America First as Grand Strategy
How Trump’s 2025 National Security Plan Rewrites U.S. Power, Redraws Global Priorities, and Recasts Pakistan’s Place in a China‑Centric Order
The new National Security Strategy is a doctrinal reset that codifies the Trump project into a single, sweeping theory of what America is, what it wants, and how it should behave in the world. It fuses cultural politics, economic nationalism, and hard security into one frame, and does so with unusually sharp language compared to previous bipartisan strategies.
A strategy against the post–Cold War consensus
From the first pages, the document positions itself as a verdict on three decades of American grand strategy. It argues that after 1991, U.S. “elites” chased permanent global dominance, overextended alliances, allowed international institutions to erode sovereignty, and embraced “so‑called ‘free trade’” that hollowed out the middle class and U.S. industry. National security, in this telling, was subordinated to a globalist ideology and an unsustainable mix of a bloated welfare administrative state and an imperial security footprint.
The strategy claims Trump’s first term proved there was an alternative path and that the second term is a “necessary, welcome correction.” It explicitly narrows the purpose of foreign policy to “the protection of core national interests,” rejects laundry list vision statements, and insists that “not every country, region, issue, or cause, however worthy, can be the focus of American strategy.” That move is framed as hard headed realism, but it is also ideological: the document is prosecuting the last 30 years of U.S. foreign policy as a kind of strategic malpractice.
What America “wants”: ends without euphemism
The section on what the United States should want is blunt about hierarchy. At the top sits survival and safety of the United States “as an independent, sovereign republic” that protects “God given natural rights” and prioritises citizens’ well being. From that flow a series of concrete wants:
Full control over borders and migration, with an explicit preference for a world where states “stop rather than facilitate destabilizing population flows.”
A resilient infrastructure and a homeland that “no adversary or danger should be able to hold at risk.”
The “world’s most powerful, lethal, and technologically advanced military” and “the world’s most robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent, plus next generation missile defenses, including a Golden Dome for the American homeland.”
The world’s strongest economy, most robust industrial base, and a dominant energy sector spanning oil, gas, coal, and nuclear.
Security is defined expansively: threats include predatory trade, drugs, trafficking, propaganda, influence operations, and “cultural subversion.” The cultural dimension is not tacked on; the document ends its list of objectives with a call for the “restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health” and “growing numbers of strong, traditional families.” That effectively folds the domestic culture war into national security doctrine.
Means: power, advantages, and a domestic revolution
The “means” section reads like a compressed catalogue of U.S. strengths, including economic scale, dollar dominance, technological edge, military power, alliances, geography, and “unmatched ‘soft power’.” It then pivots to describe Trump’s domestic agenda as an integral part of national security:
“Re instilling a culture of competence,” explicitly targeting “DEI” and similar practices as threats to institutional performance.
Unleashing energy production as a “strategic priority,” reindustrialising the economy, and using tax cuts and deregulation to make the U.S. “the premier place to do business and invest capital.”
Investing in emerging technologies and basic science to ensure long term military and economic dominance.
The logic is clear: domestic political and economic reordering is framed as a precondition for external strength. That breaks with the stylistic separation older strategies tried to maintain between domestic politics and foreign policy, even when the substance overlapped.
Principles: America First as doctrine
The heart of the document is the principles section, where Trump’s brand is translated into a vocabulary of statecraft. The strategy defines itself as “pragmatic without being ‘pragmatist,’ realistic without being ‘realist’,” and “motivated above all by what works for America, in two words, ‘America First’.” A few principles stand out.
First, the “Focused Definition of the National Interest.” This is a direct attack on broad conceptions of interest such as human rights, democracy promotion, and global public goods, and asserts that an interest is only “national” if it is tightly tethered to U.S. security and prosperity. That provides conceptual cover for deprioritising a long tail of causes and regions.
Second, “Peace Through Strength” returns as a central slogan, but it is married to a “Predisposition to Non Interventionism.” The document cites the Declaration of Independence and argues that rigid non interventionism is impossible but should be the default, with a “high bar” for justified interventions. This tries to reconcile Trump’s critique of “forever wars” with his insistence on overwhelming strength.
Third, “Flexible Realism” and the “Primacy of Nations” codify a comfort with working with non democracies and a suspicion of transnational institutions. The strategy accepts that nations will put their own interests first and pledges to “stand for the sovereign rights of nations, against the sovereignty sapping incursions of the most intrusive transnational organizations.” That is both a shot at institutions such as the UN and EU style integration, and a justification for transactional relationships with regimes that do not share U.S. political values.
