A Radical Reorientation: Inside the Unpublished National Security Strategy That Reimagines America’s Global Role

Reporting based on documents reviewed by Defense One, which first obtained the unpublished version of the National Security Strategy.

The Trump administration’s newly released National Security Strategy (NSS) signals a dramatic ideological shift—away from global military commitments and toward cultural realignment, demographic politics, and a fundamental rethink of America’s post–Cold War leadership.

But a longer, unpublished version of the NSS, reviewed by Defense One, reveals an even more sweeping redefinition of U.S. foreign policy—one that fuses geostrategy with values-driven cultural engineering, proposes new power blocs to replace long-standing Western institutions, and openly rejects the pursuit of American hegemony as a national objective.

Below are the most consequential themes emerging from the unpublished draft.

1. A Values Campaign to “Make Europe Great Again”

The publicly released NSS calls for ending what it describes as a “perpetually expanding NATO.” But according to the fuller version of the document, the administration is pursuing something much more ambitious: a direct attempt to reshape Europe’s political trajectory through cultural alignment.

The unpublished NSS frames Europe as facing “civilizational erasure,” citing immigration policies and censorship as existential threats. In response, it outlines a strategy to deepen ties with European governments and movements that share the administration’s ideological outlook.

Countries identified for closer cooperation include Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Poland—states that currently have, or have recently had, right-leaning nationalist leadership. The document states bluntly that the goal is to “pull them away from the [European Union]” and nurture “parties, movements, and intellectual and cultural figures who seek sovereignty and preservation/restoration of traditional European ways of life…while remaining pro-American.”

The result: a foreign policy that explicitly mixes geopolitical objectives with culture-war priorities—something that has no modern precedent in an American national security strategy.

2. A Proposed Power Bloc to Replace the G7: The “C5”

Over the summer, President Trump publicly floated the idea of expanding the G7, lamenting the exclusion of Russia and suggesting a “G9.”

The unpublished NSS goes significantly further: it proposes creating a new global governance body called the Core 5—or C5—composed of the U.S., China, Russia, India, and Japan.

Unlike the G7, the C5 would not be bound by standards of democracy or economic similarity. Instead, its membership is based on population size and global influence.

The C5 would convene regular summits much like the G7, but with a mandate to tackle issues in which these major powers share overlapping interests.

The first proposed agenda item: Middle East security, specifically efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

If enacted, the C5 would signal the formal end of Western-led global coordination as we know it—replacing it with a great-power compact that includes both strategic competitors and authoritarian regimes.

3. The NSS Declares American Hegemony a Failure

One of the most striking elements in the unpublished document is its open rejection of the concept of American hegemony—a term completely absent from the public version.

“Hegemony is the wrong thing to want and it wasn’t achievable,” the draft states.

This represents a historic departure from the bipartisan consensus that shaped U.S. policy for 75 years: that American leadership and the promotion of liberal democratic norms were central to global stability.

The document argues instead that:

• U.S. concern for other nations’ internal affairs should be limited strictly to threats to American interests.

• Post-Cold War efforts to maintain global dominance were misguided and impossible to sustain.

• The U.S. should retract from its traditional role in securing Europe.

This philosophical shift becomes the strategic rationale for disengaging from Europe’s defense while turning attention toward what the NSS calls the hemisphere’s most urgent destabilizing force: drug cartels operating out of Venezuela.

4. A New Regional Strategy: “Stability Through Champions”

Although the NSS renounces global hegemony, it also states that neither China nor Russia should be allowed to replace the U.S. as the world’s leading influence.

To resolve this contradiction, the document proposes a decentralized model of global order built around regional champions—governments and political movements that align with U.S. interests and ideological values, even if they are not fully democratic.

“We will reward and encourage the region’s governments, political parties, and movements broadly aligned with our principles and strategy,” the document says. But it also notes the need to work with actors “with different outlooks with whom we nonetheless share interests.”

This reflects a transactional and flexible approach—one that prioritizes strategic convergence over democratic governance.

The emphasis is particularly sharp in Latin America, where the NSS frames the situation as a crisis: “The Trump administration inherited a world in which the guns of war have shattered the peace and stability of many countries on many continents. We have a natural interest in ameliorating this crisis.”

The U.S., the document says, must not carry the burden alone—but must also prevent rival powers from filling the vacuum.

A Strategy That Rewrites America’s Global Identity

Taken together, the unpublished National Security Strategy outlines a foreign policy doctrine unlike any in modern American history.

It replaces traditional Atlantic alliances with ideological alliances. It envisions new global groupings that reposition authoritarian powers as peers within a core decision-making circle. It abandons the pursuit of U.S. hegemony while insisting the U.S. must still prevent China and Russia from achieving their own. And at its core, it ties America’s national security posture to cultural renewal, traditional values, and demographics—at home and abroad.

If implemented, the NSS would not merely shift U.S. policy; it would redefine America’s purpose and identity on the world stage.

This article includes reporting based on the unpublished National Security Strategy draft reviewed by Defense One, which first reported these details.