It's Friday, December the 12th, 2025, and this is Denison Forum's daily article podcast. I'm Chris Elkins,

narrating today's daily article authored by our senior editor for theology, Dr. Ryan Denison.

Quote, America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests. For better or for worse,

that principle typically attributed to Henry Kissinger epitomizes President Trump's latest

national security strategy, a document outlining his administration's approach to allies,

enemies, and everyone in between.

Every president since Reagan has released at least one national security strategy to Congress during

each term in office. But while the details change, the basic priorities of expanding America's

influence, guarding against foreign threats, and

supporting our allies tend to be relatively similar from administration to administration.

Trump's latest policy contains much of the same information, though with one pivotal shift in

perspective, whereas previous strategies, including Trump's from 2017, focused mainly on a post-Cold

war approach to building security through strength and influence worldwide, the latest national

security strategy is clear that domestic stability is to be the focal point for the current

administration. And that starts with redefining what

America should expect from our allies and just as importantly what our allies can expect from us.

In the introduction to Trump's latest national security strategy, the administration states,

quote, the purpose of foreign policy is the protection of core national interests.

That is the sole focus of this strategy.

The document goes on to add that previous approaches allowed allies and partners to offload the

costs of their defense onto the American people and sometimes to suck us into conflicts and controversies

central to their interests but peripheral or irrelevant to our own. In quote, in short,

...