People have asked for my take on the new 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS). Let me summarize my first reaction:

My jaw hit the floor. My tongue rolled out. Not in awe — in disbelief.

I knew Trump’s policy team was incompetent. I knew they were hungry for power. I knew they were self-interested.

What I underestimated was their willingness to publish something this nakedly incoherent.

Because here’s the core strategic problem:

You cannot simultaneously pursue: – burden-shifting – regional hegemony – global economic supremacy – non-interventionism – and “peace through strength” through expansive forward presence all at once.

That is not “ambitious.” That is structurally impossible.

As someone who has helped write these strategies — and the follow-on documents that drive budgets, procurement, and actual policy — this NSS reads like a mathematical error.

A national strategy must connect:

• ends (what you want)

• ways (how you plan to get it)

• means (the capabilities you actually possess)

This NSS connects none of them.

1. The Monroe Doctrine Fantasy

The NSS declares:

“We will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine… deny non-Hemispheric competitors ownership or control of strategically vital assets.” (p. 15–19)

This is not achievable.

The United States no longer has the diplomatic, economic, or security leverage to enforce hemisphere-wide exclusivity at scale.

Trying to do so will:

• destabilize Latin America

• force countries to choose sides

• accelerate Chinese and Russian counter-moves

• and dramatically increase the odds of a major power crisis

In the nuclear age, that’s not a strategic misstep. That’s a civilizational risk.

2. The Europe Section Is Strategically Delusional

The NSS says:

“We want Europe to remain European… restore civilizational self-confidence… correct its trajectory.” (p. 25–27)

This is not strategy. This is an attempt to socially re-engineer a continent from 4,000 miles away.

The U.S. demands Europe simultaneously:

• massively increase defense spending

• stabilize Ukraine

• normalize with Russia

• overhaul its regulatory culture

• reverse migration flows

• revive birthrates

• reform its politics

• and stay aligned with Washington

All while portraying Europe as weak, decaying, internally incoherent, and incapable of governing itself.

This is an impossible set of structural demands.

And worse:

It signals to Europe that the U.S. no longer views the EU as a partner — but as a problem.

This will:

• fracture transatlantic trust

• embolden Russia

• empower China

• and undermine U.S. interests across the board

It is the opposite of strategic stability.

3. The Economic/Industrial Agenda Defies Reality

The NSS claims the U.S. will:

“rebalance trade, onshore supply chains, reindustrialize, revive the defense industrial base, maintain energy dominance, and grow to a $40T economy.” (p. 14–24)

But to deter China, the U.S. must also:

• maintain massive alliances

• preserve global access

• outpace Beijing in tech, R&D, and procurement

• forward-deploy forces

• subsidize partners

• enforce sanctions

• supply Ukraine and Taiwan

• and rebuild every critical industry at home

while simultaneously:

• shrinking deficits

• reducing imports

• and decreasing global integration

This isn’t a “high-aspiration strategy.” It’s a physical impossibility.

No nation in history has accomplished everything the NSS lists — let alone all at once, with fewer resources than before, in a multipolar environment.

4. The Real Problem: A Unipolar Strategy Written for a Post-Unipolar World

This NSS is fundamentally an anachronism.

It assumes the world is still 1995:

• U.S. at the center

• Allies subordinate

• Competitors deterred

• Globalization cooperative

• Diplomatic leverage overwhelming

But today’s world is:

• multipolar

• multi-aligned

• economically decentralized

• diplomatically diversified

• technologically fragmented

• and strategically unpredictable

A strategy built for unipolarity cannot function in a multipolar system.

And that’s exactly why the document reads like nonsense.

5. Writing Down Fantasies Doesn’t Make Them Strategy

The NSS tries to paper over collapsing global coherence with aspirational maximalism.

But strategy is not aspiration. Strategy is alignment — of goals, capacities, constraints, and timelines.

This NSS contains none of that.

It’s a list of desires masquerading as a plan.

The U.S. is still a powerful hegemon. It still has extraordinary advantages.

But it needs allies, needs systems, needs cooperation, and needs legitimacy.

The NSS rejects all of that.

It substitutes strategic architecture with bravado.

Conclusion

This NSS is not “bold.” It is not “visionary.” It is not “tough.”

It is strategically incoherent — a document that demands everything while providing no path to achieve any of it.

The world has changed. U.S. capacity has changed. Global power distribution has changed.

This NSS did not.

And that disconnect — not ideology — is why it is so dangerous.