Last week, the Trump administration published a new National Security Strategy (NSS), and critics panned the document as a “moral and strategic disaster.”
But claims that U.S. President Donald Trump is abandoning the liberal international order focus heavily on values and give inadequate attention to the order’s security and economic foundations. By promising to revitalize American “economic and military preeminence,” the NSS correctly doubles down on many of the key pillars of the United States’ successful 80-year grand strategy, updating them with practical answers to new challenges, such as emerging technology, and legitimate populist concerns with the excesses of globalization.
The strategy does err, however, in failing to properly frame the challenge posed by the “axis of aggressors” and in disavowing the pragmatic promotion of democracy and human rights.
This is, of course, only a strategy document, and whether it matches the president’s actual thinking or the administration’s policy is beyond the scope of this essay. Still, the text of the NSS matters. These documents are closely read by allies and adversaries, and they give marching orders to many national security bureaucracies. When placed in this light, therefore, we can see that the new NSS gets much right and a couple of big things wrong.
Any discussion of contemporary U.S. grand strategy must begin with World War II. Looking back on the horrors of the first half of the 20th century, U.S. leaders wanted to establish an international system that could avoid a return to global wars and depression.
The security foundation of the system was built around U.S. military power, strong alliances in Europe and Asia, nuclear deterrence, preventing hostile powers from dominating important regions, and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
On top of this security foundation, the United States and its allies built the liberal part of the liberal international order. Premised on classic liberal principles, they wanted a system to advance free and fair trade, democracy and human rights, and cooperation through multilateral institutions.
Throughout the Cold War, the system was cultivated in the free world. But after the Cold War ended, the liberal order went global. Countries that had been locked behind the Iron Curtain rushed to join the West.
The strategy worked. There have been zero great-power wars in 80 years. Standards of living in the United States and around the world have skyrocketed since 1945. Global poverty rates have plummeted from 66 percent of the human population in 1945 to 8 percent today. We often forget, but in 1945, there were roughly a dozen democratic countries in the world. Today, there are nearly 100. The world is safer, richer, and freer because of U.S. power and purpose.
The new NSS, like many contemporary critics, is obsessed over the mistakes of U.S. policy in the post-Cold War era—of which there were many. Efforts to incorporate China and Russia as “responsible stakeholders” in the liberal order failed, leaving them both strengthened and dangerously entangled with Western economies. Manufacturing jobs and industrial production were outsourced. The United States fought decades-long wars in the Middle East without a clear strategy and disappointing results. Allies free rode on the back of U.S. military power. Irregular immigration prompted a nationalist backlash in the United States and Europe.
Still, despite these very real downsides, the aggregate data shows that the United States’ post-Cold War strategy also worked. The average American and global citizen was better off in the post-Cold War era than during the Cold War or, indeed, any other time in human history. Widespread perception that U.S. strategy was an unmitigated disaster during the unipolar moment, therefore, is not backed by evidence.
It is not 1945 or 1991 anymore, however, and U.S. strategy needs to be updated for a new era. The challenge for the drafters of the new NSS (even though they did not frame it this way) was to update the United States’ largely successful grand strategy for the the present. This means maintaining long-standing pillars of U.S. grand strategy that still work while also addressing the three biggest emerging challenges that the global order faces today: concerns with the excesses of globalization, the new tech revolution, and the “axis of aggressors.”
The NSS largely succeeds in recognizing and reaffirming traditional pillars of U.S. grand strategy. In the security domain, it called for American “military dominance” and “overmatch.” This must include a strong strategic deterrent provided by “the world’s most robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent, plus next-generation missile defenses—including a Golden Dome for the American homeland.” It seeks to “prevent the emergence of dominant adversaries.” It touted Trump’s success in addressing the most significant nuclear proliferation threat of our time—Iran—with Operatioj Midnight Hammer.
