Recently, the White House issued the annual National Security Strategy. The document is mandated by law and describes in very broad terms the administration’s vision of the world.
Rarely does the document go into details of how the challenges must be addressed – it does not prescribe “how,” but tells “what” and “why.”
This latest attempt at defining the foreign policy of the United States is historical in three aspects. It paints the world without friends or enemies. It declares the former and current interests outside of the Western Hemisphere of less importance. It finally puts an end to the status and the ambitions of the country as the superpower. It is ironic that the administration, perhaps the least interested in government “paper work,” found an opportunity to officially express in writing the conclusion of the process that began a few decades ago.
The most striking part of the document is the failure, though not by omission but by intent, to clearly, or at all, to name the threats facing the country. China and Russia are mentioned in the document. They figure as unscrupulous business patterns rather than strategic threats. The document, in a very Orwellian way, does say the country faces threats, but does not specify the exact source or origin, though hinting that it could be Europe.
One gets the impression that some nebulous forces conspire against the country. That strange omission may suggest the actual author of the document is none other than J. K. Rowling, as “He Who Must Not Be Named” could be a real culprit here.
Unfortunately, the document does not belong to fiction, but to a very different genre where one’s reading of the world becomes one. The administration is not trying to obfuscate the threats to enable itself more flexibility in dealing with the foes. It does honestly believe that we don’t have enemies. It acknowledges the adversarial behaviors towards the United States.
Yet it believes they can all be relegated under the rubric of commercial relationships that must be either changed, transferred or fixed. There are no irreconcilable differences, ideological incompatibilities or ill intent. Every issue on the world stage is either a failed business venture or unrealized business opportunity. And it is all shocking only because it is the first time that what the world has suspected for quite some time is finally written down.
America’s retreat from global leadership
The document officially declares the end of American world power. It concludes almost two decades of declining power coupled with unwillingness and inability to wisely exercise it. The most grotesque moment arrived when the Biden administration failed to prevent Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and then showed absolute unwillingness and inability to pursue quick cessation of hostilities.
And that brings us to another large part of the document. It is the most bizarre piece of writing that has ever appeared in any National Security Strategy over many decades of its existence. It deals with Europe and the European Union and the perceived, and from the perspective of the administration, inevitable decline of both.
Some of that criticism of the continent is fair. The economic, social, and cultural policies of the EU and many of its members are indeed stupid and suicidal.
The real question is why are these philosophical musings found its place in the official strategic document. The entire opus related to Europe appears like a piece of Tucker Carlson’s podcast edited by JD Vance. It is a version of his address at the Munich Security Conference. Tucker’s “touch” comes in the conclusion part of the analysis where Russia is juxtaposed as a stable entity against Europe’s near comatose state.
The document’s most bold claim related to Europe is the potential, almost certain from the authors’ point of view, of some countries gaining non-European and hostile majorities. Yet, Russia has exactly the same problem. Its Muslim population may reach 30% in a few decades and likely even higher, given the dramatic decline in the Slavic population.
That decline was the main reason for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Absorbing a large Slavic country was the only option to maintain the demographic balance in light of the collapsing “native” birth rate. This is just one example of too many showing that the framers of the document based their musings not on the facts, but on wishful thinking and the imaginary world, completely detached from reality.
In the old days, the Democratic Party was famous for producing futuristic documents with dreams replacing facts. It appears the current administration enjoyed the reading and decided to contribute to the genre to the best of its abilities.
The document insists that the Western Hemisphere is where the country’s real interests lie and refers to the Monroe Doctrine as the framework for the current and future strategy. As with the stance that the document takes with Europe, its understanding of the Monroe Doctrine is patchy and taken out of the historical context.
The Monroe Doctrine worked so great for the United States in the 19th century because it worked in tandem with the British Empire being responsible for most of the rest of the world. It was a partnership, a division of labor to maintain the world order established and maintained by the former colonial power.
There is no such partner for the United States now. And if the events unfolding around Venezuela with the American armada worth billions of dollars a day sinking some finishing boats smuggling narcotics, even the modest goals of the Monroe Doctrine could be a little too much for the waning power of the United States.
The document’s lack of clarity is not just an issue of style. Its main purpose is to prepare the American people for the future that may await them. And in that the document fails miserably.
The author lives and works in Silicon Valley, California. He is a founding member of San Francisco Voice for Israel.