The New US National Security Strategy: A Blog Analysis

Rewriting American National Security Strategy Under Trump 2.0

Marking a decisive departure from the American strategic framework that has guided Washington in recent decades, the NSS omits shared democratic-liberal values, replacing global leadership with conditional influence and multilateralism with transactional bilateralism. For Europe, and for the broader democratic camp, the implications are profound: the transatlantic bargain that used to balance shared democratic and liberal values with shared interests is now fundamentally in question.  

An era of shared interests, not of shared values

What is not said often carries more weight than what is – such is the case of the new NSS. The words “value” and “values” are not present in this administration’s text. Whether it is coincidental or a deliberate choice, it is one of the more novel characteristics of this document compared with those of previous administrations. Whatever the reason, the underlying message is quite clear – shared democratic values are out of the national security strategy that once steered US foreign policy, alliances, and partnerships. Instead, we find reference throughout the document to “God-given” natural rights and ambiguous Western civilizational characteristics. 

This Trumpist approach to democratic values and foreign policy comes as no surprise. Vice President JD Vance said as much during his opening speech at the February 2025 Annual Munich Security Conference. Vance stated that his main concern was not Russia, China or any other military threat, but what he framed as a retreat of US allies in Europe from their “shared values”. Traditionally, American foreign policy has aimed to advance US values and interests. However, this strategy is interest-centric, adopting “flexible realism” as a guiding principle. Flexible realism, according to the NSS, seeks to build good relations with countries “without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories”.  

Ask not what the US can do for the world, ask what the world can do for US

The new National Strategy seems to reject the idea that the US should play a purposeful and leading role in the world order. If anything, the overarching national security goals which the NSS puts forward are quite the opposite. It focuses instead on what seem to be self-serving priorities, avoiding much of the responsibility to the global order which every US president has taken upon himself in the post-Cold War era. US leadership, which could still be found in the first Trump administration’s NSS in 2017, is entirely missing from the new strategy, replaced instead by vague notions of US influence and domination – most notably in the Western Hemisphere.  

Adopting the principles of an “America First” foreign policy, the strategy carves out the administration’s protectionist goals, focusing on long-standing interests on sovereignty, security, economy, industry, technology and, more uniquely, on protecting ‘Western civilization’ in the US homeland and abroad. The text projects a worldview that places nation-states at the core of the international system, emphasizing the importance of bilateral relations when it benefits the US This also comes as no surprise. The language is reminiscent of remarks made by former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, during his speech at the German Marshall Fund in December 2018, about the restoration of the role of nation-states in the Liberal International Order.     

This framework sets the stage for a strategic realignment of the administration’s foreign policy, shifting from a traditional paradigm of what the US wants for the world to what the US wants from the world. Making global partnerships conditional on gains for the US, the strategy reorients the focus of diplomatic relations from the global interests outlined by the Biden administration to a narrower set of national interests. In a way, the doctrine resembles the thought of Alexander Hamilton, a founding father, the first secretary of treasury, and the most influential advisor to George Washington. Hamilton’s thought on commerce, in particular,  seems to be something the Trump administration is keen to emulate. 

Commerce as the cornerstone of Trumpian foreign policy

“The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares”. This is one of the opening statements of Alexander Hamilton’s 12th essay included in the Federalist Papers published almost 250 years ago, on November 27th, 1787. While Hamilton and Trump may have differed on many issues, the NSS does draw similarities to the way Hamilton viewed commerce as a central piece of American society.  

The NSS shows extensive focus on economic and commercial domains, stressing the importance of economic security, achievable by reorienting trade balances, industrial policies, strengthening supply chains, self-reliance in critical sectors, energy independence, and a broad and productive defense industrial base. What makes this NSS distinctive is the primacy of economic security, which in turn explains why this priority receives such extensive elaboration compared with other strategic priorities outlined in the same document.  

The return of the Monroe doctrine

To “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere”, the new NSS states that the Trump administration intends to reinforce the Monroe Doctrine by enforcing a so-called “Trump Corollary”. Trump first cited the Monroe Doctrine in a 2018 speech at the United Nations, saying that “It has been the formal policy of our country since President Monroe that we reject the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs.” A year into his second presidency, and with the NSS at hand, it now appears the president has moved from words to action.  

Amidst fear of expansionism by continental empires onto the colonies of the Americas, the doctrine was introduced during American President Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress, in which he warned European powers not to interfere in the Americas. Today, the US administration is no longer worried about European influence in the Hemisphere. Washington is more intent on reasserting a hemispheric dominance while countering immigration and illegal narcotics, along with containing “adversarial outside influence” on the Western Hemisphere – an implicit allusion to China’s deepening foothold in the region. The Trump Corollary seems to expand the idea of non-interference by extra-regional powers to the economic realm. 

The NSS thus breaks away from the “Pivot  to Asia”, which has dominated US foreign policy circles since the Obama administration. In 2011, President Barack Obama announced that the United States would put the Asia-Pacific region first, after centuries of preoccupation with Europe and decades of “forever wars” in the Middle East. During the first Trump term and Biden administration, Indo-Pacific strategic primacy was kept. For Trump (2017-2020) the Indo-Pacific was seen as a region of Great-power competition with both China and Russia reasserting their influence regionally and Globally. For Biden (2021-2024), it was seen as a region for strategic competition with China as its pacing threat, marked as the only competitor with both the intent and capabilities to reshape the international order. While the new NSS uses language related to China, it is less strategically coherent or combative towards Beijing than either Trump’s 2017 NSS or  the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, assumed by many to have been largely adopted by the current administration. 

Trump’s MEGA (Make Europe Great Again) unravels the US-Europe relationship

Among the regional sub-chapters of the NSS, the section on Europe is by far the most jarring, but this also comes as no surprise. The current American administration has freely aired its grievances with the Europeans since the very beginning, making the current NSS merely the formalization of the critique. The NSS argues that the continent has abandoned the ideas and values behind “Western civilization” in favor of an open-society ideal, warning that without restoring European “identity” American interests in the continent will diminish. 

According to the new document, however, these “like-minded” European countries are still crucial to the administration’s effort to counter adversarial influence, yet the relationship does not seem to be intended as an equal partnership. With a hegemonic order based on a loyalty system, the new NSS seeks to reward the so-called „healthy” nations of Southern, Central and Eastern Europe with commercial ties, weapons sales, political collaboration, and cultural and educational exchanges, leaving a hanging question mark on the US position towards Northern and Western countries on the continent. 

By insisting that Europe must ‘recalculate its course’ and take responsibility for its future, the new NSS employs a rhetoric that underscores the US as the Western Hegemon ruling over Europe, implicitly assigning Washington a pivotal role in preventing threats to “God-given” civilization. This role extends not only to threats emanating from international actors but to adversarial forces within the European continent. 

Subordinates instead of partners

The current NSS marks a decisive departure from the American strategic framework that has guided Washington in recent decades. By omitting shared democratic-liberal values, and replacing global leadership with conditional influence, and multilateralism with transactional bilateralism, the Trump administration articulates a worldview in which the US no longer aspires to lead the international order, but rather to extract from it. The return of Hamiltonian economic thinking and the reintroduction of the Monroe Doctrine signals an administration intent on consolidating power at home and in the Western Hemisphere. It also signals a shift in American foreign policy. This shift is particularly destabilizing in Europe, where the NSS treats allies not as partners but as subordinates within a hierarchy in which interstate-relations are conditioned by US priorities. For Europe, and for the broader democratic camp, the implications are profound: the transatlantic bargain that used to balance shared democratic and liberal values with shared interests is now fundamentally in question.