Authored by R. Jordan Prescott via RealClearDefense,
In January 2017, Donald Trump stated America First would be the foundation of his administration’s agenda.
America First defies easy explanation, primarily because its invocation is a declaration of opposition, a rebuttal to proponents of globalization or overseas intervention.
The first Trump National Security Strategy (NSS), issued in 2017, framed America First as a realist construct for responding to the growing political, economic, and military competition presented by China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
The new 2025 NSS refines this construct by declaring the administration’s commitment to the “continued survival and safety of the United States as an independent, sovereign republic.”
Whereas administrations have been issuing such strategy documents since Congress established the mandate in 1986, the latest Trump Administration NSS is unique in its arrival eight years after its first term version in 2017. Given the rarity of presidents succeeding their successor, the likelihood another administration will have such an opportunity is low.
The question of what changed is easily answered by reviewing the history of the intervening Biden Administration’s crises and failures. Nevertheless, China, Ukraine, and Israel were flashpoints in preceding administrations. Accordingly, what catalyzed the revision of America First from the focus on great power competition to the emphasis on sovereignty?
As the unipolar moment faded, the neoliberal and neoconservative duopoly comprising the foreign policy elite announced the advent of a multipolar system demarcated by antagonism between capitalist democracies—the United States and the European Union—and mercantilist autocracies—Russia and the People’s Republic of China.
The perspective was persuasive because it was consistent with the history of the West in conflict with hostile ideologies and regimes—World War II against fascism, the Cold War against communism, and the global war on terrorism.
The elite proceeded by coordinating with European allies to expand regional institutions and isolate Russia while pivoting to East Asia to counter the PRC.
Nevertheless, the fact of a highly integrated global economy hindered these efforts. The Russian economy may have been one-dimensional but global demand for its oil and natural gas ensured its viability even when sanctioned. Finally, the PRC was the world economy’s dominant manufacturing power and integral to global supply chains.
Trump pierced this framework during his first term by demanding European allies increase their contributions to NATO, pursuing rapprochement with Russia, and identifying the PRC as the country’s main adversary. Notably, however, Trump sought not to contain the PRC but to decouple it from the American economy. In the aftermath of the “forever wars” he denounced on the campaign trail and the socioeconomic “carnage” he lamented in his inaugural address, the great power competition was to be an economic contest, not a military showdown.
By the end of his first term, Trump succeeded in reshaping the country’s understanding of the challenge posed by the PRC. However, European allies generally resisted Trump’s demands, domestic opposition hindered his attempt at détente with Russia, and the onset of the pandemic foreclosed any reconfiguration of the global economy.
The subsequent Biden Administration retained the adversarial posture vis-à-vis China but reinstituted its military component. Furthermore, the Biden Administration reverted to supporting Europe unconditionally and isolating Russia.
The subsequent crisis in Europe, however, revealed the defect in the false dichotomy of a world divided between capitalist democracies and mercantilist autocracies.
The elite’s worldview overlooked another attribute differentiating the four poles—the readiness to interfere and intervene in other countries’ affairs.
Europe possesses minimal capacity and is reliant on American military power; the PRC possesses an extensive military but espouses non-interference.
In stark contrast, the US and Russia have repeatedly intervened politically, economically, and militarily in other countries. The former possesses the world’s most powerful military and intervenes globally given its myriad commitments abroad; the latter possesses Europe’s most powerful military and intervenes locally given security concerns in its near abroad.
Before Trump, Russia had long warned expanding the alliance to include Ukraine would be a red line that would prompt a military response. Under Trump, the decades-long eastward expansion of NATO paused. After Trump, NATO again signaled its readiness to admit Ukraine.
In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine to prevent its accession to NATO. Even though the invasion revealed significant shortcomings in Russia’s military and Ukraine was not an ally, the Biden Administration and NATO allies mobilized as if it were.
Thus, the two states most prone to intervention faced off in Europe—America by virtue of its membership in an obsolete alliance and Russia over a nation it considered integral to its security. In the space of two years, the elite’s flawed worldview led to the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II and a potential confrontation between the United States and Russia.
Ending the conflict and preventing a far more catastrophic one in East Asia, would require a transformation of foreign policy premised on sovereignty and autonomy, not interdependence and obligations.
Upon Trump’s return to office, an America First predicated on sovereignty became manifest.
Trump immediately reiterated demands that the European allies not only increase their NATO contributions but enhance their military capabilities as well. Similarly, the administration actively re-engaged Russia on how to end the war in Ukraine. Lastly, Trump augmented his bid to decouple from China, and global supply chains by extension, by imposing tariffs extensively.
The new NSS ratifies this continuity and outlines the application of the sovereignty prism around the world. Discarding worldviews predicated on regime types and economic systems and civilizational clashes, America First exorcises the impetus to intervention. Americans need no longer worry their government will send their blood or treasure overseas for some think tank fever dream.
If the NSS is kinder to America’s enemies more than its friends, it is because sovereignty as a criterion reveals how relative it is in the modern world.
Post-Westphalian Europe has been brought low by its dependence on America. The purported threat from Russia has not stirred Europeans from their debellicized state. Furthermore, the great nations of Europe are no longer bearing children nor willing to work longer. Indeed, underappreciated is how much both the US and Russia desire the revitalization of Europe.
Pre-Westphalian territories dotting the continents are beset by anarchy, tribalism, violence, criminality, militancy, jihadism, and nihilism – and their inhabitants are relentlessly breaching the borders of other sovereign states.
Westphalian peers like the PRC, Russia, the Gulf monarchies, and rebounding Latin American countries all practice “flexible realism,” seeking good relations and peaceful commercial relations without imposing change that differs widely from their traditions and histories. And now, with a strategy focused solely on core vital national interests, America will no longer undertake regime change.
In 2017, the terms security and sovereignty appear in the strategy 117 and 13 times, respectively; in 2025, the count is 34 and 21. The 2025 National Security Strategy is neither a suicide note nor a blueprint for autarky. The elite’s version of security severely compromised America’s sovereignty. The elite will lament the passing of a hyperpower and allege the erection of a fortress, but the American people will find peace and prosperity in reasserted sovereignty.
As one commentator concluded, the elite worldview secures an order, America First secures a people.
At the inception of American sovereignty, the Founding Fathers warned against entangling alliances and a military evolving into another branch of government; in the modern day, America First will ensure the Republic is a safe and durable platform from which Americans can scan the horizon and confidently tackle the challenges of a new century.
R. Jordan Prescott is a private contractor working in defense and national security since 2002. He has been published in The American Conservative, The National Interest, Small Wars Journal, Modern War Institute, 19fortyfive, Responsible Statecraft, and RealClearDefense.
