I've been reading through the new US 2025 National Strategy and I don't see it as a dramatic abandonment of decades of American foreign policy, but rather as a re-set away from the assumptions of the Cold War order.
The reaction's I'm reading only makes sense if the last 30 years are treated as the American norm.
They aren't.
Seen over the long arc of U.S. history, the 2025 NSS is not radical. It's a long overdue *correction* away from Cold War assumptions that lingered long after the Cold War itself ended.
For most of its history, the United States did not define security as managing the entire world. It focused on protecting its own territory, maintaining economic strength at home, avoiding unnecessary foreign wars, and preventing hostile powers from gaining leverage close to U.S. shores. Engagement existed, but it was selective, interest-driven, and transactional.
The Cold War was the exception. Facing an existential rival, the U.S. built permanent alliances, stationed forces globally, and fused ideology with security. That posture made sense in a bipolar world.
After 1991, however, that framework hardened into habit and the institutions we built to protect the State from the USSR did not dimish or reform, instead they ran on autopilot. Intervention became routine. Democracy promotion became a security objective. Alliance expansion became an end in itself. Globalization was treated as inherently stabilizing. American power was assumed to be effectively limitless.
The 2025 NSS marks a conscious break from that mindset.
The strategy doesn't change everything—but it **changes what the U.S. is optimizing for**.
**From Ideology to National Interest**
Security is defined in concrete terms: protecting Americans, American territory, and American prosperity. Democracy promotion and social transformation abroad are no longer treated as intrinsic security goals. Engagement is judged by outcomes, not moral alignment.
**From Transnationalism to Nation-State Primacy**
The nation-state is reaffirmed as the core unit of global order. Sovereignty—political, economic, and cultural—is treated as legitimate. International institutions are tools, not authorities, and are expected to serve national interests.
**From Intervention as Default to Intervention as Exception**
Military force remains central, but the bar for using it is much higher. Wars of choice, regime change, and open-ended nation-building are explicitly disfavored. Deterrence and leverage replace transformation as the primary tools of stability.
**From Globalization to Resilience**
Supply chains, energy independence, industrial capacity, and technological leadership are elevated to core security concerns. Economic vulnerability is treated as strategic vulnerability.
The new Strategy also redfines our global security priorities.
**Western Hemisphere First**
The hemisphere is restored as the primary security ring. Migration control, transnational crime, and blocking hostile extra-regional influence are treated as foundational security tasks. That's what we're seeing now with the actions taken against Venezuela.
**Europe: Important, Not Central**
Europe remains culturally and economically significant, but no longer anchors U.S. strategy. The emphasis shifts to burden-sharing, internal resilience, and avoiding escalation rather than permanent U.S. underwriting. The US at the same time is concerned that Europe may not a long-term viable ally – that it is crippling itself with bad economic and social policies. A strong and confident Europe is an asset -- can it be that??
**Middle East: Managed Risk**
Core interests remain—energy flows, sea lanes, counterterrorism, Israel's security—but the region is no longer the centerpiece of U.S. strategy. Large-scale military presence and nation-building are explicitly rejected.
**Indo-Pacific: Decisive Theater**
The Indo-Pacific becomes the primary arena for long-term competition, driven by trade, maritime security, alliance capability, and deterrence.
**China: Systemic Competitor, Not Ideological Enemy**
China is treated as a peer competitor across economic, technological, and military domains—but not as a civilization to be remade. The focus is on reciprocity, resilience, and balance, not conversion.
What This Adds Up To
Taken together, the 2025 NSS points toward a strategy built around **durability over dominance**, **prioritization over ubiquity**, and **cohesion at home over transformation abroad**. Leadership is no longer measured by how many problems the U.S. touches, but by how effectively it protects its core interests without overextending itself.
In that sense, the strategy doesn't represent America turning inward—or abandoning the world. It represents the United States stepping away from a Cold War framework that outlived its moment and returning to a much older American instinct:
**engage the world, but don't let the world consume you.**
Anyways -- that's what I think. You can read it for yourself at the link below.
Agree? Disagree? How does this change global security and relations?
National Security Strategy of the United States of America
November 2025
PDF link
adds a tower to his 15mm trainyard.
