What we have here in the United States is obviously a Wizard of Oz situation.

The White House quietly released the November 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) and posted it on the White House website. Since it is the announcement of the official U.S. foreign policy, there is usually a bit of fanfare with its release, but not this year.

Most Americans will never hear about it, much less read it.

It begins with a letter signed by Trump but obviously written by someone else. Probably Stephen Miller. Why do I say that? Simple. It is written in complete sentences.

The letter

That letter is enlightening because it does list the “eight raging conflicts” Trump claims to have put an end to in “just eight months” this year. In case you’re having trouble keeping up with the wars Trump has ended, here’s the list as found in this letter: Cambodia & Thailand, Kosovo & Serbia, the Democratic Republic of Congo & Rwanda, Pakistan & India, Israel & Iran, Egypt & Ethiopia, Armenia & Azerbaijan, and Israel & Gaza, although Israel is not named in the letter. (He wouldn’t want to show the government of Israel in a bad light, would he?)

The letter is full of bluster and boasts of all the amazing things Trump has done and all the “weakness, extremism, and deadly failures” of the Biden Administration. As only Trump can boast, the letter states, “Over the past nine months, we have brought our nation — and the world – back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster.”

The NSS document

The NSS document itself contains 29 pages of details of what the United States wants and what the United States wants from the world.

Some of the introductory remarks would be laughable if they weren’t so sad. For instance, “We want to maintain the United States’ unrivaled ‘soft power’ through which we exercise positive influence throughout the world that furthers our interests” rings hollow considering the Trump Administration obliterated USAID.

The sudden obliteration of USAID not only resulted in the starvation of hundreds of thousands of children but also their preventable deaths by the withholding of medical treatments – not to mention how the cessation of the food aid programs hurt the American farmer terribly.

The paragraph that really made me gag, though, was this one:

“Finally, we want the restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health, without which long-term security is impossible. We want an America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes, and that looks forward to a new golden age. We want a people who are proud, happy, and optimistic that they will leave their country to the next generation better than they found it. We want a gainfully employed citizenry – with no one sitting on the sidelines – who take satisfaction from knowing that their work is essential to the prosperity of our nation and to the well-being of individuals and families. This cannot be accomplished without growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children.” (Notice the subtle reference to “traditional families.”)

Dear Leader Kim Jong Un of North Korea couldn’t have written that paragraph better! Delete the words “American spiritual” and I would swear I was reading a translation of a statement by Kim or Xi.

A paragraph that sent chills down my spine, though, was this one: “We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; …we want …; we want … ; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine;….”

It was “Trump Corollary” that got to me. Why does his name have to go on every cotton-picking thing?

The document goes on to delineate U.S. policy by region: The Western Hemisphere, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Introductory remarks that preface the regional details include, “The United States is by every measure the most generous nation in history – yet we cannot afford to be equally attentive to every region and every problem in the world.”

The Western Hemisphere

The so-called “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine involves making new partners and reconsidering our military presence in the Western Hemisphere. This seems to involve beefing up our Coast Guard and Navy presence “to control se lanes, to thwart illegal and other unwanted migration, to reduce human and drug trafficking, and to control key transit routes in a crisis.” It also includes “targeted deployments to secure the border and defeat cartels, including where necessary the use of lethal force to replace the failed law enforcement-only strategy of the last several decades.”

Also, “…as we prioritize commercial diplomacy, we will work to strengthen our security partnerships – from weapons sales to intelligence sharing to joint exercises.” This is in response to non-Western Hemisphere nations’ incursions of influence in recent years.

But the National Security Strategy goes on from there and seems to concentrate on the economy and what’s in it for United States companies. As a student of political science, it reads to me as a complete overhaul of the U.S. State Department and the responsibilities of our diplomats and State Department employees out in the field. This makes me cringe.

The U.S. “will reform our own system to expedite approvals and licensing – again, to make ourselves the partner of first choice. The choice all countries should face is whether they want to live in an American-led world of sovereign countries and free economies or in a parallel one in which they are influenced by countries on the other side of the world….

“All our embassies must be aware of major business opportunities in their country, especially major government contracts. Every U.S. Government official that interacts with these countries should understand that part of their job is to help American companies compete and succeed.

“The U.S. Government will identify strategic acquisition and investment opportunities for American companies in the region and present these opportunities for assessment by every U.S. Government financing program, including but not limited to those within the Departments of State, War, and Energy; the Small Business Administration; the International Development Finance Corporation; the Export-Import Bank; and the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

“We should also partner with regional governments and businesses to build scalable and resilient energy infrastructure, invest in critical mineral access, and harden existing and future cyber communications networks that take full advantage of American encryption and security potential.

“The aforementioned U.S. Government entities should be used to finance some of the costs of purchasing U.S. goods abroad. The United States must also resist and reverse measures such as targeted taxation, unfair regulation, and expropriation that disadvantage U.S. businesses. The terms of our agreements, especially with those countries that depend on us most and therefore over which we have the most leverage, must be sole-source contracts for our companies. At the same time, we should make every effort to push out foreign companies that build infrastructure in the region.”

The part about U.S. State Department – or any other U.S. Government employee – who interacts with countries in the Western Hemisphere to understand that it is “part of their job to help American companies compete and succeed” is a 180-degree change in the purpose U.S. Government employees. It is not part of the job of a State Department employee to promote American companies! At least, it wasn’t part of their job until last Friday. That is absolutely not the job of the U.S. diplomatic corps!

I suppose this being put in writing by the Trump Administration should come as no surprise. After all, the U.S. State Department no longer makes “peace agreements;” it makes “deals” because Trump has an overwhelming lack of understanding or appreciation for the traditional functions of government in a democracy.

Western Hemisphere Command

It was not a coincidence that we learned on Thursday or Friday that two U.S. military command centers will be moving to Fort Bragg here in North Carolina over the next year as a new “Western Hemisphere Command” has been announced.

Possible blog post tomorrow

If I can recover from reading the Western Hemisphere portion of the National Security Strategy, I will blog tomorrow about how it addresses Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

I invite and encourage you to read the complete NSS document for yourself and not to take my word for it at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf.

Janet