It was pretty obvious he was wanting to enter a conflict with someone, and was mostly held back in his first term by the actual professionals in his cabinet at that time. But the guy wanted a military parade with tanks rolling through DC on his birthday, wanted to nuke a hurricane, and forcibly annex Greenland. It isn't really surprising that once he replaced the sane people with sycophants, he would start something.
Or, more specifically, by 2020 he was sending military boats to attack Iranian targets and trying to force Russia to respond.
He only stopped because of COVID.