This document is indeed unique, not in a good sense of the word: expert on the updated US National Security Strategy
Kyiv • UNN
The United States has updated its National Security Strategy, which envisages restoring relations with Russia and ending the war in Ukraine. Expert Oleksandr Kraiev noted that the current US Administration's priority is to restore strategic relations with the Russian Federation.
The updated US National Security Strategy proposes a review of priorities in defense and international policy. In a comment to UNN, Oleksandr Kraiev, an expert at the Council on Foreign Policy "Ukrainian Prism," noted that if Russia was previously defined as an enemy or a threat, now, on the contrary, it is stated that the restoration of strategic relations with the Russian Federation is a priority of the current US President Donald Trump's administration.
Details
On December 5, the United States updated its National Security Strategy, which envisages restoring relations with Russia, ending the war in Ukraine, and preventing NATO expansion.
Other key provisions of the document are as follows:
- Washington wants Europe to strengthen its own defense independently;
- The US administration acknowledges the existence of "conflicting positions" with European officials;
- The Indo-Pacific region is identified as one of the key geopolitical and economic directions of the 21st century;
- In trade with China, the US proposes to focus only on goods that are not of strategic importance.
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As Kraiev explained, the US National Security Strategy is a document that has been officially required by Congress and the executive branch from the US president for several decades, so that he can outline the key narratives, directions, and visions of his own security and foreign policy.
In short, this document should answer the questions: "where are our main problems, who are our main enemies, who are our best friends, how will we all together solve these problems, and stop these enemies together with our friends."
He added that the current strategy differs in that, for the first time, one of the key enemies, which was previously called either an enemy or a threat, depending on the year, namely the Russian Federation, is not defined as such a threat, but on the contrary, it is stated that the restoration of strategic relations with the Russian Federation, whatever that may mean, is a priority of the current US Administration.
And this is part of this new strategy. That, they say, only in normal stable relations with the Russians will they be safe. The second big difference is that Europe has rarely, or rather never before, been defined as something third, as something extraneous. In this strategy, we see a discussion that Europe is a decaying project, that the liberal world order has not justified itself, and that, they say, America should not pay attention to this at all, because Europe must fight for its own security, Europe must provide for itself, spend more on defense, and so on. That is, the huge problem here is that now the allies must realize that they are without the United States. They have to deal with it themselves, they have to work with it themselves, and the United States will simply observe it from the side, trying to establish a certain balance. Is this an exchange of Europe for relations with the Russians? Well, until this is implemented, we cannot say so, but in fact, the hints here are quite sufficient and quite bad.
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According to him, the strategy, as under the Biden administration, maintained that China is a key threat, and containing China is the most important part of this.
What, by the way, is also important for this strategy is that this strategy pays great attention to internal issues: culture, inclusivity, family issues, religious issues, and issues of the social contract in general. That is, it is a very ideologically charged document. Previously, the ideological charge of the National Security Strategy was only that America is a citadel of democracy. America must protect the weaker, America must protect democracy around the world, support it, and fight authoritarianism. In short, America is the main one of the good guys against all the bad guys. Now we see that the ideological component is absolutely clearly internal, it is absolutely clearly conservative and, in fact, completely copied from Project 2025, which Trump and his company were guided by during the elections. Therefore, it seems to me that this document is truly unique, not in a good sense of the word, and in many ways it can, unfortunately, lay new formats for these documents, when they become more like party booklets, when they become ideologically charged documents, and not specifically security and geopolitical documents.
The expert emphasizes that for Ukraine, this document shows that, unfortunately, "everything we thought about Donald Trump's approach to negotiations has been confirmed in the sense that he absolutely does not care who wins - Ukraine or Russia."
He absolutely doesn't care on what terms it all ends. The most important thing for him is that it ends faster, there is some ceasefire, there is some conditional division along the demarcation line, and then they and the Russians can return to business.