U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks about Javelin anti-tank missiles next to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on August 11, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Former RAND Corporation senior political scientist Jennifer Kavanagh warns in an op-ed for the American Conservative that President Donald Trump is endangering the U.S. homeland by splashing a thin military all over the globe.
When Trump made good on this commitment to raid and arrest Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and then “run” the nation and its oil industry, Kavanagh said he increased the U.S. military presence without pulling it back from other wasteful assignments.
The military presence in Latin America now includes at least “10,000 personnel, dozens of fighter aircraft, and more than 10 percent of the U.S. Navy,” said Kavanagh, a senior fellow and military analysis director at Defense Priorities. But she pointed out that Trump still has at least 80,000 forces in Europe, costing “tens of billions per year.”
Plus, the U.S. military has increased its presence and involvement in the Middle East since Trump returned to the White House, complete with aircraft, warships and the defense of Israel and multiple campaigns in Iran.
Meanwhile, Kavanagh said the United States hasn’t pulled anything out of Asia.
“Despite widespread speculation that Trump seeks a grand bargain over Taiwan, his administration has not given any sign that it plans to back away from its efforts to deter China from seizing the island by force,” Kavanagh said, adding that Trump represents “yet another manifestation of the same old American pattern: the addition of new military commitments without shedding old ones.”
Add to this Trump’s threats of military action against Colombia, Cuba and Mexico and Kavanaugh says Trump is “stretching the military thin” in a manner that should worry people.
“The United States should be more careful and judicious with its use of military force close to home than it is elsewhere. After all, if a military intervention goes wrong (as so many U.S. efforts have) it will be much harder for Washington to seal the U.S. homeland off from the consequences,” Kavanaugh said. “If Venezuela ends up being the next Libya, for example, regional instability will rise, drug flows and violence will increase, and opportunities for Chinese involvement could grow. These outcomes will undermine Trump’s broader domestic and foreign policy agendas while also doing direct harm to U.S. interests.”
Read Kavanagh's American Conservative report at this link.
