Connexion
The European ruling strata now stand isolated, widely unpopular and bereft.
Alastair Crooke at Strategic CultureA National Security Strategy (NSS) is produced periodically by U.S. Administrations (Trump authored one during his first term). Mostly these documents lay out an idealised version of an Administration’s foreign and security policy, and do not have great practical import – because of what is left out – i.e. entrenched U.S. political and economic interests; the deep foreign policy consensus overseen by the curator class of the deep security state; and the policies espoused by the mega donor collective.
Nonetheless, this recently-released NSS reads rather differently by putting a distinctive ‘America First’ gloss to U.S. foreign policy, eschewing global hegemony; ‘domination’ and ideological crusades in favour of pragmatic, transactional realism focused on protecting core national interests – homeland security, economic prosperity, and regional dominance in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. thus will “no longer prop up the entire world order like ‘Atlas’ and expects Europe to shoulder more of its own defence burdens”.
It critiques the U.S.’ earlier pursuit of global primacy as ‘a failure’ that ended up weakening America – and situates Trump’s policy as a ‘necessary correction’ to the earlier stance. It therefore accepts the tilt towards a multipolar world.
Two key foreign policy aims are nuanced rather than radically recast:
First, China is downgraded from ‘primary threat’; ‘pacing threat’ to economic competitor (Taiwan is treated as an instrument of deterrence).
And in respect to Russia, it says,
“It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state”.
The document does not mention ‘strategic peace’ with Russia, but only a ‘cessation of hostilities’, i.e. a ceasefire. The careful choice of language used may signal that Trump does not intend a full settlement with Russia on its security concerns, but only a truce, a “cessation of hostilities”.
It terms European relations with Russia as “deeply attenuated”:
“The Trump Administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition. A large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of democratic processes. This is strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis”.
Essentially, Ukraine is pushed on the Europeans as their responsibility from now on. More generally, Allies are expected to foot the bills – as the U.S. builds at home.
One of the biggest NSS shifts is that America is defined now as a fortified hemisphere power in place of a global hegemon:
“We want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; 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”.
In terms of military presence, the Strategy states that this entails “a readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere”.
Perhaps the most meaningful aspect in terms on practical impact is the reference to “ending NATO as an ever-expanding alliance” – and to Europe, which is critiqued in the most astringent terms:
The NSS is highly critical of Europe’s economic stagnation, its demographic decline, the loss of sovereignty to EU institutions and its “civilizational erasure”:
“We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation”.
The document declares the liberal/technocratic elites of the EU and many Member States to be a threat to Europe’s future, regional stability – and to American interests. It makes it clear that supporting the Patriotic Right in Europe, and “cultivating resistance” to Europe’s current trajectory are in the American interest.
It calls out population replacement (immigration) as the gravest long-term threat to Europe and American interests, openly questioning whether some European nations will remain reliable allies given their current trajectory.
The transatlantic relationship therefore remains in place but is no longer the centrepiece of U.S. foreign policy.
The European elite’s panic:
European leaders, including former Swedish PM Carl Bildt, called the NSS reference to Europe as being “to the Right of the extreme Right”. In the U.S., Democrats, such as Rep. Jason Crow, deemed it “catastrophic”. for alliances, i.e. for NATO.
To understand fully the panicked outcry issuing forth from Europe, a little context is required:
Liberal-woke identity politics allowed no ‘otherness’, not difference of opinion.
Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor Jennifer Rubin (long cited by the Washington Post as their ‘Republican columnist’ for ‘balance’), writing in September 2022, rejected the very notion of an argument having ‘sides’ since any contrary argument imputed a rationality to conservatives:
“We have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican Party. We have to level them – because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again … The Kabuki dance in which Trump, his defenders and his supporters are treated as rational (clever even!) comes from a media establishment that refuses to discard … this false equivalence”.
