Whatever Happened to Ending 'Endless Wars'?

Five months into the Iran conflict, supporters are asking whether America First still means fewer wars.

Brian C. Joondeph | August 3, 2026

One of President Donald Trump’s defining campaign themes was refreshingly simple: America should stop fighting endless wars.

He repeated that message across three presidential campaigns. Iraq was a mistake. Afghanistan became a twenty-year quagmire. America had spent trillions of dollars, sacrificed thousands of lives, and, too often, had little to show for it beyond instability and nation-building projects that rarely fulfilled their promises.

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During a 2016 presidential debate, Trump called the Iraq War “a big fat mistake.”

Eight years later, while campaigning for a return to the White House, he promised, “I will not send you to fight and die in stupid foreign wars that never end.” 

In his 2024 inaugural address, he declared, “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.” 

The Iran conflict has been underway for only five months, a far cry from Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, which dragged on for years or even decades. American casualties, while tragic, remain comparatively limited compared with those in those wars.

Whether or not one agreed with Trump on every issue, his criticism resonated with millions of Americans. They were tired of serving as the world’s policeman and wanted a president who would put American interests first rather than constantly inserting the United States into conflicts halfway around the globe.

It became one of the pillars of the America First movement.

Reality, however, has a way of testing campaign promises. As Mike Tyson famously observed, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

To be fair, the war in Ukraine was not Donald Trump’s doing. Russia invaded under Joe Biden’s watch, with tensions rising for several decades over NATO expansion. The conflict had already become Europe’s largest land war........

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