The Trump administration’s newly released National Security Strategy marks a decisive break from the assumptions that have guided US foreign policy for decades. Required by law, the document traditionally serves as a statement of continuity, reassuring allies and adversaries alike that American strategic thinking evolves gradually rather than abruptly. This time, however, the strategy does the opposite. It openly challenges long-standing partnerships, rewrites regional priorities, and reframes America’s global role in unmistakably transactional terms. Nowhere is this shift clearer-or more striking-than in the Middle East, particularly the Gulf region, which emerges as the strategy’s most positive and forward-looking focus.

The initial reception of the strategy has been mixed, and in some quarters openly hostile. In Europe, the response has bordered on shock. Officials and analysts across the continent have likened the document’s tone to Vice President J.D. Vance’s controversial remarks at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, when he openly chastised European institutions and leaders for what the administration sees as complacency, moral posturing, and economic stagnation. The strategy reinforces these criticisms, arguing that Europe’s relative decline is not accidental but the result of policy choices made within the European Union itself.

According to the document, Europe’s share of global gross domestic product has fallen from roughly 25 percent in 1990 to just 14 percent today. The administration attributes this decline partly to overregulation, weak defense spending, and an overreliance on the United States for security guarantees. In a particularly sharp departure from the Biden administration’s approach, the strategy criticizes European governments for refusing to seriously pursue a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine while simultaneously expecting Washington to shoulder the financial and military burden of confronting Russia.

Perhaps more unsettling for Western and Northern European capitals is the strategy’s explicit preference for “Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe” as priority partners for trade, arms sales, and political cooperation. This geographic rebalancing signals a clear downgrading of the traditional........

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