One of the dangers of modern geopolitics is that we talk about power almost exclusively in terms of capacity—how many missiles, how much money, how quickly we can move hardware—while forgetting that power, untethered from order and responsibility, has a long track record of going sideways.

President Trump’s decision to move forward with a massive arms package for Taiwan fits squarely within the logic of deterrence. The argument is straightforward: peace is more likely when aggression is costly, uncertain, and slow. Give Taiwan the means to deny a quick victory, and Beijing thinks twice. On paper, that’s not reckless; it’s prudential. And morally, helping a smaller, self-governing society defend itself against coercion is not some fringe idea. It’s a basic principle of justice.

But Scripture consistently warns that possession of strength is not the same thing as righteous use of it.

Genesis 6:1–2 marks a turning point in human history where blessing—population growth, influence, reach—became detached from obedience. What God had instituted as ordered, covenantal goods were reduced to raw choice and domination. “They took them wives of all which they chose” (Genesis 6:2). The pattern is old: seeing, taking, crossing boundaries, and calling it progress. The result wasn’t stability, but judgment.

That warning applies to nations just as much as individuals. Military growth, technological dominance, and economic leverage do not automatically restrain evil. Without moral clarity and disciplined restraint, they often accelerate it.

This is where U.S. policy toward Taiwan gets tricky. Arms sales can serve order or undermine it depending on whether they are embedded in a coherent, disciplined strategy. Deterrence is not simply about being strong; it is about being predictable, credible, and restrained. When America sends weapons along with mixed signals, it risks recreating the Genesis 6 problem on a global scale: power multiplying faster than wisdom.

There’s also a covenantal dimension here that modern politics struggles to articulate. In Mark 14:22–25, Jesus takes the Passover—Israel’s defining story of deliverance—and re-centers it on Himself. “Take, eat: this is my body” … “This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.” Covenant, in biblical terms, is not sustained by vague goodwill or symbolic gestures. It is ratified by real cost, real commitment, and real responsibility.

That’s an uncomfortable analogy for foreign policy, but a useful one. If the United States signals covenant-like commitment to Taiwan—moral support, defense cooperation, deterrence—then it must count the cost of credibility. You cannot offer the signs of protection without preparing for the burdens that come with it. Otherwise, you hollow out trust and invite miscalculation.

At the same time, Taiwan is not a passive recipient in this arrangement. Scripture never treats protection as an excuse for irresponsibility. Paul’s message in 2 Thessalonians is strikingly relevant: hope is meant to stabilize faithful action, not produce panic or passivity. Some believers, convinced the day of the Lord had already arrived, stopped working and lived in disorder. Paul corrects them firmly but pastorally: truth produces endurance, not hysteria.

Applied here, deterrence should produce sober preparation, not slogans. Taiwan’s internal debates about defense spending matter. Not because some arbitrary GDP percentage is holy writ, but because responsibility cannot be outsourced. A nation serious about its own survival must structure its society, economy, and military accordingly: orderly, disciplined, and realistic.

Finally, there’s a deeper philosophical objection that always lurks beneath these debates: the claim that talk of moral order, justice, or even “right” and “wrong” in international affairs is just rhetoric layered over brute power. Some skeptics argue that appeals to transcendent moral reality—like Christian appeals to God—are meaningless because they can’t be empirically located.

That objection commits a category error. Christianity does not claim God is an object inside the system, but the ground of the system. Likewise, moral order is not a missile you can photograph; it’s the logic by which actions are judged. Nations already operate on inferred realities—credibility, legitimacy, deterrence, trust—that cannot be weighed on a scale but are nonetheless real. The question is not whether we believe in unseen realities, but which ones best explain the world we actually inhabit.

A world where power is accountable to order, where boundaries matter, and where hope restrains panic is far more stable than one where everything reduces to force.

President Trump’s Taiwan decision can serve peace, but only if America resists the temptation to treat deterrence as theater rather than discipline. Scripture reminds us that strength without obedience corrodes, covenants demand cost, hope requires steadiness, and reality itself points beyond raw power to moral order.

History is not impressed by how loudly nations proclaim peace. It only remembers whether they acted wisely when they had the chance.