US President Donald Trump has authorized more attacks in the first five months of his second term than former President Joe Biden did throughout his entire presidency, according to a report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).
In his inaugural address on January 20, 2024, newly elected Trump declared that his “proudest legacy” would be that of a “peacemaker.”
“Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent, and totally unpredictable,” he had said at the time.
However, “In just five months, Trump has overseen nearly as many US airstrikes (529) as were recorded across the entire four years of the previous administration (555),” ACLED’s President Clionadh Raleigh said.
Since taking office, Trump has ordered airstrikes against Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, with the majority of the attacks targeting Yemen.
“The US military is moving faster, hitting harder, and doing so with fewer constraints. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and now Iran are all familiar terrain, but this is not about geography; it is about frequency,” Raleigh added.
The significant increase in the number of attacks by the US against other countries compared to the number of attacks carried out during the Biden administration contradicts Trump’s campaign promises, which framed him as “anti-war.”
On March 15, 2025, the US launched a large campaign of air and naval strikes against Yemen, code-named “Operation Rough Rider.”
The US and Yemen reached a ceasefire agreement on May 6, after America and its allies had expended most of their munitions without significantly degrading Yemen’s military capabilities.
However, alongside the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, the US strikes on Yemen killed hundreds of civilians in a country already grappling with multiple humanitarian crises.
To date, “Operation Rough Rider” stands as the largest US military operation in West Asia during Trump’s second presidency.
An investigation released by Airwars last month revealed that Trump’s war on Yemen killed almost as many civilians in less than two months as in the past 23 years of US military action in the West Asian country combined.
“In the period between the first recorded US strikes in Yemen to the beginning of Trump’s campaign in March, at least 258 civilians were allegedly killed by US actions. In less than two months of Operation Rough Rider … at least 224 civilians in Yemen [were] killed by US airstrikes, nearly doubling the civilian casualty toll in Yemen by US actions since 2002,” the report by the NGO said.
On June 22, 2025, the US attacked three nuclear facilities in Iran in a coordinated offensive carried out in support of Israel’s war against the country.
On June 23, Iran’s military forces launched a flurry of missiles towards the US base in Qatar under the code name “Operation Glad Tidings of Victory” in retaliation for the US strikes and significantly damaged various parts of the base.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, Syria, and Somalia, Trump continues to strike what he calls Daesh and Al-Shabab targets.
Despite pledging to end “forever wars,” Trump has instead expanded them, with his administration seemingly poised to involve the US in more conflicts worldwide in the near future.