Trump's National Security Plan Revives the Logic of Molotov-Ribbentrop -- and Puts U.S. Allies at Risk

By Brian Daitzman

President Donald Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy moves the United States back toward a world of spheres of influence, where major powers claim regions as their own and smaller border states are treated as negotiable. It is not a claim of a literal secret protocol, but the same Molotov–Ribbentrop logic: great powers treating borderlands as bargaining terrain rather than protected commitments. That shift matters because two public readiness clocks are approaching at once. Western intelligence and defense assessments warn that Russia could rebuild enough military strength to regain capability in the late 2020s to probe or threaten NATO’s eastern members, including the Baltic states. U.S. intelligence leaders, meanwhile, say Xi Jinping has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready by 2027 for a Taiwan contingency, while stressing that readiness is not a decision to invade.

In that overlapping window, the Strategy’s posture changes sharpen risk. The United States is reducing some troops on NATO’s eastern frontier before European forces can fully replace the deterrent weight those deployments provide. At the same time, Washington is tying Taiwan’s security relationship to trade and semiconductor demands, making protection appear conditional. Both moves rest on a documented first-term precedent of using Ukraine aid as leverage, a pattern Fiona Hill has argued helped convince Vladimir Putin that a large-scale offensive could succeed.

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In Europe, the United States is telling NATO allies through policy and posture that they must assume much greater responsibility for their own conventional defense in the near term. That demand arrives as intelligence services and defense analysts warn that Russia could regenerate enough capacity in the late 2020s to probe NATO militarily on its eastern flank if it chooses to test the alliance.

In Asia, U.S. intelligence leaders continue to cite 2027 as a People’s Liberation Army readiness benchmark for a Taiwan contingency, while stressing that readiness is not, by itself, a decision to attack. A published deadline is not a prophecy, but it does alter incentives. When deterrence shifts and adversary regeneration converge on the same period, the gap between promise and readiness becomes a corridor of risk.

https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/trumps-national-security-plan-revives