Reading between the lines: what the 2025 US National Security Strategy really says about US power

Bottom line up front

The 2025 US National Security Strategy (NSS) is not a retreat from confrontation with Russia, China or Iran, but a rewiring of how Washington wages systemic competition through an expanding network of allies and partners - organised, financed and armed by the US while avoiding direct overextension. For the UK, this implies one clear imperative: defence spending must rise sharply, industrial capacity must accelerate and Washington’s ideological preferences must be aligned with - or Britain risks downgrade from strategic partner to regional supplier in a hierarchy that is far less forgiving than it appears.

Not withdrawal, re‑engineered dominance

Commentary claiming a clean US “pivot” away from Eurasia misreads the document. The NSS asserts Western Hemisphere priority, yet in the same breath lists keeping the Indo‑Pacific "free and open", preventing adversaries from dominating Europe and maintaining access to global supply chains as vital interests (p.5). What looks like restraint is, in practice, a strategy to sustain primacy more cheaply by shifting burdens onto allies while preserving US veto power.

The NSS states explicitly that “for a country whose interests are as numerous and diverse as ours, rigid adherence to non‑interventionism is not possible” (p.9). That is a candid admission that American power still depends on presence and pressure far beyond US borders. The logic of the 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine - preventing any rival from dominating key regions - is unchanged; only the fiscal and political packaging has shifted.

The burden‑sharing network: what it really means

The key formulation is the commitment to “organize a burden‑sharing network, with our government as convener and supporter,” using “targeted partnerships” and economic tools to “align incentives, share burdens” and “counter hostile and subversive influences” (p. 12). The influences in question are named elsewhere: Russia, China, Iran.

This architecture builds directly on the Hague Commitment, which pledges NATO members to spend 5 percent of GDP on defence. Allies are expected to spend “far more”, accept deeper US access to bases and ports, align export controls and technology standards and in return obtain preferential treatment in trade, technology and defence procurement (p. 12). This isn’t burden-sharing - not in the diplomatic sense the term suggests. Rather: a tiered hierarchy where the US convenes, sets the agenda, retains escalation control, while regional allies provide mass and proximity. Call it burden-distribution with US veto power intact.

The network is already visible: NATO in Europe; the Quad and related formats in Asia; security partnerships across the Middle East and Latin America. The effect is a global framework designed to extract maximum allied effort while Washington supplies high‑end capabilities, financial leverage and political legitimacy.

The “Core 5” and regional champions: institutional architecture for selective primacy

Inviting “fake news” denials from the White House, on 9 December 2025, US-based national security and defence news site ‘Defense One’ claimed to have accessed a classified version of the NSS, which reveals institutional mechanisms that the official public release omits. Chief among them: a proposed “Core 5" summit framework comprising the United States, China, Russia, India and Japan. Not the G7. Not NATO. A great-power concert explicitly including adversaries, structured around capability rather than ideology. The first proposed agenda item - normalising Israel-Saudi relations - signals how Washington intends to use the mechanism: regional stabilisation through great-power coordination, not democratic consensus.

For Britain, the implications are bleak. The C5 excludes European representation entirely. If Washington establishes regular summit-level engagement with Beijing and Moscow through this format, the UK’s strategic position shifts from privileged interlocutor to excluded middle power. Britain retains functional partnership on capability - submarines, intelligence, cyber - but loses convening power. That’s the trade. And it’s non-negotiable under this architecture.

It is claimed that the behind-the-scenes NSS also articulates a “regional champions” strategy: partnering with capable regional powers to maintain stability whilst the US reduces direct presence. The document allegedly states Washington will “reward and encourage the region’s governments, political parties, and movements broadly aligned with our principles and strategy. But we must not overlook governments with different outlooks with whom we nonetheless share interests and who want to work with us.” Translation: ideological alignment matters for Europe; pragmatic accommodation applies elsewhere. London sits uncomfortably between these categories - expected to align ideologically whilst competitors gain flexibility through regional champion status.

