The Violence of Peace Through Strength: Power, Fear and the Fantasy of Control
‘Peace through strength.’
Three words, rolled out with rhetorical ease by world leaders, defence secretaries, and strongman populists alike. On the surface, the phrase promises something reassuring: that peace, the most prized condition of human coexistence, can be secured not through diplomacy, negotiation, or mutual understanding, but through raw might. Be strong, the logic goes, and you won’t need to fight. Be stronger than your adversaries, and peace will follow.
It might sound noble; it might even sound wise. But it is, at heart, a contradiction - one that has been repeated so often and so confidently that its internal incoherence rarely draws scrutiny.
The phrase depends on the assumption that violence (or the credible threat of it) is the ultimate stabiliser. That war-making capability is not merely necessary, but virtuous. That peace, far from being a process of trust-building, is something to be enforced. Behind the façade of security and deterrence lies a darker truth: ‘peace through strength’ often means peace for the powerful, imposed upon the powerless. It does not describe a world without conflict, but a world in which conflict is monopolised; controlled by those with the largest weapons and the loudest voices.
And yet, this paradoxical idea remains deeply embedded in the political consciousness of our age. From Ronald Reagan’s Cold War posturing to Donald Trump’s threats of annihilation to Israel’s relentless framing of military offensives as self-defence, the phrase operates as both slogan and shield - allowing those who wield it to cast themselves as peace-seekers even as they prepare for war.
This article will interrogate that contradiction. We will explore how ‘peace through strength’ has been used to justify pre-emptive aggression, military expansion, and the erosion of diplomacy. Drawing on the work of Noam Chomsky, we’ll examine the phrase as propaganda - language designed to manufacture consent for violence. Through the lens of Judith Butler, we’ll expose the deeply gendered assumptions underlying the notion of ‘strength’ and the ways in which vulnerability, dependence, and care are recast as liabilities. And we’ll look at the human cost of this ideology: who it protects, who it punishes, and how it distorts our understanding of what peace can and should mean.
Because once the phrase is stripped of its sheen - once we look closely at how it functions - we are left not with a philosophy of peace, but a justification for endless coercion. A linguistic sleight of hand that turns militarism into virtue, and fear into policy.
If ‘peace through strength’ has brought us anything, it is not peace. We have instead been conditioned to accept perpetual readiness for war, cloaked in the language of security.
From Reagan to Trump: A Short History of the Slogan
‘Peace through strength’ did not emerge from thin air. It is a Cold War artefact, dusted off and repurposed through successive administrations to signal resolve, moral authority, and military superiority. Though seemingly neutral, the phrase has always been loaded with ideology, used less to promote actual peace than to justify postures of dominance.
Ronald Reagan is widely credited with popularising the phrase in its modern form. During his 1980 presidential campaign, he declared that “war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are tempted” (Reagan, 1980). The idea that strength deters aggression and that only through overwhelming might can peace be assured became a defining feature of his presidency.
But Reagan’s strength was not abstract. It was material, budgetary, and nuclear. He massively increased defence spending, expanded the Army, launched the Strategic Defense Initiative (dubbed ‘Star Wars’), and revived aggressive anti-Soviet rhetoric. He cast the Cold War as a battle between good and evil, democracy and tyranny - framing the US not just as a superpower, but as a moral force for global stability (Reagan, 1988). Under Reagan, peace became something America would impose, not negotiate.
Yet Reagan’s use of the phrase was not without complexity. While pushing for deterrence, he also pursued diplomacy with Gorbachev, eventually signing the INF Treaty in 1987. Here lies the contradiction that still defines the slogan: peace through strength is simultaneously a call to arms and a claim to benevolence. It insists that the means of war can deliver the ends of peace, which is a logic as seductive as it is circular.
Trump: The Strongman’s Rebrand
Donald Trump resurrected ‘peace through strength’ as a cornerstone of his ‘America First’ policy. Speaking at his 2025 inaugural Commander-in-Chief Ball, he promised: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into … It’s called peace through strength” (Trump, 2025). The framing here is Reaganesque, but what followed bore little resemblance to diplomacy.
