War is the use of arms to settle differences—tribal, political, religious, cultural, and material—between organized groups. It is unchanging. The general laws of armed conflict stays immutable, given the constancy of human nature.
However, the manner in which war is conducted remains fluid. New weapons, tactics, and strategies elicit counterresponses in an endless cycle of tensions between defensive and offensive superiority.
That said, has President Trump introduced a novel way of waging Western war against America’s foreign enemies?
We saw glimpses of it during his first term, when he eliminated Iranian general and terrorist kingpin Qassem Soleimani and ISIS terrorist grandee Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In the former case, he preferred hitting the cause rather than the effects of Iranian terrorism in Syria and Iraq, while making it clear that he had no intention of striking the Iranian mainland and entering into a tit-for-tat “forever war.”
In large part, he was successful. Iran never quite replaced the venomous Soleimani. And despite tired threats, its performative art responses did not kill any Americans, and they were seen by Trump as venting and not worth a counterresponse.
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