On December 22, 2025, the United States unveiled a National Security Strategy (NSS) that marks a seismic shift in the country’s global posture. Gone is the familiar rhetoric of American primacy; in its place is a vision that embraces multipolarity, spheres of influence, and a pronounced retreat from the role of world policeman. The implications of this new doctrine are reverberating across Europe, where allies are being told, in no uncertain terms, to prepare for a future in which they shoulder much of their own defense.
The new NSS, as reported by multiple sources including BBC and Project Syndicate, is a dramatic departure from the 2022 strategy, which had doubled down on the ambition of preserving US world dominance. Instead, the 2025 version explicitly rejects the idea that American interests are global by default. "The affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests," the document declares. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov even called the new US approach "largely consistent" with Moscow’s vision of a multipolar world, a rare note of Russian approval for American policy.
For Europe, the message is both blunt and jarring. The NSS states, "the days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over," and calls for Europe to assume "primary responsibility for its own defense." This is not just a policy tweak—it’s a tectonic realignment. The NSS divides the world into spheres of influence, echoing the 19th-century great power politics that predated the modern era of alliances and global institutions. For the US, this means a return to the Monroe Doctrine, focusing on regaining preeminence in the Western Hemisphere. In Asia, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth outlined a strategy based on "flexible realism," seeking a balance of power with China rather than outright domination.
Yet, as Europe faces this new reality, it finds itself squeezed from both east and west. To the east, Russia’s ambitions loom large. President Vladimir Putin’s government has spent over a decade waging hybrid warfare against Europe, aiming to weaken and fragment the continent, preparing the ground for an expanded Russian sphere of influence. Russia’s proposed Ukraine peace plans, which would block NATO expansion, are part and parcel of this strategy. According to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who spoke in Berlin on December 22, 2025, "We are Russia’s next target, and we are already in harm’s way." He cited staggering Russian losses since the war’s outbreak in 2022—over 1.1 million casualties, with 1,200 a day in 2025 alone—but warned that Moscow’s appetite for influence remains undiminished.
To the west, Europe’s long-standing alliance with the United States is being recast. The NSS signals that the US intends to hand over conventional defense responsibilities to Europe by 2027, maintaining only its nuclear umbrella. Rutte did not mince words in his Berlin speech: "Allied defence spending and production must rise rapidly, our armed forces must have what they need to keep us safe, and Ukraine must have what it needs to defend itself – now." He called for NATO allies to push defense expenditure to 5% of GDP by 2035, warning that "too many are quietly complacent, and too many don’t feel the urgency, too many believe that time is on our side."
The Trump administration’s NSS is also highly critical of Europe’s performance on the economy, defense, and democracy. It paints a picture of a continent struggling with political instability, migration, censorship, declining birthrates, and a loss of national identity. The document suggests that some European countries might not remain reliable allies in the future, stating, "certain European countries will have economies strong enough to remain reliable allies." The NSS even proposes "cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations," a move that would interfere in domestic affairs and potentially undermine the European Union (EU).
This approach has not gone unnoticed—or unchallenged—by European leaders. Rutte, in an interview with the BBC after his Berlin address, tried to put a brave face on the situation. He insisted that President Trump was "good news for collective defence, for NATO and for Ukraine," and that NATO was "stronger than it ever was" under Trump’s leadership. But beneath the optimism lies a deep unease. The NSS’s skepticism about Europe’s future and its explicit talk of abandonment are unprecedented. Rarely has a US administration so openly questioned the reliability and resilience of its allies.
Meanwhile, the NSS’s diminished focus on Ukraine is also raising eyebrows. The strategy signals that Washington’s main attention will be on asserting a "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, with Latin America in the crosshairs for renewed US dominance. European and Ukrainian negotiations over the ongoing war are increasingly running on a separate track from US-Russian discussions, suggesting that Kyiv’s fate is slipping down the list of US priorities.
For Europe, the NSS is both a wake-up call and a challenge. The continent is being told to accelerate its buildup of defense capabilities, invest urgently in innovation, energy security, and societal resilience, and prepare to act as a pole of its own in a multipolar world. The EU, not individual nations like Germany or France, is seen as the only entity large enough to project global power. Yet the EU was never designed as a military alliance, and the transition to greater defense autonomy will not be easy. As long as NATO exists, the core of European defense must remain anchored in the Alliance, with the US playing a supportive—if no longer central—role.
There is also the risk that the US’s proposed interference in European domestic affairs could backfire, undermining cooperation on economic issues in Asia and the Global South—areas where both sides have much to gain from partnership. The NSS underscores the paradox that, while the US criticizes Europe and threatens abandonment, it also acknowledges that it cannot manage the world without its European allies.
As the dust settles on the release of the 2025 National Security Strategy, one thing is clear: Europe must rise to the occasion. The continent faces the dual challenge of fending off Russian aggression and adapting to a world where the US is no longer the unchallenged guarantor of transatlantic security. The alarm bells have sounded—perhaps for the last time before Europe must act decisively on its own behalf.
