By Roger Zakheim
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign rested on two
promises: revitalizing the American economy and rebuilding the U.S. military.
By August 1981, Reagan’s Office of Management and Budget director, David
Stockman, concluded that the president’s priorities were fundamentally at odds.
Stockman believed that Reagan would have to pare back rebuilding his defense
program to achieve an economic recovery.
As Reagan’s team gathered in the cabinet room to review
options, Stockman warned of a coming “crash landing on the budget.” He said
they were “facing potential deficit numbers so big that they could wreck the
president’s entire economic program.” The OMB director’s first priority was
realizing a balanced budget, and he suggested reducing defense-budget growth to
save the economic program. Reagan responded: “There must be no perception by
anyone in the world that we are backing down an inch on the defense buildup.
When I was asked during the campaign about what I would do if it came down to a
choice between defense and deficits, I always said national security had to
come first, and the people applauded every time.”
For the next six years, Reagan would fend off repeated
challenges to his plan — from the Congress, the public, and even his own
administration — to orchestrate the only peacetime military buildup in American
history. The buildup was a sustained effort that totaled $2 trillion over
Reagan’s two terms ($5.67 trillion in today’s dollars). Successive budget
cycles bought four aircraft carriers, hundreds of warships, and thousands of
tanks, aircraft, and armored vehicles, while introducing dazzling new technology
— all of which remain the backbone of the U.S. military today. But the Reagan
buildup has exhausted its shelf life. The platforms of that era, still in
service, would be considered antiques in any other sector.
President Trump has recognized as much. His $1.5 trillion
requested defense budget is 44 percent larger than last year’s — a historic
increase. It would approximately double the size of the Reagan administration’s
highest budget and even surpass annual U.S. defense spending during World War
II (adjusted for inflation). The president’s request would make a badly needed
down payment on rebuilding the military.
Trump said in a social media post last January that his
$1.5 trillion budget will “allow us to build the ‘Dream Military’ that we have
long been entitled to, and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and
SECURE, regardless of foe.” Yet, as Reagan demonstrated, rebuilding a military
that preserves peace through strength for generations cannot be accomplished in
one or two budget cycles. It requires successive years of similar growth. For
Trump’s defense program to reach its stated goal, it will require a total
commitment of $5 trillion by the time he leaves office in 2029.
An undertaking of this magnitude, with all of the
complexities of politics, policy, bureaucracy, business, and statecraft, can
only be accomplished with presidential leadership. The president alone has the
authority to direct the buildup and set priorities; only he has the bully
pulpit to persuade or cajole all players involved.
For Reagan, rebuilding the military came with significant
political risk, threatening his economic program during his first term and his
pursuit of an arms-reduction treaty with the Soviet Union during his second. He
believed that in an outright race of systems, America could outbuild and
out-innovate the Soviets. In his view, the only way to realize true peace was
to win the Cold War by building a military that allowed the United States to
negotiate from a position of strength. Time and again, Reagan took the issue
directly to the American people — explaining it and insisting on its necessity
— when public support appeared to wane. Americans ultimately backed his vision
over the course of two presidential terms.
Given the procurement cycle of defense platforms and the
industrial effort needed to scale and modernize production and increase the
size of the force, a military buildup requires sustained effort over a five- to
seven-year period. It cannot be accomplished during a single political cycle or
one presidential term. From the outset, Reagan was clear-eyed about the level
of effort required, saying during the 1980 campaign: “I do not believe in
deceiving the American people. To rebuild our military strength will take
determination, prudence, and a sustained effort. We simply have to face the
harsh fact that our defense posture must be invigorated across the board.”
Reagan was the first president to run on a platform of
peace through strength, and he entered office with a detailed defense program,
complete with budget plans and procurement and personnel initiatives, designed
to deliver U.S. military superiority over the Soviet Union. Trump, renewing the
concept of peace through strength, took meaningful steps toward rebuilding the
military during his first term. He seems determined to finish the job during
his second term. A fully appropriated $1.5 trillion budget would outpace the
first year of Reagan’s buildup budget, which increased defense spending by 13 percent
above inflation. The historic nature of the proposed increase for 2027 means
that the program does not have to compound over time as Reagan’s did. As long
as Trump and his eventual successor maintain those spending levels while
keeping pace with inflation, there should be sufficient capital to deliver a
peacetime buildup comparable to Reagan’s.
Rearmament cannot be done on the cheap, nor can it be
accomplished just by reforming the Pentagon’s procurement practices. Reagan’s
early budgets averaged double-digit real growth, which funneled historic levels
of capital into production-ready programs. A luxury of Reagan’s era not
available today was the Vietnam-era industrial base, which offered significant
capacity for the buildup. Today’s industrial base lacks the capacity to do the
job because of the post–Cold War consolidation and shrinking of the defense
sector. As we’ve witnessed over the past few years, this will add cost and time
to any future rearmament program.
Modernizing the force while simultaneously maintaining
deterrence against an aggressive adversary is a perennial challenge for defense
officials and military leaders. Under Reagan, they resisted the impulse to
jettison legacy platforms until new, modernized alternatives were ready to
enter the force. In cases where a new system would take too long to come online
or the cost seemed too high, the Reagan Defense Department chose to upgrade the
technology on existing platforms. Today, defense planners must balance
investing in the existing platforms that remain the backbone of the Joint Force
with the procurement of new technologies, such as autonomous systems and
software, that are redefining the battlefield.
The Trump administration should remember that U.S. allies
are a critical component of American military strength. During the Cold War,
the Soviet Union sought to exploit cracks in NATO resolve and strength. Allied
coordination, support, and collaboration were essential to Reagan’s
peace-through-strength program. Deploying Pershing missile and ground-launched
cruise missile systems restored NATO’s strength, and Reagan’s envisioned
Strategic Defense Initiative could not have been realized without a unified alliance.
Today, the United States faces an axis of aggressors in Beijing, Moscow, and
Tehran. Even more so than in the 1980s, our allies are critical to confronting
the enemies of freedom.
And what of the military itself — our men and women in
uniform? Reagan had a deep and abiding respect for those who served. He knew
that the linchpin of a successful rebuild depended on revitalizing the
all-volunteer force. The buildup was as much about restoring pride and
confidence in the military, overcoming what was known as Vietnam syndrome, as
it was about rearmament and leveraging new technology and operational concepts.
At a minimum, it required increasing military pay and revitalizing the personnel
and readiness policies that made joining and remaining in the force attractive.
For Reagan, there was a deeper, more spiritual calling: it was his personal
mission to transform the way Americans viewed the military. He aimed to replace
the shame and disrespect attached to it since the Vietnam era with a restored
American pride centered on the military. He accomplished this by embracing its
distinguished history, its pomp and pageantry. Most important, he ensured that
the military could win again.
Building up today will be more difficult than it was in
the 1980s. Our political environment is more divisive, our industrial base
requires expansion, and our principal adversary, the People’s Republic of
China, is more powerful than the old Soviet Union. But Reagan’s example of
sustained effort and relentless advocacy shows that it is still possible to
build up during a period of relative peace.
Reagan’s buildup reflected his decades-long belief that
“in an all-out race our system is stronger.” America would win the Cold War
because freedom and American democracy were stronger than communism. Reagan’s
critics called him a warmonger and charged that his buildup would lead to
nuclear war. But he recognized that a continuation of détente and the military
weakness of the 1970s would invite the very conflict Americans sought to avoid.
The buildup was an act of political greatness: it allowed us to win and deliver
peace without fighting. President Trump and the Congress need to do the same
today.
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