What this means for UK defence policy

Five percent. That’s the threshold. Not optional. Not aspirational. Mandatory. And yet it functions less as a ceiling than as a floor - the minimum expectation beneath which Britain falls into secondary-tier partnership status. The NSS makes clear that NATO countries have endorsed a commitment to spend 5 percent of GDP on defence and “must now meet” it (p. 12). Washington itself remains below that threshold. 

We are told that the unpublicised edition of the NSS clarifies what burden-sharing actually means in practice. The document is candid about American hegemony: “Hegemony is the wrong thing to want and it wasn’t achievable,” it reportedly declares. “After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country.” This admission matters. Washington itself concedes the project failed. What follows is not withdrawal but recalibration: sustain primacy through selective presence whilst allies carry regional loads. The public NSS obscures this logic. Its shadow counterpart seemingly states it outright.

The GDP-defence spend expectation imposed on others is not met by the arbiter - a distinction allies have plainly noticed. This isn’t burden-sharing, in any meaningful sense. It’s asymmetric obligation, where the framework specifies what partners must contribute whilst reserving for itself discretion about compliance. In any event, the UK currently sits at approximately 2.4% of GDP, with a commitment to reach 2.5% by April 2027. To remain above the line - and London’s assessment is that it must - Britain requires a more aggressive trajectory: decisively above 3.5 percent within 18-24 months, with credible signals of movement toward 4-4.5 percent by the late 2020s. Anything less risks downgrade to regional-supplier status. That is not a discretionary choice if London wants sustained influence over US decisions on Europe, Ukraine and the Indo‑Pacific.

Whether other NATO allies will actually meet the 5 percent threshold remains uncertain. Historical compliance has been weak - targets announced, commitments wavering when budgets tighten. The NSS assumes what has rarely been achieved: sustained alliance-wide adherence. If the assumption fails, Britain’s cost escalates alone at 4+ percent while others linger at 2-3 percent creates vulnerability, not strength.

Industrial capacity is the metric now. Not heritage. Not interoperability. Not theoretical prowess - capacity at scale. The NSS is explicit: allies will be judged by whether they can surge production of artillery, air defence systems, ships and undersea platforms at the tempo contemporary warfare demands. For UK manufacturers, this represents not aspiration but non-negotiable requirement. Fail this test and partnership tier drops accordingly.

Beyond technological alignment, military commitments in Asia now define partnership value - at least in Washington’s assessment. Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific are now non-optional UK defence priorities. Whether London can actually sustain this alongside Ukraine and European deterrence is precisely the contradiction the NSS leaves unresolved. Not ideology. Rather: semiconductor dominance and direct access to the Second Island Chain [1] transform it into the strategic linchpin Washington can no longer treat as peripheral to UK interests. The NSS commitment is stark - build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain - but with a critical caveat: the American military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone (p. 23). The implicit message - though whether Washington will enforce this expectation in practice remains to be tested - is clear: UK participation is now assumed, not decorative.

Source: Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2012)

For the UK, that translates into concrete expectation. Carrier strike group deployments, AUKUS (Australia-UK-US alliance) technology cooperation and undersea capabilities are now treated in Washington as part of an Indo‑Pacific deterrence architecture, not symbolic gestures. London should assume that naval, cyber and ISR contributions to any Taiwan contingency are now a baseline requirement if it wishes to be treated as an Indo‑Pacific actor rather than a rhetorical supporter at distance. The Royal Navy’s recently announced pullback from Indo-Pacific exercises stands in sharp contrast. 

But this Indo-Pacific commitment coincides with another structural shift: the US is signalling readiness to reduce its direct Ukraine exposure. Ukraine will shift to European burden - at considerable cost. In the Europe chapter, the NSS talks of seeking an “expeditious cessation of hostilities” in Ukraine while “re‑establishing strategic stability with Russia” and preventing “any adversary from dominating Europe” (pp. 25-26). The logic points to - though whether Washington will actually broker a settlement remains open - movement toward a ceasefire or frozen conflict, one in which the US reduces day-to-day exposure whilst Europe carries the long-term military and financial load.

