Last December, the US government published its National Security Strategy, a 33-page briefing on the Trump administration’s view of national security concerns and how it intends to deal with them. In general, the document signalled a more conciliatory mood towards Russia and China than previous administrations – both Biden’s presidency, and Trump’s first term – and projected a view of the world where great powers have their spheres of influence.

There is no intimation in the text of the great fiasco Trump was about to unleash barely three months after its publication: the initiation, with Israel, of a war with Iran, one of the great unforced errors of recent history. He may or may not have read the document, but he did write, or at least sign his name to, a brief prefatory letter in which he provides the following useful information: “America is strong and respected again – and because of that we are making peace all over the world.” Huge, as they say, if true.

Perhaps even more remarkable, though, is the extent to which the document reflects the view, on the American right, of Europe as the weakened and beleaguered homeland of western civilisation. Europe, it claims, faces the prospect of “civilisational erasure”, due in no small part to the corrupting influence of the European Union, along with associated “transnational bodies that undermine political liberty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birth rates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.”

The question of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and European fears of larger threats to the region, are framed as “managing European relations with Russia.” It views the problem less as one of Russian imperial aggression than of Europe’s lack of........

© The Irish Times