Four Ways to Read the National Security Strategy
A graduate professor, Jake Sullivan, a West Coast Straussian, and I walk into a bar...
The National Security Strategy is out. In the nerdy policy circles, it is a somewhat controversial concept. There are those who take it very seriously, some who entirely dismiss it, and others who suggest modifications.
This is one of the many “strategy” documents Congress mandates every new administration to publish. Critics point to the fact that it is a piece of paper that wants to impose its ideas based on today’s facts on tomorrow’s world. Another problem is that it comes out of the White House, while strategy is inherently a military concept, and the military is the most successful tool of policy. Many reformers advise combining all these strategy documents into one, possibly under the Department of Defense’s supervision. The best defense for the National Security Strategy is that it provides valuable insight into the president’s thinking. Therein lies the problem with this one.
Donald Trump is a transactional and anti-ideology president. His policies depend on domestic politics more than those of any of his predecessors, and the best deal he can get; therefore, they are subject to change from one day to the next. Any attempt to ideologically cohere the president’s thinking is a futile effort.
So, how are we to read 30 pages of national security statements?
One suggestion is to be a professor in a mediocre graduate program, grading an international relations paper. It’s a self-contradicting—sometimes within the same paragraph—final paper, whose many attempts at prose result in platitudes. Your first thought is whether the student edited it. Especially nowadays, with ChatGPT, that is surely easier than ever! Your second thought is that it might have been written by ChatGPT! Your third thought is that it was definitely written by Grok because you’ve read these all on Twitter.
Your student is definitely an anti-neocon. Enough with nation-building and lecturing others on how to live their lives! “We seek 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,” the student declares. Three pages later, he opens a paragraph, “The purpose of the American government is to secure God-given natural rights of American citizens.” And he ends the same paragraph saying, “We will oppose elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe, the Anglosphere, and the rest of the democratic world, especially among our allies.” If the professor grading this happens to be a neocon, he’d think, “We’re so back, baby!”
No, we’re not:
The United States cannot allow any nation to become so dominant that it could threaten our interests. We will work with allies and partners to maintain global and regional balances of power to prevent the emergence of dominant adversaries. As the United States rejects the ill-fated concept of global domination for itself, we must prevent the global, and in some cases even regional, domination of others.
This guy might have read a lot of Henry Kissinger, but he’s only read Kissinger. Sigh!
As you keep reading, you wonder if students in elite programs are any smarter, because this kid is getting nowhere. “Strategy is about prioritizing,” no sh*t, Sherlock! Show me how you’re doing it.
Until you get to the Western Hemisphere part. Okay, this is interesting. The student wants to pull naval assets out of Asia to put them in the Western Hemisphere. There is not really a military threat in the region, but at least it’s a novel take. Then you get to the China part: “Hence deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” He knows that we’re about to be under-matched, right? And you’re pulling ships? Oy vey!
B+? Grade inflation and all.
The second way to read it is as if you’re Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s senior national security aide. You’re probably puzzled whether the author is plagiarizing you or rebuking you. Allies need to pay up, and we will do anything, from tariffs to export control, to deter China, as long as you don’t ask us to spend more on the military. He’s a plagiarist! Enough with climate change and DEI, we need to boost fertility! No you stupid idiot. Not everything is a national security issue, and fertility certainly is not. But climate change and DEI certainly are!
Then you get to the part about a foreign policy for the working class and, channeling your inner Frank Costanza, scream, “That’s my move!” Plagiarist! You keep reading and get to the Middle East section. “Conflict remains the Middle East’s most troublesome dynamic, but there is today less to this problem than headlines might lead one to believe.” That’s when you pour yourself a glass of scotch, thinking about when, five days before the October 7 attacks, you wrote, “The Israeli-Palestinian situation is tense, particularly in the West Bank, but in the face of serious frictions, we have de-escalated crises in Gaza and restored direct diplomacy between the parties after years of its absence.” You think to yourself, "F**k this sh*t!”
The third way is the Straussian. The primary author, Michael Anton, is involved with the Claremont Institute and West Coast Straussians, an admirer of Nicolo Machiavelli, and familiar with esoteric writing. Start by counting the chapters because the Truth is hidden in the center. Of course the introduction reads like a Grok word vomit. Only stupid people read the introduction! You are only reassured that this is an esoterically written document because the last chapter is Africa, which we all know nobody cares about. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, and you’re on a mission to find it.
Exoterically, this is a strategy document, and titles are distracting. The Truth can’t be in the “Strategy” part. It has to be in the most benign part. An italicized word eliminates Part II. You’re only left with Part III. Mike, you made it too easy!
There are two sets of recommendations, nine and five bullet points each. Odd numbers mean that there’s a center, and it can’t be a coincidence. So you jump to the fifth and third bullet points in those respective sections:
The world’s most powerful and capable military;
Reindustrializing our economy, again to further support the middle class and control our own supply chains and production capacities.
These are the foundations of our strategy. Everything else is noise to protect the truth from the unwise and America’s enemies. And it’s brilliant: Build up the military, and reindustrialize the economy. Nobody else could have come up with this, and now the president and the secretary of defense must implement it! Wait, Trump and Pete Hegseth have read Leo Strauss and know how to do numerology, right?
And finally, there is the right way to read this strategy: If your disposition is to like this document, regardless of your politics, you will find a lot to like. Similarly, if your disposition is to hate it, regardless of your politics, there is a lot to hate.
But I recommend that you disregard it. Events always undermine half of every president’s National Security Strategy. After all, every one of its predecessors in this century has promised to withdraw from the Middle East to focus on China, and every preceding administration has been distracted from China by focusing on the Middle East. The president will subvert the remaining half.