In November 2025, the Trump Administration published its National Security Strategy (NSS). Since at least the early 1990s, this type of policy statement has been issued periodically by the executive branch of the U.S. government to define the security concerns of a given administration and to begin forging consensus by offering policy guidance. Some of the ideas put forward are propaganda, not serious statements of actual policy. But any NSS document is worth examining in some detail, as it offers a window into the deeper strategic thinking and vision, as well as the worldview of those who make or seriously influence U.S. policy agendas.
Traditionally, these documents have focused on economic and military imperatives, including potential or actual great power conflicts and disruptions like terrorism. They have attempted to understand adversaries and offer guidance on how to deal with domestic publics (including Congress) and foreign allies. Foes were also put on notice as to U.S. aims and possible points of conflict.
President Trump’s aspirational introduction to the 2025 National Security Strategy states that this “document is a roadmap to ensure that America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history, and the home of freedom on earth…. We will continue to develop every dimension of our national strength—and we will make America safer, richer, freer, greater and more powerful than ever before.”[1]
The Trump Administration’s 2025 NSS represents a radical change from prior NSS documents. Its main thrusts are both racist and imperialist. It focuses on white ethnonationalism and anti-migration policies, its aspirations in the Western Hemisphere, capitalist economic relationships, and resource imperialism. Little mention is made about great power conflicts or democratic ideals, and it is hostile to climate sustainability concerns, multilateralism, and multiculturalism. It reinforces a growing tendency to divide the world into three main power blocs: the United States/Western Hemisphere; Western Europe; and Russia/China. These themes, and an alternative worldview that suggests what a humane security strategy might look like, will be discussed in turn.
The contradictions manifest in this NSS document are many. Especially striking, under the heading “Protection of Core Rights and Liberties” is this statement:
The purpose of the American government is to secure the God-given natural rights of American citizens. To this end, departments and agencies of the United States Government have been granted fearsome powers. These powers must never be abused.… When and where those powers are abused, abusers must be held accountable. In particular, the rights of free speech, freedom of religion and of conscience, and the right to choose and steer our common government are core rights that must never be infringed.[2]
This policy is obviously not being followed by the present and past Trump Administrations. The Trump-led January 2020 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol is only one example. At this moment, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are massively terrorizing U.S. citizens, residents and communities, and attempts to rig elections are ongoing.
White ethnonationalism
Although the words ethnonationalism and white supremacy never appear in the 2025 NSS document, they provide a key racist framework. The first entry, called “Priorities,” baldly states that whoever a country admits into its borders will define the future of that country; therefore border security is central to national security, and the “era of mass migration is over.”[3] Ending U.S. multiculturalism by keeping out people from other parts of the world (i.e., people of color) is thus seen as essential.
This theme continues in the section on “Promoting European Greatness,” where it is argued that Europe’s economy is losing global GDP share, but “this decline is eclipsed by the real and stark prospect of civilizational erasure.”[4] Changes due to mass migration to Europe could result in some NATO members becoming majority non-European countries, thus threatening the future of NATO. It is, therefore, “an open question whether they will view.… their alliance with the United States in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.”[5] But this 2025 NSS sees hope for Europe in the form of right-wing “patriotic” parties like the National Front in France, Reform UK in Great Britain, Orban’s Fidesz party in Hungary, and the AFD in Germany.[6]
The section on “Competence and Merit” is yet another example of white ethnonationalism. It suggests that competence and merit “are among our greatest civilizational advantages,” and “the success of radical ideologies that seek to replace competence and merit with favored group status would make America unrecognizable.”[7] Were it not so serious, such a statement would be laughable, since this government has put so many inexperienced, incompetent people into leading positions of power, while systematically removing long-serving, dedicated public servants whose ethnic background and skin color are out of favor. All of this corresponds to the Trump Administration’s attempts to destroy the diverse and rich multicultural nature of American and European culture and society.
