DID Press: Trump administration has released its long-delayed National Security Strategy — a 33-page document that effectively revives and reframes the Monroe Doctrine, placing renewed emphasis on U.S. primacy in the Western Hemisphere, restructuring America’s global military posture, and curbing the influence of external powers. Published amid heightened U.S. attention to the Caribbean and growing pressure on Venezuela, the strategy offers a clear view of Washington’s evolving geopolitical priorities.
Unveiled eight months behind schedule, the strategy indicates a deliberate shift by Washington to re-center its strategic focus on the Western Hemisphere and reassert unrestricted U.S. authority across the Americas. The document formally reinterprets the Monroe Doctrine — historically aimed at preventing extra-regional powers from intervening in the hemisphere — and applies it through a more assertive and expansive lens.
According to the strategy, the United States intends to place every nation in the Americas — from Canada to Chile — within an order in which no foreign military or commercial partnership may proceed without U.S. consent. The document reads: “We will deny foreign rivals any ability to deploy forces, develop threatening capabilities, or seize critical assets in our hemisphere.”
It further argues that the U.S. must recalibrate its global military footprint and draw down forces in regions of “declining relative importance.”
This shift aligns with longstanding analysis suggesting Washington’s desire to reduce the global overstretch of its military apparatus. The number of U.S. military installations — around 250 before the Soviet collapse — climbed to nearly 900 at the start of the 2000s. This vast network strained resources and has since been reduced to roughly 800 bases worldwide.
The document also reframes Washington’s approach to China, asserting that Trump has “corrected three decades of strategic misjudgment by America’s elites.” China is accused of “predatory state subsidies, intellectual-property theft, and cultural penetration,” while the Indo-Pacific is described as “the central geopolitical battleground of the coming century.” The strategy calls for building a U.S. military force capable of countering “any aggression within the first island chain.”
Despite the breadth of the document, a key question looms: Can the Trump administration translate these principles into actionable policy, and what consequences will this recalibrated strategy have for critical regions such as the Middle East, Europe, and Africa?
A closer reading of the strategy — and its intellectual architecture — suggests Washington’s intent to re-establish a hierarchical global order in which U.S. interests and perceived threats determine the nature and intensity of its engagement with other nations.