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From Faiz Abdullah
The Prussian field marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, renowned for laying the groundwork for modern warfare, is said to have observed that no plan survives first contact with the enemy.
His reputation as a military strategist par excellence notwithstanding, it is the sort of aphorism generals admire because it flatters their sense of realism – a reminder that strategy, however artfully conceived, must eventually contend with facts on the ground.
Albeit lesser in sophistication, former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson delivers a pithier jab: everyone has a plan until they are punched in the face.
In this vein, the publication of the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) landed with something of a knockout blow. And the percussive effects are felt far and wide, not just by its adversaries, but by those who considered themselves America’s friends.
Released recently with little fanfare, the document dispenses with many of the tropes that once framed American statecraft. Gone is the lofty rhetoric about defending freedom on distant shores, and strategies of the past which sought to expand the definition of America’s &#8220;national interest&#8221;.
Nevertheless, while the proclamation &#8220;to ensure that America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history&#8221; might come off as rather cliché, the rhetoric cannot be taken lightly. And one cannot summarily dismiss US intentions with the proverbial adage about the spirit being willing but the flesh weak.
To be sure, there is no dearth of wants, and if we recall the famous dictum of Lionel Robbins that while human wants and desires are unlimited, the means to satisfy those wants are, it is indeed an order taller than the Burj Khalifa!
But gone are the wild sweeping shots fired across the world as it becomes clear what this strategy really is: &#8220;the protection of core national interests&#8221;.
In as much as focusing on everything &#8220;is to focus on nothing&#8221;, we would have thought there would be a narrower definition of US aims and interests, but as it turns out, there is no shortage of superlatives: the US wants to &#8220;field the world’s most powerful, lethal, and technologically advanced military&#8221; while securing its position as &#8220;the world’s strongest, most dynamic, most innovative, and most advanced economy&#8221;. And the list goes on.
Old friends, new rebukes
Let’s begin with the Europeans. To say they were startled would be an understatement. For months, they had anticipated a rough read, yet few expected the severity of the document’s verdict.
The NSS does not confine itself to the usual complaints about defence budgets. Instead, it advances a far starker proposition: that Europe now stands on the precipice of &#8220;civilisational erasure&#8221;, a notion as intriguing as much as it is ironic when we pause to consider that this is the continent that preached the doctrine of La mission civilisatrice (&#8220;the civilising mission&#8221;) to justify colonising the &#8220;uncultured lands&#8221; of Asia and Africa.
So, to prevent such an erasure, it is prescribed that Europe must arrest its economic decline so that it may &#8220;remain European&#8221;.
One could read this as a new-fangled projection of racism via the double whammy of protecting economic interests while blatantly calling to slam the brakes on immigration.
Non-interventionism
Despite the initial days of Trumpian braggadocio including proclamations of Canada being the 51st state of the US and claiming sovereignty over Greenland, the Westphalian model of foreign policy remains intact.
Nevertheless, any suggestion that there is a recoil to isolationism is untenable. Because of the diversity and size of US interests, &#8220;rigid adherence to non-interventionism is not possible&#8221;, although that justified intervention will be predicated on &#8220;a high bar&#8221;. And how high is high? High enough for the NSS to urge the &#8220;cultivation of resistance&#8221; in Europe – in effect signalling support for the continent’s so-called &#8220;patriotic&#8221; parties, many of them far right.
Thus, while seemingly eschewing interventionism as a rule, this struck many as amounting to a proclamation that the US intends to intervene actively in European domestic politics.
A clear departure is the breakaway from the patronising and preachy diplomacy of the past, typified by the condescension of nations practising different politics or systems of governance: no more imposing &#8220;democratic or other social change&#8221; on other nations in as much as there is nothing hypocritical about maintaining good relations with such countries.
This is counterbalanced with a newly-minted Monroe doctrine vis-à-vis the balance of power, given a new tag as the Trump Corollary – a more guarded approach given that the Monroe doctrine reached its most interventionist expression in the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904. Certainly not de novo, the doctrine posits that no nation will be allowed to emerge as a dominant adversary. This is deemed crucial &#8220;to restore American preeminence in the western hemisphere&#8221;.
The Trump variant is as much economic as it is geopolitical. The NSS outlines a programme of commercial diplomacy, supply-chain restructuring and strategic acquisitions designed to secure American primacy. Coupled with a visible US military build-up near Venezuela, the message is faintly unsettling to many in the region.
How would this translate into the narrative of US global strategy? There is the charge that &#8220;non-hemispheric competitors&#8221; are already making harmful incursions into the economy and posing a serious strategic threat in the future. While no country is specifically mentioned here, it is clear which nation is the panda in the room.
Equally jarring for the Europeans was the near absence of criticism of Russia. Allegedly, most Europeans want peace but thanks to &#8220;unstable minority governments&#8221; holding sway, hostilities in Ukraine persist. Hence, a swift end to hostilities is imperative in order to &#8220;re-establish strategic stability with Russia&#8221; – semantics which could well send chills down the spine of Euro-centric leaders.
