The Steward of Civilization: The Foreign Policy for the American Millenium

PART I

Prologue

There was a time when American statesmanship was measured not by theatrical performance, but by the durability of the peace one built, and the prosperity one secured for the working man.

George C. Marshall, referred to by Winston Churchill as the "architect of victory" in World War II, understood that America's security was inextricably tied to the economic well-being of its productive classes. As Secretary of State, he crafted the Marshall Plan under the premise that economic stability would be the basis of the successful recovery of a free and democratic Europe. Marshall believed that a secure Europe meant a secure America, and that a stable world order could only be built if American and European workers alike could feed their families. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, the last traditional Democrat, forged his worldview in the crucible of Munich. It came from the acknowledgement that appeasing tyranny invited only catastrophe. For Jackson, there was no contradiction between defending the working class and defending the nation against tyrants. The two were the same struggle. As Jackson knew, American power abroad was meaningless if it did not translate into security and opportunity for the American worker at home. And Theodore Roosevelt, the founder of American progressivism, believed that America had a "mission to serve as the beacon of light of progressive civilization." But he also understood that "patriotism cannot develop in members of a class that is being oppressed. Therefore, the protection of the working class is necessary, as a country must be worth living in, to be worth dying for." Roosevelt's New Nationalism demanded that the state serve the people, not the other way around. He insisted that the United States should "secure the safety and rights of our citizens at home and abroad, guard the honor and uphold the just influence of our nation, and maintain the integrity of international law." For Roosevelt, the citizen always came first.

Today, these men would scarcely recognize the foreign policy establishment that claims their mantle.

The men and women who now populate the corridors of Foggy Bottom, the Pentagon's E-Ring, and the K Street lobbying firms have built a parallel universe. They are a permanent bureaucratic class that profits from perpetual crisis, feeds on endless conflict, and has forgotten that the purpose of foreign policy is not to manage global disorder, but to secure the American homeland and the American worker.

Our Philosophy

For decades, the American people have been offered a false choice between two failed foreign policies, each disastrous in its own way, each serving interests other than those of the American people.

On one side stood the familiar appeasement of the Obama era: a policy of apology, retreat, and unilateral restraint. Obama’s appeasement was one that drew red lines and then refused to enforce them, that negotiated with tyrants and terrorists, and then rewarded their duplicity, that reduced our defenses while our enemies raced ahead. And like all appeasement, it invited only aggression.

On the other side stood the policy of profiteering, as seen in the Bush era. It was a policy that sent American soldiers to fight in distant deserts while the children of the powerful stayed home, that enriched defense contractors while hollowing out the force of the United Sates military, that built empires abroad while dismantling the republic at home. And like all hubris, it invited only ruin.

The foreign policy of the New Nationalists of America rejects both. We propose a third path: Speak softly, carry a big stick, and maintain an America that is ethically, industrially, and militarily fit. We will not apologize for American power, but neither will we boast of it. We will not lecture the world, but neither will we bow to it. We will speak with the quiet confidence of a nation that knows its strength. We will maintain a military second to none. We will rebuild our industrial base, our nuclear deterrent, and our defensive capabilities. We will defend our interests with overwhelming force when necessary, and we will do so decisively, without hesitation, and without apology— Behold only to the American people.

PART II

The Profiteer State

This is the era of the profiteer. The ossified Washington foreign-policy establishment maintains itself as a self-perpetuating, self-congratulatory class that treats dissenting opinion as heresy and views any suggestion of restraint as isolationism. The Beltway foreign-policy establishment does not care about, and does not want to hear of, new ideas. Today, the bureaucrats that fill DC remain out of touch with, and oblivious to, the needs of the American people. But the profiteers do not operate in a vacuum. They are the political wing of a vast, interlocking apparatus that has turned American foreign policy into a profit center for a select few at the expense of the many.

When President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his 1961 farewell address of the "unwarranted influence" of the military-industrial complex, he could not have imagined how grotesque that influence would become. Today, one firm alone, Lockheed Martin, regularly receives more Pentagon funding than the entire US State Department. In the five years from 2020 to 2024, 54 percent of the Pentagon's $4.4 trillion in discretionary spending went to private firms. Nearly $800 billion flowed to just five companies: Lockheed Martin ($313 billion), RTX (formerly Raytheon, $145 billion), Boeing ($115 billion), General Dynamics ($116 billion), and Northrop Grumman ($81 billion).

These companies influence government policy through their funding of a variety of think tanks that shape government policies designed to regulate their conduct. They spend over $80 million annually on lobbying, with nearly $280 million flowing to political campaigns since 1990. Every dollar spent returns tenfold. The top 50 think tanks have received more than $1 billion from the US government and defense contractors in just six years since 2020.

