Executive Summary

The Monday Morning Meeting held on 29 December 2025, featured a presentation by Dr. Rajeesh Kumar on the United States National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025, released by the second Trump administration. The strategy, titled Competing for Power in a Fragmenting World, reflects a significant shift in American strategic thinking. The presentation highlighted how the NSS frames the contemporary international system as fragmented, with weakening alliances, declining multilateral norms, and increasing emphasis on material capabilities and technological competition. It also underscored the strategy’s regional prioritisation, particularly the renewed focus on the Western Hemisphere, the Indo-Pacific, and strategic competition with China. The discussion explored the document’s philosophical underpinnings, regional approaches, and implications for India and the broader global order.

Detailed Discussion

Dr. Abhishek Mishra initiated the discussion with an overview of the NSS 2025, which was released on 4 December 2025 by the second Trump administration. The document was described as one of the most consequential strategic texts in recent U.S. foreign policy, signalling a departure from the post–Second World War tradition of liberal internationalism. The strategy was presented as consolidating an “America First” worldview, prioritising domestic industrial capacity, border control, technological dominance, and national cohesion over the United States’ earlier role as a global security provider. It portrays the world as increasingly fragmented, characterised by weakening alliances, erosion of multilateral norms, and competition based more on material capabilities than ideological alignment.

Dr. Mishra identified two philosophical foundations of the NSS. The first is civilizational realism, which argues that the international system is returning to an era of competing civilizations. In this framework, the strategy moves away from the traditional democracy–autocracy binary and instead emphasises the protection of American cultural identity and heritage as a central component of national security. Ideological universalism is replaced by an emphasis on civilizational continuity and cultural sovereignty. The second foundation is hard sovereignty, which reasserts the primacy of the nation-state as the central actor in international politics. The strategy rejects what it describes as “globalist mandates” and the expanding role of supranational institutions, asserting that the United States will act unilaterally when its core interests are at stake. Multilateral commitments are treated as conditional rather than binding.

Dr. Rajeesh Kumar began his presentation by situating the NSS within a broader global context marked by fragmentation, multipolarity, and overlapping crises. He argued that the strategy presents itself as a corrective document, claiming that previous American strategies failed to clearly define national objectives or align them with available means. In this narrative, the NSS 2025 is portrayed as consolidating a course correction initiated during Trump’s earlier Presidency.

A central theme of the document, as highlighted in the presentation, is its attempt to answer two foundational questions: what the United States should seek from the world, and what instruments it should employ to achieve those ends. The strategy places the survival and safety of the United States at the top of its hierarchy, emphasising border security, territorial protection, national infrastructure, and the maintenance of technological and military superiority.

Dr. Kumar highlighted that the NSS places strong emphasis on industrial and technological strength as the backbone of American power. The document presents the United States’ industrial base as the most robust in the world and argues that maintaining and expanding this advantage is central to national security. Economic dynamism and energy self-sufficiency are similarly framed as strategic assets. Technology, particularly in areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and advanced manufacturing, appears as a dominant thread throughout the strategy. According to the presentation, the NSS suggests that contemporary strategic competition is increasingly shaped by industrial capacity, technological leadership, supply chain resilience, and computational power, rather than ideological contestation alone.

In terms of regional ordering, the strategy places the Western Hemisphere at the top of its priorities. Dr. Kumar described this as a revival of a Monroe Doctrine–style approach, aimed at reasserting U.S. pre-eminence in both North and South America. The document reportedly seeks to deny strategic space to external powers, particularly China and Russia, and signals a commitment to rolling back their political, economic, and security presence in Latin America. The Speaker noted that this emphasis is both strategic and symbolic, indicating that the hemisphere is being elevated in priority, potentially at the expense of other theatres.

The strategy’s operational approach to the Western Hemisphere is framed around two broad concepts: “enlist” and “expand.” Under the “enlist” approach, the United States seeks to work with regional champions, reward cooperative partners, rebalance its global posture toward the hemisphere, and expand the Coast Guard and Navy to secure sea lines of communication. It also emphasises commercial diplomacy and deeper economic engagement with regional partners. Under the “expand” approach, the United States aims to remain the first-choice partner for states in the region, while establishing interagency mechanisms to identify and secure strategic locations and resources. The Speaker also highlighted the strategy’s emphasis on strategic acquisitions and the role of the private sector in strengthening U.S. influence.