If that is over the top, at the very least, the tone borders on impatience with Europe’s insistence on holding the line in Ukraine. The suggestion that the Russo-Ukrainian war should be brought to a precipitous close is bound to further unsettle governments already wary of the Trump administration.
Not to mention that this clearly doesn’t go well with the military top brass of Nato, whose official stance on Ukraine is to persist in fighting the Russians, come hell or highwater. For many, therefore, the NSS reads less like a strategy for defending US interests in Europe than a critique of what Europe has become.
Free and open Indo-Pacific
The NSS makes no bones about the Indo-Pacific continuing to be &#8220;among the next century’s key economic and geopolitical battlegrounds&#8221;, but surprisingly concedes the primacy of maintaining &#8220;genuinely mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing&#8221;. However, this is contingent on taking succour from a &#8220;virtuous cycle&#8221; of strong American deterrence fostering more disciplined economic action, and vice versa.
QUAD and India
India is specifically singled out as the power to contribute to Indo-Pacific security, via QUAD – the quadrilateral cooperation with Australia, Japan, and the US – with which there is no love lost as far as the majority of Asean is concerned, despite the rhetoric about &#8220;preventing domination by any single competitor nation&#8221; – again, conspicuously with no mention of the pink panda in the room.
Military deterrence, Taiwan and the South China Sea
On Taiwan, the NSS calls for a favourable conventional military balance, and given that one-third of global shipping passes annually through the South China Sea, this has major implications for the US economy.
While the longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan is preserved, the so-called &#8220;strategic ambiguity&#8221; position is dead in the water – no pun intended.
Therefore, how matters evolve in the Taiwan Strait deserves particularly close watching. While no unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait will be tolerated, military overmatch will be preserved.
As for the South China Sea, there is the predictable greater flexing of military muscle with calls for &#8220;strong measures&#8221; as a deterrence against arbitrary closure of sea lanes, warranting therefore further investment in naval capabilities.
Asia reads between the lines
But what does the NSS mean for Malaysia and Southeast Asia in general? For our region, much of the document restates positions long signalled by the administration. It places economic security at the centre of American strategy, stresses industrial rebuilding and repeats the argument that supply chains must be reconfigured to reduce dependence on strategic competitors. These themes matter to a trading nation such as Malaysia, whose prosperity rests on open markets and the smooth flow of intermediate goods across Asia.
The treatment of China remains central and carries particular weight for Southeast Asia. Aside from the commitment to deter coercive moves in the Taiwan Strait as alluded to earlier, the NSS devotes considerable attention to economic competition with Beijing. The broad outlines are unsurprising, but the document includes nuances that deserve close attention.
These linguistic calibrations are important, as this is in some respects the least confrontational NSS on China in almost a decade. The contrast with earlier strategies is instructive. The 2015 document under president Obama spoke of a US that &#8220;welcomes the rise of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous China&#8221; and sought &#8220;a constructive relationship&#8221;, even as it criticised Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea.
Two years later, the first Trump administration removed any ambiguity, casting China as a &#8220;revisionist power&#8221; bent on shaping &#8220;a world antithetical to US values and interests&#8221; and seeking to &#8220;displace the US in the Indo-Pacific region&#8221;.
President Biden’s 2022 strategy preserved the competitive framing but widened it into a systemic and ideological one, describing China as &#8220;the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it&#8221;.
Yet the 2025 strategy under president Trump’s return shifts tone again. Despite the panda analogy, China appears less a strategic adversary than an economic challenger that has allegedly exploited Western openness, thanks no less to “mistaken American assumptions.” Together with talk of a win-win economic partnership with Beijing, these semantic shifts reflect a more circumscribed US ambition to compete with China in Asia, and a desire to place some guardrails around a rivalry that might otherwise slide into open-ended confrontation.
For Malaysia and the wider region, this mixture of firmness and restraint carries both risk and opportunity. The NSS confirms that competition in trade and technology will intensify, yet it also leaves space for pragmatic engagement and suggests that Washington does not intend to turn Asia into a theatre for ideological confrontation. This may allow Asean states to preserve some strategic wiggle room at a time when both major powers are trying to work out a modus vivendi in Asia.
Will it matter?
How far the NSS will shape events in practice is an open question. The document reflects president Trump’s worldview, but it is unlikely to provide a reliable guide to his personal decisions. He remains a leader governed more by instinct than doctrine. Even so, the NSS will shape the thinking of Cabinet members, agencies and the national-security bureaucracy. It will serve as a justification tool and a reference point for officials navigating an unpredictable policymaking environment.
The NSS does not promise consistency, nor does it offer comfort. What it offers instead is a stripped-down view of American power – unsentimental, interest-driven and increasingly transactional. For allies and rivals alike, with the singular exception of China, and perhaps Russia too, they might just have to take it on the chin.
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Faiz Abdullah is chairman of the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.

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