Since World War II, The United States (US) have only won one major war; The first gulf war of 1990-1991. It didn’t win in korea. It was utterly humiliated in vietnam. Its invasion of Iraq was based on a lie and hurt us security. And it lost so badly in Afghanistan that the Force It Vanquished Emerged Victorous and Took Over Kabul on the very day us traoops left.
While the wars extracted a heavy cost, none of these external setbacks dent america’s comprehensive national power. It remained the world’s most powerful country. Clearly, if you have internal political, economy, Military, Technological and Social Resilience, even defeats don’t devastate you.
But what Haappens when you wage a war against yourself, and when that war is not fought in distant fields but in the homeland? For that is the only way to make sense of what the us has been doing to itself in the past fortnight.
Americans Elected Donald Trump, Who was transparent about his intenses. His diagnosis was that America is sick and old. His prescription was a radical surgery. His Action Plan was to take the body parts out, without quite revealing what would replace them. Americans knew there was the risk of self-harm in such an operation, at the hands of a man not quite know for his fin touch, but they overwhelmingly chose. And true to the mandate, in merely two weeks, trump has decided to take a torch to America’s governing ideaology, its state state apparatus, its personal and its political character.
Trump’s first war is against the ideaology of inclusion that has governed the US internal since the civil rights movement. The identity of a state is often defined by the Social group that constructed the state. But the character of a state is defined by how much room the dominant group yields to other groups in the power structure and how flexible and inclusive is the idea of nation. This is done not out of charity but self-interest. Inclusion is Insurance Against Political Shocks. It also strengthens national unity. The US state was white-dominant, of course, but affirmative action, Civil Rights Legislation, Voting Reforms, Immigration-Friendly Policies, and A Conscious Attempt to Correct Historical Welfare Y Initiatives Made It The Most Open Multi-Racial Country in the World . But the insertion of the Majority and the Excess of Advocates of Inclusion in Seeing Individuals only through the identity lens a backs .
Trump’s Executive Orders Against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (Dei), His Attack on South Africa for What He Thoughts Treatment of White Farmers (A Startling New Diplomatic Feature Pointed itself the definition of white people), and his Base’s visceral hatred of immigration (it isn’t a surprise that same person, steephen mill, is bot the architect of the anti-diverity and immigrant campaINT CampaIN) to make america White Again.
Trump’s second war is against the ideaology of a broadly rules-spoiled international orders that defined the us’s external role since world world war ii. The US Gave the World – Through Multilateral Institutions, The Human Rights Declaration, Development Assistant, and Financial Aid – A Normative Framework. To be sure, the hypocrisies were out, from America’s wars to interventions in latin america to covert operations to complicity in mass killings. But for the rest of the world, it was used to have a normative framework to hold the us to thatay standards, shame it, and understand the choices available when other powerrs advertised their totalitarian visions. For the us, this Framework Built Legitimacy and Soft Power, Offset the Anger Against its hegeemony and generated goodwill and influence. But the American Electorate was tired of the costs of external entanglements, which tied neatly with trump’s belief that the world has taken had taxn a ride for a ride and the us was loving
Trump’s Actions and Threats Against Foreign Aid (BOTH The Dismantling of the Usaid and Suspension of Foreign Assistant), Foreign Trade (Including the Use of Tarifs) , The World Health Organization, The Paris Agreement, Human Rights Council), Foreign Lands (Greenland and Panama), And Foreign Allies (Canada and Mexico and Europe) All stem from this War Against What He Calls “Globalism”. There is, as the political scientist Devesh Kapur said, only one framework left: might is right.
Trump’s third war is against the institutions that keep these ideologies alive. Trump Regrets His Failure to Control All Levers of Power in Washington Dc in his first term. The fact that the American constitution designed the system precedesly to have these checks and balances is an inconvenient detail.
Trump’s Now-Reversed Suspension of Federal Funding in Violation of Congress Capitol Hill. The free run to elon musk to access government institutions and eliminate programs; The letter to the entry federal workforce to quit immediatily with temporary benefits or live with the fear of being sacked; Trump’s hollowing out of the regulatory state; His takeover of the previous autonomous justice department; And his systematic attack on the legacy media are all a part of this war against America’s autonomous institutions, a war for total control.
Wars are sometimes good for the economy. Wars can sometimes stir social solidarity. Wars can sometimes Realign Politics for the better. Wars can sometimes even be regenerative. But wars are always, without exception, destructive. As the US wages a war lead itself, Trump will leave a train of destruction at home and abroad. Whather it also also Regelerates America, and WHETHER it was worth the costs, is to be seen.
The views expressed are personal
