Trump's Failed Promise to Stop America's 'Endless Wars'

"The best aspect of the Trump foreign policy is that he has revealed the mind of the foreign policy establishment," says historian Thaddeus Russell. "The worst part... is that he's a mass murderer just like the rest of them."
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Donald Trump's pitch to "Make America Great Again" included a commitment to rethinking America's interventionist foreign policy.

"After the Cold War, our foreign policy veered badly off course," then-candidate Trump told an audience at the Center for the National Interest in April 2016. "Logic was replaced with foolishness and arrogance, and this led to one foreign policy disaster after another."

Trump's promise to unwind America's foreign commitments won the vote of some anti-war libertarians, who argued that, while many of his political views were odious, foreign policy mattered most.

"Donald [Trump] is a peacenik, practically, certainly compared to the war-mongering Hillary [Clinton]," libertarian economist Walter Block told the audience at a November 2016 debate over whether libertarians should support Trump, which was hosted by the Soho Forum.

On the campaign trail, Trump also attacked Clinton for voting to authorize the invasion of Iraq as a senator, for pushing for U.S. intervention in Libya as secretary of state, and for her hawkish approach to foreign policy in general.

"Almost everything [Hillary Clinton] has done in foreign policy has been a mistake, and it's been a disaster," Trump said in an October 2016 debate.

In a November 2016 Reason podcast, historian Thaddeus Russell made the case that Trump would prove to be the less interventionist alternative to Clinton.

"Whenever there's a dictator or tyrant [America doesn't] like in any part of the world, we are obligated to remove him," Russell said. "Trump is the first president to call bullshit on that very claim…And in doing so, I think he may do great service for actual peace."

But now that we're ending his presidential term, do noninterventionists believe Trump actually has moved the world closer to peace?

"I think Trump has moved America considerably closer to peace," says Russell. "At the very same time, he's moved us into more wars. So it's a terribly mixed bag."

But Russell says that Trump's rhetoric alone still was an important victory for the noninterventionist cause.

"He called into question the need for America to invade countries, to change their regimes and to stay there…Specifically, he called into question the Iraq war."

Scott Horton, a popular anti-war podcast host and author of a book on the history of the war in Afghanistan, says modern presidents often campaign against war because it's a popular position in the abstract.

"The American people want peace," says Horton.

In the end, Trump, as commander in chief, has had ample opportunity to begin making good on his promise to begin extricating the American military from its endless wars. Time and again, he has failed to formulate a coherent strategy for doing so.

"It never should have been this way. We screwed up, got the whole 21st century off on the wrong foot," says Horton. "But we didn't need to. We could call the whole damn thing off…and just forge that new [foreign policy] consensus and stick with it. It should be easy because we're right."

Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Graphics by Lex Villena and Isaac Reese.

Photo credits: "Liz Cheney," Stefani Reynolds/CNP/MEGA/ Newscom; "Mother at military funeral," Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Newscom; "Carrying flag-draped casket," Kevin Dietsch/Newscom; "Woman at veteran's gravesite," Michael A. McCoy/ZUMA Press/Newscom; "Trump and Jeb Bush at debate," Max Wittaker/UPI/Newscom; "Trump holding up fists," Yin Bogu Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; "Chinese ballistic missile," Kyodo/Newscom; "Donald Trump campaigning at podium," by Gage Skidmore; "Trump and Clinton debate," Christian Gooden/TNS/Newscom; "Afghanistan war footage," by Combat Views under Creative Commons license; "Trump with crowd behind him," by Image of Sport/Newscom; "Yemeni children in village," CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/Newscom; "Yemeni children getting water," CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/Newscom; "Yemeni child in hospital," Abdulnasser Alseddik/ZUMA Press/Newscom; "Bombed Yemeni village," Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; "Nurse wearing face shield," CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/Newscom.

Music credits: "Truth or Reality," "Temerity," "Unforeseen," "To Begin Again," by Sean Williams licensed by Artlist.