In his first term, Trump escalated drone strikes, withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, and questioned NATO commitments. He made threats toward North Korea, escalated drone and airstrikes in Syria, and now, in his second term, coordinated attacks on Iranian targets in June 2025 (Reuters, 2025; Guardian, 2025). These were all justified in the name of strength but often increased global instability. Domestically, this logic bled into domestic militarism: federal crackdowns on protest, the glorification of police power, and a punitive immigration regime all operated under the same logic: security through domination.
Critics have noted that Trump’s ‘peace’ is largely performative. It is a peace defined by fear and enforced submission. The slogan, far from curbing aggression, has been used to mask it. As historian Andrew Bacevich argues, such language allows the US to operate as a “garrison state,” convinced that strength is its only defence, even when that strength provokes more enemies than it deters (Bacevich, 2021).
The continuity across these decades is stark. Whether under Reagan’s Cold War realism or Trump’s chaotic bravado, ‘peace through strength’ remains a euphemism for control. It rationalises endless military budgets and pre-emptive violence while claiming the moral high ground. It is, in effect, a slogan that launders aggression through the language of security.
The Weaponised Language of Peace: Chomsky’s Propaganda Lens
‘Peace through strength’ has an intuitive appeal. It suggests that peace is not something fragile or idealistic, but solid, earned, and maintained through deterrence. But as Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman argued in their seminal work Manufacturing Consent, the phrases and frameworks most widely accepted in political discourse are often the most ideologically loaded. When a phrase like ‘peace through strength’ becomes hegemonic - repeated across press conferences, think tank reports, and headline media coverage - it does not describe reality; it constructs it.
Chomsky and Herman’s propaganda model outlines how mass media serve the interests of elite power through five interlocking filters: ownership, advertising, sourcing, flak (the discouragement of critical reporting), and ideology (Chomsky & Herman, 1988). These filters don’t require a conspiracy because they function as a structural condition of how information is produced and consumed. Within this system, certain assumptions, such as the moral legitimacy of US military action, are treated as neutral facts. Alternatives, such as diplomacy, non-alignment, or demilitarisation, are rendered marginal or naïve.
The phrase ‘peace through strength’ fits seamlessly into this ideological machinery. It offers a pre-packaged justification for aggressive foreign policy, while appearing virtuous. It is not a description of how peace is achieved, but a framing device that allows strength in the forms of military power, coercion, and domination, to be recast as a peacekeeping force. The language inverts reality. In Chomsky’s words, “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged” (Chomsky, 1990). This dark observation isn’t glib as it reflects a consistent critique: that American violence is so routinely framed as moral that its consequences are rarely acknowledged.
This was perhaps most vividly demonstrated in the case of the 2003 Iraq War. The Bush Administration’s campaign to invade Iraq relied not only on false intelligence but on carefully curated messaging that linked Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and to weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). A study by the Center for Public Integrity found that US officials made hundreds of false statements about Iraq’s WMDs and links to terrorism in the two years following 9/11 (NBC News, 2008). The effect was cumulative, and as Chomsky argued in Hegemony or Survival, when government and media collaborate in this way, the line between news and narrative dissolves (Chomsky, 2003).
In this context, ‘peace through strength’ became a logic. The war was framed as a necessary act of strength to prevent future catastrophe. Media messaging downplayed civilian casualties, failed to adequately question the legality of the invasion, and elevated the voices of Pentagon officials over international law experts or Iraqi civilians (ResearchGate, 2020). By the time it became clear that Iraq had no WMDs, the framing had already served its purpose. The US was in occupation, the infrastructure was destroyed, and the media had long been compliant.
The deeper function of ‘peace through strength,’ then, is not to describe events but to guide moral judgment. It invites the public to view military escalation as an act of moral clarity. It appeals to a binary of strong/good and weak/bad, and ensures that the use of force is interpreted as restraint, while restraint itself is framed as dangerous. In this framework, to show vulnerability or to question strength is to endanger peace itself. This is why dissenters - journalists, scholars, activists - are so often met with accusations of treachery, cowardice, or naivety.
As Chomsky noted, the real danger lies not in overt censorship, but in the boundaries of permissible thought: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum” (Chomsky, 1998). ‘Peace through strength’ defines the outer limit. It makes violence thinkable, and peace without violence, unthinkable.