The result is a foreign policy that serves not the interests of Americans, but the interests of a multinational body of shareholders. As the Quincy Institute has documented, "the garrison state Eisenhower warned of has arrived, with negative consequences for nearly everyone but the executives and shareholders of those giant weapons conglomerates." The revolving door between Congress, the Pentagon, and K Street has become a turnstile of corruption. The pursuit of national security has become indistinguishable from the pursuit of profit. The Wall Street financiers have continued to play their part as well. There is a long history of moguls and financiers meddling in matters of state. From Jared Kushner to Steve Witkoff, today, private interests have become intertwined with public affairs to an unprecedented degree.

The greatest tragedy is that this parasitic alliance has captured not just one party or one administration, but the entire bipartisan consensus. The policy of liberal hegemony, however costly a failure, has been followed by every successive US administration for the last 25 years. Republicans and Democrats alike have served the same masters: the defense contractors, the global financiers, and the government bureaucrats who have only to gain from perpetual crisis.

Brown University estimated that the United States has spent over $8 trillion on post-9/11 wars. This includes military operations, rebuilding, veteran care, and interest on borrowed funds. Where did this money go? Not to the soldier in the field. Not to the veteran who comes home broken. Not to the bridges and roads and schools that have been allowed to crumble while we fought profiteer wars.

In 2025, roads received a D-plus grade with the American Society of Civil Engineers, with 39 percent of major arteries still in poor or mediocre condition despite over $591 billion in recent federal investment. Forty-two thousand bridges are rated in poor condition and classified as structurally deficient. Schools scored a D-plus, with a repair funding gap that grew from $60 billion in 2016 to $85 billion today.

The cumulative investment needs for American infrastructure through 2033 are estimated at $9.1 trillion. Existing funding sources cover only $5.4 trillion, leaving a $3.7 trillion gap. Consider the problem. We have funded the construction of foreign factories while our own bridges collapse. We have enriched defense contractors while our own schools crumble. We have built an empire abroad while dismantling the republic at home. This was a deliberate choice by the DC establishment to serve the interests of their corporate paymasters rather than the interests of the American people.

Fukuyama's Delusion

In 1989, as the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet empire collapsed, neoliberal economist Francis Fukuyama published an essay that would define the foreign policy establishment's complacency for a generation. His "The End of History?" argued that liberal democracy had triumphed definitively over its ideological rivals and that the future would be a monotonous convergence toward liberal norms.

He was spectacularly wrong.

The failure of the end of history thesis stemmed from two fatal assumptions: the necessity of a globally adopted democratic order, and the universal acceptance of liberalism as the foundation for human theodicy. For the neoliberal hypothesis to hold, democracy and liberalism would have needed to spread universally, to every country. Yet, this convergence has not occurred. The end of history did not arrive. Instead, we witnessed the violent unravelling of Yugoslavia, the rise of Al-Qaeda, the resurgence of Russian revanchism, and the emergence of a Chinese model of tyranny that explicitly rejects Western values.

The 1990s triumphalism of the foreign policy establishment, the belief that globalization would inevitably produce democratization, that free trade would produce free societies, that the Washington Consensus would sweep the world, has been exposed as a catastrophic delusion. The same elites who embraced Fukuyama's thesis now find themselves confronting a world more dangerous, more divided, and more hostile to American interests than at any point since the Cold War.

We are not moving toward a neoliberal utopia. We are in a civilizational struggle between the Western ideal, liberty, sovereignty, the rule of law, and the Eastern Bloc of savage reaction: China, Russia, Iran, and their various client states. This is a clash between the principles of popular sovereignty and autocratic rule, between the dignity of the individual and the supremacy of the government, between the freedom to produce and the bondage of consumption.

The DC Beltway, still trapped in Fukuyama's delusion, continues to believe that engagement and dialogue will eventually transform these regimes. They continue to believe that trade will produce moderation, that sanctions will produce compliance, that negotiations will produce peace. They have learned nothing from the past quarter-century of failure. They continue to treat China as a responsible stakeholder even as it builds an empire in the South China Sea. They continue to treat Russia as a great power partner even as it invades its neighbors. They continue to treat Iran as a negotiating partner even as it illegally enriches uranium and funds terrorism abroad.

The Transfer of Sovereignty

The DC establishment would have you believe that the United States trade deficit is merely an accounting abstraction, columns on a spreadsheet that matter only to economists and bond traders. They are not. The $1.24 trillion goods trade deficit the United States ran in 2025 represents the transfer of America's sovereignty to foreign nations.

Consider what that number means. In 2025, the United States imported $1.24 trillion more in goods than it exported. That is $1.24 trillion in American wealth, the product of American labor, the fruit of American innovation, the inheritance of American industry, shipped abroad to enrich foreign factories and foreign shareholders. That is $1.24 trillion that did not go into American paychecks, American pensions, or American communities. That is $1.24 trillion that subsidized the industrialization of our adversaries while our own industrial base rotted.

