U.S security strategy reshapes NATO burden sharing and tests Europe’s defense future.

The White House’s 2025 National Security Strategy sharply criticizes Europe’s political trajectory while promising to reassert US dominance in the Western Hemisphere under a so-called Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. The document signals a lasting shift in US force posture and expectations of NATO, with Europe pushed to do more on its own defense as Washington reorients resources toward the Americas and long range deterrence.

The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy sets out the clearest break yet from three decades of US global activism, recasting Europe as a vulnerable and increasingly unreliable partner while elevating the Western Hemisphere to the center of American power projection. Released this week as a 33-page blueprint, the strategy revives a twenty-first-century reading of the Monroe Doctrine and warns that Europe faces “civilizational erasure”, citing demographic decline, regulatory overreach, and internal polarization as structural weaknesses. At the same time, it ties future US defense planning, budgets, and deployments to a more selective set of “vital” interests, from border security and drug cartels to deterring great power penetration in the Americas.
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Trump’s 2025 security strategy rebukes Europe and refocuses US power on the Western Hemisphere, reshaping NATO burden sharing and long range deterrence. (Picture source: US DoD)

The doctrinal introduction establishes a framework in which the United States intends to reassert economic, military, and technological leadership while reducing the scope of external commitments to issues considered vital. The text stresses the restoration of American national cohesion and a determination to control immigration, foreign trade, industrial dependence, and exposure to foreign interference. From this perspective, Europe appears vulnerable. The strategy refers to a risk of “civilizational erasure” and notes the fall in Europe’s share of global GDP, from 25 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today. This weakening is said, in Washington’s view, to be worsened by heavy regulatory governance, falling birth rates, political polarisation, and a loss of collective confidence, while some NATO members could become majority non-European in the coming decades.

The US military posture provides the backdrop for this repositioning. The B-2 Spirit, a long-range strategic bomber, illustrates the American ability to project nuclear deterrence. With a range of more than 11,000 kilometres without refuelling and a stealth architecture optimised against S-band and X-band radars, it can carry up to 18 tonnes of ordnance, including GBU-57 guided bombs designed to penetrate deeply buried structures. Combined missions with British F-35 Lightning II aircraft underline allied interoperability, yet the US security strategy now moves away from the idea of automatic mutual dependence. Washington asks European partners to take on a larger share of their own defence, in line with the 5 percent of GDP goal set out in the Hague Commitment referenced in the official document.

The operational dimension translates into a higher priority given to the Western Hemisphere. The strategy refers to a Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, intended to prevent any extra-regional power from establishing a military, logistical, or technological footprint in the Americas. US forces are to be redeployed to secure maritime routes, step up the fight against drug cartels, and reassert control of national borders. This shift also seeks to shape an industrial and energy base less exposed to external dependencies. The document signals an intention to revitalise US defence and critical supply chains by combining low-cost innovation, reindustrialisation, and the reshoring of production capacity.

Tactical implications appear in the way Washington plans to employ its air and naval assets. Stealth platforms such as the B-2 and, in the future, the B-21 Raider support deterrence campaigns based on penetrating contested areas, evading advanced radar systems, and conducting long-range precision strikes. Integration of the F-35, with its Electro Optical Targeting System (EOTS) and networked data fusion, strengthens the ability to conduct combined operations over saturated environments. Taken together, these capabilities are intended to preserve a qualitative advantage that can deter large conventional conflicts while maintaining American freedom of action, in particular across strategic maritime spaces.

The geopolitical consequences of this doctrine are likely to be far-reaching. Europe is encouraged to regain strategic cohesion, rebuild its defence industrial capacity, and manage its eastern neighbourhood more directly. Washington sees a more resilient continent as a better contributor to the balance of power vis à vis Russia and China while reducing the burden on the United States. The strategy nevertheless reaffirms the lasting importance of the transatlantic link, now filtered through a logic of converging interests rather than automatic political alignment. The redefinition of the US role in the international system thus opens a phase in which the strategic balance will depend on how quickly European allies adapt and redefine their contribution to collective security.