The principle of “Sovereignty and Respect” is domestically pointed: it denounces foreign efforts to “censor our discourse,” influence voters, or “manipulate” immigration to build “voting blocs loyal to foreign interests.” The line between foreign interference and domestic politics is blurred, creating a conceptual frame for both regulating tech platforms and hardening the immigration system as security measures.
Finally, principles such as “Pro American Worker,” “Fairness,” and “Competence and Merit” knit together industrial policy, tariffs, and a rejection of DEI under one strategic roof. The document argues that prosperity must be “broadly based and widely shared,” that allies must stop “free riding,” and that radical ideologies undermining merit are a civilisational threat. That turns long running Trump talking points into formal doctrine.
Priorities: ending mass migration, shifting burdens, weaponising economics
The priorities section translates these principles into operational themes. The first is stark: “The Era of Mass Migration Is Over.” Border security is declared “the primary element of national security,” and mass migration is blamed for violence, crime, weakened social cohesion, distorted labour markets, and undermined security. Sovereign states, it insists, have both the right and duty to define who enters, and border control is cast as fundamental to the survival of the republic.
Second, the document elevates “Protection of Core Rights and Liberties,” warning that the state’s “fearsome powers” must not be abused under labels such as “deradicalization” or “protecting our democracy.” This is aimed as much at domestic agencies and political opponents as at foreign threats, and promises accountability for abuses. It also signals opposition to “elite driven, anti democratic restrictions on core liberties” among allies, linking culture war issues in Europe and the Anglosphere to U.S. diplomacy.
Third, it formalises “Burden Sharing and Burden Shifting.” The days of the U.S. “propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over,” and NATO allies are now bound by a commitment to spend 5 percent of GDP on defence. The strategy envisions the U.S. as organiser and convener of regional security networks but insists others take “primary responsibility” for their regions, with incentives in trade, technology sharing, and defence procurement.
Fourth, “Realignment Through Peace” is introduced as a strategic tool: presidentially driven peace deals, even in regions peripheral to core interests, are presented as a low cost, high dividend way to increase stability and align countries with U.S. interests. This is where Trump’s self image as “deal maker in chief” is elevated to doctrine, and where Pakistan appears.
Finally, “Economic Security” is elaborated into a program: balanced trade, securing critical supply chains, reindustrialisation through tariffs and new technologies, reviving the defence industrial base, restoring “energy dominance,” and preserving U.S. financial sector leadership. The strategy explicitly rejects “Net Zero” and “climate change” frameworks as “disastrous” and as subsidies for adversaries. This is a clean break from climate security linkages and makes energy extraction and export a central strategic instrument.
Regions: ruthless prioritisation and spheres of influence
Unlike earlier strategies that strained to mention every region equally, this one openly embraces asymmetry. It argues that trying to be everywhere produces “bloated and unfocused” strategies and that national security exists to protect core interests, not to address every problem.
In the Western Hemisphere, the U.S. will “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine” through a “Trump Corollary,” denying extra hemispheric powers the ability to position forces or control strategic assets, and using “targeted deployments” and even lethal force against cartels. The watchwords are “Enlist and Expand”: enlist regional champions to help control migration and drug flows; expand U.S. commercial and security presence while pushing out rival powers.
In Europe, the focus is on “restoring Europe’s civilizational self confidence and Western identity” and ensuring allies spend more, with an implicit acceptance that not every frontier can be shielded unconditionally. Commentary around the strategy underscores a tilt toward quickly ending the Ukraine war and exploring a re anchoring of Russia in a European security order as part of a wider effort to balance China.
In Asia, the core aims are to “win the economic future” and “prevent military confrontation,” primarily with China. Trump’s earlier reversal of assumptions about engagement with Beijing is described as a decisive strategic correction, and tools such as universal tariffs, supply chain reshoring, and technology controls become central. The Indo Pacific is thus treated less as a locus for liberal order building and more as the main theatre of economic and technological competition.
The Middle East and Africa are addressed more narrowly around counter terrorism, energy, chokepoints, and great power competition. Democracy promotion is largely absent; transactional partnerships and security deals dominate. Africa, in particular, is viewed through the lens of Chinese inroads and resource competition, confirming broader assessments that the strategy marginalises the continent beyond its role in global rivalries.
Against that backdrop, the way Pakistan is used in the text is both striking and revealing.
Pakistan in the new strategy: a single sentence with big implications
Pakistan appears in one sentence in the principles section, but that sentence carries an extraordinary claim. Trump is presented as having “secured unprecedented peace in eight conflicts” in eight months of his second term and “negotiated peace between Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the DRC and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and ended the war in Gaza with all living hostages returned to their families.” Pakistan sits in this list between African and Balkan dyads and alongside some of the Middle East’s most intractable conflicts.
At the literal level, this is a narrative flourish. It is not attached to a dedicated South Asia subsection, nor is there a spelled out framework for India Pakistan relations elsewhere in the document. Yet its placement under the heading “The President of Peace” is deliberate. Pakistan and India are invoked to illustrate three claims:
That Trump’s personal diplomacy is capable of resolving long frozen, high risk conflicts.
That his presidency has delivered peace between nuclear armed rivals, not just managed crises.
That this style of diplomacy, “unconventional,” muscular, transactional, is now a core instrument of U.S. grand strategy.
In other words, Pakistan’s role in the strategy is symbolic and instrumental: it is offered as proof of the “Realignment Through Peace” principle.
What kind of “peace” between Pakistan and India?
The document gives no detail on what “peace between Pakistan and India” actually entails. There is no mention of Kashmir, the Line of Control, terrorism, water, Siachen, or nuclear confidence building measures. That silence is telling. The strategy is not interested in the granular architecture of South Asian order; it is interested in showcasing the president as a conflict terminator and in folding the region into a global narrative of deals.
From a South Asian vantage point, a few inferences follow
First, the focus is crisis management, not conflict transformation. Elsewhere, the document speaks of “surgically extinguishing embers of division between nuclear capable nations.” The concern is with preventing regional wars from spiralling into global conflicts that “come to our shores,” not with resolving root causes. For Pakistan and India, that implies a U.S. role calibrated around nuclear risk and escalation control, rather than human security issues in Kashmir or structural political grievances.
Second, the mechanism is personalised presidential diplomacy, not sustained institutional engagement. The strategy is explicit that “seeking peace deals at the President’s direction” is an efficient way to realign countries and regions toward U.S. interests and open new markets. That implies episodic, leader driven interventions such as summits, backchannel deals, and side letters, rather than a long term, technocratic peace process with guarantor institutions. For Pakistan, which has historically been both empowered and blindsided by U.S. leader level engagement, this is double edged.
Third, the India Pakistan “peace” is subsumed under “flexible realism.” The commitment to working with countries “whose governing systems and societies differ from ours” without trying to impose democracy or social change means Washington is comfortable treating both Delhi and Islamabad as transactional partners on security and economics, regardless of their internal trajectories. That deprioritises concerns over democratic backsliding or rights abuses in Kashmir in favour of stability and alignment vis a vis China.
Pakistan’s place in the broader architecture
Although Pakistan is named only once, its structural position can be inferred from how Asia, economic security, and regional burden sharing are framed.
In the Asia section, the document is primarily about China, trade, and preventing war in the Western Pacific. Pakistan is therefore part of the secondary ring, a nuclear power tethered to both China’s Belt and Road and the Gulf, and a potential spoiler or facilitator in any wider regional realignment. The principles of “Flexible Realism” and “Primacy of Nations” give Washington conceptual room to deepen ties with Pakistan on issues such as counter terrorism, energy, and connectivity, even as it leans into an economic and security partnership with India.
On economic security, the emphasis on supply chain resilience, critical minerals, and energy dominance reshapes the incentives. Pakistan can matter as a corridor, whether through CPEC plus or alternative alignments, as a node in Gulf China connectivity, and as a site of possible near shoring for lower end manufacturing if Western firms seek China alternatives. Yet the core economic theatre remains the Indo Pacific maritime domain, not the subcontinental hinterland.
On counter terrorism and transnational threats, the strategy’s language on “narco terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations” is centred on the Western Hemisphere, but the broader definition of security threats, including drugs, trafficking, and influence operations, maps cleanly onto longstanding U.S. concerns in and around Pakistan, from trafficking routes to militant networks. In practice, this means that whenever such issues spike, they will be pulled under the same securitised umbrella that now governs migration and internal “subversion.”
Most importantly, the burden sharing and burden shifting framework affects how Washington sees Pakistan in relation to India and other regional players. The strategy envisions the U.S. as a convener that incentivises regional powers to take “primary responsibility” for their security environments. In South Asia, that can translate into:
Stronger expectations that India manage local conventional balances and maritime security in the Indian Ocean.
