- The document meets two key requirements for good strategy: unambiguous instructions and agenda-setting for the US foreign policy and national security apparatus, and detailed signaling to friends and foes about where we are headed.

- The author is a Strategic Analyst at the Atlantic Council.

ISTANBUL

US President Donald Trump’s administration published the National Security Strategy (NSS) for its second term last week [1], and the tone of the document differs markedly from previous NSS versions. It might fairly be accused of overdoing self-congratulation and laud, exaggerating present accomplishments and denigrating those who came before – all in the first three pages of text. Despite having provoked the reader with a bit of braggadocio, the document proceeds then to some interesting and even formidable points.

Platitudes to priorities

The writers begin by poking a well-deserved hole in US strategic practice since the end of the Cold War: the propensity to issue purported strategy documents that list platitudes but avoid priorities, reading more like a phantasmagoric wish-list than a serious approach to protecting real US interests in an increasingly competitive world.

The document eschews ideological approaches of the right or the left and returns to strategic essentials: identify core interests, consider available resources, and lay out general ways in which the latter will be employed to satisfy the former. This is a terse but welcome approach and makes the document far easier to follow and believe than its many predecessors.

The section on “What Should the United States Want” carries a typical vision of American conservative foreign policy. Survival, sovereignty, military advantage, nuclear deterrence, economic and industrial strength. Newer elements include a shift from “values” to “spiritual and cultural health” and prominent reference to borders and energy exports. The regional breakdown is concise: priority to the Western Hemisphere, no hegemons or trade barriers in the Mideast, a Europe that pulls its own weight and fixes its internal problems, “free and open Indo-Pacific,” fair trade and US tech leadership. The short section on US means/resources shows a confident self-assessment coupled with a dose of skepticism about keeping our ambitions tethered to the limits of those tools.

Where words and policy converge

The meat of the document (pages 8-14) lays out the specific principles and priorities of the administration, with the remainder (pages 15-29) laying out how they will be applied in various regions. There are 10 principles and five priorities; none will surprise those who have followed the speeches and actions of Trump, and all have been pursued to varying degrees already during the first year of his second term. In this sense the National Security Strategy is remarkable for its lack of pretense. Most such documents rest on so much aspiration and pretense that readers know that the limits of time, attention, and political will greatly constrain execution, and they find it difficult to trace concrete actions to the posited program. In Trump’s case there is not only potential for him to pursue most of what is written – but it is playing out in real time as the document hits the streets.

Not everyone will like the contents. The description of China is too mild [2] for many and the prescriptions for Europe too harsh [3] for others. A critique in Foreign Affairs finds contradictions [4], insularity, and lack of historical perspective in the document’s approach.

Niall Ferguson sees it [5] as fairly conventional, aside from stinging rebukes of the post-Cold War record of US foreign policy. The Russians didn’t mind the document at all [6], given the modesty of its vision for the exercise of American power, and that brings condemnation from all who demand a stronger anti-Russian stance from the administration. Turkish readers might be put off by the country meriting only a single mention, and that in the context of stabilizing Syria. Yet the strategy’s recurring theme of allowing, demanding, and encouraging allies to do more in their regions is clearly a boon to US-Turkish relations, and perhaps welcome after decades of what has seemed very much like Washington seeking to undermine Ankara’s pursuit of its own security interests across the many regions it touches.

Redlines for friends and foes alike

This National Security Strategy should be, and has been, taken more seriously than previous such documents. The value of a published strategy as a signal of intent is clear – it lays out opportunities and redlines for friends and foes alike. Knowing that such documents are typically written by large interagency committees, hide much in their breadth and subtlety, and only loosely relate to an administration’s practice of statecraft beyond the printed page, it is a breath of fresh air to receive such a clear and delimited diagnosis and roadmap for execution. Its approach can and should be challenged over concerns about alliance management, balance of deterrence and pragmatism, and the penchant for declaring complete or straightforward tasks that will require strenuous effort and follow-through for years. In sum, though, the document meets two key requirements for good strategy: unambiguous instructions and agenda-setting for the US foreign policy and national security apparatus, and detailed signaling to friends and foes about where we are headed.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf

[2] https://www.newsweek.com/china-issues-response-to-us-national-security-strategy-11171874

[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/8/eu-slams-critical-us-security-strategy-notes-changed-relationship

[4] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/trumps-power-paradox

[5] https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-the-truth-about-trumps-national-security-strategy

[6] https://www.newsweek.com/russia-welcomes-donald-trumps-national-security-strategy-11170196 

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu's editorial policy.