It is never a good sign when the US national security plan is praised by Russia as “largely consistent with our vision.”
But that’s the strange world we live in, where donald trump and his administration continues to embolden our autocratic adversaries and alienate our democratic allies.
This is now official American policy, expressed in the form of the Recently published National Security Strategy – a directional document issued by each administration to announce its strategic priorities and position to the world.
Full of Trumpian bluster and contradictions, this document represents a complete break with the world the United States built with its allies after World War II. It’s a red, white and blue middle finger to the free world. In some places, it even seems like it was written by the Kremlin, framing our foreign policy approach to date as the result of “elites.” [who] “They became convinced that permanent American domination of the entire world was best for our country.”
This is a slander and an insult to bipartisan liberal internationalism that relies on collective security agreements (among Western democracies of all sizes) to act as a counterweight to autocratic aggression, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Literally no American administration – from Truman to Reagan to Obama – has believed that “permanent American domination of the entire world was in our country’s best interest.”
This is, however, a frequent topic of conversation in Russia, parroted by useful idiots on the far right and far left. The fact that the current Trump administration’s 28-point peace proposal for Ukraine extracted from Russian documents it only highlights the reflective admiration of the dictator or this president. Now it is backed by a material. withdrawal of NATO alliesa long time Christmas gift Vladimir PutinThe wish list.
This national security plan codifies that the Trump administration finds common cause with the axis of autocrats in defending regional hegemony as a vision for the 21st century. This allows Trump to flaunt altruistic words like “sovereignty” and “peace” in ways that fit the direction Russia and China prefer in the world.
In this vision, the United States leans into its role as defender of the Western Hemisphere, which helps explain Trump’s repeated, bleating interest in everything from annexing Greenland and Canada to retaking the Panama Canal and, of course, current threats to the odious Maduro regime in Venezuela (more on this later).
The other side of Trump’s strategy to seize regional power is uncomfortable might makes right balance of power peace with the other regional hegemons, China and Russia. China comes to dominate Asia, and Taiwan is a tempting target on China’s president-for-life Xi’s to-do list. Russia gains eastern Ukraine and a weakened NATO, which fits perfectly with JD Vance’s musings. Svengal right wing Curtis Yarvinwhose stated foreign policy vision for Europe is “Giving Russia a free hand on the continent.”
Throughout history, dictators have claimed that the pursuit of peace is their only goal. But the peace they defend is always a peace at the point of the bayonet, a peace that requires surrender under threat of invasion and annihilation. It is a vision of “peace” captured by the great Mel Brooks in his film To be or not to bewhen Brooks, playing hitler In an onstage skit, he protests that all he wants is peace: “A little piece of Poland/A little piece of France/A little piece of Portugal/and Austria maybe…”
In the recent past, the far left was, stereotypically, more susceptible to these appeasing visions of peace. But now we see the rise of what we might call “code pink conservatives” who embrace an isolationist view of the world that really doesn’t give a damn about what happens beyond our shores. as Vance infamously proclaimed about the fate of Ukraine. This is extremely naive, especially if you believe in peace through strength.
Contradictions are everywhere. Ash Washington Post columnist Max Boot points out: “He [National Security Strategy] says “we must continue to improve trade (and other) relations with India” even as US-India relations have been ruined by Trump’s decision. 50 percent tariffs. The NSS also promises to “maintain America’s incomparable ‘soft power,’ even as the administration guts real soft power instruments, such as Voice of America and the United States Agency for International Development.”
In the days after the publication of the National Security Strategy, Trump joined the whiplash by approving the sale of critical AI chips from Nvidia to China, undermining tough talk about ensuring American leadership in the AI arms race. And those delusional Trump supporters who convinced themselves that Donald was deaf are twisting themselves in knots trying to understand his growing calls for regime change in Venezuela, with no obvious plan to secure the failed socialist state, which only increases the chances of compounding the disaster in that already hijacked and once prosperous nation.
It is true that the United States needs to remember that we are a republic, not an empire. But if we truly want to secure peace we must take into account the lessons of history and strengthen the ties between democratic republics (both military and economic) to act as a determined counterweight to the growing autocratic alliance. There is no real safety in the ostrich’s isolationist impulse to ignore aggression or empower aggressors through appeasement. As NATO’s secretary general warned bluntly this week: “Conflict is at our doorstep. Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the magnitude of the war that our grandparents and great-grandparents endured.”
