President Trump’s National Security Strategy is a clear and powerful articulation of his common-sense, America First, Peace Through Strength agenda, says Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby. We believe it is the most sane foreign policy of the post-Cold War order by an order of magnitude.
In November 2025, the United States released a sweeping new National Security Strategy—a document that serves not merely as a roadmap for foreign policy, but as a statement of national identity, ambition, and ideological course correction. The strategy frames the moment as a historic pivot point: a chance to abandon what it sees as three decades of strategic drift and reclaim American strength, sovereignty, and global influence.
President Trump’s National Security Strategy is a clear and powerful articulation of his common-sense, America First, Peace Through Strength agenda.
— Under Secretary of War Elbridge Colby (@USWPColby) December 8, 2025
This Strategy lays out his realistic approach to advancing our nation’s interests, above all by ensuring we are always operating… pic.twitter.com/q07ky1G1sz
Reckoning With the Post–Cold War Order
The opening salvo argues that American foreign policy “went astray” after 1991. Instead of disciplined prioritization, policymakers pursued an impossible ambition: permanent American dominance everywhere. This, the document argues, eroded core interests, hollowed out the industrial base, encouraged allies to free-ride, and tethered U.S. policy to transnational institutions increasingly at odds with American sovereignty.
The strategy positions President Trump’s first term as a corrective—one that rejected globalism, revived industrial policy, restored border controls, and reasserted national interest as the sole compass of U.S. foreign engagement. The second Trump administration, it says, intends to finish that project.
What America Wants: Sovereignty, Prosperity, Power
The document lays out a maximal vision of U.S. objectives:
• A secure, sovereign republic with full control over borders and immigration.
• A world-leading military backed by the industrial and energy capacity to sustain it.
• A revitalized economic engine fueled by reindustrialization, abundant energy, and technological primacy.
• A confident national culture and renewed “spiritual and cultural health.”
Abroad, American interests narrow to five core priorities: stability in the Western Hemisphere; an open Indo-Pacific free from coercion; a secure and self-confident Europe; prevention of hostile domination of the Middle East; and global leadership in critical technologies such as AI, biotech, and quantum.
America’s Strategic Arsenal
The Strategy argues that the United States holds unmatched advantages—economic scale, energy resources, military power, geography, alliances, and cultural influence. But it frames these assets as under strain, requiring domestic renewal: expanded energy production, reindustrialization, deregulation, technological investment, and a culture of competence over “DEI” initiatives.
This domestic resurgence is cast not as separate from foreign policy but as the precondition for it.
Guiding Principles: “Pragmatic, Realistic, Principled”
Rather than traditional labels—realist, idealist, hawk, dove—the document defines a Trump foreign policy by its own hybrid doctrine:
• Focused national interest over global commitments.
• Peace through strength, rooted in military and economic dominance.
• A predisposition toward non-intervention, but with flexibility.
• Primacy of the nation-state, skepticism toward transnational institutions.
• Fairness and burden-sharing in alliances, including a NATO spending target of 5% GDP.
• Economic nationalism—pro-worker, not merely pro-growth.
• Competence and merit as pillars of national power.
Priority Agenda: Ending Mass Migration, Rebalancing the World
The Strategy identifies five priority transformations:
1. “The Era of Mass Migration Is Over.”
Border security becomes the central pillar of national security, with migration portrayed as a civilizational threat destabilizing societies across the West.
2. Protecting Core Liberties.
Government overreach—particularly in speech regulation and counter-extremism programs—is cast as a national security threat of its own.
3. Burden-Shifting in Global Security.
Allies are expected to assume primary responsibility for regional defense, with the U.S. acting as convener rather than global sheriff.
4. Realignment Through Peace Deals.
Diplomatic activism—including Trump-brokered peace agreements across the Middle East, Balkans, Africa, and Asia—is promoted as a low-cost way to increase U.S. influence.
5. Economic Security as National Security.
This includes balanced trade, secure supply chains, reindustrialization, defense industrial revival, and “energy dominance.”
The Regions: Redrawing America’s Global Map
Western Hemisphere: The “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine
The Western Hemisphere is elevated to the top regional priority. The U.S. will:
• Block foreign powers (implicitly China) from controlling hemispheric assets.
• Use military, economic, and diplomatic tools to stop mass migration and cartel activity.
• Expand influence through commercial diplomacy, nearshoring, and strategic investment.
Asia: Win the Economic Future, Prevent Military Conflict
China is treated less as a military menace than as an economic behemoth whose industrial overcapacity threatens global markets. The U.S. aims to:
• Restructure the U.S.–China relationship for reciprocity.
• Strengthen alliances (especially Japan, Korea, Australia, India).
• Maintain deterrence across the First Island Chain, particularly for Taiwan.
• Lead infrastructure and tech investment in developing economies competing with China’s influence.
Europe: Revive Civilizational Confidence
The strategy diagnoses Europe’s core issues as demographic decline, regulatory overreach, mass migration, and suppression of political dissent. Key goals include:
• Ending the Ukraine war through negotiated settlement.
• Encouraging sovereign, self-reliant European states.
• Collaborating with patriotic political movements challenging EU centralism.
• Opening markets and resisting adversarial influence.
Middle East: From Entanglement to Partnership
The document claims the region is less volatile than before, citing Trump-negotiated peace deals and punitive action against Iran’s nuclear program. Going forward, the U.S. seeks to:
• Transfer security burdens to regional partners.
• Expand the Abraham Accords.
• Maintain navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea.
• Support investment ties in energy, tech, and supply chains.
Africa: From Aid to Investment
Africa is framed as a continent rich in resources and potential, where the U.S. should:
• Support conflict resolution selectively.
• Compete for critical minerals.
• Promote energy and infrastructure projects.
• Shift from aid to trade and investment.
A Strategy of Restoration
The 2025 National Security Strategy outlines an America determined to withdraw from global overextension while expanding its economic and diplomatic leverage. It seeks a world where sovereign nations act in self-interest, great powers balance each other, and the U.S.—industrialized, confident, and strong—stands at the center.
Whether this vision represents a renaissance or a retreat from the global order America once built will be the subject of fierce debate. But there is no doubt: the strategy marks one of the most sweeping redefinitions of U.S. statecraft in decades.