Eight years ago, Trump's said that "China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity." The new NSS doesn't name Russia as a threat to the U.S. - stating instead that "strategic stability with Russia" is a goal of American policy. Europe is presented as a bigger challenge; the U.S. should "help Europe correct its current trajectory," which the NSS says has been damaged by immigration and a risk of " civilizational erasure."
The Trump administration's new National Security Strategy (NSS) depicts a Europe on the brink of collapse. Its malaise, the document stresses, is not just about Russian threats or economic stagnation; rather, Europe risks losing its identity, amidst falling birthrates, rising migration, and the alleged silencing of right-wing dissidents. For this, Washington especially blames the European Union, said to "undermine political liberty and sovereignty." Still, all is not lost.
discuss what will happen as the Supreme Court considers whether a president can remove leaders of independent agencies without cause, how the overt signals about immigration and "erasure" in the new National Security Strategy are meant to stir up cultural anxiety in Europe, and the high-stakes merger drama between Netflix, Paramount, and Warner Bros. with guest Tim Wu, professor at Columbia Law School and author of the new book The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity.
It is worth reading the most recent NSS in its entirety. It is less polished than its predecessor, betrays little evidence of consultation, and is considerably shorter (33 as against 70 pages). It reads like time had run out and a deadline had been reached. It ends abruptly with a short discussion on Africa, this administration's least important region, without a proper conclusion.
If you're working for a designated terrorist organization and you bring drugs to this country in a boat, we will find you and we will sink you. Let there be no doubt about it, Hegseth said during his keynote address at the Reagan National Defense Forum. President Trump can and will take decisive military action as he sees fit to defend our nation's interests. Let no country on earth doubt that for a moment.
I bring this up because the Trump administration released a clearly Stephen Miller-authored National Security Strategy last night, and like my WWII veteran grandfather watching Band of Brothers, my brain flashed back to a darker, more traumatic time as I read it. A time filled with thousands of needless words. A time where kids exposed their birdbrains while smarmily lecturing you how they're more advanced than they prove themselves to be.
Trump is taking "America First" literally. For the first time ever, the strategy incorporates everything from closing the borders and establishing "National Defense Areas" along them, immigration enforcement operations, the war against Antifa and other domestic groups, and even boat strikes in the Caribbean into a singular coherent war. Meanwhile, China and Russia, Iran and North Korea, and fighting in the Middle East are downgraded to secondary priorities.
