THE world seems as if it has slipped into chaos. There are almost too many conflicts to contemplate and too many misleading claims about each of them. It is a period of general upheaval.

But we can make more sense of these wars, and more effectively oppose them is we understand how they are linked. One of the more outlandish claims is that the US president is the “peace president” and wants to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  

There is precedent — after Maria Machado called for the bombing of her own people in Venezuela. And not forgetting Henry Kissinger, who was responsible for millions of deaths in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

In truth, Trump is only a highly practised warmonger, and an even more accomplished liar about those wars. There is really not much to be gained from examining Trump’s own statements about his wars. He can and does contradict himself, not just day to day but even in the same sentence.

But if we take his wars as a whole, then we can begin to see a pattern, or even an overarching ambition of this presidency.

The US, under both Joe Biden and Trump, shares coresponsibility for the genocide in Gaza, as well as the attacks on Lebanon, on Yemen and the jihadist takeover in Syria. Trump is responsible for the efforts at regime change in Venezuela as well as the murderous siege that has been laid against Cuba. Having promised to end the Ukraine war, Trump has extended it. And now this his second war agaisnt Iran.

In the short period of Trump’s second term, he has also bombed Iraq, Somalia and Nigeria. This is not peace. It is global war across a number of continents simultaneously.

When such a wild and repeated set of military actions that the US has unleashed, all of them illegal, it would be foolish to treat them each as isolated incidents. There are common threads.

The common threads linking all of these unprovoked wars and bombings is Trump himself and the US. Other factors are also repeatedly present, such as European and British government excuses for Trump, and providing him cover and support, especially in Britain. Another factor is the frequent resistance and further turmoil Trump provokes.

He is not bringing peace anywhere, just destruction, murder and chaos.

The key question is, Why? Why is the US in such a war frenzy now? The US has always hated Cuba and frequently tried to overthrow the government. It hated Venezuela ever since Hugo Chavez escaped their attempts to assassinate him. Over the last two decades the US has repeatedly bombed countries in or near the Horn of Africa. Nato has been encroaching towards Russia ever since 1992. And the US has attempted to throttle the Iranian Revolution ever since 1979.

None of these attacks is new. They could be regarded as established facets of US foreign policy. But now the US under Trump is attempting to do all of these at the same time. In its strategy documents the Trump administration sets out a plan for global domination that is laced with chauvinsim, Islamophobia, xenophobia and white nationalism.

The history of colonialism teaches us that first you have to demonise and dehumanise people before you attempt to enslave them. This is what is set out in US strategy documents.

There are alternative interpretations of those stategy documents that they indicate a desire to confine US domination to the Americas, or at least the Western hemispshere. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The strategy is to dominate the whole world, with a brazen and confused sequencing to achieve that. In any event, the bombing and blockading of Iran completely refutes these misplaced notions about Trump’s limited aims. Global domination was and remains the goal.

The reasons for this occurring now are relatively straightforward. It is reported that, when Trump claimed US soybeans were more nutritious than in other countries, Xi Jinping asked: “Is that a Trump statement, or is it real?”

Well, the repeated claims that the US economy is booming is a Trump statement, not real. Trump boasted in his first term he was going to get the US back to a rate of 4 per cent GDP growth each year. In fact he managed a little over 2 per cent growth on average.

There is a long decline. The US accounted for half of world output in the early 1950s. In 2024, it accounted for less than one sixth of world output.

The US is losing its economic supremacy over the rest of the world. it is no longer the unparalleled leader in terms of average incomes. Much of the rest of the world, outside the G7 countries, is growing much faster than the US. At the centre of all this, the US is losing the economic war with China.

That is why Trump launched the tariffs on most countries, but offered to cut them if countries cut trade with China. That all backfired on him very badly, as Trump discovered the US economy relies so much on China, despite it being his central target.

As Von Clausewitz said: “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” In this phase, Trump has decided to use military force in order to control markets and subordinate countries he could not by prurely political means, or by trade war and tariff tactics.

Picking off smaller countries one by one was meant to demonstrate both the enormous power of the US and its complete ruthlessness.

While the rest of the world has looked on in horror at the genocide in Gaza, US strategists admire their own handiwork, along with Israel, as a showcase for that ruthless military power. But even this strategy seems to have run aground in the Strait of Hormuz.

Unfortunately, because this is the motivation, we should not expect an outbreak of peace anytime soon. US ceasefires are tactical. Trump is increasing the US military budget by enormous sums, and is demanding that the other Nato members do something similar.

We are going to hear increasing calls to fund warfare, not public services or welfare, as Kemi Badenoch, George Robertson and Rachel Reeves have just done.

No doubt, this campaign will include many more on the Labour side. We should resist them, their austerity and their forever wars. They are not making us safer or better off. We must oppose their perma-wars in our own interests, and in the interests of all humanity.

Diane Abbott is member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.