It recognized alliances as a major amplifier of U.S. power, noting that “together [Washington and its allies constitute] more than half the world economy.” It called for the maintenance of strong alliances in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East to be achieved through enhanced allied burden-sharing and economic coordination.
To be sure, the document’s harsh criticisms of Europe go too far for a public document, and they are already straining trans-Atlantic relations. But it is true that a weaker Europe (from 25 percent of global GDP in 1990 to 14 percent today) is a problem for Europe and for U.S. grand strategy. The past decade also shows that vinegar works better than honey in getting Europe to take its own defense seriously.
In the economic domain, the NSS called for “fair, reciprocal trade deals with nations that want to trade with us on a basis of mutual benefit,” as well as increased economic engagement with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific, the Western Hemisphere, and Africa. It recognized transa-Alantic trade as one of the pillars of the global economy and of American prosperity, aiming to ensure “the dollar’s future as the world’s reserve currency.”
Washington does not want to abandon multilateral institutions, but instead “use its leadership position to implement reforms that ensure they serve American interests.”
The NSS errs, however, by disavowing the pragmatic promotion of democracy and human rights. The NSS celebrated American freedom and welcomed “genuine democracy” among like-minded partners, including in Europe, but it eschewed “imposing on [other countries] democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.”
To be sure, “imposing” on others is rarely a good idea, but where Washington can continue to pragmatically promote freedom and human rights, consistent with its security and economic interests, it should do so. After all, democracy was also foreign to most of Europe and East Asia at the end of World War II, but those regions are full of flourishing democracies that make for closer U.S. security and economic partners today.
On new challenges, the NSS is especially strong in laying out solutions to the problems of excessive globalization in the post-Cold War world. Indeed, the Trump administration is uniquely well-positioned to take on this important task. The NSS called for a suite of policies, including securing supply chains, re-industrialization, reshoring manufacturing, and enhanced border security. Together, these policies can help correct the mistakes of the 1990s and 2000s, address some of the legitimate grievances held by the losers of globalization, and win back popular support for continued U.S. leadership and international engagement.
The NSS also offered credible solutions to the new technology challenge, calling for the United States to win the new tech race with China. It celebrated the United States’ possession of the “world’s most advanced, most innovative, and most profitable technology sector” and aims to “ensure that U.S. technology and U.S. standards—particularly in AI, biotech, and quantum computing—drive the world forward.” It called for increased technology collaboration with partners around the world, which is partly to counter China’s technological inroads. This week’s news that the Trump administration has decided to sell advanced chips to China would, of course, undercut this vision. Perhaps Congress and other outside voices critical of this vision might still convince the administration to reverse course.
Finally, the NSS fell short in failing to clearly identify the challenge posed by the “axis of aggressors,” perhaps the greatest security threat that the United States has ever faced. As Trump’s first NSS correctly identified, Washington is in a new era of great-power rivalry with China. Moreover, China is increasingly working with other revisionist autocracies—-Russia, Iran, and North Korea—to disrupt and displace the U.S.-led system. There is the possibility of multiple great-power wars across Eurasia.
Yet, the NSS did not even mention North Korea. The Iran problem is treated as largely resolved by Operation Midnight Hammer. The Russia challenge is presented as one of squabbling between Europe and Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Washington must play a mediator role. The document pulled its punches on the China threat. The dangerous interlinkages among these autocratic adversaries went unmentioned.
To be sure, executing the strategy will entail continued competition with China. Who are the nuclear weapons and missile defenses in the document meant to deter? The section on the Indo-Pacific stated that a “favorable conventional military balance remains an essential component of strategic competition” and calls for “winning the economic and technological competition.” Presumably, these competitions are with China.
Still, the document would have benefited from a clearer strategic context section that outlined the threats and opportunities that the United States is facing.
Trump’s new NSS “looks forward to a new golden age” for America. U.S. power has been a force for good in the world for the past 80 years. In the preamble to the strategy, Trump vowed to make the United States “safer, richer, freer, greater, and more powerful than ever before.”
Let’s hope he succeeds.
