That’s because, as with everything else, Trump’s approach to matters of war and peace appears to be more attitudinal than philosophical—motivated by instinct, manifested in tough talk, and rooted in a worldview that holds up the cultivation of fear as the most effective way to win respect and obedience.

Though Trump lacks the level of knowledge and grasp of history necessary to form an all-encompassing foreign policy doctrine, he has consistently articulated a belief that America’s enemies around the world can be terrified into submission—if the commander-in-chief is willing to send a strong message. Even if Trump had opted to stay out of the Syrian conflict, that belief of his—paired with a general aversion to the compromises of diplomacy—likely would have led him to abandon whatever isolationist tendencies he harbored sooner or later.

Trump made little effort during the campaign to conceal the contradictions inherent to his isolationist posture and his crowd-pleasing saber-rattling. “We’re fighting a very politically correct war,” he said in one interview. “We’re not taking it to [ISIS], and we have to take it to them,” he said in another. During a NBC News forum last September, Trump said, “I think under the leadership of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the generals have been reduced to rubble. They have been reduced to a point where it’s embarrassing to our country. … And I can just see the great, as an example, Gen. George Patton spinning in his grave as ISIS, we can’t beat.”