US Trying To Fool Europe: New National Security Strategy Changes NOTHING

The conversation makes the case that the recently released U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) is less a break with past practice than a carefully staged performance: it signals a rhetorical retreat from global dominance while preserving the instruments and legal structures that keep American military primacy intact. What emerges from the exchange is a diagnosis of divergence between presidential signaling and institutional continuity — and a warning that Europe is being nudged into paying for a status quo it is simultaneously being lectured to transcend. ## Reading the New NSS: Signal versus substance The NSS reads like an attempt to reframe U.S. posture in more transactional, restrained language. It explicitly distances itself from the idea of “permanent American domination” and emphasizes allied burden-sharing, while avoiding blunt labels that treat China or Russia as existential enemies. That softer rhetoric produced headlines suggesting a strategic inflection. Yet the discussion insists that the text is more programmatic aspiration and political branding than an executable blueprint. It lays out ends — what the U.S. “should want” — without providing commensurate means or decision rules that would constrain or redirect the sprawling machinery of American force and influence. In short: an appealing narrative with limited operational bite. The conversation highlights how a strategy that speaks of restraint can nevertheless leave the mechanics of power untouched. If strategy is meant to guide tradeoffs and create predictable behavior, the NSS is deficient: it lacks a binding framework that would alter military basing, alliance command relationships, or legal authorities. That gap between words and instruments is the central reason the document should be read skeptically as a policy shock. It is persuasive at the level of audience management, less so at the level of institutional practice. ## Who authored the narrative — and why it matters A recurring theme is authorship. The conversation emphasizes this NSS bears the imprint of a small circle around the presidency, rather than the product of broader interagency bargaining. That matters because the balance of power in Washington is not simply between a White House and an electorate: it is also a set of plumbing — the Pentagon, Congress, the intelligence community, and long-standing legal structures. When a presidential administration drafts a strategy in relative isolation, it can signal a direction. It cannot, without broader institutional buy-in, rewrite the operational code of statecraft. This is not to dismiss presidential influence. A commander-in-chief sets political tone and can push policy, but the exchange underscores the inertia embedded in U.S. foreign policy: careers, budgets, basing arrangements, and congressional prerogatives create tremendous path dependence. When the NSS reads as a personal manifesto rather than an interagency consensus, the odds are high that it will function primarily as a political device — to pressure allies, flatter domestic audiences, and reframe debates — rather than as a tool that remakes global commitments. ## Europe, burden-sharing, and the illusion of change One of the most consequential strands of the discussion concerns Europe. The NSS’s critique of EU democracies and its demand that Europeans shoulder a larger share of defense costs reads like an ultimatum dressed in strategy prose. The document’s insistence on higher defense spending — a repeated call to move toward a 5% GDP benchmark in some passages — is framed as a necessary correction to decades of American subsidy. Yet the conversation points out the asymmetry: while Europeans are told to pay more, control over alliance command, force posture, and critical decision-making remains firmly in American hands. The exchange warns that this is less an invitation to European strategic autonomy than a strategy of outsourcing cost while retaining control. European procurement dollars that flow toward American systems, training, and platforms augment U.S. industrial and military leverage. Thus, the demand for “burden-sharing” is not neutral; it reshapes European defense choices in ways that can deepen dependence rather than reduce it. The rhetoric of partnership, then, operates alongside practical mechanisms that preserve U.S. primacy — a paradox the conversation treats as intentional rather than accidental. ## Spheres, deterrence, and continuity of military posture Although the NSS rhetorically eschews a doctrine of world domination, the document reasserts zones of interest — a modern echo of Monroe-era thinking for the Western Hemisphere and a persistent emphasis on a U.S.-defined “free and open” Indo-Pacific. The conversation critically parses this as a change in rhetoric but not in principle. Spheres of influence are recast as defensive perimeters; deterrence remains the organizing logic. The paper’s language that China “got rich and powerful” in part because of past American miscalculations reproduces a familiar line: geopolitics, rather than solely indigenous development or governance choices, produced present strategic competition. The practical implication is that economics, diplomacy, and trade are framed through a security lens. Economic grievances are securitized and thereby made subject to military-caliber responses. The result is a persistent tilt toward hard instruments — force posture, alliances calibrated around containment — even while the text coyly avoids calling rival states “enemies.” The conversation reads this as continuity in method: changing the vocabulary without altering the grammar of deterrence. ## Congressional constraints: where policy is actually made If the NSS is rhetorical, Congress and the Pentagon are where real constraints materialize. The discussion emphasizes a crucial dynamic: domestic lawmaking — particularly the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — and legislative controls over force posture have the power to blunt an administration’s more radical impulses. Recent congressional measures to bar reductions of troop levels in Europe and South Korea and to preserve U.S. command posts in NATO demonstrate how legal instruments lock in presence and authority. This is a decisive insight for anyone tempted to read the NSS as a pivot: statutory language can prevent abrupt withdrawal, require certifications and assessments for major moves, and preserve command prerogatives that keep NATO’s military seams tethered to the United States. In