Before I will say anything on this matter or on any matter, the best thing to do is to stay quiet and focused for a little while. Then, open your eyes and look at the next 2 paragraphs in the form of a mirror.
“Over the past nine months, we have brought our nation – and the world – back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster. After four years of weakness, extremism, and deadly failures, my administration has moved with urgency and historic speed to restore American strength at home and abroad, and bring peace and stability to our world. No administration in history has achieved so dramatic a turnaround in so short a time”[1].
“The American people elected me to make America great again. I promised that my Administration would put the safety, interests, and well-being of our citizens first. I pledged that we would revitalize the American economy, rebuild our military, defend our borders, protect our sovereignty, and advance our values. During my first year in office, you have witnessed my America First foreign policy in action. We are prioritizing the interests of our citizens and protecting our sovereign rights as a nation. America is leading again on the world stage. We are not hiding from the challenges we face. We are confronting them head-on and pursuing opportunities to promote the security and prosperity of all Americans”[2].
These are the first words that open the national security strategies of 2025 and 2017 of the United States of America. Without reading anything else, we can see the huge differences between the two administrations of the same president, Donald J. Trump. If you look only at what the text is expressing, you will see how much has changed not only the man named Donald J. Trump, but also his administration and, in extenso, the whole Republican Party.
I. The message of the American President to ALL AMERICANS and to the American people (2017) vs the message of the American President to HIMSELF (2025). Recognition of International Principles (2017) vs the Destruction of International Principles (2025)
If the current national security strategy is based on an egoistic and egocentric worldview, in which “my administration has moved with urgency and historic speed to restore American strength at home and abroad”[3], we see the strategy from the first term in another light: I am doing what I do for the American people because the American people elected me. I promised and pledged to who? To the American people, NOT TO MYSELF. What is our scope? “To promote the security and the prosperity to all Americans”[4]. Unfortunately, within the whole national security strategy, no one can find the same expression. We can find only the expression “all Americans” only on page 1 in the context of a very powerful statement. Not a promise, not a reverence to the American people and values, but an order, a military order: “To ensure that America remains the world’s strongest, richest, most powerful, and most successful country for decades to come, our country needs a coherent, focused strategy for how we interact with the world. And to get that right, all Americans need to know what, exactly, it is we are trying to do and why”[5].
Within this article, I would like to address the most important questions after reading this strategy: What does this strategy truly say? How did the previous strategy from the previous Trump administration look like? Are they the same? Will the United States continue to perceive Europe as an ally to the very end or only as a second-degree power that has no say within the interaction with America? And what should the response of Europe and the European Union be after reading this national security strategy? Which is the greatest paradox of this strategy? How is the strategy sabotaging its own words? Was this overlook intentional or unintentional?
The first word who comes into my mind after reading this strategy is “SHOCK”. This strategy is not a normal national security strategy, in which one defines one’s goals, principles, values, but also one’s foreign interests but in interaction with the other. This strategy is merely touching all the important points of national security that should touch. Of course, it is written within the strategy that this particular one would be different from the others. I will quote all the fragments where it is written on this subject:
1. “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. American strategies since the end of the Cold War have fallen short—they have been laundry lists of wishes or desired end states; have not clearly defined what we want but instead stated vague platitudes; and have often misjudged what we should want”[6].
2. “But to focus on everything is to focus on nothing. America’s core national security interests shall be our focus”[7].
3. “It has become customary for documents such as this to mention every part of the world and issue, on the assumption that any oversight signifies a blind spot or a snub. As a result, such documents become bloated and unfocused—the opposite of what a strategy should be. To focus and prioritize is to choose—to acknowledge that not everything matters equally, to everyone. It is not to assert that any peoples, regions, or countries are somehow intrinsically unimportant. The United States is by every measure the most generous nation in history—yet we cannot afford to be equally attentive to every region and every problem in the world”[8].
What does this say about the new security strategy? That the author is fully pleased with the effect that this strategy will produce; that he has written this specific strategy exactly in this form in order to be remembered because something is different, because something feels different.
Even if we continue within the same chapter (the message to “my fellow Americans”), we will see that the tone of the strategy is at lest imposing, cruel, extremely distant to the individual. Let’s take another fragment of the previous national security strategy of 2017:
“My Administration’s National Security Strategy lays out a strategic vision for protecting the American people and preserving our way of life, promoting our prosperity, preserving peace through strength, and advancing American influence in the world. We will pursue this beautiful vision—a world of strong, sovereign, and independent nations, each with its own cultures and dreams, thriving side-by-side in prosperity, freedom, and peace—throughout the upcoming year”[9].
