Trump’s plan is national security in name only

Never has the need for forward-thinking American global leadership been more necessary. However, the “American First” national security strategy, unveiled by President Trump Monday, is a step in the wrong direction for the United States and our place in the world.

There is no denying that today’s world contains serious threats to our national security and shared prosperity. Solving such problems – terrorism, disease, disasters, climate change, famine and conflict – requires engaged American leadership that uses all the tools in our arsenal. An America in retreat – which is the reality of this strategy – will only make the United States and the world less safe.

{mosads}Despite saying his top priority is to protect the American people and our way of life, President Trump’s national security strategy as he describes it would actually make America less safe.

Though the strategy alludes to one of the greatest threats we face – a regime in Moscow using an asymmetric arsenal to assault democracies and Western values throughout Europe and here in the United States – in public and private President Trump has consistently downplayed or denied that threat. And instead of building our defenses following the 2016 attack on our election, the administration’s self-professed inaction has left us vulnerable to attack again in 2018. I also remain concerned the president does not comprehensively address security and economic issues with China, and continues to avoid raising human rights concerns in a meaningful way.

The Trump national security strategy would harm our alliances – which American men and women have fought and died to create and protect. It undoes the liberal international order we built out of the ashes of world war to deal with a range of national security challenges.  The president has already walked away from the Paris Climate Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, undermined NATO and is threatening to undo the international accord preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

And on North Korea the president seems determined to place us on war footing, at every turn downplaying or undermining a diplomatic solution. The Trump administration’s approach is a profound misunderstanding of how to link together our alliances, economic pressure, and military posture to create a genuine diplomatic roadmap to address Kim Jong-un’s nuclear and missile programs.

With the U.S. dealing with unprecedented threats, President Trump is hollowing out the State Department by freezing hiring, forcing out career staff, closing offices and publicly undercutting his Secretary of State– eliminating the very diplomats and diplomacy needed to prevent conflict. The rhetoric does not match the reality.

For all the president’s talk about ‘America First,’ his national security strategy also fails to fully support and develop better international trade systems to benefit American workers and replicate our nations’ economic success for other countries, creating a level economic playing field and inevitably making us more secure.

The overarching flaw with the president’s national security strategy is that it places an overemphasis on bombs and bullets without the full use of diplomacy, development, and democratic capacity-building tools to help us build the world we want to live in for ourselves and for future generations.

After World War II, the United States led the world toward unprecedented levels of peace, prosperity and freedom. It did not come easy. We faced down threats-from the Soviets, Saddam Hussein, Milosevic and others. As we have done so effectively in the past, we need to renew and revitalize American power and leadership to advance U.S. interests in the world, like continuing to take back ISIS’ territory and fighting the warped ideology of Al Qaeda.

Building toward that success will require us getting it right at the foundation, and we therefore should not retreat from upholding democracy as the most effective form of governance.

Democracy does not defend itself. A genuine national security strategy must actively defend democracy by promoting good governance measures like fighting corruption, promoting transparency and supporting civil society, highlighting democracy as a model for others to considering adopting and living by. We know that America derives its strength from its values and we can never retreat from that core concept.

So be skeptical when you hear the president or his spokespeople talk about ‘America First.’ If this national security strategy is implemented and carried out as the president prefers, it will leave America isolated and alone.

President Trump may lack the foresight necessary to lead our country in the right direction, but we, the American people, cannot lose sight of what makes us who we are and cannot give up articulating and fighting for what’s right.

Cardin is a United States Senator from Maryland and the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.