POLITICS: Trump’s new national-security plan improves on Biden’s but falls short in confronting biggest threats

The White House’s just-released National Security Strategy wisely jettisons the Biden administration’s misguided emphasis on sexual identity and climate change as security priorities, but what emerges in its replacement is a mixed bag.

Its combination of muddled rhetoric and limited ambition, for starters, will keep America’s allies jittery about our plans, as rivals like Beijing and Moscow probe for weaknesses.

The best National Security Strategies accurately describe the world as it is, align finite national resources to potentially unlimited aims and, most important, inform decision-making in a crisis.

The Trump 1.0 strategy largely accomplished all three of these objectives, declaring in no uncertain terms that China and Russia were overt challengers to American power and influence. The Trump 2.0 strategy is less clear.

Instead of decisive language and a bold recognition of immediate dangers from China, Russia or the clerical regime in Iran, the new strategy buries Trump’s priorities under layers of befuddling rhetoric.

What does it mean that America’s foreign policy is “pragmatic without being ‘pragmatist,’” or “realistic without being ‘realist’?”

Language like this reads more like Kamala Harris’ word salads than Trump’s signature plain talk. Worse, these vagaries will not be useful when the chips are down.

If a terrorist hijacked an American airliner, is it pragmatic or pragmatist to shoot it down? If Russian special forces make a limited incursion into the Baltic States, is it realistic or realist to defend our allies?

And what does it all mean in operational terms? Emergencies will require immediate answers the NSS doesn’t provide.

One area where the new strategy shines is its honest recognition of America’s finite resources and the nearly unlimited international problems the administration is asked to address.

Previous strategies ignored this fact. They opted instead for laundry lists of wishes or desired end states.

A useful strategy should set clear priorities, as the new plan itself notes upfront.

What, then, should be at the top of Trump 2.0’s list?

Right now, China is flexing its military muscle in the Pacific, ramming ships and wargaming threats to Taiwan.

NATO generals warn that Russia could be ready to attack Europe in under five years.

The clerics in Tehran are still in power and overtly antagonistic to America and its friends.

Alas, the Trump 2.0 strategy gives these issues lower priority, focusing more on Western Hemisphere affairs, fair trade deals and grievances about current account deficits.

These are all important, but not nearly as much as the enormous, overt dangers from nuclear-armed opponents.

The United States cannot win a high-stakes rivalry with serious players like Beijing or Moscow if we don’t adequately confront the severity of our competition and the complexity of the threats they present.

Take Taiwan: The new strategy rightly asserts that “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.”

It adds that “American military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone.” The same could be said for our military posture in the European theater.

However, the speed at which the Trump 2.0 strategy seeks to shift the burden onto the shoulders of allies could be too fast for them to keep up.

Gaps in our deterrent power will be the predictable result if we don’t account for the real-world limitations of our allies to mobilize their defense production, recruit soldiers and pick up the slack.

Injecting a healthy spirit of patriotism into American foreign policy, rejecting the expansive aims of unrestrained globalism and recognizing the limits of US resource constraints are all welcomed and needed additions by the new NSS.

The danger, however, is that the new strategy provides an excuse not to act decisively and with a clear purpose when opponents test our limits or allies call on us to honor our covenants and treaties.

Ensuring our freedom in the world and the prosperity that Americans have come to expect will require both.

President Trump has said: “My priority is to end conflicts, not to start them, but I will never hesitate to wield American power, if it’s necessary, to defend the United States of America or our partners.”

Let’s hope the president’s national-security team remembers this when the next crisis breaks.

It could be more useful than their unwieldly NSS.

Peter Doran is an adjunct senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.