The American Conservative: Robert W. Merry - Co-opted: Trump’s ‘New’ Security Strategy is Old Warmongering

So how did such a dangerous document emerge from the White House?

This article also covers US antagonism towards Iran and China. 

President Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy, or NSS, is a dangerous document. If followed by the administration over the next three years, it will almost surely continue America’s arrogant ways of the past 30 years, destabilize major regions of the world, create hostilities where none need exist, and increase the chances of unnecessary U.S. wars, particularly against Iran.

The most striking characteristic of the document is the extent to which it merely nibbles around the edges of the foreign policies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. So much for Trump’s grandiose rhetoric heralding a new era in American foreign policy. In fact,  there are echoes in the language that go back to one of the most unfortunate doctrines of the past quarter century: the idea that America must prevent any other nation from becoming a dominant power in any region, thus bolstering our goal of global hegemony. That impulse helped generate the Iraq war, the unraveling of the U.S.-Russian relationship, and the tensions with Iran under Bush II.

Now consider this language from Trump’s NSS: “We will compete with all tools of national power [no euphemism there] to ensure that regions of the world are not dominated by one power.” Except, of course, American power. This comes straight from the thinking of the Unwise Men. In other words, on this highly important doctrinal matter, Trump differs not at all from the thinking that began the post-9/11 American global project.

Consider also the NSS’s attitude toward Russia, a continuation of the anti-Russian mood that has captured the American establishment in recent years. “Russia seeks to restore its great power status and establish spheres of influence near its borders.” Yikes! In other words, it is behaving like every other nation in the history of the world, including the United States, which sought to establish spheres of influence near its own borders with the Monroe Doctrine, yanked strategic territory from Mexico through force of arms, kicked Spain out of the Caribbean through similar means, and hazarded a nuclear war with the Soviet Union rather than let the USSR install nuclear missiles in Cuba.

The American Conservative: Robert W. Merry - Co-opted: Trump’s ‘New’ Security Strategy is Old Warmongering