The New US National Security Strategy

Hi All,

In case you missed it, the US government has just released its new National Security Strategy. Here is a link so you can download a copy for yourself. As such I wanted to write a few words about what is said in it specifically about Europe—as these are the most fascinating and frightening parts.

One thing that stands out (and we can see it in other recent moves such as the Trump administration weakening its already pathetic sanctions on Russia, cozying up to China, sandbagging Ukraine and Europe, and weakening its commitment to NATO) is that the administration is being more and more open about its intentions. This new strategy is a return to JD Vance’s speech in Munich which was delivered not long after the administration came to power. This speech, if you remember, caused consternation amongst some Europeans who had not yet grasped what the administration believed. You can watch the whole speech here if you really want to.

In Munich, Trump called for more support for the populist right in Europe—think Viktor Orban in Hungary, the AFD in Germany, National Front in France and Reform in the UK. And in the new National Security Strategy, the US is has come right back to pushing for exactly this. The major point is that European culture is under threat (the continent is becoming “non-European” and as such, even NATO is as always with Trump being questioned as a viable institution.

Here are the summary points, and they are worth looking at because they reveal everything you need to know about how the Trump administration views things.

There is much here to pick out point by point.

• The US wants Putin’s Russia to be seamlessly reintegrated into Europe (no sanctions of war crimes punishments can be expected here.

• The US wants Europe to be “a group of aligned sovereign nations” which means of course it wants the EU to be weakened so the US can dominate the individual members.

• The US wants to cultivate “resistance” in to the present order in European states—this is the populist right rallying cry.

• The US wants to compel Europe to do what it wants economically.

• The point about “healthy” nations is also ominous. It wants them to buy US weapons (making them reliant on and beholden to the USA). Clearly also the USA does not see western Europe as having “healthy”