effect, Congress can make strategic retrenchment politically costly and administratively complex; that dynamic serves as a conservative force on grand strategy. The conversation stresses that the interplay of presidential signaling and congressional lock-in is what actually shapes outcomes — and in this balance, institutional continuity often wins. ## What this means for European strategic autonomy The conclusion the conversation advances is sobering for Europeans seeking greater independence in security policy. Two concurrent forces shape the landscape: rhetorical pressure to pay more and institutional mechanisms that sustain American command. The combination encourages European governments to increase defense spending but steers that spending in directions compatible with interoperability under American leadership. Far from catalyzing a genuinely autonomous European posture, the NSS-plus-congressional reality risks deepening a model in which Europeans finance capabilities that remain operationally subordinated to U.S. decisions. For European strategists, the practical lesson is to recognize the difference between burden-sharing that reproduces dependence and investment that cultivates genuine autonomy. Building independent logistics, command capabilities, procurement corridors, and diplomatic frameworks will require conscious choices that do not simply mirror American priorities. The conversation implies that without a

US Trying To Fool Europe: New National Security Strategy Changes NOTHING At the end of November this year, the United States published the so-called National Security Strategy. This document here, and when I say the United States, what I mean is actually the White House. I will explain in a moment why that matters. On the one hand, what we've also seen in December is that Representative Thomas Massey, Congressman Thomas Massei, introduced a bill to remove the United States from NATO. Sounds quite interesting, doesn't it? The National Security Strategy also says that the strategy of the United States now needs to be shifted away from dominating the entire planet toward new goals and overall, the assumption might emerge that the United States is seriously changing its strategy of how to approach global war and peace. But I now come around to the conclusion that this is largely a fat morgana, a make-believe. And I, the longer I look at this, the more I think that Brian Tic actually is right when he. Phrase this as just another iteration of continuity of agenda, division of labor. And other Strat US strategies in order to keep everything the same. #Pascal At the end of November this year, the United States published the so-called National Security Strategy—this document here. And when I say “the United States,” what I actually mean is the White House. I’ll explain in a moment why that matters. I haven’t talked about this document yet because it was somewhat strange to me, and when I don’t have a clear picture of how to think about something, I’d rather keep quiet. But now I have additional information, and I think there’s some important context here that should help us understand it. Because, on the one hand, what we also saw in December is that Representative Thomas Massey—Congressman Thomas Massey— introduced a bill to remove the United States from NATO. Sounds quite interesting, doesn’t it? The National Security Strategy also says that the strategy of the United States now needs to shift away from dominating the entire planet toward new goals. Overall, one might assume that the United States is seriously changing its approach to global war and peace. But I’ve come to the conclusion that this is largely a *Fata Morgana*—a kind of make-believe. The longer I look at it, the more I think Brian Berletic is actually right when he describes this as just another iteration of continuity of agenda, division of labor, and other U.S. strategies meant to keep everything the same. So, in a sense, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And I’d like to use this video to explain my thinking. But let's first look at the National Security Strategy as a document, just a little bit, so you can get a feeling for what it actually says and why it has, if not a revolutionary character, at least the smell of something new—which got a lot of people excited. The reason for that is that it outlines that the -- 1 of 8 -- United States no longer seeks world dominance. The document itself isn’t that long—about 29 or 30 pages—in four sections: an introduction, what the United States should want, and so on. And when this document talks about the United States, what it actually means is what the current administration defines as such. This is really important to keep in mind. We’re not talking about an all-of-government approach; we’re talking about the preferences and political outlook of a relatively small circle of people. And maybe this is the first thing to consider. This document is crafted in a way that gives me the impression it was drafted by a small circle of people. I can’t say who the primary author is, but it doesn’t have the smell or feel of a policy document that was circulated among different constituencies. You’d suppose this National Security Strategy would have gone to the Pentagon and maybe to the intelligence agencies—should have gone to the desk of Tulsi Gabbard as the head of intelligence—but it doesn’t look like that to me. It looks very much like the brainchild of a fairly small group of people who share the policy outlook mainly of Donald Trump, who then wrote the foreword, the preface for this document, which he signs to signal his agreement. So what this represents is, first and foremost, the foreign policy priorities of the Trump administration. It tries to define strategy, but actually, although the document itself discusses what a strategy is or should be, you find precious little information about how it wants to achieve what it outlines. So it’s more of a wish list and a mental conception of the world and what the United States should want. It could just as well have been published in a magazine like *Foreign Policy* or *Foreign Affairs*, written by senior executives of this or a previous administration, in terms of how it tries to make sense of what the world looks like and how the United States should integrate into it. One of the reasons this document was talked about so much is because, under the heading of “strategy and regions,” it spoke in a very negative way—basically—about Europe. It criticizes Europe very heavily for going down a non-democratic path, and it also makes clear that it wants change from the Europeans. It wants them to shoulder more of the burden for their own defense. But as we’ll see, this is basically part of a unified strategy—or a unified approach—of the U. S. at the moment, which probably has less to do with containing conflict than with outsourcing the financing of U.S. wars abroad. Now, here’s a sentence that shows how the document actually frames the misguided foreign policies of the past. It says, and I’m going to read here: “After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interest of our country.” Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests. And then it goes on to explain that this is a misguided approach. Another short passage says that these elites allowed allies and partners to offload the cost of their defense onto the American people, and sometimes to draw us into conflicts and controversies central to their interests but peripheral or irrelevant to ours. So you can clearly see how this reflects Donald Trump’s outlook. It’s transactional: the United States has been paying too much, doing too much, and hasn’t been compensated enough for it. All of this, the document says, needs to change—and the Europeans, -- 2 of 8 -- first and foremost, need to share the burden more, but also the Pacific partners, as the document goes on to say. The troubling thing, then, of course, is that although this beginning is encouraging—in the sense that the document says the United States should no longer seek world domination—it immediately moves into these “spheres of interest” or “spheres of influence.” It says the United States needs to have control of the Western Hemisphere—basically North America, South America, and Central America. It explicitly states, in other words, that “we will assert and enforce a Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” the early 19th‑century doctrine that no outside power—by which it meant European powers—should meddle in the affairs of the Americas, all of the Americas alike. And that South and Central America are the exclusive dominion of the United States to exploit, upon which U. S. dominance was founded and which led to a lot of interference and foreign control, especially of economic markets in Latin America. It also says it wants to keep the Indo-Pacific free and open, which is a classic way of saying that the United States wants to call the shots in the entire Pacific region. It even talks about the first island chain and further down the line—the islands stretching from Japan and Hokkaido down to Okinawa and Taiwan, and then into the Philippines—as a defensive perimeter for the U.S. to contain China. Although, it must be said, this document does not describe China as an enemy. It doesn’t describe Russia as an enemy either. And that got a lot of people very excited, because it suggests the Trump administration is moving away from this very belligerent framing of the world, in which Russia and China are both enemies-in-waiting that need to be defeated. This is one of the new aspects of this national security strategy. However, the problem is that this document still does not break with the mindset that the United States needs to create security through deterrence. This is maybe the main takeaway for me—that the document doesn’t at all try to reframe security, the world, as one in which, through shared trade and shared institutions, we can create capabilities. Rather, on the other side, it actually lays out that China is a problem. Let me see if I can find that here—the way the document tries to approach this, the priorities. Here, this passage about Asia gives you a very clear idea of how the White House views China and how it views the mistakes of the past, which then also gives us an outlook into the mind of the person who wrote this, right? So it says, this did not happen. China got rich and powerful and used its wealth and power to its considerable advantage. American elites, over four successive administrations of both political parties, were either willing enablers of China’s strategy or in denial. With these four administrations, I suppose the document talks about Biden—well, certainly not the Trump one, he has to be taken out—but Obama, Bush, and Clinton. Those are the four administrations the document says got everything wrong. It then exempts Trump’s first administration from getting things wrong. But the point here is that the document still understands China basically as having become the current China—rich, wealthy, and powerful—because the United States made a mistake in the past. -- 3 of 8 -- We've seen this time and time again, in foreign policy papers and in think tank papers—the argument that it was a mistaken U.S. foreign policy that allowed China to get rich. So, China is not a country that became wealthy because it is ingenious, hardworking, and has capable leadership. No, no, no—it’s because the United States made a mistake that China became rich and powerful. In this sense, and in the way deterrence is still framed as the bedrock of U.S. defense and global stability, we don’t see a break in the mentality of the war mongers—basically, those trying to frame everything, all things, as a security threat, including, of course, economic security, which they believe can and should also be addressed with military power. Now, the document clearly says that this is a peace administration that seeks peace, but it doesn’t really convince me when it claims it will restrain the government. And we’re seeing right now that the very Trump administration is the one that has been killing over sixty civilians in the Caribbean in a very brutal fashion on the high seas. It’s the Trump administration that is doing away with decades of international law when it boarded an oil tanker on the high seas and used military force to do so, of course. So the document, you know, doesn’t outline a proper strategy. It doesn't outline a framework for when the United States would use force and when it would not. It just says, “We will use force when we need to create peace through strength.” So, in a way, this document just says that the United States is aiming to be a force for peace and reconciliation, but it really doesn’t make the point. Now, I think there are a couple of essential issues to be aware of. The document really isn’t one that tries to constrain the U.S. But then, on the other hand, what’s also very important is that the document can’t actually do that. This is not a binding foreign policy on the different branches of the U.S. government. It’s more or less the brainchild of a group of people around Donald Trump who want to put his