Trump promised peace and delivered war. He's hardly the first to do so

“Around the world, I'm moving quickly to end wars, settle conflicts and restore the planet to peace - I want peace,” said Donald J. Trump, a little over three months after his re-election as US President.

The fiery US leader shared these dovish assurances at the FII Priority Summit in Miami Beach on February 19, 2025. It was a message consistent with his previous tenure as POTUS, when Trump also sought to promote peace by holding meetings with international pariahs and pressing for a cessation of hostilities between enemy nations. He was also recently awarded FIFA’s inaugural peace prize.

Given these dovelike efforts, Trump shocked many by joining Israel’s assault on the Islamic Republic on February 28. As the world seeks to make sense of these attacks, this piece looks back at other dovish leaders throughout history who suddenly displayed hawk-like tendencies.

Unlike his warlike father, the emperor Charles V, King Philip II of Spain detested war after the Battle of Saint‑Quentin in 1557. Nicknamed “the prudent king”, he was known for patience, saying “time and I are two.” That all changed when Elizabeth I of England reluctantly ordered the unthinkable execution of her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic monarch. While ignoring the repeated pleas and objections of his officers, Philip ordered a great armada to enable the invasion of England, an initiative which ultimately met with abject disaster.

Another ruler with dovelike tendencies was Frederick the Great of Prussia, who in his youth wrote about enlightened rule, stating that a king should think only of his subjects’ welfare. Yet shortly after beginning his reign on May 31, 1740, he invaded Silesia in December, launching the conflict that seized much of the region from Austria.

Moving forward to the nineteenth century, the fourth US president and Founding Father James Madison viewed peace as the goal of a republic, advocating democratic accountability, non-interference and diplomacy. Yet he declared the War of 1812 against the United Kingdom, with mixed results for the USA.

Another dovish US president followed a century later. Woodrow Wilson campaigned in 1916 with the slogan “He kept us out of the war.” Yet the United States entered World War I on 6 April 1917 due to considerations which included Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram.

A similar reversal occurred with Britain’s prime minister Neville Chamberlain, whose policy of appeasement contributed to the Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938 with Adolf Hitler. But after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Chamberlain declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of Britain’s participation in World War II.

Later examples include India’s prime ministers Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi. Shastri declared peace should be ensured at any cost but led India during the Second Indo‑Pakistani War of 1965. Gandhi later stated, “let us negotiate, let us keep peace,” then led India in the Third Indo‑Pakistani War of 1971 when intervening on behalf of Bangladeshi independence.

Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, co-winner of the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize and architect of the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, later invaded southern Lebanon, during the 1982 Lebanon War, following a series of attacks and counter-attacks between the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and Israel Defence Forces.

James Vella Bardon.

These examples show that Trump is far from the first peace advocate to display hawkish tendencies - reminding us that even the loudest doves have teeth.

James Vella-Bardon's work can be found on Amazon.