And then-President Biden, in a speech that same month, said pretty much the same as Rubin: In a set-up bathed eerily in red and black light, at the historic Independence Hall, Biden unequivocally extended the threats from abroad to warn against the threat of a different terror, closer to home – from “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans”, who he said, “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic”.
The core precept to this apocalyptic message duly crept across the Atlantic to capture and convert the Brussels’ leadership class. This should not be surprising: The EU’s regulation-based internal market was precisely intended to replace all political ‘contention’ with Tech-Managerialism. The Euro-élites were in desperate need of a Values System to fill the EU identity lacuna. The solution, however, was at hand:
“Appetites of the autocrat cannot be appeased. They must be opposed. Autocrats only understand one word: “No.” “No.” “No.” (Applause.). “No, you will not take my country.” “No, you will not take my freedom.” “No, you will not take my future … A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never be able to ease [erase] the people’s love of liberty. Brutality will never grind down the will of the free. And Ukraine — Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. Never”. (Applause)”.
“Stand with us. We will stand with you. Let us move forward … with an abiding commitment to be allies not of darkness, but of light. Not of oppression, but of liberation. Not of captivity, but, yes, of freedom”.
Biden’s later speech (above) in Warsaw – complete with lighting effects and a dramatic backdrop reminiscent of his Liberty Hall speech – sought to portray the domestic MAGA opposition as a grave security threat to America and lent on radical Manicheanism to depict – this time – Russia (Russia being the external counterpoint to the related U.S. MAGA threat). This was his framing to the epic battle between the forces of light and of darkness that needed to be fought endlessly and won crushingly.
Once again, Biden was trying to cement America’s deep-seated missionary ethos as the ‘City on the Hill’ a beacon to the world – to a ‘forever’ cosmic war against Russian ‘evil’. He hoped to tie the American ruling class to the metaphysical struggle for the ‘light’.
David Brooks, author of Bobos in Paradise, (himself a liberal New York Times columnist), admits that initially he was taken by this liberal ideology, but later admitted this was a big mistake: “Whatever you want to call them [the liberals] have coalesced into an insular, intermarrying Brahmin élite that dominates culture, media, education, and tech”.
He acknowledges: “I didn’t anticipate how aggressively … we would seek to impose élite values through speech and thought codes. I underestimated the way the creative class would successfully raise barriers around itself to protect its economic privilege … And I underestimated our intolerance of ideological diversity”.
Put plainly, this thought-code precisely gave the Euro-élites their shiny new cult of absolute purity and stainless virtue – filling the for the EU its all too evident identity-gap lacuna. It resulted in the summoning of a vanguard whose proselytizing fury is to be focused on ‘the Other’.
Von der Leyen, in giving her ‘State of the Union’ address to the European Parliament in 2022 echoed Biden almost exactly:
“We should not lose sight of the way foreign autocrats are targeting our own countries. Foreign entities are funding institutes that undermine our values. Their disinformation is spreading from the internet to the halls of our universities … These lies are toxic for our democracies. Think about this: We introduced legislation to screen foreign direct investment for security concerns. If we do that for our economy, shouldn’t we do the same for ‘our values’? We need to better shield ourselves from malign interference … We will not allow any autocracy’s Trojan horses to attack ‘our democracies’ from within”.
Despite the cleaving together of the American ‘Bobos’ with the EU liberal warriors, many around the world nonetheless were astonished at the sheer alacrity by which the leadership in Brussels embraced the Biden ‘line’ advocating for a long war against Russia – a compliance that appeared so clearly to run contrary to European economic interests and social stability.
Simply put, it was a war of choice that seemed to be rooted ultimately in radical Manicheanism.
The initial formation of NATO in 1949 was generally opposed by the European Left due to its explicit anti-communist stance. However, with NATO’s bombing of Belgrade in 1999, the military alliance metamorphosed for some on the broader Left (including social democrats and liberals) as an instrument for liberal transmission and consolidation of ‘our democracy’ (this was Biden’s language at the time).
