While you wouldn’t know it from the recent U.S.-Israeli military confrontation with Iran, the latest U.S. National Security Strategy, made public in December, marks a decisive departure from the post-Cold War paradigm. It explicitly characterizes previous U.S. strategy — under which Washington assumed responsibility for global challenges — as fundamentally “misguided” and declares a retreat from its role as the dominant global power.

Instead, the strategy reorients U.S. security around homeland defense and a Western Hemisphere-focused approach described as a “Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.” U.S. President Donald Trump has dubbed this the “Donroe Doctrine,” signaling a prioritization of hemispheric stability.

Within this framework, the primary threats to the U.S. homeland are identified as illegal migration and narcotics flows from Latin America. Stabilizing the Western Hemisphere is thus positioned as essential to mitigating these risks.

At the same time, the strategy places unprecedented emphasis on economic security. It sets objectives that include deterring foreign actors that harm the U.S. economy, building stable and trusted supply chains and ensuring that U.S. technologies and standards continue to shape the global economy.

Economic security is elevated as a central priority, encompassing the correction of trade imbalances, securing access to critical supply chains and resources, reindustrialization, revitalizing the defense industrial base and maintaining strength in energy and finance.

No previous U.S. national security strategy has incorporated economic security to this extent. Why, then, has it become so prominent during Trump’s second term?

The strategy’s emphasis on economic security is particularly evident in its chapter on Asia. Before addressing deterrence in East Asia, including the Taiwan Strait, it foregrounds economic issues and underscores the need to........

© The Japan Times