How Has Trump’s Positioning Himself as the ‘Candidate of Peace’ in the 2024 US Presidential Election, Worked Out in His First Year?
Although we have thirty days yet to go in that first year, he promised to “extricate Washington from decades of endless wars.”
Well, we Americans would all (or mostly all) be in favor of that, having lost every conflict since WWII, killed 100,000 young kids in the effort. and gained not much, if anything.
However, Trump’s first year of his second term in the White House has been notable for a number of military interventions overseas. Thus far, with less than a month to go, he ordered strikes on Yemen, Iran and Syria, as well as a huge military buildup in the Caribbean targeting Venezuela.
We no longer call them ‘wars.’ Far easier and less complicated to name them ‘police actions.’ We soften the harsh realities of war by using sanitized terms like kinetic operations (actual fighting), collateral damage (civilian deaths), overseas contingency operations (wars), and neutralize (kill).
Terms like surge, enhanced interrogation, and boots on the ground obscure the fact that there are American soldiers wearing those boots. Troop surges, torture, and troop presence, are aimed at depersonalizing conflict and avoiding direct, distasteful and uncomfortably emotional language.
ACLED-based reporting accounts for 529 airstrikes in Trump’s first five months.
If you’re wondering (as I did) who ACLED is, it stands for the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. In plain English: it’s the world’s most widely used public database for tracking political violence and conflict events, day by day, country by country. ACLED collects, verifies, and codes reports of conflict events worldwide, including air and drone strikes, ground battles, missile attacks, terrorist attacks, state violence against civilians, as well as riots and political unrest.
Wow. That must be a full-time job…
Of those 529 strikes, most were in Somalia and Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. A large campaign of air and naval strikes against Houthi forces in Yemen (named Operation Rough Rider) occurred from March through May, 2025, involving dozens of sorties.
As for Somalia, it’s a steady, under-reported strike theater, although it contributed meaningfully to Trump’s 2025 strike total, and exemplifies how strike authority expands with minimal scrutiny.
Unlike Yemen or Syria, Somalia sees small, repeated precision strikes, often targeting training camps, vehicle convoys, senior operatives, and/or facilitators, such as finance and logistics. So, instead of “Operations,” you get dozens of discrete events across the year. Foot on the gas, let out the clutch…
Syria is included among those countries hit during the 529 airstrike early-term tally. On Dec 19th, “Operation Hawkeye Strike” hit more than 70 targets across central Syria with more than 100 precision munitions used.
Who do you suppose makes up these ‘operational’ names?
Iran was one major, discrete strike operation in June, including surprise strikes on three main Iranian nuclear facilities, essentially encouraged by Israel’s fear of retaliation after a strike by their forces.
And then there’s our president’s transfer of an entire aircraft carrier task force to the Caribbean / Eastern Pacific.
In case you’re wondering what an aircraft carrier task force contains, here it is:
One large, nuclear-powered carrier (e.g., Nimitz- or Ford-class), including 60-75 F-18 or F-35 aircraft; Electronic warfare (EA-18G); Airborne early warning (E-2D Hawkeye); Helicopters (anti-submarine, rescue, logistics); and 5,000 crew; usually one or two guided-missile cruisers; two to four guided-missile destroyers; at least one, sometimes more attack submarines; and supply ships such as oilers and supply vessels.
The stated purpose was anti–drug-smuggling vessel strikes, although none have ever been confirmed.
The cumulative death toll from these actions, across 29 separate strikes, is 105 people killed, a count the includes one missing individual presumed dead, with two survivors from one incident repatriated.
These figures come from collated reporting, including Associated Press, Reuters, and documented summaries of the campaign, and are not from an official U.S. Department of Defense comprehensive roster, which is generally not publicly released in real time.
The unstated purpose is our president’s apparent disapproval of Venezuela’s President Maduro, a democratically elected quasi-dictator.
Trump is a friend to most all other dictators, so the more explainable issue is the attraction of Venezuela’s massive oil reserves. Why the United States Navy is involved is unclear and has never been explained.
Now, it’s Nigeria’s turn to suffer Trump’s hopes for peace.
“Tonight,” Trump declared, “at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!”
Trump is attracted to hyperbole. It’s never just terrorists, it’s ‘terrorist scum.’ He has called Democrats that as well, and worse.
At any rate, on Christmas Day, and perhaps as a gift to Nigerian Christians, our president ordered the United States Armed Forces to carry out military attacks in Nigeria. Multiple credible news outlets report that it conducted airstrikes against Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria late on December 25, 2025.
More than Santa Claus came down Nigerian chimneys that night, sleighbells and munitions ringing.
U.S. Africa Command said the strikes were carried out in coordination with the Nigerian government and based on shared intelligence. The Nigerian Foreign Ministry confirmed the operation was conducted with approval from Abuja (its capitol) and described it as part of ongoing security cooperation against extremist groups, and not solely religiously motivated.
The strikes were aimed at militant Islamic State affiliates active in the region, often referred to in reporting as the Lakurawa, and other offshoots of ISIS and Boko Haram, each of which have been responsible for various attacks on villages and security forces. U.S. forces used air-delivered munitions, including cruise missiles from naval assets, according to some reporting, to hit militant positions.
The total number of Lakurawa in parts of northwest Nigeria (Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara) do not always live in separate camps, much like Hamas in Gaza. They may stay in family compounds, temporary shelters, or abandoned houses, and because some are local men, not foreign infiltrators, it makes them hard to distinguish from civilians without good intelligence.
Precise casualty figures have not been fully disclosed, but officials reported multiple militants killed as a result of the strikes. If that sounds to you (as it does to me) like the same story we heard from Israel in Gaza, you can expect that many more civilians than militants died under Christmas trees.
With all this, our current president covets a Nobel Peace Prize.
Wonders never cease…