In both tempo and geography, Trump’s drone blitz is on track to surpass, by many measures, that of President Obama. This surge signals, paradoxically perhaps, an embrace of both Obama’s drone warfare presidency and a more naked militarization of US foreign policy. Elsewhere, US support for the Saudi-UAE bombing campaign on Yemen is drawing the United States deeper into that ongoing civil war, and assistance is flowing to the Philippines’ military fight with Islamist militants.Īn aggressive surge of lethal drone strikes and clandestine missions led by the military’s elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and a reinvigorated CIA in far-flung corners of the world outside of America’s declared battlefields marks the widest departure from Trump’s ostensible isolationism. The United States has even flown the flag in Europe, as 4,000 soldiers landed in Poland to demonstrate an “iron-clad commitment” to NATO allies.
In Somalia the numbers are also climbing: Troop levels are the highest since the “Black Hawk Down” incident in 1993. US soldiers are fanning out across an archipelago of bases in Africa to conduct what they call “train, advise and assist” missions with nearly 1,000 soldiers in Niger. More troops and yet another supposedly new strategy are being deployed for the endless war in Afghanistan. Since Trump took office, the United States has quietly increased the number of troops in the Middle East by 33 percent and there are plans for an “enduring presence” in both Iraq and Syria. Flying largely under the media radar, the US military is flexing its muscles around the world-and in some areas it is going on the offensive. Less than a year into Trump’s presidency, the world’s policeman is back, now armed with a Twitter account. “We cannot protect countries all over the world.” Noting the over $3 trillion spent on recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump asserted: “We’re destroying our country.” “We cannot be the policemen of the world” Trump said at the first presidential debate. President Donald Trump entered office in early 2017 having campaigned on an “America First” foreign policy that promised a creed of isolationism and “anti-globalism” at odds with his predecessor’s overseas military interventions and costly entanglements.
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