Achilles and Trump’s ‘Forever Wars’

The Psychopathology of the Frail Male Consciousness

Instead of threatening Iran with a return to the Stone Age, the United States could look to ancient stories of imperial folly to learn a thing or two, writes Jake Arnott

‘Great nations do not fight endless wars,” declared Donald Trump in his 2019 State of the Union Address. Observing that “our brave troops have now been fighting in the Middle East for almost 19 years”, the American President pledged to withdraw from lengthy overseas engagements and to steer the US away from the quagmire of indefinite military intervention that have come to be known as ‘forever wars’.

Yet, seven years later, and barely three days into an escalating air invasion of Iran, Trump boasted that a record level of American munitions stockpiles could secure a perpetual assault on a besieged state.

“We have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons,” he posted on Truth Social on 2 March. “Wars can be fought ‘forever’, and very successfully.”