Some Thoughts on Trump's National Security Strategy

Earlier this week the Trump Administration released its updated National Security Strategy. (See: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf ) Needless to say that given the howls that went up, it was far from being universally applauded, especially in Europe. Europe is rightly concerned that the era of having a NATO umbrella over the continent is over. However, given earlier commentaries coming from Vice President Vance, in particular, the document should not come as a surprise. Trump’s policy of selling out allies and cozying up to adversaries is all there in black and white.

I have three preliminary thoughts on the strategy. First, it is harkening back to the America First of 1939-1941. It focuses in on hemispheric security to the exclusion of Europe and just has America First leader Charles Lindbergh was open to a modus vivendi with Nazi Germany, here we have America open to a condominium with Putin’s Russia. It certainly does not bode well for Ukraine and for that matter Israel. Further, the strategy puts policy muscle behind Trump’s Caribbean buildup against Venezuela. To the Trump Administration Latin America is now part of an American economic zone.

Second, there is the strong smell of Yalta in the document. Instead of Roosevelt and Stalin dividing up Europe, we now have Trump, Putin and especially Xi dividing up the world into spheres of interest. The glue holding the deal together is economic self-interest. Where Taiwan fits into this over the longer term is very ambiguous.

Third, there are some hard policy realities behind the document. Europe has the ability to defend itself against Russia; it only lacks the will. Russia remains bogged down in Ukraine after more than three years of war indicating it is not as strong as once thought. If Ukraine can hold its own against Russia, so too can a much larger Europe.

What perhaps pissed off Europe the most was that the document called out its “civilization decline.” Unfortunately, that is the reality, and Europe has to recognize that advanced welfare states cannot run a policy of open borders without severe consequences. Simply put, in a generation Europe will not be the Europe of history. Net net, the policy calls for the U.S. to be an offshore balancer with respect to the world outside of Latin America. (See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2025/08/my-review-of-andrew-lamberts-no-more.html )

My Review of H.W. Brands' "America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War"

 The First America First

With Donald Trump’s victory America First as foreign policy is yet again being thrust into the limelight. Thus, it is important to understand its origins making University of Texas historian H.W. Brands new history of the first America First movement is especially timely. Brands views America First through the lens of the shadow war between Franklin Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh with the latter being the most prominent proponent of America First.

There is not much new in the Roosevelt side of the equation, but Brands, at least for me plows new ground on Lindbergh by carefully researching his diaries and speeches from the late 1930’s to America’s entry into the war in December 1941. What I learned was that Lindbergh was a foreign policy realist in understanding the decadence of 1930’s Britain and the weakness of France. In his view Germany was the rising power in Europe, so much so that it would overwhelm both Britain and France. 

He believed that with adequate military preparedness the United States would be able to fend off any cross Atlantic attack from a Europe under the auspices of Nazi Germany. Roosevelt, on the other hand was far more clear-eyed in understanding what a Nazi dominated Europe would mean for the security of the United States. From 1939 his globalist vision pushed the United States for war with Germany. Indeed. within the space of a few weeks between late December 1940 and early January 1941 Roosevelt called on America to become the arsenal of democracy and then articulated his Four Freedoms.

Although losing the public relations battle Lindbergh plowed ahead in attacking Roosevelt and his interventionist policies. He reached a dead-end with his infamous Des Moines speech in September 1941 when he, echoing Nazi propaganda, called out the Roosevelt, the British and the Jews for leading America into war. There was near universal condemnation of his speech and for both Lindbergh and America First it was downhill from there.

Beneath his realpolitik there was his underlying racism against Jews and the non-white races. He viewed the war as dividing the white world, when instead it should have been focusing on the dangers coming from the non-white world, no matter that Germany was allied with Japan.

Unfortunately, there are too many similarities to the world of Trump and the world of Lindbergh. America can’t stand aside today in a very dangerous world, but as Brands noted in 1941 the U.S. was the dominant economic power in the world; this is no longer the case. This makes the case that the most important task before us is to strengthen our economy.

