The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the truism of “peace through strength.” According to Wikipedia, the concept of peace through strength “is quite old and has famously been used by many leaders from Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century AD to former US President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.” However, critics maintain that “peace through strength” can easily become “peace through war.”
I am aware of three United States Presidents
who operated with the concept of peace through strength. In his 1793 State of
the Union message to Congress, President George Washington enunciated his
policy of peace through strength:
There is a rank due to the United States
among nations which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation
of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we
desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising
prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.
Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan
used the concept of peace through strength in the 1980 campaign against Jimmy
Carter. Carter was the weak and vacillating incumbent president, and his
weakness invited enemies to attack both the United States and its allies – much
like Joe Biden’s weakness invites attacks by our enemies today. Reagan kept the
idea of peace through strength as one of his main policies when he became
president.
We know that peace is the condition under
which mankind was meant to flourish. Yet peace does not exist of its own will.
It depends on us, on our courage to build it and guard it and pass it on to
future generations. George Washington’s words may seem hard and cold today, but
history has proven him right again and again. “To be prepared for war,” he
said, “is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” Well, to those
who think strength provokes conflict, Will Rogers had his own answer. He said
of the world heavyweight champion of his day: “I’ve never seen anyone insult
Jack Dempsey.”
President Donald Trump operated with
the policy of peace through economic and military strength. Peter Navarro
explained Trump's policy this way:
Trump knows the key to keeping America
safe in an increasingly dangerous world is to “make America great again”
through economic renewal. America must have the fiscal firepower to end Pentagon’s
budget sequestration in order to fund the military the U.S. needs for adequate
defense. Cutting the corporate tax rate and cracking down on unfair trade
practices to increase America’s GDP growth rate are just as demonstrative of
national might as the F-35….
The enemies of the United States did
not attack while Donald Trump was in the White House because they understood
that he would protect America and Americans. Trump did not want war, and he sought
to bring the military men and women home. However, he always acted within his
policy of peace through strength. His policy was that every nation should pay
its own way before expecting money from the United States. Allies and enemies
alike knew that Trump would make them pay if they chose to go against him.
The idea of peace through strength is
defined by one word – deterrence – according to Victor DavisHanson. He described deterrence as “the ancient ability to scare somebody off
from hurting you, your friends, or your interests – without a major war.” In
other words, if we want peace, we must be prepared to wage war. Hanson
continued:
Deterrence is omnipresent, and also
applies well beyond matters of war and peace. The current crime wave of murder
and violent assault in our major cities is the wage of loud efforts to defund
the police and contextualize crimes as somehow society’s – rather than the
criminal’s – fault.
As a result, lawbreakers now think there
is a good chance that robbing people or hurting or killing them might result in
monetary gain or at least bloody satisfaction. They no longer fear a likely
sentence of 30 years in prison. So, they see little risk in hurting people. And
innocents suffer.
With a border wall, an end to catch and
release, and tough jawboning of the Mexican and Central American governments, a
new American deterrent stance in 2019-20 discouraged once unstoppable waves of
migrants.
Northern-bound migrants knew that even if
they reached and crossed the border, there was a good chance all such effort
would be for naught, given quick apprehension and deportation.
So, in their rational calculations,
migrants waited at home for less deterrent times. And they found them when President
Joe Biden stopped construction on the wall, renewed catch and release, and
eased pressures on Mexico to interrupt caravans headed northward.
Hanson explained that “Trump restored the
strategic deterrence lost by his predecessor.” Barack Obama drew his red lines
in the sands of Syria without any intent of enforcing them, and ISIS knew it.
China suspected that Obama would not do anything when they built military bases
in the South China Sea. Obama was just as weak against Russia when Putin threatened
Ukraine. “Aggression followed as U.S. deterrence eroded.” Obama did nothing to stop
the threats of missile attacks coming out of North Korea.
Then Trump entered the White House. He “destroyed
the ISIS ‘caliphate,” “obliterated an attack of Russian mercenaries in Syria,” “took
out terrorist masterminds like Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani and the ISIA
cutthroat Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.” He traveled to North Korea and calmed those
troubled waters. Hanson continued:
To dangerous actors, an unpredictable
Trump appeared likely to strike back if provoked. As a result, America’s
enemies became fearful of challenging the United States. And its friends and
neutrals were more ready to join a power again deemed not just reliable, but
willing to take reasonable risks to assist in their safety.
Key to deterrence is for all parties to
know beforehand the relative power of each and the likelihood that it may be
used. When strong powers unfortunately transmit signals of weakness, whether
deliberately or inadvertently, then weak powers are confused and come to
believe their rivals may not be so strong as their armed forces appear. Often,
unnecessary wars are the unfortunate result.
Anyone with eyes to see, ears to
hear, and brains to think should know that the deterrence that the United
States enjoyed under Donald Trump has evaporated under the weakness of Joe
Biden. America’s allies do not trust her leaders, and her enemies are no longer
afraid. Will Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea take advantage of the apparent
weakness in Biden? They know that the U.S. military has the power to stop them.
Their only question may be: does Biden have the backbone to use the military to
stop them?
America is in a dangerous situation
because she has lost the deterrence factor gained during the Trump
administration. After watching the national destruction of the past nine
months, I question if it is possible for America to ever regain the deterrence
that Biden “so rashly and foolishly” threw away. May God bless and protect
America until patriots gain control of the U.S. government!
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