There is value in following Trump’s comments. I wanted to see the recent interview in which he said “Europe is weak”, and this led me to something more serious, more apparently serious, I should say (since they are related): the recent publication of the ‘National Security Strategy of the United States of America‘. A primary document. I found it, and printed it out: 30 pages. And it is a good read: well-written, lacking the sort of matron-in-the-asylum-in-denial tone that afflicts the style in which HM Government documents are written.

Then I found that The Rest is Politics had offered its opinion of this document. And I, humble as always, am always willing to listen to an opinion: until I find myself saying “ridiculous” and struggling to write down the rubbish coming out of Rory Stewart’s mouth. Unfortunately, this happened. And, as usual, the response is as interesting and important as the original document. But first things first. So the document.

The ‘National Security Strategy’, on the face of it, is a strangely sensible document. Trump in his opening letter talks about borders, getting “radical gender ideology and woke lunacy out of our Armed Forces” and the dual business of America which is, first, becoming strong, and, second, through this strength securing as much peace as is possible.

Bear in mind I am reading this on the surface.

The introduction has a bracing effect. It warns that previous American strategies since the end of the Cold War have involved “vague platitudes”. It also notes that previous security strategy was based on an illusion that there could be “permanent American domination of the entire world”. So mistakes were made. There were “destructive bets on globalism”. Indeed, “international organisations” are often “driven by outright anti-Americanism” and also a desire to “dissolve individual state sovereignty”. What this signifies, it seems, on the surface of course, is a desire on the part of America to withdraw from illusions about world domination. Americans still want to be the greatest, richest, all that.

Over the next pages we get the following, and I excerpt:

we will be unapologetic about our country’s past…

…strong, traditional families…

…restoring Europe’s civilisational self-confidence…

…rooting out so-called ‘DEI’…

…realistic without being realist…

…predisposition to non-intervention…

…the world’s fundamental political unity is and will remain the nation-state…

…preventing its erosion by transnational and international organisations…

…border security is the primary element of national security…

…rights of free speech…

…peace deals…

Read More: America’s National Security Warning to Europe