New Trump Security Strategy Turns Against the Free World

... and toward racialism, Russia, and the right wing.

(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S NEW National Security Strategy has been rightly criticized for its lack of specifics and its abdication of the United States’ post-World War II role as the “Atlas” maintaining the global order. Less discussed, however, is the document’s frank embrace of far-right narratives on Europe, with a strong whiff of white nationalism. The Trump administration is openly declaring its desire to steer Europe in a more right-wing, more populist, and more authoritarian direction—under the cover of preserving democracy and freedom of speech.

Declaring a cultural and sentimental attachment to continental Europe and the British Isles, the new Trump NSS frets that Europe is in danger of “civilizational erasure.” Among the threats: “migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.” The document warns that “should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less,” imperiling many countries’ reliability as allies. Unrecognizable how? The document spells it out: Some countries may become “majority non-European.” It’s the Great Replacement Theory, Euro edition.

According to the NSS, U.S. policy goals for Europe should include “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations”—presumably by boosting the “patriotic European parties” whose growth the document cheers on—as well as defending “genuine democracy [and] freedom of expression.”

For the right-wing authors of this NSS, it’s always 2015. That was the year the influx of asylum seekers, mostly from the Middle East, peaked—at over 1.2 million that year—creating destabilizing tensions in Europe. But in reality, most European countries have already moved to restrict migration. The idea that any European country could have a nonwhite majority in the foreseeable future is pure fantasy: France, which has one of Europe’s largest nonwhite population shares, is still some 85 percent white, and the perception of sky-high birthrates among migrants is drastically exaggerated.) What’s more, contrary to caricature, many European countries have long stressed migrant assimilation to socially tolerant and pluralistic values.

And what of the NSS’s concern about freedom of speech and expression in Europe? As I noted earlier this year after JD Vance’s harangue on the subject in Munich, protections for free speech in Europe have never been as robust as the ones guaranteed by the First Amendment in the United States. But whatever criticism Europe may deserve on the subject, the scolding is a bit rich coming from this administration with its own sorry record. Shall we talk about Trump’s habit of suing media outlets for coverage that annoys him? The Federal Communications Commissioner’s abuse of his authority over mergers for political blackmail against television networks? The use of federal funds to strong-arm universities? Attempts to purge museum exhibits that are too negative about slavery in American history? The list goes on.

As for the Trump administration lecturing European countries on their failings in democracy and the alleged mistreatment of opposition parties—where do we even start? With the Trump’s insistence that any election his side doesn’t win is stolen or rigged? With his top officials’ rhetoric portraying the opposition party as a “domestic terrorist organization”? With January 6th—and the now-official efforts to rewrite its history?

The NSS’s hypocritical weaponization of free speech and democracy to promote a right-wing ideological agenda is blatant in other ways as well. The document studiously avoids any mention of political freedoms in Vladimir Putin’s Russia (which still engages in democratic posturing), or of human rights issues elsewhere; it even cautions against “hectoring” Middle Eastern nations about liberalization. It also refers to “building up the healthy nations of Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe”—presumably a reference, among others, to Euroskeptic, Russia-friendly (and Trump-friendly) Hungary, Slovakia, and Serbia. The fact that Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has used government power to hobble opposition parties and nonprofits—and has used both state ownership and crony capitalism to promote tame media—goes unmentioned; so does Hungary’s use of a law against “demeaning religious feelings” to target abortion-rights protesters and political cartoonists. The only alleged political repression that worries the NSS is the kind directed at right-wing opinions and/or at far-right political parties—most of them pro-Russia and often directly Kremlin-influenced.

Which brings us to the Trump administration’s elephant in the European room. While the document claims that excessive non-European (that is, nonwhite) populations will jeopardize NATO countries’ reliability as allies, it also casts a decidedly jaundiced eye on NATO’s current principal objective in Europe: countering Russian military and political aggression. The NSS chides Europeans for being overly confrontational toward Putin’s Russia, with which the document calls for “reestablish[ing] strategic stability.” European powers are also accused of “unrealistic expectations” for Ukraine’s ability to wage war against the Russian invader and of subverting democracy to thwart peace (i.e., blocking the ascension of pro-appeasement parties). Not a word is said about the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare in Europe, which includes everything from sabotage to disinformation to political infiltration. The NSS also mentions preventing NATO expansion as a U.S. priority—which would leave smaller European nations vulnerable to Russian bullying.

We don’t know yet to what extent the NSS will dictate actual American policy. But at least as outlined in this document, the administration’s agendas for Europe seem to be “Make Europe white again” and “Make Russia great again.” It’s not just abdication from leadership of the free world; it’s an open embrace of the forces of unfreedom.