US military vulnerabilities threaten Trump’s ‘peace-through-strength’ strategy

President Donald Trump is the first president since Ronald Reagan to run and get elected on a peace through strength platform. To date, the president has executed this vision by leveraging America’s forward presence across the Middle East and Asia — aircraft carriers, fighters and bombers, and a global network of American military installations — to project power and restore deterrence.  

The next challenge in realizing a peace through strength program is more fundamental: it will require addressing critical military vulnerabilities, including an overextended force, an industrial base at capacity, and severe readiness challenges.  

To his credit, the president has lived up to his security goals on a number of fronts. Just as he dismantled ISIS shortly after entering office in 2017, the president targeted the Houthis to cripple their ability to interfere with international shipping transiting the Red Sea. 

Operation Rough Rider, the largest air campaign since Trump’s operation against ISIS, went beyond President Joe Biden’s targeted pinprick attacks. U.S. airstrikes hit more than 800 targets and significantly reduced Houthi missile and drone launches. The president subsequently announced a ceasefire ending Houthi attacks on ships navigating Middle Eastern waters. 

As for Iran, the primary source of instability in the Middle East, the president’s maximum pressure campaign includes arming Israel and bolstering deterrence in the region, by deploying a second carrier strike group, a THAAD missile battery, Patriot missile battalions and B-2 bombers. 

In East Asia, the theater many Trump administration officials would like to prioritize, Trump has deployed anti-ship cruise missiles overlooking the critical waterways between the Philippines and Taiwan. It is the closest to the Chinese mainland that U.S. land-based cruise missiles have been deployed.  

Trump has also ordered two freedom of navigation missions through the Taiwan Strait. The second operation on April 23, China’s Navy Day, was a direct rebuke to Chinese claims over Taiwan. 

Now comes the harder part — addressing that trifecta of fundamental pressure points facing the military. 

In the Red Sea, the Navy has performed admirably in its longest surface engagement since World War II. However, a friendly fire incident, the loss of several drones and two F/A-18s, one falling overboard during an evasive maneuver and another due to a failed arrest, reveal the limitations of a historically small fleet that is overworked and highly exposed. 

Operations in the Middle East have also compromised readiness in Asia. In addition to air defense redeployments, the Pentagon may have to dip into stockpiles in Asia to replenish munition supplies in the Middle East. The shortage reveals a larger issue: transferring munitions gives up existing capability in Asia that won’t be replenished for years given the state of the industrial base.  

Industrial challenges affect every munition from JASSM-ERs to 155mm shells. For example, in 2023 the Pentagon bought 55 Tomahawk missiles, yet 68% of that annual purchase was expended in one single day against the Houthis. Each new Tomahawk faces a two-year lead time, underscoring the urgent need for industrial expansion.  

Trump’s application of peace through strength in the Western Hemisphere, while laudable, is adding new pressures to a force already at its breaking point. The USS Gravely, a destroyer that recently completed a nine-month tour in the Red Sea, was quickly redeployed to assist with border protection. 

Some of the strain can be addressed with smart policy choices, such as how U.S. forces are organized in Europe. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently ordered a major restructuring of the Army, replacing some armored and attack helicopter formations with drone swarms and precision munitions which have proven their worth in Ukraine. Hegseth’s 8% budget reallocation plan is another opportunity to reinvest low-priority budget items into next generation warfighting technology needed elsewhere. 

Unfortunately, there are signs that techno-optimism may be interfering with prudent budgeting: the administration requested a $893 billion base defense budget for FY26, well below the $1 trillion budget the administration promised which does not keep pace with inflation.  

As a percentage of GDP, the president’s budget would be the lowest since the Clinton years, when the U.S. cashed a peace dividend at the end of the Cold War. The administration will find it challenging to implement a peace through strength program with a shrinking defense budget that would fall short of providing the necessary resources to sustain a forward presence that provides the president with military options and negotiating leverage over adversaries.  

Fortunately, President Trump has congressional partners ready to pair his ambitious strategy with an ambitious buildup and budget. The chairs of the Armed Services Committees are determined to provide significant real growth to the president’s budget request, and the House reconciliation bill includes $150 billion for shipbuilding, Golden Dome, and other administration priorities.  

As Reagan warned in 1986, ‘blueprints alone don’t deter aggression. We have to translate our lead in the lab to a lead in the field. But when our budget is cut, we can’t do either.’  

Flanked by large ‘Peace through Strength’ banners at al-Udeid Air Base, a major staging area during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump recently declared that ‘America’s military will soon be bigger, better, stronger and more powerful than ever.’  

With the right budget and right focus, he has a historic opportunity to fulfill that promise and cement himself as a peace-through-strength president. As the president confronts an ascending axis of China, Russia and Iran, he can move beyond employing the tools of strength to rebuilding that strength and delivering a lasting peace. 

Michael Stanton is a research assistant at the Reagan Institute.