The new U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) marks a decisive revival of “America First 2.0”—a sharper, more ideologically defined and strategically disciplined framework with clear policy consequences. Compared with the Biden administration’s 2022 NSS, it offers clearer prioritisation, firmer demands on allies, and a more explicit emphasis on economic and technological power as the foundation of U.S. global influence.

Some observers have portrayed the strategy as signalling an American retreat, citing a reduced emphasis on managing every global challenge and a stronger focus on homeland security, borders, and the Western Hemisphere. This reading, however, misses the document’s core logic. Rather than withdrawal, the 2025 NSS reflects a deliberate reprioritisation, aligned with Donald Trump’s doctrines of Peace Through Strength and America First.

Narrowing Interests, Sharpening Focus

At the heart of the strategy lies a redefinition of U.S. national interests. Unlike post–Cold War strategies that steadily expanded American obligations—from democracy promotion to climate action—the 2025 NSS establishes a more limited but clearly defined strategic ecosystem. Its core priorities include protecting the Western Hemisphere, securing economic and technological primacy—particularly against China—preventing foreign domination of strategic energy regions, and strengthening homeland defence through missile defence and tighter border controls.

The NSS explicitly states that global domination is not a core U.S. objective. This should not be mistaken for isolationism. Instead, the strategy advances prioritised regionalism, placing the Indo-Pacific and the Western Hemisphere at the centre of U.S. strategic thinking. The aim is to concentrate resources where risks are most direct and returns most tangible, while avoiding costly overextension.

Ideology, Sovereignty and Domestic Resilience

A distinctive feature of the new NSS is its ideological framing. Sovereignty, cultural identity, and civilisational confidence are placed at the forefront, with an emphasis on restoring domestic cohesion and resisting what the document portrays as the erosion of national sovereignty through globalist agendas.

The strategy criticises “woke” policies across parts of Europe and North America and reframes unchecked mass migration as a strategic threat rather than a purely social issue. Long tolerated under liberal internationalist norms, these challenges are now presented as risks to stability, safety, and national resilience, reflecting a broader recalibration of how internal and external security are linked.

Western Hemisphere and the China Factor

This recalibration is most visible in the renewed focus on the Western Hemisphere. The NSS adopts a Monroe Doctrine–style posture, aimed at countering growing foreign influence—particularly from China—in Latin America and the Caribbean. Beijing’s investments in ports, telecommunications, and energy infrastructure in these regions are now explicitly categorised as national security concerns.

This represents a reassignment of the China challenge. While the Indo-Pacific remains central, the NSS signals that Chinese influence closer to U.S. borders will be treated with heightened urgency, requiring more assertive countermeasures and strategic responses.

Allies, Burden Sharing and Transactional Expectations

The strategy also resets expectations of allies and partners. Security guarantees are no longer unconditional. NATO members, Indo-Pacific allies, and other partners are expected to contribute more substantially to their own defence and align more closely with U.S. economic and geopolitical priorities.

This shift reflects rising deterrence costs and increasing pressure on U.S. military production capacity, particularly following sustained commitments such as support for Ukraine. Burden redistribution, the NSS argues, will strengthen collective deterrence while reducing unnecessary strain on American resources.

Asia and the Indo-Pacific are not exempt from this recalibration. Regional partners are expected to make credible investments in their own deterrent capabilities as a baseline requirement for continued U.S. security assurances. Strategic partnership, under this framework, becomes increasingly transactional and conditional.

Geoeconomics as National Security

Economics forms the backbone of the 2025 NSS. Economic security, industrial policy, and technological leadership are treated not as supporting elements but as core pillars of national security. Tariffs, reshoring, energy dominance, and supply-chain sovereignty are framed as long-term tools to preserve the U.S. power gap with China.

The strategy acknowledges the failures of past economic engagement with Beijing and identifies China’s technological ambitions as the primary challenge to U.S. leadership. Emphasis is placed on tightening restrictions on sensitive technologies, expanding export controls on advanced semiconductors, and restructuring global supply chains to reduce vulnerabilities.

Partners are expected to align their economic security decisions with this framework, recognising that erosion of U.S. economic dominance would weaken the broader U.S.-led system and expose them to coercion by revisionist powers.

Military Power Without Endless Wars

Contrary to claims that the NSS weakens U.S. hard power, it advances a more militarised but targeted posture. The strategy calls for expanded munitions production, forward deployments tailored for denial and rapid response, and increased investment in future capabilities such as space-based missile defence systems, including the proposed “Golden Dome”.

The objective is to avoid prolonged occupations and “forever wars” while retaining decisive military superiority through speed, precision, and technological advantage. Military power remains central, but it is to be applied selectively and with clearer strategic purpose.

China, ASEAN and Strategic Choices

China remains central to the 2025 NSS, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. The strategy strengthens U.S. denial capabilities along the First Island Chain, deepens integration with allies such as Japan, Australia, the Philippines and Taiwan, and increases pressure on partners to reduce economic and technological dependencies on China.

For Southeast Asian states, the message is notably firmer. Longstanding practices of hedging and strategic balancing are increasingly viewed in Washington as unsustainable. Access to U.S. security and economic support will now require clearer alignment, signalling the end of cost-free ambiguity.

A Harder, More Competitive Era

Overall, the 2025 NSS marks the beginning of a harder, more disciplined, and more competitive phase in U.S. grand strategy. It seeks to preserve the power gap in America’s favour while recalibrating alliances to ensure they remain effective, sustainable, and aligned with U.S. interests.

With America First firmly at its core, the strategy argues that a strong and prosperous United States remains indispensable to a stable global order—anchored in deterrence, economic strength, and peace through strength.

(The author is a Kuala Lumpur-based strategic and security analyst. Views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at collins@um.edu.my.)