The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy document, given the fluidity of policymaking within this White House, should probably be read as something closer to a snapshot of current thinking than holy writ.
Still, it is a curious mix of the clear-eyed and the blinkered, of the valuable and the counterproductive, of too much tact (there is, we are supposed to believe, the possibility of fostering a “genuinely mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing”) and too little.
Those two last words take us to the section on Europe (listed third, we note, after the Western Hemisphere and Asia, but ahead of the Middle East and Africa). For more than 70 years, the transatlantic alliance has helped underpin America’s security and its prosperity. Europe’s current economic and political malaise is a threat to both. Much of this flows from bureaucratic overreach by Brussels. But rather than referring, however accurately, to “regulatory suffocation” by the eurocracy, the strategy’s authors would have done better to reference the Draghi report that the EU had itself commissioned, which highlighted, albeit in milder terms, the same phenomenon and would have been less easy to dismiss as American bullying. This would then have been a natural segue to making the case that the answer was not, as Mario Draghi maintained, “more Europe,” but less.
And “less Europe” should not necessarily mean, contrary to the clear thrust of the argument contained in the strategy, that the EU should be broken up. The EU is indeed deeply flawed. The remit of Brussels should be severely cut back. But creating the impression that this is something on which this or any other American administration is insisting will play politically to the advantage of those in Brussels who want a Fortress Europe, a construction that would be hostile to the U.S, extremely fragile, and a gift to Putin and Xi.
Similarly, it ought to have been possible to highlight the serious security threat posed by Europe’s decades-long immigration disaster without using language (“civilizational erasure”) that could be labeled, fairly or otherwise, as hysterical. Nor should it have been suggested that “patriotic European parties” are the answer. The belief that such parties are truly America’s political allies reveals, at least in some instances, a disappointing lack of homework. It would be better if Europe’s still-mainstream parties changed their approach toward mass immigration. Some, if too slowly, are doing so: the White House might have made this shift more difficult.
For all that, there is no talk about abandoning Europe. On the contrary, “We will need a strong Europe to help us successfully compete, and to work in concert with us to prevent any adversary from dominating Europe.” All true, and the reference to an unnamed Russia is a welcome nod to reality, but if the risk of a dangerous transatlantic split is to be reduced, some specific language on America’s willingness to stand behind its NATO allies would have been welcome.
This is just one of a number of disconcerting omissions. While the importance of deterrence is, rightly, stressed, it is not only NATO members who are left to wonder what the U.S. is actually prepared to provide. In the case of Ukraine, “an expeditious cessation of hostilities” is said to be a “core interest of the United States,” but nothing is said about the terms of any peace (other than that Ukraine must end up as a “viable state”) or how that peace and that state might be preserved. Without such detail, the aim of restoring “strategic stability” with Russia looks like a call for politely postponed capitulation.
If South Korea and Japan were looking for specific reassurance that they still were under Uncle Sam’s nuclear umbrella, they did not find it. Strategic ambiguity has a role to play in any system of deterrence, but such an approach plays differently when the president has not behaved like someone who would, if it came to it, sacrifice Trump Tower for Tallinn.
That the document touts increased focus on the Western Hemisphere is welcome in an era of supply-chain anxiety, as is the language that shows that the White House is aware of — and unhappy about — Chinese commercial encroachment in Latin America. That said, if we want to be respected as a hemispheric leader, mindlessly insulting allies is counterproductive. Needless to say, public posturing about making Canada the 51st state is not a good advertisement for the way the U.S. conducts itself in its own neighborhood.
Running through the document is the assumption that American efforts to contain China militarily and economically will be backed by “treaty allies” (all dutifully paying their way) and partners. We hope that proves to be the case, but allies and partners, current and prospective, who find themselves subject to heavy American tariffs may well prove less enthusiastic to play the part that this administration has assigned to them.
The document emphasizes the administration’s economic priorities, especially the importance of industrial capacity. Given the reality of today’s treacherous geopolitics, that makes sense, at least as far as defense or defense-related activities are concerned, but then there’s this: “Cultivating American industrial strength must become the highest priority of national economic policy.” Really?
There have been some suggestions that the strategy is a kind of abdication. That goes too far. The strategy says that we can remain “the world’s strongest, richest, most powerful, and most successful country.” To do so, however, will mean ensuring that America First does not devolve into America Alone.