New National Security Strategy and Its Implications for U.S.–Türkiye Relations and Beyond

Trump’s New National Security Strategy (NSS):

Its Implications for U.S.-Turkiye, Kurdish, and Middle East Relations

Trump’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) abruptly posted in the middle of the night on December 4/5, 2025, gives America’s oldest and best friends much reason to worry, while it presents foes things with which to be pleased. The 32-page document paints a transactional, dystopian vision for the world where the West’s greatest threat is said to be “mass migration.” The liberal post-World-War-II liberal international order gives way to an illiberal transactional, Darwinian world. The document stresses defense of the U.S. border by fighting against mass immigration and the need to build a “Golden Dome” air defense system. It further outlines the need for restoring “American pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere” and protecting its “access to key geographies.” 

The new NSS declares the United States will “deny non-hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets.” Trump’s bombing of alleged, drug-smuggling Venezuelan ships and implied threats to invade that country under a new Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine—all of which are probably illegal under international law—constitute the most immediate manifestation of the NSS’s stress on the Western Hemisphere.

Despite the on-going war in Ukraine, the NSS does not bother to mention that Russia might be a threat. North Korea is not even mentioned, while Iran is downplayed. The new document does reaffirm U.S. support for Taiwan, although who can be sure what that supposed pledge is worth to the transactional American president who often alters his position on a dime? The NSS disparages U.S. NATO allies for becoming increasingly “non-European” through “civilization erasure” via mass migration. The European Union’s economic integration and collective rule are painted as more threatening than Russia’s now-nearing 4-year war on Ukraine. 

Through all this mostly dystopian vision, what are the implications for the Middle East, specifically Turkiye (Turkey), the Kurdish issue, and Syria? Although admittedly hazardously unpredictable, taken at its literal word, Trump’s new NSS deemphasizes direct U.S. military involvement in what American secretary of war (formerly secretary of defense) Pete Hegseth called one day later “rudderless wars in the Middle East.” Instead, the United States will focus on a more transactional, self-interested approach that would prioritize U.S. economic interests, energy security, and business opportunities over promoting democracy or human rights values. 

While the new NSS praises those Middle East states such as the Gulf ones for their role in “combatting radicalism” and urges Washington to support the continuation of this trend, the strategy will “require dropping America’s misguided experiment with hectoring these nations . . . into abandoning their traditions and historic forms of government.” This means that successful engagement with the region depends on acknowledging and respecting its political systems and leadership structures, while simultaneously identifying and pursuing areas of mutual interest and cooperation. Up to a point, this seems reasonable. However, carried to its logical conclusion, it means ignoring democracy and human rights. 

The new NSS argues and even recognizes that reform in the Middle East is most sustainable and effective when it emerges naturally from within indigenous societies, rather than when it is imposed by outsiders such as the United States. Thus, the new strategy emphasizes transactional partnerships and a refocusing of U.S. priorities toward the Western Hemisphere, with the Middle East relegated to a lower status. The new strategy argues for the acceptance of regional states and their leaders as they are, privileging economic cooperation and stability over ideological objectives such as democracy and human rights formerly emphasized.  Thus, the new NSS is likely to promote the strategic importance of Turkiye and the Gulf States (GCC) as regional partners. This will likely reduce U.S. support for the pro-Kurdish Strategic Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria. 

This signals that the new NSS will probably lead to an historic deemphasizing of direct U.S. military involvement in the region and refocusing on a more transactional, interest-driven approach that, as just mentioned, would lift the strategic importance of Turkiye as a regional partner while leading to reduced support for Kurdish interests. Thus, the purpose of the NSS for the Middle East is to reduce U.S. political and financial costs, moving away from debilitating “forever wars” to concentrate on the geographically closer Western Hemisphere and traditional great power competition. This means shifting the burden of regional security onto local partners like Turkiye, Israel and the Gulf states, focusing on business and investment opportunities, including reconstruction efforts in Gaza and Syria, and ensuring that energy resources and important waterways remain secure from hostile control.

