The US’ New National Security Strategy Details How Trump 2.0 Will Respond To Multipolarity
The grand strategic goal is to restore the US’ central role in the global system, but if that’s not possible and it loses control of the Eastern Hemisphere to China, then Plan B is to retreat to the Western Hemisphere.
Trump 2.0 just released its National Security Strategy (NSS). It can be read in full here, but for those with limited time, the present piece will summarize its contents. The new NSS reconceptualizes, narrows, and reprioritizes US interests. Focus is placed on the primacy of nations over transnational organizations, preserving the balance of power through optimized burden-sharing, and the US’ reindustrialization that’ll be facilitated by securing critical supply chains. The Western Hemisphere is the top priority.
The “Trump Corrolary” to the Monroe Doctrine is the centerpiece and will seek to deny non-hemispheric competitors ownership or control of strategically vital assets in an allusion to China’s influence over the Panama Canal. The NSS envisages enlisting regional champions and friendly forces to help ensure regional stability for preventing migrant crises, fight the cartels, and erode the aforesaid competitors’ influence. This aligns with the “Fortress America” strategy of restoring US hegemony in the hemisphere.
Asia is next on the NSS’ hierarchy of priorities. Together with its incentivized partners, the US will rebalance trade ties with China, compete more vigorously with it in the Global South in an allusion to challenging BRI, and deter China over Taiwan and the South China Sea. Trade loopholes through third countries like Mexico will be closed, the Global South will tie its currencies more closely to the dollar, and Asian allies will grant the US greater access to their ports, etc., while ramping up defense spending.
As for Europe, the US wants it “to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation” in order to avoid “civilizational erasure”. The US will “manage European relations with Russia”, “build up the healthy nations of Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe” in an allusion to the Polish-led “Three Seas Initiative”, and ultimately “help Europe correct its current trajectory.” A hybrid set of economic and political tools will be employed to this end.
West Asia and Africa are at the bottom of the NSS’ priorities. The US foresees the first becoming a greater source of investment and destination of such while the second’s ties with the US will transition from a foreign aid paradigm to an investment and growth one centered on select partners. Like with the rest of the world, the US wants to keep the peace through optimized burden-sharing and without overextending itself, but it’ll also still keep an eye on Islamist terrorist activity in both regions too.
The following passage sums up the NSS’ new approach: “As the United States rejects the ill-fated concept of global domination for itself, we must prevent the global, and in some cases even regional, domination of others.” To that end, the balance of power must be maintained through pragmatic carrot-and-stick policies in conjunction with close partners, which includes securing critical supply chains (especially those in the Western Hemisphere). This is essentially how Trump 2.0 plans to respond to multipolarity.
The grand strategic goal is to restore the US’ central role in the global system, but if that’s not possible and it loses control of the Eastern Hemisphere to China, then Plan B is to retreat to the Western Hemisphere, which will be autarkic under the US’ hegemony if it succeeds in building “Fortress America”. Trump 2.0’s NSS is very ambitious and will be more difficult to implement than it was to promulgate, but even partial success could radically reshape the global systemic transition in the US’ favor.
Thank you Andrew. Useful analysis and information. Very well encapsulated. I must read the document in full when I get a chance.
It is much more sensible and rational than the ideology-led policies of the Democrats and European leaders, where absolutist concepts of world order and the sort of policies they engender hold sway.
This is among the reasons why Russia has shown 0 interest in helping Venezuela militarily. It wants to entrench the once-respected basis for order of spheres of influence, and now spheres of security too.
Trump's push to oust Maduro and potential invasion is wrong, and the latter is a terrible idea, but I do try to emphasise to my readers just how different US actions with Ukraine are from those with Venezuela. All wars are not created equal.
The latter is irrational for a number of reasons and spawned by ideology. There was little clear gain, inevitable consequences that harm US interests in a number of ways, and it's way way beyond its natural sphere of influence in a multipolar political ecosystem. The former is about important resources and who controls them, and is slap-bang in its sphere of influence (for now) as enshrined in the Monroe Doctrine. The former is the sort of war a state with grand universalist pretentions will embark on; the latter is that of a self-interested particularist state.
Wars are not waged for the same reasons, nor do they have the same ends, nor are they all one and the same in their balance of the rational and irrational.
Anyway, just some thoughts. Thank you once again Andrew for your concise and cogent analysis.
It is remarkable how smoothly Trump, the Art of the Deal Hegemonist decided to embrace Multipolarity. One can only wonder if the act was a result of necessity or it was a well planned path laid down long time ago. As a net result the US will shrink away from global geopolitical dreams and exceptionalism under the loving guidance of the Oligarchic class. Surprise, surprise, the Trump family is going to be their leader after things settle down and their assets will greatly multiply.