\n
<\/p>\n
The Trump administration released its long-anticipated <\/span>new national security strategy<\/span><\/a> late Thursday night, laying out a vision that attempts to reconcile U.S. global dominance with a U.S. retreat from many aspects of its decades-long global role.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The one through line in the strategy\u2014which at various points both promotes and rails against interventionism\u2014is advancing Washington\u2019s ambitions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn everything we do, we are putting America First,\u201d U.S. President Donald Trump wrote in his introduction to the strategy, which he described as a \u201croadmap to ensure that America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But the opening paragraphs of the strategy\u2014which begins with a textbook definition of strategy as a \u201cconcrete, realistic plan that explains the essential connection between ends and means\u201d\u2014also slam the American-led post-Cold War global order and foreground a clear departure from it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAmerican foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests,\u201d the document reads. \u201cOur elites badly miscalculated America\u2019s willingness to shoulder forever global burdens to which the American people saw no connection to the national interest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Rhetoric echoing white nationalist ideas related to the <\/span>Great Replacement conspiracy theory<\/span><\/a> also permeate the entire strategy, which at one point warns of \u201ccivilizational erasure\u201d in Europe and calls for the restoration of the continent\u2019s \u201cWestern identity.\u201d The strategy also nods to the <\/span>Trump administration\u2019s<\/span><\/a> concerns about declining birthrates, stressing how \u201cgrowing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children\u201d are essential to the \u201crestoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The strategy divides the Trump administration\u2019s worldview into five regions, with prescriptions and principles for allies, partners, adversaries, and everyone else in each of them. <\/span><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s refocusing of U.S. influence on its immediate vicinity\u2014one of the first and most prominent parts of the strategy\u2014has been foreshadowed for months, including earlier this week when the administration <\/span>published<\/span><\/a> a \u201cTrump corollary\u201d to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine stating that \u201cthe American people\u2014not foreign nations nor globalist institutions\u2014will always control their own destiny in our hemisphere.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The strategy makes clear that this realignment is largely in service of one of Trump\u2019s biggest priorities: stemming the flow of both people and drugs across U.S. borders. \u201cWe will enlist established friends in the Hemisphere to control migration, stop drug flows, and strengthen stability and security on land and sea,\u201d it says. That includes a \u201creadjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere\u201d and \u201ctargeted deployments to secure the border and defeat cartels, including where necessary the use of lethal force.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It also blurs the lines\u2014as the Trump administration has <\/span>already done<\/span><\/a> in practice\u2014between U.S. security, diplomatic, and business interests. \u201cAll our embassies must be aware of major business opportunities in their country, especially major government contracts,\u201d the strategy says. \u201cEvery U.S. Government official that interacts with these countries should understand that part of their job is to help American companies compete and succeed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The strategy also aims to counter China\u2019s inroads in Latin America without explicitly mentioning China, stating that \u201cevery U.S. official working in or on the region must be up to speed on the full picture of detrimental outside influence while simultaneously applying pressure and offering incentives to partner countries to protect our Hemisphere.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In China\u2019s own backyard, meanwhile, the U.S. strategy aims to corral allies and partners into deterring Washington\u2019s biggest peer competitor. \u201cTo thrive at home, we must successfully compete there\u2014and we are,\u201d it says, touting Trump\u2019s deals with Japan, South Korea, and other Southeast Asian countries during his October trip to the region.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The two pillars of that are economic rebalancing and military deterrence, both areas where the strategy urges allies in the region (and elsewhere) to help blunt China\u2019s influence. \u201cWe must encourage Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and other prominent nations in adopting trade policies that help rebalance China\u2019s economy toward household consumption, because Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East cannot alone absorb China\u2019s enormous excess capacity,\u201d it reads. \u201cThe exporting nations of Europe and Asia can also look to middle-income countries as a limited but growing market for their exports.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It also seeks to marshal the \u201cnet foreign assets of $7 trillion\u201d held by \u201cEurope, Japan, South Korea, and others,\u201d along with the $1.5 trillion in assets held by international financial institutions such as the multilateral development banks, to counter China. Here, too, however, the plan is decidedly America First. \u201cThis administration is dedicated to using its leadership position to implement reforms that ensure they serve American interests,\u201d the strategy says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Despite Trump\u2019s eagerness to reach and maintain a trade deal with China\u2014described in the strategy as needing to \u201cbe balanced and focused on non-sensitive factors\u201d\u2014the strategy does not give ground on two of China\u2019s biggest military ambitions. \u201cDeterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority,\u201d it says. \u201cWe will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the same time, the Trump administration aims to push more of that military burden onto countries such as Japan and South Korea. \u201cWe must urge these countries to increase defense spending, with a focus on the capabilities\u2014including new capabilities\u2014necessary to deter adversaries,\u201d it says.