Those checks and balances were erased as far back as Korea when we declared it a police action. We were in a defensive posture all through Vietnam because we were policing, not officially at war. Even in officially declared wars like Afghanistan we play poke the beehive and patty cakes and go on hand out the water bottle missions in an attempt to win hearts and minds rather than shocking them into submission.
Thats a lesson the Japanese learned, they couldn't sign an unconditional surrender fast enough after we nuked them. Trump is playing by rules that have been set with decades of precedent, at least with Trump the powers of this world know they'd better be careful what they say and do because he's the one who just might drop a few rods from God on them, if you dont know what the term means I suggest you look it up.
Whether he does or not the threat has to be there because if our enemies around the world know at best thier gonna get another Bush game of patty cakes then we hand it all back to them after 20 years like Afghanistan they have nothing to fear and are more likely to test our will over and over again.
That's why I subscribe to the George Patton theory of warfare, the idea is not to die for your country, it's to make the other poor bastard die for his.