The fusion of the EU leadership to NATO and with the Biden project was complete. Germany’s Foreign Minister at the time Annalena Baerbock – every bit as intent on “ruining Russia”as Biden – in an address in New York in August 2022, sketched out a vision of a world dominated by the U.S. and Germany. In 1989, President George Bush famously offered Germany a “partnership in leadership”, Baerbock claimed. But at the time, Germany had been too busy with reunification to accept the offer. Today, she said, things had changed fundamentally: “Now the moment has come when we have to create it: A joint partnership in leadership”.
Harking on the ‘leadership partnership’ being understood in military terms, she said:
“In Germany, we have abandoned the long-held German belief in ‘change through trade’ … our goal is to further strengthen the European pillar of NATO… and the EU must become a Union capable of dealing with the United States on an equal footing: in a leadership partnership”.
Thus, the European élite’s outcry at the NSS’ devastating critique of Europe is not just that of America very obviously turning its back on an European ruling class who had dropped all to fawn on America. The NSS castigates their subversion of democracy – and even questions whether they will be suitable as allies for the future.
NATO is now declared to be “not forever”.
The European ruling strata now stand isolated, widely unpopular and bereft.
Pepe Escobar at Sputnik
FLORENCE, Italy – The new US National Security Strategy, the December 2025 version, is an intriguing, quirky, Bosch-style hybrid beast. It does not exactly look as it seems.
A tsunami of headlines across the discombobulated West focused on an apparent drive towards normalization between Washington and Moscow. But that’s far from the main focus of this Beauty and the Beast creation.
For starters, which Centaur designed the NSS Beast? Could it possibly be Trump? Unlikely. Could not be the clownish Secretary of Forever Wars. Could not be Marco Rubio – who can barely point to anything outside of Venezuela and Cuba on a map. So, who did it?
The fire in the belly of the NSS Beast is on the Russia-China strategic partnership: to try to undermine it by any means necessary. Trump, instinctively, and the old money, classic American ruling classes may have finally concluded that it’s idle to invest in a frontal war against twin, strategically-aligned peer competitors Russia-China. So it’s back, once again to Divide and Rule. And for everyone else, Plunder.
The NSS apparently offers Moscow a series of geoeconomic and geopolitical carrots while meticulously embedding the sticks in hybrid formats – prone to either provoke Russian elite fragmentation by attracting them back to the American market and American “values”, or to plunge the Russian Federation into ethnic “tensions”, coordinated by cyber-warfare.
There are no guarantees Team Trump 2.0 will be sophisticated enough to pull it off. In a nutshell, in no-diplo language, this would amount to simultaneously “isolate” Moscow all over again while “containing” China. Moscow and Beijing won’t fall for it.
What is clear so far is that with the new NSS, the Forever War ethos remains. But now rebranded: wars will be mostly hybrid, indirect and low cost.
Welcome to Managed Multipolarity
Even stripping down the NSS to the role of yet another narrative – the Empire of Chaos is a master producer of narratives – substantial rhetorical shifts seem to be afoot. The former “indispensable nation” now is characterized no more as a Global Robocop enforcing its hegemony, but as a Regional Robocop, in selected latitudes (mostly the Western Hemisphere). Europe and West Asia have been downgraded to the status of second-tier priorities.
To compound the (pragmatic?) realpolitik shift, this is now, at least in thesis, a Non-Ideological Empire. “Autocracies” are fine, as long as they play the imperial game; now it’s the EU chihuahuas who are branded as “anti-democratic”. Trump 2.0 will support a slew of “patriotic” European parties: that predictably set off serial heart attacks all across the vassalized Brussels sphere.
The NSS also brands its own version of the multipolar world. Call it Managed Multipolarity – as in Japan “managing” East Asia and Israel-Arab vassals “managing” West Asia via the Abraham Accords, with “counter-terrorism” enforced by the slimy Gulf petro-monarchies. In both cases, we will have the Empire of Chaos leading from behind.
