US presidents’ National Security Strategies accurately reflect the direction of their foreign policies, which are governed by American interests that are not always explicitly stated, yet are not difficult to surmise. The National Security Strategy is an official presidential document issued by the President of the United States outlining the country’s national security and foreign policy priorities.These strategies are shaped by political developments around the world and by the ways in which the United States responds to them in pursuit of its objectives, even when this comes at the expense of the countries in the regions concerned, including its own allies.

For example, President Joe Biden’s 2022 National Security Strategy, issued eight months after the outbreak of the Russia–Ukraine war, made no attempt to conceal his support for Ukraine and his determination to deter Russia, placing particular emphasis on Europe’s role in supporting the war in a manner distinct from that of his counterparts. Biden’s strategy differentiated between China and Russia, describing the former as a competitor and the latter as a threat. The document stated that the United States was leading a united and resolute response to the Russian invasion. By contrast, President Barack Obama’s National Security Strategy of 2015, which came after Russia’s seizure of Crimea, described the move as aggression but did not regard Russia as a threat. The document also stated that military presence, exercises, and deployments in Central and Eastern Europe were intended to deter further Russian aggression, while at the same time leaving the door open to greater cooperation with Russia in areas of mutual interest. President Donald Trump’s two National Security Strategies, published in 2017 and 2025 during his two terms in office, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 respectively, described Russia differently from the Biden administration. The 2017 strategy portrayed Russia as a revisionist power, while the 2025 strategy did not place Russia in the same category of threat as the Biden administration had done. The first proposed a range of hybrid mechanisms to deter Russia, whereas the second focused on managing relations with Moscow as a means of restoring stability. In all cases, however, the Biden administration’s characterisation of Russia and its approach to deterring it were stronger and more confrontational than those found in any of the other presidents’ strategies.

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Yet this did not depart from an objective shared by all administrations: reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian energy, a theme reflected in every previous National Security Strategy. Obama’s 2015 strategy warned that Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas, together with Russia’s willingness to use energy for political purposes, had heightened the risks. Biden’s 2022 strategy explicitly called for reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels, whereas Trump’s 2017 and 2025 strategies advocated diversifying Europe’s energy supplies without mentioning Russia by name. Biden’s strategy employed the strongest language directed specifically at Europe’s dependence on Russia.

Senior US officials made no secret of their dissatisfaction with European........

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