Question from a reader --
I'm not sure I agree with "He, therefore, who desires peace, should prepare for war." at all. Perhaps I just don't understand it.
What does it mean to you?
In the most literal sense, it means that a country's neighbors are less likely to cause problems with a well-armed, well-trained, battle hardened and effective armed forces.
But it's often used metaphorically -- an example would be practicing and doing mock runs of emergency situations. It actually makes them less likely to happen.
The more you prepare for bad events, the more you see where things could go wrong and the more you take precautions that stop small negative events from spiraling into big negatives.
But Vegetius -- the Roman who originally wrote the quote -- was simply making the point that having strong defenses and enough power was a good deterrent to hostilities.