President Trump’s Final 2020 Act Should Be Pulling U.S. Out From Endless Wars
A reprioritization of America’s strategic interests would cement the legacy of the first president in the era of great-power rivalry.
By Sumantra Maitra
November 16, 2020
In a recent memo advocating a swift U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller gave shape to the fundamental political stand of the Trump administration—realism and restraint.
“We are not a people of perpetual war — it is the antithesis of everything for which we stand and for which our ancestors fought. All wars must end,†the memo read. This comes after a rapid purge in the last couple of weeks, in which President Trump dismissed Defense Secretary Mark Esper and replaced him with Miller in what was termed by the leftist media as a takeover of the Pentagon by the National Counterterrorism Center.
Trump also appointed Col. Douglas Macgregor to be a senior adviser at the Pentagon. Macgregor is a fierce opponent of endless wars, and previously nominated to be the ambassador to Germany, but was not yet confirmed.
This has the potential to conclude America’s longest and perhaps most pointless of military engagements. While the idea was to decimate al-Qaeda and punish the Taliban, that was over by 2005. By the time of the surge in 2007, the overall war had morphed into a nation-building process with a sunk cost fallacy.
The war proponents’ argument was circular. Put simply, they claim continuous U.S. engagement is needed so the Taliban doesn’t come to power, because the Taliban is terrible for Afghan women. Therefore Afghan civil society needs indefinite American troops and treasure.
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https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/16/president-trumps-final-2020-act-should-be-pulling-u-s-out-from-endless-wars/
