The 2025 US National Security Strategy (NSS), released on December 4, 2025 by the Trump administration, is a wondrous document that only the Trump administration could create. It sharply pivots to homeland defence and the Western hemisphere, moans the civilisational decline of Europe which remains “strategically and culturally vital to the United States”, ignores ASEAN, front-loads China as an “economic competitor” and claims to shift the US away from global interventionism towards a nationalist, interests first, foreign policy approach. In the 31 page document, 1 ½ deal with the Middle East and ½ with Africa.

The ultimate accolade for Trump’s “flexible realism” comes from Russia which says that the new NSS accords with its views, presumably on downgrading the so-called Russian threat and blaming Europe for the problem.

At the outset, the 2025 NSS declares itself against the American strategy of global primacy. It notes “After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet, the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.” (p.1)It goes on to say that “The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.”(p.12) Yet it goes to outline an “America First” doctrine that prioritises economic reciprocity, military deterrence, and selective alliances that are clearly aimed at maintaining US primacy.

The document’s structure and emphasis notes that the top US priorities are

1. Homeland security and borders (migrants and cartels)
2. The Western Hemisphere
3. Economic security (reindustrialisation and supply chains and
4. China and Indo-Pacific.

But in the “What do we want In and From the World” (p.5) the strategy lists its foreign policy goals as relating to first, the Western Hemisphere, and second, to reverse “the ongoing damage that foreign actors inflict on the American economy while keeping the Indo-Pacific free and open”, the support of allies in preserving the freedom and security of Europe, “while restoring Europe’s civilisational self confidence and Western identity; preventing an adversary power from dominating the Middle-East and to ensure that US technology and standards drive the rest of the world.

Officially at least, the US policy is no longer sought to be grounded on political ideology – no “democracy versus autocracy” framing and no talk of the “rules based international order” or any kind of a values based crusade. China is a practical issue to be managed, not an ideological adversary to be defeated. “We seek good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.”

The Donroe doctrine

The big refocus for the US is on the Western hemisphere. It says that the US will now “assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.” This would involve “a readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere, and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades and years.”

Asia: It’s all about China

In Asia, the Trump goals are to “Win the Economic Future, Prevent Military Confrontation.” Clearly, the context is China. But the most striking thing about the China section is that it is no longer defined as the primary threat to the US, a consequential challenge or a “pacing threat” as described by the Biden NSS of 2022. The NSS does portrays China as the preeminent systemic rival, accusing past US openness of fueling Beijing’s global dominance in supply chains, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. But the tone is that while it does not define the Chinese as allies or partners, it views them as 1) an economic competitor, 2) a source of supply chain vulnerabilities (but also a trading partner) and 3) a player whose regional dominance should be checked because it has implications for the US economy. (pp. 19-21)

But notwithstanding its economic emphasis, the document does not ignore the military challenge of China and calls for building military forces capable of “denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain” but it is clear that this is a task that must be equally taken up by regional allies and partners like South Korea and Japan. (p.24)

Aims with regard to China are narrowly defined: fostering “balanced trade in non-sensitive areas” while pursuing reciprocity to achieve a $40 trillion US economy by the 2030s (p. 21). US policy tools include allied coalitions adding $35 trillion in economic weight to counter China, investments in AI, quantum computing, and autonomous systems for military edge, and diplomatic pressure on partners like Europe and Japan to absorb Chinese overcapacity (pp. 21-23).

India’s role

India is part of the coalition that the US wants. So, the substantive reference to India comes in the portion where the NSS it is discussing the need to “work with our treaty allies and partners” to counter Chinese economic power.

“We must continue to improve commercial (and other) relations with India to encourage New Delhi to contribute to Indo-Pacific security, including through continued quadrilateral cooperation with Australia, Japan, and the United States (Quad).”(p.21) Curiously, the Quad is mentioned, but there is not even a mention of ASEAN or Southeast Asia, AUKUS, South Asia, the Philippines or the Pacific Islands.

The need for coalitions is an admission that the US isn’t powerful enough anymore. But the problem is obvious. How do you build a coalition even while waging a trade war against your partners and putting up demands that they spend more on defence?

India can be happy that the G-2 notion (of a US-China condominium) does not figure in the document. But it reiterates the US role in negotiating peace in the recent India-Pakistan conflict. The document is clear that India’s salience as an American partner has declined. Critics point out the contrast with the Trump 2017 NSS formulation where India was welcomed “as a leading global power and stronger strategic and defense partner.”

India is also flagged for collaboration on critical minerals in the Western Hemisphere and Africa (p. 23). Not surprisingly, the document glosses over Pakistan. It is mentioned in passing in relation to the US role in ending the Pakistan-India conflict. The NSS’s few references to India are positive and it is spoken of as a friend and ally but it is a means to an end – Indo-Pacific stability – rather than an end in itself.

Europe: Making war on Europe to “save” it

Perhaps the most striking and even shocking portions of the NSS are those relating to Europe not just in terms of insufficient military spending and economic stagnation, but as a region facing “civilisational erasure” from problems arising from “the activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies… that create strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birth rates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.” (p.25)

Unlike other parts of the NSS, the European section is ideological. It calls for Europe to “stand up for genuine democracy, freedom of expression and unapologetic celebration of European Nations individual character and history.” It feels heartened to note the “growing influence of patriotic European parties” (Code for rightwing parties like the AfD Alternative for Germany).

The American goal is to cultivate “resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations” which is essential for restoring “civilizational self-confidence” and Western identity, empowering sovereign states via patriotic movements and prioritizing Central/Eastern/Southern Europe through trade, arms sales, and exchanges and preventing the expansion of the NATO alliance (pp. 25-26).

The idea is that a strong, right-wing, Europe, affirming its white European identity would be the kind of ally that the US could depend on for the future.

US policy demands Europe shoulder primary defence (e.g., 5% GDP via a “Hague Commitment”), which has been endorsed by NATO allies, but all allies in other regions, too, are called on to meet this goal. But it is clear that there be no further expansion of NATO, which means that Ukraine will be excluded as per the Russian demand. Cessation of hostilities in Ukraine is viewed as an important measure to stabilise European economies and the re-establishment of strategic stability with Russia.

Writing in the Center for International and Strategic Studies, Max Bergman notes “The strategy effectively declares war on European politics, Europe’s political leaders, and the European Union.” Can the western alliance, at war with itself, survive ?

The writer is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.

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