The DC Beltway celebrates the narrowing of the bilateral deficit with China, from $382 billion in 2022 to $202 billion in 2025. But this is no victory. As the Center for Strategic & International Studies has documented, the deficit did not actually shrink. It merely relocated elsewhere. The US goods deficit with Taiwan doubled to $147 billion. The deficit with Vietnam shot up 44 percent to $178 billion. The deficit with Mexico grew to nearly $197 billion.

President Trump's tariffs, for all their boldness, have not eliminated the trade deficit.

America is engaged in economic warfare for the future of its survival, and currently, we are losing.

The DC establishment and their corporate paymasters have built a foreign policy on pitiful foundations. They have assumed that American power can be sustained indefinitely by financial engineering, military projection, and the goodwill of foreign creditors. They have forgotten the fundamental truth that the great men of American history understood:

A nation that cannot produce cannot lead. A nation that cannot feed itself cannot lead. A nation that cannot power itself cannot dictate terms to others. And a nation that cannot manufacture its own microchips, its own steel, its own pharmaceuticals, has already surrendered its sovereignty to foreign powers. Foreign policy must begin in the factory. The "arsenal of democracy" envisioned by President FDR must once more become a reality. Without the productive capacity to arm ourselves and our allies, without the industrial base to sustain our economy in times of crisis, without the energy independence to resist foreign coercion, all the carrier battle groups in the world are but hollow symbols.

The DC consensus has treated deindustrialization as an inevitable byproduct of globalization, a natural transition to a service economy. But this has been no more than a liquidation of America's productive capacity. The offshoring of American manufacturing was not an act of spontaneous, divine intervention. It was a cynical policy choice made by the very elites who now lecture the American people about the importance of the rules-based international order. They shipped America's jobs to China, its factories to Mexico, its intellectual property to anyone with a checkbook, and now stand baffled by the fact that the American people have lost faith in their leaders.

PART III

The Axis of Evil

Opposing the Western Sphere is a coalition of autocratic powers that have banded together to undermine American interests, suppress human freedom, and impose their own vision of world order. Though these nations, including China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, do not operate as a monolithic alliance, their cooperation is deepening, and their hostility to the United States is the glue that binds them together.

Consider the brutality of these regimes.

Iran's so-called Axis of Resistance, which includes Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, remains hostile to the United States and its partners and is spending the coming years rebuilding their strength and collaborating with major anti-American adversaries including China, North Korea, and Russia, to erode American influence. Iran has dramatically escalated its repression of dissent. Iran has executed tens of thousands of protestors since the beginning of 2026 alone, making use of the death penalty as a tool of internal terror to suppress any political opposition that emerges.

The so-called People's Republic of China has systematically suppressed the distinct cultures, languages, and identities of the Mongol, Manchu, and Hui peoples. Inner Mongolia, once a cradle of Mongolian civilization, has seen its traditional script and language thrown out entirely in favor of Mandarin “immersion”. The CCP has erased Manchu language instruction from schools in the Northeast and has treated the Hui Muslim community with the same suspicion and surveillance that it has applied to the Uyghurs. These policies are not about modernization. They are about the erasure of anything that does not conform to Beijing's vision of a uniform Han racial identity. But China's aggression is not confined to its internal borders. Its ambitions are regional and global. Beijing claims the South China Sea in its entirety, ignoring the lawful maritime rights of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan. It has militarized artificial islands, installed anti-ship missiles and radar systems, and harassed Filipino fishermen and Vietnamese survey vessels. Its coast guard has rammed and fired water cannons at Philippine supply ships. Its aircraft have intercepted American and allied reconnaissance flights in international airspace. China has threatened Taiwan with annexation, staging increasingly provocative military drills around the island, sending fighter jets across the median line, and enacting economic coercion designed to isolate Taipei and intimidate its democratic government. Beijing has made clear that it will use force if necessary to prevent Taiwan from exercising its sovereign right to self-determination. China has also engaged in economic and military coercion against Japan and South Korea. It has repeatedly sent naval vessels and aircraft into Japanese waters and airspace in the East China Sea and has used economic pressure to punish South Korea for its deployment of the THAAD missile defense system.

Russia has waged an unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine, committing a wide range of international crimes. Thousands of civilians have been killed and many more injured and displaced. Russia's widespread arbitrary killings and torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Russian military has deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure including hospitals, schools, apartment blocks, power grids, and grain storage facilities. These are acts of terror designed to break the will of the Ukrainian people. The Russian forces have used cluster munitions in populated areas. They have used thermobaric weapons. They have bombed maternity wards. They have executed civilians in the streets of Bucha, Irpin, Izium, and Mariupol. They have raped women and children. They have looted homes. They have stolen Ukrainian grain and exported it to feed their own empire while Ukrainians starve to death.

North Korea maintains the most brutal and closed society on earth, subjecting its people to starvation, forced labor, and political imprisonment while diverting resources to its nuclear and missile programs, programs that threaten the United States and our allies.

