"The newly published National Security Strategy is beautiful. What makes the document powerful isn't the prose but the clarity. For the first time in decades, America has a strategy grounded not in theories, slogans, or airy talk of an "international community," but in the concrete interests of a real nation: our own. The think-tank world-even the conservative one-treats these arguments as eccentric, premature, or impolite."
"America First, as presented here, is not realism in the graduate-seminar sense. It is realism in the statesman's sense: clarity about ends, honesty about means, and an unapologetic commitment to the fortunes of the republic. The NSS captures this in one of its most important lines: America First is "pragmatic without being 'pragmatist', realistic without being 'realist', principled without being 'idealistic', muscular without being 'hawkish', and restrained without being 'dovish'." That is not merely a doctrinal statement; it is a moral one."
The National Security Strategy prioritizes concrete American national interests over abstract international slogans and ideological frameworks. The strategy emphasizes humility, hierarchy, and respect for the nation-state, focusing resources on the most changeable and immediate threats. The approach rejects academic realism labels and positions strategy as practical statecraft: clear ends, honest means, and commitment to the republic's fortunes. America First is defined as pragmatic without being 'pragmatist', realistic without being 'realist', principled without being 'idealistic', muscular without being 'hawkish', and restrained without being 'dovish'. The strategy functions as a governing blueprint oriented toward survival and flourishing of the nation.
Read at The American Conservative
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