The phrase has been given new light in contemporary politics. In Trump’s second term, it has been invoked to justify airstrikes in Iran, crackdowns on domestic protest, and border militarisation. Media coverage frequently reproduces the logic: America must act decisively to prevent chaos, even as those actions escalate instability. In such a climate, strength is never just about defence, but about dominance. Peace is its rhetorical alibi.
Strength as Masculine Fantasy: Power, Gender, and Fear
‘Peace through strength’ is more than a strategic doctrine. It is a performance. Beneath the surface of its cool logic lies something far more visceral: a gendered fantasy about control, dominance, and invulnerability. The phrase doesn’t just describe how states behave; it reveals how they want to be seen. And the kind of strength they perform is almost always coded as masculine.
Judith Butler’s work on gender and power offers a valuable lens through which to understand this. In Gender Trouble(1990), Butler argues that gender is not innate but performed - constructed through repeated gestures, behaviours, and claims that conform to dominant norms. The performance of masculinity, in particular, is tightly bound to the denial of vulnerability. It requires the suppression of softness, of uncertainty, of hesitation. In this framework, to be strong is not merely to possess power, but to appear unbreakable.
The phrase ‘peace through strength’ depends on this illusion. It imagines a world in which peace is only possible through the constant threat of violence. In doing so, it casts peace not as a process of cooperation, but as something that must be imposed by those who are willing to wield force. It leaves no room for empathy, negotiation, or mutual dependence. Those qualities are sidelined and treated as liabilities.
This dynamic is visible in the way many political leaders perform strength. Donald Trump’s brash posture, Vladimir Putin’s bare-chested horseback photos, and the militarised stagecraft of authoritarian figures all play to the same script. Power is visualised as masculine, performative, and unyielding. By contrast, diplomacy, care, and compromise are feminised, and therefore treated with suspicion. When female leaders - such as Jacinda Ardern or Angela Merkel - adopt a more empathetic, consultative leadership style, they are often framed as soft or indecisive. Their strength is invisible within this dominant paradigm, because it refuses to shout.
Butler challenges this binary head-on. In Precarious Life (2004), she argues that our shared vulnerability - the fact that we are all open to loss, pain, and interdependence - is not a weakness but a political resource. It is through recognising our precarity, she writes, that we build the foundations of a more just and peaceful world. “Violence is surely a touch of the worst kind,” she writes, “and yet we are given to one another, across space and time, as beings who can be injured and who can learn to live with that injury” (Butler, 2004).
Yet the logic of ‘peace through strength’ resists this entirely. It treats vulnerability as a threat, not a condition of being human. It demands strength without limits, decisiveness without doubt. The result is not real peace, but the suppression of conflict through force - what sociologist Johan Galtung might call “negative peace”: the absence of open violence, rather than the presence of justice (Galtung, 1969).
This has profound political consequences. Policies grounded in this mindset are rarely about fostering peace; they are about asserting control. Whether it is the militarisation of policing in Western cities, the use of drone warfare abroad, or the language of ‘border security’ in immigration debates, the underlying message is the same: strength must be visible, overwhelming, and unquestioned. Vulnerability must be hidden, denied, or punished.
In this context, strength becomes a performance that demands constant reinforcement. Peace becomes conditional, available only to those who comply. And the human cost of maintaining this illusion is paid not by the powerful, but by the vulnerable: the displaced, the detained, the demonised.
Butler’s vision invites us to imagine something else. A world in which peace is not the product of domination, but the result of mutual recognition. A world in which strength is redefined as the willingness to remain open. ‘Peace through strength’ tells us that only the unyielding deserve peace. Butler reminds us that perhaps only the vulnerable are truly capable of creating it.
Suppressing Dissent in the UK
The ideology of ‘peace through strength’ also seeps into domestic life in the UK - into the way governments police protest, control migration, and manage dissent. In the UK, the rise of militarised policing is a case in point. The expansion of surveillance powers, the use of drones by the Border Force, and the deployment of riot control tactics at peaceful demonstrations all reflect the same worldview: that strength equals security, and security trumps freedom.
