Distinguished Fellow Jill Dougherty says that Moscow has gleefully misinterpreted the National Security Strategy as an invitation to carve the world into distinct spheres of imperial influence.
"Officially, the Kremlin has welcomed the NSS, saying it largely aligns with Moscow’s views...[but] perhaps they should have read the NSS more carefully."
In January 2026, two days after Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, was captured by US special forces and flown to the US for trial, Kirill Dmitriev, President Vladimir Putin’s point man for Ukraine peace talks, posted a world map on X. Over the Western Hemisphere was scrawled the word “Me” in thick red ink. Over Russia and Europe was written “Putin.” Over the Asia-Pacific region and half of Africa was the name “Xi.”
“The art of redrawing maps of influence,” Dmitriev labeled it. Although he did not use the name “Trump,” it was obvious who he thought “Me” was.
The Russian envoy seemed to be gleefully interpreting President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy, released in November, which defines the Western Hemisphere as the United States’ top strategic priority. If Trump gets the Western Hemisphere, Dmitriev seemed to be saying, Putin gets Europe, and China’s Xi Jinping gets Asia.
Officially, the Kremlin has welcomed the NSS, saying it largely aligns with Moscow’s views, but in the document Russia barely gets a mention. In fact, the word “Russia” doesn’t appear in the 33-page public version until page 25. That’s understandable; the NSS is hyper-focused on economic competitiveness and Russia’s $2.5 trillion economy falls far short of the $4.1 trillion gross product of the state of California. The document makes only a glancing reference to Russia’s strongest lever of global power: nuclear weapons.
Moscow might be buoyed by the fact that it no longer is described, as it was by previous administrations, as an “acute threat” actively pursuing “subversion and aggression.” The strategy even gives a nod (without mentioning their names) to China and Russia: “The outsized influence of larger, richer, and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations.”
The Trump strategy also puts the burden of re-establishing regional security in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Europe’s shoulders and demands “opening European markets to U.S. goods and services and ensuring fair treatment of U.S. workers and businesses.” It scolds America’s long-time allies: “European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the [Ukraine] war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition.” There is no mention of Putin’s own subversion of democracy, its sabotage campaign in Europe, or the fact that it started the largest land war in Europe since WWII.
When it comes to Russia’s neighborhood, the NSS proposes: “Building up the healthy nations of Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe through commercial ties, weapons sales, political collaboration, and cultural and educational exchanges,” but gives no detail. It fails to mention Central Asia, which is a key area for investment and development by the United States’ top competitor, China.
Officials in Eastern Europe with whom I spoke during a recent trip to the region are alarmed by the new security strategy, which they say downplays the threat from Russia. Several expressed concern that “reestablishing strategic security with Russia” will mean weakening NATO. The US, they fear, no longer has their back.
Trump’s National Security Strategy declares “we will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.” Russia, despite its gleeful trolling over dividing the world into three zones of control, soon got a sharp reminder of the new “Donroe Doctrine,” as the US, in early January, seized a Russian-flagged tanker trying to flee the US blockade of Venezuela.
Perhaps they should have read the NSS more carefully, especially where it says: “We will work with allies and partners to maintain global and regional balances of power to prevent the emergence of dominant adversaries. As the United States rejects the ill-fated concept of global domination for itself, we must prevent the global, and in some cases even regional, domination of others.”
