In one sense, President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy—with its broadsides against Europe and demands on NATO—is not particularly newsworthy. After all, he’s heaped scorn on European countries for “not paying their fair share,” dismissed NATO as “obsolete,” proposed U.S. withdrawal from NATO, and invited Putin’s henchmen “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO members that haven’t adequately invested in defense. 

But in another sense, the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) marks a dramatic departure: Unlike those other criticisms and blusters, which Trump delivered off the cuff or in private, this is a formal policy document, the product of the entire national-security apparatus. And unlike the first Trump administration, there are fewer steadying hands today to rein in the president’s impulses. 

Problems
Trump’s 2025 NSS devotes an entire section to “European problems.” According to the document’s authors, these include “economic decline,” the “stark prospect of civilizational erasure,” EU “activities that undermine political liberty and sovereignty,” “migration policies,” “censorship of free speech,” “suppression of political opposition” and “loss of national identities.” 

It pays to recall that this is in a document mandated by Congress “to communicate the executive branch’s national security vision” and to define the “nation’s security goals…international interests, commitments, objectives, and policies.” In other words, the purpose of an NSS is to define U.S. strategy—not to critique U.S. allies. America, Europe and the transatlantic community they comprise would be far better served if the Trump administration could learn what every good coach knows innately: Praise in public, criticize in private.

The document devotes not a drop of ink to the problems Russia is causing vis-à-vis America’s security and interests. The document doesn’t mention that Russia is one of America’s chief adversaries; that Russia is using military force to attack, stalk and challenge U.S. vessels, U.S. satellites, U.S. seaspace and U.S. airspace; that Russia has targeted U.S. assets in sabotage operations; that Russia has shared advanced weaponry with Iran and North Korea; that Russia provided targeting data to support Houthi attacks against U.S and allied ships; that Russia has violated the CFE Treaty and INF Treaty (key pillars in America’s post-Cold War security); that Russia is propping up hostile regimes in this hemisphere; that Russia is using drone attacks and hybrid warfare to probe NATO defenses; that Russia is laying siege to NATO aspirant Ukraine.

While it’s silent on the problems caused by Russia, the document declares—demands—that “our NATO allies…must now meet” a commitment to invest 5 percent of GDP on defense, which NATO agreed to in mid-2025. Yet, even as the NSS issues imperatives about what U.S. allies “must now” do, there are no such demands placed on Russia—no demands that Russia “must now” stop violating NATO airspace, or “must now” come into compliance with a range of treaties, or “must now” cease sabotage operations in NATO’s footprint, or “must now” withdraw from Ukraine.

Equally troubling, the NSS calls for “ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.” This upends decades of U.S. policy: NATO grew during the Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama and Biden administrations—and, ironically, twice during Trump’s first term. It also flouts the North Atlantic Treaty: NATO has embraced an open-door policy since its founding. European nations seek NATO membership because they distrust Moscow and view NATO as the surest route to security. That distrust has been validated repeatedly—from the Baltics and Poland during World War II, to Hungary and Czechoslovakia during the Cold War, to Georgia and Ukraine today. Moscow’s behavior—not NATO’s growth—is the problem.

The 2025 NSS warns, “it is more than plausible that…certain NATO members will become majority non-European. As such, it is an open question whether they will view…their alliance with the United States in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.” That’s an understandable worry, but it would carry more weight if it hadn’t already come to fruition in Washington: Trump himself doesn’t view America’s alliance with Europe the same way as those who forged and sustained NATO.

For example, the NSS laments that “Managing European relations with Russia will require significant U.S. diplomatic engagement.” This echoes what the Trump administration conveyed in the peace plan it proposed last month, which called for “dialogue between Russia and NATO, moderated by the United States.” 

In other words, Trump seems to view the U.S. and Europe as separate parts of a trilateral U.S.-Europe-Russia construct. This is a drastic departure from the past 75 years, when U.S. administrations embraced NATO as the vehicle for “managing European relations with Russia,” viewed America and Europe as part of a united transatlantic community, and understood that America isn’t some disinterested third-party mediator in Europe. 

Comparisons
That brings us to how the 2025 NSS compares with what Trump’s predecessors thought of Europe and NATO. 

President Harry Truman said of Europe, “We can strengthen them, and ourselves, by transferring some military means to them, and by joining with them in a common defense plan.” Calling NATO a “community of interests,” he argued that “if it had existed in 1914 and in 1939…it would have prevented the acts of aggression which led to two world wars.” He was right.

The 2025 NSS is concerned about “the West” and “civilizational” challenges, so was President Dwight Eisenhower, who served as NATO’s first military commander before he ran for president. Eisenhower described NATO as “the last remaining chance for the survival of Western civilization.” He was right. 

President John Kennedy described NATO as “our central and most important defensive alliance.” He was right.

President Ronald Reagan championed NATO as “a bond which has served us so well over the years and which will continue to be essential to our welfare in the future.” He was right. Indeed, Reagan knew NATO’s work wasn’t done when the Berlin Wall fell. In fact, he endorsed NATO’s growth, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union: “We must extend NATO protections and the NATO framework to those who desire to be part of our alliance,” he declared. “Room must be made in NATO for the democracies of Central and Eastern Europe.” 

President Bill Clinton’s 1996 NSS argued, “Enlarging the alliance will promote our interests by reducing the risk of instability or conflict in Europe’s eastern half.” He was right. Russia hasn’t invaded NATO’s newest, easternmost members. But Russia has launched three invasions targeting those outside the NATO umbrella (Georgia, Ukraine twice).

President George W. Bush’s 2006 NSS called Europe the “foundation of shared values and interests.” He was right.

President Barack Obama’s 2015 NSS said America was “in lockstep with our European allies” vis-à-vis Russia, pledged America’s commitment to “strengthening our enduring alliance with Europe,” and called Europe “our indispensable partner” in addressing regional and global challenges. He was right.

President Joe Biden’s 2022 NSS called Europe “our foundational partner in addressing the full range of global challenges” and described Russia as an “immediate and ongoing threat.” He was right.

We shouldn’t overlook what Trump’s 2017 NSS said about NATO and Europe. With the steadying guidance of Defense Secretary James Mattis and General H.R. McMaster, Trump’s first NSS recognized Russia as a “revisionist” power that seeks “to divide us from our allies”; said Europe and America are “bound together by our shared commitment to the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law”; emphasized that America “remains firmly committed to our European allies”; and called “the NATO alliance of free and sovereign states…one of our great advantages.” He was right—in 2017.

Different
NATO has been through many rough patches since its founding. But this moment seems different.

A senator has introduced legislation to withdraw the U.S. from NATO. The Defense Department informed NATO’s East European members of plans to phase out funding for military hardware where it’s most needed. A senior State Department official questions the need for NATO. 

Trump reserves his sharpest criticisms and bluntest demands not for our adversary in Russia but for our allies in Europe. If his 2025 NSS is any indication, he seems intent on walking away from America’s postwar foreign-policy consensus and marginalizing NATO at a moment when it’s desperately needed: As NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warns, “Danger is moving towards us at full speed”—all of us in the transatlantic community. 

“For the first time in history, there exists in peace an integrated international force whose object is to maintain peace through strength,” Truman observed when NATO was new. “We devoutly pray that our present course of action will succeed and maintain peace without war.” 

As Washington chisels away at NATO’s foundations, as Moscow takes aim at NATO’s members, as NATO’s neighbors burn, prayer seems particularly needed today.