A growing number of typically staunch Trump supporters, ranging from the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to former top adviser Steve Bannon and even conservative talking head Tucker Carlson, have grown increasingly antagonistic toward Trump’s apparent saber-rattling since January. Even the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, a critical figure behind Trump’s surge in popularity with young voters who generally backed the president’s strikes on Iran, cautioned in June against the singular operation spilling over into another lengthy American combat engagement in the Middle East.

Senior Trump administration officials privately discounted those critiques to the Washington Examiner, insisting that Trump’s aggressive foreign policy is taken with the explicit goal of protecting American interests and avoiding prolonged foreign engagements.

Beyond mobilizing American warships, jets, and Marines to the Caribbean, or arming United States allies to the teeth, the president has also actively stirred speculation about invading or directly striking other countries.

This week, Trump ordered the Pentagon to prepare invasion plans for Nigeria to protect Christians there from Islamic militants, and, for months, the president has speculated about operations that could oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power.

Trump administration officials, however, say those threats are all part of Trump’s strategy of “unpredictability” that keeps both America’s allies and enemies “on their toes.”

“Carrying a big stick doesn’t mean anything unless people think you’ll use it,” one official stated. “I think that’s exactly what President Trump is doing here. He’s put the world on notice. America will no longer back down from a fight. And in doing that, he’s preventing potential future conflicts before they can even begin.”

A senior White House aide said, “I think on Nigeria — look, I know that multiple people here have raised this issue with him of late.

“The persecution of Christians is a huge issue for people in this country, so even though this would be protecting Christians overseas, it’s still pursuing America First values.” 

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly added in a statement: “President Trump was elected with a resounding mandate to implement America First foreign policy.

“He has delivered by negotiating fairer trade deals, securing a 5% defense spending pledge among NATO allies, killing narcoterrorists smuggling illicit narcotics into our homeland, and more, while simultaneously ending eight wars – making the entire world safer and more stable. The President will always work to ensure peace through strength and advance American interests abroad.”

Jennifer Kavanaugh, senior fellow and director of military analysis for Defense Priorities, similarly suggested to the Washington Examiner that Trump has been relatively consistent across both terms in office when it comes to pursuing a peace through strength strategy. 

“I do think it fits into this general model of how he thinks about military force, which is overwhelming power, limited objectives, short duration, no real boots on the ground and that’s sort of the optimal model that he has,” she explained, pointing to both Trump’s first term strike on former Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and his invocation of the first Gulf War during his recent speech to military brass in Quantico, Virginia. “I think this is the model that the administration has been striving for. We saw that with the Iran strike. It’s sort of working in the background in Venezuela, certainly with the strikes on the drug boats. If there were to be a campaign against Venezuela, I don’t think anyone thinks there would be boots on the ground, or at least that’s not the plan. With military interventions, they always end up going sideways, but that’s not the plan.”

Still, Kavanaugh expressed some skepticism about whether, “in the places where [Trump’s] actually used military force this term,” the administration is actually achieving its political goals.

When it comes to “displaying strengths” and “showing the spectacular skills and technologies the U.S. military has,” or even “projecting this aura that the U.S. military is back,” Kavanaugh says, “these spectacular strikes are maybe effective.”

“But in terms of political objectives — if the goal of the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facility was to force them to the negotiating table to get a deal, well, we don’t have a deal. If the goal of bombing these drug cartel boats is to stop drug smuggling, I can tell you from history that that’s probably not what’s going to happen. If the goal of building up military power around Venezuela is to force Maduro from power, I don’t think that’s going to work,” she continued. “It’s important to understand that military power is very important. If you don’t have military power, you’re basically geopolitically irrelevant. We see that in Europe today, but it has a limited utility. It can only achieve a very narrow set of objectives, and I guess some of these limited-duration, big-strike displays that Trump has done have achieved some tactical ends, but not really the political goals that were set out.”

Even if Trump’s posturing proves politically effective on the global stage, it could pose a major problem for Republicans in the coming election cycles, with lawmakers stating this week that they’d like to see Trump focus a little more on domestic issues.

“It’s a powerful record to run on. But it’s incumbent on us to lay this out to the voters; they’re not going to know without us laying out the details,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). “I’m glad the president’s had some very good success internationally, but that’s not what motivates voters.”

Trump’s foreign policy likely played little to no part in Democrats’ significant victories this past Tuesday, but Kavanaugh believes that should Trump actually launch a new ground war, his foreign policy caucus would officially shatter.

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“I study the history of U.S. military interventions, and I can tell you that it is very common for things that are supposed to be limited strike operations to become much bigger, longer disasters, because something goes wrong. So far, that hasn’t happened, but there’s no guarantee that it won’t at some point,” she explained. “For the people who wanted to see more restraint in his foreign policy, the Iran strike wasn’t popular. Striking drug boats isn’t popular, but these aren’t big ground wars either. That’s a line that Trump hasn’t crossed, and I think if he crossed that, the political cost could be much higher.”