This sits atop a growing asymmetry. As Europe escalates support for Ukraine through sanctions and moves towards using frozen Russian sovereign assets, it exposes itself to Russian retaliation against Western corporate interests in Russia. Analysis by the Kyiv School of Economics estimates that foreign firms have already suffered more than $167 billion in direct losses from exiting Russia, with German companies ($44.5 billion), US firms ($46 billion) and UK businesses ($35.1 billion) bearing the largest writedowns. Major European financial institutions, including Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International and energy groups such as Germany’s Uniper and BP ($25.5 billion in writedowns linked to its Rosneft stake), face continued exposure to asset seizures and regulatory pressure in Russia.

The US is comparatively insulated from this specific channel of retaliation. For the UK, supporting a more aggressive European stance on Russian assets therefore means accepting significant, and largely uncompensated, economic risk. British companies with continental supply chains and financial links into Russia face mounting losses that Whitehall currently has limited tools to mitigate.

The Starmer dilemma: European solidarity, US Realpolitik and ideological alignment

The UK sits at the intersection of three incompatible strategic logics.

First: ideological framework. The NSS goes beyond policy prescription into philosophical territory. It explicitly states that the purpose of American government is to “secure the God-given natural rights of American citizens” and anchors this in “the laws of nature and nature’s God” (p. 3). This theological framework - grounding rights in God rather than state authority - diverges sharply from nations treating freedoms as state-granted privileges. The Starmer government’s approach to speech restrictions, protest controls and counter-extremism measures sits uneasily with Washington’s reasserted philosophy - or appears to, at least, from the perspective of current US policy assessments. The NSS explicitly opposes “elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties” and warns that “state powers must never be abused, whether under the guise of deradicalization, protecting our democracy, or any other pretext” (p. 12). For Starmer’s government, this represents a direct challenge to Labour’s legislative trajectory on speech and extremism.

Second: Ukraine strategy. The NSS establishes a clear preference for resolution over indefinite support. It commits the US to negotiate an “expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and re-establish strategic stability with Russia” (pp. 25-26). The phrase “re-establish strategic stability with Russia” signals US willingness to accept a settlement accommodating Russian security concerns - potentially at Ukraine’s expense. Indeed the practical mechanisms for compelling Russian concessions remain absent from strategic discourse. Seasoned military analysts point to a fundamental constraint: what leverage, precisely, would Washington deploy to force Moscow to accept unfavourable terms? A carrier strike group in the Mediterranean impresses, but it does not compel without explicit willingness to use it. Current planning does not indicate such willingness. Moscow likely calculates that Washington’s stated preference for settlement reflects not negotiating strength but a desire to exit without losing face. That calculation - whether accurate or not - shapes Russian willingness to engage. The NSS text emphasises truce as objective. It remains silent on any coercive apparatus required to achieve it. This silence signals either strategic confidence that Russia will prove cooperative, or strategic ambiguity about whether Washington is prepared to use any tools beyond accepting a settlement largely on Moscow’s terms.

Early diplomatic signals, including personnel changes and reported tensions in Ukraine negotiations, suggest this stated preference for settlement may face internal resistance - though whether from bureaucratic inertia or strategic reversal remains unclear. The framing obscures what Washington has declined to address. Though the NSS text emphasises “cessation of hostilities” - it remains strategically silent on how territorial conquest gets resolved. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Continues occupying it now. The NSS acknowledges this fact nowhere. Instead, Moscow is treated as a negotiating partner to be granted “stability”, not as an actor to be held accountable for territorial aggression, which is the firm position of the vast majority of US allies in Europe. This creates a bind Europe cannot escape: sustain indefinite support for a nation under partial occupation, whilst Washington seeks swift diplomatic resolution with its occupier. For the UK, this creates a contradiction. Stark and unresolved. Starmer has committed to indefinite Ukraine support, backed European asset seizure initiatives. Washington, though, views Europe as a problem to manage and ultimately hand off - not defend indefinitely at American expense. The UK cannot align with both positions. It must choose. And either choice carries costs.

