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The Donald Trump administration carried out a drone attack near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020, killing Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani.

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Soleimani had a long history of waging proxy wars against the Americans, particularly during the Iraq conflict and its aftermath.

Following Trump’s cancellation of the Iran Deal and subsequent US sanctions, Soleimani reportedly escalated violence against regional American bases, most of which Trump ironically wanted to remove.

A few days later, Iran launched a retaliatory strike against Americans in Iraq and Syria, assuming Trump had no desire for a broader Middle East war.

Thus, Iran launched 12 missiles that hit two US air bases in Iraq. Allegedly, Tehran had warned the Trump administration about attacks that did not kill any Americans.

However, this interim period on Iran appeared to reflect Trump’s agenda to avoid “endless wars” in the Middle East while restoring deterrence that prevents rather than encourages full-scale conflicts.

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But under a second Trump administration, reattaching the deterrence needle without engaging in major wars could become much more challenging.

An incompetent Joe Biden administration has completely destroyed the US deterrent abroad through disasters both real and symbolic: the Chinese dressing down of US diplomats in Anchorage; Insulting skit from Afghanistan; the brazen flight of a Chinese spy balloon across the United States; occupation of Ukraine by Russia; the massacre of 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023; Houthis’ serial attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea; Israel’s apparent restraint in fully responding to Iranian missile attacks on its homeland; and renewed aggression by both North Korea and China against America’s allies such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

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Of course, a second term requires Trump to radically reform the Pentagon and strengthen the military, while also warning enemies of the consequences of an ill-advised attack.

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Biden’s past theatrical finger-wagging has turned into aggression, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin traveling to Ukraine, Iran sending missiles to Israel, and the Houthis serially striking ships in the Red Sea.

Given the past messes of his interventions in Iraq, Libya and Syria, and Biden’s disastrous humiliation in Afghanistan, Trump in 2024 avoids such overseas cul-de-sacs and even historically sometimes tit-for-tat entanglements.

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Yet Trump’s choice of J.D. Vance as his vice president, as well as Tulsi Gabbard, RFK, Jr. and his selection of Tucker Carlson as a close advisor, combined with announcements that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley would not be in office. These claims by the administration could be misinterpreted by the machinations of foreign adversaries as evidence of Trump’s neo-isolationism.

Moreover, the United States has been hit by an unsustainable $37 trillion national debt and no southern border through which 12 million illegal aliens have entered with impunity.

Thus, the use of force abroad now appears to occur mostly in a zero-sum manner, at the expense of unmet American needs at home.

Recently, while newly elected Trump’s inner circle emphasized that the endless conflicts are over, Trump warned Putin not to increase his attacks on Ukraine. However, this advice was followed by a Russian drone strike against civilian targets in Ukraine.

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Putin undoubtedly wants to encourage America’s enemies to test Trump’s deterrent rhetoric against his campaign’s domestic promises that America will mind its own business at home.

Is there a way to square the deterrence circle?

Trump will have to speak clearly and softly while carrying the baton. Iran and its terrorist proxies, China, North Korea, and Russia, will be tested like never before to clearly demonstrate that an attack on U.S. interests will be swiftly and quietly met with disproportionate and overwhelming consequences.

But Trump will likely have to rely on drones, missiles and airstrikes, not major conflicts, to deter his enemies from aggression and his domestic critics from claiming he has become a globalist interventionist.

Not that.

Trump remains Jacksonian. But such deterrence requires, from time to time, warning the reckless and adventurous abroad that our allies have no better friend and our enemies have no worse enemy than America.

In other words, Trump should remind Americans that only by periodically deterring enemies can we prevent endless wars.

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