When the Trump administration unveiled the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) late Thursday night, it immediately drew attention — not just for its policy proposals, but for its unmistakable historical echo. For the first time in decades, a U.S. national security blueprint openly calls back to the philosophy of the early American republic, particularly the Monroe Doctrine’s vision of Western Hemisphere leadership and homeland-focused defense.
Rather than the sprawling, all-encompassing international ambitions that defined much of 20th-century U.S. foreign policy, this NSS places the American homeland and the surrounding region at the center of national strategy. In tone and structure, it mirrors how the founders viewed national strength: protect your own borders, secure your own region, and engage the world with strategic — not endless — commitments.
At 33 pages, the document blends elements of the familiar “America First” framework with new, more explicit historical grounding. For the first time, the Monroe Doctrine returns to the forefront of an official national security plan.
A Strategic Reset Rooted in Historical Foundations
The NSS makes a direct reference to restoring what earlier generations understood clearly: the Western Hemisphere is the anchor of America’s security, stability, and economic future. The document states:
“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region.”
This is not merely rhetorical. It signals a strategic shift that re-centers the hemisphere as the nation’s primary zone of interest — a return to what leaders like James Monroe, John Quincy Adams and later Theodore Roosevelt saw as essential to American survival and prosperity.
Rather than attempting to police distant regions with limited direct benefit to U.S. citizens, the NSS frames the Western Hemisphere as the core of U.S. geopolitical influence, with more focused engagement elsewhere.
Not a Global Retreat — But a Global Rebalance
While critics may portray the strategy as inward-looking or isolationist, the document itself argues the opposite. It does not call for withdrawing from alliances or ceding influence abroad. Instead, it emphasizes:
- Stronger burden-sharing with allies
- Economic protection of key supply chains
- Strategic selectivity in global commitments
- Smarter, not broader, military engagement
The message is clear: the United States will remain a global power, but it will act with precision rather than reflex, prioritizing interests that matter directly to American security and prosperity.
This is consistent with the founders’ vision — cautious of entangling alliances, skeptical of open-ended commitments, but committed to defending core interests decisively.
Restoring U.S. Influence in the Western Hemisphere
A major section of the NSS focuses on reversing decades of neglect in Latin America and the Caribbean. The strategy calls for:
- Strengthening diplomatic ties across the region
- Countering criminal networks and foreign influence
- Increasing military cooperation and joint training
- Expanding mutually beneficial trade and investment
- Supporting stability in key partner nations
This approach isn’t framed as an attempt at domination, but as ensuring that the United States — not foreign adversaries — sets the tone in a region directly connected to American national security.
For decades, rival powers expanded their influence there while U.S. attention drifted elsewhere. The new NSS calls for reversing that trend without resorting to old interventionist playbooks.
A Direct Confrontation With Transnational Criminal Cartels
Another major pillar involves treating cartel operations with the seriousness traditionally reserved for hostile state actors. The NSS identifies cartels as one of the most dangerous threats to American stability and regional security.
The plan includes:
- Stronger intelligence coordination with partner nations
- Disrupting financial networks that support cartels
- Designating major cartels as national security threats
- Supporting technology upgrades for border enforcement
- Targeting illicit supply chains that endanger U.S. communities
Rather than viewing cartels simply as criminal syndicates, the strategy categorizes them as geopolitical actors capable of destabilizing nations and directly endangering Americans.
This is one of the most significant shifts in U.S. national security thinking in years.
A Reinforced Border and Modernized Homeland Security
The NSS lays out a sweeping effort to secure the nation’s borders, describing border security as “fundamental to national sovereignty.” Key components include:
- Expanding infrastructure along major entry corridors
- Increasing manpower and technology at physical borders
- Strengthening maritime patrols in the Caribbean and Gulf regions
- Enhancing surveillance and early detection systems
- Reforming immigration enforcement to prioritize national security
Rather than framing border security in partisan or ideological terms, the document positions it as a non-negotiable aspect of national defense — core to the founders’ understanding of sovereignty.
Energy Independence as National Defense
One of the strongest themes in the NSS is the return to domestic energy expansion. The document states that the United States must secure:
- Abundant domestic oil and gas
- Reliable nuclear production
- Expanded refining and transport capacity
- A resilient electrical grid
- Freedom from foreign energy dependence
The strategy argues that energy independence is not only an economic advantage but also a national security imperative. Control over energy supply gives the U.S. leverage in global markets, reduces vulnerability, and strengthens domestic resilience.
This mirrors early American principles — the founders emphasized economic self-reliance as essential for sovereignty.
Economic Security Reframed as National Security
The NSS elevates economic policy to the highest level of strategic concern, outlining:
- Protection of critical supply chains
- Reduction of dependencies on adversarial countries
- Strengthening American manufacturing
- Prioritizing fair and reciprocal trade agreements
- Ensuring access to vital minerals and technologies
Rather than assuming global interdependence is inherently beneficial, the document argues that the U.S. must control or safeguard systems essential to national well-being.
This includes semiconductors, rare earth elements, pharmaceuticals, and energy technology — areas where dependency has proven risky in recent years.
A More Disciplined Military Strategy
The document does not call for a smaller military, but for a smarter one. Its priorities include:
- Modernizing forces
- Increasing readiness
- Upgrading cyber defense
- Strengthening deterrence in key regions
- Avoiding open-ended conflicts
- Prioritizing overwhelming advantage over parity
Instead of attempting to maintain a military presence everywhere, the NSS calls for focusing resources where they matter most — a shift from quantity to quality.
This reflects early American principles of avoiding unnecessary foreign entanglements while maintaining superior defensive capabilities.
A Strategy the Founders Would Recognize
Much of the NSS echoes ideas central to America’s early leaders:
- Sovereignty first
- Protect the homeland before policing the world
- Strength in the Western Hemisphere
- Economic independence as national defense
- Avoiding foreign entanglements while maintaining strength
- Selective engagement, not endless commitments
It is not a withdrawal from the world — it is a rebalancing toward priorities long neglected in the modern era.
In this sense, the new national security strategy is one of the most historically grounded foreign policy documents in recent memory. It does not attempt to recreate the past, but it does revive principles that helped shape a young nation’s rise to global power.
Whether one agrees with its conclusions or not, the NSS represents a clear and deliberate shift: a recalibration toward sovereignty, stability, and regional leadership in the image of America’s founding vision.
