In his thinkpiece in The Bulwark, the former Commanding General of US Army Europe says that not one of the seven wars President Donald Trump claimed to have settled has ended, and that these dangerous claims must be called out.
"Even as a tactical commander, I could never assume that a single battle or campaign success—or even a string of triumphs—had neutralized the enemy," Mark Hertling writes.
Despite that, Trump has repeatedly claimed that he has ended or solved at least seven wars, most recently at his press conference with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who appeared baffled by the claims, and later that day on Fox News.
"This claim has no basis in reality. None of the wars the president cites have truly ended, and the two most consequential conflicts he doesn’t name but which he claimed he would solve before taking office—Ukraine against Russia and Israel against Hamas—are still raging," Hertling says.
Trump, who has blamed Ukraine for being attacked by Russia, "hasn't done much to force Moscow to negotiate," Hertling says, adding that "Washington’s assistance has been piecemeal, the Alaska summit was a bust, and no framework exists for a ceasefire or long-term settlement."
Nor has the conflict in Gaza ended, with Israel intensifying attacks Tuesday morning. "This is certainly not a war that has ended—it is a war that has been expanding. Indeed, this violence is part of one of the wars Trump claims to have ended: the long shadow conflict between Israel and Iran," Hertling says.
All the other wars Trump has claimed to conclude are also still percolating—the conflict between India and Pakistan, border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia—the latter, where, Hertling says, "such violence continues only weeks after a supposed ceasefire shows how fragile Trump’s supposed “solutions” really are."
As for the eastern Congo, where "the president seems to be most proud of his purported peacemaking," Hertling says, "n the past week attacks by the Allied Democratic Forces once again terrorized villages in Ituri province."
And then there's the signed treaty Trump boasted about between Armenia and Azerbaijan—whose names he keeps confusing—that has yet to materalize, Hertling notes, saying, mistrust between the two countries "remains deep."
Trump's claims to have eased tensions between Serbia and Kosovo are also debunked as "the region is drifting toward confrontation," Hertling says, with a similar scenario over the Nile dam between Egypt and Ethiopia doing anything but easing.
Taken together, the president’s claims that he has “ended” or “solved” seven wars are as inaccurate as George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner in May 2003, when the president declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq," Hertling says.
The president is also taking claim on cooling conflicts that were never his to cool, Hertling says.
"If anything, Trump’s pronouncements are even less justified, since the conflicts he claims to have ended were never under U.S. control to begin with."
Not only is he not solving any wars, Hertling says, but he may be drawing the United States into a conflict with Venezuela, in an alleged war on drugs.
The president, he says, is not "peacebuilding but posturing," and "it's never good to proclaim victories where there are none, especially while gesturing towards fresh confrontations."
Trump, who loves to bloviate and boast, Hertling says, is ending nothing.
"Boasts and slogans may capture headlines, but they cannot substitute for the hard, unglamorous work of building durable peace. Until that work is done, the wars that were “ended” will remain very much alive."