President Donald Trump (L) and Vice President JD Vance salute as they attend a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington Cemetery in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday. Photo by Aaron Schwartz/EPA
Tuesday was Veterans Day in the United States, once called Armistice Day here and Remembrance Day in Britain. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, an armistice, not a peace treaty, was signed ending the fighting between Germany and the Allies.
Today, as nuclear threats and warnings over testing and new weapons cast a dangerous pall over geopolitics, it is time to reconsider our national security strategies and the basic ideas or slogans underpinning them.
Too often, the Trump administration has made pronouncements and issued orders well before sufficient analysis has been made to verify each one and the assumptions rigorously challenged. A number of examples are self-evident.
In the Pentagon, the Defense Policy Guidance, or DPG, has already been issued well in advance of the National Defense and Military Strategies.
President Donald Trump, despite the opposition of the technical community, has called for a resumption of nuclear testing. He also ordered a Golden Dome to protect the nation from enemy missile attacks, very likely without calling for a preliminary analysis to determine feasibility, costs and likely responses by potential adversaries.
And he may be telling the Navy to replace its modern electromagnetic catapults for launching aircraft from its carrier decks and elevators to lift them from hangar bays with traditional steam and mechanical ones.
But the one area where the administration has reversed ends and means is its slogan “peace through strength.”
The provenance of “peace through strength” dates to the Roman Emperor Hadrian and was echoed by George Washington and James Madison. The British employed it in 1936 and during World War II, it was the motto of the U.S. Eighth Air Force fighting in Europe. Ronald Reagan also employed it.
The meaning was clear. Having sufficient military power was vital to ensuring peace. The relevant and unanswerable questions were what is sufficient and how much is enough?
With a looming $40 trillion debt and at best a $30 trillion gross domestic product next year, neither is an ideal question. And how long can the United States afford to spend $1 trillion on defense and even more on interest payments?
So, try this as a thought experiment. Let’s reverse the slogan. Let us aim at achieving “strength through peace” rather than the converse. Suppose we attempt to reconcile our differences through diplomacy and negotiation and not by the size of our Marines and navies or nuclear arsenals. This may seem idealistic. But it is not.
If for no other reason, the cost of maintaining or growing our military strength, given our vast debt, is neither affordable nor sustainable. What to do? Winston Churchill reportedly said, “Now that we are out of money, we must think our way clear of danger.”
The first step is applying the transformational and revolutionary approach the administration is taking regarding how the Department of Defense goes about buying goods and services to developing the ability for critical strategic thinking.
Frankly, the United States has not done this well since World War II. For example, for much of the Cold War — and one of the reasons we blundered into Vietnam — was the flawed perception of the “monolithic communist threat” emanating from Moscow and Beijing. Richard Nixon understood how flawed this was.
Today, we are recreating an axis of doom greatly distorting and exaggerating the threat from the CRINKS — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — as we did with the USSR. This is a misleading and convenient shorthand with which to instill fear among the public and generate the need for more defense spending that now approaches $1 trillion a year. And who would want Iran and North Korea for allies?
Designing a more realistic strategy in which strength is achieved through averting and preventing war rather than relying on more aggressive slogans and threats based on military intimidation would seem more sensible.
And for the MAGA party, its leader, Trump, tried that with Kim Jong Un and promised Iran economic prosperity in return for ending its nuclear programs and seeking accommodation with its neighbors.
Here, then, is a challenge for you, Mr. President. Please consider the virtues of “strength through peace” and see if that might not be better for all concerned.
Harlan Ullman is UPI’s Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist; senior adviser at Washington’s Atlantic Council, chairman of a private company and principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. His next book, co-written with Field Marshal The Lord David Richards, former U.K. chief of defense and due out next year, is Who Thinks Best Wins: Preventing Strategic Catastrophe. The writer can be reached on X @harlankullman.
