The US Declares War on Europe

No NATO expansion. A recognition that the policy of unconstrained NATO expansion has been detrimental to the national security interests of the United States. And a blunt statement that Europe, on its present trajectory of confrontation with Russia, is a threat to US national security interests.

These are some of the major take aways from the newly published National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States. The NSS is a foundational document produced by the executive branch of the United States that delineates national security priorities and concerns, and lays of a broadly defined strategy for addressing them. The publication of the NSS is a legal requirement set forth in the Goldwater–Nichols Act of 1986 and serves as the foundational policy document upon which other implementation guidance, such as the National Military Strategy of the United States, published by the Department of Defense/War, are premised. 

In short, it is a big deal.

A very big deal.

And it spells trouble for Europe and NATO.

The Trump NSS openly declares that Europe as it is currently configured is inherently incompatible with US interests. If Europe maintains its current policy trajectory, Trump contends, it will be “unrecognizable in 20 years or less”, and that current economic problems manifested by the failed policies of Europe will result in the probability that Europe’s current economic issues will be “eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure.”

Europe is no longer collectively seen as a foundational national security partner, the Trump NSS notes. “It is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies,” the document declares.

Moreover, the NSS postulates that Europe itself has become a source of ideologies that are incompatible with US notions of freedom, declaring that the European Union and “other transnational bodies” are implementing activities which “undermine political liberty and sovereignty”, specifically calling out policies that involve “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.”

According to the NSS, Europe as it is currently conceived by those holding power is fundamentally incompatible with American interests and values. Importantly, the NSS highlights the rise of “patriotic European parties”, declaring that “America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit.”

This is a declaration of ideological warfare between the US and the globalist power elites of Europe.

The Devil, they say, is in the details, and it is in the details of the new NSS that the seeds of Europe’s demise have been sown.

It should be noted from the start that Europe is listed as the third policy priority of three principal policy concerns, after the security of the Western Hemisphere and the security of the Indo-Pacific region.

Europe is not a top priority for the United States.

“Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States,” the NSS states, noting that “[t]ransatlantic trade remains one of the pillars of the global economy and of American prosperity.” the United States, the NSS declares, cannot “afford to write Europe off—doing so would be self-defeating for what this strategy aims to achieve.”

In this context, the NSS sets forth a “broad policy for Europe” which prioritizes the reestablishment of “conditions of stability within Europe and strategic stability with Russia” while “[e]nabling Europe to stand on its own feet and operate as a group of aligned sovereign nations” that take “primary responsibility for its own defense, without being dominated by any adversarial power.”

This is not business as usual.

The NSS notes that “Since at least the end of the Cold War, administrations have often published National Security Strategies that seek to expand the definition of America’s ‘national interest’ such that that almost no issue or endeavor is considered outside its scope. But to focus on everything is to focus on nothing. America’s core national security interests shall be our focus.”

While the United States wants “to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of Europe, while restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity,” this policy objective does not come with a blank check, as had been the case in the past.

The new NSS emphasizes what is called “Flexible Realism” declaring that “US policy will be realistic about what is possible and desirable to seek in its dealings with other nations,” seeking “good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.”

This is a huge departure from past practice, where promoting American democratic norms and values was seen as the foundational element of US national security policy.

“We recognize and affirm,” the Trump NSS notes, “that there is nothing inconsistent or hypocritical in acting according to such a realistic assessment or in maintaining good relations with countries whose governing systems and societies differ from ours even as we push like-minded friends to uphold our shared norms, furthering our interests as we do so.”

In short, the Trump NSS rejects what it calls “the ill-fated concept of global domination for itself.” And, in doing so, the Trump NSS rejects the perception and reality “of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.”

The expansion of NATO, a “right” supposedly enshrined in Article 10 of the NATO Charter, has been at the center of European policy since the end of the Second World War. A key aspect to the concept of NATO expansion is the need to cast Russia as a perpetual enemy. This has led to decades on instability which culminated in a NATO-driven conflict between Russia and Ukraine, where Ukraine serves as a NATO/US proxy whose mission is to help bring about the strategic defeat of Russia by creating the conditions of economic, social, and political collapse in Russia.

The new NSS effectively declares this policy trajectory to be over.

Bringing an end to the conflict in Ukraine, instead of collaborating with Europe to finds ways to keep the conflict going indefinitely, is a top priority for the Trump administration under the new NSS. The Trump Administration, the NSS states, “finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition.”

Russia isn’t the enemy.

Europe is.

“A large European majority wants peace,” the NSS declares, “yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of democratic processes. This is strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis.”

The NSS lists as a “core interest of the United States” the need to “negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state.”

One of the main hurdles facing the United States in this regard is the NATO alliance. It is not just NATO’s blind ambition to expand its ranks regardless of the consequences, but also the fact that Europe’s current policy trajectory, which enables unchecked migration, has created a new geopolitical reality which makes NATO unsustainable as it is currently configured. “Over the long term,” the NSS observes, “it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European. As such, it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.”

The NSS seeks to “help Europe correct its current trajectory”, putting it back on a path that stands for “genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history.”

The Trump administration will encourage “its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.”

This is good news for Russia and the rest of the world.

This is bad news for NATO and the current cabal of political and economic elites who have put Europe on a trajectory incompatible with US national security interests.