Trump defense spending demands stress 'peace through strength': Experts

Taipei, Feb. 21 (CNA) Defense and foreign policy experts on Friday said that military strength is essential for maintaining peace following U.S. President Donald Trump's calls for NATO nations and Taiwan to increase defense spending.

"Peace through strength" was a phrase coined by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and played a significant role during the height of the Cold War, said Paula Dobriansky, a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the United States.

"If you are strong militarily, then you are going to be able to have a very strong deterrent, and you are going to be able to preserve peace," Dobriansky told a plenary session of the HFX Taipei International Security Forum.

The former American diplomat added that a "peace through strength" approach "has come back" in U.S. policy, referring to Trump's calls for U.S. allies to increase defense spending.

Before taking office, Trump called for countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to increase defense spending to 5 percent instead of the current 2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

During his presidential campaign last year, Trump also said that Taiwan should allocate 10 percent of its GDP to defense, while Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) recently pledged to raise the defense budget to 3 percent.

Echoing Dobriansky's "peace through strength" approach, Wayne Eyre, former chief of the defense staff of the Canadian Armed Forces, said it is "human nature" for an individual to avoid attacking a "hard target."

While estimating that defending NATO nations would require a defense budget of 3.5 percent of GDP, Eyre did not specify a percentage for Taiwan's defense spending.

"We're looking at a distance [the width of the Taiwan Strait] four times that of the Normandy invasion, rough seas and not the internal road network that Normandy had," he said, adding that it would be a "significant undertaking with tremendous risk" if China launched the invasion.

Meanwhile, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) underscored the importance of preserving democratic values in the midst of what she described as "global events afar with dramatic fluctuations between crisis and opportunity."

"We do believe in the inherent supremacy of democracy as a system of government that empowers humanity to strive for peace," Hsiao said in her address that concluded the forum in Taipei.

The two-day discussions centered around Ukraine's future in the aftermath of talks between U.S. and Russian officials, with many speakers expressing concern over Washington's drastic shift in its stance on the war in the Eastern European nation and the implications for Taiwan.

"But at the same time, we must be clear-eyed, calculating and realistic when it comes to effectively optimizing the tools to counter totalitarianism and aggression," she said.

Hsiao characterized this approach as "values-guided realism," noting that Taiwan was committed to upholding democracy and freedom and determined to maintain peace by" building strength" with allies and partners.