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Before you snuggle by the fire with some eggnog and a copy of Donald Trump\u2019s National Security Strategy<\/em><\/a> (subtitled, in case you wondered, \u2018of the United States of America<\/em>\u2019), I advise you to plan ahead, like Mr Creosote in Monty Python\u2019s Meaning of Life<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n MA\u00ceTRE D\u2019: Ah, good afternoon, sir, and how are we today?<\/p>\n CREOSOTE: Better.<\/p>\n MA\u00ceTRE D\u2019: Better?<\/p>\n CREOSOTE: Better get a bucket. I\u2019m going to throw up.<\/p>\n MA\u00ceTRE D\u2019: Uh, Gaston! A bucket for monsieur.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Pail prepositioning will be necessary because you will soon encounter passages like this:<\/p>\n Together, our task is to strengthen our families, to build up our communities, to serve our citizens, and to celebrate American greatness as a shining example to the world. We will leave our children and grandchildren a Nation that is stronger, better, freer, prouder, and greater than ever before.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is so very much more, as the strategy takes us on a journey from the recent dark past in America\u2019s history, when<\/p>\n the United States began to drift. We experienced a crisis of confidence and surrendered our advantages in key areas. As we took our political, economic, and military advantages for granted, other actors steadily implemented their long-term plans to challenge America \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Thankfully, President Trump has \u2018restored confidence in America\u2019s purpose\u2019. Trump is \u2018defending America\u2019s sovereignty without apology. The whole world is lifted by America\u2019s renewal and the reemergence of American leadership\u2019.<\/p>\n Friends, I am not making this stuff up. The same country that gave us Washington, Lincoln, FDR and Reagan has now produced a national security strategy that holds a mirror up to Trump and, looking through a glass orangely, likes what it sees.<\/p>\n The strategy, and the bombastic speech that launched it, is primarily a continuation of Trump\u2019s endless election campaign. The southern border wall will be built, lazy penny-pinching allies will be held to account, unfair trade deals will be countered, and American manufacturing brought home from overseas. America\u2019s \u2018wicked\u2019 and \u2018evil\u2019 enemies will be defeated by an \u2018America First\u2019 strategy\u2014an amalgam of self-interest burnished with the modest confidence that the USA is \u2018among the greatest forces for good in history\u2019.<\/p>\n In an age of projectile tweeting, does language matter anymore? Not so much with Trump because he\u2019s like that other great strategist, Humpty Dumpty<\/a>, who tells Alice: \u2018When I use a word \u2026 it means just what I choose it to mean\u2014neither more nor less.\u2019 Early in November, Trump explained<\/a> his own version of the Dumpty doctrine to Fox News, when he claimed it didn\u2019t matter that the administration had still not filled so many State Department senior jobs:<\/p>\n Let me tell you, the one that matters is me \u2026 I\u2019m the only one that matters because when it comes to it, that\u2019s what the policy is going to be. You\u2019ve seen that, you\u2019ve seen it strongly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A key objective of the strategy is to make it look as though everything has changed from the Obama days, when the reality is that there is at least as much continuity with as there are differences from the security policies of past administrations. For all its bluster about a more competitive relationship with China, this will happen \u2018in accordance with our \u201cOne China\u201d policy\u2019. Likewise, America\u2019s alliances will stay\u2014they will just be better managed to extract more burden-sharing.<\/p>\n The most important passage in the strategy is this:<\/p>\n [T]he revisionist powers of China and Russia, the rogue states of Iran and North Korea, and transnational threat organizations, particularly jihadist terrorist groups\u2014are actively competing against the United States and our allies and partners. Although differing in nature and magnitude, these rivals compete across political, economic, and military arenas, and use technology and information to accelerate these contests in order to shift regional balances of power in their favor. These are fundamentally political contests between those who favor repressive systems and those who favor free societies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The strategy closely focuses on China stealing US intellectual property, \u2018proprietary technology and early-stage ideas\u2019, and foreshadows the need to build stronger protections for the US \u2018National Security Innovation Base\u2019. The paper says there will be a clampdown on approvals for foreign (read: \u2018Chinese\u2019) investment into critical infrastructure and, about universities, it says:<\/p>\n The United States will review visa procedures to reduce economic theft by non-traditional intelligence collectors. We will consider restrictions on foreign STEM students from designated countries to ensure that intellectual property is not transferred to our competitors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That announcement is relevant to Australia\u2019s own domestic situation. We should expect the US to come calling on that topic. Australia gets three mentions in the strategy, including the assessment that we continue \u2018to reinforce economic and security arrangements that support our shared interests and safeguard democratic values across the region\u2019. As always, our brand is well received in Washington DC, even if neither the Americans nor we have any new thinking to offer about the future of the alliance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before you snuggle by the fire with some eggnog and a copy of Donald Trump\u2019s National Security Strategy (subtitled, in case you wondered, \u2018of the United States of America\u2019), I advise you to plan ahead, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":36496,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2047,1428,301,2070],"class_list":["post-36494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia-us-relations","tag-donald-trump","tag-national-security-2","tag-us-foreign-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n