A Western Hemisphere focus: The ‘Trump Corollary’
In the 2025 NSS, the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine is described as follows:
After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere.[8]
To carry this out, the NSS argues, the United States must readjust “our global military presence to address urgent threats in our hemisphere, especially the missions identified in this strategy” (such missions include establishing or expanding access in strategically important locations, controlling sea lanes, reducing drug trafficking, defeating cartels, and thwarting illegal migration).[9]
In a preceding section regarding the importance of the Western Hemisphere to the United States, there is a discussion of the need for restoring “American energy dominance (oil, coal, and nuclear) and reshoring the necessary key energy components [as] a top strategic priority…that enables us to project power. We reject the disastrous ‘climate change and ‘Net Zero’ ideologies.”[10] In sum, the United States “must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity.”[11]
The Trump Corollary would require that “the terms of our agreements, especially with those countries.…over which we have the most leverage, must be sole source contracts for our companies.”[12] A recent example is the Trump Administration’s recruiting of U.S. oil companies to take over Venezuela’s oil fields, trying to justify regime change, including overthrowing governments and seizing resources and “strategic” locations like Greenland and Panama.
Asian access: ‘Win the economic future, prevent military confrontation’
The 2025 NSS expands on this economic focus with regard to the key global influence of Asia. It notes that since the Indo-Pacific region is very important economically, with as much as half the world’s GDP, this area “is already and will continue to be among the next century’s key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds. To thrive at home, we must successfully compete there.”[13] To “safeguard our prime position in the world economy,” the United States must end “predatory, state-directed subsidies and industrial strategies” and “threats against our supply chains that risk U.S. access to critical resources, including minerals and rare earth elements.”[14]
Following from this, military priorities include maintaining “American economic and technological preeminence…the surest way to deter and prevent large-scale conflict,” and “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.”[15] The future of the South China Sea is also discussed:
A related security challenge is the potential for any competitor to control the South China Sea. This could allow a potentially hostile power to impose a toll system over one of the World’s most vital sea lanes of commerce…. Strong measures must be developed along with the deterrence necessary to keep these lanes open…. This will require not just further investment in our military—especially naval—capabilities, but also strong cooperation with every nation that stands to suffer—from India to Japan and beyond.[16]
The Middle East and Africa
Almost as an afterthought, at the end of the NSS document are two short sections on the Middle East and Africa. As always, the Middle East is seen as a key source of energy, less so now because “energy supplies have diversified greatly, with the United States once again a net energy exporter.”[17] U.S. national interests are summed up as follows: “America will always have core interests in ensuring that Gulf energy supplies do not fall into the hands of an outright enemy, that the Strait of Hormuz remain open, that the Red Sea remain navigable, that the region not be an incubator or exporter of terror…and that Israel remain secure.”[18]
Similarly, Africa is seen as a source of raw materials and markets:
The United States should transition from an aid-focused relationship with Africa to a trade-and investment-focused relationship, favoring partnership with capable, reliable states committed to opening their markets to U.S. goods and services. An immediate area for U.S. investment in Africa, with prospects for a good return on investment, include the energy sector and critical mineral development.[19]
Summary
Taken together, the statements expressed in the 2025 NSS and recent specific actions reveal a policy based on the lawless logic of force—domination by the strongest. This is social Darwinism, a barbaric, outdated, racist, and imperialistic attitude which holds that since the United States has overwhelming military power, Trump and other leaders can violently do whatever they want, especially in the Western Hemisphere, but also in other parts of the world. This includes attempting to force regime changes in order to seize oil, minerals, forests, human labor, and other resources that belong to other nations. Such an aggressively threatening and fascist policy destroys any pretense of a rules-based global order and has obvious and serious negative implications for the future of many nations, including the United States. Under such a doctrine, democracy exists only by imperial consent and entire nations and peoples are seen as raw material for exploitation by U.S. corporate interests.
This is creating an uglier world, one characterized by injustice, hatred, violence, instability and war. Attempts by rogue countries to destroy the national sovereignty of other weaker nations in order to turn them into vassal states subject to coercion and plunder must fail. The Trump Administration’s recent actions, predicted by the 2025 NSS, are attempts to cow the governments of the Western Hemisphere and other areas of the world into a status of subordination to the United States and to halt their drift toward closer ties to other powers, especially China. Such policies always, sooner rather than later, generate pushback and the eventual defeat of the imperialist aggressor, as Hitler and Napoleon learned too late. A de-risking strategy on the part of other nations is rapidly becoming clear, as varied nations move closer to China to counterbalance U.S. domination. The role of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency is also coming under threat, and more nations are considering building nuclear weapons to protect against rogue superpowers. World instability and the threat to human survival is growing as a result.