<\/span><\/p>\n Those goals also include a prominent role for India, despite Washington\u2019s relationship with New Delhi being near its lowest point in two decades under Trump. \u201cWe must continue to improve commercial (and other) relations with India to encourage New Delhi to contribute to Indo-Pacific security, including through continued quadrilateral cooperation with Australia, Japan, and the United States (\u201cthe Quad\u201d),\u201d the strategy states.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The burden-shifting and policy prescriptiveness are particularly acute in the strategy\u2019s approach to Europe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Echoing themes from Vice President J.D. Vance\u2019s infamous Munich Security Conference <\/span>speech<\/span><\/a> in February, the strategy bemoans the \u201cstark prospect of civilizational erasure\u201d in Europe, blamed in part on \u201ccensorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence\u201d as well as the continent\u2019s immigration policies. \u201cWe want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation,\u201d the strategy says.<\/span><\/p>\n And despite the administration\u2019s America First objectives, the strategy says Washington must \u201chelp Europe correct its current trajectory,\u201d including by \u201ccultivating resistance \u2026 within European nations.\u201d It cites \u201cthe growing influence of patriotic European parties\u201d as \u201ccause for great optimism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n There is a call for yet more interventionism in Europe\u2019s relationship with Russia, where the strategy presents ongoing U.S.-led negotiations to end Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine as necessary \u201cto reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While the strategy calls for \u201can expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine\u201d and a \u201cpost-hostilities reconstruction\u201d that will \u201cenable its survival as a viable state,\u201d it doesn\u2019t provide much detail on the conditions for ceasing those hostilities. Instead, it slams \u201cEuropean officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war\u201d and accuses them of ignoring their people\u2019s wishes. \u201cA large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments\u2019 subversion of democratic processes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It does, however, echo a key Russian refrain on Ukraine\u2019s membership in NATO, listing \u201cending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance\u201d as a key U.S. goal.<\/span><\/p>\n By contrast, the strategy\u2019s approach to the Middle East reflects a major departure from the long-standing U.S. goal of promoting democracy around the world. Partnering with countries in the region \u201cwill require dropping America\u2019s misguided experiment with hectoring these nations\u2014especially the Gulf monarchies\u2014into abandoning their traditions and historic forms of government. We should encourage and applaud reform when and where it emerges organically, without trying to impose it from without,\u201d it states.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That policy reflects a broader principle of \u201cflexible realism\u201d laid out near the top of the strategy. \u201cWe seek good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The enduring conflicts in the region, the Trump administration contends, are less problematic \u201cthan headlines might lead one to believe.\u201d The document argues that Iran has been \u201cgreatly weakened\u201d by Israeli and U.S. strikes, the Israel-Palestine conflict \u201cremains thorny\u201d but is on the path \u201ctoward a more permanent peace,\u201d and Syria \u201cremains a potential problem, but \u2026 may stabilize and reassume its rightful place as an integral, positive player in the region.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The aforementioned Gulf countries, meanwhile, are a key source of \u201csupport for America\u2019s superior AI technology\u201d cemented by Trump\u2019s <\/span>dealmaking trip<\/span><\/a> through the region earlier this year.<\/span><\/p>\n On the whole, \u201cthe days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over\u2014not because the Middle East no longer matters, but because it is no longer the constant irritant, and potential source of imminent catastrophe, that it once was,\u201d the strategy proclaims. \u201cIt is rather emerging as a place of partnership, friendship, and investment\u2014a trend that should be welcomed and encouraged.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Out of a 29-page strategy, the Trump administration dedicates only three paragraphs to Africa, a region that has long received <\/span>little attention<\/span><\/a> from U.S. policymakers in Washington. The new strategy is blatantly transactional, with a clear focus on striking partnerships that will boost U.S. business interests and generate investment returns.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFor far too long, American policy in Africa has focused on providing, and later on <\/span>spreading, liberal ideology,\u201d the strategy declares. Going forward, it says, the United States must pivot from an aid-oriented approach to one focused on trade and investments with countries that have \u201ccommitted to opening their markets to U.S. goods and services.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Immediate opportunities for investment\u2014which, the strategy notes, have \u201cprospects for a good return\u201d and can \u201cgenerate profits for U.S. businesses\u201d\u2014lie in the energy and critical mineral sectors. The United States can also help negotiate settlements to ongoing conflicts and contribute to conflict prevention, the strategy says, although Washington \u201cmust remain wary of resurgent Islamist terrorist activity\u201d and avoid \u201cany long-term American presence or commitments.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\nWestern Hemisphere<\/b><\/h3>\n
\nAsia<\/b><\/h3>\n
\nEurope<\/b><\/h3>\n
\nMiddle East<\/b><\/h3>\n
\nAfrica<\/b><\/h3>\n