Trump’s empire of hubris and thuggery |
Donald Trump’s latest National Security Strategy memorandum treats the freedom to coerce others as the essence of US sovereignty. It is an ominous document that will – if allowed to stand – come back to haunt the United States.
The 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) recently released by President Donald Trump presents itself as a blueprint for renewed American strength. It is dangerously misconceived in four ways.
First, the NSS is anchored in grandiosity: the belief that the United States enjoys unmatched supremacy in every key dimension of power. Second, it is based on a starkly Machiavellian view of the world, treating other nations as instruments to be manipulated for American advantage. Third, it rests on a naïve nationalism that dismisses international law and institutions as encumbrances on US sovereignty rather than as frameworks that enhance US and global security together.
Fourth, it signals a thuggery in Trump’s use of the CIA and military. Within days of the NSS’s publication, the US brazenly seized a tanker carrying Venezuelan oil on the high seas – on the flimsy grounds that the vessel had previously violated US sanctions against Iran.
The seizure was not a defensive measure to avert an imminent threat. Nor is it remotely legal to seize vessels on the high seas because of unilateral US sanctions. Only the UN Security Council has such authority.
Instead, the seizure is an illegal act designed to force regime change in Venezuela. It follows Trump’s declaration that he has directed the CIA to carry out covert operations inside Venezuela to destabilise the regime.
American security will not be strengthened by acting like a bully. It will be weakened – structurally, morally, and strategically. A great power that frightens its allies, coerces its neighbours, and disregards international rules ultimately isolates itself.
The NSS, in other words, is not just an exercise in hubris on paper. It is rapidly being translated into brazen practice.
To be fair, the NSS contains moments of long-overdue realism. It implicitly concedes that the United States cannot and should not attempt to dominate the entire world, and it correctly recognises that some allies have dragged Washington into costly wars of choice that were not in America’s true........