Washington, DC – Through the first six months of his second time period, Donald Trump pushed the bounds of US presidential energy whereas aiming to reorient US international coverage to “America First”.
His first months in workplace have additionally supplied a window into the way forward for his administration’s strategy to war-making, what analysts characterise as an at instances contradictory tactic that oscillates between avowed anti-interventionism and quicksilver army assaults, justified as “peace via power”.
Whereas questions stay over whether or not Trump has certainly pursued a coherent technique with regards to direct US involvement in worldwide battle, one factor has been clear within the first portion of Trump’s second four-year time period: US air assaults, lengthy Washington’s software of alternative since launching the so-called “warfare on terror” within the early 2000s, have once more surged.
In accordance with a report launched final week by the Armed Battle Location and Occasion Knowledge Undertaking (ACLED), since Trump’s re-entry into workplace on January 20, the US has carried out 529 air assaults in 240 areas throughout the Center East, Central Asia and Africa.
That determine, which accounts for simply the primary 5 months of Trump’s four-year time period as president, is already nearing the 555 assaults launched by the administration of US President Joe Biden over his complete time period from 2021 to 2025.
“Essentially the most excessive software at his disposal – focused airstrikes – is getting used not as a final resort, however as the primary transfer,” Clionadh Raleigh, a professor of political geography and battle and founding father of ACLED, stated in a press release accompanying the report.
“Whereas Trump has repeatedly promised to finish America’s ‘perpetually wars’, he has not often elaborated on how. These early months counsel the plan could also be to make use of overwhelming firepower to finish fights earlier than they start, or earlier than they drag on.”
A ‘Trump Doctrine’?
Trump’s willingness to unleash deadly drive overseas – and the inherent threat that the brazen strategy carries of dragging the US into protracted battle – has already roiled influential segments of the president’s Make America Nice Once more (MAGA) base, coming to a head over Trump’s six-week bombing campaign in opposition to the Houthis in Yemen and, extra lately, his June determination to strike three nuclear facilities in Iran amid Israel’s offensive on its neighbour.
In flip, Trump’s prime officers have sought to deliver coherence to the technique, with Vice President JD Vance in late June providing the clearest imaginative and prescient but of a Trump blueprint for international intervention.
“What I name the ‘Trump Doctrine’ is sort of easy,” Vance stated on the Ohio speech. “Primary, you articulate a transparent American curiosity, and that’s on this case that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
“Quantity two, you attempt to aggressively diplomatically remedy that downside,” he stated.
“And quantity three, when you possibly can’t remedy it diplomatically, you utilize overwhelming army energy to resolve it, and then you definitely get the hell out of there earlier than it ever turns into a protracted battle.”
However the actuality of Trump’s early diplomatic and army adventures has not matched the imaginative and prescient outlined by Vance, based on Michael Wahid Hanna, the US Program Director at Disaster Group. He known as the assertion an try to “retrofit coherence”.
Whereas Hanna cautioned in opposition to placing an excessive amount of inventory right into a unified technique, he did level to at least one “constant thread”: a diplomatic strategy that seems “haphazard, not absolutely conceived, and characterised by impatience”.
“For all the speak about being a peacemaker and desirous to see fast offers, Trump has a very unrealistic view of the methods wherein diplomacy can work,” he informed Al Jazeera.
The US president had vowed to remodel peace efforts within the Russia-Ukraine warfare, however an earlier strain marketing campaign in opposition to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has since seen Trump circle back to the Biden administration’s hardline strategy to Russia, with little progress made in between.
After an preliminary ceasefire in Gaza, Trump officers have didn’t make significant progress in reigning in Israel’s war, leaving the specter of knock-on conflicts, together with with Iran and the Houthis in Yemen, unanswered.
Earlier diplomatic overtures to handle Iran’s nuclear programme stalled as Trump took a maximalist strategy in search of to dam any uranium enrichment. The hassle dissolved after the US didn’t constrain Israel’s army marketing campaign in opposition to Tehran, because the US continues to supply billions in army funding to the “ironclad ally”.
“It’s exhausting to argue, as Vance did, that the USA has actually pushed as exhausting as they will on diplomacy,” Hanna informed Al Jazeera.
Underneath Vance’s logic, he added, “that leaves them with no different means than to reply militarily”.
‘Bomb first and ask questions later’?
