The four pillars of the strategy are protecting the US populace and the homeland; promoting US prosperity; preserving “peace through strength” and a strong military; and increasing US influence abroad, according to a draft of the NSS document shared with multiple news outlets.
The strategy is based on “realism,” Trump said, and while the US will pursue a “great partnership” with China and Russia, the administration will do so “in a manner that always protects our national security.” He used as an example the help the CIA provided Russia over the weekend in foiling a terror plot in St. Petersburg that could have killed “perhaps thousands,” and for which Russian President Vladimir Putin called over the weekend to express thanks.
The president also spoke about “economic security” as a vital element to national security strategy. Partnerships will be based on “cooperation and reciprocity” moving forward, the president said, and less tethered to ideology. America won’t seek to export its values abroad, he said, but it will champion them “without apology.”
“Strengthening our sovereignty — the first duty of a government is to serve the interests of its own people — is a necessary condition for protecting those four national interests,” the NSS document reads. The written strategy takes aim at “the revisionist powers of China and Russia; the rogue states of Iran and North Korea; and transnational threat organizations, particularly jihadist terrorist groups,” as its main challenges.
Via SI