New US national security strategy: The end of globalization and the return of the Monroe Doctrine

The Donald Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy (NSS), the publication of which had been delayed for a long time, has been released.

The 33-page document shapes the security perspective of the US at both global and national levels.

In writing the foreword for NSS 2025, Trump claims that they have turned the US back from “destruction and disaster” since the first day of his second presidential term. He asserts that after “four years of weakness, extremism, and deadly failures,” his administration has restored the power of the US at home and abroad at “historic speed” and brought “peace and stability” to the world.

Stating that “No country, region, issue, or cause—no matter how worthy—can be the focus of American strategy,” NSS 2025 points out that the purpose of foreign policy is the “protection of fundamental national interests.”

Argued that American strategies formed since the end of the Cold War have been insufficient, the new NSS criticizes relevant strategies for consisting merely of “a list of aspirations or desired end states.”

Suggesting that previous strategies failed to “clearly define what the US wanted,” NSS 2025 believes that instead, expressions consisting of “vague clichés” were used, and often, “what the US should want” was evaluated incorrectly.

NSS 2025 states the following:

“Since the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American dominance over the entire world was in our country’s best interest. However, the affairs of other countries concern us only insofar as their activities directly threaten our interests.”

Viewing the “nation-building” processes of the US, particularly in the Middle East, critically, NSS 2025 says, “Our elites vastly miscalculated the willingness of the American people to forever bear global burdens that they viewed as having no connection to national interests.”

The strategy document argues that previous foreign policymakers overestimated the ability of the US to simultaneously fund a massive military, diplomatic, intelligence, and foreign aid complex alongside a massive social welfare, regulatory, and administrative state. It asserts that they made “extremely wrong and destructive bets” on globalization and free trade, thereby hollowing out “the middle class and industrial base upon which the American economy and military superiority depend.”

Directing criticisms at international institutions as well as the US bearing the burden of its “allies,” NSS 2025 says the following:

“They allowed allies and partners to offload defense costs onto the American people and sometimes drag us into conflicts and disputes that were central to their interests but insignificant or irrelevant to ours. And they tethered American policy to a network of international institutions, some driven by open anti-Americanism, and most by a transnational approach explicitly aiming to eliminate individual state sovereignty. In short, our elites not only pursued a fundamentally unwanted and impossible goal, but in doing so, they also undermined the means necessary to achieve that goal—namely, the character of our nation, which forms the foundation of our power, wealth, and morality.”

Describing Trump’s policies as a “necessary correction,” the new NSS argues that the US primarily wants “the government to ensure the existence and security of the US as an independent, sovereign republic that secures the God-given natural rights of its citizens and prioritizes their welfare and interests.”

Emphasizing the desire to protect the country from “military attacks and hostile foreign influences such as espionage, predatory trade practices, drug and human trafficking, destructive propaganda and influence operations, cultural destruction, or other threats to our nation,” NSS 2025 counts full control over borders, the immigration system, and transportation networks where people enter the US “legally and illegally” among its fundamental goals.

Placing special emphasis on military capacity, the NSS writes, “To protect the American people, America’s assets abroad, and its allies, we want to possess the world’s most robust, reliable, and modern nuclear deterrence system and next-generation missile defense systems, including a Golden Dome for the American homeland.”

Acknowledging that the US industrial base is also critical for its global-military role, NSS 2025 announces that it will prioritize industrial policies:

“American national power depends on a strong industrial sector capable of meeting production demands in peacetime and wartime. This requires not only direct defense industry production capacity but also defense-related production capacity. Developing American industrial power must become the highest priority of national economic policy.”

Going for a “correction” regarding American “soft power” as well, NSS 2025 declares that while displaying the soft power of the US, they will respect the different religions, cultures, and governance systems of other countries “without feeling regret about the country’s past and present.”

The document states, “‘Soft power’ that serves America’s true national interests can only be effective when we believe in our country’s innate greatness and honesty.”

