Donald Trump has proffered many unorthodox ideas in his second term, not least of which was the notion of an arms control summit with Russia and China to massively reduce defense budgets and nuclear stockpiles. In an Oval Office press availability, he said “I want one of the first meetings I have [to be] with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia. And I want to say, let’s cut our military budget in half.” He specifically targeted America’s nuclear deterrent, arguing that “There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons,” and lamenting the fact that the three largest world powers have such immense firepower. Though likely just another ephemeral idea in Trump’s stream of consciousness, such an agreement would be disastrous for national security. History has shown disarmament to be a utopian progressive project with a long record of failure that should not be repeated.

The disarmament movement was at its peak between 1919 and 1939. During those 20 years, multiple major conferences were held and agreements signed, all of which unsuccessfully sought to end the scourge of war forever. The Washington Naval Conference of 1921-22 was supposed to limit warship construction, particularly battleships, but in reality, simply shifted spending to cruisers and aircraft carriers – ship types that were not as restricted. Japan especially took advantage of this flaw in the agreement. Combined with the general reduction in US defense spending in the interwar period, the Washington Conference primarily served to close the naval gap between the US and Japan in the lead-up to WWII.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 was perhaps the most idealistic of these interwar agreements, banning war itself as an instrument of foreign policy and calling on signatories – which included most of the world within a few years – to resolve disputes diplomatically. All three Axis powers signed this document, renouncing militarism and privileging peaceful conflict resolution. Within three years, Japan had invaded Manchuria, while Germany and Italy sought territorial aggrandizement via armed force. Suffice it to say, the agreement only constrained those who allowed themselves to be constrained while doing nothing to prevent WWII a decade later.

The final effort at interwar disarmament was also a total failure. The World Disarmament Conference of 1932-33, nearly a decade in the making, sought to reduce the arms of all nations and make future war an impossibility. The conference revolved around the issue of parity for Germany, which sought either all other powers to reduce their arms to the levels imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles or Berlin to be allowed to rearm to parity with their peers. The debates raged but went nowhere. In the meantime, Hitler was elected chancellor and Germany began openly re-arming as the Allies discussed disarmament. The conference ended without resolution, but distracted and split the Western powers, allowing Germany, Japan, and Italy to rapidly scale up their militaries and engage in belligerent expansionism.

These attempts at avoiding conflict served only to show our enemies that we were fundamentally unserious about deterrence. Without the might of the American industrial base, the Allies would have struggled to catch up with the Axis powers. Disarmament is a fool’s errand in a world defined by power politics, especially when America’s enemies cannot be trusted to follow through on their end of the bargain, as was the case in the lead-up to World War II. Regardless of signed agreements, disarmament is unilateral, not multilateral. It ends with more conflict, not less, and on terms that are unfavorable to the United States and beneficial to our foes.

Disarmament was a bad, though understandable idea in 1925. The end of WWI was thought to have ushered in an era of relative peace, stability, and the defeat of (Prussian) militarism forever. In 2025, none of those conditions hold. Instead, we are in a period of increasing conflict, rising belligerence from our enemies, and rapidly declining faith in American deterrence. It is for these reasons that our defense budget should be increasing, not decreasing. Russia and China are not good-faith negotiating partners who can be trusted to comply with the agreements they sign. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s destruction of Hong Kong’s semi-autonomy, two displays of aggression that were thought impossible until they happened, show that these nations cannot be trusted.

The “peace dividend” defense cuts at the end of the Cold War served only to lead us to our current precarious security situation. Particularly given our technological edge, it would be foolish to allow China and Russia to reach parity by declining to fund advanced military research. Our economy is also stronger and more dynamic, so an arms race would be an eminently winnable affair. This is what happened under Ronald Reagan when Russia’s unsustainable attempts to keep up with increased American defense spending served as a catalyst for the eventual downfall of the Soviet empire. We can only pray for another leader like Ronald Reagan who understands that peace comes through strength, not disarmament.