Trump's new security strategy endangers democracy

Trump’s new security strategy endangers democracy
The president's retrograde National Security Strategy emphasizes profit and bluster at democracy's expense

By Austin Sarat
Published December 9, 2025 9:00AM (EST)


(Salon) On Jan. 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy used his inaugural address to proclaim America’s commitment to protecting and promoting democracy and freedom across the globe. This country, he promised, would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

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Every president who followed embraced Kennedy’s vision. Everyone, that is, until Donald Trump.

The president’s first inaugural address, delivered on Jan. 20, 2017, is memorable for its unabashed declaration of “an ‘America First’ approach to foreign policy [that] reflected an isolationist strand that had largely been marginalized in national affairs since World War II.”

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With its embrace of nationalism, chauvinism and a world of great powers, each dominant in its sphere of influence, the 33-page document reads like it was pulled from a time capsule. If Trump gets his way, the late 19th and early 20th centuries will be reborn.

The National Security Strategy outlines an approach to foreign policy “in which American interests are far narrower than how prior administrations — even in Mr. Trump’s first term — had portrayed them,” the New York Times reported. “Gone is the long-familiar picture of the United States as a global force for freedom, replaced by a country that is focused on reducing migration while avoiding passing judgment on authoritarians, instead seeing them as sources of cash.” ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/12/09/trumps-new-security-strategy-endangers-democracy/