Matthew Petti @ Reason

From the headlines, you would think that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance were committed to overthrowing the national security establishment.

“Trump Picking Vance Widens Rift With Foreign Policy Old Guard,” reported Bloomberg.

“Trump’s VP pick spells ‘disaster’ for Europe and Ukraine,” fumed Politico.

For all of Trump’s rhetoric about “endless wars” and Vance’s attacks on “neoconservatives,” however, the two politicians are all-in on some of the establishment’s most destructive military adventures. And in some ways, Trump and Vance are even more hawkish than the baseline.

“A lot of people recognize that we need to do something with Iran—but not these weak little bombing runs,” Vance said in a Fox News interview at the Republican National Convention on Monday. “If you’re going to punch the Iranians, you punch them hard, and that’s what [Trump] did when he took out [Iranian Gen. Qassem] Soleimani.”

Vance praised Trump for trying to “enable the Israelis and the Sunni Arab states” to fight back against Iran. In a speech to the Quincy Institute in May, Vance tried to sell a U.S.-Israeli-Arab alliance as a way for the United States to “spend less time and less resources in the Middle East.”

But that’s exactly the strategy that got us here in the first place, and the proof is in the pudding. Trump’s shows of force against Iran did not decisively end U.S.-Iranian conflict, nor did the Abraham Accords get Israel and the Arab states to pick up the military slack.

Instead, Trump ended up overseeing a massive U.S. military buildup in the region during his term and nearly went to war with Iran.

Vance even wants to add another counterinsurgency to America’s “forever war” roster. In July 2023, he told NBC News that he would “empower the president of the United States, whether that’s a Democrat or Republican, to use the power of the U.S. military to go after these drug cartels” in Latin America.

Washington is already heavily involved in that region’s war on drugs, doling out support to Latin American militaries and border forces. Last year, several Republican candidates—including Trump himself—called for the United States to invade Mexico directly.

Trump and Vance also share the establishment view that the United States needs to get ready for a conflict with China over Taiwan. At the convention, Vance told Fox News that China is the “biggest threat” to America, and he has voiced support for building up the Taiwanese military with American weapons in the past.

Full Post by Matthew Petti @ Reason https://reason.com/2024/07/16/trump-and-vances-foreign-policy-is-more-war-disguised-as-anti-war/