Asia was presented as another central theatre, with the Indo-Pacific and Taiwan emerging as focal points of strategic attention. The South China Sea is identified as a critical maritime corridor, and the document links deterrence directly to economic access and influence. The NSS proposes a combination of economic and security measures, including rebalancing trade relations with China, addressing supply chain vulnerabilities, restoring a favourable military balance, and strengthening alliances and partnerships. The strategy also acknowledges the importance of the Global South, suggesting that earlier U.S. approaches were insufficient and that Washington must engage emerging countries more effectively.

The Middle East is presented as an area of recalibration. According to the Speaker, the NSS argues that the region no longer occupies the central strategic position it once did, as U.S. energy self-sufficiency has reduced dependence on Middle Eastern resources. The strategy signals a reduced emphasis on democracy promotion and suggests a more pragmatic approach to regional political systems. Terrorism is not treated as the primary organising principle as in earlier strategies, while trade, technology cooperation, and regional stability are given greater importance.

Europe is addressed through a more critical lens. The strategy reportedly attributes Europe’s vulnerabilities to economic stagnation, insufficient defence spending, and migration-related challenges. It calls on European States to assume greater responsibility for their own defence and adopts a more transactional approach to alliances. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is presented as an institution that cannot indefinitely rely on U.S. support, and European markets are urged to become more open to American goods and services.

Africa, in the strategy, is framed primarily through the lens of minerals and investment. The presentation noted that the NSS appears to shift away from aid-centric engagement and instead emphasises investment and resource partnerships, reflecting the continent’s importance in global supply chains and industrial competition.

India features in multiple sections of the NSS. Dr. Kumar highlighted three broad contexts in which it appears. First, India is positioned within the Indo-Pacific framework as a partner whose cooperation is essential for strengthening regional deterrence and stability. Second, the strategy references India in relation to broader partnerships, including potential support for U.S. objectives in the Western Hemisphere. Third, India, along with Japan, is mentioned in the context of maritime security in the South China Sea, with expectations that regional partners will shoulder a greater share of responsibilities in maintaining secure sea lanes and deterring coercive actions.

The Speaker concluded with a comparative assessment of the 2017, 2022, and 2025 National Security Strategies. According to him, the 2025 NSS reflects a shift from expansive global leadership to a more conditional and selective form of engagement, engaging where core interests are at stake while reducing commitments elsewhere. Great power competition remains central, but the emphasis has shifted from ideological contestation to issues such as decoupling, technology, and supply chain security. Alliances, in this framework, are increasingly interest-based and transactional rather than treated as unconditional pillars of U.S. global leadership. The strategy also reduces emphasis on democracy promotion and human rights, while elevating economic security, industrial policy, and technological leadership as primary instruments of statecraft.

In his concluding remarks, Dr. Kumar characterised the NSS 2025 as a clear move toward a realist framework marked by selective engagement, conditional partnerships, and a focus on national interest, economic nationalism, and technological competitiveness. He noted that the strategy could intensify U.S.–China strategic rivalry, reshape alliance structures, and contribute to a global order defined increasingly by power, data, and industrial capacity.

Q&A Session

Following the presentation, the Director General, Ambassador Sujan R Chinoy, observed that the strategy is layered and requires careful interpretation. He cautioned against assuming that the absence of certain terms automatically indicates a shift in U.S. threat perceptions, noting that continuity between the 2017 and 2025 strategies should not be underestimated. He argued that the strategies collectively suggest an American reassessment of its role after decades of engagement with the post-1945 international order, reflecting frustration with the constraints of transnational and supranational structures.

Amb. Chinoyl suggested that the strategic implications of the NSS’s multiple references to India could be further explored. He noted that the document retains India’s status as a strategic partner while also signalling expectations for greater Indian engagement in the Western Hemisphere and reconsideration of its approach toward Russia and the Ukraine conflict. He also questioned the tendency to place India and Japan in the same analytical category, given their different alliance structures and degrees of strategic autonomy.

During the Q&A Session, participants raised questions on the absence of North Korea’s denuclearisation, the credibility of U.S. military assessments in a Taiwan contingency, and the broader purpose of written NSS documents. In response, the Speaker reiterated that the strategy prioritises competition with China, particularly in the Indo-Pacific and the Western Hemisphere, and that the absence of certain issues should not automatically be interpreted as a major policy shift. The Session concluded with the observation that the NSS reflects the end of an era in which the United States sought to police the global order, with Europe and the Middle East appearing relatively deprioritised compared to the Indo-Pacific and the Western Hemisphere.

Report prepared by Mr. Mohanasakthivel J, Research Analyst, ALACUN Centre, MP-IDSA.