How to end endless wars
This article is in The Spectator’s January 2020 US edition. Subscribe here. ‘Great nations do not fight endless wars,’ President Donald Trump declared in his 2019 State of the Union address. Simultaneously benign and radically subversive, this simple statement may well qualify as an important moment in the Trump era. Here was a notably dishonest president calling attention to a truth that the political establishment appears intent on ignoring. Any objective look at the record of US military actions since 9/11 would reach similar conclusions. The politicians ordaining our wars have been reckless and incompetent. The soldiers sent to fight are brave but badly misused. And the people in whose name these wars are waged are oblivious to what has occurred.
