Of Andreas Kluth

I have no problem renamed the Ministry of Defense to a Ministry of War, as Donald Trump is trying to do. After all, this war sign was quite good from George Washington’s time to Harry Truman. And the “war” is more honest and descriptive of the somewhat euphemistic “defense”. As Trump put it, “we want to be aggressive if we should.” Even that is based.

Trump likes to rename things – the Gulf of Mexico/America and the like – because this seems bold, while bypassing the complexities and minorities of real policy. The name is part of the conversion of its presidency into reality and works to the extent that it draws our attention. However, a new sign outside the Pentagon does not solve the “demonic” challenges of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard and Space. Nor does it signal anything, positive or negative, for strategy.

The strategy – the word comes from the Greek word “general” or otherwise “commander” – is the area with which Trump and his war Minister, Pitt Hegshe, should be dealt with, but they are not involved. Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz wrote that war is the extension of other politics. This has often been misinterpreted as cynical support of the war. In fact, Clausewitz meant something closer to the opposite: the need to limit war and degrad it to achieve clearly defined political goals. This is not what Trump and Hegsch understand.

When Trump announced the name change, Hegschez again re -out that the new title expresses the “ethos of the warrior” that he and the president are trying to revive. The Ministry of War, said Hegschez, henceforth focuses “In violent influence, not on political correctness and lukewarm legality. We will bring out warriors, not just defenders. “

For people who think strongly of war and know that they are hell, it is difficult to “withstand” this war. Christopher Preble, who runs a “big strategy” program at the Stimson Center in Washington, believes that the persistence of Trump-Khschez with the war “is in danger of focusing on the murder for the sake of the murder and comes to the detriment of strategic clarity”.

Even especially when a nation has the most powerful army in world history, its leaders need humility and wisdom in the development of this power. America did not lose in Iraq and Afghanistan because it was not fatal – “because it did not kill enough Iraqi and Afghans”, as Preble puts it – but because she lacked a strategy that was well thought out, realistic and feasible.

What is observed during the second Trump government so far is not the alignment of military and other means with clearly defined purposes, but the random demonstrations of violence aimed at shocking and awe -inspiring to the public, both abroad and internal, and to keep them up.

Thus, Trump has just ordered a military attack on a caribbean speedboat, killing the 11 men who may have been or not have been drug smugglers and whom Trump called “terrorists”. Normally, the Coast Guard would have identified and managed such people. The attack was almost certainly illegal. However, a video with suspense was created, which Trump of course shared, implying that more strikes would follow.

Trump and Hegschez seem just as ready to use the war – the word and the threat – within the country. The president has already developed the National Guard in some American cities that he considers “infidels”. Chicago could be the next city and, as Trump reported, “he will find out why he is called the Ministry of War.” He depicted his threat with an image of artificial intelligence of himself in a “revelation now” style, with Chicago in the background instead of the burning Vietnam.

This is the same president who usually confuses the victim attacker in the war between Russia and Ukraine. Which continues to alienate America’s allies, which recently finished training programs in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, NATO’s front line against Russia. Leading a possible ally, India, to the arms of America’s most likely opponent, China. Lacking any observable perception of a large strategy – that is, a reasonable plan to keep America great and to achieve peace through power.

So go ahead and rename this ministry. And prepare for war. But do so with the aim of preventing war, as Harry Truman did when he chose the title “Defense” shortly after the complete genocidal and even nuclear horror of World War II. He and other American leaders of his time had seen hell and wanted to save humanity from it. They hated war too much to play with this word.

Trump cannot continue to play a warrior while calling himself the president of the PEACE. And America cannot continue to let him despise the strategy for the sake of the demonstration.

* Andreas Kluth is an article by Bloomberg