Donald Trump, whose path to losing the popular vote was littered with his own lies about having opposed the Iraq War, is asking for a $54 billion increase in defense spending. Here’s what he had to say about that Monday morning:
We must ensure that our courageous servicemen and women have the tools they need to deter war and when called upon to fight in our name only do one thing, win. We have to win. We have to start winning wars again. I have to say when I was young in high school and college, everybody used to say we never lost a war, we never lost a war. You remember. Some of you were right there with me and you remember we never lost a war. America never lost. And now we never win a war. We never win. And we don't fight to win. We don't fight to win. So we either got to win or don't fight it at all.
He sounds … a little more interested in “winning wars” than in deterrence, don’t you think? Like war is just a great opportunity for Donald Trump to do his favorite thing: win.
Also, the past several decades strongly suggest that it’s the United States that needs to be deterred away from war. The Iraq War did not involve Iraq invading the U.S., for instance.