In at least three separate elections, Donald J. Trump was portrayed by his supporters and right-wing intellectuals as an ‘anti-war’ candidate. This framing was interesting in that the Trump doctrine as he and those allied with him have articulated over time is one that should be familiar to most people: “peace through strength.”
This, like so much of Trump’s political messaging, is taken from Ronald Reagan and has been at the heart of every US administration’s foreign policy since at least the 1980s. The emphasis, whoever the president, has always been on the second part, which is why the budget for the US military went up by billions every year under President Trump the last time around just as it did under President Biden.
Those opposed to militarism regardless of who is espousing it were rightly appalled by Barack Obama’s routine use of drones over his two terms as president, including in many countries where no hostilities had been declared. Nonetheless, the numbers show that far from ending these often unproductive strikes that killed so many innocents, President Trump doubled down on them.
As reported by Matthew Duss in Foreign Policy last year, “According to the United Kingdom’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism, there were 2,243 drone strikes in just the first two years of Trump’s presidency, compared with 1,878 in the entire eight years of the Obama administration.”
If Donald Trump were truly interested in avoiding pointless conflicts, he would not have pulled out of the JCPOA (the Iran nuclear deal) negotiated by his predecessor. His goal seems to have been to tear up Obama’s chief diplomatic legacy despite the success of the agreement as reported by those overseeing it including close European allies, hardly the act of a principled person.
That the prior Trump administration had nothing but contempt for international law and diplomacy was demonstrated not only by the president’s rhetoric but by his actions, some of which were elucidated by Michael Galant shortly after the soon-to-be president left office in early 2021, “(He) shredded the Intermediate- Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty that ensured transparency between the U.S., much of Europe, and Russia, and failed to extend the critical New START Treaty with Russia. He took an inconsistent, self-serving, and often antagonistic approach to negotiations with North Korea that nearly took us to nuclear war.”
It should be obvious that at some point other countries may react to such bullying with aggression, but it often seems that the US relies on those deemed rivals or enemies to behave in a rational way not required of its own leaders.
At present, the incoming president has already vowed to use the American military on at least two fronts upon his return to office. First, an unconstitutional promise to deploy the U.S military against immigrants and asylum seekers within the United States itself and second, the use of force against drug cartels in Mexico. The latter could be a problem, as, in my experience, Mexican nationalism is a powerful force in that country and an armed American intervention could lead to more generalized resistance beyond those violent and well-resourced criminal groups.
Even without taking major conflicts in Ukraine and in the Middle East or his hawkish cabinet picks into account, what the man soon returning to the Oval Office is promising in terms of diplomacy doesn’t seem likely to result in a more peaceful world but one more prone to conflict.
Based on his own ever-shifting words and his last term in office, this hope that Trump's administration will promote peace is wishful thinking.
Derek Royden is a Canadian journalist.
