On January 3, 2020, the Trump administration conducted 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.
After the Trump cancellation of the Iran Deal, followed by U.S. sanctions, Soleimani reportedly stepped up violence against regional American bases—most of which Trump himself ironically wished to remove.
A few days later, Iran staged a performance-art retaliatory strike against Americans in Iraq and Syria, assuming Trump had no desire for a wider Middle East war.
So, Iran launched 12 missiles that hit two U.S. airbases in Iraq. Supposedly, Tehran had warned the Trump administration of the impending attacks that killed no Americans. Later reports, however, suggested that some Americans suffered concussions, while more damage was done to the bases than was initially disclosed.
Nonetheless, this Iranian interlude seemed to reflect Trump’s agenda of avoiding “endless wars” in the Middle East while restoring deterrence that prevented, not prompted, full-scale conflicts.
Yet in a second Trump administration, rethreading the deterrence needle without getting into major wars may become far more challenging. The world of today is far more dangerous than when Trump left in 2021.
An inept Biden administration has utterly destroyed U.S. deterrence abroad through both actual and symbolic disasters: the Chinese dressing down of U.S. diplomats in Anchorage; the humiliating skedaddle from Afghanistan; the brazen flight of a Chinese spy balloon across the U.S.; the invasion of Ukraine by Russia; the October 7, 2023 massacre of 1200 Israelis; the serial Houthi attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea; the visible restraint of Israeli from fully replying to Iranian missile attacks on its homeland; and renewed bellicosity on the part of both North Korea and China toward American allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Of course, a second-term Trump must radically reform the Pentagon and beef up the military while warning enemies of the consequences to follow from any unwise aggression.
But if opponents believe such admonitions remain only vocal threats, then empty verbiage surely will erode deterrence further—such as Joe Biden’s serial and empty braggadocio, “Don’t!”
Biden’s past theatrical finger-shaking translated into aggressors like Putin going into Ukraine, Iran sending missiles into Israel, and the Houthis serially hitting shipping in the Red Sea.
Given the past messes of the Iraqi, Libyan, and Syrian interventions, and the catastrophic Biden humiliation in Afghanistan, Trump in 2024 is much more emphatic about the need to avoid such overseas dead-end entanglements or even the gratuitous use of force that historically can sometimes lead to tit-for-tat entanglements.
Still, Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as vice president, along with Tulsi Gabbard, RFK, Jr., and Tucker Carlson as close advisors, coupled with the announcements that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and prior UN Ambassador Nikki Haley will not be in the administration, may be misinterpreted by scheming foreign adversaries as proof of Trump neo-isolationism.
Moreover, the U.S. is battered by an unsustainable $37 trillion national debt and a nonexistent southern border that saw 12 million illegal aliens enter with impunity.
So, the use of force abroad is now often seen in a zero-sum fashion as coming at the expense of unaddressed American needs at home.
Moreover, a woke, manpower-short military has not achieved strategic advantages from wars abroad, while disparaging and alienating the very working-class recruits who disproportionately fight and die in them.
Recently, even as President-elect Trump’s inner circle emphasized an end to endless conflicts, Trump warned Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin not to escalate his attacks against Ukraine. Yet that advice was followed by a Russian massive drone onslaught against civilian Ukrainian targets.
Putin no doubt wishes to encourage American 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 carrying a club. And for the first few months of his administration, he will be tested as never before to make it clear to Iran and its terrorist surrogates, China, North Korea, and Russia that aggression against US interests will be swiftly and quietly met with disproportionate and overwhelming repercussions.
Yet Trump will likely have to rely on drones, missiles, and air strikes and not on major engagements, to deter enemies from aggression—and his domestic critics from claiming he turned into a globalist interventionist.
He is not.
Trump remains a Jacksonian. But such deterrence entails warning from time to time the reckless and adventurous abroad that our allies have no better friend than America and our adversaries no worse enemy.
In other words, Trump must remind Americans only by periodically deterring enemies can he prevent endless wars.
There is a superseding problem that has to be considered. After years of waste and inefficiency America’s enemies could act now, just as Putin did after the Afghan withdrawal debacle. After all the long game is not quite the option it used to be and American defense is not likely to become any weaker in the future hence the opportunity for successes are now or possibly never. Is it worth the risk? China and Iran will be alone. Putin is strategizing with Trump even without either of them being aware. I suspect that sanity will one again prevail because a safer world benefits everyone except the Ayatollahs who are still sane enough to not commit suicide.
Seems to me; seems to me that if Trump wants to send a message that China - whom I view as a more serious threat than Russia - can’t ignore, that?
He should decide to do whatever is necessary to reduce Iran back to almost horse and buggy times.
I wouldn’t destroy their oil fields - leave those untouched so that when his efforts to destroy the cache, panache and power of the insane ones, who now rule Iran work - and they are removed by use of the most extreme forms of extreme prejudice possible?
That their replacements, if they prove worthy. can then use that oil wealth to rebuild.
To this end I would:
Destroy their ports so that nothing can be shipped in or out for the three or four years it would take to rebuild them - assuming anything was allowed in through the blockade we put in place of sinking anyone who desired to go visit them.
Cut them off - again - financially in every manner imaginable; use whatever pressure was needed to strong-arm if need be our - cut and run “allies” to cut them off economically.
In concert with Israel - obliterate their nuclear bomb making infrastructure.
That’s just for starters - with added inducements being added as needed.
I have some hope that after Pete Hegseth (sp?) gets done with the upper echelons of the military, it may rediscover the idea that the only acceptable outcome to a military engagement is total, unambiguous victory. War should never be a political tool, the military should never be a social experiment and if you cannot articulate specific strategies for winning & exiting with clear goals to achieve, our country has no business being involved.