To the Journal editor:

In just one year, we have changed from a nation of peace to a nation of war, violence and aggression. Our Department of Defense has been re-named the Department of War. President Trump has shuttered the United States Institute of Peace, a federally funded non-profit institution that promotes conflict resolution and prevention. Our current leaders use language that glorifies killing like “warrior” instead of “soldier,” and “lethality” instead of “bravery” and “retribution” instead of “justice.”

President Trump is planning to install a 5,000-person stadium on White House grounds to host an Ultimate Fighting Championship competition as part of the celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary with fighters walking out of the Oval Office. He is defiling the White House (again) to promote the idea that violence is a basic American value. Glorification of violence is also evident in his appointment of the Secretary of Education, a billionaire who made her fortune as co-owner of Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment. His nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security is a mixed martial arts champion with no qualifications or experience in law enforcement.

Previously, the United States led the free world in creating and sustaining multinational organizations to promote cooperation, health and peace. President Trump has withdrawn the United States from the global climate treaty, the World Health Organization and many programs organized through the United Nations. He ended the United States Agency for International Development, which had provided lifesaving food and medicine to the most desperate people in the world.

Instead of using our military to defend our country and our allies, President Trump has been bullying, threatening and invading nations without communicating legal objectives. In the past year, the United States has bombed eight countries. We have carried out 44 strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing more than 150 unnamed people, in violation of international law. The United States is no longer the leader of the free world, but rather a world where military executions and warfare have replaced diplomacy.

The shift from diplomacy to aggression comes at great expense to us, our soldiers, and people in the countries we attack. Military and civilian deaths deprive families of their loved ones. Soldiers who are commanded to kill people, particularly civilians and children, without a clear and compelling reason are likely to suffer moral harm and PTSD. Reducing cities to rubble and destroying infrastructure is cruel and wasteful. Violence and war foster migration that destabilizes countries around the globe. As we are seeing in Iran, war disrupts trade that takes a toll on global stability and raises prices.

There are also “opportunity costs,” a term used by economists to describe the trade-offs we make when spending money on one thing results in not spending it on other things that we need. Our country is realigning our resources to fund ill-considered military actions, build huge prisons to house immigrants and citizens detained by ICE and pay interest on our skyrocketing national debt. At the same time, we have been cutting funding for food assistance, health care, environmental protection, research, education and diplomacy.

Is this who we want to be as Americans? While we may disagree on many things, I hope we can agree on this: “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”