At the end of last month, the Trump administration promulgated a new National Security Strategy. Michael Anton, former Director of Policy Planning for the State Department, reportedly was a lead author. Marco Rubio, as both Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, no doubt played a major role. But the strategy is Trump’s.
The document is short, only 29 pages, and eminently readable. I encourage you to follow the link and read it all. Here are a few of what I take to be highlights.
The guiding principle is, naturally, America First. The document begins with a critique of post-World War II foreign policy, attributed to “foreign policy elites.” The critique will be familiar to those who have followed Trump’s career.
It continues by asking what objectives our government should pursue. This section is relatively long and ambitious, but hard to argue with. Again, you’d best read it for yourself.
Next, it addresses America’s “core foreign policy interests.” These, interestingly, begin in the Western Hemisphere:
We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; we want a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine;
This emphasis on the Western Hemisphere is a key component of Trump’s security strategy. But there are more core interests:
We want to halt and reverse the ongoing damage that foreign actors inflict on the American economy while keeping the Indo-Pacific free and open, preserving freedom of navigation in all crucial sea lanes, and maintaining secure and reliable supply chains and access to critical materials;
The document repeatedly emphasizes the importance of maintaining control over strategically essential minerals. The fact that our government lost sight of this necessity for some years is, in truth, a scandal.
We want to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of Europe, while restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity;
We want to prevent an adversarial power from dominating the Middle East, its oil and gas supplies, and the chokepoints through which they pass while avoiding the “forever wars” that bogged us down in that region at great cost; and
We want to ensure that U.S. technology and U.S. standards—particularly in AI, biotech, and quantum computing—drive the world forward.
All highly appropriate. It continues with a discussion of America’s “world-leading assets,
resources, and advantages,” which will help us get what we want. The list of assets that follows is encouraging–it emphasizes cultural as well as physical assets–and concludes: “The goal of this strategy is to tie together all of these world-leading assets, and others, to strengthen American power and preeminence and make our country even greater than it ever has been.”
Next, the strategy itself:
Focused Definition of the National Interest – 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 that almost no issue or endeavor is considered outside its scope. But to focus on everything is to focus on nothing. America’s core national security interests shall be our focus.
Peace Through Strength – Strength is the best deterrent. ….
Predisposition to Non-Interventionism ….
This is interesting:
Flexible Realism – U.S. policy will be realistic about what is possible and
desirable to seek in its dealings with other nations. We 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. We recognize and affirm that there is nothing inconsistent or hypocritical in acting according to such a realistic assessment or in maintaining good relations with countries whose governing systems and societies differ from ours even as we push like-minded friends to uphold our shared norms, furthering our interests as we do so.Primacy of Nations – The world’s fundamental political unit is and will remain the nation-state. It is natural and just that all nations put their interests first and guard their sovereignty. ….
There is much more. Just a couple more points:
Pro-American Worker – American policy will be pro-worker, not merely pro-growth, and it will prioritize our own workers. We must rebuild an economy in which prosperity is broadly based and widely shared, not concentrated at the top or localized in certain industries or a few parts of our country.
With the exception of “trade imbalances,” this makes a lot of sense:
Fairness – From military alliances to trade relations and beyond, the United States will insist on being treated fairly by other countries. We will no longer tolerate, and can no longer afford, free-riding, trade imbalances, predatory economic practices, and other impositions on our nation’s historic goodwill that disadvantage our interests. … In particular, we expect our allies to spend far more of their national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on their own defense, to start to make up for the enormous imbalances accrued over decades of much greater spending by the United States.
Foreign policy is inseparable from domestic policy:
Securing Access to Critical Supply Chains and Materials – As Alexander Hamilton argued in our republic’s earliest days, the United States must never be dependent on any outside power for core components—from raw materials to parts to finished products— necessary to the nation’s defense or economy. We must re-secure our own independent and reliable access to the goods we need to defend ourselves and preserve our way of life. …
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, with a focus on the critical and emerging technology sectors that will define the future. We will do so through the strategic use of tariffs and new technologies that favor widespread industrial production in every corner of our nation, raise living standards for American workers, and ensure that our country is never again reliant on any adversary, present or potential, for critical products or components.
Whatever you think about tariffs in general, this is the area in which they make the most sense.
There is much more. The strategy concludes with a review of the world, region by region, beginning with the Western Hemisphere:
Our goals for the Western Hemisphere can be summarized as “Enlist and Expand.” We will enlist established friends in the Hemisphere to control migration, stop drug flows, and strengthen stability and security on land and sea. We will expand by cultivating and strengthening new partners while bolstering our own nation’s appeal as the Hemisphere’s economic and security partner of choice.
Next comes Asia, second in importance to American interests. The discussion is long and intelligent. I encourage you to read it all.
Next comes Europe. Some Europeans have gnashed their teeth over Trump’s alleged downgrading of European importance to our foreign policy. But reality is inexorable. And the strategy is not hostile to Europe; on the contrary:
Continental Europe has been losing share of global GDP—down from 25 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today—partly owing to national and transnational regulations that undermine creativity and industriousness.
But this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure. The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.
Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies. Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.
Next, the Middle East. The new strategy downgrades that region as a focus of American diplomacy:
For half a century at least, American foreign policy has prioritized the Middle East above all other regions. The reasons are obvious: the Middle East was for decades the world’s most important supplier of energy, was a prime theater of superpower competition, and was rife with conflict that threatened to spill into the wider world and even to our own shores.
Today, at least two of those dynamics no longer hold. Energy supplies have diversified greatly, with the United States once again a net energy exporter. Superpower competition has given way to great power jockeying, in which the United States retains the most enviable position, reinforced by President Trump’s successful revitalization of our alliances in the Gulf, with other Arab partners, and with Israel.
Conflict remains the Middle East’s most troublesome dynamic, but there is today less to this problem than headlines might lead one to believe. …
As this administration rescinds or eases restrictive energy policies and American energy production ramps up, America’s historic reason for focusing on the Middle East will recede. Instead, the region will increasingly become a source and destination of international investment, and in industries well beyond oil and gas—including nuclear energy, AI, and defense technologies.
I think this is a happy development. An over-estimate of the importance of the Middle East has placed vastly too much power in the hands of Arab states and non-states (the “Palestinians”) that rightly have little claim on our attention. It is past time to move on.
That doesn’t mean that we have no interests in the region:
America will always have core interests in ensuring that Gulf energy supplies do not fall into the hands of an outright enemy, that the Strait of Hormuz remain open, that the Red Sea remain navigable, that the region not be an incubator or exporter of terror against American interests or the American homeland, and that Israel remain secure. We can and must address this threat ideologically and militarily without decades of fruitless “nation-building” wars.
Africa brings up the rear, with what I think is a long-overdue dose of common sense and respect for the Africans themselves:
The United States should transition from an aid-focused relationship with Africa to a trade- and investment-focused relationship, favoring partnerships with capable, reliable states committed to opening their markets to U.S. goods and services. An immediate area for U.S. investment in Africa, with prospects for a good return on investment, include the energy sector and critical mineral development. Development of U.S.-backed nuclear energy, liquid petroleum gas, and liquified natural gas technologies can generate profits for U.S. businesses and help us in the competition for critical minerals and other resources.
Again, this is just a fraction of what is in the document. It is well worth your time. In sum, it seems to me an excellent exposition of the “America First” policies for which President Trump is known. And the document is, as it says, “realistic without being ‘realist.’” I wish the administration well in carrying it out.
