What Is Trump’s Strategy on War and Peace? – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

It’s unclear whether President Trump wants to be a wartime president or a peacemaker.

Trump is about halfway through his first hundred days in his new term as president. So far, he has threatened Hamas with military action, threatened action against the Mexican drug cartels, tried to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Iran and threatened Russia with major sanctions if it fails to negotiate with the U.S. and Ukraine on peace.

Invading Mexico to strike at the drug cartels would be a huge step, one that would draw a lot of attention from Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. Trump could do it and it would be a small indication to our allies and our enemies that the president isn’t someone to be trifled with. Our other enemies and our allies, though greatly disturbed, would not change their behaviors or plans.

The point here is that Trump is trying to deal with the most intractable of our enemies. How can he expect, as Vice President Vance has said, that Russia would negotiate in good faith? Russian President Putin’s DNA prevents that. Iran, too, cannot be presumed to negotiate in good faith because the ayatollahs haven’t abided by any diplomatic agreement since their regime came to power in 1979.

If Trump is serious about his threats against Hamas, he has yet to prove it. He has undertaken negotiations with Hamas, clearly with Israel’s approval but those negotiations are going nowhere. Trump — and the Israelis — have threatened Hamas that there will be hell to pay if all remaining hostages are not released, but Hamas has rejected these demands.

What Trump can do with Hamas isn’t at all clear. He can’t order the carpet-bombing of the Gaza Strip nor can he order the Marines or the Army airborne troops to seize it. He could order the Navy SEALs or the Army Delta Force into the Gaza Strip to take back the hostages but that would have to be done in secret. Israeli special forces are more than adequate to do that job but they haven’t been able to since October 7, 2023. There’s no other option for action against Hamas.

On Iran, Trump has proposed new negotiations for another nuclear deal like Obama made in 2015 which Trump cancelled in 2018. Iran is busily enriching uranium and reportedly has a stockpile of enriched uranium that could quickly be turned into at least six nuclear weapons. Presumably, any new deal would encompass an intensive inspection system which the Obama deal did not.

Trump has re-instituted his “maximum pressure” sanctions regime against the Iranian economy but it has not had a noticeable effect so far. The Iranians have rejected any talks with the United States. That leaves Trump holding an empty hand.

Would Trump order air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities or give Israel permission to do the same? The outcome of such strikes are uncertain and they would, almost certainly, kick off a major war in the Middle East in which we would be heavily involved.

It’s highly doubtful that Trump wants a major war in the Middle East or anywhere else. Nevertheless Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is apparently the focal point of his efforts.

Trump has already halted U.S. military aid to Ukraine as well as intelligence sharing with the Ukrainian government. Trump has said it is hard to deal with Ukraine — meaning Zelensky — while Russia is attacking Ukraine. His personal animosity toward Zelensky is obvious. He has also said that if Ukraine doesn’t want peace, “we’re out of there.”

Elon Musk, pretending to be the secretary of state, has joined the verbal battle with Zelensky, saying that his Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian forces, apparently threatening to end providing it to Ukraine. Musk should keep his nose out of national security matters.

Putting pressure on Ukraine is analogous to Biden’s unceasing pressures on Israel to undertake a unilateral cease-fire in Gaza. Those pressures were partially ignored by the Israelis but succeeded in delaying necessary Israeli actions in Gaza.

Trump, to his credit, is also pressuring the Russians. Last week he threatened massive sanctions and tariffs on Russia unless they ceased their strikes on Ukraine. (Biden never pressured Hamas, only Israel.) But how can he believe that Putin wants peace? Any peace would be on Putin’s terms or Putin would wait for a year or two and then violate the terms at his convenience.

The U.S. and European sanctions on Russia have not succeeded in doing much to restrain Russia’s forces. Putin, as this column has pointed out before, has shifted his economy to a wartime status. Nevertheless, double-digit inflation is rampant in Russia and it is having trouble manufacturing new tanks and other armored vehicles to replace those that Ukrainian forces have destroyed with U.S. weapons such as the Javelin antitank missile and European weapons.

Trump seems to be of two minds about his Russian counterpart. As noted above, there’s zero chance that Putin would negotiate in good faith. Trump promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war between his election and inauguration. He has said that he could end the war in a day. Nothing like that has happened. Thus Trump is trying a new tactic by threatening Russia with massive sanctions.

The problem with those sanctions and tariffs is that Russia is still able to fund its economy — and the war — with oil and gas exports. Even European nations are still buying Russian gas. Trump’s ambition to end those exports would require the U.S. — and the OPEC nations — to underprice Russian energy exports. It will be years before the U.S. can do that to the extent that Europe and other nations wouldn’t buy oil and gas from Russia. Thus, Trump’s threat of further sanctions and tariffs is pretty hollow.

So what will Trump do? It would be easy to attack the Mexican cartels and effectively stop their operations. But our other enemies — Hamas, Iran, and Russia — while not immune from U.S. action, are unlikely to act as Trump wishes them to.

Does Trump want to be remembered for starting wars? That’s contrary to everything he has said and done to date. It’s impossible to read his mind but our enemies will make these decisions for him. Trump, if backed into a corner, will fight but our enemies are too crafty to do that.

Any highly aggressive move by Trump is unlikely to produce the results he wants. The outcomes of wars, once they are begun, are impossible to predict.

READ MORE from Jed Babbin:

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