Trump can restore America’s influence on foreign policy without resorting to ‘endless wars’

On January 3, 2020, the Trump administration carried out a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport, killing Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani.

Soleimani had a long record of waging surrogate wars against Americans, especially during the Iraq conflict and its aftermath.

Following Trump’s cancellation of the Iran Deal, followed by US sanctions, Soleimani reportedly increased violence against regional US bases – most of which President Trump himself ironically wanted to remove.

A few days later, Iran launched a retaliatory performance art attack against Americans in Iraq and Syria, assuming Trump had no desire for a broader war in the Middle East.

So Iran launched twelve missiles that hit two American air bases in Iraq. Presumably, Tehran had warned the Trump administration about the impending attacks that did not kill any Americans. However, later reports suggested that some Americans suffered concussions, while more damage was done to the bases than initially disclosed.

Nevertheless, this Iranian interlude seemed to reflect Trump’s agenda to avoid “endless wars” in the Middle East while restoring deterrence that prevented, but not caused, large-scale conflict.

But in a second Trump administration, rethreading the deterrence needle without getting into major wars could become much more challenging. Today’s world is much more dangerous than when Trump left in 2021.

An inept Biden administration has utterly destroyed American deterrence abroad through both actual and symbolic disasters: the communist Chinese stripping American diplomats naked in Anchorage; the humiliating skedaddle from Afghanistan; the brazen flight of a Chinese spy balloon through America; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; the October 7, 2023 massacre of 1,200 Israelis; the serial Houthi attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea; Israel’s visible reluctance to fully respond to Iranian missile attacks on its homeland; and renewed belligerence by both North Korea and China toward U.S. allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Free China.

Of course, a second-term Trump must radically overhaul the Pentagon and strengthen the military, while warning enemies of the consequences that flow from ill-advised aggression.

Only if adversaries believe that such exhortations remain merely vocal threats, idle verbiage is certain to further erode deterrence – such as President Biden’s serial and empty boast: “Don’t do that!”

Mr. Biden’s theatrical finger-shaking in the past translated into aggressors like President Putin invading Ukraine, Iran sending missiles into Israel, and the Houthis serially hitting shipping in the Red Sea.

Given the mess of past Iraqi, Libyan and Syrian interventions, and Biden’s catastrophic humiliation in Afghanistan, Trump in 2024 is much more emphatic about the need to avoid such dead-end entanglements abroad or even the unnecessary use of force that has historically can occur, to be avoided. sometimes lead to tit-for-tat complications.

Yet Trump’s choice for Senator Vance as vice president, along with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tucker Carlson as close advisors, coupled with the announcements that Secretary of State Pompeo and Governor Haley will not be part of the administration, could be misinterpreted by deceiving foreign adversaries as evidence of Trump’s neo-isolationism.

Furthermore, America is plagued by an unsustainable $37 trillion national debt and a non-existent southern border that has allowed 12 million illegal aliens to enter the country with impunity.

So the use of force abroad is now often seen as a zero-sum effort that comes at the expense of unaddressed American needs at home.

Moreover, a woke, manpower-short military has not reaped strategic benefits from wars abroad, while discrediting and alienating the very working-class recruits who disproportionately fight and die there.

Recently, even as Trump’s inner circle emphasized an end to endless conflict, Mr. Putin warned Mr. Putin not to escalate his attacks on Ukraine. Yet that advice was followed by a Russian drone strike on Ukrainian civilian targets.

Mr. Putin undoubtedly wants to encourage America’s enemies to test Trump’s deterrent rhetoric against his campaign’s domestic promises to mind America’s own business at home.

Is there a way to square the deterrence circle?

Trump will have to speak clearly and softly while holding a baton. And during the first few months of his administration, he will be tested like never before to make clear to Iran and its terrorist surrogates, China, North Korea and Russia, that aggression against U.S. interests will be swiftly and quietly met with disproportionate and overwhelming attacks. implications.

Still, Trump will likely have to rely on drones, missiles and airstrikes, not big commands, to deter enemies from aggression — and his domestic critics won’t argue that he has become a globalist interventionist.

He’s not.

Trump remains a Jacksonian. Yet such deterrence means that we must from time to time warn the reckless and adventurous people abroad that our allies have no better friend than America and our adversaries no worse enemy.

In other words, Trump must remind Americans that only by periodically deterring enemies can he prevent endless wars.

Tribune Content Agency