Crossing the Rubicon

Trump’s Strategy To End the American Century

Dear readers,

The White House has officially released the second Trump administration’s National Security Strategy. While I will soon be posting a longer examination of this document and its implications for American foreign policy in the coming years, I wanted to provide you all my initial read on the strategy given its major implications for the United States and the world as a whole.

Bottom line up front: the United States will be focusing on the Western Hemisphere for the foreseeable future while drawing-down our strategic presence in Europe and Asia. In place of promotion of democracy and defending the international order, the United States will now adhere to a policy of “flexible realism” and establish a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America. While this would mean aggressively limiting the presence of rival powers like China and groupings like BRICS from Latin America, this strategy would also imply that the United States would be quick to use military force in…