The 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy arrives, in the words of today’s panel, as a strikingly coherent and assertive statement of American strategic intent—a document whose internal consistency carries deeply worrying implications for Canada, Europe, and global stability.
It portrays a United States increasingly oriented toward a hemispheric, mercantilist posture, relying on coercive diplomacy in the Americas while softening its language on Russia in ways that appear to concede space for expanded Russian influence in Europe. Rooted in a legislative requirement to justify defence spending to Congress, the NSS must also be read through the lens of U.S. domestic politics, where the coming 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election will shape and sharpen Republican debates over the country’s global role.
On today’s episode of the Expert Series, Vincent Rigby, former National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister; Kerry Buck, former Canadian Ambassador to NATO; and Christopher Sands, Director of the Center for Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins, joined us to unpack the new U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) and its implications for Canada and U.S. allies. The panel discusses the document’s hemispheric framing; shifts in U.S. views toward Russia and implications for European security; the potential weakening of NATO cohesion and transatlantic stability; the domestic political forces shaping U.S. strategy and Republican foreign-policy debates; the absence of Canada in the NSS and what that signals about Canada’s strategic position; risks for Canada related to critical minerals, Arctic sovereignty, industrial policy, and trade diversification; and the broader challenge of navigating U.S. unpredictability and the need to reinforce Canada’s ties to Europe and like-minded partners.
