The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Trump’s New National Security Strategy Holds China’s Feet to the Fire

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

The recently unveiled U.S. National Security Strategy has ruffled liberal and even some conservative feathers both here and abroad, for two reasons:  No. 1, the Trump administration told Europe an inconvenient truth: The birthplace of Western civilization is facing “civilization erasure.” And No. 2, critics feel that the strategy is not critical enough of Russia and China. They’re wrong. An entire section, “Economic Security,” is a not-so-subtle nod to America’s ongoing, great power competition with China, evident in these carefully selected priorities: “balanced trade,” ”securing access to critical supply chains and materials,” “reindustrialization,” “reviving our defense industrial base,” etc. The other controversy is: Why does the strategy call for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war and not just openly condemn Vladimir Putin instead?  Because the assessment is grounded in reality. Unless the Europeans want to spend more than the already mandated 5% of GDP on defense budgets and pour more sophisticated weapons systems into Ukraine, then the conflict has no clear end in sight: “Do you wanna have an ongoing bleeding Stalingrad or Verdun … right on the borders of Europe,” asks Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.” 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠  👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enabling notifications:  ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1⁠  👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: ⁠https://victorhanson.com⁠   👉The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: ⁠https://secured.dailysignal.com/⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Trump administration, as most administrations do at the beginning of their four-year term, issued a national security strategy, I guess we would call it a white paper, outlining the approach of the administration to foreign affairs and the protection of the security in the United States. But what has caused the most controversy are two things. The report tells Europe that is experiencing civilizational erasure. The other is the critics feel it's not critical enough of Russia and China. but if you read it very carefully, it's pretty clear by inference that they would like Russia to be strategically calculated as a foil to China and vice versa.

A triangular type of strategic relationship that does not allow those two powers to combine strategically along with their subsidiary. Hello, this is. Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. Recently, the Trump administration, as most administrations do at the beginning of their four-year term, issued a national security strategy, I guess we would call it a white paper outlining the approach of the administration to foreign affairs and the protection of the security in the United States. It's written in a different style than past reports. different than the first term, and it has a lot of emphasis as most do on sections of the world,

but what has caused the most controversy are two things. Abroad, the report tells Europe that is experiencing civilization-civilizational erasure and gives advice to the Europeans about what they might have. must do to correct that, but in a manner of brotherly love or help, which the Europeans, of course, will see as condescending and interference into their internal affairs, except they want us to do it in the NATO part of the equation, but not the EU part. And that's caused a lot of controversy. The other is it's, they feel that the critics feel it's not critical enough of Russia and China, but if you read it very carefully, the whole point.

The point of its specific discussion is to bolster the alliances of Japan and South Korea and to warn China to keep away from Taiwan and Australia. And then when we get to the economic domestic aspects of the national security strategy, it's all aimed at China. It's all aimed at China. It just says that we cannot be a successful dominant power in the world, and we don't want any other power to be dominant. And by inference, that's Russia and China. But it's on matters of trade, under matters of natural resources, under matters of the South China Sea. It's aimed at China. And it does say explicitly that the old paradigm that,

previous both Republican and Democratic presidencies had adhered to, namely, the more money you invest from us and put it over there in China, and the more that you import their products here, even though you're dealing with an asymmetrical trade system, and I think the report uses the word that it's free but not fair, don't kid yourself. That ensuing prosperity will not create a huge consumer class who desires freedom and liberty and then will become a force for the democratization of China. That's not going to happen. Instead, that foreign exchange extravaganza will be put into the largest shipbuilding, and I mean military shipbuilding, the largest aircraft production, and the largest small arms and major arms industry in such a short

time that we've ever seen. And that's what China is doing. And that is outlined. The other controversy is why didn't the national security strategy be more condemning of Vladimir Putin? It says that the Europeans have promised to spend 2% of their GDP on military matters and have promised to increase that to 5%, which would be extraordinary, and of course, the paper says that they should and they must be watched to keep their promises. But it doesn't really condemn Vladimir Putin in the strongest of terms. Basically, it is saying that the Ukraine war must come to an end. But why is that controversial? It's the largest war on the European continent since World War II.

The dead now exceed Stalingrad. the Ukrainian military's average age is approaching the late 30s, maybe even 40s. Ukraine has probably lost 300,000 dead, wounded, and killed. The Russians are probably 1.3. So the inference of the strategic assessment is that war should end before Ukraine is overwhelmed unless the Europeans suddenly get religion and they want to spend 5% immediately and they want to pour sophisticated weapon systems without restrictions into Ukraine, but I don't think the assessment sees correctly that that's going to happen.

So it's pretty common sense. Do you want to have an ongoing bleeding Stalingrad or Verdun or Somme right on the borders of Europe? The other subtext is they want some type, the people, the authors, it's pretty clear by inference that they would like Russia to be strategically calculated as a, foil to China and vice versa. That's getting back to Henry Kissinger's. We're going to be no better friend, no worse enemy to China than it is to Russia, than to Russia than it is to China. A triangular type of strategic relationship that does not allow those two powers, one with six to seven thousand nuclear weapons and a huge amount of oil, the other with 1.4 billion people and probably the

largest conventional military other than our own in the world to combine strategically along with their subsidiaries like North Korea and Iraq. Finally, two things very quickly. It puts a lot of emphasis on the Monroe Doctrine, the new Monroe Doctrine. And it basically says, why have we allowed Panama to be colonized the Panama Canal by the Chinese? Why do we have Russians and Chinese and Iranians involved in narco-terrorism, or in the case of Venezuela, maybe Colombia, maybe some other South American, illiberal, totalitarian governments? Why are we allowing the Chinese to assemble products in Mexico to evade our tariffs when Mexico is supposedly a friend, hand in glove, is helping the Chinese cheat on tariffs when they're running a $171 billion trade surplus? plus with us, $63 billion in remittances, probably $20 billion in additional cartel revenues from human trafficking, and fentanyl.

And then, of course, the main concern of the strategic assessment in the Western Hemisphere is they're killing 75,000 Americans a year, a year. And it's not just a bunch of people who, it's their own fault. Why are they taking drugs? A lot of these drugs that are fentanyl and dangerous opiates are laced to look like prescription drugs and, you know, recreational drugs. So if you have a daughter or son who goes to a party and someone says, take a valium, that could be fentanyl and kill them. And that's by intent on the part of the Chinese. So it wants to rectify the presence of China, stop the narco-terrorism that's sponsored by or occurs with the help of Russia and China.

And in that matter, it's a new Monroe doctor. And then finally very quickly, it says, we can't do any of this if we don't have a fast-growing economy with plenty of affordable energy that is not dependent on rare earth and other precious minerals and resources being imported by our enemies. And we need a low-inflationary high-GDP economy. And we're going to do that by deregulation, tax reduction. reductions, measured reciprocal tariffs, and, of course, much more oil and gas. And the result of that they feel will be that the United States being much more careful

not to intervene explicitly, it says, in the assessment, not to intervene on the ground and get into a Middle East war. And that's a reaction to $1.3 trillion spent in Iraq, another trillion-plus. spent in Afghanistan 20 years later to the most illiberal government in the world, with some of its expatriates shooting and killing Americans here in the United States, and in the hands of the Taliban was what the Afghan misadventure ended up as, as we saw under the Biden administration in 2021, that terrible August. And finally, the Iraqi misadventure, we don't know how that will end up. It's probably better than Saddam, but the question is we lost a lot of wonderful Americans.

We spent a lot of money, and we don't want to repeat that. So it's not, it's not Fortress America in isolation. It's Fortress America much better to help its friends and hurt its enemies and be the dominant power in the world today. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.