Evaluating the U.S. National Security Strategy: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Reforms
I. Introduction
National Security Strategies (NSS) are presidential documents submitted to Congress that define U.S. national interests, assess the security environment, and guide the allocation of political, economic, and military resources. They do not detail specific plans or tactics; instead, they provide the President’s assessment of the geopolitical landscape and outline the nation’s top risks and priorities in a rapidly changing world. Beyond guiding policymakers, they also signal these priorities to allies, adversaries, and domestic audiences.
The 2025 NSS, issued under President Donald Trump, represents one of the most significant departures in the history of the document. Daniel Drezner notes that since the end of the Cold War, there has been a steady expansion of what counts as a national security concern,[i] but the shift in this version goes beyond adding new categories of threats. Unlike prior administrations, which focused on building strong alliances, working with multilateral institutions, and promoting a liberal international order, Trump’s NSS rejects these global commitments, arguing “American strategies since the end of the Cold War have fallen short.”[ii] Instead, Trump roots the strategy in his “America First”[iii] philosophy, which treats postwar multilateral structures as liabilities that entangle the U.S. in obligations serving other nations’ interests more than its own.
To evaluate the NSS fairly, we must first establish context. It was developed amid intensifying rivalry with China, rapid technological change, and uncertainty about the durability of the postwar alliance system. These developments contribute to an already complex geopolitical landscape. According to Robert Gates, “The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever.”[iv]
While the document demonstrates important strengths such as prioritizing the Western Hemisphere, emphasizing economic and industrial security, and focusing on China and the Indo-Pacific, the strategy is weakened by its neglect of collective security threats and its thin treatment of North Korea. Its call for greater NATO burden-sharing is legitimate and overdue, but the punitive tone in which that demand is delivered, combined with politicized framing of domestic issues, risks undermining cooperation and credibility. This paper evaluates these strengths and weaknesses and proposes reforms.
II. Overview of the 2025 National Security Strategy
The 2025 NSS argues that post-Cold War American strategy produced “laundry lists of wishes,”[v] and that foreign policy elites “convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interest of our country,”[vi] resulting in overextension, deindustrialization, and strategic drift. The document presents itself as a correction to that misguided trajectory.
To achieve this, it proposes three key shifts: rebuilding economic strength as the foundation of military power, scaling back open-ended commitments abroad, and prioritizing American interests over multilateral obligations. The strategy states its purpose clearly: “The purpose of foreign policy is the protection of core national interests; that is the sole focus of this strategy.”[vii]
III. Strengths of the Strategy
A. Regional Focus on the Western Hemisphere
A key strength of the NSS is its renewed focus on the Western Hemisphere. The strategy aims to “assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine,”[viii] and argues that “the United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity.”[ix] By prioritizing border security, counter-narcotics operations, and efforts to combat transnational criminal networks, the administration is fulfilling this vision.
The NSS calls for enlisting “regional champions that can help create tolerable stability in the region, even beyond those partners’ borders…to stop illegal migration, neutralize cartels, nearshore manufacturing, and develop local private economies.”[x] The administration’s reclassification of major drug cartels as terrorist organizations and its focus on curbing human trafficking show an effort to integrate law enforcement, intelligence, and defense capabilities more effectively. This regional focus on the Western Hemisphere demonstrates a realistic understanding that national security begins at home. Meanwhile, the integrated approach to law enforcement, intelligence, and defense further enhances the strategy’s effectiveness.
B. Emphasis on Economic and Industrial Security
A major strength of the NSS is its emphasis on economic power as the foundation of national security. Rather than focusing solely on state adversaries, the strategy connects education, workforce development, and industrial policy to long-term resilience.
The document states: “our economy is the bedrock of our global position and the necessary foundation of our military.”[xi] It ties military readiness to manufacturing capacity, access to critical minerals, and technological leadership, reflecting important lessons from recent supply-chain failures exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The strategy calls for reshoring, balanced trade, and strengthening supply chains in sectors such as semiconductors, energy, biotechnology, and quantum computing.[xii] These industries are critical because they underpin advancements in American artificial intelligence, which positions the U.S. to compete in emerging conflict domains such as cyber and space. The NSS notes that “the United States must never be dependent on any outside power for core components”[xiii] and must “re-secure our own independent and reliable access to the goods we need to defend ourselves and preserve our way of life.”[xiv] It also highlights the strategic value of American financial dominance, stating that our capital markets “are pillars of influence that afford policymakers significant leverage and tools to advance America’s national security priorities.”[xv]
Taken together, these measures show an effort to align economic policy, technological innovation, and defense planning more closely than in past strategies, emphasizing the role of American industrial and financial power in sustaining national security and preparing for future competition.
