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On the very date Donald Trump was presented with a tailor-made "award for peace" from his newest friend, FIFA president "Gianni" Infantino, his administration released an equally ostentatious national security strategy. This fairly short report drips with pure Trump and Trumpism. It opens with the characteristically modest claim that the president has brought back "our nation – and the world – back from the edge of disaster and disaster."

Even though the strategy largely formalizes the ongoing policies and rhetoric of Trump and his cabinet, it must be taken as a grave caution for the international community, and for Europe in particular.

A Strategy of Intervention and Cultural Anxiety

The document advocates for an assertive form of foreign-policy interference where the US explicitly sets the goal of "fostering European strength." Its rhetoric could have been taken straight from addresses by Viktor Orbán during the so-called migration emergency of 2015-16: "We want Europe to remain European, to reclaim its civilizational self-confidence." Even more worryingly, the document claims that Europe's "financial downturn is overshadowed by the real and starker possibility of cultural extinction."

The entire section dedicated to Europe is imbued with decades of European right-wing ideology and rhetoric. The EU and its migration policies are blamed for "changing the continent and creating conflict, censorship of free expression and stifling of dissent, plummeting birthrates, and loss of sovereign identity and self-confidence." According to the document, if "current trajectories continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less. As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economic power and militaries powerful enough to remain reliable allies." Indeed, the Trump administration believes that "within a few decades at the latest, some NATO members will become majority non-European."

"U.S. foreign policy should continue to champion genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic commemorations of European nations’ unique heritage and history."

Core Theories of the Right-Wing

These arguments carry strong overtones of two concepts seen as core for modern right-wing circles. The first is Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of the West," whose argument on the inevitable fall of civilizations was employed by the German far right to attack the "perversion" and "enfeeblement" of the democratic Weimar Republic. The second is "Le Grand Remplacement," published in 2011 by French novelist Renaud Camus, who translated long-existing "native" fears into a more explicit conspiratorial narrative, accusing European elites of using immigration to substitute restive "indigenous" populations and import a more docile and dependent electorate.

It is the nativist fever dream contained in both ideas that grants the Trump administration the right, if not the duty, to intervene in European affairs, the document implies. And it is clear where it sees its allies: "The United States urges its ideological partners in Europe to promote this resurgence of spirit, and the growing influence of nationalist European parties in fact gives cause for significant hope."

The Goal: "Restore European Greatness"

In other words, the US believes that it is key to its national security to "Restore European strength," and that the European far right is the only political force that can achieve this. Consequently, its "broad policy for Europe" focuses on "fostering resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations" – meaning the far right – and "building up the healthy nations of central, eastern, and southern Europe" – in particular "aligned countries that want to restore their former greatness" – a clear reference to Hungary and Italy.

While the document stays vague on implementation, it is apparent that a priority is to push Europe to adopt a sweeping policy on freedom of speech, closer to the US model – especially regarding far-right speech – and not just on social media. Another is to normalize relations with Russia; or, as the document phrases it, to "reestablish strategic stability with Russia." Although the country is not explicitly called a future ally, the Trump administration evidently does not regard Russia as an adversary either.

A Historical Blueprint: The Monroe Doctrine

In a wider context, the national security strategy takes its inspiration less from the glorified US of the 1950s and more from the 1823 policy of 1823. Articulated by President James Monroe, this warned European powers not to interfere in the "western hemisphere," which he proclaimed to be the US’s sphere of interest. The Trump administration’s policy document vows to "implement a Trump addition" to the Monroe Doctrine, which involves the US "enlisting" countries worldwide that wish to help protect US national interests.

This is necessarily new – recall JD Vance’s speech at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, where the vice-president unleashed an assault on Europe’s democratic model. But perhaps now that it is laid out in an official document, European leaders will at last realize that the stance is serious. And if the document is too lengthy or vague for them, it can be condensed in plain and succinct terms: the current US government holds that its national security is most enhanced by the destruction of liberal democracy in Europe. In other words, the US is not just an unwilling ally; it is a deliberate adversary. It is time to act appropriately.