Trump rewrites national security playbook as mass migration overtakes terrorism as top US threat
The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy marks a sweeping shift in America’s defense priorities, downplaying Islamic terrorism and decades of Middle East–centric policymaking in favor of asserting U.S. dominance...
By Fox News · Fox News
The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy marks a sweeping shift in America’s defense priorities, downplaying Islamic terrorism and decades of Middle East –centric policymaking in favor of asserting U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere and treating mass migration as the top national security threat. In language that departs from every post-9/11 strategy document, the White House argues that the Middle East is no longer the primary driver of global instability and says the "era of mass migration must end," elevating border security and counter-cartel operations to core national defense missions. "The days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over — not because the Middle East no longer matters, but because it is no longer the constant irritant, and potential source of imminent catastrophe, that it once was," the document says. "It is rather emerging as a place of partnership, friendship, and investment — a trend that should be welcomed and encouraged." AS TRUMP’S STANDOFF WITH MADURO DEEPENS, EXPERTS WARN THE NEXT MOVE MAY FORCE A SHOWDOWN The strategy introduces a "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine to block foreign powers from gaining influence in the Americas and calls for shifting military resources away from long-standing theaters abroad. The original Monroe Doctrine warned European powers against interfering in the Western Hemisphere; its revival — and expansion — signals one of the clearest hemispheric doctrines in modern U.S. foreign policy. Alex Plitsas, a former Army intelligence officer, Pentagon official and current senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, questioned the strategy’s emphasis on hemispheric threats over global ones. "The most significant threats to the United States — whether terrorism or near-peer adversaries — are not in the Western Hemisphere, but in Africa, the Middle East, Eurasia, and Eastern Asia," he said. He pointed to R…