C. Focus on China and the Indo-Pacific
The NSS’s treatment of competition in the Indo-Pacific is another major strength. Despite decades of effort to integrate China into the “so-called rules-based international order,”[xvi] the NSS bluntly asserts, “this did not happen,”[xvii] a candid and largely accurate assessment.
The strategy emphasizes the Indo-Pacific’s importance to global commerce and technological production, noting that the region “is already the source of almost half the world’s GDP”[xviii] and will remain “among the next century’s key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds.”[xix] It stresses freedom of navigation, supply-chain security, and the need for a rebalanced economic relationship with China, coupled with “a robust and ongoing focus on deterrence to prevent war in the Indo-Pacific.”[xx] By linking economic and military competition, the NSS offers a clearer pathway for managing long-term rivalry with China.
IV. Weaknesses and Misguided Elements
A. Absence of Collective Security Challenges
A major weakness of the 2025 NSS is its near-total neglect of transnational threats such as pandemics and climate change.[xxi] The document defines the purpose of foreign policy as the “protection of core national interests”[xxii] and explicitly limits itself to that scope. The narrower focus has some merit, as Daniel Drezner notes, “if everything is defined as national security, nothing is a national security priority.”[xxiii] However, by restricting its lens, the NSS leaves important gaps.
COVID-19 showed how non-military shocks can quickly disrupt national strength. Similarly, climate-driven instability increasingly creates conditions for conflict and humanitarian crises, which can drive migration. The NSS emphasizes managing migration flows, yet by ignoring climate as a root cause, it undermines its own objectives. By failing to treat transnational threats as strategic priorities, the document weakens its broader emphasis on resilience. A strategy cannot claim to prepare the country for future risks while ignoring entire categories of threats.
B. Lack of Serious Treatment of North Korea
The NSS does not mention North Korea, despite its expanding nuclear arsenal and its demonstrated ability to threaten the U.S. homeland and regional allies. This omission is difficult to justify. North Korea continues developing intercontinental ballistic missiles and has cooperated closely with Russia, as evidenced by its troop deployments to Ukraine last year.
Treating North Korea as a peripheral issue encourages complacency and increases the likelihood of reactive, crisis-driven policymaking. A strategy that devotes substantial attention to the Indo-Pacific cannot ignore the region’s most immediate nuclear threat.
C. Alliance Burden-Sharing and Politicized Framing
The NSS’s treatment of alliance burden-sharing is both a strength and a weakness. The document asserts that “the days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over”[xxiv] and establishes the Hague Commitment, which “pledges NATO countries to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense.”[xxv] As Philip Gordon and Mara Karlin note, this reflects a shift in how Washington expects allies to contribute.[xxvi] Encouraging allies to spend more on defense is a legitimate and long-overdue correction. However, relying on a fixed GDP percentage as the primary metric introduces ambiguity because countries categorize spending differently.[xxvii] Moreover, the way this demand is communicated undermines its goal. The NSS frames alliances in terms of what the United States will “no longer tolerate,”[xxviii] citing “free-riding, trade imbalances, predatory economic practices, and other impositions on our nation’s historic goodwill.”[xxix] This punitive tone risks eroding the political will necessary to sustain higher defense investment.
The document also includes domestic cultural commentary, most notably the claim that “we got radical gender ideology and woke lunacy out of our Armed Forces,”[xxx] alongside criticism of “foreign policy elites”[xxxi] and efforts to “root out DEI and other discriminatory and anti-competitive practices.”[xxxii] Embedding partisan cultural priorities risks blurring the line between strategic analysis and political messaging. The NSS loses credibility by focusing on domestic political issues.
