I Hate It when Trump's Right

All the pundits and talking heads seem to be opining about the recent publication of the 2025 National Security Strategy of the United State of America. It is the clearest expression of Donald Trump’s views on foreign policy (although it was probably drafted by J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller) and it is a clear departure from previous published strategies. Most analysts focus on the harsh criticism of Europe in the document but a review shows changes all across the globe.

NSS 2025 starts out with an unapologetic statement that the strategy will be based on President Trump’s America First policies. The strategy is intended to answer three questions: 1) what do we want? 2) what resources do we have to get what we want? and 3) what strategy will best use our resources to get what we want?  

Other nations likely have the same three questions. The only difference is the resources that we have that others don’t. The commonest word in the list of the things the Trump administration wants is “most.” They want the “world’s most powerful, lethal and technologically advanced military.” The “most robust, credible and modern nuclear deterrent.” “The strongest, most dynamic, most innovative and most advanced economy.” (whew, three mosts in one sentence). The “most robust industrial base.” The  “most robust, productive and innovative energy sector.”  The “most scientifically and technologically advanced and innovative country.”  The Trump administration wants the most of everything.

The principles on which this strategy are based are not the principles normally associated with America. There is no focus on liberty, democracy, or the rule of law. The principles enunciated by the document include national interest, peace through strength, non-interventionism, realism, primacy of nations, balance of power and fairness. These principles evoke a vision of the era of great powers and mercantilist economic warfare.

Based on those principles the strategy proposes radical changes in US priorities around the world. A top priority is to end mass migration and the document cites the enduring wisdom of granting citizenship “only rarely to foreigners, who also (have) to meet demanding criteria.” (I guess that means will have to take down the plaque of Emma Lazarus’s poem from the Statue of Liberty.) America’s world leadership is changed to burden shifting and burden sharing by other countries. The document emphasizes the non-intervention in the affairs of other nations and asserts that regional powers should take on more responsibility for security in their region otherwise known as a sphere of influence of a regional great power. In this instance, non-intervention must be interpreted as saying that the form of government and that government’s treatment of its citizens should not impact our relationship with that country.

The US sphere of influence is the Western Hemisphere and the strategy announces the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, similar to the Roosevelt Corrolary of 1904. The Corrolary envisions a hemisphere controlled economically and militarily by the United States, where non-hemispheric competitors are excluded and where the US diplomats are mandated to oppose “detrimental outside influences while simultaneously applying pressure and offering assistance to partner countries to protect our hemisphere.” This is clearly an interventionist policy but such intervention would occur only in the interest of America First and not be related to the civil rights or treatment of citizens in the intervened country.

The document does not view Russia as a threat to US interests but, rather, primarily a European problem. This is because Europe falls within Russia’s Eurasian sphere of influence and the Russian existential threat to Europe arises because of European weakness and its inability to defend itself. Russian President Putin has declared that the NSS 2025 is aligned with Russia’s vision. There is no mention of Russia’s aggression or of Ukraine’s brave defense against the Russian aggressor but only of post-hostilities reconstruction. The Wall Street Journal has reported separately in a podcast titled “Make Money not War” about the deal-making machinations between “Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia's Sovereign Wealth Fund, as well as Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, a real estate tycoon that the president has known since the '80s.”

Xi Jinping was probably not as happy with NSS 2025 as Putin was. President Xi had been pushing for the US to modify its position on Taiwan to specifically oppose independence but the document states clearly that “the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.” NSS 2025 does a better job of outlining the security challenges in the region noting Taiwan’s strategic importance in the “First Island Chain” but it is also clear that the Trump administration considers the principal challenge of China to be economic. The document also calls for regional partners to take on a greater responsibility for security in the region. The document emphasizes the growing economic importance of the Indo-Pacific region which at least partly explains it stance on Europe.

The National Security Strategy has been hailed on the right as only common sense. This document is not a modification of US strategy but a complete realignment of the world order and a realignment much favored by Russia and China. It is true that the America-led rules-based world order that existed since the end of World War Two was showing its age and was badly in need of repair. NSS 2025 does not propose reforms but, rather, a completely different world order. But it is not a new world order but an old world order. It is an updated version of the eighteenth century balance of autocratic great powers backed by a mercantilist economic system giving them advantage over lesser powers.

This was the system the American Revolution intended to overthrow as described by Gordon S. Wood in his book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution. America was declared “novus ordo seclorum,” the new order for the age. And although the American republic did not work out exactly as the Founders intended, and we made many mistakes along the way, it was the principles and ideals of the Founders that made America exceptional.

I hate it when Trump’s right. He was right about China. And he is right about the debilitated condition of Europe. But he is wrong about how to solve those problems. China is not just an economic threat but a military and potentially existential threat. America’s interest and Russia’s interest in the debilitated condition of Europe are not in alignment. This is a security strategy more appropriate for the Bourbons, the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs. There is no city on the hill. There is no new order for the age. President Trump (along with JD Vance and Stephen Miller) don’t really understand what made America truly great in the first place. At its core NSS 2025 is unamerican.