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 Tim Bouverie's "Allies at War"

 A Menage of Convenience

 

Historian Tim Bouverie has written a follow-on to his “Appeasement…” (See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2019/07/my-amazon-review-of-tim-boveries.html ) with an exhaustive history of the Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin alliance of World War II. After Stalin’s dalliance with Hitler fell apart in June 1941 he joined up with Churchill. Although Roosevelt supplied Britain with lend-lease aid, he didn’t become a full partner until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Bouverie recounts in great detail the diplomacy involved in keeping the alliance together where, to say the least, the war aims of the three parties differed.

 

I will not recount here what has already been written about the big wartime conferences in Casablanca, Tehran, and Yalta. What I found most interesting was how Churchill’s dealings with Vichy France, Spain, and Iraq in 1940 and 1941 was of great strategic import. To back up a bit in 1936 British Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare teamed up with French Prime Minister Pierre Laval in a failed scheme to appease Mussolini in Ethiopia. Moving ahead to 1940 we found Hoare working brilliantly as ambassador to Spain to keep Spain out of Axis hands while Laval worked for the Nazi’s has a high official in Vichy France.

 

In response to Vichy, Churchill acted boldly in sinking a good portion of the French fleet off the coast of Algeria to keep it out of the hands of Germany. The U.S. policy towards Vichy was far more muddled. (See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2021/12/my-amazon-review-of-michael-neibergs.html )

 

Simultaneously Churchill had big troubles in the middle east where a pro-axis coup in Iraq threatened its oil supplies. Churchill deployed his over-stretched army in Egypt and Palestine to over-turn the coup and remove Vichy authorities from Syria. (See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2019/06/my-amazon-review-of-john-broichs-blood.html ) All the while London was being blitzed and Britain’s position in Egypt was under threat.

 

As the war was winding down the early fissures of the Cold War came to the fore. Although Bouverie does not think the Cold War was inevitable, I would tend to disagree. He doesn’t give much weight to the removal of the more pro-Western Maxim Litvinov from his ambassadorial post in Washington and similarly the removal of Ivan Maisky from London in 1943 with more hardline officials. To me that was a major tell. Once Stalin achieved the initiative on ground in 1942 his war aim was to seize eastern Europe to establish a buffer from Germany. Bouverie is correct in stating that Churchill and Roosevelt at Yalta could do little to alter the facts on ground.  The combination of the Soviet army along with the success of its spy services made the Soviet Union a clear winner at enormous cost of World War II. ( See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2021/06/my-amazon-review-of-sean-mckeekins.html )  That in turn set the stage for the Cold War.

 

Tim Bouverie has written an important book about diplomatic history. There is much here to study, and he demonstrated that although the parties had different war aims they succeeded in destroying the Hitlerite regime.