This was made explicit with the introduction of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act in 2022. Under the guise of public order, the Act granted the state sweeping powers to curtail protests deemed too disruptive. The effect was chilling. Demonstrators could be arrested not for acts of violence, but for the potential to cause inconvenience. The state’s monopoly on ‘acceptable’ forms of peace meant that nonviolent resistance - marches, sit-ins, chants - was reclassified as threat.
Structural violence operates here too. It is present in the disproportionate targeting of racialised communities by law enforcement. It is present in the detention centres at the UK’s borders, where asylum seekers are held in conditions of extreme uncertainty. It is present in the language of ‘hostile environments,’ where migrants are treated not as people but as problems. All of this is justified in the name of peace: of keeping order, of ensuring stability. But it is a peace that dehumanises, confines, and controls.
The Moral Inversion
At the heart of all of this lies a profound moral inversion. Under the doctrine of ‘peace through strength,’ violence becomes the guarantor of peace. The use of force is seen as a necessary expression of will. Those who wield it are cast as protectors. Those who resist it - whether in the streets of London or the rubble of Gaza – are framed as disruptors of peace, regardless of the justice of their cause.
This inversion is not accidental. It is the logic of empire and authoritarianism, repackaged in democratic language. It allows power to maintain itself by equating compliance with peace and resistance with chaos. It trains the public to accept that some must be surveilled, policed, or bombed so that others may live undisturbed.
As Galtung argued, genuine peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice. That kind of peace cannot be imposed from above. It must be built from below, through systems of care, recognition, and mutual accountability. It demands that we question not only what we fight against, but what we build in its place.
Toward a Different Kind of Peace: Strength in Vulnerability
If ‘peace through strength’ teaches us anything, it is that the language of power is not neutral. It distorts. It disciplines. It promises protection yet delivers control. But this doctrine is not immutable. There are other ways to imagine peace: ways that centre on care instead of force. Few have articulated this alternative more powerfully than Judith Butler.
In her book Undoing Gender, Butler offers a vision of ethics grounded in shared vulnerability. “Let’s face it,” she writes, “we’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something” (Butler, 2004). This is more than a poetic statement - it is a political one. It confronts the core premise of ‘peace through strength’ and inverts it. Instead of denying vulnerability, Butler demands that we recognise it. Instead of fearing our dependence on others, she asks us to build solidarity through it.
This reframing has profound implications. Peace, in this model, is not achieved by domination or deterrence. It is not something imposed through surveillance, occupation, or force. It is something constructed - delicately, imperfectly - through mutual recognition and care. Where the strongman sees empathy as weakness, Butler sees it as the foundation of community.
This is not a call to pacifism in the simplistic sense. Butler’s politics are grounded in resistance. However, it is a resistance that refuses to mirror the violence it opposes. It is collective, embodied, and radical, not because it destroys, but because it insists on presence. In Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015), Butler describes the political power of gathering together - of bodies claiming space, not to dominate, but to demand visibility and justice. These moments, she argues, are not signs of disorder. They are acts of reordering the world.
This kind of peace has nothing to do with silence or subjugation. It is the refusal to eliminate others in order to feel secure. It is not achieved by building walls, but by breaking cycles, and it begins when we stop pretending that invulnerability is a virtue.
There are glimmers of this kind of peace all around us. In mutual aid networks that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. In transnational solidarity efforts, from Standing Rock to Palestine. These are acts of radical strength: the strength to build peace without coercion, and to confront violence without mirroring it.
In this light, the phrase ‘peace through strength’ appears less like a strategy and more like a failure of imagination. A failure to conceive of peace as anything other than a byproduct of coercion. Butler’s work invites us to try again; to construct peace not from the wreckage of wars, but from the bonds of shared humanity.
Conclusion: What if Peace Meant Peace?
‘Peace through strength’ endures because it flatters power. It tells leaders that force is wisdom, that control is compassion, and that domination can be noble. It assures the public that strength ensures safety, and that peace can be engineered through overwhelming might. But across decades and continents, this promise has proven hollow.
The phrase does not build peace; it builds quiet. It does not cultivate justice; it curates the veneer of order. Its legacy is one of repression - of streets cleared by riot police, of civilians reduced to collateral, of empathy discarded as a liability. As we have seen, it is not only a slogan. It is a worldview. One that insists vulnerability is weakness, that dissent is danger, and that only the strong deserve security.
And yet, other visions are possible.