Third: political transformation and explicit EU fragmentation. The public NSS includes a commitment to “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations” (p. 26). The unredacted NSS manuscript, so we are told, names targets. Austria, Hungary, Italy and Poland - these are the countries the US should “work more with...with the goal of pulling them away from the [European Union].” So not diplomatic preference. Active subversion? The restricted document purportedly goes further, stating the US should “support parties, movements and intellectual and cultural figures who seek sovereignty and preservation/restoration of traditional European ways of life...while remaining pro-American.”

To call this “diplomatic support” would miss the point entirely. It is, instead, a strategic objective to undermine current European leadership from within, unambiguous in its intent, barely coded in its language - even in the publicly released document. President Trump has openly endorsed Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as a “fantastic person” and predicted his electoral success, with Trump-aligned networks, including members of the Trump administration, having reportedly met with Farage and his associates at Washington events. Farage’s platform - sceptical of net zero, critical of migration controls, opposed to speech legislation, advocating higher defence spending - aligns precisely with NSS priorities. For US foreign policy, a Farage government in Number 10 would achieve what no amount of pressure on Starmer could accomplish: a willing partner for an EU shakeup and ideological conformity that transforms burden-sharing from negotiated compliance into enthusiastic execution. Reports emerging during last year’s general election campaign suggested billionaire backers, including speculation around Elon Musk, discussing potential funding of $100 million to make him prime minister by 2027. The unvarnished version of the NSS seen by Defense One seemingly makes explicit what was previously implicit: it “encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism” (p. 26). Washington now prefers patriotic nationalism to centrist Atlanticism. And Farage fits that bill.

For Starmer, an outspoken europhile who actively campaigned against Brexit, this creates a bind he cannot easily escape. The UK cannot be both premium partner in burden-sharing and loyal European ally if Washington actively works to pull EU members away from Brussels. Simply meeting defence spending targets will not suffice if the institutional framework Britain seeks to preserve is the target of deliberate US fragmentation strategy, irrespective of whether Washington deems Labour ideologically unreliable. Capability, alone, no longer guarantees partnership tier. The burden-sharing framework explicitly conditions preferential treatment on alignment with US objectives, allowing Washington to calibrate cooperation based on ideological compatibility rather than pure capability (p. 12). US Vice President JD Vance has made this explicit, warning that Britain risks a “very dark path” on free speech and linking UK speech restrictions to American national security concerns. Research by the National Centre for Social Research confirms a widening “Atlantic rift” between UK and US public attitudes on climate, migration and international institutions - reinforcing the structural nature of this misalignment. If US policymakers view the Starmer government as temporary or incompatible with American priorities, UK firms may face differential treatment in defence procurement and technology partnerships, adding economic consequences to strategic downgrade.

Europe’s pacifier problem: why the burden‑sharing framework may be unsustainable

Underpinning all of this is a structural assumption - one that senior analysts regard with scepticism: that Europe can take primary responsibility for containing Russia whilst the US pivots to Asia. Intelligence assessments, examining this proposition systematically, suggest the assumption is fragile. Decades of strategic analysis point toward different conclusions.

Since 1945, one fact has been foundational: US military presence. It prevented intra-European security competition; underwritten deterrence no single European state can replicate. The NSS burden-sharing framework does not resolve that dependency; it exposes it. By insisting that Europe take “primary responsibility” for its own region while the US retains high‑end enablers and veto power, the strategy risks creating a Europe that is more militarised on paper, but still dependent on US logistics, ISR, nuclear guarantees and political coordination.

