Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War

by Samuel Moyn

The rise of armed drone strikes under Obama’s watch was merely the symbol of the extension and expansion of endless war. Alongside his reliance on no-footprint drones as a new mode of cleaner and more humane killing, Obama simultaneously turned to the light-footprint U.S. Special Forces. In the beginning, the two options worked well together, with the evanescent footfalls of assets on the ground helping the drones overhead and their operators far away to do their work. But whatever its signature, Obama’s pattern far transcended any method or technology. Not only was the price for the world of Obama’s perfection of humane war high but also it ended in catastrophe at home.

No dove, Donald Trump nevertheless capitalized on the perception that mainstream politicians were committed to endless wars. And he won. The arc of the moral universe ran through the humanization of interminable conflict. But it bent toward an ogre. More and more humane forms of fighting abroad had now brought disaster at home, too. Then Trump went on to repeat the pirouette from antiwar candidate to endless war president that Obama had performed.

Torture was not us—but endless war is.

Elected to make his nation great again, Trump ushered it into a new stage of ongoing decline. As he did so, he strove mightily to discontinue aspects of endless war—the Afghan part most notably—even as he intensified the war overall.