The message of the President ends within the security strategy of 2017 with another mention to the American people, but also the allies and partners: “In pursuit of that future, we will look at the world with clear eyes and fresh thinking. We will promote a balance of power that favors the United States, our allies, and our partners. We will never lose sight of our values and their capacity to inspire, uplift, and renew. Most of all, we will serve the American people and uphold their right to a government that prioritizes their security, their prosperity, and their interests”[10].
If we take into consideration how does the first page of the strategy look, we can see that the strategy of 2017 has 4 pillars, the pillar being a very powerful symbol of the democratic foundation but also signifying the relationship between the tradition of Ancient Greece and the current American democratic system. Now, we see only the official landmarks of the state, but nothing that could bring the document closer to the public. The next question would be: how many pages does each strategy have? The strategy of 2017 has 68 pages, and the strategy of 2025 has 33 pages. If we look at the national security strategy of the Biden administration, we can see 48 pages. Only the strategy of Barack Obama had 32 pages, but the words are much smaller than the current strategy.
Before going deeper, I would like to emphasize the most important words used in this strategy. This would help us understand where the foreign policy’s priorities of the administration lie: the word “Europe”/ “European Union” is used most of the time (49 times), “China”/ “Chinese” 22 times, “Russia” is used 10 times, “Africa” 10 times, “Taiwan” 8 times, “Indo-Pacific” 8 times, “Asia” 7 times, “NATO” 6 times and “Ukraine” 4 times. I will discuss more on this subject when we arrive at the subject of foreign policy.
Then the new strategy begins with an introduction, where it describes what is the strategy that the US will use in order to achieve its interests and goals on the long term. It directly blames the past administrations for the way in which they organized their own strategies. The other strategies were merely “laundry lists of wishes”[11], they did not clarify what the US truly wants and which are the partners that will help the United States to achieve its goals in the near future.
Then the strategy sets a barrier, a wall between what has happened before and what is happening now. The strategy says that after 1990, the US foreign policy was based on the idea of exporting democracy. But the issue is that how other countries are building their affairs will be taken into account by the US only if they threaten the US’ interests: “They placed hugely misguided and destructive bets on globalism and so-called “free trade” that hollowed out the very middle class and industrial base on which American economic and military preeminence depend. 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”[12]. Even if it is hard to accept, there is a truth written here because the United States involved itself into a series of wars (Irak War, Afghanistan War) that not only cost the lives of American troops, but also a lot of weaponry and money. Moreover, those wars did not end as they were planned. The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan was one of the most disastrous moments of the US military history. And this was truly the fault of the incompetent Biden administration. The problem here lies in the belief that because in 1989 we have beaten the communist regime (which was only partially true), the other countries would see that the democratic system is the only viable system that would survive till the end of times. Thus, Francis Fukuyama spoke about the ‘end of history’. Then the United States started to export democracy. The countries from Eastern Europe welcomed this process of democratization because they knew what the terrible communist regimes meant for their state and for their people. But the problem was that this system was also tried in the Middle East, where the cultural landscape and the political landscape is extremely different. There were no economic conditions and, if they were, they were extremely light, meaning with few practical consequences. Because of this, there were many authoritarian and totalitarian countries that profited from the American goodwill. When the strategy says that some of the international institutions “are driven by outright anti-Americanism”, this, unfortunately, is true. The United Nations is an international organization that for a long time was and still is an anti-American international organization. Why? Because it is controlled by the communist China (mainly) and other authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, although the United States did fund the organization with most funds.
If we look at the introduction of the security strategy of 2017, we will see that it is full of kind and powerful words, good and strong expressions, and principles as hard as a rock: “Our founding principles have made the United States of America among the greatest forces for good in history. But we are also aware that we must protect and build upon our accomplishments, always conscious of the fact that the interests of the American people constitute our true North Star”[13]. Even if the strategy does not have positive words to say about the phenomenon of globalism, there is an equilibrium, a balanced way of viewing the world economic system, which is also part of the introduction: “The United States consolidated its military victories with political and economic triumphs built on market economies and fair trade, democratic principles, and shared security partner ships”[14]. At the same time, the strategy recognizes the benefits of the “free trade” in international relations: “Americans have long recognized the benefits of an interconnected world, where information and commerce flow freely”[15] (this fragment is from the first pillar, a few paragraphs after the introduction). It has also positive words to say about the allies and partners of the United States, that stood by her in times of need: “We recognize the invaluable advantages that our strong relationships with allies and partners deliver”[16]. Most importantly, the previous strategy looks at the world in terms of democracy vs authoritarianism, freedom vs. totalitarianism, even though it does not say this explicitly. It also mentioned who are the main disturbers of peace and prosperity and who threaten the wellbeing of the American people: the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and the Islamic Republic of Iran: “China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence […] Rival actors use propaganda and other means to try to discredit democracy. They advance anti-Western views and spread false information to create divisions among ourselves, our allies, and our partners”[17].
