Lose-lose is better than win-win? A detailed explanation of the U.S. National Security Strategy (Part 1)

I. Report Background and Core Positioning

The "2025 National Security Strategy" report released by the Trump administration is a guiding document for the United States' military, diplomatic, and foreign policies for the coming decades. Although the main text of this report is only 20-30 pages long, it is concise and sharply focused. Its core objective directly targets **"ensuring that the United States remains the strongest, wealthiest, most influential, and most successful nation in the world for decades to come."** The two strategic keywords running through the report—"focus" and "coherence"—are not only the key to understanding this strategic document but also reflect the current urgent need of the United States for strategic resource integration and policy continuity.

In essence, this report is a significant move by the United States to respond to changes in the current global landscape and adjust its strategy for great power competition. Its core direction is to define the path for future strategic confrontation with China, thereby maintaining its own global dominance.

II. Critique and Reflection on U.S. Post-Cold War Strategy

The report launches a sharp critique of U.S. diplomatic strategy since the end of the Cold War, pointing out its fundamental flaws. It argues that past strategies either fell into "wish list" idealism, failing to clarify America's true demands, or piled up "vague platitudes," leading to misjudgments of core strategic objectives. The root of this strategic deviation is attributed to a series of serious misjudgments by the American foreign policy elite.

(I) Four Major Strategic Misjudgments by the Elite

American foreign policy elites once firmly believed that "American permanent dominance of the entire world best serves our national interests." However, the report clearly points out fatal flaws in this perception: First, it severely misjudged the willingness of the American people to bear global obligations, with most citizens believing many international duties are unrelated to core national interests. Second, it overestimated America's dual capacity to sustain both a massive welfare system and a vast military-diplomatic apparatus, leading to excessive resource consumption. Third, it made the wrong bets on "globalism" and "free trade," as the industrial transfer during globalization hollowed out the foundation of the American middle class and domestic industrial base. Fourth, it allowed allies to shift defense costs onto the United States and even dragged the U.S. into international conflicts unrelated to its core interests.

(II) Systemic Criticism of International Institutions

The report also accuses U.S. policy of being constrained by a network of international institutions, arguing that some institutions are driven by "anti-Americanism," while more adhere to a transnationalism that seeks to "dissolve national sovereignty." This excessive reliance on international mechanisms has weakened America's strategic autonomy. The report ultimately concludes that the American elite not only pursued a "fundamentally undesirable and unattainable goal" but also, in the process, undermined the core foundation for achieving it—America's wealth, power, and national character.

III. Trump's Strategic "Course Correction" and Discourse Reconstruction

The core logic of the "2025 National Security Strategy" report is to formalize and systematize Trump's political propositions, driving a comprehensive "course correction" in U.S. strategy. This "correction" process is accompanied by a distinct reconstruction of the discourse system, forming a highly targeted strategic narrative.

(I) Implicit Critique of the "Traitors" Theory

The report implies strong criticism of specific groups, positioning "career bureaucrats," "Democratic Party politicians," "Republican Party establishment," and the "Pentagon" as "traitors" who place their own interests above those of the American people, suggesting these groups were significant drivers of past strategic failures.

(II) Discourse Contestation over Hegemonic Autonomy

By criticizing the dependency of both parties' foreign policies, the report emphasizes the demand for American hegemonic autonomy. Its core narrative logic is: The world's most powerful nation can be the dog of Europeans, the dog of Israelis, the dog of Japan and South Korea, but it simply cannot be an independent, powerful global empire itself. This expression directly points to past excessive compromises in U.S. diplomacy towards allies, attempting to reshape the "America First" hegemonic narrative.

(III) Legitimizing the "Course Correction" of the Trump Presidency

The report explicitly states that "President Trump's first term proved" that, as long as the leadership possesses firm resolve, all problems of past strategies "could have been solved at once." This statement not only legitimizes Trump's past policy practices but also sets continuing this "course correction" trajectory as the core objective of his potential second term, constructing a legitimacy foundation for strategic continuity.

IV. The Core Objective System of U.S. National Security Strategy

The report constructs a national security objective system covering multiple dimensions: survival, security, economy, military, society, and culture. The orientation of **"domestic affairs first"** is extremely prominent, viewing the improvement of domestic governance capacity as the foundation for global competition.