Sleepwalking on the Road to Perdition

 With Trump's 12 point victory over Nikki Haley last night in New Hampshire, it seems that we are getting the 2024 election that most Americans did not want. You can't argue that America is a forward looking country with two octogenarians vying for the presidency. Trump is looking backward to the 1950's where he grew up and to the 1930's antecedents to his America First ideas, while Biden is still stuck in 1970's industrial policy time warp and the extreme cultural liberalism of the1972 McGovern campaign which has been adopted by most of the Democratic Party. 

Meantime the world has become more dangerous by the day with the new axis of evil consisting of China, Russia and Iran threatening U.S. interests around the world. While both candidates will likely focus on domestic issues, it is important to note policy mistakes in the domestic area can be reversed with subsequent elections, foreign policy mistakes are not so easily reversible. This is especially true with the wrecker caucus Republicans holding up much needed aid to Ukraine and Israel. (See: Shulmaven: Crunch Time for Ukraine, Israel and the Border ) If Biden were to show some leadership he should make a deal on the Border with the Republicans and get that issue behind him. If not, my guess is that the Republicans will sweep in November.

Further Biden has to get out of his sleepwalking mode and, if he is capable, he has to run an all-out campaign a la 1948 Harry Truman against the do nothing Congress. However, that "if" is a BFD, as Biden would say. To continue the Truman analogy, Biden should give an all-out speech calling for a big increase in the defense budget to deal with the axis of evil. Otherwise I fear that we would be sleepwalking on the road to perdition.

Reliving the 1930's - Part 5

We started this series in March 2014 ( Shulmaven: Reliving the 1930s)  with Putin taking Crimea and using his proxies in eastern Ukraine and the last one was in April 2017 with  Trump’s and Obama’s vacillation in Syria in 2013 and 2017. ( Shulmaven: Reliving the 1930s - Part 4) With this blog I go further in that I now believe that we are no longer in the Post-Cold War Era, but rather we are now in what future historians will call a pre-war era.

 

Instead of facing the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis we now face the Russia-China-Iran North Korea Axis We see this new axis playing out in Ukraine, Gaza, and the Taiwan Straits. All the signs were there in the 1930’s with Japan invading Manchuria in 1931 and the heart of China in 1937; Italy invading Abyssinia in 1935, and Germany reoccupying the Rhineland in 1936. However, it was not until 1938 that they were taken seriously.

 

In terms of economic policy protectionism was the order of the day in the 1930’s and we now witness the Biden Administration continuing and amplifying Trump’s protectionist trade policies. Although Biden’s trade policies conflict, he remains a committed internationalist. However, the Republican Party is reverting to its 1930’s form with its America First withdrawal from the world.

 

At home America’s college campuses look like prewar Germany where in many cases it is no longer safe for Jews to walk freely to class. Although anti-Zionism has always been a cover for antisemitism, recent events have ripped off all of its pretentions of being anti-Israel while still liking Jews. Nevertheless, unlike the 1930’s, Jews in America have more to fear from the Left than from the Right when the Father Coughlin’s of the world ruled the airwaves.

 

Further unlike the 1930’s when America had real leadership under Franklin Roosevelt, today’s divided government is challenged by a Putinista faction in the Republican Party that is implicitly allied with the new axis of evil. Be warned the clock is ticking.

  

America Turns Inward

If we didn't need any more evidence the results of yesterday's primaries indicate that the American electorate is turning inward. The rise of Trump and Sanders proves that there is a strong anti-free trade consensus. Although Sanders and Trump voters vote with their pocketbooks in favor of free trade every day at Wal*Mart, at the ballot box they resoundingly vote against it. These facts will be confirmed when the Trans Pacific trade deals goes down to defeat, if it is ever voted on.

Moreover with Trump appearing to be a direct descendant of the isolationist America First movement of the early 1940s and with Sanders firmly believing in the American retreat of his socialist roots, the world will soon become a more dangerous place. We have written many times before that we are in the process of reliving the 1930s and unfortunately the evidence grows with each passing day. We are getting pretty close to gangs of Trump and Sanders supporters fighting it out in the street. Simply put, the political situation is getting very ugly. Soon the markets will reflect it.