A National Security Strategy that Isn’t

Dec 09, 2025

Just a few short weeks ago, I was sitting in the United Nations listening to statements from the Trump administration emphasizing that the United States would never agree to anything that limited state sovereignty.

This assertion — echoing the recent use of sovereignty as a fig leaf by autocratic states to justify a multitude of sins against international law and, most ironically, sovereign countries — ignores the reality that any treaty or agreement signed, whether bilateral or multilateral, is such a limitation.

Donald Trump’s recent iteration of the executive-branch ritual of delivering a National Security Strategy (NSS) to Congress reimagines America’s role as the “indispensable nation” and signatory to the foundational treaties of the postwar multilateral order as a grievous error that “lashed American policy to a network of international institutions, some of which are driven by outright anti-Americanism and many by a transnationalism that explicitly seeks to dissolve individual state sovereignty.”

American policy was not “lashed” to anything that America did not agree to. “Transnationalism” is a recognition that some problems — like pandemics, climate change, security and any number of issues — cannot be solved within or by one country alone.

That key vision was behind the Atlantic Charter signed by allies after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It has been the basis of all American foreign policy since that time.

The Trump administration’s second-term National Security Strategy is a misnomer on all counts: it is not about America’s national interest, it is about Trumpism, pure and simple. It will not enhance the country’s security but will rather weaken it. It is not a strategy; it is, at best a tactical blueprint for how to degrade America.

I was also sitting in the United Nations General Assembly just a few short weeks ago when Donald Trump insulted its representatives with the pronouncement, “Your countries are going to hell.” This document is an extension of that rant. 

As a description of what America wants, this NSS lists many things that any government would want for its people, without mentioning the words “human rights”. It gives a nod, curiously, to “soft power” without mentioning the role played by democracy, rule of law and human rights in that asset, or the fact that every other expression of American goals and interests in the world since the end of the Cold War has put these concepts front and centre.

There are two competing narratives in this document. The first is the theme of “America First”: everything must be done with American interests first and foremost, with all relationships being defined by self-interest and self-promotion.

The second, ironically, is that Trump is actually diminishing American power, not amplifying it. China’s trillion-dollar trade surplus is driven by the isolationism of Trump’s tariff war. The isolation of America, its forfeiture of its status as the democratic superpower, its retraction to a regional, (hemi)sphere of influence that will re-cast it from the world’s policeman to the neighbourhood bully — all of it amounts to increasing the power of China and Russia.

So, it’s not just disingenuous as a contradiction, it’s worse than that — the entire structure of the building is actually based on corruption and self-dealing that weaken American influence and benefit the kleptocrats who are turning public policy to their personal benefit.  

The theme of victimization is another textbook autocratic propaganda weapon wielded throughout the last century’s worst rampages against humanity. The difference with this propaganda is that it claims the victimization was conducted by America’s own leaders.

The Trump administration’s second-term National Security Strategy is a misnomer on all counts: it is not about America’s national interest, it is about Trumpism, pure and simple.

In 1984, George Orwell coined a term that brilliantly describes blatant contradictions of this document. That term is “doublethink”: an abuse of language whereby subjects are expected to accept two conflicting beliefs as truth, often at odds with their own memory or knowledge of reality. There is no contradiction too absurd, no cognitive dissonance too jarring for this approach: weakness is strength, fiction is reality, degradation is greatness.

There is a grim warning to every country in this document: Do as we want or you will be punished.

So, Trump is Big Brother. He wants not only our acquiescence, but also for us to love him.

But we don’t get love in return.

Our friends in Europe have begun to respond to what is really Part 2 of the assault on Europe that began with J.D. Vance’s speech to the Munich Security Conference last spring. When he openly attacked Europe as being the global capital of woke and weakness, a “civilization that failed to defend itself”, many could not believe their ears. Now it would be wise to believe them.

The Trump NSS puts America under this administration on a collision course with democratically elected European governments, as well as the European Union, and makes it clear that it will be doing whatever it can to support what it calls “patriotic movements” across Europe and the Anglosphere (which includes Canada). “We want to work with aligned countries that want to restore their former greatness”.

What this actually means is support for an unprecedented assault from Russia, China, the United States and autocratic governments on democratic processes around the world. We already know that Houston and St. Petersburg are at the centre of AI generated interference on social media around issues like climate change, migration, and the war in Ukraine.

These influences will become more intense and partisan as elections unfold. As this document puts it, “The growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism”. We can expect more overt and covert support for right-wing nationalism in Europe and around the world as a cover for anti-democracy operations.

Like all strategies, there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip. While the names of the authors of this document are unknown, its rhetoric is at times so extreme and dismissive of the efforts and interests of others, so deeply ideological despite its emphasis on “realism” that it can only expect the strongest possible reaction, whether from erstwhile allies of the United States or longtime opponents of American policies.

Leaders need followers. As time goes on this document, and the doctrines it espouses, will have fewer, and not more followers. 

The risk is that the reaction will be muted by fear of trade-based or other retaliation. This is as true for Canada as it is for others. We have been put on notice that the current United States government will be actively supporting political parties and movements in our country that align themselves with Trumpian policies. We should make it clear that any such intrusions into our domestic political affairs are unacceptable.

Canada is not a superpower, but we are an independent and sovereign country. We have chosen to support global and regional institutions because of our awareness that it is only by pursuing mutual interest and the shared goals for the planet that we can actually advance our own interests. 

We don’t believe the pursuit of “dominance” is in our interest, because we have learned that partnership and respectful engagement are ultimately more productive. We shall join other countries on this path, and resist attempts to allow coercion to prevail.

The year 2025 is not 1984. War is not peace. Freedom is not slavery. Ignorance is not strength. Two plus 2 do not equal 5. And we still choose not to love Big Brother.

The rabbi and teacher Hillel reminded us over 2,500 years ago that moral thinking starts with three questions: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”; “If I am only for myself, what am I?”; and “If not now, when?”

It will be a world of difficult choices, but our moral integrity and our determination to make our way in the world make subjugation and acquiescence an unacceptable choice.

Bob Rae teaches and writes on law and public policy. He is a Fellow of Massey College, the Munk School at the University of Toronto, the Forum of Federations and Queen’s University.  He served as Ontario’s 21st Premier, interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and Canada’s Ambassador to the UN.