Military strength should be used as a deterrent rather than for reckless adventurism
“Peace through strength” has become the official tagline of the Trump administration’s approach to foreign policy. As the president and his closest advisors frequently posit, only a strong United States can effectively safeguard American lives and interests in an increasingly unstable world in which external threats, ranging from a rising great power rival to transnational organized crime organizations, are said to abound.
Trump, Hegseth, and co, however, have turned a principally prudent view on international politics — one that is deeply appreciative of the limits and costs of using military force — into its perverse opposite. As a consequence, what could have constituted the backbone of a more realist, restrained vision of America’s role in the world has been distorted to justify yet another era of overreliance on the use of force and is bound to leave Americans less, not more, secure.
Strength is not a goal in itself but merely a tool for achieving what ultimately matters most
Realist scholars of international relations have long argued that states have to pay close attention to the distribution of power between them to ensure that they do not fall behind their adversaries. Given that there is no higher authority to protect them, any relative weakness creates acute vulnerabilities. Conversely, maintaining a rough balance of power offers a somewhat reliable path to security. Where weakness attracts challenges, strength deters them and thus protects vital interests in the grim world of international politics.
Crucially, in the realist view, strength is not a goal in itself but merely a tool for achieving what ultimately matters most, namely, the security of the state and its citizens. Realism depicts international politics as a struggle for power, but it does not glorify strength as something inherently desirable. To the contrary, in its most compelling form, it entails a deep scepticism about the limits of what military force can achieve, cautions leaders to apply it only under the direst of circumstances, and predicts that acquiring excessive strength is usually self-defeating.
Given how far the United States strayed from this realist blueprint during the unipolar era of forever wars, the administration’s emphasis on “peace through strength,” at first, might seem encouraging. It has become apparent, however, that Trump’s particular interpretation of the idea is bound to deliver more of the failed policies of the past.
Instead of appreciating strength as a means to an end that is at its most effective when it deters challenges and thus need not be used, Trump appears to believe that a commitment to “peace through strength” entails aggressive behavior abroad. His increasingly expansive use of military strikes to attack alleged “drug boats” in Central and South America are a case in point. In addition, he appears poised to pursue forcible regime change in Venezuela, having deployed the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group and over 10,000 troops to the Caribbean while authorizing CIA covert operations.
Trump’s “peace through strength” is starting to look a lot like “peace through war”
Trump pursues these policies in the name of “peace through strength” and “America first.” But they neither further peace nor safeguard American interests. Not only are they unlikely to succeed in achieving their stated goals of stopping the inflow of drugs, improving relations between Washington and Caracas, and strengthening U.S. hegemony in the Western hemisphere. They also threaten to involve the United States in broader military engagements without a clear exit strategy, and as consequential instances of executive overreach set dangerous precedents for the future. Far from viewing military force as a costly measure of last resort with inherent limitations in solving non-military issues, Trump’s “peace through strength” is starting to look a lot like “peace through war.”
What is more, the administration seems to believe that its commitment to a “peace through strength” agenda means that the United States needs to invest even more heavily in its defence. As early as in January 2025, Hegseth declared that, to fulfill the Commander in Chief’s “peace through strength” mission, “we will rebuild our military by matching threats to capabilities.” By now, it has become clear that this vision entails a massive increase in expenditure, as Trump is aiming at a $1.01 trillion defense budget for fiscal year 2026.
Yet, a sober look at the global balance of power reveals that such a hike in defense spending is unnecessary and, in fact, would likely prove counterproductive. In 2024, U.S. defence spending exceeded that of the next nine countries combined. Further increasing the defence budget will do little to further increase American security. To the contrary, it will needlessly threaten adversaries and provoke them to follow suit. Moreover, by locking down resources, the ever-growing defence budget leaves the U.S. government poorly equipped to address pressing challenges at home.
If Trump is serious about his aspirations of being a peacemaker and putting American interests first, he needs to understand that the United States is already exceptionally strong, that this strength is at its most effective when it is used as a deterrent, and that the use of force should be reserved for exceptional cases only. In short, instead of simply giving the foolhardy approach of his predecessors a new tagline, he should embrace a proper realist reading of what it means to pursue “peace through strength.”
