By David K. Shipler 

            The man whocraves a Nobel Peace Prize is looking for ways to play with his soldiers. Hedeclares great swaths of the American citizenry the enemy from within and sendsbefuddled National Guard troops into cities governed by his politicalopposition. He threatens to go "guns-a-blazing" into Nigeria to stop murdersof Christians. He labels occupants of small boats “terrorists” when he imagines,with no proof, that they they might be transporting drugs. He launches amilitary buildup led by the largest US aircraft carrier to waters nearVenezuela in preparation for a possible military assault to overturn thegovernment of the socialist president, Nicolas Maduro.

            This isDonald Trump the peacemaker who did manage to get a shaky end to Israel’s warin Gaza, but who blustered ineffectually about ending Russia’s war in Ukraineand renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War. And this is DonaldTrump the strongman who undermines his military’s combat expertise by lettinghis defective “War Secretary,” Pete Hegseth, purge the senior ranks of the mostcompetent officers, a likely step toward politicizing the armed forces withright-wing, white Christian nationalists.

            If thisarray of odd behavior appears contradictory and hypocritical, let’s look again.It contains significant consistencies of personality and method.

            PresidentTrump thrives on conflict and confrontation, as if his brain chemistry neededthe fix. He enhances his power by tough-guy unpredictability, trying for fear,flattery, and capitulation in both warmaking and peacemaking scenarios. Thissometimes succeeds, but not always.

If no conflict or crisis exists, hecreates or imagines one, then reimagines it as disappearing because of his boldacts. He’s already practices this sleight of hand by thanking himself forrestoring order in US cities where no disorder prevailed, and by curtailingdrug smuggling via routes where it barely existed. Sadly, his pattern ofimagining and reimagining is not just a frivolous magician’s act. It hurts andkills people.

            Another constantin Trump’s disjointed military policies is theatrical. He is a showman, and theWhite House is his stage. The set on which he performs may or may not resemblereality—usually not. But no matter. Once created, it becomes the defininglandscape of his policies, and woe to the underling who disbelieves.

            Therefore,according to Trump, peaceful demonstrators are violent if they oppose hispolicies. Cities’ falling crime rates disappear from his portrayalof “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,” as he describedWashington, DC. His National Guard have supposedly rescued cities by standing aroundlooking awkward or picking up trash. His bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites was nofantasy, of course, but he brought the curtain down a bit too soon as heimmediately declared the facilities “obliterated.”After the Defense Intelligence Agency submitted a contradictory, preliminary assessment,Hegseth firedits commander, Lieut. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, along with two other seniorofficials. So much for reporting accurately up the chain of command.

            Trump’s performativestyle doesn’t often work well in the real world of complexity. It might grabinitial acquiescence from weaker players, but the grand posturing of adealmaker usually needs follow-up. Trump likes to stop the play mid-act when itreaches a positive turn, an illusory happy ending. But military matters don’tobey the impresario. Wars impart suffering, not glory, and a big mouth can’tend them.

            Thetwenty-point Gaza peace plan is an example of a set of good ideas and a hopefulbeginning that will tax Trump’s ability to follow through. With more pressurethan practically any other president has exerted, Trump leaned on PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu to win a ceasefire that is mostly holding, an exchangeof hostages and prisoners, a restoration of humanitarian aid, and a partialpullback of Israel troops. It was no small achievement: a good first act.

If the audience went home at theintermission, Trump would surely be delighted. But we’re still watching. Thelong-term plan to rebuild Gaza and build peace with international military andcivilian involvement requires nitty-gritty bargaining with Arab states, Turkey,Israel, and a fractured Palestinian leadership. If it requires intricate ongoingmanagement by Trump himself, far beyond a capability that he has demonstrated,it is likely to falter in the morass of Middle East grievance and radicalism.So, will the applause he enjoyed for the first act satisfy him? Is his showover? Will he now lose interest?

            Anotherconstant in warmaking and peacemaking is Trump’s willingness to threaten justabout anything to cow countries that stand in his way. It is the syndrome of amafia boss, which  can be useful againstweaker adversaries who are scared of his impulsive craziness. He is obviously willingto do bad things to people who don’t obey his commands, a practice that is defeatingdemocracy at home as too many American institutions avoid standing up to him.

That bludgeon is also a burden,though. The bully in him, which sees others as susceptible to both his threatsand his flattery, can lead to misjudgments of character. The most dangerous casehas been his hot-and-cold relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who hasbeen both admired and reviled by Trump. Indeed, Trump’s insensitivity to shadesof gray, his binary approach to people, actually makes him a lousy negotiatorwhere hard work is needed to reach the end of a difficult road.

He praised Putin, and Putin praisedhim, and nothing came of it. Campaigning on the promise to end the Ukraine warin 24 hours, Trump in office gave up his two major bargaining chips withouteven starting talks: He offered Russia some Ukrainian territory and a pledgenot to accept Ukraine into NATO. He staged an unseemly row with UkrainianPresident Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office and mouthed some of Putin’stalking points, asserting that Ukraine started the war.

All that made Trump look too eagerto deliver on his loud boast, an obvious effort to win that coveted Nobel PeacePrize. So, no surprise, Putin continued the war as usual. Perhaps he missed achance to take advantage of that moment to fashion some form of agreement. Andhe denied Trump the applause he treasures. So, climbing the steep learningcurve, an annoyed Trump flipped on the Russian leader. “We get a lot ofbullshit thrown at us by Putin,” he saidin July. “He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”(This would not have been news to him if he had longtime Putin-watchers on hisstaff, or if he’d watched Putin himself.)

How do Trump’s showmanship, crisiscreation, and tough tactics inform his military policies? We are seeing themunfold around Venezuela. First, his imagination conflates criminal and militarythreats, using the wartime label “armed conflict” to describe the US vs. thedrug cartels. Second, he portrays Venezuela as a source of life-threateningnarcotics when it actually producesor smuggles none of the fentanyl bound for the US and hardly any of thecocaine. Although some drug-laden flights depart from Venezuela, the majorsmuggling routes are not through the Caribbean, but via the Pacific and intothe US over land.

It is hard to see what a coming warwould be about. It might unseat and seize Maduro, who has been indicted as acartel head, and is commonly regarded as having stolen the last election. Itmight open Venezuela’s vast oil reserves to American exploitation, although Madurooffered as much in talks that Trump called off. A senior official told TheNew York Times that the military deployment is designed as pressure onMaduro over oil.

What a war would definitely not beabout is what Trump has consistently touted as the issue, one that mostAmericans can grasp with strong concern: the drug trade.