Reading the new National Security Strategy, one is struck by how little it actually talks about national security and instead speaks mostly about America's economic renewal (security assets listed include a strong economy, fiscal discipline and access to affordable healthcare).
All the right things are said about enlisting the aid of rising great powers, and everybody, including the FT, admires the calmer tone, but this document doesn't really clarify the war aims in Afghanistan--for example.
The NSS is often a list-drill, but this one is especially incoherent:
It also warns against imposing US values, yet says that building "government capacity" is essential. Or take domestic counter-terrorism. Rightly, the White House wants the issue kept in proportion--yet the strategy promises ever more resources for aviation security and intelligence gathering as though cost, disruption, and infringement of civil liberties were no object.
To me, the document sort of begs off on the question of US leadership, which is certainly a route for encouraging others to do more. But it signals an America that's adjusting, adjusting, adjusting--without much ambition for leading.
Again, maybe this is all we can expect with this administration, but it strikes me as largely a waiting strategy.