Robin SmithThe phrase used by President Ronald Reagan, “peace through strength,” was eloquently recalled last week by Dr. Kiron Skinner in a Forbes’ online article.
Appreciate these words: “In Reagan’s era, ‘peace through strength’ meant undertaking a massive peacetime military buildup and doing so with bipartisan support. It also meant conveying to the adversary that this military buildup and America’s restored faith in itself represented, not preparation for war, but rather a policy of credible deterrence that would facilitate bilateral talks.”
Skinner, a founding director of Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for International Relations and Politics and a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, went on to clarify the foreign policy approach. Reagan, he wrote, “emphasized that strength was not the goal but was instead part of a strategy to achieve world peace: ‘Our strength is necessary to deter war and to facilitate negotiated solutions.'”
After reading Dr. Skinner’s writing, I watched a seemingly entertaining, yet void of meaning, YouTube video a few days later. The online video, “Dances with Deer,” featured a pit bull dog inside a wrought iron fence with pillars of stone stacked about 5 feet high anchoring the corners of the enclosed area.
Outside that fence, peering in at the barking dog was a deer. For about two minutes, the deer runs from one pillar to the next alongside the barking pit bull. The deer appears to playfully hide behind the pillars as if to taunt the dog, whose instincts were on full display in its constant pursuit of the prancing animal.