The early emphasis on air assaults has been accompanied by vows by Trump and his Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth to revive a “warrior ethos” throughout the US army.
Certainly, Trump has appeared to relish the army actions, posting a video of the assault on an ISIL (ISIS) affiliated goal in Somalia on February 1, simply 10 days after taking workplace.
He made a degree to attract a comparability to Biden, who tightened guidelines of engagement insurance policies Trump had loosened throughout his first time period and entered workplace vowing to severely restrict the reliance on US strikes.
Trump wrote that “Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act shortly sufficient to get the job finished”.
“I did! The message to ISIS and all others who would assault People is that “WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!”
All informed since taking workplace six months in the past, Trump has carried out a minimum of 44 air strikes in Somalia, the place the US has long targeted each an area ISIL offshoot and al-Shabab, based on ACLED information. The Biden administration carried out simply over 60 such strikes throughout his total 4 years in workplace.
The US president has posted similarly boastful messages about strikes in Yemen, the place his administration carried out a bombing marketing campaign from March to Could, accounting for the overwhelming majority of general strikes throughout his second time period, in addition to US strikes on Iran’s nuclear services, which Trump declared had been “obliterated like no person’s ever seen earlier than”, lengthy earlier than any in-depth assessment had been made.
Raleigh, who can also be a professor of political geography and battle on the College of Sussex, stated the rise may presumably be attributed to Trump’s pivot away from the soft-power coverage of Biden, which has included shearing down the US State Division and dismantling the US international help equipment.
That might additional be considered as an effort by Trump to put the US as a “participant in a brand new internationalised battle atmosphere”, the place general violence by state actors on international soil has elevated steadily lately, presently accounting for 30 % of all violent occasions ACLED tracks globally.
“However I might say there’s nonetheless no clear Trump doctrine, as a lot as Vance needs to say that there’s,” Raleigh informed Al Jazeera. “And for the time being, it’s wanting somewhat bit like ‘bomb first and ask questions later.’”
That strategy has confirmed to have significantly lethal penalties, based on Emily Tripp, the director of Airwars. She drew a parallel to Trump’s first time period, when he additionally surged air strikes, outpacing these of his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, who himself oversaw an growth of drone warfare overseas.
The monitor has tracked 224 reported civilian casualties in Yemen from US strikes underneath Trump in 2025, almost totaling the 258 reported civilian casualties from US actions within the nation throughout the 23 years prior. The administration has additionally used significantly highly effective – and costly – munitions in its strikes, which Airwars has assessed as showing to have been deployed in opposition to a broader set of targets than underneath Biden.
Two of the Trump administration’s strikes on Yemen, one on Ras Isa Port and one other on a migrant detention centre in Saada, have been deemed potential warfare crimes by Amnesty Worldwide and Human Rights Watch.
“That’s not typical, or essentially one thing you’d count on in a marketing campaign whose remit, as outlined by Trump, Hegseth, and [US Central Command], is on largely financial targets,” Tripp informed Al Jazeera.
“There’s actually no cause for there to be such excessive ranges of civilian hurt,” she stated.
Tripp added she was nonetheless ready to evaluate how the Pentagon approaches civilian casualty investigations and transparency underneath Trump’s second time period.
Questions over efficacy
It stays unclear whether or not the administration’s reliance on swift and highly effective army strikes will really show efficient in holding the US troops out of protracted battle.
Whereas a tenuous ceasefire continues to carry with the Houthis, the outcomes of the US bombing marketing campaign “have been fairly underwhelming”, the Disaster Group’s Hanna stated, noting that few underlying circumstances have modified.
The group has continued to strike vessels within the Purple Sea and to launch missiles at Israel in opposition to the warfare in Gaza. An assault in early July prompted State Division spokesperson Tammy Bruce to warn the US “will proceed to take needed motion to guard freedom of navigation and business delivery”.
The jury additionally stays out on whether or not Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear services will result in a diplomatic breakthrough on Iran’s nuclear programme, because the White Home has maintained. Little progress has been made since a ceasefire was reached shortly after Tehran launched retaliatory strikes on a US base in Qatar.
Disaster Group’s Hanna assessed that Trump has relied on air strikes partly as a result of they’ve change into considerably “antiseptic” in US society, with their toll “shielded from plenty of public scrutiny”.
However, he added: “There are limits when it comes to what air energy alone can do…That’s simply the fact.”
