In the early morning hours of Friday, December 5th, the Trump administration released a new “National Security Strategy.” (The full document is available at the link.) The document purports to reshape US foreign policy with a “dog’s breakfast” of doctrines that include America First, white supremacy in the US and Europe, monetizing diplomacy between the US and all other nations, strengthening the concepts of nationhood and sovereignty to prevent migration across the globe, and helping to reestablish the strategic stability of Russia.
The National Security Strategy (NSS) will receive significant attention over the coming weeks. Heather Cox Richardson and The Economist wrote about the NSS on Friday. The coverage by HCR, The Economist, and other sources caused panic among many readers of this newsletter—both American and European.
The sense of alarm is understandable. The NSS is an abomination. As the Economist writes, it is a “dog’s breakfast” that repudiates the “enlightened values that have long anchored [US] foreign policy,” and that “America First becomes a naked assertion of power that owes more to the 19th century than the world that America built after the second world war.” Worse, the NSS is animated by racist, white supremacist ideology designed to maintain “national purity” among European nations.
The post-WWII peace and economic expansion have few precedents in world history. Sadly, Trump has been doing everything he can to destroy the global alliances and economic relationships that have fueled the (mostly) peaceful post-WWII expansion.
The NSS is an internally contradictory articulation of Trump’s incoherent, inconsistent foreign policy, which is itself driven by the emotional outbursts of a president ignorant of history, economics, sociology, and science.
If the NSS is operationalized, the world would become more dangerous, unstable, and unsustainable. While we should not underestimate the damage Trump can inflict, the NSS presumes the administration will be able to shape the future by implementing policy in a disciplined and coherent fashion—something it has shown no ability to do.
We should fight the policies in the NSS with all our might, but we should not assume that Trump will be able to implement them just because they are written down on paper.
Trump’s NSS might be achievable if the US could magically control every economic, political, social, and scientific development in all countries for the next century. Obviously, it cannot do so—which renders the NSS a madman’s manifesto with no hope of becoming reality.
The wish list in the NSS mostly ignores long-standing, deeply embedded political, economic, and military relationships that have taken nearly a century to build and will not wither in the few remaining years that Trump and Steven Miller will have nominal control of US foreign policy.
I will take a few minutes to address the NSS because I expect that readers will have many questions about it in the coming weeks. If the NSS doesn’t concern you now, keep this newsletter nearby for future reference.
If you are concerned about the NSS, I urge you to read it. (National Security Strategy.) The overwhelming sense I got from reading it was that it was written by a combination of Steven Miller and a handful of tech bros who stopped their intellectual development after reading Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.1 Indeed, the NSS has explicit references to Atlas Shrugged and the “maker” economy (tech bro speak for “I made an app that is worth billions, so I am a ‘maker.’”)
The NSS reads like a Steven Miller fever dream. It says,
In everything we do, we are putting America First.
The Era of Mass Migration Is Over.
The US must help “promote European greatness” by preventing “civilizational erasure.”
We want Europe to “remain European” by helping to increase the birthrate and protecting “national identities” and “national sovereignty.”
US foreign embassies must be aware of opportunities to promote US businesses in their host countries, especially opportunities to win major government contracts.
The US will maintain military and economic “dominance” in the Western hemisphere and will use military force to do so. (Trump names this doctrine after himself. I won’t repeat the name.)
Certain NATO members will become “majority non-European” in a few decades. As such, it is an open question whether they will view their alliance with the US in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.
The US will help “reestablish strategic stability in Russia.”
It is a “core interest” of the US to end the war in Ukraine immediately.
The notion of NATO as a growing alliance must end.
Not surprisingly, Russia was ecstatic with the policy aims in the NSS. See The Guardian, Kremlin hails Trump’s national security strategy as aligned with Russia’s vision.
Before continuing, let’s pause here. The Trump administration issues its first major statement on foreign policy and national security strategy, and Russia responds, “Hooray! We agree!” That should tell us all we need to know about whether the NSS is in the interest of the US and its allies.
The NSS is an abomination. It promotes white supremacy and “European purity” by declaring that “the era of mass migration is over.” It defines the animating principle of US foreign policy as “What’s in it for the US?” rather than “What advances the common interests of the US and its allies?”
I could go on, but you get the picture.
The problem with NSS is that it purports to reshape US relationships with the world by turning our back on our economic and military allies while prioritizing our relationship with Russia. That reorientation ignores reality on many levels.
On an economic level, the US, EU, UK, Canada, and Mexico account for more than 50% of global GDP, and trade between those nations accounts for 35% of the global total. Russia, on the other hand, accounts for about 2% of global GDP and ranks 35th among US trading partners (due in part to sanctions). Russia is irrelevant as a global economic power and as a US trading partner. “Re-orienting” the US toward Russia on an economic level is pure silliness.
On a military level, the US has 65,000 troops stationed in Europe—to defend against Russian expansionism. Those troops are there because the US wants them to be stationed in Europe as a matter of US national interest; protecting Europe is secondary and derivative of US interests. And there are only two nations in the world with nuclear missiles aimed at the US—with Russia accounting for 85% of those weapons. A substantial portion of US defense spending is designed to protect against an attack by Russia and to prepare for an attack on Russia.