There can be no moral equivalence between the Western Sphere and this Axis of Evil. The United States is not perfect, no nation is, but we do not run concentration camps, we do not execute political prisoners, we do not invade our neighbors, and we do not starve our own people to build nuclear weapons.

The Threat Environment

While the DC establishment was celebrating arms control agreements and patting themselves on the back, our adversaries were racing ahead.

China is expanding its nuclear arsenal faster than any other country on the planet. China added 20 warheads to its nuclear stockpile over the past year, increasing its estimated stockpile to 620 warheads as of January 2026. Beijing has loaded hundreds of missiles into three large missile silo fields in northern China and is continuing work on dozens of additional silos in eastern mountainous regions. China's ICBM launchers now exceed those of Russia or the United States. China's warhead stockpile is expected to keep growing over the coming decade.

Russia possesses approximately 4,400 nuclear warheads for its strategic and non-strategic nuclear forces. Of these, approximately 1,796 strategic warheads are deployed. Russia is in the late stages of a multi-decade-long modernization program to replace all of its Soviet-era nuclear-capable systems with newer versions. Since 2025, the Oreshnik intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile system has been on combat duty and can be armed with nuclear warheads.

The DC establishment will tell you that these are defensive measures. They are not. They are offensive capabilities designed to intimidate, coerce, and, if necessary, destroy. Russia and China are not building these arsenals because they feel threatened. They are building them because they believe America is to weak to respond.

The Obama-Era Betrayal

On September 30th of 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich waving a piece of paper and proclaiming that he had attained "peace for our time”, now a quote of infamy. He had conceded Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler in exchange for a promise, a promise that proved worthless within months. The lesson of Munich was clear and remains so today: appeasement does not satisfy the aggressor. It merely emboldens him.

The DC establishment never learned this lesson. Instead, they have spent the last decade and a half practicing the same fatal delusion in believing that unilateral restraint, symbolic gestures, and paper agreements would somehow convince the world's most dangerous regimes to abandon their nuclear ambitions.

The Obama-era nuclear policies were the Munich of our time.

The Iran Deal (JCPOA) was sold to the American people as a triumph of diplomacy. The reality was that the JCPOA was a capitulation. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action restricted Iran's stockpile of nuclear material to 300kg and limited enrichment to 3.67 percent for 15 years. It allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency access to Iran's nuclear program to verify compliance. Even at the time of its signing, those who criticized the JCPOA pointed to the sunset provisions and soundly objected that the deal did not address every malign activity undertaken by the Islamic Republic throughout the Middle East. These were fatal flaws in the JCPOA. The deal did not eliminate Iran's nuclear program, nor did it terminate all features of the AMAD Project. It did not address Iran's ballistic missile program, its state sponsorship of terror, or its regional aggression.

The consequences of this appeasement were predictable. Following the collapse of the deal, Iran stepped up its nuclear program. At the start of the Iran War on February 28th, 2026, Iran possessed approximately 440kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent, material that can be fairly quickly enriched to the 90 percent threshold needed for weapons-grade uranium. The Obama-era deal did not prevent a nuclear Iran. In fact, it provided Tehran with billions in sanctions relief to fund its terror networks and ballistic missile programs.

The New START Treaty was the second pillar of Obama's nuclear appeasement. Signed in 2010, it restricted the United States and Russia to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and 700 deployed delivery systems. The treaty was sold as a "serious step" toward reducing nuclear dangers. In reality, it constrained American capabilities while Russia continued to modernize its arsenal. Russia violated the treaty, suspended its participation in 2023, and terminated inspections. The treaty expired on February 5, 2026, without replacement. For the first time since 1972, the bilateral strategic nuclear balance is now unregulated.

The DC establishment will tell you that New START was a success. They are wrong. It was a unilateral concession that gave Russia parity it did not earn and bought America nothing in return. It constrained American defenses while our adversaries raced ahead. It was, as it has always been, appeasement, pure and simple. And like all appeasement, it failed.

PART IV

The Western Sphere

The Western world is not merely a geographic expression. It is a community of nations bound by a shared commitment to certain principles: popular sovereignty, individual dignity, the rule of law, and the conviction that the government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. These principles were forged in the bloody battles of the American Revolution and later codified in the Atlantic Charter. At the center of this community stands the United States of America, the indispensable nation. But America is not indispensable because of its size or its wealth or its military power, though these are considerable. America is indispensable because it is the only nation with the capacity, the will, and the moral authority to lead the free world in the face of gathering threats.

But America cannot lead alone. The Western alliance is a constellation of nations that share our values and our interests.

NATO: The most successful military alliance in history. For seventy-five years, it has deterred aggression, preserved peace, and provided the security architecture within which Europe has flourished. But NATO must be reformed. It cannot remain a one-way street in which America subsidizes the defense of wealthy European welfare-states that refuse to meet their obligations.

Israel: The only democracy in the Middle East, a beacon of Western values in a region dominated by theocratic tyranny and terror networks.