The structural assumptions underlying this calculation have been examined, though not prominently featured in official doctrine. The US Army War College conducted systematic analysis in 2023 examining scenarios of conventional US-NATO engagement with Russian forces. The assessment was unsparing: assuming Russian naval forces permit transatlantic logistics movement, casualty rates for US ground forces alone would approach 3,600 per day. At such a tempo, the study concluded, American KIA would equal the entire Vietnam War toll by the end of the fourth week of conflict. Whether this analysis is formally integrated into NSS planning remains unclear. The casualty projections are not mentioned in the strategy document itself. Yet they represent precisely the calculation senior officials would - and arguably must - consider when assessing whether the burden-sharing framework is sustainable or merely hopeful.

The classified iteration of the NSS’s reported admission that hegemony failed strengthens this assessment. If Washington itself acknowledges it couldn’t maintain global dominance at peak unipolarity - when relative power advantages were greatest - Europe cannot credibly assume primary responsibility for containing Russia without US enablers. The burden-sharing framework depends on an assumption the architects themselves have disavowed: that sustainable primacy was ever achievable through allied cost distribution. It wasn’t then. It isn’t now. The difference is Washington no longer pretends otherwise - at least not in the unpublished version.

The NSS frankly assesses that “Continental Europe has been losing share of global GDP - down from 25 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today” (p. 25). 

The metric tells a partial story. Europe’s GDP share did fall - from 25 percent to 14 percent. But the driver matters. China’s extraordinary growth consumed that share; Europe’s own economic output did not collapse. Three European economies remain in the global top ten. Per-capita GDP across the continent exceeds China’s substantially. What the NSS reads as civilisational decline is, more precisely, a relative shift in global economic distribution. The difference matters. If Europe’s problem isn’t absolute economic failure but relative geopolitical repositioning, then assertions about its capacity to sustain defence commitments rest on shakier ground than the NSS acknowledges.

The document identifies Europe’s real problems as “activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence” (p. 25). This is not diplomatic language - it is a civilizational diagnosis of decline driven by specific choices that map uncomfortably onto Labour’s own policy orientation.

For the UK, this gap matters. London is implicitly cast as the anchor of European deterrence: a nuclear‑armed state, with significant defence industry and global reach, expected to bridge between Washington and the continent. Yet Britain lacks the population, fiscal base and industrial depth to substitute for a sustained US presence in Europe. Its comparative advantage lies in niche high‑end capabilities - submarines, intelligence, cyber, special forces - rather than mass conventional forces or the industrial scale needed to sustain prolonged high‑intensity conflict.

The Ukraine war worsens this imbalance. Europe is locked in. Politically, morally, reputationally invested in Ukraine. Backing away is treated as capitulation - NATO’s end. Yet without US enablers and funding, Europe struggles to sustain Ukraine, let alone expand support. This creates a trap of Europe’s own making: escalation of commitments to preserve alliance cohesion, without credible resourcing if US priorities drift east. The mechanism for resolving this tension remains absent from official doctrine.

Here sits the structural trap. The NSS voices concern about NATO “perpetually expanding” (p. 27) - language that mirrors Russian concerns almost precisely. Not accidental. The NSS goes further, expressing “optimism” about “patriotic” European movements (p. 26), many of which oppose NATO expansion, EU regulation and its immigration frameworks. Meanwhile, the same document demands NATO members spend more on defence, assume primary responsibility for their regions, and prepare for longer commitments to Ukraine. The contradiction is real: asking allies to strengthen alliance cohesion whilst signalling openness to the alliance’s geographic limits. Ukraine reads this correctly. So does Moscow. Europe hears the ambiguity and calculates accordingly. This tension will not resolve through dialogue.

UK business implications: from partner to supplier?

Scale and speed trump legacy relationships. This is, at least, the business calculation Washington appears to be making about UK defence firms - though implementation may diverge from rhetoric. Interoperability matters less. Heritage connections matter less. Can you produce at tempo? Can you scale? On those questions, everything else is commentary. Historically, UK firms have leveraged interoperability and shared programmes to secure a premium slot in US‑linked procurement. The question Washington asks is brutally simple: capacity at scale. On time. UK manufacturers face a test that is meritocratic and merciless. Ramp up munitions. Scale air defence production. Surge ships and undersea systems to match NATO’s 5 percent trajectory. Fail, and contracts default - either to US suppliers or to European yards that can actually deliver. Partnership tier follows capability.

