“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” For better or worse, that principle—typically attributed to Henry Kissinger—epitomizes President Trump’s latest National Security Strategy (NSS): a document outlining his administration’s approach to allies, enemies, and everyone in between.
Every president since Reagan has released at least one NSS to Congress during each term in office. But while the details change, the basic priorities of expanding America’s influence, guarding against foreign threats, and supporting our allies tend to be relatively similar from administration to administration. Trump’s latest policy contains much of the same information, though with one pivotal shift in perspective.
Whereas previous strategies—including Trump’s from 2017—focused mainly on a post-Cold War approach to building security through strength and influence worldwide, the latest NSS is clear that domestic stability is to be the focal point for the current administration. And that starts with redefining what America should expect from our allies and, just as importantly, what our allies can expect from us.
A new approach to Europe
In the introduction of the NSS, the administration states, “The purpose of foreign policy is the protection of core national interests; that is the sole focus of this strategy.” The document goes on to add that previous approaches “allowed allies and partners to offload the cost of their defense onto the American people, and sometimes to suck us into conflicts and controversies central to their interests but peripheral or irrelevant to our own.”
In short, they’ve decided that America’s allies have too often been more of a hindrance to the nation’s prosperity than a help.
The accuracy of that conclusion is certainly debatable, and the NSS’s detractors tend to point to this shift in approach—particularly as it pertains to Europe—as one of their most pressing critiques. At the same time, the Trump administration is not wrong when it points out that “We count among our many allies and partners dozens of wealthy, sophisticated nations that must assume primary responsibility for their regions and contribute far more to our collective defense.”
To their credit, many countries in Europe have endeavored to do just that in recent years. However, the NSS also points to the administration’s belief that changes in Europe’s approach to free speech, immigration, and a host of other societal factors make it “far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.”
This emphasis on the cultural shifts is perhaps the most critical indicator of how Trump sees Europe. They are allies insofar as it benefits America to consider them allies. That said, the NSS also points to an important distinction between countries that are trying to be useful and those that assume they are without actually offering much evidence to support that conclusion.
The Trump administration clearly believes that many European nations have chosen a path that makes them less valuable allies while still expecting to be accorded that status due to a shared history or the claim of shared ideals.
However, the move to minimize our obligations to Europe is not the only significant shift from previous approaches to foreign policy.
A new Monroe Doctrine?
Perhaps the most important element of the NSS is what the administration calls a “‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.” While the title may sound strange, it’s essentially a way of finding historical precedent for claiming dominion over the Western Hemisphere.
The Monroe Doctrine was initially issued in 1823, when President James Monroe told Congress—and, by extension, the rest of the world—that the Americas were off-limits for any further colonization by Europe. In return, he promised that the United States would essentially leave Europe alone as well.
Roughly eighty years later, President Theodore Roosevelt expanded upon the policy with the “Roosevelt Corollary,” essentially declaring that America would function as the regional policeman for Latin America and the Caribbean. The policy has served as justification for US intervention throughout the region ever since. Given the military buildup outside of Venezuela, it’s not hard to see why Trump would appeal to this precedent today.
However, regardless of the policy’s current usage, the administration’s concerns with maintaining dominance in the region are understandable. China and, to a lesser extent, Russia have been making inroads in Latin America and the Caribbean for decades. As such, turning our attention to the countries closer to home is, in many ways, a necessary step in combating China, Russia, and the other adversaries that many were surprised to see get less attention in the NSS.
That said, there is a degree of hypocrisy in telling the rest of the world that the Americas are off limits while, at the same time, outlining all the ways in which the US plans to continue intervening in their parts of the globe. After all, the NSS clearly outlines plans to prevent China from intruding on Taiwan and to pressure European governments to run their countries in accordance with Trump’s view of what’s best.
Neither plan is necessarily wrong, but the contradictory nature of expecting the rest of the world to leave us alone without us leaving them alone highlights a key problem underlying many of our nation’s difficulties over recent decades. Far too often, we struggle to find the balance between who we aspire to be and who we’re actually capable of being.
The new NSS is, in many ways, a step in the right direction, but that war between our aspirations and our capacities remains. And, unfortunately, it’s a struggle most of us know all too well.
Who will you aspire to be?
Throughout the Bible, the Lord is quite clear about what he expects of his people. And while there’s a lot to those expectations, the essence of it can be summed up in Christ’s command to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
As Christians, most of us understand that’s how we should aspire to live. However, I suspect most of us also understand that we’re not really capable of doing so as consistently as we might like. So, how can we bridge that gap?
I think Eugene Peterson’s translation of this verse in The Message may be of some help:
In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.
You see, one of the most common reasons we fail to live out our God-created identity is that we often aspire to be something other than who God has called us to be. When that happens, we lose out on the blessing and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to help bridge the gap between our fallen, sinful selves and the version we’re capable of growing into when we’re guided by his presence.
So, who are you aspiring to be today? If you were to take an honest assessment of what you hope to accomplish and the person you wish to become, how much say did you give God in coming up with those goals?
Or, on the other hand, are there any ways in which you’ve given up on your aspirations? Have you stopped asking the Lord who he wants you to be because you’ve allowed the sins and failures of your past to convince you that you’re unworthy or incapable of becoming anything other than who you are right now?
Neither end of that spectrum will allow us to fulfill Christ’s words from Matthew 5:48. Yet, he wouldn’t set us up to fail by commanding the impossible of us.
The simple truth is that the only way we can be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect is by allowing our heavenly Father to help us do just that.
Let’s start today.
Quote of the day:
“Don’t judge a man by where he is, because you don’t know how far he has come.” —C. S. Lewis
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