NATO has been thrown, for all practical purposes, into Beggars Banquet territory. The Empire monopolizes everything: weapons, distribution of funding, nuclear guarantees. It’s up to the vassal collection to adjust to every imperial demand, especially 5% of their puny budgets for weapons purchases.
There will be no more NATO expansion: after all the real priorities are the Western Hemisphere and the “Indo-Pacific”, that non-existing formulation applied to the real-life Asia-Pacific.
The NATO/EU combo from now on qualifies at best as a nuisance – like mosquitoes in a five-star resort. Even with Article 5 and the nuclear umbrella still in place. Yet it’s up to the Euro-chihuahuas to pay, and pay and pay. Otherwise, the Empire will punish you.
The Global South/Global Majority can barely contain their expectations when the day will come – and it will come – of Russia sealing the definitive strategic defeat of the collective West in the black soil of Novorossiya.
In a sense, the NSS is already anticipating that day, with the new narrative making it clear the Empire has already moved on.
Containing China all over again
Latin America, as in the Western Hemisphere, will be under maximum pressure per the NSS – which explicitly reasserts a “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. The Empire wants its own backyard back – the whole combo, so it can be properly looted.
This is all about natural resources: it applies to Venezuela and Colombia, but also, ominously, to Brazil and Mexico. “Non-hemispheric rivals” – as in China – will be “countered”. Hybrid War in effect – all over again.
The NSS narrative does its best to mask the obsession with China. The mask falls when it addresses the First Island Chain”:
“We will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain. But the American military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone. Our allies must step up and spend – and more importantly do – much more for collective defense.”
Translation: the “First Island Chain” – from the Kuril islands in Russia, through Okinawa and Taiwan, across the Philippines, and down to Borneo – will be the Apex of Militarization in Asia-Pacific. The NSS being a narrative, it presents this Cold War encirclement strategy as a protection shield. Beijing will not be fooled: this is for all practical purposes China containment in Asia-Pacific on overdrive.
Is Beijing impressed? Not really. Especially when China’s trade surplus for the first time has shot up beyond $1 trillion, even considering the fall of exports to the US under Trump’s Tariff Temper Tantrum. Make Trade, Not Containment.
Back to Chihuahuastan. The whole planet now knows that the EU/NATO combo is preparing for war with Russia before 2030; it could even be next year. And they are also considering a pre-emptive attack against the world’s number one nuclear and hypersonic power.
Away from the comic relief inbuilt in the European slow motion political suicide, in real life both the US and vassal Japan refused to join the European obsession in stealing Russian funds.
The collapse of the EU – an artificial construct to start with – is as inevitable as death and taxes: looming in the dark horizon is a toxic cloud of Brexit-style exits; an ungovernable euro-zone; serial capital flights; rising and rising bond yields; unsustainable public debt; a collapse of the single market; institutional paralysis; and total, irretrievable, final loss of the legitimacy they never had in the first place.
A book just published in Italy by a young economist, Gabrielle Guzzi, tells it all in the title: Eurosuicidio. Spengler remarked that every civilization sooner or later dies; this current European project may be the swansong – political, military, spiritual – of a geographical area, a peninsula of Eurasia, playing its final role in History, after learning nothing from two previous suicide attempts:
WWI and WWII.
Does the Empire care? Not at all. The Beauty expires as the Beast moves on.
Jeff J. Brown writing for Sputnik
Svetlana Ekimenko
The 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) may look softer on paper, recasting China from a “threat” into a “near-peer competitor” with seeming potential to “reshape” US-China relations, Dr. John Gong, economics professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, tells Sputnik.
The wording in the new US NSS is just a thin veneer of peaceful “palliatives,” China expert Jeff J. Brown tells Sputnik.
In reality, US allies “Japan, Taiwan, Philippines and Australia, are being armed for confrontation, and a hot war is still likely in the next 2-3 years,” says Brown, who is also founder of Seek Truth From Facts Foundation.
