Yet he is hardly the first American president to be tempted into a disastrous war by the bloated size of the American military. The US has always been a violent country, but before the second World War, it was far less militarised than Europe. The former second World War general worried that “we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions”. Though that power is reserved in the US constitution for Congress, the last time the US formally declared war was during the second World War. For decades, there has been a bipartisan consensus in the US on the excessive military spending that has enabled Trump’s war.

Source: The Irish Times March 30, 2026 11:03 UTC