“We
are prioritizing the interests of our citizens and protecting our
sovereign rights as a nation…We are not hiding from the challenges we
face. We are confronting them head-on and pursuing opportunities to
promote the security and prosperity of all Americans.” So begins
President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy (NSS). The purpose of an NSS is to explain how each administration
views the security challenges facing the United States—and how it plans
to address them. Love it or hate it, President Donald Trump’s NSS does
this with often-blunt language and an unapologetic defense of the
“America First” approach that shaped his campaign and his first year in
office.
Three themes run throughout Trump’s NSS: threats, sovereignty and
competition. Trump’s NSS mentions some variant of threat or danger 129
times, competition 73 times and sovereignty 24 times.
Threats
Trump’s starting point is that the United States “faces an
extraordinarily dangerous world, filled with a wide range of threats.”
These include “rogue regimes…developing nuclear weapons and missiles to
threaten the entire planet,” “radical Islamist terror groups,” “rival
powers…aggressively undermining American interests,” and “criminal
cartels…bringing drugs and danger into our communities.”
The document is unambiguous about the sources of these threats:
“China and Russia challenge American power…the dictatorships of the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran
are determined to destabilize regions, threaten Americans and our
allies, and brutalize their own people.” “Jihadist terrorists” and
“transnational criminal organizations are…trying to harm Americans.”
Reflecting the worldview of the document’s main author, National
Security Advisor Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s NSS explains that “While
these challenges differ in nature and magnitude, they are fundamentally
contests between those who value human dignity and freedom and those who
oppress individuals and enforce uniformity.” This is undeniably true.
The document’s bluntness about the dangers and threats facing the
nation is helpful. The “arc of history,” to borrow a phrase often used
by President Barack Obama, is not bending inevitably toward some Kantian perpetual peace. If anything, the world seems to be careening toward chaos.
The Obama administration’s belief that it could magically “reset”
relations with a revisionist Russia, cajole China into building “spheres
of cooperation,” make deals with the likes of Iran, “turn the page on a
decade of war” with a vicious enemy still in the field, and slash
defense spending in a time of war did nothing to slow—let alone
reverse—the slide toward chaos. But don’t take my word for it. During
his December visit to Europe, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert
Neller ominously warned his men, “There’s a war coming.” On the very
same week, Defense Secretary James Mattis told Army soldiers, “Storm
clouds are gathering” over the Korean Peninsula.
Competition
Trump’s NSS doesn’t view competition—and the friction it often
brings—as a cause of this chaos or even necessarily as a threat to the
U.S.
With an echo of TR, Trump’s NSS explains, “Competition is healthy
when nations share values and build fair and reciprocal relationships.”
Indeed, the premise of Trump’s NSS is that nation-states are in constant
competition—and that America should deal with this reality and the
world as it is, not as we hope it to be.
“Contests over influence are timeless,” according to Trump’s NSS,
which adds that America will for the foreseeable future, as it has in
the past, “compete with adversarial forces to preserve and advance our
security, prosperity and the principles we hold dear.”
Thus, Trump warns that America “will no longer tolerate economic
aggression or unfair trading practices” and “will no longer turn a blind
eye to violations, cheating or economic aggression.” He vows to “rebuild
our economic strength” and “restore confidence in the American economic
model,” calls out “competitors such as China” that “steal U.S.
intellectual property,” and promises to “defend our national security
innovation base against competitors.”
Trump’s NSS bluntly argues that “We stood by while countries
exploited the international institutions we helped to build,” that the
international economic system “must be reformed to help American workers
prosper, protect our innovation, and reflect the principles upon which
that system was founded,” that America must “pursue an economic
strategy” that “revitalizes the U.S. manufacturing base…and achieves
energy dominance.”
In short, there’s no romanticism here about the promise of
globalization. Gone are the days of bolstering a global economic system
to lift the world (and Americans along the way); instead, Trump wants to
fortify America’s economic strength in order to lift the American
people (and perhaps the world along the way).
Sovereignty
The Trump NSS suggests that a key solution to the threats America
faces, the chaos roiling the world and the unhealthy brand of
competition in which China and others engage is “a world of strong,
sovereign and independent nations”—and most pointedly a strong,
sovereign and independent America.
