US National Strategy is naked self-interest, shorn of any commitment to collective good

The US National Security Strategy 2025 document, released earlier this month, is more philosophy than strategy. That philosophy has no place for a shared collective destiny for humanity and sees globalism as an ideal, and globalisation as a process of interdependence of nations — as corrupting encroachments on sovereignty, whether political, economic or cultural.

The worldview articulated by the Strategy document is one of unapologetic obsession with the US — the rest of the world serving as its playing ground — to supply critical minerals, and offer demand for American goods, services, technology and capital.

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It not just displaces but throws out of the window the notion that America thrives when it underpins a global order based on rules set by itself, propagated, of course, through multilateral organisations such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation, and multilateral financial organisations.

The "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine redefines, essentially, even if not in so many words, all of Latin America as a collection of Banana Republics, to whom the US would dictate as to which 'United Fruit Companies' can be allowed to operate in which sectors with what kinds of concessions.

The US, runs the philosophy, should not waste resources and energy on grand projects such as 'Pax Americana', and simply focus on its own immediate interests. Any suggestion, or even pretence, that what is best for the US overlaps with what is best for the world at large, stands dismissed.

India's strategic autonomy

The primacy India has placed on strategic autonomy since Independence receives unintended validation from the insular focus of the Strategy document on US dominance, narrowly defined US interests, and the role it assigns other nations as instruments of American primacy—when these other nations are not rivals to be checked and kept outside the Western Hemisphere.

'Trump Corollary' to Monroe Doctrine

With modesty characteristic of the 47th president of the United States, the Strategy document claims to add a "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine. The latter, articulated by President James Monroe in 1823, defined the Western Hemisphere as the US's sphere of influence, from which European powers should keep out. Seven-and-a-half decades later, the brief war between Spain and the US saw the end of Iberian colonialism in the Americas.

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A European presence continues in some Caribbean islands, some tiny Latin American territories, and, of course, Greenland. The "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine redefines, essentially—even if not in so many words—all of Latin America as a collection of Banana Republics, to whom the US would dictate as to which 'United Fruit Companies' can be allowed to operate in which sectors with what kinds of concessions. American actions against Venezuela leave little room for doubt on this score.

For the discerning, goes a saying in Hindi, even a gesture is sufficient. Mexico has obligingly imposed tough duties on imports from Asia, crimping Indian exports as well.

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The Strategy document sees the Ukraine war as an impediment to the stabilisation of Europe as a cultural and geopolitical homogeneity, being corrupted not just by unchecked immigration but also by the transnational group, the EU, which contaminates Europeanness by fostering and promoting immigration; throttles European business with rules and red tape; kills dissent and democracy with sovereignty-breaching norms that set European governments against the will of their people; and end up sapping civilisational energy.

If the world moulds itself even 10 per cent in the shape of the world according to Trump, India must lose no time in getting its house in order; put an end to the politics of schism, the political economy of competitive give-aways and make-believe glory; and get back to building strategic muscle in real earnest.

Europe, as a result, faces civilisational erasure, according to the document. This, in turn, undermines the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) itself, as some deracinated nations would no longer subscribe to the ideals to protect which the military alliance was formed.

Multipolarity gets a boost

A clear implication is that even if the European nations cut back on welfare to step up defence spending to the levels dictated by the US, the US's commitment to NATO can no longer be taken for granted. Multipolarity, in other words, gets a big boost.

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European powers are wrong to see Russia as a threat and must be encouraged to find accommodation and stability vis-à-vis Moscow, according to the document. The subtext is clear: the Ukraine war, which hinders the process, must come to a swift end. NATO should cease to expand, says the document. That suits Russia, and puts paid to Ukrainian dreams of NATO membership.

The China factor

The document refrains from naming any country as a strategic rival or adversary, but is suffused with wariness of China, a power that steals intellectual property; subsidises the creation of excess capacity and technology; dominates critical supply chains; leverages export surpluses into foreign influence; and must be kept out, at any cost, of the banana land, politely known as the Western Hemisphere.

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The Indo-Pacific is a place that must be kept open and stable, with Japan and South Korea spending more money on defence, and India doing its bit as a member of the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) forum to preserve unhindered operational freedom for the only country that matters.

Oh, it can also be useful to prise critical minerals out of Africa, that place whose redeeming feature, apart from being a source of minerals, would appear to be a supply of wars, stopping which can bring a Nobel Prize for peace a little closer.

All talk of immigration to bring talent to American science, technology and business is rot. America and Americans can manage just fine. But India could be a market for US goods, services and technology, and also work along with other nations to subserve American goals and interests in general.

"Capitalism", said Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto, “has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.”

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Trump’s strategy document bristles with capitalist disdain for sophistry and sentiment, and presents brass tacks as nails, not a golden glow with unexpected sharp points.

If the real world moulds itself even 10 per cent in the shape of the world according to Trump, India must lose no time in getting its house in order; put an end to the politics of schism, the political economy of competitive give-aways and make-believe glory; and get back to building strategic muscle in real earnest.

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