Time is the true judge of any American president. But through peace in the Middle East and elsewhere around the globe, President Trump is a contender for not just the best president in the past 160 years, but the best global leader in modern history. Why? Because the man seeks peace.

As befitting one of the nation’s preeminent negotiators and businessmen, he recognizes that mankind can have a win-win in foreign relations. While nations may vie for an edge here or there, Trump’s vision for a prosperous, peaceful world is big enough to even embrace our historic enemies.

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Consider Iran. Since 1979, Iran has fomented a steady stream of threats and attacks, yet Trump extols the marvelous potential of the Iranian people.

In his first term, when Barack Obama said his greatest foreign policy concern was North Korea, Trump extended his hand to Kim Jong-un. I’d been stationed there like so many other US military members, and for the first time, I saw hope and the potential for a harmonious Korean Peninsula.

In Ukraine, Trump’s focus has been single-minded: stop the killing. Modern European wars have been catastrophic, twice earning the title “World War.” With modern arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, humanity cannot risk a third. The strategy to prevent it may seem elusive, but we already know it: peace through strength. America must be so unambiguously strong and resolute that potential adversaries know it and seek friendship instead of conflict.

This is not about being the bully on the block. Rather, it’s a confident strength that fosters cooperation and earns mutual respect. Trump has proven this approach in his outreach and personal relationships with Kim, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and virtually all other world leaders. To prevail, Trump knows that he does not need more bureaucracy and that he is not a one-man mission. The entire nation—its people, institutions, and industries—must build and exercise unmatched combat capabilities to win over even our fiercest opponents.

Trump intuitively knows that value provides the hand needed to win in a negotiation, yet he confronts a defense establishment that has a very different agenda. It seeks ever-increasing budgets, control, and profits.

There are few experts in the dynamics of the unique defense market, but history is clear. Since World War II, we’ve seen exactly what President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about: a military-industrial complex that thrives on incessant conflict; the more wars, and the longer they last, the better for business. Winning the war is irrelevant, and accountability is absent. Look at Korea, where we’re still technically at war. Vietnam was a 10,000-day “police action.” Afghanistan was even longer and with a more shameful ending.

On the positive side, there was the Cold War, in which Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” doctrine prevailed, and the Soviet Union collapsed without global catastrophe. Yet instead of building on that success, our focus shifted to the Global War on Terror. Now, with the Gaza peace deal and broad Arab support under Trump, even that long struggle may finally be winding down.

Success’s greatest threat is complacency. If we truly seek peace through strength, we must not be fat and lazy but rather demand excellence in the absence of war. Years ago, my four-star general boss told me, “Peacetime is the developer’s wartime.”

He was right. We must now deliver greater value from our defense investments to ensure capabilities and readiness that can efficiently crush small threats and deter large ones.

The US Department of War has the largest discretionary budget in America. Because we now seek peace, it must also exploit the best of American innovation to deliver the greatest return on investment. The alternative to innovation and an American culture founded on individual freedom is to fall behind like the managed markets of our communist and autocratic adversaries. This is the opportunity for Trump to seize.

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln will always hold sacred places in American history. Yet, as with ancient Rome, it was not its founder, Romulus, who is best remembered. It is the leaders who reshaped that empire in its defining moments—Caesar, Aurelius, Trajan, and Hadrian. Trump will never be Washington, just as the United States will never be Rome. But in this defining moment, America’s influence is far greater on the world stage, and Trump can be our Augustus, bringing global peace and prosperity through US strength.

Col. Robert Newton USAF (ret) is an F-16 Cold warrior, test pilot, Iraq/Afghanistan, and Pentagon veteran still on a crusade to get the best weapons for our warfighters.