Trump is committed to “strengthening our sovereignty.” His NSS vows
to defend “our sovereign right to determine who should enter our country
and under what circumstances.” And it puts supranational organizations
on notice: “It should be clear that the United States will not cede
sovereignty to those that claim authority over American citizens and are
in conflict with our constitutional framework.”
Trump vows to resist states and nonstate actors that “undermine
sovereign governments,” help “partner states…confront nonstate threats
and strengthen their sovereignty,” “help South Asian nations maintain
their sovereignty,” collaborate with “the NATO alliance of free and
sovereign states…to protect our mutual interests, sovereignty and
values,” ensure that “sovereign African states…are integrated into the
world economy,” and confront China, which has “expanded its power at the
expense of the sovereignty of others.”
This recommitment to sovereignty is worthy of applause. Recent
decades have seen a multi-pronged assault on the nation-state system and
on the very notion of sovereignty—a worrisome development that represents a serious threat to U.S. interests and to the liberal
international order the United States forged after World War II. As
McMaster understands, the natural order of the world is not that
orderly. The nation-state system has brought a measure of order, but it
takes hard work to maintain it. Trump’s NSS commits America to this
effort.
There is a danger, however, in overemphasizing sovereignty. An
overemphasis on sovereignty abroad can lead to complacency in the face
of barbaric behavior by governments against their own people. Assad,
Qaddafi, Milosevic and Saddam all used sovereignty to rationalize their
crimes. The idea that what happens within a nation-state is unimportant
to other nation-states is as pernicious as the idea that borders are
irrelevant. Consider an example from close to home: If my neighbor harms
someone on his property, encroaches on my property, or through action
or inaction negatively impacts me and my property, he is misusing his
sphere of sovereignty. In the same way, what happens inside
nation-states becomes a concern when governments brutalize their
citizens, negatively impact neighboring nation-states or simply stop
governing.
Here at home, an overemphasis on sovereignty could lead to a fortress
mentality, which may be where Trump is headed. Consider some of the
language and goals laid out in his NSS: The U.S. “will enhance vetting
of prospective immigrants, refugees and other foreign visitors,” “secure
our borders through the construction of a border wall,” and develop
“multilayered defenses.” In addition, Trump has vowed to build up the military; embraced the historically-fraught “America First” label,
with its isolationist connotations; threatened to “terminate” NAFTA; called NATO “obsolete”; and in a surprising echo of Obama’s “nation-building
here at home” mantra, declared, “We have to build our own nation.”
Reinvesting in our military and controlling our borders are
necessary. But if we put these two halves of Trump’s foreign-policy
vision together—building up and pulling back—it looks like the blueprint
for a 21st-century “Fortress America.” As history reminds us, the
security payoffs of such an approach are fleeting. Both the national
interest and international security suffer when America turns inward.
Comparisons
Like Obama’s first NSS, Trump uses his NSS to offer implicit and sometimes explicit critiques of his predecessors.
“When America does not lead,” Trump argues, “malign actors fill the
void to the disadvantage of the United States”—an obvious swipe at
Obama’s “lead from behind” approach.
“There is no arc of history that ensures that America’s free
political and economic system will automatically prevail,” Trump’s NSS
adds—a blunt rejoinder to one of Obama’s favorite phrases.
“We convinced ourselves that all wars would be fought and won
quickly,” Trump’s NSS observes, a swipe at President George W. Bush. And
by noting that in the Middle East, “The United States has learned that
neither aspirations for democratic transformation nor disengagement can
insulate us from the region’s problems,” Trump’s NSS swipes at both Bush
and Obama.
“Instead of building military capacity, as threats to our national
security increased, the United States dramatically cut the size of our
military to the lowest levels since 1940,” the Trump NSS observes. “We
will preserve peace through strength by rebuilding our military so that
it remains preeminent, deters our adversaries, and if necessary, is able
to fight and win.” Beyond Trump’s blunt from-the-gut rhetoric, which
contrasts with Obama’s nuanced and cerebral approach, the most striking
difference between Trump and Obama is this recommitment to peace through
strength—the military strategy that undergirded President Ronald
Reagan’s foreign policy.
