America’s National Security Warning to Europe

There is value in following Trump’s comments. I wanted to see the recent interview in which he said “Europe is weak”, and this led me to something more serious, more apparently serious, I should say (since they are related): the recent publication of the ‘National Security Strategy of the United States of America‘. A primary document. I found it, and printed it out: 30 pages. And it is a good read: well-written, lacking the sort of matron-in-the-asylum-in-denial tone that afflicts the style in which HM Government documents are written.

Then I found that The Rest is Politics had offered its opinion of this document. And I, humble as always, am always willing to listen to an opinion: until I find myself saying “ridiculous” and struggling to write down the rubbish coming out of Rory Stewart’s mouth. Unfortunately, this happened. And, as usual, the response is as interesting and important as the original document. But first things first. So the document.

The ‘National Security Strategy’, on the face of it, is a strangely sensible document. Trump in his opening letter talks about borders, getting “radical gender ideology and woke lunacy out of our Armed Forces” and the dual business of America which is, first, becoming strong, and, second, through this strength securing as much peace as is possible.

Bear in mind I am reading this on the surface.

The introduction has a bracing effect. It warns that previous American strategies since the end of the Cold War have involved “vague platitudes”. It also notes that previous security strategy was based on an illusion that there could be “permanent American domination of the entire world”. So mistakes were made. There were “destructive bets on globalism”. Indeed, “international organisations” are often “driven by outright anti-Americanism” and also a desire to “dissolve individual state sovereignty”. What this signifies, it seems, on the surface of course, is a desire on the part of America to withdraw from illusions about world domination. Americans still want to be the greatest, richest, all that.

Over the next pages we get the following, and I excerpt:

we will be unapologetic about our country’s past…

…strong, traditional families…

…restoring Europe’s civilisational self-confidence…

…rooting out so-called ‘DEI’…

…realistic without being realist…

…predisposition to non-intervention…

…the world’s fundamental political unity is and will remain the nation-state…

…preventing its erosion by transnational and international organisations…

…border security is the primary element of national security…

…rights of free speech…

…peace deals…

Aside from this, there are some things to note. One is that there is a sense of history. “As Alexander Hamilton argued…” Another is that there is an amusing classic sensibility. “The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.” This made me smile: the suggestion that the United States was a wily Hercules who had been tricked by Atlas into taking on the burden but had now found the trick of unburdening itself.

I read somewhere recently – was it in the Guardian? – that Trump thinks that everything is a deal, and that this is no way to have peace. Fools. For peace is always a negotiated settlement, or, in short, a deal. Indeed, one could say that the word ‘peace’ without the additional word ‘deal’ is the sort of “vague platitude” the document urges against.

On the Americas. We had the Monroe Doctrine: now there is a Trump corollary that says that “non-Hemispheric competitors” – i.e., Russia and China – will not be able to place any forces or threats in “our Hemisphere” – i.e., in Latin America.

On China. There was a mistaken assumption that opening markets to China, encouraging investment in China and outsourcing manufacturing to China would “facilitate China’s entry into the so-called ‘rules-based international order’. This did not happen.” Apt and amusing. Apt because it did not happen. Amusing because America shows it is willing to be as sceptical about the rules-based international order as China. So-called, ha, ha. There is also an interesting aside about the South China Sea and the need to keep trade routes open. But that is all: just a certain wariness. Otherwise, no great statement.

On Europe. This is where things become much sharper and harder. “Economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisation erasure.” “We want Europe to remain European.”

Here, it is necessary to jump ahead. Rory Stewart could not make sense of this. He translated it: “We want Europe to remain White.” And he blames Trump for being le grand simplificateur! So I shall explain for Stewart: Europe has a civilisation. That civilisation is historic, and based on a certain continuity of settlement, of course with comings and goings, but, by and large, as everyone has always understood throughout the entire history of the world, a civilisation depends on tradition, inheritance and continuity, as well as large numbers of immigrants, whatever colour they are, and even if they are the same colour, though this would be modified of course, if they shared a reverence for that original tradition, inheritance, continuity, perhaps by sharing a religion, etc., etc., etc., and, yes, in practice, sometimes colour comes into it, Lord, why I am explaining this to a great mind like Rory Stewart?

What does America want to do about European countries? It wants “to restore their former greatness”. It wants to help them get along with Russia.