Washington “still flogs the Asian Quad – “obviously structured to counter China militarily,” he notes, adding that the NSS:
Australia, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea urged to “spend more on arms to ‘deter adversaries’ “which are obviously China, DPRK and Russia”
US tariffs also remain in force.
‘Behind-The-Scene Rogue Actors’
The CIA, US Departments of War and State, US Legislature, and Israel’s Mossad don’t want to relinquish the profits generated by forever wars, noted the expert.
These Western deep state actors learned a long time ago to ignore or sabotage any directives that threaten their filthy lucre,” he says.
No Shift in West’s Power Pyramid
The US plans to keep its allies buying its weapons to “contain China,” believes Brown. US “fealty” to the West’s war machine has been bought by billionaire donors who “don’t get richer with peace.”
Since 1963 and the presidency of John F. Kennedy, “no US president has been free to be ‘presidential’ in their governance, like Putin and Xi are,” he remarks.
Since 1963 and the presidency of John F. Kennedy, “no US president has been free to be ‘presidential’ in their governance, like Putin and Xi are,” he remarks.
As far as China is concerned, it will likely “play to Trump’s megalomania,” while quietly prepping for a potential hot war,” concludes Brown.
Original Q&A with Sputnik
1 Do you think the new strategy changes the US policy towards China? If yes, how? Is it possible that it is paving the way for some new steps from the US?
No, not really. While congratulating himself as the greatest peacemaker since Jesus Christ and pro-offering a few palliatives about the necessity of avoiding war with China, Trump is still flogging the awkward Asian Quad (US, India, Australia and Japan). It was Trump who revived this 2004’s dead grouping in 2017 and he can’t put it down. It is obviously structured to counter China militarily on all of its flanks, except the north, which is brother-in-arms Russia.
This National Security Strategy still insists on arming Taiwan to the hilt, to counter China with “military overmatch”. It still insists on militarily occupying the vast South China Sea (SCS), using the completely absurd notion of preventing a hostile country (obviously China) from forcing maritime shipping to pay passage tolls!
The SCS is not Malacca, Bering or Hormuz Straits. Since most of its traffic comes and leaves the Mainland, it would be a self-imposed tax on the Chinese people. It’s an utterly farcical excuse to keep up NATO’s naval and air presence there.
Trump wants to push Australia, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea to spend more on arms,
“…to deter adversaries and protect the First Island Chain. We will also harden and strengthen our military presence in the Western Pacific, while in our dealings with Taiwan and Australia we maintain our determined rhetoric on increased defense spending”.
“Adversaries” are obviously China, DPRK and Russia.
Trump further lists all the Sino-bogey bears that afflict America, including,
For Beijing, what is there to like?
2 How might the updated US security strategy influence the trade tensions between the US and China — exacerbate or resolve them?
China will play to Trump’s narcissism and megalomania, by spinning it as positively as possible, but tariffs are still in force, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines and Australia are being armed for confrontation and a hot war is still likely in the next 2-3 years. Mossad-CIA, US Departments of War and State, and the US Legislature are behind-the-scene rogue actors with too much profit and corruption to give up, and all that grift comes from forever wars. These Western Deep State actors learned a long time ago to ignore or sabotage any directives that threaten their filthy lucre.
3 What reaction do you expect from China to the new US strategy? What actions might China undertake?
China has been practicing statecraft diplomacy for 5,000 years and has endured many Trumps, Bidens and Macrons over the millennia. Good diplomats are eternally optimistic, patient and communicative. Just ask the Russians, who are also at this level of expertise. Beijing will publicly be positive and complimentary, while preparing for the worse – hot war.
4 How could the strategy shift the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific Region? What message does it send to US allies in the region, such as South Korea and Japan?
There will be no change in the West’s balance of power. Uncle Sam still expects to be the Big Kahuna and its “allies” (repeated 31 times in the NSS) are to be second-class vassals. For South Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, India and Australia, the message is clear: buy more and more US weapons to contain China.