(I) Foundational Guarantee: Survival and Security

Survival and security are the primary objectives of the strategy. The core connotations include ensuring the continued existence of the United States as an independent sovereign republic, safeguarding citizens' inalienable rights, protecting the security of national territory, economic system, and way of life, and defending against various traditional and non-traditional threats such as military attacks, espionage, predatory trade, drug and human trafficking, propaganda warfare, and cultural subversion.

(II) Core of Domestic Affairs: Border and Immigration Governance

The report elevates the immigration issue to the core of national security for the first time, explicitly proposing the goal of "complete control of the border." Specific requirements include severing the transportation networks relied upon for both legal and illegal entry, promoting cooperation with sovereign nations to "stop, not facilitate, destabilizing population flows," and insisting on autonomous standards for admitting individuals. This goal setting profoundly reflects the concept that "foreign policy is an extension of domestic policy," placing domestic governance needs ahead of external strategy.

(III) Support System: Infrastructure, Military, and Economy

In the infrastructure domain, the strategy emphasizes building resilient infrastructure capable of withstanding natural disasters and external threats, solidifying the physical barrier for domestic security. In the military domain, the goal is to build the world's strongest, most technologically advanced, and most lethal military, establishing reliable nuclear deterrence and a next-generation missile defense system (including the "Golden Dome" system), achieving the core demand to "deter war and, when necessary, win wars swiftly and decisively with minimal casualties." In the economic and industrial domain, building the "world's strongest and most dynamic economy" is seen as the cornerstone of the American way of life and global position, emphasizing industrial revival to meet production needs in both peacetime and wartime, while building a world-leading energy export industry to transform economic strength into strategic competitiveness.

(IV) Core Driver: Technology and Innovation

The report lists maintaining global technological leadership as a key strategic objective, explicitly requiring the protection of intellectual property from foreign theft and building competitive advantages through technological innovation. This objective is deeply intertwined with economic and military goals, highlighting technology's position as the core battlefield in great power competition.

(V) Spiritual Foundation: Soft Power and Cultural Health

The report proposes that maintaining "unrivaled soft power" must be based on "restoring and revitalizing the American spirit and cultural health," arguing that the collapse of cultural identity would render long-term security impossible. Its specific cultural goals include constructing a truthful, glorious narrative of American history, cultivating a proud, optimistic populace that believes in intergenerational progress, ensuring full employment to strengthen citizens' national identity, and fostering "strong traditional families." The report particularly emphasizes: "Without this, everything we say about national security strategy will be impossible to achieve," viewing cultural cohesion as the spiritual foundation of the strategy. This orientation essentially sounds a "cultural clarion call" domestically, attempting to end the influence of "woke culture" and reshape domestic consensus with a logic of "securing the home front before venturing abroad."

V. The External Extension of Strategy: Global Projection of Domestic Objectives

The report clearly states that the above-mentioned objectives, which appear focused on domestic affairs, are not about "keeping one's own virtue intact" but serve the purpose of "bringing order to the world" in the context of global hegemony competition. The second part of the report will focus on foreign policy, with the core logic being to mobilize all national resources to support the achievement of domestic objectives, while simultaneously using diplomatic means to transform domestic governance achievements into global competitive advantages. This setting indicates that America's domestic adjustments are not a strategic contraction but rather a reserve of strength for long-term global competition. Its strategy has a strong outward projection, and subsequent sections will further clarify its impact pathways on key regions such as Europe.

Conclusion: The Nationalist Turn in American Strategy

The Trump administration's "2025 National Security Strategy" report marks a significant transformation in American strategic thinking, with **"domestic affairs first" and "cultural mobilization"** constituting its core characteristics. By fiercely criticizing post-Cold War globalist diplomacy, the report refocuses strategic attention on America's own security, economic prosperity, and cultural identity, constructing a strategic system based on domestic governance with nationalism at its core. Domestic issues such as the border crisis, industrial revival, and the reshaping of traditional values are elevated to the core of national security, while powerful military force and diplomatic resources become tools to safeguard this system. This "America First" nationalist turn essentially tightly bundles the reshaping of domestic cohesion with the maintenance of global hegemony, attempting to support future great power competition and confrontation by strengthening internal unity. It will have profound impacts on the global landscape and great power relations.