Like German Nazi policies before World War II, the 2025 NSS openly proclaims that white ethnonationalism should be followed in both the United States and Europe and that immigrants from other cultures with other skin colors should be kept out of their nations. Furthermore, it insists that the United States should be fully hegemonic in the Western Hemisphere, following a “might makes right” imperialist doctrine. To mention only a few examples, Venezuelan oil, Chilean copper, and Brazilian rain forests should all be under U.S. control to use or sell as it sees fit. In addition, “key geographies,” strategic areas such as Greenland and the Panama Canal, should be owned and controlled by the United States. Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa should remain open to U.S. trade, investment and influence. This is the historic U.S. policy of the “open door,” backed by force. A bloc division of the world is projected, except that Europe’s, China’s, and Russia’s spheres of influence need to remain open to the United States, while the U.S. Western Hemisphere hegemonic sphere is closed to them.
One of the most pernicious effects of such U.S policies is likely to be the response of other nations. Other nations and peoples, out of defensive necessity, will likely accelerate their military capabilities and preparedness. This military spending will increase the carbon emissions that are now impacting an already fragile global environment prone to floods, excessive heat, fires, pollution, extreme weather events, and droughts. This will make the already manifest global climate chaos worse, further threatening the habitability of our planet.
The 2025 NSS illustrates that for the United States the era of at least verbal concern for government legitimacy and soft power is over. Hard power is the reality at home and abroad. Under current material concerns, as climate chaos threatens the planet’s habitability, the pursuit of hegemony must yield to a search for cooperation and survival. Winners disappear when rank imperialism, force, and violence are the current practice of U.S. capitalism. This NSS represents a prime expression of a social organization that can neither hide nor change the destruction that lies at the heart of a monopoly capitalist system that continuously brings forth morally and politically bankrupt behaviors.
A democratic and just alternative: Constructing a humane security strategy
Instead of a nationalist-based intensification of an existing dog-eat-dog world, based on force and violence, we badly need to propose an alternative worldview, outlining what a progressive security strategy might look like. Trump and his flunkies will be gone, hopefully soon. Their radical destruction and reconfiguration of the U.S. government and assault on democracy and human rights presents an opportunity to deeply rethink what the American people want and need from future governments. Such a human-focused security strategy would need to be developed by people of many nations, with wide discussion.
A humane security strategy would involve fighting for a fundamentally different and more cooperative social and world order that is a moral, political and economic antidote to the hegemony of the irresponsible government that President Trump, a convicted felon, now heads. This alternative, ecosocialism, is expressed first by valuing both humanity and nature and their undeniably close connectedness. This new road must have as its goal the comprehensive development of every member of the human family, not an obscene commitment to the unlimited greed, wealth and power of the few. Key values should include equality, common prosperity, ecological sustainability, collective ownership, scientific rationality, social justice, peace, equitable distribution of wealth and income, and full participatory direct democracy. If humanity is to survive, humans must be the subjects of our collective destiny through the organization of freely associated labor, asserted in revolutionary ways.
We cannot be passive observers dismally watching our human rights taken away and our beautiful earth and its wonderful life forms die. Americans come from a revolutionary heritage. The American Declaration of Independence is 250 years old this year. The Declaration was in effect the first NSS, because one needs a nation first before you can have a security strategy. The document asserted the right of change and revolution with its famous statement:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.[20]
Among the many peoples’ grievances against King George III listed in this truly world-shaking human rights document—stunning for its time—were:
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us
For protecting them…from punishment for any Murders which they…commit
He has made Judges dependent on his will alone
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States, for that purpose obstructing the Laws for the Naturalization of Foreigners
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice
For transporting us beyond the Seas to be tried for pretended offenses[21]
It is all too clear that these grievances echo what a majority of today’s Americans are experiencing or observing from the actions of President Trump. We should not tolerate tyrants and their methods. The Declaration of Independence, our nation’s founding document, concludes in part: “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”[22]
Notes
[1] President Donald J. Trump, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (November 2025), ii.
[2] Ibid., 12.
[3] Ibid., 11.
[4] Ibid., 25.
[5] Ibid., 27.
[6] Ibid., 26.
[7] Ibid., 11.
[8] Ibid., 15–16.
[9] Ibid., 14.
[10] Ibid., 16.
[11] Ibid., 17.
[12] Ibid., 19.
[13] Ibid., 19.
[14] Ibid., 21.
[15] Ibid., 23.
[16] Ibid., 24.
[17] Ibid., 27.
[18] Ibid., 28.
[19] Ibid., 29.
[20] National Archives of the United States, Declaration of Independence, 1776, 1.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid.