Above,Ryan McBeth is a Military Vet and YouTuber who specializes in military and intelligence affairs. He’s kind of droll, sometimes full of shit, but usually factual enough to have credibility. Clip above is from his longer analysis , parts of which I disagree with, on the new United States National Security Strategy document that is, on the whole, one of the great disasters in an administration that is defined by disasters. Because he skews generally conservative, but is for the most part fact-based, and has a large following, his take on the “climate” section of the document is significant. Among other items, the document asserts, “the growing influ…
Above,Ryan McBeth is a Military Vet and YouTuber who specializes in military and intelligence affairs. He’s kind of droll, sometimes full of shit, but usually factual enough to have credibility. Clip above is from his longer analysis , parts of which I disagree with, on the new United States National Security Strategy document that is, on the whole, one of the great disasters in an administration that is defined by disasters. Because he skews generally conservative, but is for the most part fact-based, and has a large following, his take on the “climate” section of the document is significant. Among other items, the document asserts, “the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.” The statement is widely interpreted as supporting right wing movements such as the AFD party in Germany, well known for Putinist and Neo Nazi affiliations, climate denial, and opposition to clean energy.
National Security Strategy of the United States of America:
Energy Dominance – Restoring American energy dominance (in oil, gas, coal, and nuclear) and reshoring the necessary key energy components is a top strategic priority. Cheap and abundant energy will produce well-paying jobs in the United States, reduce costs for American consumers and businesses, fuel reindustrialization, and help maintain our advantage in cutting-edge technologies such as AI. Expanding our net energy exports will also deepen relationships with allies while curtailing the influence of adversaries, protect our ability to defend our shores, and—when and where necessary—enables us to project power. We reject the disastrous “climate change” and “Net Zero” ideologies that have so greatly harmed Europe, threaten the United States, and subsidize our adversaries.
Latin American countries must grant no-bid contracts to U.S. companies. Taiwan’s significance boils down to semiconductors and shipping lanes. Washington’s “hectoring” of the wealthy Gulf monarchies needs to stop.
The world as seen from the White House is a place where America can use its vast powers to make money.
President Trump has shown all year that his second term would make it a priority to squeeze less powerful countries to benefit American companies. But late Thursday, his administration made that profit-driven approach a core element of its official foreign policy, publishing its long-anticipated update to U.S. national security aims around the world.
The document, known as the National Security Strategy, describes a world in which American interests are far narrower than how prior administrations — even in Mr. Trump’s first term — had portrayed them. Gone is the long-familiar picture of the United States as a global force for freedom, replaced by a country that is focused on reducing migration while avoiding passing judgment on authoritarians, instead seeing them as sources of cash.
The document codifies Mr. Trump’s well-established aversion to Europe’s liberal governments and his readiness to overlook human rights abuses, as with his “things happen” remark last month about the murder and dismemberment of a Saudi Washington Post columnist in 2018. Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it “discards decades of values-based U.S. leadership in favor of a craven, unprincipled worldview.”
First, the strategy is overtly about this president and not the United States as such. Most national security strategies at least try to present the United States as a cohesive whole and leave domestic politics out of it. This one instead puts partisan division and the president himself front and center. It casts “President Trump’s second administration” as an expansion of his first term — a “necessary, welcome correction” — that began “ushering in a new golden age.” It calls Trump “The President of Peace,” “leveraging his dealmaking ability” to personally secure “unprecedented peace” in eight conflicts across the globe, including ending the war in Gaza with all living hostages returned to their families. In doing so, the document merges national strategy and political campaigning.
This matters because when a national security strategy elevates the president as protagonist rather than the country, it blurs the line between institutional strategy and political messaging. That alters how allies gauge reliability, how agencies interpret guidance, and how adversaries assess continuity beyond one person.
As I have argued since February, taking down America as a democratic superpower is the point of the Trump admin. There is a holistic plan to wreck the country so that Russia and China can succeed. https://t.co/Ac1kpSBwCw
— Ruth Ben-Ghiat (@ruthbenghiat) December 7, 2025