The candidates may seem to disagree on some issues, but when it comes to war, all of them are in agreement. Every candidate has promised to continue the wars that were started in the Bush and Obama eras, and they all refuse to even question the very premise of these conflicts, the Bush Doctrine and the war on terror.

After 9/11, the Bush administration put forward a philosophy of pre-emptive war that has infected American politics ever since and kept the country in a constant state of war. The "war on terror" was basically an excuse for the US government to go to war whenever they wanted to, and both the mainstream media and the American public have accepted this mentality ever since, although some on the left waited for Obama to get into office before they began openly supporting pre-emptive war. When Obama became president, the anti-war left disappeared and began to support the war on terror mentality that they fought so hard against during the Bush years.

In the years since the war on terror began, the US and NATO have created a total disaster in the Middle East, destroying the infrastructure of entire countries, and funding opposing sides in civil wars and other conflicts. The further violence that this has created has then provided the US military with even more justifications to create even more war, in the name of fighting terror.

During their pillage of Afghanistan and Iraq, the US government funneled billions of dollars worth and weapons and support towards rebel groups in those and other countries that were intended to destabilize governments in the area that were not friendly with the US and help them install puppet dictatorships. These plans backfired when the rebel groups turned on the US military, because after all, they are an occupying enemy. The rebel groups then began to assemble and form their own alliances, eventually becoming the terrorist group known as ISIS. Even after these rebel groups showed that they would not be able to be controlled and that they were terrorizing local areas, the US government still continued to give them money and weapons, in hopes that they would destabilize the established governments, and provide an excuse for more conquest in the region.