Afrasianet - Imad Al, Hatba - The United States is drawing the limits of its intervention in the world, distancing itself from hotbeds of crisis and military tension in the Middle East.
Every time you re-read the US Security Strategy released in November 2025, it comes to a new conclusion about the direction of US policy during the remaining three years of the Trump administration.
These multiple conclusions were reflected in the readings of the analysts who wrote about this strategy. Some saw it as a withdrawal from the U.S. global role and a focus on two main axes: the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific, which occupied 29 of the 33 pages of the Arabic translation, and what they explicitly stated: "After the end of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy leaders convinced themselves that permanent U.S. control over the entire world was in the interest of the country. "But the affairs of other countries only concern us if their activities threaten our immediate interests."
Other analysts saw the strategy as an economic downturn for China, and an acknowledgement of its economic superiority: "Chinese state-backed and directed companies have excelled in building physical and digital infrastructure... The United States and its allies have not yet drawn up – in addition to implementing – a joint plan for the so-called "Global South."
I will try to present another vision of this strategy that sees it as an expression of American panic on the economic and military levels, and an attempt to devise a plan for "America to be strong and respectable again," as Trump explained in his letter in the introduction to the document. This phrase carries with it an implicit acknowledgment that America is no longer as strong as it used to be, that the decline in its power has led to a decline in its respect in the world, and that small countries are bold, whether economically or militarily. The text reinforces this recognition and confirms that the United States will follow through The next phase is a policy based on the tendency to non-intervention and repositioning through peace.
The strategy justifies these new trends by saying that the American people are no longer willing to shoulder global burdens indefinitely. Globalization has been a devastating mistake because it has led to the disappearance of the American middle class, which is the industrial base that secures American hegemony over the world. Globalization has also pushed the United States to engage in agendas and wars that represent the interests of other countries.
The strategy sends a message that reassures the world that its future goal is for the United States to continue to exist as an independent, sovereign republic that controls its borders. The sources of danger are:
1. Control of energy sources by hostile forces.
2- Controlling supply chains by hostile forces by controlling global trade corridors such as the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea and the South China Sea straits.
3. Migration and its potential for demographic and cultural change in capitalist countries. The era of "mass migration" and "organized migration" is over, according to the strategy.
In other words, the United States draws the limits of its intervention in the world, and distances itself (in the Lebanese way) from the hotbeds of crisis and military tension in the Middle East, since "the days when the Middle East dominated American foreign policy... In Europe, where the strategy saw that "the war in Ukraine led to the opposite result of what was expected", while Africa, to which the document devoted less than half a page despite the massacres in Sudan and coups in more than one country, the strategy believes that what is required is to change the nature of the relationship with it from an aid relationship to a relationship based on trade and investment, without demanding that American companies be given priority and that foreign companies that build infrastructure be expelled The countries of the Western Hemisphere also demanded.
In this context, the current strategy criticizes the previous strategies of expanding the boundaries of the phrase "American national interest" to the extent that almost all of the world's issues fall within the boundaries of this term. It calls for focusing on the core interests of the United States and ending the time of its burdens on the whole world "as if it were an atlas carrying the world on its shoulders."
The strategy describes President Trump as the "President of Peace," which is the title he loves to his heart, and believes that peace is achieved by the United States building the strongest military in the world capable of deterring and, when necessary, winning wars with maximum speed and with the least losses, and building the world's strongest economy that is more resilient, innovative, and developed based on the world's strongest industrial base and energy sector. With these combined powers, the United States is able to "impose peace by force" and then "reposition through peace."
The strategy missed directly mentioning China as a trade or military adversary, and only referred to it indirectly when talking about the United States' lack of support for any unilateral change in Taiwan, and demanding that allies such as Japan and South Korea contribute militarily to the defense of Taiwan's forward islands, sometimes using the term "direct enemy" or "hostile powers" when describing China, and sometimes Iran, which believes it has weakened its power through Operation Limits.Midnight Hammer," which is the name it gives to its aggression against Iran's nuclear facilities.
The letter, as it can be read, says that the United States is alarmed by the decline of the economic power of the capitalist triad (the United States, Europe, and Japan), as it collectively contributes less than 50 percent of the world's GDP, and advances rising powers such as China, which ranks second in the world, and India, which ranks fourth. The strategy proposes economic solutions based on the decline of the United States' contribution to world support, the transfer of the money it spends in this field to the development of the American homeland, and the "imposition of historic tariffs to restore vital industries to the homeland." It makes a clear threat that anyone who stands in the way of this strategy, especially in vital areas, will be confronted by the most powerful army in the world, which will impose peace by force and reposition American relations with rogue states through this peace.