The US “Burden Sharing Network” Takes Shape

In 2025, the US National Security Strategy paper would be broadly misinterpreted as a US plan to break with its historical pursuit of global primacy and instead retreat to the Western Hemisphere while somehow reconciling or coexisting with traditional targets of US aggression.

Yet, even throughout the document itself, terms like “hostile and subversive influences” simply stood in for “Russia” and “China,” reaffirming continuity of US foreign policy objectives rather than upsetting or breaking from them.

Included within the 33-page document was a detailed explanation of exactly how the United States would continue pursuing “great power competition” against not only Russia and China but all other nations obstructing US primacy.

Under a section titled, “priorities,” was a policy of “burden-sharing and burden-shifting” which explicitly stated:

“…the United States will organize a burden-sharing network, with our government as convener and supporter. This approach ensures that burdens are shared and that all such efforts benefit from broader legitimacy. The model will be targeted partnerships that use economic tools to align incentives, share burdens with like-minded allies, and insist on reforms that anchor long-term stability. This strategic clarity will allow the United States to counter hostile and subversive influences efficiently while avoiding the overextension and diffuse focus that undermined past efforts.”

“…the United States will organize a burden-sharing network, with our government as convener and supporter. This approach ensures that burdens are shared and that all such efforts benefit from broader legitimacy. The model will be targeted partnerships that use economic tools to align incentives, share burdens with like-minded allies, and insist on reforms that anchor long-term stability. This strategic clarity will allow the United States to counter hostile and subversive influences efficiently while avoiding the overextension and diffuse focus that undermined past efforts.”

It should be noted that the introduction of a US “burden sharing network” describing the coercion of other nations into serving as extensions of US power and influence followed a section titled “primacy of nations” claiming, “it is natural and just that all nations put their interests first and guard their sovereignty,” thus a complete contradiction.

But that is only if one assumes the US discussed the “primacy of nations” as a general principle applied to all nations and not just a means of absolving the US — and the US alone — of its obligations under international law.

The threat of “economic tools” to “align incentive” and to “insist on reforms” for what the US paper claims is “long-term stability” are clearly euphemisms for the coercion of nations to serve US foreign policy objectives and, specifically, to uphold US primacy even at the expense of these nations’ own objective best interests.

The Burden Sharing Network in Practice

One of the most blatant implementations of this “burden sharing network” was actually........

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