The strategy recognized even the antithesis between democracy and tyranny (“America’s commitment to liberty, democracy, and the rule of law serves as an inspiration for those living under tyranny”[18]), which was mentioned and explained very clearly by Plato in the 8th Book of the one of the pillars of political science, namely “The Republic”, where he describes the best and worst regimes within his view. Tyranny is mentioned as the worst kind of political system and it is brought in antithesis with freedom: “the people who would escape the smoke which is the slavery of freemen, has fallen into the fire which is the tyranny of slaves. Thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery”[19]. Unfortunately, the new strategy does not take into consideration these antitheses anymore, but rather recognizing the fact that there is not the issue anymore of the United States to look at the world in these terms.
II. “We”- the American people or “we” – the President?
When we look at the second chapter of the new strategy, we see that it differs from the previous national security strategy of 2017 because the past strategy, after the introduction, began to explain and to expand the four pillars upon which the strategy is based. In the new strategy, before we come to the principles, we have an intermezzo, an intermediary chapter which asks 2 questions: “What Should the United States Want?” and “What Are America’s Available Means to Get What We Want?”.
Which is the most used word in the response to both questions? “WE”. It is mentioned 39 times in just 4 and a half pages. If we go further, we see that the word “we” is followed by the verb “want”. The construction “We want” is therefore used 29 times. There is a question that arises in this context: does the strategy refer to “we” as the American people or as “We” the President, equivalent to “We” as Pope?
The response to the first question is based on what are the needs of America in the next four years.
1. The most important answer is the first sentence of the answer to the question: “First and foremost, we want the continued survival and safety of the United States as an independent, sovereign republic whose government secures the God-given natural rights of its citizens and prioritizes their well-being and interests”[20]. This means that America is threatened. When we look at the word “survival”, we think that there is a mortal enemy that is trying to kill us. This means that the American fortress is being attacked. Who are the ones who threaten America in such a way that America needs to ensure its own survival? We will see that further down the line.
2. The next paragraph is a very decent one, which is based on internal politics: “We want to protect this country, its people, its territory, its economy, and its way of life from military attack and hostile foreign influence, whether espionage, predatory trade practices, drug and human trafficking, destructive propaganda and influence operations, cultural subversion, or any other threat to our nation”[21].
3. Every country wants to protect its own territory, people and economy from any malign influences from outside. In order to do this, the strategy mentioned that it wants to “recruit, train, equip, and field the world’s most powerful, lethal, and technologically advanced military to protect our interests, deter wars, and—if necessary—win them quickly and decisively, with the lowest possible casualties to our forces”[22].
4. Another need mentioned in the strategy is to control the immigration systems, a very important idea both in the first Trump administration and the second Trump administration. I think this should be a key interest also for the European Union. The EU should institute a mechanism to better protect the borders of the member states. Controlling the immigration system does not mean that one should forbid the migration as a principle because one has to take into consideration the human rights, meaning the right of a citizen to flee the country who tortures or who persecutes him/her. The problem lies in the uncontrolled illegal immigration, not in the principle. Controlling the immigration system means ensuring that terrorists are recognized before entering the country and that there are well-based asylum laws and rules, ensuring that the new comers respect the European way of life, the European values and the European principles. But most importantly, controlling the phenomenon means ensuring that the people coming in are not a threat to the national security and to the sovereignty of the country.
5. The next paragraphs refer to a strong economy, industrial strength in times of war and peace, scientific development, protecting intellectual property from foreign theft, but also maintaining the influence that the US has at international level. Here we come to what I said before, meaning the fact that the America does not view anymore the world in terms of democracy vs tyranny: “we will be unapologetic about our country’s past and present while respectful of other countries’ differing religions, cultures, and governing systems”[23]. The key word here is “governing systems”. Of course, one should respect all religions and all cultures, but to be respectful of other governing systems means that you do not consider authoritarianism or totalitarianism an ideological problem. This is the base of transactionalism, meaning we do not care what political system you have, we can make deals even though you violate human rights, you undermine human dignity and you kill your own citizens. I do not want to say here that the US should return to the democratization of other regions of the world (it clearly failed to do so), but now we are moving to the other extreme, in which a democrat can cooperate very well with a tyrant.
