As I write this in late November 2020, I am assuming that Joe Biden will become president on January 20, 2021, even though Trump is still contesting the outcome of the election as called by the corporate media. I am also assuming that Trump will not start any new wars in the next two months, even though I know this is still a possibility.
If there are no new wars in the next two months and Trump leaves office, he will be the first president in at least 4 decades who didn’t get the U.S. involved in a new major war.
To be clear, I have been quite critical of Trump for his handling of U.S. foreign policy. He has surrounded himself with war hawks, many of which are leftovers from the previous Bush administration. Trump has been unable to end the continued wars overseas, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. While troop reductions are a step in the right direction, they are not complete withdrawals. He has continued to allow bombs to be dropped on foreign countries
I have been quite critical of Trump with his policy towards Iran. Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, which is one of the few decent things done by the Obama administration. I believe that all sanctions should be removed from Iran. Also, the U.S. government’s assassination of an Iranian official was immoral and quite dangerous, and we are lucky that did not lead to a broader conflict.
There have also been interventions in other places, such as Venezuela. The U.S. government tried to execute a coup there, but it failed. It is good that Trump did not try to up the ante there.
Trump campaigned on an America-first platform. I would prefer a strictly non-interventionist approach, but Trump’s policy was an improvement. Trump has actually made the Republican Party less hawkish than it was five years ago. This is a good thing.
Trump’s foreign policy is very inconsistent. However, this is a vast improvement from what we have seen over the last several decades. I don’t want a more consistent foreign policy if the default position is always more war and more intervention.
A Long List of Wars
You can see a list of the U.S. wars and conflicts on Wikipedia. There are other sources with an even bigger list. For example, the Wikipedia list avoids many of the covert operations and attempted coups. Ukraine is not on this list, even though the U.S. government did assist in a coup during the Obama administration. This was just before U.S. politicians and its corporate media were criticizing Putin for supposedly annexing Crimea.
If you look back at the last 40 years, the two Bush administrations and the Obama administration (Mr. Peace Prize) are the worst. There were smaller conflicts under Reagan including Lebanon, Grenada, and the bombing of Libya. The best you can say about Reagan is that he kept the peace with the Soviet Union, and there were no total disasters as we’ve seen in the Middle East wars and occupations of the 21stcentury.
Bill Clinton saw conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo. There were also missile strikes in Sudan (Monica missiles). This isn’t widely recognized, but there was continued bombing in Iraq during Clinton’s time in office from the first Gulf War.
It should be clear though that there has been almost no peace at all over the last 100 years or more. Even during the Carter administration, there were conflicts going on. It’s not as if the U.S. had a non-interventionist foreign policy at any point.
The first Bush administration gave us the first Iraq War. There was also an invasion in Panama and a disaster that started in Somalia.
The second Bush administration gave us Afghanistan and Iraq War 2, which was really just a scaling up of the war started under his father. These are wars and occupations that continue to this day. They have been complete disasters and have led to widespread problems in the overall region.
The Obama administration gave us Libya, Yemen, and Syria, which have all been devastating for the innocent people living in those regions. As mentioned above, there were covert operations in Ukraine. There were also conflicts in Africa and troop surges in the Middle East. Obama was a complete disaster for foreign policy regardless of what you might hear from the corporate media.
Obama 2
I see no reason why a Biden/ Harris administration would be any different from Obama. Biden will go along with whatever his handlers tell him to do. Since one of his handlers is essentially the Pentagon, we can see where that will go. Harris is an authoritarian and is similar to Hillary Clinton. She would thrive on going to war and using her power if and when she becomes president.
Biden and Harris were bragging in the campaign that several people from the previous Bush administration were not supporting Trump. They and some other Republicans were supporting Biden for president. This was supposed to be a talking point against Trump.
I saw this as a positive for Trump. If someone like Colin Powell is supporting Biden and is anti Trump, that tells me something right there. This is the man who went before the United Nations and knowingly sold a bunch of lies about Iraq weapons of mass destruction in order to go to war. Powell is a criminal.
So when I see the war hawks lining up to support Biden, it tells me all I need to know. It will be back to business-as-usual under Biden. The Pentagon will be in full control with the military-industrial complex. It’s not that they ever completely lost control, but Donald Trump was a major irritant to their plans. He was a threat to the status quo because he sometimes dared to tell the truth and point out the obvious.
Since Trump has converted many Republicans to at least being less hawkish, it would be nice to see an anti war alliance with the political right and political left. But we know how that goes.
The hard left that claims to be anti war should have cheered on Trump whenever he sought to withdraw troops or have a less interventionist foreign policy. But they hate Trump so much that most of them couldn’t possibly praise him for anything. They would rather have war than to form any kind of alliance with Trump supporters.
It will be interesting to see if the hardcore Trump supporters go back to being war hawks themselves. I’m hoping that Trump and his Twitter account keep his supporters in line here. Again, it’s not that Trump is great on foreign policy, but he is better than most other Republican politicians who are part of the establishment.
If for some crazy reason Biden actually proposes reducing intervention in some country, I hope the Trump supporters will back him in this circumstance. Again, we know how that goes.
The one other factor in all of this is the economy. The spending at the federal level is beyond ridiculous. It was already ridiculous going into 2020. The deficits are absurd, and there is almost no talk of reducing spending.
For this reason, it will be hard for the U.S. to get involved in yet another major conflict. While the Federal Reserve can print money (digitally speaking), there are limits at some point. Taxation and inflation can only go so far, especially when hundred of thousands of businesses across the U.S. have had to shut down in 2020.
I know that Biden/ Harris will fill their cabinet with a bunch of horrible people. Trump did this too, but Trump himself was the one who prevented them from being out of control. When there are a bunch of war hawks in the Biden administration, Biden and Harris aren’t going to reel them in. Biden will have essentially zero control anyway.
It was nice to have a few years without any new major conflicts or wars. We’ll see what happens with Biden/ Harris, but it doesn’t look promising.