Whatever the fiscal benefits of the bipartisan gamble known as
sequestration, they came at an enormous cost to the U.S. military. Even
before the sequester guillotine fell, the Pentagon had cut $487 billion
from projected spending, which means the Pentagon would lose nearly $1
trillion in expected resources by the time sequestration had run its
course. Readiness, training, modernization, maintenance, weapons
development and acquisition, and deterrent military strength suffered
because of sequestration.
Thanks in large part to sequestration, “Today’s Air Force is the
smallest and oldest it has ever been,” an Air Force report grimly
concludes.
In 2011, the Army’s active-duty force was 566,000; by 2016, it had
fallen to 476,000. The Army’s active-duty force was 480,000 before 9/11,
which means sequestration left America with a smaller Army in a time of
war than it fielded in a time of peace.
Before sequestration, the Marine Corps fielded 202,100 active-duty
personnel; by the end of 2016, there were only 184,000 Marines on active
duty—and only 41 percent of Marine aircraft were able to fly.
At the height of Reagan’s rebuild, the Navy boasted 594 ships. Today’s Navy has only 277 active ships.
Congress passed and Trump signed a $700-billion defense budget in December—a 13.2-percent increase over the previous year. But one budget cycle is not enough to repair the self-inflicted wounds of sequestration.
In keeping with peace through strength, Trump’s NSS calls nuclear
weapons “the foundation of our strategy to preserve peace and stability
by deterring aggression.” Obama’s first NSS, by contrast, promised that
“a world without nuclear weapons…will increase global security.” Obama
vowed “to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear
weapons” and whittled the U.S. arsenal down to 1,393 strategic nuclear warheads.
Obama’s was a noble goal. After all, these are hideous weapons. They
can erase entire cities. And in the event of the unthinkable—a
full-fledged nuclear war between two or more of the nuclear
heavyweights—they could erase mankind. Of course, that’s precisely why
they have been so effective at preventing great-power conflict. It’s no
coincidence that before the advent of the Bomb, some 76 million people
died in two global wars between 1914 and 1945—or that there have been no
global wars in the 72 years since. In other words, nuclear weapons do
indeed preserve peace and deter aggression.
Yet Trump’s NSS also finds common ground with his predecessors. The
Trump NSS commits the U.S. to continuing Obama’s Pacific Pivot: “Chinese
dominance risks diminishing the sovereignty of many states in the
Indo-Pacific.” Thus, the U.S. “will deepen our strategic partnership
with India” and “seek to increase quadrilateral cooperation with Japan,
Australia, and India.”
Likewise, the Trump NSS vows to continue Obama’s reassurance
initiative in response to Russian aggression in Europe: “On NATO’s
eastern flank we will continue to strengthen deterrence and defense.”
Finally, Trump’s NSS embraces the broad outlines and objectives of
the War on Terror, which began under Bush, was handed off to Obama and
continues under Trump: “America, alongside our allies and partners, is
fighting a long war against…fanatics who advance a totalitarian vision
for a global Islamist caliphate.” In fact, there are echoes in Trump’s
NSS of the Bush Doctrine. “We must prevent nuclear, chemical,
radiological and biological attacks, block terrorists from reaching our
homeland…pursue threats to their source, so that jihadist terrorists are
stopped before they ever reach our borders…and prevent their
reemergence before they can threaten the U.S. homeland.”
Debates
“An America that is safe, prosperous and free at home is an America
with the strength, confidence and will to lead abroad,” the document
concludes. This is undeniably true.
What’s debatable is if a modern-day Fortress America can be kept safe
from the many threats this NSS identifies. If America doesn’t remain
engaged in the world, concerned about the world and geographically
postured to deal with the threats and dangers of the world, those
threats will metastasize.
What’s debatable is if Trump’s zero-sum approach to trade can fuel
the sort of prosperity that America has enjoyed since the end of World
War II—a prosperity that depends on an international architecture of
economic, political and trade arrangements built by and sustained by
America.
What’s debatable is if an inward-looking America—an America focused
on “nation building at home,” to use Obama’s phrase, an America focused
on “build[ing] our own nation,” to use Trump’s—can protect its freedom
and independence, let alone advance freedom, democratic government and
liberal values overseas.
Obama’s stand-off foreign policy showed that America can’t “lead from
behind”—and that no one likes a backseat driver. Trump’s first year
suggests that allies aren’t eager to rally behind America First—and that
America can’t simultaneously castigate and motivate the international
community into action.