Why Russia Loves the New US National Security Strategy

Nothing about the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy should shock European leaders, still less the enthusiastic welcome that this confirmation of a revolution in US foreign policy has received from Moscow. It calls, after all, for a rupture in the Transatlantic Alliance that every Kremlin leader — with brief exceptions for Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin — has sought since 1945.

Why that is should be self evident. Moscow has been fighting wars to expand or protect its westward borders and influence since at least the days of Peter the Great. US interventions to help defeat Russia’s primary 20th century rival for continental dominance — Germany — were helpful to the Kremlin’s goals. America’s decision to stay on as guarantor of a new transatlantic “West” was not.