The promulgation of the “2025 National Security Strategy of the United States of America” constitutes a radical discontinuity in the trajectory of American grand strategy, representing a formal abrogation of the post-1945 liberal consensus. For eight decades, Washington operated under the paradigm of hegemonic stability, constructing a normative architecture of alliances and multilateral institutions to enforce a rules-based order.
The 2025 Strategy, however, articulates a decisive break from this tradition. By explicitly repudiating globalism and transnationalism in favor of the Primacy of Nations, the document outlines a reversion to a neo-Westphalian conception of statecraft. The US strategy of the resurrection of the Monroe Doctrine, adoption of autarkic neo-mercantilism, and its transactional re-evaluation of collective security undermine the very international system the United States established, precipitating a volatile new era of unrestrained great power rivalry.
To understand the magnitude of the shift presented in the 2025 Strategy, one must revisit the foundational eras of American foreign policy. Throughout the 19th century, the United States adhered largely to the counsel of George Washington’s Farewell Address, which warned against permanent alliances with foreign powers. The young republic focused its energies inward, on continental expansion and the consolidation of its own borders, viewing the machinations of European empires with suspicion.
This sentiment was codified in 1823 with the Monroe Doctrine. President James Monroe warned European powers that the Western Hemisphere was no longer open for colonization and that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas would be viewed as a potentially hostile act against the United States. Historically, this was a defensive posture by a rising regional power seeking to insulate itself from the wars of the Old World.
The 2025 Strategy explicitly resurrects this concept but radicalizes it for the 21st century. The document introduces the “Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” asserting that the U.S. will “deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces… or to own or control strategically vital assets” in the Western Hemisphere. Unlike the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904, which justified US police power to stabilize Latin American economies, the Trump Corollary is fundamentally exclusionary. It is a declaration of a closed sphere of influence, specifically targeting Chinese economic penetration.
By framing the Western Hemisphere as a fortress to be protected from hostile foreign incursion, the strategy signals a psychological return to the isolationism that characterized the US before its entry onto the global stage in 1898. Until 1900, the US remained distant from global affairs, prioritizing its own industrial growth and territorial integrity over the balance of power in Europe or Asia. The new strategy echoes this by declaring, the days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over. This is a stark repudiation of the Truman/Eisenhower/Reagan consensus that viewed American security as indivisible from global security.
The liberal international order was built on the premise that global rules, upheld by institutions like the United Nations (UN), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and NATO, benefited all participants, but especially the United States. The 2025 Strategy attacks the very philosophical root of this order. The document explicitly states that post-Cold War elites “convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country.” It rejects this as a “fundamentally undesirable and impossible goal.” By dismissing the universalist aspirations of the liberal order, the strategy dismantles the moral architecture of the West.
The Irrelevance of the United Nations
The new strategy implicitly renders the United Nations obsolete. The strategy emphasizes Primacy of Nations, stating that “The world’s fundamental political unit is and will remain the nation-state.” It derides international institutions as being driven by outright anti-Americanism and transnationalism that explicitly seeks to dissolve individual state sovereignty. The vision for conflict resolution presented here is not multilateral diplomacy through the UN Security Council, but personalistic, bilateral deal-making. The document cites the President of Peace settling conflicts from the DRC to Gaza through direct intervention, bypassing the deliberative bodies of the international community.
The Transformation of NATO
Another significant structural blow to the old order is the redefinition of alliances. The strategy references a Hague Commitment, which pledges NATO countries to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense, a massive increase from the previous 2 percent target, which many members already failed to meet. By setting such a high bar and framing the alliance as a burden-sharing network, the US is effectively turning NATO into a transactional protection racket. The document warns that while the US will not write Europe off, it questions whether allies who face “civilizational erasure” can remain reliable. This conditional commitment undermines Article 5’s guarantee of mutual defense, replacing collective security with a pay-to-play model.
The Return of the Westphalian State
The core philosophy of the 2025 Strategy is flexible Realism and the Primacy of Nations. This is a rejection of the End of History narrative which assumed the world was moving inevitably toward liberal democracy and globalization. Instead, the strategy prepares for a world of strong, jealous nation-states.
The Era of Mass Migration Is Over
The document devotes significant space to the issue of migration, reframing it from a humanitarian issue to a hard security threat. “Who a country admits into its borders… will inevitably define the future of that nation,” it asserts. The strategy links mass migration to increased crime, weakened social cohesion, and national security threats. This is not merely policy, it is a philosophical stance that prioritizes the homogeneity and sovereignty of the nation-state over international conventions on refugees or asylum. The text goes so far as to warn European allies of civilizational erasure due to migration, a rhetorical escalation that aligns the US with nationalist movements worldwide and against the multicultural ethos of the post-war West.
