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Lots of pressure on allies, no mention of North Korea in White House national security strategy document

Published: 05 Dec. 2025, 18:53 Updated: 08 Dec. 2025, 14:27

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he departs Walter Reed National Military Medical Center following his annual physical exam, in Bethesda, Maryland, on Oct. 10. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

The United States released its national security strategy on Thursday, a document widely regarded as Washington’s comprehensive guideline for diplomacy and national security.

The strategy, unveiled on the White House website, places U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” principle at its forefront, while providing a strategic framework for competition with China and underscoring expanded defense responsibilities for U.S. allies.

The document mentions “increased burden-sharing from Japan and Korea.” The White House wrote in the new document that the United States should “urge these countries to increase defense spending, with a focus on the capabilities — including new capabilities — necessary to deter adversaries and protect the First Island Chain,” referring to the maritime defensive line running from Kyushu to Okinawa, Taiwan and the Philippines.

The Joint Fact Sheet released on Nov. 13 after the Korea-U.S. summit includes a section on “modernizing the Korea-U.S. alliance” and notes that South Korea plans to raise its defense spending to 3.5 percent of its GDP by 2035 — a sign that Washington’s pressure for higher defense expenditures is likely to continue.

In the Asia section, the strategy paper highlights the strategic importance of the Indo-Pacific region. It states that “preventing conflict requires a vigilant posture in the Indo-Pacific, a renewed defense industrial base, greater military investment from ourselves and from allies and partners, and winning the economic and technological competition over the long term.”

The document also identifies “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority” of U.S. strategy in Asia. Regarding cross-strait tensions, the document says the United States will “maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.”

The strategy emphasizes expanded roles and responsibilities for U.S. allies. “We will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain,” said the document. “But the American military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone. Our allies must step up and spend — and more importantly do — much more for collective defense.”

The front cover of the U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS), released on the White House website on Dec. 4. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

The strategy further stresses that “America’s diplomatic efforts should focus on pressing our First Island Chain allies and partners to allow the U.S. military greater access to their ports and other facilities, to spend more on their own defense, and most importantly to invest in capabilities aimed at deterring aggression.”

In the preface to the document, Trump underscores his intention to base U.S. security strategy on the “America First” doctrine.

“Over the past nine months, we have brought our nation — and the world — back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster,” Trump wrote. “We rebuilt our alliances and got our allies to contribute more to our common defense — including a historic commitment from NATO countries to raise defense spending from 2 percent to 5 percent of GDP.”

Trump added, “In everything we do, we are putting America first,” and declared that “in the years ahead, we will continue to develop every dimension of our national strength — and we will make America safer, richer, freer, greater and more powerful than ever before.”

In a notable departure, the 33-page document does not mention North Korea even once. By contrast, the 68-page paper released in December 2017, during Trump’s first year in office, referenced North Korea a total of 17 times.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY KIM HYOUNG-GU [[email protected]]