#570: Might Makes Right According to Donald Trump

#570: Might Makes Right--According to Donald Trump

By  Rudy Barnes, Jr., November 1, 2025 

Ben Rhodes has opined that Donald Trump’s lust for power motivates all that he has done. “Whether it’s seeking a cease-fire in Gaza or Ukraine, or bombing boats off the coast of Venezuela or deploying troops to American cities, Trump’s objective is personal aggrandizement and the empowerment of his presidency. And when Trump pursues peace, it’s personalized with deals made with other strongmen that don’t address the underlying causes of the conflict.”  

“When Trump makes war, it is also personalized, with no expectation, that Congress must authorize his actions.  “Trump applied more pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel than did Joe Biden, but  there was little clarity about post-war issues on who would administer Gaza, how Hamas would disarm, or whether Israel would resume its efforts to  annex the West Bank. It felt more like a victory lap than a beginning of a true peace process.”

Since the beginning of the war over 2 years ago, the International Criminal Court has charged Mr. Netanyahu with war crimes and experts determined that Israel committed genocide. As the cease-fire took hold, there was no reckoning with that reality. Instead, Trump called Netanyahu “a man of exceptional courage,” and suggested that he be pardoned over criminal charges he is facing in Israel, and for the “victory” Israel won.”

“Any semblance of a rules-based international order lies buried in Gaza’s mountains of rubble. Yet the new order emerging from this reality seemed just fine to most leaders gathered in Egypt. The host, Mr. el-Sisi, has detained an estimated 60,000 political prisoners and was celebrated by Trump for his effective crime-fighting.”

“Far from resolving conflicts, Mr. Trump is simply embracing the Machiavellian strategy of the stronger parties. In Ukraine, he has reportedly pressured its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to cede roughly 20 percent of his country, leaving them dismembered and vulnerable. Meanwhile, Russia’s Putin, continues his assault knowing that he can end the Ukraine war when he chooses, on his own terms, without facing consequences for war crimes like Mr. Netanyahu.”

“This geopolitics of might-makes-right suits Mr. Trump’s ambitions. He has declared himself “the peace president.”  But, this is not peace.  He has created a world without the rules established after World War II to prevent a return of the lethal mix of authoritarianism and aggression that is once again ascendant.  But history shows that when might makes right, things go terribly wrong.”

While Trump has declared himself the “peace president,” his newly rebranded Department of War is blowing boats out of the water in the Caribbean with no domestic or legal restraints on the violence.  That’s an extension of might makes right policy that needs to be changed to might must be right to be legitimate.  Trump has claimed that his aggressiveness is part of his counternarcotics strategy,  but he has not yet published a National Security Strategy. 

Notes:

The above commentary is taken from The Thread Tying Together Everything that Trump Does, by Ben Rhodes, at NYTimes, October 26, 2025.  

According to Wikipedia, as of 22 October 2025, over 71,200 people (69,236 Palestinians[4][9] and 1,983 Israelis[c]) have been reported killed in the Gaza war according to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as 217 journalists and media workers,[46][d] 120 academics,[49] and over 224 humanitarian aid workers.

For a comprehensive overview of the role of military legitimacy and national security strategy to concepts of military legitimacy that emphasize the need for standards of law and diplomacy applied to peacetime military operations, see Rudolph C. Barnes, Jr., Military Legitimacy, Might and Right in the New Millennium, published by Frank Cass, 1996.