Sovereignty Over Values
The strategy outlines a predisposition to Non-Interventionism, citing the Declaration of Independence. It argues that nations are entitled to a separate and equal station. This Westphalian view implies that the internal conduct of other regimes, whether they are democracies or dictatorships, is of no concern to the US unless it directly threatens American interests. The document explicitly states, “We seek good relations… without imposing on them democratic or other social change.” This is the final nail in the coffin of the freedom agenda promoted by administrations from Wilson to Bush. The US will no longer be the guarantor of global human rights, but simply another great power protecting its turf.
Neo-Mercantilism
If the liberal order was defined by free trade and economic interdependence, this new order is defined by neo-mercantilism. The strategy views the global economy not as a positive-sum game, but as a zero-sum competition for resources and industrial capacity.
The text calls for reindustrialization and balanced Trade, explicitly rejecting the “misguided and destructive bets on globalism and so-called ‘free trade’ that hollowed out the very middle class.” The tools of this new era are historic tariffs and strict control of supply chains. The goal is energy dominance and the repatriation of critical industries.
Crucially, the strategy weaponizes the US financial system.
It speaks of “Preserving and Growing America’s Financial Sector Dominance” to afford policymakers significant leverage” This suggests that the US dollar and access to US capital markets will be used aggressively to reward friends and punish adversaries. The vision is autarkic:
“The United States must never be dependent on any outside power for core components.”
This drive for total self-sufficiency will likely trigger a global race for autarky, fracturing the global economy into competing trading blocs and reducing global efficiency, a price the strategy deems worth paying for national sovereignty.
The Multipolar World
The document is the first official US acknowledgement that the unipolar moment has irrevocably passed. The document reveals a stark new reality: Dominate the Americas, respect China, undermine Europe, ignore India, retreat from the Middle East, and exploit Africa. This is not a strategy of global leadership, but of managed retreat and selective dominance. The win-win rhetoric of globalism has been replaced by an America First, America Last calculus, where respect is accorded only to those nations that demonstrate self-confidence and raw power.
Americas
The strategy declares a Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, signaling an intent to not merely exercise leadership but to establish exclusionary dominance over the Western Hemisphere. The text explicitly frames the region as a geopolitical fortress to be hermetically sealed against external influence, specifically identifying Chinese economic penetration as a threat to be neutralized. This pivot from cooperative partnership to possessive hegemony places Latin American governments in a precarious strategic dilemma. With the era of triangular diplomacy closing, these nations face the prospect of subordination unless they can organize a cohesive regional bloc capable of negotiating terms with Washington, transitioning from compliant satellites to a collective entity that can simultaneously resist and partner with the hegemon.
Europe
In a departure from diplomatic norms, the document evinces a profound strategic contempt for Europe, characterizing the continent less as a pillar of Western civilization and more as a moribund entity stifled by regulatory suffocation and facing civilizational erasure. This incendiary term is deployed to describe the demographic and cultural shifts occurring within the continent, explicitly endorsing the view that mass migration, coupled with plummeting birth rates and ‘transnational’ EU governance, is fundamentally altering the ethnic and cultural composition of European nation-states.
The Strategy posits that as these nations potentially become majority non-European, their geopolitical reliability and alignment with American interests will fracture, rendering the NATO charter obsolete in the eyes of new demographics. Consequently, the US explicitly commits to “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory,” a statement that implies active support for nativist and anti-establishment forces, thereby subverting the political cohesion of its traditional allies. This hostility serves as an undeniable catalyst for European Strategic Autonomy, making it imperative now for Europe to integrate its defense industries and define geopolitical interests independent of a U.S. ally that has ideologically defected from the transatlantic value system.
East Asia
This Strategy reconceptualizes the Indo-Pacific not as a theater of liberal value projection, but as a hard-power crucible where the failure of liberalism is most acute. The document delivers a scathing autopsy of the liberal engagement strategy, explicitly indicting the “mistaken American assumptions” of the past three decades, specifically the neoliberal faith that opening markets would integrate Beijing into the “so-called ‘rules-based international order.” This admission that the liberal bet on China did not happen”serves as the Strategy’s central proof point for why the liberal international order itself is structurally bankrupt. By asserting that economic interdependence failed to produce political liberalization, the Administration validates its anti-globalist worldview: the failure was not in the execution of the order, but in the naive idealism of its conception.
