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> No US military leader wants to fight a war; that notion is absurd. I think your general point is good, but there are people, including people in government, who see war as a low-cost, acceptable means of achieving ends, including rallying domestic political support. For example, at one point I noticed that over a short time hawkish Republican leaders in the U.S., including John McCain, favored increasing involvement in Afghanistan, attacking Iran (rather than negotiating), increasing involvement in Iraq, intervening in Syria, intervening in Egypt (IIRC), intervening in Sudan (in Darfur, though that might not have been contemporaneous), and intervening in Libya. If you look at a map, that's war in most countries from central Asia to near the middle of Africa's Mediterranean coast. The GOP, starting before Trump, often vocally disdains the alternative to war, diplomacy. The Trump administration has taken it to a policy level worked to undermine the United States' relations with other countries and openly advocated, including in written op-eds from administration members, 'a return to geopolitical competition' - i.e., the state of things before WWII, which led to centuries of wars. They've abandoned treaty after treaty, and damaged the U.S.'s reputation so that they can't be trusted to adhere to future agreements (which I think is intentional, an attempt make the move away from diplomacy irreversible). The Trump administration openly works against the rule-based international order and openly opposes international law; the alternative to law and order is anarchy; the alternative to those mechanisms is war. The Trump administration also has gutted State Department; they've attempted to gut its budget (Congress hasn't always agreed), they've cut and obstructed many programs, forced out a large proportion of talent (my vague memory is that they forced or urged out over a third of the most senior officers, who are, as I understand it, irreplaceable), and disrupted hiring. Why would you destroy the means of diplomacy if you don't seek war? |