https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-5-2025
"Late last night, the Trump administration released the
2025 National Security
Strategy (NSS) of the United States of America. It did so quietly, although as
foreign affairs journalist at
Politico Nahal Toosi noted, the release of the
NSS is usually accompanied by fanfare, as it shows an administration’s foreign
policy priorities and the way it envisions the position of the U.S. in the
world.
The Trump administration’s NSS announces a dramatic reworking of the foreign
policy the U.S. has embraced since World War II.
After a brief introduction touting what it claims are the administration’s
great successes, the document begins by announcing the U.S. will back away from
the global engagements that underpin the rules-based international order that
the World War II Allies put in place after that war to prevent another world
war. The authors of the document claim that the system of institutions like the
United Nations, alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and free
trade between nations that established a series of rules for foreign engagement
and a web of shared interests around the globe has been bad for the U.S.
because it undermined “the character of our nation.”
Their vision of “our country’s inherent greatness and decency,” requires “the
restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health,” “an
America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes, and that looks forward
to a new golden age,” and “growing numbers of strong, traditional families that
raise healthy children.”
Observers referred to the document as National Security Council Report (NSC) 88
and noted that it could have been written in just 14 words. White supremacists
use 88 to refer to Adolf Hitler and “fourteen words” to refer to a popular
white supremacist slogan.
To achieve their white supremacist country, the document’s authors insist they
will not permit “transnational and international organizations [or] foreign
powers or entities” to undermine U.S. sovereignty. To that end, they reject
immigration as well as “the disastrous ‘climate change’ and ‘Net Zero’
ideologies that have so greatly harmed Europe, threatened the United States,
and subsidize our adversaries.”
The document reorients the U.S. away from traditional European allies toward
Russia. The authors reject Europe’s current course, suggesting that Europe is
in danger of “civilizational erasure” and calling for the U.S. to “help Europe
correct its current trajectory” by “restoring Europe’s civilizational
self-confidence and Western identity.” Allowing continued migration will render
Europe “unrecognizable” within twenty years, the authors say, and they back
away from NATO by suggesting that as they become more multicultural, Europe’s
societies might have a different relationship to NATO than “those who signed
the NATO charter.”
In contrast to their complaints about the liberal democracies in Europe, the
document’s authors do not suggest that Russia is a country of concern to the
U.S., a dramatic change from past NSS documents. Instead, they complain that
“European officials…hold unrealistic expectations” for an end to Russia’s war
against Ukraine, and that European governments are suppressing far-right
political parties. They bow to Russian demands by calling for “[e]nding the
perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding
alliance.”
In place of the post–World War II rules-based international order, the Trump
administration’s NSS commits the U.S. to a world divided into spheres of
interest by dominant countries. It calls for the U.S. to dominate the Western
Hemisphere through what it calls “commercial diplomacy,” using “tariffs and
reciprocal trade agreements as powerful tools” and discouraging Latin American
nations from working with other nations. “The United States must be preeminent
in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity,” it
says, “a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and
when we need to in the region.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