However, the Strategy’s most radical pivot lies in its complete de-ideologization of the Taiwan question. Moving beyond the rhetoric of democratic solidarity, the document reframes the defense of Taiwan as a cold geostrategic necessity: the island is prized not merely for its semiconductor dominance, but because it “provides direct access to the Second Island Chain” and effectively splits Northeast and Southeast Asia into distinct theaters. The US objective is explicitly defined as “preserving military overmatch” to deny aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain.
Yet, this commitment is bounded by a strict declaratory policy of status quo maintenance, signaling that Washington will not support unilateral independence moves, effectively prioritizing stability and access over democratic self-determination.
This Flexible Realism extends to the alliance architecture, where the US signals the end of automatic guarantees in favor of aggressive burden-shifting. The Strategy asserts that the American military cannot, and should not have to defend the First Island Chain alone. It places specific, quantifiable demands on Japan and South Korea, urging these nations to increase defense spending with a focus on new capabilities rather than legacy systems. Furthermore, the US is pressing these allies for greater access to their ports and other facilities, transforming the alliance from a protective umbrella into a logistical network for US power projection. Finally, the document identifies a specific, mercantile threat in the South China Sea: the potential for a hostile power to impose a toll system on global commerce. This terminology is telling; it treats the maritime commons not as a zone of international law, but as a commercial artery where the primary threat is not the violation of sovereignty, but the extraction of economic rent.
India & Southeast Asia
Despite frequent characterizations of New Delhi as a vital counterweight to Beijing, India is largely marginalized within the document’s strategic calculus. The text offers no elevated status or major defense partner designation, treating India with a benign neglect that suggests it is not currently viewed as central to Washington’s primary sphere of interest. For Indian policymakers, this indifference acts as a severe wake-up call, dismantling the assumption of inevitable US alignment.
Middle East
The Strategy confirms a strategic retreat from the Middle East, viewing the region through a strictly realist and economic lens that downgrades its geopolitical centrality. It explicitly declares the region no longer a core interest, a move that signals the end of the interventionist era that defined the post-9/11 world. This retrenchment is not merely political fatigue but is structurally enabled by the diversification of global energy markets and the US’s own net energy exporter status. With Washington no longer held hostage by the imperative of securing Persian Gulf hydrocarbons, the document asserts that the region is simply not as important as it used to be. This cold economic calculus liberates the US from the necessity of military hegemony, ending the cycle of forever wars but simultaneously removing the security umbrella.
Africa
Africa is stripped of even the pretense of humanitarian concern or value-based engagement. The Strategy explicitly abandons the decades-long project of spreading liberal ideology, condemning it as a failed experiment that distracted from American interests. In a dismal denial of the very tenets of liberalism, the text declares that the US will no longer condition its engagement on democratic reforms or human rights; instead, it will strictly focus on doing business. The continent is viewed strictly through the lens of resource realism as a source of raw materials essential for US reindustrialization. The aid paradigm is explicitly pronounced dead, replaced by a mercantilist extraction model. The message to African capitals is brutal but unambiguous: the US doesn’t care about political liberalization or traditional development assistance. Consequently, African development will depend entirely on self-reliance and the ability to leverage critical mineral wealth to negotiate broad, competitive partnerships with China, Europe, and other powers, rather than waiting for American benevolence that is no longer forthcoming.
Conclusion
The document is more than a policy document, it is a manifesto for a new world order. It assumes that the experiment of global governance has failed. By retreating to the fortress of the Western Hemisphere , demanding financial tribute from allies, and prioritizing the ethnic and cultural cohesion of the nation-state, the United States is abdicating its role as the architect and sustainer of the global system.
The historical parallels are stark. Just as the US in the 19th century focused on the Monroe Doctrine to consolidate its power against Europe, the US of 2025 is using a Trump Corollary to wall itself off from the chaotic effects of globalization. This stance will almost certainly lead to a proliferation of nuclear weapons , a surge in regional conflicts , and a fragmentation of the global economy.
The liberal international order was an anomaly in human history, a brief period where a hegemon volunteered to bear the costs of public goods for the world. This document declares that period is over. The world is returning to the historical norm:
Strong nation-states, guarded borders, mercantilist economics, and the rule of the strong. The United States, having built the cathedral of globalism, is now systematically removing the keystones, confident that it is the only power strong enough to survive the inevitable collapse.