Japan & South Korea: The anchors of America’s Indo-Pacific alliance. These nations are loadstars of the triumph of democratic rule over communism and authoritarianism. America's security guarantees to these nations are ironclad.

Taiwan: A free, democratic, and prosperous nation that embodies the principles of self-determination and the rule of law. The United States will maintain its commitment to Taiwan's defense, consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act, and will not allow Beijing to extinguish the beacon of freedom that Taiwan represents.

This is Western Civilization: a community of nations that, despite their differences, are united by their commitment to liberty, democracy, and the dignity of the individual.

NATO Reform

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the most successful military alliance in history. But success has bred complacency, and complacency has bred dependency. The United States has spent trillions defending a continent that, for too long, refused to defend itself. Between 2014 and 2024, European NATO members increased their defense spending from 1.4 percent to 2 percent of GDP, progress, to be sure, but progress that came only after Russia's annexation of Crimea and years of relentless American pressure. Even then, many of NATO's wealthiest members ignored the 2 percent target for nearly a decade.

The good news is that, for the first time since the 2 percent benchmark was codified at the 2014 Wales summit, all 32 NATO member states met or exceeded that threshold in 2025. European NATO members and Canada increased their defense spending by 20 percent in real terms compared with the previous year, a $94 billion boost. Total military expenditure across the alliance reached $1.412 trillion in 2025, with the United States accounting for $838 billion, roughly 60 percent of the total.

But the headline numbers obscure a still troubling reality. A striking number of member states landed at almost exactly the 2 percent line and went no further: Italy at 2.01 percent, France at 2.05 percent, while Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Czechia and Luxembourg all clocked in at a flat 2 percent. Some are already easing off. Defense spending as a share of GDP actually fell last year in Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Meanwhile, the front-line states (those that actually border Russia) are racing ahead. Poland leads the alliance at 4.48 percent of GDP, spending nearly as much proportionally as the United States did at the height of the Cold War. Lithuania spends 4 percent, Latvia 3.73 percent, Estonia 3.38 percent, and Norway 3.35 percent. These nations understand that deterrence is means much more than a slogan.

The DC establishment would have you believe that Europe's 2 percent achievement is sufficient. It is not. The June 2025 Hague Summit committed all allies to spending 5 percent of GDP by 2035. Yet only three members (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia) are currently meeting the new 3.5 percent target. NATO has identified up to $145 billion in shared munition and air defense requirements across member states.

The position of the New Nationalists of America is simple: America must remain in NATO, but in turn, the alliance must transform. The United States will not subsidize the social welfare states of Europe while their armies rust. Burden-sharing is non-negotiable. European nations must meet their defense commitments not just on paper, but in practice. They must contribute materially to their own defense against Russian aggression, and they must do so with the urgency that the moment demands. Deterrence comes from the willingness to fight, the equipment to fight with, and the industrial base to sustain the fight. Europe has the wealth. Europe has the population. What Europe has lacked is the will. The America of tomorrow will demand that will be forged, or America will reassess its commitments.

Guaranteeing Israel & Taiwan

The New Nationalists of America recognizes that America has no more steadfast allies in hostile regions than Israel and the Republic of China (Taiwan). These are Western outposts of democracy, prosperity and strategic vitality. America’s commitment to their security must remain ironclad. But "ironclad" does not mean "unconditional." And "ally" does not mean "ward."

Consider Israel. Since the 10/7 Hamas attack, the American government has spent $21.7 billion on military aid to Israel. Israel's military expenditure surged by 65 percent to $46.5 billion (8.8 percent of GDP) in 2024, the steepest annual increase since the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel's 2026 defense budget is approximately $49 billion. US aid amounts to approximately 58 percent of Israel's defense expenditure. The DC establishment treats this relationship as natural. But a healthy, genuinely American foreign policy must ask a different question: Why is the world's most technologically advanced, economically thriving nation in the Middle East, with a GDP per capita projected to reach roughly $70,000 in 2026, ahead of the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan, still dependent on American subsidies for its defense?

This relationship is one of patronage. And patronage breeds resentment on both sides. Americans resent subsidizing a wealthy ally. And Israelis resent being treated as a client state. The solution is not to abandon America’s alliance with the State of Israel, but to transform our relationship into one of genuine partnership. The foreign policy of the New Nationalists of America demands that Israel increase its own defense spending and reduce its dependence on American aid. Twenty years ago, Foreign Military Financing amounted to approximately 30 percent of Israel's defense budget. That proportion has since declined, but not nearly enough.