An important and overlooked observation
In closing, there is something important to note. The National Security Strategy reports by Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barak Obama and Joe Biden (I did not go further back) did not address anyone in particular. The reports just started off with impersonal, expository writing.
Trump’s 2025 NSS starts out with, “My Fellow Americans”. This is very telling. He knows that since reassuming office, his forever wars in Palestine, Ukraine, Yemen, Iran, Venezuela and elsewhere have alienated his MAGA base and he risks losing their support. The NSS talks to the American people, not policy wonks, explaining the meaning of strategy, diplomacy and policy, like a classroom text. In this sense, it is very similar to how Beijing communicates governance to the Chinese people, treating them like adults and not talking down to them like children, which is the Western norm.
This NSS is at least as much of an effort to shore up his in-country popularity – probably more so – as it is to communicate with foreign friends and foes alike.
It will be very difficult for Trump to realize this NSS’s main goals of avoiding forever wars. His fealty to this Western cancer has been bought, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in “campaign donations” by influential and powerful (mostly Jewish) billionaires, who don’t get richer with peace. War means usury, arms and resource theft, which fill their and the Judeo-City of London’s coffers with trillions of your preferred currency.
I think Trump is sincere in trying to stop this imperial-colonial train, but the last US president who tried to do so was John F. Kennedy, and the Deep State blew his brains out in Dallas, Texas. Since 1963, every US president knows what happened, and has not been free to be “presidential” in their governance, like Putin and Xi are.
The first comment from China’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson yesterday, is perfectly down China’s well-known diplomacy line. No new comments of any nature were spken out, only what has been said before. This may be an indication that they are going to flatly ignore it as if it is more bluster.
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xw/fyrbt/202512/t20251208_11768841.html
Reuters: What is the Foreign Ministry’s reaction to the Trump administration’s newly released National Security Strategy, given that it says that the U.S. does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and also discusses the U.S. and its allies’ capacity to deny any attempt to seize Taiwan? What do you make of the document’s mentioning of the Quad grouping of nations as well?
Guo Jiakun: We noted the “National Security Strategy” report released by the U.S. government. China always believes that China and the U.S. stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. Upholding mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation is the right way for China and the U.S. to get along with each other and is the only right and realistic choice. China stands ready to work with the U.S. to sustain the steady development of the bilateral relationship and at the same time will firmly defend its sovereignty, security and development interests. We hope the U.S. will work with China in the same direction, act on the important common understandings reached between heads of state of the two countries, step up dialogue and cooperation, properly manage differences, promote the steady, sound and sustainable development of China-U.S. relations, and inject more certainty and stability into the world.
On the Taiwan question, we stress that Taiwan is China’s Taiwan and is an inalienable part of China’s territory. The Taiwan question is at the core of China’s core interests and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations. Resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese people and Chinese people only that brooks no external interference. The U.S. needs to earnestly abide by the one-China principle and the three China-U.S. joint communiqués, honor its leaders’ commitment, approach the Taiwan question with extra prudence, stop abetting and aiding separatist forces’ attempt to seek “Taiwan independence” and resist reunification through military buildup. China will never flinch in defending its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
I was waiting for Brian Berletic to speak his piece, but there is more. I find a bunch of Americans liking this, but not understanding it. We wanna believe a US strategy because they say so? Where have they been over the past years, after, say, the 2nd WW, to bracket a timespan? Dmitry Medvedev recognized a diplomatic break for Russia (for now). But we have not heard from China. And the ‘western hemisphere’ is being claimed, as is West Asia.
It is primacy, but selected for this moment and changeable, as they decide with the required ‘burden-sharing’ to share US proxy wars. They’re going to sqeeze the hell out of so-called allies.
East Calling has provided this for us, quickly. Thank-you!
Before we go there, let’s take a quick look at Dmitry Peskov: Peskov’s first comment after the publication of the updated US national security strategy:
And this, of course, is a very gratifying, on the one hand, but on the one hand, we know what happens when everything is written very beautifully as a concept, but what they call a deep state does everything differently. <…>
Therefore, of course, it is necessary to closely monitor what kind of implementation this concept will find.
