The new 34-page report follows last year’s publication of the US National Security Strategy, which said Europe faced civilisational collapse and did not cast Russia as a threat to the US. At the time, Moscow said the document was “largely consistent” with its vision.
By comparison, in 2018, the Pentagon described “revisionist powers”, such as China and Russia, as the “central challenge” to US security.
The new strategy calls on American allies to step up, saying partners have been “content” to let Washington subsidise their defence, although it denies the shift signals a US move towards “isolationism”.
“To the contrary, it means a focused and genuinely strategic approach to the threats our nation faces,” it says.
Washington has long neglected the “concrete interests” of Americans, the report says, adding the US does not want to conflate American interests “with those of the rest of the world – that a threat to a person halfway around the world is the same as to an American.”
Instead, it says allies, especially Europe, “will take the lead against threats that are less severe for us but more so for them”.
Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, is described as a “persistent but manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members”.