The same logic applies to Taiwan. Taiwan's defense ministry plans to allocate $14.9 million dollars to a joint US-Taiwan defense program between 2026 and 2028. Taiwan has passed legislation authorizing NT$300 billion for arms sales already approved by the United States and NT$480 billion for an arms package expected to be announced in the future. The US House Defense Bill includes $1 billion for Taiwan. But is Taiwan doing enough? Taiwan's defense spending remains a fraction of its GDP. Its citizens enjoy one of the highest standards of living in Asia, yet they have been content to let the United States bear the burden of their defense against an increasingly aggressive China. That must change, and it must change now. As with the State of Israel, our commitment to the Republic of China is ironclad, but that commitment must be reciprocated. Taiwan must invest in its own defense and its own future. It must maintain its own military readiness. And it must demonstrate that it is willing to fight for its own freedom.

America is always ready and willing to be partners, but we will not allow ourselves to be patrons.

PART V

Resource Sovereignty

The DC establishment has presided over the systematic plunder of American natural resources. For decades, we have shipped our timber, our coal, our copper, and our rare earth minerals abroad, often to the very nations that use these resources to build the weapons that threaten us. This ends now.

No longer will the United States export raw resources until domestic manufacturing needs are fully met. We will not ship our timber to China so they can build their furniture while our own lumber mills sit idle. We will not export our coal to fuel foreign factories while our own energy grid crumbles. We will not sell our rare earth minerals to the very nation that controls 90 percent of global processing capacity, leaving us dependent on their goodwill for the materials that power our defense systems.

We possess the resources. We possess the geology. What we lack is the political will to use them. The DC establishment has chosen to outsource our industrial base rather than rebuild it. They have chosen to import finished goods rather than process our own raw materials. They have chosen to enrich foreign shareholders rather than employ American workers. But in the America of tomorrow, we will process our own minerals. We will manufacture our own goods. We will build our own future, not because we are in favor of isolation, but because a nation that cannot provide for itself cannot lead others. And a nation that depends on its enemies for its survival has already surrendered.

Tariffs as a Weapon of Peace

The term "protectionism" is used by the profiteers of Washington DC as a term of abuse, a letter to brand anyone who dares suggest that American workers deserve the same consideration as foreign shareholders. But consider the value that a "protectionist" trade policy would bring.

We are protecting a nation that cannot produce its own antibiotics. According to the Brookings Institute, American reliance on Chinese-made active pharmaceutical ingredients ranges from 8 percent to as high as 47 percent when accounting for indirect exposure through India's dependence on China. Roughly 90 percent of antibiotics consumed in the United States are produced in China. Nearly 700 medicines used in the United States depend on Chinese supply chains.

The New Nationalists of America are willing to take on the mantle of "protectionism", if protectionism means protecting a nation that cannot secure its own critical minerals. China controls nearly 60 percent of rare earth mining operations, over 85 percent of processing capacity, and more than 90 percent of permanent magnet production. China is the leading source of 46 of the 84 critical minerals examined by the US Geological Survey. The United States relies entirely on imports for 12 critical minerals, and 29 others have an import dependence of over 50 percent. For the majority of these elements, America is not constrained by any sort of geological scarcity, but rather by a total lack of processing and manufacturing capacity or expertise.

We are protecting a nation that cannot produce its own steel. In the first four months of 2025 alone, US finished steel imports from China surged 25 percent year-on-year.

We are protecting a nation that cannot manufacture its own microchips, its own semiconductors, its own defense components. China's dominance in rare earths has created a critical vulnerability for the US defense industrial base. Dysprosium and terbium, essential heavy rare earths for precision-guided munitions and stealth coatings, face acute shortages. Major defense firms, including the aforementioned Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are urgently auditing their supply chains.

A nation that depends on its competitors and opponents for its antibiotics, its steel, and its rare earth metals is already conquered. It simply has not yet realized it.

The tariffs we propose, 30 to 100 percent on manufactured goods and agriculture, are entirely necessary. Behind these tariff walls, American industry can finally rebuild, American workers can finally re-organize, and American sovereignty can finally be restored. The DC establishment will predictably complain that high tariffs raise consumer prices. They will claim that tariffs cost households over one thousand dollars annually. But what is the cost of a nation being unable to defend itself? What is the cost of a pharmaceutical supply chain controlled by Beijing? What is the cost of a defense industrial base that depends on Chinese magnets for its munitions?

Here, as always, the cost of American inaction is far higher than the cost of "protectionism."

Decoupling from China

China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 was the single most destructive trade policy decision in American history. Between 1991 and 2007, the value of American imports from China increased 1,156 percent. Between 2001 and 2019, the China shock accounted for 59.3 percent of all American manufacturing job losses. Three-fifths of the 5.8 million manufacturing jobs lost between 2000 and 2009 occurred before the 2008 financial crisis ever even began.

The DC establishment claimed that trade with China would produce democratization. Instead, it produced an authoritarian superpower that threatens Taiwan, aligns with Russia, and has built a military designed to challenge American dominance. Every dollar of the trade deficit with China has been a dollar of American power transferred to Beijing. Every factory shipped to China has been a factory that could have built the weapons we now lack. Every job lost to Chinese imports has been a family displaced, a community hollowed out, a vote of no confidence in the American system.

