The Strategic Mistake: Ignoring Iran’s Indispensable Global Leverage

Al Ries and Jack Trout are considered America’s foremost marketing strategists, with their seven solo and co-authored books being bestsellers. Three of their books became standard readings for my senior-level Marketing Strategy students when I taught at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). All seven of their books were thoroughly discussed when teaching Marketing Management for UNI’s MBA program in Hong Kong.

If President Trump, Pete Hegseth, and their military advisors had consulted even one of Ries and Trout’s bestselling books, the Iranian war might have been avoided. I will explain further.

The Law of Focus

In Ries and Trout’s book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, law number 5 is “The Law of Focus.” Its subheading states, “The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind.” For example, Federal Express is associated with the word “overnight” in most people’s minds. When a product needs to be delivered by the next day, customers typically choose FedEx.

Ries’s book, Focus, emphasizes that successful businesses must concentrate on and claim ownership of a unique attribute that is difficult to replicate and firmly established in the target market’s mind.

This concept also applies to countries whose prospects are other nations. This is called strategic indispensability; other countries will struggle without your resources. In global trade, it is unwise to impose tariffs or initiate conflict with a country that supplies something essential to your nation.

Iran

The Strait of Hormuz is Iran’s focal point of dominance and a strategic indispensability factor. An average of 138 ships sail through Hormuz daily. Only 19 ships have passed through the Strait since the ceasefire, and nearly 800 ships have been stranded for several weeks (BBC).

As a result, Iran controls the passage of ships transporting oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), fertilizer-related products, sulfur, helium, and petrochemicals to 14 countries: Bahrain, China, India, Israel, Kuwait, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

Strategic Indispensability

Focus, economic leverage, and long-term sustainability for any country comes from three things: 1) a chokepoint, where one route or facility is hard to bypass (e.g., Strait of Hormuz), 2) processing dominance, where the raw material exists elsewhere but one country controls the refining of a manufacturing step (e.g., rare earths and chips) and/or 3) a single-point dependence, where a tiny number of firms or places hold most of the capacity, making disruption globally costly.

Examples of national focus, leverage, and strategic indispensability include:

• The United States dominates high-end advanced technology, defense alliances, and other countries' dependence on access to America’s financial industry.
• China controls ~90% of rare-earth processing, giving it export control over rare earths, as they are vital for defense, electronics, clean technology, and semiconductor supply chains.
• Countries with leverage in semiconductor materials and equipment include China, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Taiwan. Taiwan manufactures over 90% of the world’s most advanced chips.
• Key players in the LNG and helium industries include Algeria, Australia, Qatar, and Russia.
• The major strategic indispensability for Egypt is its access to the Suez Canal.
• Saudi Arabia’s oil production is its dominant factor worldwide.
• Europe relies on Norwegian natural gas as a major non-Russian supply source.
• Countries that are strategically indispensable for nickel supply, which is critical for batteries and stainless steel, include Australia, Canada, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
• Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Canada, China, Chile, Congo, and Peru are key suppliers of copper and lithium, which are vital for electrical and energy storage applications.

Diplomacy 101

It’s a shame the rookie diplomacy crew at Trump 2.0 didn’t learn from Presidents Reagan, G.H. Bush, Clinton, G.W. Bush, Obama, and Biden that you do not invade a country if it has dominance (strategic indispensability) over a product, good, or service your country needs.

The United States and virtually every country will pay dearly to end the war Mr. Trump started without understanding the concept of strategic indispensability, without seeking Congressional authorization, and without consulting with NATO members and a multitude of other foreign leaders.

Dear Mr. Trump

Mr. Trump, I encourage you and your administration to consult a scholar from a major business school regarding the concepts of focus, leverage, and strategic indispensability. These principles are relevant not only to the Iranian conflict but also to the imposition of tariffs on countries that supply essential goods to the United States. It is unsurprising that countries affected by these tariffs, such as Brazil, China, and India, are now seeking alternative trading partners.

Hope springs eternal

Effective leadership is needed in the White House, Department of Defense, among military advisors, and within Congress to ensure a clear understanding of the focus, leverage, and strategic indispensability factors for the United States and other nations. This understanding will enable us to act appropriately in the global economy as allies rather than adversaries.

Steve Corbin is a professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa and a non-paid freelance guest columnist contributor to 158 newspapers and 47 social media platforms in 44 states