Karoline Leavitt Claims Trump Invented Centuries-Old Doctrine of ‘Peace Through Strength’ — Used by George Washington and Roman Emperors

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is no stranger to finding new ways to effusively praise her boss, President Donald Trump, but on Monday morning she surpassed her usual level of flattery to credit him with inventing a term and doctrine that’s been in use since America’s very first president — and centuries before that.

In an appearance on Fox & Friends to discuss the latest developments with the situation in Iran, Brian Kilmeade asked Leavitt about the divided views among Republican members of Congress, White House advisers, and other Trump supporters.

“I know the president is very decisive but he also likes listening to all angles,” said Kilmeade. “And he’s used to Democrats fighting against him. How hard — how much harder was the decision when you have people like Steve Bannon coming over for lunch saying, ‘don’t do it,’ Marjorie Taylor Greene saying, ‘don’t do it’ and other voices like that — how did the president digest all that knowing these people weren’t necessarily against him, they are against the pending action he was more than likely going to take?”

Replied Leavitt:

One of the great things that makes President Trump a great leader is his ability to listen to people with different perspectives, but then ultimately make a decision based on his own instinct and the intelligence that he saw. And he saw, based on U.S. intelligence, that Iran is just weeks from obtaining a nuclear weapon and President Trump has been saying his entire life, not just as presidential candidate or as President of the United States twice, but also as a private citizen that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon.

And that’s something leaders around this world, and on both sides of the political aisle, agree with. Again, presidents dating back to Democrat Bill Clinton have said that Iran could not obtain a nuclear weapon. But none of them had the courage to actually do something about it and President Trump did.

And nobody knows what it means to accomplish peace through strength better than President Trump. He is the one who came up with that motto and that foreign policy doctrine and he successfully implemented it in his first term.

And this is one many of steps he is taking to successfully implement peace in his second term. The president wants to see a peaceful and prosperous Middle East. He talked about that extensively, when we took that historic trip to Saudi Arabia, and he talked about how Iranian terrorist regime was bringing down the rest of the region, and our Gulf partners and allies agree with that sentiment.

So, the president wants peace. Sometimes you have to use strength to achieve it and he’s not achieve to use strength. And as Saturday night proved, the United States has best and most lethal fighting force in the history of the world and we can use it if we must.

Leavitt’s claim that Trump invented “peace through strength” is inaccurate, to say the least.

“Peace through strength,” either as a specific phrase or as a doctrine, has been in use long before Trump was president, long before Trump was alive, and long before America even existed as a country.

“Peace through strength” first appears in the official Republican Party Platform in 1980 and remained in the platform for decades to follow, with a rare exception in 2020 when the Republican National Committee unanimously voted to skip adopting a platform and instead “continue to enthusiastically support” Trump’s “America-first agenda” and essentially continue with the 2016 platform, which also included “peace through strength.”

Many modern American voters will likely associate the motto with President Ronald Reagan, who deployed it during his 1980 campaign against President Jimmy Carter and would frequently speak of this doctrine as a core foundational element of his foreign policy, as he did in this February 1986 speech:

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.”

“Peace Through Strength” is the official motto of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan nuclear aircraft carrier, commissioned in 1988, christened by former First Lady Nancy Reagan in 2001, and commissioned in 2003.

Reagan was likely inspired by Barry Goldwater, having campaigned for him in 1964. Goldwater and the Republican Party ran many campaign ads with “peace through strength” themes.

But the concept actually dates all the way back to America’s very first president, George Washington. In his 1793 State of the Union address, Washington said:

I can not recommend to your notice measures for the fulfillment of our duties to the rest of the world without again pressing upon you the necessity of placing ourselves in a condition of complete defense and of exacting from them the fulfillment of their duties toward us. The United States ought not to indulge a persuasion that, contrary to the order of human events, they will forever keep at a distance those painful appeals to arms with which the history of every other nation abounds. 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. The documents which will be presented to you will shew the amount and kinds of arms and military stores now in our magazines and arsenals; and yet an addition even to these supplies can not with prudence be neglected, as it would leave nothing to the uncertainty of procuring warlike apparatus in the moment of public danger.

Other historical American uses of “peace through strength” include Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 24, the motto of the Eighth Air Force stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana (established in 1944), and Peace Through Strength, the title of a 1952 book by Bernard Baruch, who was a military adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.

The doctrine itself predates the founding of America by several centuries, going all the way back to Roman Emperor Hadrian, who succeeded Trajan to rule over the Roman Empire during its peak from 117 to 138 AD. Trajan had expanded Rome’s rule to its maximum territory, and much of Hadrian’s tenure was focused on maintaining military superiority, fortifying military outposts, strengthening and defending borders, and other efforts to promote peace and stability. Troops were ordered to maintain a state of readiness, regularly practice drills, and present an obvious and forceful military presence.

Hadrian’s philosophy has been described by scholars as “peace through strength, and if that fails, peace through threat” — a clear intention to use the existence of a powerful and ready military to discourage invasions, war, or other threats to government or civil society.

Trump may find another source of inspiration in Hadrian. The emperor pushed for the construction and maintenance of permanent fortifications, military outposts and watchtowers — and walls, such as the famous “Hadrian’s Wall” that stretched from coast to coast across the entirety of northern England. Scattered sections of the wall remain today.

By quisnovus from Gloucester, England – Hadrian’s Wall, CC BY 2.0, Link

Hadrian’s efforts are viewed as largely successful; he was the second emperor during the period of the “Five Good Emperors” who kept the empire relatively stable. While Rome’s rulers during this period certainly wielded power as emperors, they were viewed as “benevolent autocrats” who allowed reforms and were more moderate than the tyrannical successors who would follow.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.