National security strategyTrump to unveil administration’s national security strategy

Published 18 December 2017

In a speech later today, President Donald Trump will outline his administration’s national security strategy, which portrays the world as a more competitive arena for the great powers. The administrations of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama emphasized great power cooperation while focusing on emerging threats such as terrorism, disease, and climate change. “After being dismissed as a phenomenon of an earlier century, great power competition returned,” the new national security document says.

In a speech later today, President Donald Trump will outline his administration’s national security strategy, which portrays the world as a more competitive arena for the great powers. The administrations of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama emphasized great power cooperation while focusing on emerging threats such as terrorism, disease, and climate change.

“After being dismissed as a phenomenon of an earlier century, great power competition returned,” the new national security document says.

The document portrays Chines and Russian policies as posing the main challenges to U.S. security. The description of China as a strategic competitor, especially in trade, is in line with Trump’s campaign rhetoric, but the document’s discussion of Russia, the New York Times notes, is far more critical than the language Trump himself uses when talking about Russia and its leader.

Trump refuses to accept the facts about the Kremlin’s hacking and disinformation campaign which helped him win the 2016 election, and he has refused to criticize Vladimir Putin for a range of Russian policies which have undermined U.S. interest, among them: the annexation of Crimea; the efforts to destabilize Ukraine; Russia’s violations of an important nuclear treaty; the continued hacking and disinformation campaign aiming to weaken Western democracies, including the United States; Russia’s facilitation of the expansion of Iranian influence in the Middle East, and more.

China and Russia, the national security document says, “are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.”