Throughout this piece, we have explored how thinkers like Noam Chomsky and Judith Butler expose the structures behind the phrase. Chomsky shows how language becomes propaganda, how violence is laundered through euphemism, and how public consent is manufactured for actions that destroy lives. Butler shows us the opposite path: one that begins not with strength but with recognition. A politics that sees vulnerability not as a threat to be contained, but as a condition that binds us together.
Peace is not the absence of noise, or the presence of soldiers. It is not a slogan issued from a podium, or a drone strike that eliminates a threat before it speaks. Peace is built, or broken, in the ways we live together, in how we respond to difference, in how we choose to show up for those we are told to fear.
The question, then, is not whether we want peace. Most people do. The question is whether we are ready to let go of the fantasy that peace can be enforced. Whether we are willing to accept that true peace might require us to be softer, more porous, less in control.
To reject ‘peace through strength’ is not to reject peace. It is to reject the lie that peace must be purchased through violence. It is to insist on another truth: that peace built on empathy, justice, and vulnerability may be more difficult to achieve - but it is the only peace worth having.
If you value this kind of writing, please consider subscribing to Plague Island.
We don’t hide our work behind a paywall, because we want it to be read. But if you can support it, we’ll use that support to keep writing more, and writing better.
Paid subscribers receive early access, behind-the-scenes newsletters, and the chance to shape future essays.
We write with rigour, we cite everything, and we answer only to our readers.
Or, please support us with a one-off tip → Buy Me a Coffee
References:
Bacevich, A. (2021) After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed. New York: Metropolitan Books.
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2004) Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso.
Butler, J. (2004) Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge.
Butler, J. (2015) Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Chomsky, N. & Herman, E. (1988) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.
Chomsky, N. (1990) Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky. New York: The New Press.
Chomsky, N. (1998) The Common Good. Tucson: Odonian Press.
Chomsky, N. (2003) Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance. London: Penguin.
Galtung, J. (1969) ‘Violence, Peace, and Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research, 6(3), pp.167–191.
The Guardian (2022) ‘Police and Crime Bill Passed Despite Warnings from Civil Liberties Groups’. 1 March. Available online: https://www.theguardian.com [Accessed 22 June 2025].
Guardian (2025) ‘Israel-Iran war live: Israel bombs “dozens” of targets across Iran after US claims strikes at nuclear sites were “overwhelming success”’, 22 June. Available online: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jun/22/iran-israel-conflict-live-updates [Accessed 22 June 2025].
Institute of Race Relations (2023) ‘Policing the Borders: Militarisation, Surveillance and Hostility’. Available online: https://irr.org.uk [Accessed 22 June 2025].
NBC News (2008) ‘Study: Bush led U.S. to war on ‘false pretences.’’ 23 January. Available online: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna22794451 [Accessed 22 June 2025.]
Political Dictionary (2025) ‘Peace Through Strength’. Available online: https://politicaldictionary.com/words/peace-through-strength/ [Accessed 22 June 2025].
Reagan, R. (1980) ‘Republican National Convention Speech’, 17 July. Available online: https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/1980-republican-national-convention-speech [Accessed 22 June 2025].
Reagan, R. (1988) ‘Peace Through Strength Works’, 24 September. Available online: https://www.reaganfoundation.org/ronald-reagan/reagan-quotes-speeches/peace-through-strength-works/ [Accessed 22 June 2025].
ResearchGate (2020) ‘Application of Noam Chomsky’s Propaganda Model to the 2003 Iraq War’. Available online: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342102140 [Accessed 22 June 2025].
Reuters (2025) ‘Strikes on Iran mark Trump’s biggest, and riskiest, foreign policy gamble’, 22 June. Available online: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/strikes-iran-mark-trumps-biggest-foreign-policy-gamble-2025-06-22/ [Accessed 22 June 2025].
Springer, S. (2025) ‘Peace Through Domination: The Violent Ideology of the Strong State’. Middle East Monitor, 15 June. Available online: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com [Accessed 22 June 2025].
Trump, D. (2025) ‘Commander-in-Chief Ball Remarks’, 20 January. Available online: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2025/01/20/remarks-by-president-trump-at-commander-in-chief-ball/ [Accessed 22 June 2025].