Peace through strength? Or World War Trump?

Against all expectations of the dominant media, Donald Trump has won the presidency. Even more surprisingly, not only did he win the absurd Electoral College system, he took the popular vote. Even Hillary Clinton performed better than Kamala Harris.

I will not dwell on the domestic and international policy stupidities of both neo-conservative Republicans and neo-liberal Democrats who served as midwives to give birth to the demagogic Trump and Trumpism. One figure can speak for that: $8 trillion and counting spent on the post-9/11 wars — for no substantial geopolitical benefits.

These wars subsequently morphed into what the first Trump administration called “great power rivalries,” after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014 following a delayed reaction to NATO enlargement into former Soviet spheres of influence and security.

Trump is correct that the global geopolitical crisis is deeper now than it was when he left office — given the human and economic costs of the wars between the U.S., Ukraine and Russia and between the U.S., Israel and Iran, plus Iran’s “axis of resistance” — in addition to rising military tensions between North and South Korea and between China and Taiwan.

Is Trump really the leader who can “stop the wars” as he claims? Or will his Peace Through Strength policies provoke the conflicts that he claims he now opposes?

In many ways, Trump’s first administration’s containment policies set the stage for policies that were followed and toughened by President Biden. And now Trump has to pick up where Biden left off.

It was Trump’s first administration that negotiated the accord with the Taliban to withdraw NATO forces from Afghanistan that Biden followed. What a humiliation after 20 years!

It was the first Trump administration that pulled out of Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear accord and that led Iranian hardliners to accelerate Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, which has represented one of the major factors that provoked war between Israel and Iran. In retaliation for Iran’s October 2024 missile barrage on Israel, Trump, as presidential candidate, urged Biden to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Instead Biden urged a more proportional attack, in an effort not to widen the war into the Gulf region.

Now, in playing his own version of “peace through strength,” Biden has deployed six B-52s and a squadron of F-15s to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, while concurrently deploying THAAD Missile defense systems in Israel. Will the Iranians even negotiate with Trump, the Dragon Slayer, after he ordered the assassination of their hero, General Soleimani? Is diplomacy to prevent war between Israel and Iran even possible?

And will Trump really be able to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire with Hamas, as social media rumors claim? The Biden administration has failed miserably to do so. Or will Trump give Netanyahu free rein to expand a “greater Israel” at the expense of Palestinians and at the risk of the destabilization of the entire region?

Trump says he can make peace with Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping. Yet Trump did not seriously engage with Putin; he did not take steps to forge a new system of Euro-Atlantic security by way of diplomatically disclaiming NATO expansion to Ukraine or by finding ways to provide defense supports and international peacekeepers for Ukraine as a neutral, non-nuclear country. Will Trump be able to press Kyiv and Moscow to compromise?

Contrary to his claims, Trump’s June 2019 photo-op in North Korea was a complete disaster. Immediately after his visit, Kim began to expand his missile and nuclear weapons testing — before Trump left office. Now, with North Korean troops fighting Ukrainian forces in the Russian region of Kursk, Putin is playing the “North Korean card” against Ukraine, the U.S. and South Korea. As a consequence, tensions in both Asia and Europe are escalating. What will Trump do?

Relations with China plummeted under Trump, who pressed for Taiwanese independence while tightening U.S. protectionism versus Chinese exports. Now Trump appears to be threatening even tougher sanctions on China. Will toughness lead to U.S.-Chinese compromise? Or will Beijing once again test the U.S. “paper tiger,” as Mao did in the Korean war, but by seeking to blockade Taiwan?

It was Trump who also dumped the 1987 INF treaty that had helped to put an end to the Cold War by eliminating U.S. and Russian land-based intermediate-range missiles ― yet Trump did not even attempt to revise that treaty, or bring China into it given Beijing’s deployments of such weaponry. Now, the Biden administration has threatened to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Germany in 2026 against Russia and in the Philippines against China. Once again, what will Trump do?

Claiming to be blessed by God after the failed assassination attempt against him, the question remains: Has a demagogic Trump been truly anointed with the strategic wisdom to prevent the real risks of Armageddon? Or will it be World War Trump?

Hall Gardner is professor emeritus of the Department of History and Politics at the American University of Paris. He is author of “Averting Global War”; “World War Trump”; “IR Theory, Historical Analogy and Major Power War” and "Toward an Alternative Transatlantic Strategy.” He is working on his next book: “Toward a Global Peace Initiative: Reducing the Risks of Major Power War.”