V. Proposed Improvements
A. Integrate Transnational and Collective Security Threats
A revised NSS should explicitly recognize pandemics and climate instability as national security threats. For example, military planners should assess how melting Arctic ice could open new sea lanes, creating both strategic opportunities and new vulnerabilities. Regular risk assessments focused on climate impacts and public health crises would improve long-term preparedness. The strategy could also expand its list of priority industries for reshoring to include essential medical supplies, reducing dependence on foreign sources during future pandemics. Incorporating these transnational risks into the NSS would strengthen national resilience without undermining the administration’s core objectives.
B. Develop a Comprehensive North Korea Framework
The strategy should treat North Korea as a threat and clarify whether the goal is denuclearization, long-term deterrence, or an interim arms-control agreement. Clear objectives would reduce the risk of reactive, crisis-driven policymaking. Additionally, the NSS should outline concrete steps, such as increased coordination with Japan and South Korea and diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang. These measures could lower the likelihood of escalation, reassure allies, and establish a plan for managing the risks associated with one of the world’s most dangerous nuclear actors.
C. Reform the Framing of Alliance Management and Omit Politicized Rhetoric
The NSS should maintain its demand for greater burden-sharing but replace its adversarial tone with rhetoric that emphasizes mutual benefit. The administration appears to be moving in this direction. For instance, at the Munich Security Conference in February 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed European leaders with a more collaborative tone than the language used in the NSS, without conceding the U.S.’s firm stance on revised burden-sharing expectations.[xxxiii] Emphasizing how changes in defense spending can strengthen the alliance collectively would be a more effective approach. The revised strategy should also avoid political or cultural commentary and remain focused on national security priorities.
VI. Conclusion
The 2025 NSS articulates a clear vision of American priorities, focusing on economic strength, regional concerns, and competition with other great powers. Its emphasis on industrial security, deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, and stability in the Western Hemisphere reflects a realistic understanding of America’s most pressing interests. The push for greater alliance burden-sharing addresses a real problem that previous administrations avoided confronting.
At the same time, the strategy falls short in several areas. It largely ignores collective security threats, gives too little attention to North Korea, and uses punitive and politicized rhetoric that weakens its long-term effectiveness and credibility. Addressing these issues would make the strategy more practical, durable, and credible.
[i] [i] Daniel W. Drezner, “How Everything Became National Security and National Security Became Everything,”
[ii] The White House, National Security Strategy (Washington, DC: The White House, 2025), 1
[iii] White House, National Security Strategy, 8
[iv] Robert M. Gates, “The Dysfunctional Superpower: Can a Divided America Deter China and Russia?” Foreign Affairs, 1
[v] White House, National Security Strategy, 1
[vi] White House, National Security Strategy, 1
[vii] White House, National Security Strategy, 1
[viii] White House, National Security Strategy, 5
[ix] White House, National Security Strategy, 17
[x] White House, National Security Strategy, 16
[xi] White House, National Security Strategy, 4
[xii] White House, National Security Strategy, 5
[xiii] White House, National Security Strategy, 13
[xiv] White House, National Security Strategy, 13
[xv] White House, National Security Strategy, 15
[xvi] White House, National Security Strategy, 19
[xvii] White House, National Security Strategy, 19
[xviii] White House, National Security Strategy, 19
[xix] White House, National Security Strategy, 19
[xx] White House, National Security Strategy, 20
[xxi] Daniel W. Drezner, “How Everything Became National Security and National Security Became Everything,”
[xxii] White House, National Security Strategy, 1
[xxiii] Daniel W. Drezner, “How Everything Became National Security and National Security Became Everything,”
[xxiv] White House, National Security Strategy, 12
[xxv] White House, National Security Strategy, 12
[xxvi] Philip H. Gordon and Mara Karlin, “The Allies After America: In Search of Plan B,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2026, published December 16, 2025, 1.
[xxvii] Class Notes, February 11, 2026.
[xxviii] White House, National Security Strategy, 10
[xxix] White House, National Security Strategy, 10
[xxx] White House, National Security Strategy, i
[xxxi] White House, National Security Strategy, 1
[xxxii] White House, National Security Strategy, 6
[xxxiii] U.S. Department of State, “Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference,” Office of the Spokesperson, February 2026, https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/02/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio-at-the-munich-security-conference.
Charlie Mounts
