The NSS also focuses on the Western hemisphere. However, this new “Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine rightly seeks to combat major problems for the United States, including drug running, especially the fentanyl-based “reverse Opium War” waged by China, instability that leads to unconstrained immigration flows while seeking to reassert American dominance in its strategic backyard, rather than ceding critical territory to China. This certainly fits an America First geopolitical and defense-oriented strategy.
Still, these slight divergences should not obscure the larger point: the NSS and realist grand strategy share a remarkably similar and coherent worldview. Both see the world entering a period of intensified great-power competition
