The Trump administration’s recent military engagement with Venezuela and rhetoric with respect to Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, and Greenland mark a new bellicosity in foreign policy, and one at odds with the antiwar tenor of the president’s campaign rhetoric. In the case of Greenland, the aim is a frankly expansionist one of securing new territory for the U.S. What should a Christian think of all this?
Elsewhere, I have argued that President Trump’s intervention in Venezuela and threat to annex Greenland by force do not meet the conditions set out by just war doctrine. But in online Catholic circles, some have suggested that precedents from Christian history lend support to an expansionist foreign policy. Some point to the Crusades. Others suggest that the Catholic empires’ colonization of the New World shows that wars of conquest can be legitimate. Among those taking such a position is the popular podcaster Matt Walsh.
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