Deputy Chairman of the Security Counsel of the Russian Federation – Dmitry Anatolievich Medvedev on his VK:
The Americans continue to tame the crazed European Union. Naturally, so that the sick animal remembers who’s the real boss. Even Musk (in response to the fine against X) contributed to this, wishing for the EU’s disintegration. Not bad! Overall, this is to our benefit. Better Trump’s great-power pragmatism than Biden’s globalist insanity.
In this regard, the new National Security Strategy prepared by the current White House administration stands out. It is notable for its realistic assessment of many modern challenges. I should point out that the significance of such a strategy should not be exaggerated. It is merely a collection of political declarations. What matters is what’s in their heads. And not only in the minds of the inconsistent Washington brass, but also in the notorious “deep state.” And yet…
1. This time, a very interesting document has emerged from the depths of the White House. This is not just another pile of arrogant American diplomatic formulas. It’s more like an attempt to turn around a huge ship that has been sailing along by inertia for a long time and has finally decided to change course. For the first time in many years, Washington is openly talking about the need to restore “strategic stability” in Eurasia and improve relations with Russia.
This is no longer the language of the money-grubbing Derzhimorda, who, under Biden, declared a virtual crusade against Moscow. The overseas superpower has begun to realize that playing superhero on its own is too costly. It hurts its own interests the most.
For us, this means that space is emerging for more or less civilized diplomacy. This is not a friendly embrace, but a fairly clear signal: the US is ready to discuss security architecture, not just slap on endless, and most importantly, senseless sanctions (although new restrictions on Russian oil mean a continuation of the current course).
2. Washington is effectively admitting that the global world no longer rests on American shoulders alone.
The sky has become too heavy for a country that so zealously portrayed itself as an Atlas. Now it’s looking for those who can share the unbearable burden.
And here, inevitably, Russia appears as one of the few countries with a real influence on European security.
For the first time in many years, our country is not called a “threat” in an American document, but a participant in a dialogue on stability. It’s noteworthy that it mentions halting NATO expansion, and Ukraine doesn’t figure at all in this context. This strategy unexpectedly resonates with what we’ve been saying for years: security must be shared, and the sovereignty of states must be respected. Russia has long proposed reaching agreements, rather than arrogantly imposing a world order based on rules that aren’t even enshrined in international law. Now, the window of opportunity for dialogue has been cracked open.
3. The United States is proposing that an imbecile Europe, bloated from parasitism, become more independent in matters of defense. For Russia, this is a double signal. On the one hand, there’s a risk that the Europeans will aggressively build up their military capabilities. This will completely destroy their economies and require the establishment of regimes bordering on dictatorship. Europe already has such a tragic experience: Hitler himself came to power with harsh militaristic slogans.
On the other hand, the easing of endless financial injections from the United States creates opportunities to reduce tensions on the Eurasian continent and engage in negotiations. This is simply because Russia is a major global player, and constructive cooperation with us is more beneficial, as it was for many years, before the events in Ukraine.
4. As I already noted, strategy is a political declaration, and certainly not, to use the words of our beloved Lenin, “a change in all our views on socialism.” Fierce disagreements within the American and European elites continue to flare up, and habits are also strong.
Russia will look not at fine words, but at concrete steps: is there any movement toward reaching an agreement? Are the US and the EU ready to discuss security with us without ultimatums? Not just guarantee the security of the half-dead country 404, but ensure pan-European security?
The Strategy doesn’t answer this. As they say, we’ll see. Especially since the arrival of another rabid Biden in the White House would quickly nip any vestiges of great-power pragmatism in the bud of the current MAGA team.
Brian Berletic: More on the US National Security Strategy paper…
Here are Sputnik’s questions and my complete answers regarding the recently released US National Security Strategy document below – I will also be doing an article/video this coming week…
Question 1: In the recently published National Security Strategy of the US, NATO’s expansion is criticized, and Russia is no longer presented as a threat, but as a country with which strategic stability is important for stability in Europe.