On the Middle East. Abandon radicalism, deal with America, etc.

On Africa. “Transition from an aid-focused relationship… to a trade- and investment-focused relationship,” i.e., stop trying to help woe-begotten tyrannies in ways that make them worse (sotto voce, by siphoning aid money into Swiss bank accounts), which, surprisingly, means trying to encourage the emergence of a so-called rules-based international order, ha, ha.

And that is it. A bracing read, sensible and, as they say, realistic. Of course there is the customary pride, but I see no reason to be dismayed at the sight of a great power speaking of itself with pride. In fact, I would be delighted to see anyone in the UK doing this without the inevitable cringe and lie about immigration or multiculturalism.

A final thought. This is a surface reading of the document, and, of course, politics is a world – always – of the revealed and the hidden, of the acknowledged and the officially denied, of the exoteric and the esoteric, of state policy and of arcana imperii. So there is, there must be, a hidden doctrine underlying the stated doctrine, or, at least, a hidden impetus, probably confused. We can attempt to work out what this is if we want. And many people want.

Alastair Campbell said, “This is seismic.” Rory Stewart said, “I have read all the National Security documents going back to Bush.” This was useful: something I, for instance, have not done, and was grateful to hear about. Stewart found that Bush, Obama, Biden generally spoke on behalf of the world order, of American policing of that order, of allies as allies without criticism, and of Russia and China and others as challenges, threats, adversaries. Stewart summarised this by saying that Bush, Obama and Biden were ‘idealist’. By contrast – and I appreciate this summary – ‘Trump 1’, i.e., Trump’s first National Security document of 2017, was ‘realist’, in the sense of trying to avoid vast global claims and instead urging something like prudence. Stewart could approve of this. But, and here the wheels fell off the analysis, Stewart declared that ‘Trump 2’ is something entirely different.

Stewart and Campbell read ‘Trump 2’ in a way that surprised me, who had just read the document. They read it upside-down, or, rather, in terms of the complacent internationalist assumptions of the previous order. Oh, and they failed to notice what I noticed: that this 2025 document objected to the “vague platitudes” of older National Security documents. Nay. Stewart extolled those older documents, the ones with vague platitudes, and then lost his mind over a document that does not contain vague platitudes.

Lost his mind? Am I being unfair. I think not. Listen to the following. Stewart saw the document as saying that “Latin America belongs to us”, that America wants to encourage Europe to elect “far-Right” (Campbell: “hard-Right”) parties across the board and weaken the European Union. (NB: This cannot be found in the document itself. All it says is that the “European Union” undermines “political liberty and sovereignty” etc., which is arguable, if you like, but true, if you think about it, e.g. Hungary is paying hundreds of millions of euros as a fine for not admitting immigrants.

Have an argument. The European Union is destroying Europe. Now, if, like Campbell, you define Europe as whatever the European Union is making it into, then, by definition, the European Union cannot destroy Europe. But if one has any sort of sense that Europe is a particular sort of thing – as did Guizot, Condorcet, Bismarck, Goethe, Nietzsche, Mill, Burke and God knows who else – then of course it is possible for the European Union to destroy that particular sort of thing. I was reading Quiller-Couch’s little book On the Art of Writing and he was defending English, but not at all parochially: he said that English depends on the Mediterranean, that Anglo-Saxon poetry was rough until Chaucer and Shakespeare incorporated the joy and dance and sophistication of Italy and Old Rome into the language. Call Europe Roman, as Remi Brague did, or call it Christian, or call it some composite: Greek-Roman-Hebrew-Teutonic, it doesn’t matter. Europe ain’t whatever one wants it to be, and it certainly ain’t the opposite of all the elements of that Greek-Roman-Hebrew-Teutonic tradition.

Let’s hear more.

CAMPBELL. [In 2017 in ‘Trump 1’] Russia, China, bad! America and its allies, good! [But in 2025 in ‘Trump 2’] America amazing! Russia and China, kind of neutral, we don’t really worry about them too much; the Gulf monarchies – why shouldn’t they be allowed to chop up people like Kashoggi… it literally says we’ve got to stop hectoring the Gulf about their traditional ways of rule; and then it says Europe, bad!