6. Now the strategy comes with a list of the most important foreign interests. The Western Hemisphere becomes the first priority of the United States, meaning a clear return to the Monroe doctrine of 1823, established by the president James Monroe, but with ‘Trump characteristics’ (as the Chinese would say “human rights with Chinese characteristics”). In other words, the Western Hemisphere is in the interests of the United States alone and will not be threated by any state or power. It is the first priority and I cannot contest it because you have to make sure you have security near your own borders. The original Monroe doctrine was based on 4 principles:
a. The Western Hemisphere should not be colonized anymore by any European imperial power: “the American continents […] are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers”[24];
b. Any attempt of a European power to interfere in the interests of the United States in the Western Hemisphere would be seen as a threat to the United States: “In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. […] we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety”[25].
c. The United States will not interfere in the existing colonial regimes of the European powers present, at that moment, in the Western Hemisphere: “With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere”[26].
d. The United States will not intervene to change the system of the European powers: “It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness”[27].
I know that the current strategy says clearly that the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China must no more be present on the soil of the Western Hemisphere. I can see here the strong footprint that the Monroe Doctrine has on the current US national security strategy also in terms of respecting the other “governing system”. But here I have to make a very strong statement: this doctrine was elaborated in the year 1823. Until 1823, there were no world wars and no prospects of world wars. The 19th century was the century of the nation-states and of empires. In 2025, we cannot ignore the authoritarian and totalitarian experience of Marxism, Communism, Nazism and Fascism of the 20th century. We cannot ignore the fact that the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler, the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist system of the Soviet Union or the Maoist system of Mao Zedong killed more than 100 million people in just a century. We cannot ignore the crime, the torture, the inhuman practices that these regimes bestowed upon other nations but also their own. Nobody says that the United States should unleash wars with more than 50% of the globe (because more than 50% of the globe has not democratic systems), but we cannot ignore either the crude realities of the 20th century.
The Indo-Pacific becomes the second priority of the United States: “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”[28]. The third priority of the United States is Europe, but not in the sense that the previous strategies would look at Europe. I will say more about this when we arrive at that chapter. The fourth priority is making sure that the Middle East is not dominated by any “adversarial power”[29] or, in other words, the US has to make sure that it is the only power that dominates the Middle East. The fifth priority is to make sure that the US remains the power that would lead in terms of AI, biotech and quantum computing.
The answer to the third question, meaning “What Are America’s Available Means to Get What We Want?”, is a list of the assets that the US still has on the international arena. The most important of these are: strong economic system, world’s leading financial system and capital markets, a very powerful technological sector, a “broad network of alliances, with treaty allies and partners in the world’s most strategically important regions”[30] (this is a very interesting statement), the advantage of geography and other internal political measures. The only observation I have here is that “President Trump” is mentioned in terms of the internal agenda. While in the previous strategy, the “Trump administration” was mentioned only once and there were certain quotes at the beginning of every chapter, this strategy underlines the importance of President Trump in the form of ‘the Truth belongs to President Trump”, ‘only Trump has the almighty solution to our problems’. And this is extremely dangerous because the red line between a strong leader and an authoritarian leader is extremely thin. The gallery from the White House shows also 2 images of some members of the Trump administration praying with the hands upon Trump’s shoulders[31]. It is not a good sign.
[1] “National Security Strategy of the United States of America”, November 2025, p. I, accessed at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf on 05.12.2025
[2] “National Security Strategy of the United States of America”, December 2017, p. I, accessed at https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf on 05.12.2025
[3] Ibidem, p. I
[4] Ibidem, p. I
[5] Ibidem, p. 1
[6] Ibidem, p. 1
[7] Ibidem, p. 8
[8] Ibidem, p. 15
[9] Ibidem, p. II
[10] Ibidem, p. II
[11] Ibidem, p. 1
[12] Ibidem, p. 1
[13] Ibidem, p. 2
[14] Ibidem, p. 2
[15] Ibidem, p. 7
[16] Ibidem, p. 2
[17] Ibidem, pp. 2-3
[18] Ibidem, p. 4
[19] PLATO, “The Republic,”, p. 430, accessed at https://www.sciencetheearth.com/uploads/2/4/6/5/24658156/plato_-_the_republic.pdf on 06.12.2025
[20] Ibidem, p. 3
[21] Ibidem, p. 3
[22] Ibidem, p. 3
[23] Ibidem, p. 4
[24] National Archives, “Monroe Doctrine (1823)”, National Archives, accessed at https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/monroe-doctrine on 06.12.2025
[25] Ibidem
[26] Ibidem
[27] Ibidem
[28] Ibidem, p. 5
[29] Ibidem, p. 5
[30] Ibidem, p. 6
[31] “President Donald Trump Joins Faith Leaders in Prayer”, The White House, accessed at https://www.whitehouse.gov/gallery/president-donald-trump-joins-faith-leaders-in-prayer/ on 06.12.2025