The NSS assumes that the US will make significant revisions to the economic and military reality described above—and that Trump will do so in the remaining three years of his presidency. The NSS acknowledges that it will be practically impossible to cut ties economic or military ties with Europe. The NSS states, in in part,
Yet Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States. Transatlantic trade remains one of the pillars of the global economy and of American prosperity. European sectors from manufacturing to technology to energy remain among the world’s most robust. Europe is home to cutting-edge scientific research and world-leading cultural institutions. Not only can we not afford to write Europe off—doing so would be self-defeating for what this strategy aims to achieve.
In the end, it is highly doubtful that the NSS will be operationalized to any meaningful degree. [Some portions have been implemented. See, e.g., attacks on non-combatant civilians in international waters.] But even if portions of the NSS are implemented, Steven Miller and the tech bros recognize the inescapable, powerful interdependence of the US and Europe.
I do not mean to dismiss the danger and depravity of the NSS. I do mean to counter the narratives we should expect in the coming weeks that say, “Trump declared this, and Trump declared that,” without acknowledging that Trump can declare that pigs can fly, but saying so doesn’t make it true.
Trump has proven to be effective at breaking things, but monumentally inept at implementing new policies. The NSS is a sweeping set of policy goals that would tax the capabilities of a president who didn’t fall asleep at Cabinet meetings. Trump doesn’t have the attention span, discipline, or stamina to make the NSS a reality. The question is how much progress Steven Miller can make in 3 years—especially if two of those years include Democratic control of Congress.
Senator Adam Schiff demands the release of the “second strike” video
Republican Senators have been on cable news talk shows claiming that the two crew members who survived an attack by two Hellfire missiles were “sunbathing,” or attempting to right the destroyed hull of a burning boat so that they could continue their drug mission.
The Republican defense of the attack on the two survivors is disgraceful and misleading. See Top Armed Services Dem says Sept. 2 strike video would show Republicans’ description ‘completely false’ - ABC News.
Senator Adam Schiff responded to Senator Tom Cotton’s ridiculous defense of the double-tap strike by calling for the release of the video of the second attack. Sen. Adam Schiff Bluntly Dares Pentagon To Release Tape On Deadly Drug Boat Strikes | HuffPost Latest News
Until the administration releases the tapes, we have no reason to believe its version of the story. And we should make “Release the Tapes” a part of our rallying cries at protests.
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 60 Minutes interview
Marjorie Taylor Greene was interviewed by 60 Minutes. During the interview, she said what many of us believe: That behind Trump’s back, GOP members of Congress are laughing at Trump. See The Hill, 5 takeaways from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ’60 Minutes’ interview. (“I watched many of my colleagues . . . making fun of him, making fun of how he talks, making fun of me constantly for supporting him . . . .”)
While Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comments don’t deserve attention or credibility, this one has the ring of truth. I frequently ask myself, “How is it these Republicans can’t see through Trump’s ineptness, cruelty, and ignorance?” The answer is, “They do, and they are laughing at him behind his back.”
Why, then, do they support him? Greene answered that question, as well, by describing the death threats that she receives, which include language used by Trump to attack Greene. (“The subject line for the direct death threats on my son was [Trump’s] words: ‘Marjorie Traitor Greene.”]
A pre-print study finds that receiving vaccination first, rather than allowing infection first, significantly reduced the risk of future infection.
A study of 1.7 million patients showed that the strategy of allowing people to become infected to develop “herd immunity” is not as effective as vaccinating people. See Learning from the omicron BA.4/5 dominance: Strategies for future vaccination preparedness - ScienceDirect.
The summary in the article reports as follows:
Vaccination before infection consistently yielded superior protection compared to infection-first scenarios, with infection-first CoronaVac recipients facing 97–141 % higher subsequent infection risk.
In other words, herd immunity is not only deadlier initially, but it is also less effective at conferring protection against the virus than vaccination.
Concluding Thoughts
I ran out of time to comment on other stories. The coming week will be filled with Supreme Court news about Trump’s effort to remove all checks on executive power, efforts to re-indict Letitia James and James Comey, the rumored Republican healthcare plan, and initial concerns about the funding deadline in January.
The throughline for December will be the inability of congressional Republicans to govern while Trump ignores the Constitution, and the chaos those factors will cause at home and abroad–reminders why we must take back control of Congress in 2026.
Stay strong! I will talk to you tomorrow!
Pro-democracy photos:
Indivisible San Jose, CA
Main Street, Fort Bragg, CA
12/7/25, Lebanon,NH.
I am so grateful for the Santa-hat woman provides so much leadership, organizing, and positive energy.
New Hampshire:
Today’s event was the 94th organized by Champlain Valley Indivisible’s roadside visibility crew since the chapter was created in the spring. For months they showed up on Shelburne Road in South Burlington, Vermont. For the last several months, organizers have rotated locations in additional communities including Colchester (pictured here), Williston and this coming week, Essex Junction.
28 Weeks and still counting. Weekly Protest in Moretown, Vermont by some dedicated members of Indivisible Mad River Valley.
Charlottesville, VA
For those unfamiliar with Ayn Rand’s most famous works, they have been favorites of middle-school students working out their anger at the world and willing to believe that society’s ills can be solved by rugged self-reliance and social Darwinism. The books have become favorites among the tech bro billionaire crowd, who believe that Rand’s philosophy means they can enjoy their billions without any obligation to less fortunate members of society.
Apologies to fans of Ayn Rand’s dense prose and impenetrable objectivist philosophy. If you want to send me an angry email, I ask that you first re-read John Galt’s 60-page speech in Atlas Shrugged. If you are still offended and have the energy, email away!
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