He summarises: “This is about trying to destroy the one international organisation [i.e., the EU] that still believes in the rule of law, that still believes in human rights, that still believes in international law.” And Stewart says: “We’re vassals.” And it is Stewart who makes the strongest analysis, by way of bewilderment:

STEWART. Why on earth… why would you say it? It makes no sense to me at all. If you genuinely have a world view in which what you’re going to do is screw over your allies, bully your way into their markets, weaken them economically, destroy the European Union, why would you say it?

They do not say it. He continues.

A traditional gangster would go around being polite, in fact, the traditional American policy, even when it was doing naughty things, was to frame it in positive language. This is a partnership, we share values, we have common values etc. What I simply cannot understand is if you believe this stuff, if you really were that cynical, that aggressive, really wanted to destroy the world order, it doesn’t help you to say it so explicitly. Why on earth would you announce your evil plan? No Dr Evil announces their evil plan.

CAMPBELL. Well, because, go back to what we’ve said about Trump for some time, he sees the world in very simple terms…

I stop there. Here is the grand coup. Note how they say that Trump sees the world in “very simple terms”. But it is Stewart who imagines that Trump wants to destroy the world order. And that Trump is so politically innocent that he announces this to the world. How simple is that?

I can only assume Stewart’s derangement is so complete that he cannot think.

Analysis.

Trump says X.

Stewart interprets X as Q, and then says that no one would ever say Q, it makes no sense, etc. Dr Evil.

Well then, Stewart, read the surface of the document a bit more carefully. But he cannot resist going on in this vein:

STEWART. It’s America ripping its own mask off, saying ‘We’re all the worst things that our enemies always said we were, we’re completely naked and transactional, these people are not our allies, they are our vassals, they do what we say,’ and in doing so they’re basically suggesting there is no point in soft power, there’s no such thing as legitimacy, that it’s possible to rule the world through simply asserting your strength. And that’s never been true historically. It’s a mad vision. The Roman Empire didn’t do it. The British Empire didn’t do it…

That’s it. Stewart and Campbell want America to be masked. Perhaps they even want America to be hypocritical. It is very odd.

What is oddest is that Stewart and Cambell say, in effect: ‘Old National Security documents were nice and idealistic because they expressed vague platitudes.’ They also say: ‘Old National Security documents concealed American power because they expressed vague platitudes.’ But now faced with a non-vague non-platitudinous style they simply cannot grasp that it might still be true that this document conceals something, and expresses something shrewdly, by indirection. Oddly, Campbell and Stewart think they see everything, that it is on the surface, and it drives them mad.

I am no expert on American foreign policy. But it seems to me that it must be deliberate that the United States is not drawing attention to Russia and China in this document. That is the esoteric doctrine. Why fight a war or have a struggle through a document? Rather America is trying to encourage its allies. For some reason, to do with loss of vague platitudes, Stewart and Campbell take this as discouragement. But Trump wants to encourage his allies, including especially “the continent of Europe, and of course Britain and Ireland” to rediscover something like their own pride. I didn’t read the document as one of America as lord condescending to European countries as vassals: I saw it as a plea from the first-among-equals for us to be better equals. And, surely, America needs Europe: it is sprung from European loins. The document refers to Atlas, for God’s sake: a Greek Titan. I think America is afraid that if Europe (the Empire in the East) collapses, then it won’t be long before the more resolute Byzantine rump of America (the Empire in the West) also collapses.

Oh, and the best line in the entire National Security document? That America wants to be “realistic without being realist”. The Americans are trying to come off it a bit, and write in a plain, manly style. Everyone should be pleased to read a document that is trying to be just, moderate and, of course, that is not trying too hard to resist a bit of vainglory.

Postscript: I was reading something by Ortega Y Gasset yesterday. He said that Rome and the British Empire were ruled by “maniacal conservatives” and that they owed their great success to this: their practical sense and their reluctance to let intellect make a mess of everything. And, by the way, he admired Rome and the British Empire. I take it from Ortega Y Gasset that we need a few more “maniacal conservatives” if we want to get our civilisation back in some sort of shape. And also that Campbell and Stewart, with all their intellect, simply cannot understand anything about the world because they think maniacal conservatism is the problem. They, anyone, who uses the phrases “far Right” or “hard Right” is simply condemning all history and refusing all good political understanding.

James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.