The so-called “peacemaker” president is at it again. Donald Trump talks peace while preparing war.
Much has been made in the media in recent weeks about whether Donald Trump would deliver Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. It is without question that sending such missiles would represent a significant escalation in NATO’s proxy war against Russia.
Tomahawks now join a long list of military equipment touted as the game-changer for Ukraine in the war with Russia. Narratives that a particular weapon will turn the tide of war have saturated the news and social media since the war began in 2022.
If it wasn’t the F-16 fighter jet, it was Germany’s “Leopard” tank. If it wasn’t German tanks, it was cluster munitions, or the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System or Patriot missile systems. And every time, the propaganda was the same: Ukraine just needed one more piece of crucial equipment to achieve its victory.
This narrative was a lie from the beginning, and an intentional one. Ukraine has already deployed all these so-called game-changing weapons. None of them has led to the reversal or even the slowing of Russia’s steady advance.
The ‘silver bullet’ myth
From the beginning, this “silver bullet” narrative was just a smokescreen to justify spending millions upon millions of government funds on a U.S.-NATO war to drain Russia strategically.
Just like the rest of the equipment now burning on the war’s long front, Tomahawks will make little difference in the grand scheme of the war’s progress. While these are powerful weapons intended to decimate enemy logistical infrastructure and supply hubs, the math doesn’t add up.
The Tomahawk illusion
Currently, the Trump administration has proposed sending 50 Tomahawks to Ukraine. Military analysts note that the number under discussion — just 50 missiles — would barely dent Russia’s vast energy infrastructure. Further, the missiles are wildly expensive to produce.
To make any significant difference in the outcome of the war and have any chance to overcome Russia’s advantage in mobilization and war industry over Ukraine – the U.S. would have to send thousands of Tomahawk missiles. And even that could be futile.
The U.S. would likely exhaust its entire arsenal of an estimated 4,000 missiles without seeing real deterioration in Russia’s military capabilities.
The real motive: profit
So why the push for Tomahawks? It’s not strategy — it’s profit.
The U.S. and European arms industries have made record gains from the war in Ukraine. Each new shipment guarantees new government contracts to replace what’s sent. When Washington ships 50 Tomahawks abroad, it must order 50 more — using state funds diverted from social needs to corporate profit.
That’s how the system works. The government transfers the public wealth to the monopolies of war. Every missile fired means another payday for Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics.
Even with the limitations of the Tomahawk missile and the motivation having more to do with profit than with the actual prosecution of a war, the shipment of such missiles to Ukraine for strikes deep in Russia would still represent a dangerous escalation.
Such missiles would allow Ukraine to strike major Russian cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg. There is no other way for Russia to interpret U.S.-supplied Tomahawks to Ukraine than as a signal of escalation from NATO.
For now, Donald Trump has seemingly decided that he isn’t prepared to publicly provide Ukraine with the capability to strike deep in Russian territory via Tomahawks. But in the same stroke as publicly declining to send Tomahawks, Trump’s State Department lifted key restrictions on Ukraine’s use of missiles provided by European allies.
Even with Trump’s bluster, the escalation is apparent, dangerous, and terrifying.
Trump’s administration lifted these restrictions a day after Ukraine used a British-supplied Storm Shadow missile to strike a Russian chemical plant in Bryansk, deep behind the front lines. The message here seems clear: “Keep it up, but get what you need from Europe.”
This has been Trump’s strategy since he took office. The right-wing demagogue claims to be a peacemaker while pushing the war through European allies and enacting new sanctions against Russia.
The world doesn’t need another “peacemaker” who feeds the war machine. The working class of the United States — and everywhere — needs those vast public resources now wasted on war redirected to human needs: housing, healthcare, education, and rebuilding communities, not destroying them.
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