In this context, listing its expectations from the world, the American administration declares with an overt reference to the Monroe Doctrine that it will not allow a breach in US hegemony in the “Western Hemisphere”:

“We want to ensure the Western Hemisphere is a reasonably stable and well-governed region to prevent and deter mass migration to the United States; we want a Hemisphere where governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other international criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that is not subject to hostile foreign attacks or the seizure of significant assets and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to maintain our access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will add a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine and enforce it.”

The document openly declares that after “years of neglect,” the US will reinstate and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American superiority in the “Western Hemisphere” and to “protect the homeland and access to key geographical areas in the region.”

NSS 2025 states, “We will prevent adversaries outside the Hemisphere from positioning forces or other threatening capabilities in our hemisphere or from owning or controlling assets of vital strategic importance”:

“Our goals for the Western Hemisphere can be summarized as ‘Enlist and Expand.’ We will enlist our established friends in the hemisphere to control migration, stop the flow of drugs, and strengthen stability and security on land and at sea. While increasing our country’s appeal as the hemisphere’s preferred economic and security partner, we will expand by developing and strengthening new partners.”

In this context, it is stated that the global military presence of the US will also be re-evaluated with the Western Hemisphere in mind.

Stopping and reversing the damage caused by “foreign actors” to the American economy, while also keeping the Indo-Pacific region “free and open,” protecting freedom of navigation on all major sea lanes, and “maintaining secure and reliable supply chains and access to critical materials” are also among the priorities of NSS 2025.

Stating that they want to support allies in “protecting Europe’s freedom and security” while Europe restores “self-confidence” in its own civilization and its “Western identity,” NSS 2025 appears to continue the criticism of “endless wars” that began during the Barack Obama era by saying, “We want to prevent a hostile power from dominating the Middle East, its oil and natural gas resources, and the chokepoints through which they pass, and at the same time prevent the ‘endless wars’ that drag us into a quagmire in that region at great cost.”

Noting that they want to ensure US technology and US standards lead the world forward, particularly in the fields of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum computing, the new strategy asserts that all these are “fundamental and vital national interests” of the US and states, “While we have other interests, these are the interests we must focus on above all else, and which will be to our detriment if we ignore or neglect them”:

“President Trump’s foreign policy is pragmatic without being ‘pragmatist,’ realistic without being ‘realist,’ principled without being ‘idealist,’ strong without being ‘hawkish,’ and measured without being ‘dovish.’ It is not based on traditional political ideology. It focuses above all on what works for America, in two words: ‘America First.’”

Stopping regional conflicts before they turn into “global wars dragging in entire continents” is seen as a priority of this administration.

Stating, “A world on fire, where wars reach our shores, is bad for American interests,” NSS 2025 claims that Trump uses “unconventional diplomacy,” “America’s military power,” and “economic leverage” to “surgically extinguish” the sparks of violent wars caused by divisions between nuclear-armed countries and “centuries-old hatred.”

Continuing to point to the magnitude of the US military power globally and the reserve currency role of the dollar, the document underscores that, in addition to these, they will revitalize the “culture of competence” and competitiveness by reversing diversity policies known as “DEI.”

Making a “middle class” emphasis as well, the document points specifically to energy and industrialization:

“To support growth and innovation, strengthen and rebuild the middle class, unleashing our massive energy production capacity as a strategic priority;

To re-industrialize our economy to further support the middle class and control our own supply chains and production capacity.”

In this context, the document values the role of tax cuts and deregulation and dreams of making the US “the most suitable place to do business and invest capital.”

In this regard, it is emphasized that the Trump administration’s foreign policy will be guided by the following principles:

• Focused Definition of National Interests
• Peace Through Strength
• Inclination Toward Non-Intervention
• Flexible Realism
• Primacy of Nations
• Sovereignty and Respect
• Balance of Power
• Supporting the American Worker
• Justice
• Competence and Merit

NSS 2025 states in this context that the era of mass migration has ended; fundamental rights and freedoms will be defended; burdens will be both shared and differentiated; rearrangements will be made through peace; and importance will be given to economic security through balanced trade, industrialization, and securing access to critical supply chains.