The US-led intervention in Libya after Muammar Gaddafi voluntarily dismantled his nuclear program serves as a key lesson for authoritarian regimes. It demonstrated that disarmament leads to punishment, not security, directly incentivizing countries like Iran and North Korea to pursue nuclear weapons for regime survival.

During the six-party talks, North Korean negotiators had so little authority that the U.S. team had to generate creative proposals for them to take back to Pyongyang. Their job was not to negotiate but to relay messages, revealing the severe centralization of decision-making.

For decades, U.S. policy insisted on North Korea's denuclearization. This approach has completely failed, with North Korea's arsenal growing significantly. Policymakers' inability to accept North Korea as a nuclear state perpetuates a failed strategy that now requires a total rethink.

Leaders often assume that applying pressure will force an opponent to the negotiating table. This strategy can fail when the adversary operates under a different logic or, as with Iran's decentralized military, when there is no single authority left to negotiate with, revealing a critical cognitive bias.

Strategic failures in conflict often stem not from failing to predict an enemy's action, but from misreading their core motivation. The greatest error is assuming an adversary will act rationally when they are willing to endure immense self-harm, like economic collapse, solely to retain power.

Advocates for regime change in Iran ignore the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan. Destroying the existing regime is far easier than building a new, stable government. The US has a poor track record, spending trillions and thousands of lives in similar efforts only to see the original powers, like the Taliban, return.

Nations like the US and USSR prolong involvement in failed conflicts like Afghanistan primarily due to "reputational risk." The goal shifts from achieving the original mission to avoiding the perception of failure, creating an endless commitment where objectives continually morph.

Trump's strategy of escalating threats is based on the model that rational actors will capitulate to overwhelming force. This fails when adversaries, viewing conflict as existential, operate under a different calculus, leading to unpredictable and dangerous escalations.

North Korea's extreme, self-imposed COVID lockdown mirrored the "maximum pressure" sanctions the U.S. had long advocated. The regime's survival through this period provided a real-world test, proving that even complete economic isolation is insufficient to force denuclearization.