through \u201cphysical prowess.\u201d Historically, diplomacy relied on personal relationships and subtle negotiation, and since notions of masculinity varied from culture to culture, it was difficult<\/a> to perform masculinity while conducting foreign policy.<\/p>\n Now, this approach\u2014of tact, cooperation, and restraint\u2014has been reframed as emasculating. One Trump administration official, speaking anonymously to NBC News<\/a>, recently dismissed traditional diplomacy as a \u201cgame of telephone.\u201d Diplomacy has also become increasingly public-facing. As Foreign Policy<\/em>\u2019s Ravi Agrawal has written<\/a>, Trump has ushered in a reality TV presidency, one that upends the idea that diplomacy was never meant for public consumption.<\/p>\n Like reality TV, representing one\u2019s nation-state has become highly personal<\/a>. Stewart has argued<\/a> that Trump\u2019s diplomacy is driven by whatever makes him \u201clook like the tough guy.\u201d His administration is full of men who embody this ethos; just consider Hegseth boasting about the number of pushups<\/a> he did the morning of his Senate confirmation hearing.<\/p>\n This foreign-policy turn has been partly fueled by the global trend of masculinity becoming increasingly important to political identity. Much has been<\/a> written<\/a> about<\/a> the cultural reckoning around male resentment as men have fallen behind in education, struggled to adapt to the changing workforce, and experienced worsening mental health. Around the world, these disaffected young men are turning<\/a> to the right.<\/p>\n Online ecosystems, or the so-called manosphere, have normalized gender hierarchies, bolstering narratives that men are victims of modernity, feminism, and softness. Misogynistic content is reaching boys at an unprecedented pace\u2014according to the New York Times<\/a><\/em>, after less than nine minutes of scrolling on TikTok. Societies\u2019 failure to offer guidance on men\u2019s role in society has left young males vulnerable to voices that shift the blame to women, with 60 percent<\/a> of Gen Z men across 31 countries now believing gender equality has gone too far.<\/p>\n This manufactured outrage<\/a> around male victimhood\u2014the kind that has underpinned many mass shootings<\/a>\u2014has elevated emotion over ideology in politics. And the U.S. right seems to be appealing to those emotions. Conservative pundits have wagered<\/a> that tariffs will fix the country\u2019s so-called masculinity crisis.\u00a0Meanwhile, in a now-deleted tweet<\/a> from April, the U.S. Department of Labor shared a romanticized image of a return to manufacturing\u2014artificial intelligence-generated white men in hard hats, with grime-covered faces\u2014a future that even a commentator for the right-wing Cato Institute recognized<\/a> as \u201cneither preferable nor possible.\u201d<\/p>\n When policymaking becomes rooted in alpha masculinity, leaders become further detached from any lived horrors of war. After the United States bombed Iran, Keith Kellogg, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, posted on X<\/a> about the \u201cdifferent feel\u201d in the West Wing, which he compared to a \u201csports team that won a major game or in business winning a major competitive contract\u201d\u2014two traditionally male-coded spaces driven by zero-sum decision-making. \u201cYou \u2018strut\u2019 differently,\u201d he added, before calling Trump \u201cBad Ass\u201d (shorthand for masculine legitimacy, militarism, and bravado).<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in the wake of the operation, Trump framed the United States as a winner whose \u201cgreat American Warriors<\/a>\u201d will \u201cnever, ever fail<\/a>,\u201d while ignoring any potential human cost of the conflict\u2019s fallout. This dissonance has long existed in foreign policy, where suffering is defensible in the name of statehood, but the Trump administration\u2019s posturing essentially turns international crises into a locker-room spectacle.<\/p>\n Furthermore, Trump\u2019s attitude reduces foreign policy\u2014and governance more broadly\u2014to clear, winnable outcomes. This sidelines the complexity of peacebuilding, denigrating the hard-won consensus that defined 20th-century diplomacy. For peace to be lasting, it needs to be rooted in efforts for dialogue and mutual understanding.<\/p>\n This crisis of manhood<\/span> isn\u2019t just limited to the United States. Trump is merely a particularly salient expression of a broader shift<\/a>, as young men around the world look to leaders who will reflect their anger and disaffection back to them: Argentine President Javier Milei, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. In contrast, a figure such as former U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris is dismissed as someone whom these men would, in Trump\u2019s words<\/a>, \u201cwalk all over.\u201d<\/p>\n The repercussions are serious in this moment of polycrisis<\/a>. From climate change to AI to migration, cross-border challenges that demand collective solutions are instead being met with competition and isolationism. Around the world, voters increasingly feel that the social contract is fraying\u2014that despite their personal sacrifices<\/a>, societies\u2019 failure to act leaves the future looking bleak. As trust in governments\u2019 capacity to deliver change erodes, the logic<\/a> of \u201cpayback and vengeance\u201d\u2014against elites, women, immigrants, and the international system\u2014gains ground.<\/p>\n At this critical tipping point for AI regulation<\/a> and climate action<\/a>, this masculine logic narrows policy imagination, making states more susceptible to interconnected risk. As a doctrine of dominance, masculinity will indeed create some winners, but at the expense of under-equipping institutions for long-term threats. Its logic allows people to believe that individual leaders can manage crises under the current system\u2014for instance, with silver-bullet techno-fixes<\/a>. This enables a select few to profit from short-term solutions without overhauling the systems that caused them.<\/p>\n Masculinity in itself is not the problem. When societies allow manhood to encompass a range of identities that break from the traditional script, it can even become a strength<\/a>. Roles often associated with masculinity\u2014such as the protector or provider\u2014are valuable to society. But rather than being driven into wars of ego, men must root their leadership in care and cooperation.<\/p>\n Naming hypermasculinity as a governing logic is essential to understanding what\u2019s driving today\u2019s foreign policy\u2014and what it may ultimately cost citizens of all countries, not just the United States. Policymakers have a choice: Remain in cycles of nationalism and emotional vengeance, or return to the fight for humanity\u2019s future, together.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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