Is Trump Up for Ending the Cold War?
Walt Zlotow / West Suburban Peace Coalition
Glen Ellyn IL (February 16, 2025) — Is Trump putting an end to America’s 80 yearlong extension of WWII?
Yogi Berra’s wise aphorism ‘It’s never over till it’s over’ was never more fitting than to America’s refusal to end our involvement in the aftermath of WWII.
Yep, nearly 80 years since WWII officially ended, the US keeps over 100,000 troops in Europe to protect Europe from the Soviet, now Russian bogyman, we created keep permanent the WWII military economy.
With no enemy to justify our $4 trillion spent on vanquishing imperialist Japan and Nazism (2025 dollars), Truman’s Secretary of State Jimmy Byrnes told Truman we needed a permanent war economy to prevent a new Depression. To accomplish that, Byrnes and his fellow neocons of the day, James Forrestal, Dean Acheson, the Dulles boys, Allen and John Foster, conjured up a new enemy to justify that emerging military industrial complex. The Soviets, they warned, were determined to turn the whole world communist and had to be resisted everywhere.
Foreign affairs novice Truman swallowed whole their fear and loathing of the Soviets, making the Cold War, really a continuation of WWII, a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Eighty years later America still spends over $4 billion yearly on troops standing around doing nothing to protect either Europe or the American Homeland. Even worse, we’ve just squandered over $175 billion on our proxy war to keep Russia out of the European political economy All that accomplished was to create a million plus dead/wounded in Ukraine, now a failed state with a shattered economy and ten million fled for safer climes.
Sure appears Trump is trying to hammer the final nail into the coffin of US involvement in Europe. He’s engaging in diplomacy with Russia to end the clearly lost US proxy war destroying Ukraine. His minions are telling Ukraine they will never be in NATO and never regain the Crimea and the Donbas Russia gobbled up to secure their border from US/NATO nukes and protect the Russian leaning Ukrainians being pummeled by their own government to eradicate their Russian culture.
The Trump peace crew is telling Western Europe the US gravy train is preparing to pull out of the European station. WWII is over and time for Europe to provide for their own defense. Since they have no real enemies that should not be costly.
The road to withdrawal from Europe will not be easy. Trump tried a watered down version of withdrawal in first term and got rolled by the US war party consisting of weapons makers, military careerists, congressional war hawks and their sycophantic pundits. He’s clearly more powerful and more determined in Trump 2.0.
Every American of peace should beseech their congresspersons to support ending the Ukraine war and the New Cold War against Russia as well. Bring home those hundred thousand troops doing nothing of value in Europe. Demand cutting America’s $1.4 trillion national security budget in half. Use that peace dividend to reduce our $36 trillion debt that costs taxpayers a cool trillion in interest every year.
If Trump accomplishes the elusive goal of ending America’s 80 yearlong extension of WWII, even the Mighty Yogi might be forced to utter, ‘It really is OVAH.’
