Partisanship in the United States is as deep-rooted and intense as it has ever been in my lifetime. But if there is one issue that brings people of all political stripes together, it’s the notion that the U.S. needs to be far more judicious about when it uses the military and more restrained in where it deploys troops. President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden can read the electorate as well as anyone, which is why both have sought to portray themselves as anti-war candidates during this election cycle.
Trump and Biden are polar opposites in terms of temperament, style, and worldview, but both are expressing their intent to cut America’s losses in unwinnable conflicts and remove the country from the time-consuming, expensive quicksand that is nation-building overseas. Bringing U.S. troops home was a key part of Trump’s 2016 campaign platform and remains a compelling talking point for the president today. Accepting the Republican presidential nomination at the White House in August, Trump told delegates in attendance that “unlike previous administrations, I have kept America out of new wars, and our troops are coming home.” Biden has used similar rhetoric in his own speeches: “It’s long past time we end the forever wars, which have cost us untold blood and treasure.”
You don’t need to be Karl Rove or Nate Silver to understand why Trump and Biden, as different as they are, believe it’s politically advantageous to stress their anti-war bona fides. After two straight decades of continuous deployments to the tune of over $6 trillion, the public is desperately clamoring for more prudence and balance in U.S. foreign policy. The average person is no longer convinced (rightly, in my view) that stationing tens of thousands of troops in the Middle East is a wise investment from the standpoint of bolstering U.S. national security. The Eurasia Group Foundation, for instance, has found that a 44% plurality of the country wants to decrease the number of U.S. troops in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. More than three-quarters of the American public would support a decision to pull U.S. forces from Afghanistan. And as much heat as Trump has received on Capitol Hill for his troop drawdown in Germany, nearly half of people surveyed by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs would support either a complete or partial U.S. troop reduction from the country.
Foreign policy restraint, in addition to being financially sustainable and strategically effective over the long term, is also becoming increasingly popular politically.
Yet the big unknown remains: Are Trump and Biden really interested in executing a foreign policy of restraint, or are they merely using restraint for their own political purposes? Trump talks a big game about ending pointless wars overseas but hasn’t truly matched his rhetoric with action. Indeed, in many cases, Trump has caved to the wishes of his more establishment-oriented advisers. In summer 2017, Trump decided to heed the recommendations of his national security adviser and defense secretary at the time to boost U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan by 3,000-4,000. In Syria, he twice announced a full U.S. troop departure only to reverse course both times after Republicans and Democrats alike eviscerated him. The Trump administration’s Iran policy, which amounts to bankrupting the Iranian economy and pressuring Tehran to surrender its entire foreign policy, almost erupted into the very type of foolish war in the Middle East the president has spent years campaigning against. The latest U.S. troop reductions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and perhaps even Somalia seem to be a last-ditch effort by Trump to correct some of those earlier mistakes.
Biden, too, can hardly be called a card-carrying member of the restraint movement. Sure, the former vice president was the most high-profile Cabinet member in the Obama administration who was willing to oppose the 2009 U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan. And yes, Biden has promised to pull U.S. support from Saudi Arabia’s dumpster-fire of a war in Yemen. But if Biden wins in November, he is likely to surround himself with advisers that are well-known scions of the Washington foreign policy community. Some of those advisers are on record recommending a residual, indefinite U.S. military presence in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.
In effect, Biden is trying to have it both ways: arguing he will finally end the forever wars at the same time he broadcasts his intention to preserve a ground presence in some of those very same conflicts.
For those of us inside and outside the Beltway who are sick and tired of status-quo policies that haven’t worked for the better part of two decades, watching both candidates closely and assessing whether they are truly serious in reforming U.S. foreign policy is paramount. We can’t allow politicians on the Left, Right, or center turn military restraint into an empty slogan.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