The scale demanded is not theoretical. Current US planning targets roughly 30,000 drones delivered by mid-2026, escalating to 300,000 annually by 2027. Against this, Russian production stands at approximately 2 million FPV drones per year, with Ukraine producing the same number of drones annually despite active conflict. The gap signals not merely quantitative difference but strategic culture: US planning assumes industrial capacity can be improvised later; Russian and Ukrainian operational reality demonstrates otherwise. For UK manufacturers, the implication is unambiguous. Contracts flow to those already producing at scale, not those promising future capacity.

Will UK firms actually rise to the test? History suggests capability is necessary but not sufficient. Industrial partners that fail to deliver at tempo find themselves sidelined. The NSS seemingly offers no second chances, no grace periods. Performance, once measured, becomes the metric by which Britain is assessed.

Beyond military spending and industrial capacity, technology control will be decisive. The NSS insists that US standards in AI, biotech and quantum must “drive the world forward” (p. 5) and foregrounds “protecting intellectual property from foreign theft” (p. 4). UK firms working in dual‑use areas will face closer scrutiny of ownership, partnerships and supply chains. Demonstrating compliance with US export controls and IP protection regimes is now non-negotiable for premium partner status.

If claims about the content of the behind-the-curtain version of the NSS are accurate, the “regional champions” approach signals UK defence firms may face competition not merely from US or European producers but from regional powers Washington cultivates as partnerships of convenience. If India, Brazil or Gulf states receive preferential technology access to stabilise their regions, British manufacturers lose comparative advantage. The premium partner framework demands capability at scale. But if partnership tier depends on ideological alignment - and the Starmer government is deemed ideologically misaligned - UK firms face differential treatment regardless of capacity.

Industrial partnerships are likely to be re‑channelled. The NSS speaks of “reviving our defense industrial base” and “encourag[ing] the revitalization of the industrial bases of all our allies and partners” (pp. 13-14). The direction of travel is clear: US‑centred production networks, with allied capacity nested inside US‑designed architectures. For UK businesses, that points towards deeper partnerships with US primes in areas like AUKUS submarines, missile defence and quantum‑enabled systems - and a narrower corridor for independent European or Global South ventures.

The deeper UK challenge

The headline debate is about spending. That’s the surface. The deeper choice is structural: accept the NSS logic, aim for premium-partner tier, or hedge - plan for scenarios where US commitment declines faster than official rhetoric suggests. Accept the NSS logic more or less on its own terms - hierarchical alliances, US‑defined technology regimes, Indo‑Pacific commitments, a long Ukraine slog funded largely from European budgets - and aim to sit in the top tier of “premium” partners. Or hedge: maintain commitment but start planning seriously for scenarios in which US engagement in Europe declines faster than expected, European cohesion frays and UK businesses are exposed to economic warfare dynamics they do not control.

Consider the timeline for industrial mobilisation. Russian military planning, initiated late summer 2022 when the scale of required commitment became evident, required roughly eighteen months to achieve significant production surge across munitions, platforms and enabling systems. That timeline reflects not bureaucratic lag but industrial reality: sourcing, retooling, workforce expansion and quality assurance at the scale contemporary warfare demands. The United States, facing no comparable near-term crisis, has not yet initiated equivalent mobilisation. This creates a temporal asymmetry: if European crisis requires surge capacity within months, the US defense-industrial base - larger and more responsive - will mobilise first. UK firms will compete for contracts against American suppliers who have already reached production tempo, not because Washington prepared earlier, but because it can scale faster. If the timeline extends to years, UK mobilisation becomes viable. But the current document treats such contingencies as distant rather than imminent, suggesting officials expect years, not months, before serious confrontation. This timeline assumption may prove dangerously optimistic.