The time for engagement with China is over. The foreign policy of the New Nationalists of America demands the immediate revocation of China's Most Favored Nation status. We will no longer subsidize the construction of the Chinese navy by importing their cheap consumer goods while our own Rust Belt rots. We will no longer finance the Chinese Communist Party's military buildup by purchasing their electronics while our own semiconductor industry withers. We will no longer enrich the Chinese oligarchs who profit from forced labor in Xinjiang while our own workers struggle to pay their mortgages.

The Ukrainian Commitment

The DC Beltway treats support for the people of Ukraine as a matter of moral sentiment: a humanitarian cause, a gesture of solidarity. But America must treat it as what it is: the most beneficial financial investment in American security since the Lend-Lease program.

Russia is spending 7 percent of its GDP on its war machine. Its economy is on a war footing. Every dollar spent degrading the Russian military in Ukraine is a dollar we do not have to spend confronting a fully armed Russian army on NATO's eastern flank. But supporting Ukraine is not merely the morally upright thing to do. It is also the smart to do.

America’s elites have failed to grasp a deeper truth. Ukraine is not a victim waiting to be saved. Ukraine is a winner. When Ukraine gets the weapons it needs and crosses Vladimir Putin's red lines, Russia retreats. Kharkiv was under constant bombardment in May 2024. The goal that the Russian army had in mind was to force Ukraine’s citizens to flee. When the United States finally allowed Ukraine to strike Russian missile launch points across the border, the attacks stopped. Kharkiv became safer overnight. Today, people from safer Lviv are moving to Kharkiv. This is what happens when America allows Ukraine to fight.

Russia's Black Sea Fleet once blockaded Ukraine's exports. Now one-third of that fleet sits at the bottom of the sea. The rest fled from Sevastopol back to Russian shores. Ukraine achieved this feet without a navy, using only domestically produced sea drones.

On the front of drone warfare, Ukraine remains a powerhouse for global innovation. $5,000 Ukrainian drones easily outperform $100,000 American models, and their $50,000 battle robots easily beat the $450,000 American alternatives. The fact is that Ukraine’s battle-hardened military has made it more innovative than our own Pentagon.

Above all, Ukraine is a culture of rooted values. Ukraine is a clean, low-crime nation, with healthy food and a human-scaled way of life. Today, the Ukrainian people are preserving many of the values that the American people dream of someday restoring.

But in return for our alliance, and our support, Ukraine must remain accountable. And on this front, the DC establishment has failed catastrophically. A USAID audit revealed $26 billion in aid sent without adequate oversight. KPMG submitted no audit reports on time. Deloitte missed one-third of its deadlines. The PEACE fund made duplicate payments to displaced persons. Ukraine's own corruption scandals have eroded the trust that the American people hold in the Ukrainian government. The solution to this problem is not to abandon Ukraine. Instead, it is to arm Ukraine properly and force accountability. The slow drip of weapons to Ukraine, the endless and inconsistent restrictions, the bureaucratic paralysis, these problems have only emerged because the war machine profits from long wars.

But America does not want long wars. We want Ukraine to win. Decisively, quickly, and completely. Ukraine is an opportunity. An opportunity to destroy the Russian military without a single American soldier, and to forge an alliance with the most innovative military power in Europe. An opportunity to demonstrate that freedom, once given the chance, has the power to conquer tyranny. America will never squander that opportunity. We will arm Ukraine to win.

Because when Ukraine wins, America wins.

The Monroe Doctrine Revisited

The Western Hemisphere is America's sovereign backyard. This has been US policy since 1823, when President James Monroe declared that the Americas were no longer open to European colonization. The Monroe Doctrine has been invoked by presidents of both parties for two centuries. It remains as compelling today as it was then: The security of the United States depends on preventing cross-Atlantic and cross-Pacific powers from establishing a foothold in the Western Hemisphere. The New Nationalists of America reaffirm this principle without qualification.

No extra-hemispheric power, whether China, Russia, or any other, will be permitted to establish military bases in Latin America or the Caribbean. No foreign power will be allowed to control ports, mines, energy networks, digital infrastructure, or logistics bases in the Western Hemisphere. This means converting any relevant agreement with China or Russia into a matter of US national security.

The United States is not seeking to dominate Latin America. It is seeking to prevent the Western Hemisphere from becoming a staging ground for powers that are hostile to American interests. The choice before us is not between American hegemony and Latin American independence. The choice is between a hemisphere that is secure and a hemisphere that is contested. And the United States will not allow the latter.

The Monroe Doctrine is a living principle as relevant today as it was when President Monroe first proclaimed it. And we will enforce it. The Western Hemisphere is America's domain. That matter is non-negotiable.

The Modern Arsenal

The New Nationalist foreign policy rejects the delusion that we can negotiate from a position of weakness. We will not. We demand a full modernization of the United States nuclear triad (air, land, and sea) to maintain a second-to-none capability that guarantees no nuclear-armed adversary can coerce us through conventional aggression.

