No one ever tucked themselves up in bed to read a government document – at least not in the expectation of enjoying it. The standard format is one of hundreds of pages of impenetrable jargon yielding no more than nuggets of significant ideas. The Trump administration has admirably cut through that tendency to produce a National Security Strategy (NSS) that is worth reading: a coherent outlining of America’s strategic intentions on the world stage. Originally composed by Michael Anton, a brilliant mind who is sadly leaving the State Department, the document concisely lays out a Trumpian vision of America’s role in the 21st century. It stands as a corrective to the narrow media-led view of the President as an angry, insular man who lashes out in all directions yet cannot see much beyond the White House front lawn.
Trump 2.0 is, as you might expect, motivated on the world stage by the overriding principle “America First,” at least according to this document. But those who argue that the President is telling the rest of world “to hell with you” have misunderstood the character of his second administration. The NSS is an appeal for the maintenance of American preeminence through reindustrialization and national energy security. Trump’s America seeks to do that not alone but in a world in which other nations share responsibilities – without relying on the US for financial bailouts and defence shields. Trump wants “mutually beneficial trading relationships” rather than foreign aid and “burden-sharing” rather than “the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas.”
European media commentators have been alarmed by the National Security Strategy’s claims that their continent is facing “civilizational erasure.” Yet many European citizens feel increasingly beleaguered by mass immigration, stagnant economies and violent crime. Anyone who says Team Trump cares little for Europe, that he wants to divorce America from its oldest allies, is reading the document wrong. The idea is to restore Europe to its “former greatness,” not to dismiss the continent as a civilizational dead end. According to the National Security Strategy document, “Europe is home to cutting-edge scientific research and world-leading cultural institutions. Not only can we not afford to write Europe off – doing so would be self-defeating for what this strategy aims to achieve.” But Trumpism does disagree with the way European powers continue to sacrifice their industries to the environmentalist dogma of net zero.
Somewhat naively, Team Trump also wonders why European allies have allowed themselves to feel so threatened by Vladimir Putin when they “enjoy a significant hard-power advantage over Russia by almost every measure, save nuclear weapons.” Surely, though, nuclear weapons are the point? If you don’t have superiority in that field then you can’t have superiority at all. Nations cannot wage a conventional military campaign against aggression in Ukraine without taking into account the possibility that, ultimately, a desperate Putin might feel moved to respond with nuclear force. It is an inevitable accident of Cold War history that Russia has ended up with a nuclear arsenal larger than that of Western Europe, and all the more reason why Europeans should want to feel that they have an equal nuclear deterrent – i.e. their own weapons, combined with America’s – on their side.
There are also weaknesses in Trump’s thinking on trade, as well as strengths. Rightfully, the NSS advocates trade and investment for Africa rather than the foreign aid which has helped keep the continent poor and its kleptomaniac overlords rich. But can the President really say he is helping to promote this worthy end through his increasingly opaque tariff wars? The message which went out to foreign exporters on “Liberation Day” in April was: you have been cheating America and now we are going to punish you. But the President has also surrounded himself with cronies, opportunists and family members and friends who are clearly using American foreign policy as an opportunity to enrich themselves in ways which would make even Hunter Biden blush.
The NSS boasts about its “re-industrialization” mission. But the Trump campaign must deal with the truth that US labor bureau statistics only show manufacturing jobs falling every month since April, with another 6,000 lost in September.
Trump began his second presidency with a shock-and-awe wave of executive orders. The message was clear: his administration was going to cut the Gordian knots of decades of misplaced US policy in many areas. Eleven months on, it does not feel an entirely successful exercise. The stock market has risen and then faltered, but the economy never really came along with it, and certainly not for working households still struggling to make ends meet. There is a fitful peace in Gaza, for which Trump deserves credit, but sustainable peace in Ukraine still seems a long way away. The Trump administration has succeeded in cutting illegal migration across the southern border, yet his deportation strategy has produced mixed results. The Pentagon’s attempts to promote regime change in Venezuela seem barely more imaginative than George W. Bush’s plans for Iraq, even if Latin America falls within the “western hemisphere” and is therefore more connected to North America’s interests.
The clear and purposeful National Security Strategy achieves its primary objective of sounding good on paper. The coming year will be crucial in determining whether that vision makes sense in the real world.
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s December 22, 2025 World edition.
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