The Trump administration is at it again. This time it is meddling in another part of the Middle East, Afghanistan. We recently dropped a MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) bomb in the Northeast, hoping to weed out ISIS tunnel networks. This event occurred just days ago, which comes as no surprise given the recent provocations in the South China sea and Syria. It would seem that this unique instance is a desperate attempt to show the world where our priorities lie.
I would say that as of late the Trump administration is trying to divert attention away from his domestic blunders and put more attention on his foreign policy. This phenomenon is characterized as Diversionary War Theory, which is a term in international relations studies suggesting that leaders will engage in warfare when there is domestic turmoil. Another term for this theory is Rally Round the Flag Syndrome, which is similar what happened to the United States following September 11, 2001.
In the current state of affairs, Trump has been in the hot seat for some time. Basically, he is on the defensive ever since there were multiple breakthroughs in the Russian investigations, not to mention the collapse of social programs and many other civil protections. The Trump administration is following the lead of Reagan and the Bushes, which is to direct the attention to conflict rather than the failure of massive deregulation. Historically, when times of domestic hardship were tanking presidents’ approval ratings, war always helped to boost their public perceptions. In the 1990s George Bush’s approval rating soared after the US deployed troops to Kuwait for the Gulf War. This is the last thing that the Trump administration can do to try to rally public support and insulate his efforts to do things like dismantle Obamacare.
All of this brings us to where we are now. We have struck Syria, and we have moved to the threshold of striking North Korea. Now, we have used the largest explosive ordnance ever used in combat since the nuclear bomb, MOAB. In southern Nangarhar, the local eyewitnesses said they saw “lightning like a thunder storm.” This bomb weighed 21,600 pounds and is speculated to have killed upwards of 30 ISIS combatants. Taken as a bit of a shock, the world is still trying to figure out how to respond to this display of military aggression.
I would say that this brings to light a broader picture of what the Trump administration’s efforts against ISIS look like. It seems that they are not limiting themselves to just Iraq and Syria, but are using this excuse to continue war in places like Afghanistan. What I do not understand is how the US gets the ability to just do these things without so much as approval. I assume there is some process that takes place, but the turnaround on these discussions is quite fast. Former president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, said that this was a “brutal act,” and these provocations threaten the sovereignty of Afghanistan. In the end, it seems that Trump will continue to flash the world with the might of the US military in an attempt to regain some sort of legitimacy.