A U.S. role focused on nuclear risk management, intelligence, and targeted diplomacy where crises threaten broader stability.
Pressure on Pakistan to align more clearly against certain adversaries or to deliver on terrorism commitments as the price for U.S. support in crises.
Pakistan, in this architecture, is not a central pillar but a critical risk factor and a potential transactional partner.
The politics of narrative: Pakistan as proof of presidential greatness
The rhetorical packaging of Pakistan India “peace” also serves a domestic political function. The strategy is as much a story about Trump as it is about the world. By placing Pakistan alongside Gaza, Israel Iran, Armenia Azerbaijan, and several African conflicts in a single sentence, it constructs a narrative of unprecedented peacemaking across regions and civilisational divides. This does three things.
First, it reclaims the peace mantle from critics who associate Trump with volatility and norm breaking. The document calls him “The President of Peace” and uses the eight conflict claim to cement that brand. For an American domestic audience, “Pakistan and India” evokes nuclear risk and past crises; to claim peace there is to suggest he tamed one of the planet’s most dangerous dyads.
Second, it retrofits improvisational deal making into grand strategy. Past episodes, such as spur of the moment offers to mediate Kashmir or surprise summitry, are reinterpreted as part of a coherent doctrine of “Realignment Through Peace.” The strategy suggests that such deals can realign entire regions toward U.S. interests with relatively low resource costs. Pakistan’s inclusion is meant to show that this is not just theory but accomplished fact.
Third, it signals to both Delhi and Islamabad that Washington expects to be recognised as the indispensable balancer. Even if the underlying reality is messier, the document plants a flag. In the Trumpian worldview, it was the White House, not regional agency or slow institutional work, that delivered stability. That can create expectations in future crises that the U.S. president will intervene at a high level, expectations that may not always be matched by capacity or willingness.
Strategic consequences for Pakistan
Taken together, the strategy’s architecture and narrative have several implications for Pakistan beyond that solitary sentence.
1. Security framing hardens
Pakistan will continue to be seen primarily through the lenses of nuclear risk, terrorism, and great power competition, but now within a doctrine that securitises almost everything, including migration, economic flows, information, and culture. That increases the likelihood that issues in the bilateral relationship, from diaspora politics to social media narratives and student flows, are interpreted as security problems rather than mere irritants.
2. Reduced appetite for long term social engineering
The explicit rejection of using U.S. power to impose “democratic or other social change” abroad means Washington’s patience for micro managing Pakistan’s internal politics will shrink further. That can translate into less overt pressure on civil military balance, rights, or media, unless those issues directly intersect with U.S. security equities. The trade off is clear: more room for domestic experimentation, but less leverage to appeal to U.S. norms when local actors are squeezed.
3. Increased pressure to pick sides quietly
With China designated as the primary strategic competitor and with the U.S. doubling down on tariffs, technology controls, and supply chain shifts, Pakistan’s deep entanglement with China through CPEC and defence ties becomes more salient. The doctrine of “Flexible Realism” gives Washington cover to keep working with Pakistan, but the direction of travel is toward blocking Chinese military and technology access rather than toward neutrally managing a multi aligned partner.
4. Crisis diplomacy as spectacle
The elevation of presidential peace deals to a strategic principle raises the odds that future India Pakistan crises, if they occur on Trump’s watch, become high profile, leader centric diplomatic theatres. That can be stabilising in the short term, through phone calls, summitry, and mediated de escalation, but also risks reducing complex dynamics to stage managed “wins” and photo opportunities.
5. Limited economic upside unless tied to U.S. priorities
The heavy focus on reshoring, energy dominance, and North American plus hemispheric supply chains means Pakistan’s chances of becoming a major beneficiary of U.S. near shoring are limited unless it ties projects directly to U.S. aims, for example through alternative corridors that dilute Chinese leverage, or energy and minerals linked into Western value chains. Economic engagement will likely be narrower and more conditional than in the heyday of the War on Terror.
Conclusion
The 2025 National Security Strategy is, in many ways, the most ideologically explicit American grand strategy document in decades. It names enemies, denounces past elites, fuses domestic culture war with foreign policy, and unapologetically asserts a hierarchy of interests. For Pakistan, the headline claim is that Trump has delivered “peace” with India; in substance, the strategy treats South Asia as a nuclear risk to be managed episodically, a secondary theatre in a China centric order, and a potential object of presidential deal diplomacy rather than a central pillar of U.S. strategic design.