What prompted the US to make such changes in the Strategy? Why now?
Answer: Upon reading the entire National Security Strategy, it is clear there is no fundamental change. The very first sentence of the introduction is a declaration of continued pursuit of global primacy. The paper lays out plans of continued war and preparations for war against all of America’s “adversaries” both directly and through “burden sharing,” by proxy.
While it briefly mentions “preventing the reality of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance,” the same paper also boasts of the vast sums of NATO spending that the US coerced European member states into committing to.
Regarding the paper’s characterization of Russia, it should be pointed out that the US desperately seeks to freeze the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, not end it. As suggested in the paper and explicitly stated by US Secretary of War Pete Hegesth in February of this year, Europe will assume more costs and risks in forcing a freeze while the US focuses on containing China.
In other words, this is merely a narrative to implement “burden sharing” and “strategic sequencing,” focusing on China’s containment now and circling back around to containing Russia later.
Question 2) The Ukraine settlement is mentioned as the US’s core interest. The document says that the peace process is crucial for reestablishing strategic stability with Russia. How could it influence the ongoing peace talks?
Answer: The US began this proxy war by overthrowing the Ukrainian government in 2014, leading efforts to train and reorganize Ukraine’s armed forces from 2014 to 2022, while the CIA assumed control over Ukraine’s intelligence services. The US began arming Ukraine with lethal aid (under the previous Trump administration), and now admittedly directs Ukraine’s armed forces from a military base in Wiesbaden, Germany, including overseeing attacks on targets deep within Russian territory itself – all while posing as an impartial mediator in a war the US itself started and is driving.
This is wholly a US proxy war on Russia; the US, and the US alone, can bring to an end. It simply doesn’t want to. What it wants instead is a “Minsk 3.0” freeze, to rebuild both Ukraine and Europe’s military capacity, all by offering Russia the same empty promises of peace, stability, and even economic cooperation that have been repeatedly betrayed since the end of the Cold War. An added bonus would be driving a wedge between Russia and China during this temporary freezing of the conflict to weaken China, so that when the US turns its attention back to Russia, China will no longer be able to offer significant support.
Question 3) The Strategy criticizes NATO expansion, which Russia had been calling a critical issue and a key reason for the Ukraine conflict. What are the realistic chances of the alliance’s expansion being limited in the future, now that the issue has been acknowledged by the US?
Answer: Even though the US ambiguously acknowledged NATO’s expansion in the paper, it also bragged about the vast sums of money the US has coerced European member states into spending on NATO – spending specifically vis-à-vis Russia – as NATO and its various member states face no actual national security threats requiring such vast sums of expenditures.
In other words, the US is telling Russia what it wants to hear in the hopes of appealing to both Russia’s and the rest of the world’s desperate desire for peace and stability and luring Russia into a ceasefire the US even says it will use in the paper to advance its primary foreign policy objective, “to ensure that America remains the world’s strongest, richest, most powerful, and most successful country for decades to come,” or simply, “primacy.”
Question 4) What signal does this move send to warmongers in the US and especially in Europe?
Answer: Considering the paper begins with US President Donald Trump boasting about vastly expanding US military spending (up to $1 trillion), the unprovoked, unjustified war of aggression the US launched on Iran under the current Trump administration, and the growing threat of military aggression against Venezuela, it would seem the paper itself was authored by warmongers.
The paper outlines an unprecedented military build-up and containment strategy targeting China, which is at the top of the list of US-European warmongers. The outlined strategy is simply trying to put the proxy war with Russia on hold, considering how poorly it is going for the US and its proxies at the moment, until a time later when the US once again has the advantage, just as it did with its proxy war in Syria, which it finally, successfully won late last year.
Unfortunately, wishful thinking will only play into Washington’s hands, hands that – without exception – are bloodied by decades of military aggression, aggression that sees no signs of slowing any time in the foreseeable future.
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