Thankfully, the effort to modernize America’s arsenal is already underway, and it is urgently needed. In 2025, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that United States programs to operate and modernize nuclear forces would cost $946 billion over the next ten years. The air leg is being upgraded with the B-21 Raider stealth bomber. The land leg is being replaced with the LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM system. The sea leg is being modernized with the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines and the new W93/Mk7 warhead. The cost of this modernization will be immense, but the cost of allowing America’s armed forces to rust and decay is far higher. Under the Trump administration's 2026 defense budget, nuclear forces would cost a total of $87 billion, a 26-percent increase over the previous administration's last budget request.

Rejecting Unilateral Disarmament

The DC establishment has advanced a theory that is as seductive as it is dangerous: that if America reduces its nuclear arsenal, our adversaries will follow suit. This theory has been tested for years, and it has failed catastrophically.

We cut our military arsenal under Obama’s New START. Russia, in turn, violated the treaty and modernized its forces anyways. We negotiated the JCPOA. Iran in turn, cheated, expanded its program, and enriched uranium to 60 percent by 2026. America showed restraint. Our adversaries did not.

But why? The answer is simple.

Rogue states are inspired by weakness, not restraint. They are emboldened by concessions, not disarmed by them. Every unilateral cut in American nuclear forces is a signal to Beijing and Moscow that we lack the will to defend ourselves. Every concession to Iran is a signal that we can be bullied into submission.

For the future of its survival, America must reject this fateful delusion. We will not, cannot, cut our arsenal to "inspire" rogue states. We will never allow ourselves to negotiate from a position of weakness. We will never surrender our deterrent to the whims of our adversaries. To maintain deterrence against two nuclear peers, the future nuclear force of America must be fully modernized. A survivable second strike against one major nuclear opponent is not enough as a credible deterrent against two.

The American Millennium will be built on strength: The strength to deter, defend, and prevail when challenged.

PART VI

The Way Forward

The task before us is not to manage decline. Nor is it to lead from behind. The task is to restore American power in its fullest sense: not merely military power, but economic power, industrial power, technological power, and moral power. We must rebuild the productive base that made America the arsenal of democracy. We must restore the sovereignty that was surrendered to globalist institutions and foreign creditors. We must renew the national purpose that was lost in the fog of profiteer wars and empty rhetoric.

We rebuke isolation. Isolation is the luxury of a nation that believes it can retreat behind its oceans and ignore the world. That America no longer exists. The challenges we face, from Chinese expansion to Russian aggression to Iranian terror ambitions, demand American engagement. But this engagement will occur on our terms, not theirs. Engagement must serve the interests of the American people, not the profits of defense contractors. Engagement must build American strength. Not American dependency.

We believe in a foreign policy that serves the American worker, defends the American homeland, and advances the frontiers of freedom, not because we are the indispensable nation in an abstract sense, but because we are the only nation with the power, the principles, and the will to do so. The politicians of the DC Beltway will resist, and they will defend their failed policies with the fervor of the true believer, because their careers, their fortunes, and their self-esteem depend on the perpetuation of the failed order that they have built.

But the American people have had enough. They have seen their jobs shipped overseas, their communities hollowed out, their sons and daughters sent to fight profiteer wars for the benefit of defense contractors. They have watched their leaders bow to foreign powers, apologize for American greatness, and preside over the systematic dismantling of American industry.

In front of America lies a different path: A path of strength, sovereignty, and prosperity. A path that honors the legacy of the men that came before us. A path that puts America first. A path that leads not to the end of history, but to the beginning of the American Millennium.

The Man in the Arena

In April 1910, Theodore Roosevelt delivered a speech at the Sorbonne in Paris that would become one of the most quoted orations in American history. He spoke of the "Man in the Arena,” the one who "strives valiantly," who "errs and comes up short again and again," who "knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions," and who "spends himself in a worthy cause."

The task of this generation, the task of the American people, is to enter the arena. To refuse the false choice between apologetics and adventurism. To reject the consensus of Washington DC that has failed the American people for a generation. To forge a future where the American worker and the American soldier share the same prosperity, bound by the same flag.

The American Millennium begins with a foreign policy that puts America First in the truest sense: honoring the domestic foundation upon which all global power rests. It begins with the recognition that a nation cannot lead the world if it cannot feed itself, cannot power itself, cannot defend itself. It begins with the restoration of American sovereignty, American industry, and American purpose.

This is not the "end of history." It is the beginning of a new chapter, a chapter in which the United States reclaims its rightful place as the steward of the West, the defender of liberty, and the engine of prosperity.

The task is before us. The arena awaits its victor, and the American people have never been found wanting when the cause is just. The only question left to confront is whether we have the courage to enter the arena, to spend ourselves in a worthy cause, and to forge a future worthy of the sacrifices that have been made on our behalf.

The answer is yes. The American Millennium begins now.