In his inaugural address, Donald Trump said his “proudest legacy” as president will be that of a “peacemaker.”
“Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable,” the president said in his remarks on January 20.
But six months later, Trump has already launched nearly as many airstrikes on foreign nations as Joe Biden did within four years, with analysts asking whether the president’s plan to end so-called “forever wars” involves overwhelming firepower to stop them from happening in the first place.
Since Trump returned to the White House, the United States has carried out at least 529 bombings in more than 240 locations in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), an international data collection nonprofit. His predecessor’s administration launched 555.
“Trump’s preference for engagement begs the question: Does this contradict his promise to end America’s wars — or are the foreign strikes how he wishes to keep that promise?” ACLED president Clionadh Raleigh said in a statement. “The recent airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites have been framed as a major turning point in U.S. foreign policy. But if you take a step back, they don’t stand out — they fit.”
“All of President Trump’s decisive actions have been overwhelmingly popular and resulted in greater peace,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement to The Independent.
“Operation Midnight Hammer successfully obliterated Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and [the Department of Defense’s] successful strikes against ISIS and other malign groups killed terrorists want to do harm to Americans,” she added.
“Anyone who sympathizes with evil terrorists and wants them to live should look inward,” she said.
A majority of the U.S. military’s airstrikes thus far have targeted Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in an effort to stop their attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea launched in retaliation for Israel’s war in Gaza.
The administration struck Yemen at least 474 times within three months, ACLED found. The Biden administration launched 294 attacks in Yemen within roughly 12 months.
Trump’s airstrikes in Yemen have reportedly killed as many civilians within the eight-week bombing campaign as in the previous two decades of U.S. attacks targeting militants in the country, according to nonprofit watchdog Airwars. At least 224 civilians were killed during the campaign between March and May, compared to 258 deaths between 2002 and 2024, that report found.
The administration also launched 44 airstrikes in Somalia to target Islamic State operatives, according to ACLED.
Trump first ordered the airstrikes in February, marking the first attacks in the African nation in his second term.
“The U.S. military is moving faster, hitting harder, and doing so with fewer constraints,” according to Raleigh. “Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and now Iran are all familiar terrain, but this isn’t about geography — it’s about frequency.”
Targeted airstrikes don’t appear to be a last-resort measure under the Trump administration but “the first move,” Raleigh added.
“While Trump has repeatedly promised to end America’s ‘forever wars,’ he has rarely elaborated on how,” Raleigh said. “These early months suggest the plan may be to use overwhelming firepower to end fights before they begin, or before they drag on.”
Throughout his campaign, the president accused Biden and, later, his Democratic rival Kamala Harris of leading the United States into World War III. “These are wars that will never end with him,” Trump said of Biden during a presidential debate in June 2024. “We’re closer to World War III than anybody can imagine.”
Receiving the endorsement of now-intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard last year, Trump said the pair was “uniting forces to end the endless foreign wars.”
“I am confident that his first task will be to do the work to walk us back from the brink of war,” Gabbard said at the time. “We cannot be prosperous unless we are at peace.”
Trump — vocal about his desire for a Nobel Peace Prize, and nominated for the honor by at least four of his allies — also promised his administration would bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza.
On Monday, the president laid out prospective steps to pressure Russia to end its war, including sending more weapons to Ukraine and threatening economic sanctions in Moscow if there is no peace agreement within 50 days.
“I felt we had a deal about four times,” Trump said. “But it just kept going on and on.”
His administration has also failed to broker a ceasefire in Gaza as Palestinians face threats of famine and Israeli airstrikes continue to bombard the strip. A tentative Trump-backed plan to force hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians into an area controlled by Israel’s military close to the Gaza-Egypt border has also threatened to derail ceasefire talks.
The Independent has requested comment Department of Defense.
