Evaluating Trump’s New National Security Strategy
The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) was released late Thursday evening. At a slight thirty-three pages, the NSS breaks with the global strategies presented by previous US administrations.
As the Trump NSS put it rather nicely:
Since at least the end of the Cold War, administrations have often published National Security Strategies that seek to expand the definition of America’s “national interest” such that almost no issue or endeavor is considered outside its scope.
The other welcome thing about the Trump NSS is the emphasis it places on Hemispheric security— something this author called for in an essay published fully two years ago (not that the think tank which ran it would ever credit me for doing so).
In the piece titled, “Time for a Less-Than-Grand Strategy,” I noted:
The failure of successive U.S. administrations to distinguish between core and peripheral national security interests lies at the heart of much of the trouble that we now face….
Surely then, the time has arrived for a policy of retrenchment and a shift toward an approach based on a hemispheric conception of U.S. national security.
A hemispheric alliance stretching from the Arctic to the Panama Canal might reasonably be coupled with a New Marshall Plan for Latin America in order to win hearts and minds and to help address the scourge of drug and human trafficking that has long afflicted the region. After all, shouldn’t securing the American border take priority over securing Ukraine’s?
The essay also called for something that the Trump NSS echoes which is “a less Euro-centric security policy.”
As I wrote then,
Given the emerging geopolitical realities in Asia, the U.S. might usefully rethink its posture in Europe. One way to signal to the Europeans that the time has come for them to stand on their own would be to open for the first time in NATO’s history the position of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR) to non-Americans.
The highlighted proposal regarding the SACEUR became a topic of conversation this Spring (see: https://breakingdefense.com/2025/04/a-non-american-as-supreme-allied-commander-of-nato-thatd-be-problematic-cavoli-says/).
I am surprised to say, given the people he has around him, that the Trump NSS has much to recommend it. I have copied the best and not-go-great sections below (with my comments in bold).
The Best:
Predisposition to Non-Interventionism – In the Declaration of Independence, America’s founders laid down a clear preference for non-interventionism in the affairs of other nations … For a country whose interests are as numerous and diverse as ours, rigid adherence to non-interventionism is not possible. Yet this predisposition should set a high bar for what constitutes a justified intervention.
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Reindustrialization– The future belongs to makers. The United States will reindustrialize its economy, “re-shore” industrial production, and encourage and attract investment in our economy and our workforce.
***
A strategy must evaluate, sort, and prioritize. Not every country, region, issue, or cause—however worthy—can be the focus of American strategy. The purpose of foreign policy is the protection of core national interests; that is the sole focus of this strategy.
After the end of the Cold War, American 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 interest
They allowed allies and partners to offload the cost of their defense onto the American people, and sometimes to suck us into conflicts and controversies central to their interests but peripheral or irrelevant to our own.
One problem with this last section is that we are still doing that in the Middle East and Ukraine.
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A readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere, especially the missions identified in this strategy, and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades or years….
***
Cultivating American industrial strength must become the highest priority of national economic policy.
This is exactly right. As Emmanuel Todd recently noted: “On the eve of the conflict, Russia’s gross domestic product represented only 3% of the gross domestic product of the West (including Japan, Korea and Taiwan). And yet, despite this, Russia, with 3% of the West’s gross domestic product, managed to produce more weapons than the entire West. The war exposed our industrial weakness and revealed that the gross domestic product we habitually measure no longer represents a real capacity to build things.”
***
The days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over…
Something to be dearly wished for but remains to be seen.
The Not-So-Great:
The NSS promises a “Golden Dome for the American homeland.”
But a “Golden Dome” is little more than a fool’s errand which promises to turn into a billion dollar boondoggle, see: https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2025-06/features/dome-delusion-many-costs-ballistic-missile-defense.
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We want to ensure that U.S. technology and U.S. standards—particularly inAI, biotech, and quantum computing—drive the world forward…
Washington should treat the looming threat of AI with the seriousness it treats nuclear proliferation by working with adversaries and friends alike to halt the proliferation of AI technology. A real national security strategy on AI would seek its dismantling not its facilitation.
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In a section listing American “advantages,” the NSS lists:
A broad network of alliances, with treaty allies and partners in the world’s most strategically important regions…
No: The US is badly overextended and currently has formal bilateral defense commitments with 69 countries. A better NSS would order a review of all of these with an eye towards withdrawing from most.
James W. Carden is the editor of TRR.