Mises Wire

Don’t Ship Weapons to Troubled Hot Spots

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Substantial parts of the world are at war, the Mideast and Ukraine attract the most attention, but there are others as well. Our traditional foreign policy calls for non-intervention in foreign wars, but even those who do not fully accept this policy should agree on one thing. America should not ship weapons to troubled areas. Wars are bad things, and we shouldn’t make them worse by making it easier to kill people.

Unfortunately, that’s just what we are doing. When he ran for President, Trump made statements in favor of a non-interventionist policy. He especially seemed eager to disengage from Ukraine.

But once he took office, he continued the policy of massive arms shipments to Israel of brain-dead “President” Biden and his gang and his gang of neocon controllers. He went even further with Iran, actually sending American bombers to drop bunker busting bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

At first, Trump partially fulfilled his campaign rhetoric about cutting off military aid to Ukraine. But he has now restored it, and he threatens to impose sanctions against Putin. This risks nuclear war.

Let’s look first at American arms shipments to Israel. According to an article in The Times of Israel in May 2025, “The US State Department told Congress on Friday that it plans to sell nearly $3 billion in weapons to Israel, including thousands of bombs and $295 million worth of armored bulldozers that had been held up by the previous administration over human rights concerns that US President Donald Trump has largely eschewed. The prospective weapons sales were notified to US Congress on an emergency basis, meaning they will not be subject to review by the House and Senate’s foreign relations committees. Trump’s predecessor, US President Joe Biden, also utilized the measure to approve arms sales to Israel during the war in Gaza. In a statement, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio ‘has determined and provided detailed justification that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the Government of Israel of the above defense articles and defense services in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the Congressional review requirements.’”

Here is Rubio’s statement in full, from the Department of State website: “I have signed a declaration to use emergency authorities to expedite the delivery of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel. The decision to reverse the Biden Administration’s partial arms embargo, which wrongly withheld a number of weapons and ammunition from Israel, is yet another sign that Israel has no greater ally in the White House than President Trump. Since taking office, the Trump Administration has approved nearly $12 billion in major FMS sales to Israel. This important decision coincides with President Trump’s repeal of a Biden-era memorandum which had imposed baseless and politicized conditions on military assistance to Israel at a time when our close ally was fighting a war of survival on multiple fronts against Iran and terror proxies. The Trump Administration will continue to use all available tools to fulfill America’s long-standing commitment to Israel’s security, including means to counter security threats.”

Now let’s turn to Iran and the bunker-buster bombs. Here is what American bombers did according to the USNI: “A bomber mission of seven B-2 Spirit bombers and more than 30 Tomahawk Attack Missiles fired from an Ohio-class guided-missile nuclear submarine struck three Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo, Pentagon officials confirmed on Sunday. ‘Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,’ President Trump said in a Saturday night address at the White House. The main strike package of seven bombers began the more than day-long round trip from Whiteman Airbase, Mo., on Saturday. The B-2s ultimately dropped 14 GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators on the enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordo early Sunday morning Iranian time, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said in a Pentagon press briefing. The MOP is a 20-foot-long, 30,000-pound munition capable of tunneling through more than 100 feet of concrete and is thought to be the only weapon in the US or Israeli arsenal capable of destroying Iran’s underground uranium enrichment facilities.”

When he ran for office, Trump said he favored non-intervention. In September 2024, he said he was going to cut off military aid to Ukraine: “Donald Trump on Tuesday praised Russia’s military record in historical conflicts and derided US aid to Ukraine as he again insisted he would quickly end the war launched by Moscow’s invasion if elected president. Speaking in Savannah, Georgia, Trump mocked President Joe Biden’s frequent refrain that the US would back the Ukrainian armed forces until Kyiv wins the war. He raised two long ago conflicts to suggest Moscow would not lose — the former Soviet Union’s role in defeating Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in World War II in the 1940s, and French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s failed invasion of Russia more than a century earlier. Trump insisted that the US had ‘to get out,’ though he did not specify how he would negotiate an ending to US involvement in the war. “Biden says, ‘We will not leave until we win,’” Trump said, lowering his voice to mimic the Democratic president. ‘What happens if they win? That’s what they do, is they fight wars. As somebody told me the other day, they beat Hitler, they beat Napoleon. That’s what they do. They fight. And it’s not pleasant.’” When he became President, Trump at first did cut off arms shipments to Ukraine: The New York Times said on March 3, 2025: President Trump on Monday temporarily suspended the delivery of all US military aid to Ukraine, senior administration and military officials said, just days after Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine had an explosive confrontation at the White House. The order affects more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition in the pipeline and on order. It resulted from a series of meetings at the White House on Monday between Mr. Trump and his senior national security aides, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The officials said the directive would be in effect until Mr. Trump determined that Ukraine had demonstrated a good-faith commitment to peace negotiations with Russia. Mr. Trump’s decision dramatically escalates the breach between Washington and Kyiv, at a critical moment in the conflict. The most immediate beneficiary of the move is President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. If the suspension is lengthy, he can use the time to press for further territorial gains. And he may well decide to hold back from any negotiations at all, figuring that any prolonged dispute between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky will only strengthen his position, either on the battlefield or when cease-fire talks ever take place.”

But Trump restored the military aid after only a week and denied he had ordered a pause at all: According to PBS News “The Trump administration has resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, a week after the Pentagon had directed that some deliveries be paused, US officials said Wednesday. The weapons heading into Ukraine include 155 mm munitions and precision-guided rockets known as GMLRS, two officials told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to provide details that had not been announced publicly. It’s unclear exactly when the weapons started moving. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the pause on some shipments last week to allow the Pentagon to assess its weapons stockpiles, in a move that caught the White House by surprise. Affected was Patriot missiles, the precision-guided GMLRS, Hellfire missiles, Howitzer rounds and more, taking not only Ukrainian officials and other allies by surprise but also US lawmakers and other parts of the Trump administration, including the State Department. It was not clear if a pause on Patriot missiles would hold. The $4 million munition is in high demand and was key to defending a major US air base in Qatar last month as Iran launched a ballistic missile attack in response to the US targeting its nuclear facilities. President Donald Trump announced Monday that the US would continue to deliver defensive weapons to Ukraine. He has sidestepped questions about who ordered the pause in exchanges with reporters this week.”

Let’s do everything we can to discourage Trump from sending arms to troubled hot spots!

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