Trump Wants to ‘Kill People’ Without War
In response to press questions about his administration’s escalating attacks on fishing boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific that were allegedly involved in drug trafficking, President Donald Trump drew a rather jarring distinction, as CNN reports:
Trump on Thursday insisted that he could continue to launch strikes against alleged drug traffickers without Congress first passing an official declaration of war. “I’m not going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” he said. “I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re going to kill them, you know, they’re going to be, like, dead.”
It’s clear that Trump’s intention was to rule out any congressional interference with his constitutionally dubious use of military force in a struggle — don’t say war! — with so-called “narco-terrorists.” But the line he drew between “war” and “killing” revealed a more fundamental element of his thinking. There has always been a bit of a contradiction between Trump’s horror toward “forever wars” — not to mention his aspirations as a global peacemaker — and his more general bloodlust. He wants America’s enemies and rivals to have no doubt about his willingness to unleash incredible levels of violence if he deems it necessary. He has dismissed laws of warfare that protect civilians or prohibit the torture of potential informants. He has appointed a “secretary of war” who believes “lethality” must be central to every national-security calculation. And in all sorts of contexts, he’s rejected any restraints on retribution against anyone who crosses him.
What this apparent disconnect between aversion to war and pure enjoyment of violence shows is that Trump remains a faithful disciple of the Jacksonian tradition in American foreign policy. Like Old Hickory, Trump rejects alliances, entanglements, or commitments to deploy military force, but at the same time believes use of maximum violence to eliminate any direct threat to perceived American interests is essential to maintaining the peace and deterring bad actors.
Trump wants a huge military that is so feared that it rarely needs to be used, and he hates the idea of limited “forever” wars that don’t instantly achieve their purposes. That probably includes any armed conflict that would last long enough to require congressional authorization or oversight. So Trump has no problems with, and in fact glories in, killing people as the best possible guarantor of an America-friendly world order based on fear rather than messy treaties and rules. Sudden strikes on fishing boats that may or may not be engaged in “narco-terrorism” are right in his wheelhouse. The message to a dangerous world is Don’t tread on me — or get yourself killed. It’s chilling but entirely in character for the 47th president.