The role of Turkiye is projected to become more significant as the United States seeks to delegate responsibilities to regional partners. This means that Ankara may gain more U.S. support for its anti-Kurdish objectives in Syria as the United States reduces its military help to Kurdish forces. Equally or even more importantly, Turkiye’s potential role in international stabilization forces such as in Gaza that the NSS envisions as the key to the success of regional ceasefires would give Ankara increased influence. 

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s vision of neo-Ottomanism would gain further credence. The United States might also expand cooperation with Turkiye on energy security and defense industry capacities. This would potentially reduce Turkiye’s dependence on Russian energy. If all this progresses successfully, perennial unresolved issues that have been inhibiting Turkiye, such as its earlier star-crossed purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems that alienated the United States and NATO and led to Turkiye’s removal from the F-35 jet modernization program, probably would be resolved. 

On the other hand, U.S. support for Turkiye and a reduced U.S. presence in the Middle East would place Kurdish aspirations and security at greater risk. To support Turkiye’s demands for a new unified, centralized Syria, longtime U.S. support for its de facto, pro-Kurdish SDF ally largely because of its successful, but continuing struggle against ISIS, would be reduced or even terminated to please Turkiye. This would leave the Syrian Kurds more vulnerable to Turkish military operations or pressure from the new Syrian government that is seeking to reunify the war-torn country. Of course, dropping support for the pro-Kurdish SDF might facilitate ISIS’s ongoing resurrection as recently witnessed by its ambush and killing of two U.S. troops near Palmira in Syria. 

As for the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq (KRG), further U.S. troop withdrawal might encourage the revival of Iranian-backed militias, not a good idea given what the U.S. and Israeli reduction of Iran this past June achieved. It would not only put the KRG in more peril but also possibly strip the United States of one of its very few friendly bases in the Middle East. Thus, the reduction of support envisioned by the NSS should be revisited as it concerns the future of the KRG. The new NSS also reduces the promotion of democracy and human rights as a goal of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, further limiting important U.S. support for the Kurds. 

What more can be said in criticism of this new U.S. strategy? First of all, there would seem an inherent contradiction between the NSS goal “to prevent any adversarial power from dominating the Middle East,” while proclaiming U.S. military disengagement from the region to focus more on business and trade opportunities there.

More specifically, the document assumes too blithely that Middle Eastern wars and struggles have been contained. However, the Israeli-Palestinian struggle continues. It does not simply “remain thorny.” Gaza has not been largely resolved. Indeed, it has returned the entire Israeli-Palestinian struggle to the forefront. The Abraham Accords that the United States brokered in 2020 to normalize relations between the Arab states and Israel and in which the United States has “a clear interest in expanding . . . to more nations in the region and to other countries in the Muslim world” to cite the NSS itself, is unlikely to gain implementation without real progress toward establishing a Palestinian state. 

However, Israel’s negative position on this issue clearly prevents important actors such as Saudi Arabia from joining the Accords as its de facto ruler Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) himself told Trump in their Washington get together just last month. Furthermore, Iran is too easily dismissed as being reduced, while Turkiye and Israel potentially are headed for a clash in Syria and Gaza that only the United States can probably prevent. The new Trumpian strategy neglects even to mention these major difficulties. 

On a yet larger level, by downplaying the Middle East, the new NSS leaves a vacuum that others not friendly to the United States are likely to fill. It also completely ignores global climate and health concerns that threaten all of Trump’s transactional hopes for success in the Middle East. At times, Trump’s new NSS reads more like a MEGA document to appease his domestic audience that feels he is ignoring their economic concerns than a viable strategy for the international stage. As more than one observer has predicted, this so-called strategy may be largely all but forgotten in a few months. 

Michael M. Gunter is a professor of political science at Tennessee Tech University and the recent author of Erdogan’s Path to Authoritarianism: The Continuing Journey (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2024).