In practical terms, three moves follow. 

Move defence spending visibly towards 3.5 percent of GDP in the near term, with a credible glidepath higher if required. Anything less risks falling below Washington’s evolving expectation threshold.

Accelerate defence industrial capacity in specific, high‑leverage areas - artillery ammunition, air defence, undersea warfare, ISR, and enabling technologies - where UK contributions could be decisive in both European and Indo‑Pacific contingencies.

Use the burden‑sharing narrative not just to follow, but to shape. If Europe is to carry more of the load, the UK has an interest in defining what a sustainable European posture towards Russia looks like - one that does not assume endless US subsidy, or ignore the economic exposure created by asset seizures and sanctions.

Conclusion

The 2025 NSS is not a blueprint for American withdrawal. It is a plan for sustaining US primacy under tighter constraints by hardening hierarchies, redistributing burdens and tightening control over technology, finance and industrial capacity.

For the UK, that creates both opportunity and risk. Britain can still occupy a privileged place near the top of the hierarchy - provided (and this caveat is critical) it spends more, produces more and aligns more closely with Washington’s strategic and ideological preferences. But the structure itself is fragile. It rests on assumptions about US staying power, European cohesion and Russian (and Chinese) responses that may not hold.

The strategy expects allies to bet that this framework can be sustained for decades. The UK needs to read the small print, not just the rhetoric—and decide how much of its own future it is willing to stake on that bet.

What This Means for Your Business

The 2025 National Security Strategy is not a policy document to be filed and forgotten. It is a strategic compass that will direct procurement priorities, partnership hierarchies and competitive advantage across the defence and national security sector. For businesses operating in this space, the strategic environment has fundamentally changed—and the clock is already running.

If you’re a defence contractor, technology provider or strategic supplier, the questions are immediate:

• Does your production capacity align with Washington’s tempo requirements, or are you still planning at status quo scale?
• Can you demonstrate compliance with tightening US export controls and technology standards—or will you be excluded from premium partnerships?
• Are you positioned to compete against US primes who can scale faster, or regional champions who may receive preferential access under the “burden-sharing” framework?
   

If you’re a corporate strategist or risk officer, the implications extend beyond defence procurement:

• How exposed is your supply chain to Russian retaliation as Europe escalates sanctions and asset seizures?
• What does a UK government caught between European solidarity and US demands mean for regulatory stability in your sector?
• How do you plan for scenarios where US engagement in Europe declines faster than official rhetoric suggests—and European cohesion frays in response?
• How can you build an intelligence-led organisation that anticipates geopolitical inflection points before they become crises?

The National Security Strategy does not operate in isolation. It sets the rules by which partnership tiers are assigned, contracts are awarded and geopolitical risk is distributed. Businesses that treat it as background noise will find themselves outmanoeuvred by competitors who saw it as a strategic roadmap.

We specialise in translating strategic doctrine into actionable business intelligence. With deep expertise across defence industrial policy, global security dynamics and the intersection of geopolitics and commercial risk, we help clients understand not just what Washington and other power players are saying—but what it means for your market position, your competitive strategy and your exposure to structural shifts you may not yet see coming.

Rather than reacting to strategic surprises, leading companies establish dedicated capabilities to monitor shifting geopolitical developments and stress-test their assumptions against alternative scenarios. This requires embedding strategic foresight into operational planning—translating policy documents into early-warning signals, translating uncertainty into optionality. We work with organisations to develop this institutional capacity: the ability to read geopolitical signals accurately, model downstream implications for your specific market position, and maintain strategic flexibility to pivot operations, supply chains and partnerships as the operating environment changes. In a framework where commercial opportunity and competitive advantage are being redrawn in real time, the organisations that win are those that can anticipate and adapt faster than their competitors.

Heligan Strategic Insights helps clients to navigate the complex worlds of Defence, Risk and Security. We have a team, drawn from all the global services, who bring their experience and networks together in order to help individual clients and organisations investigate, analyse and act with confidence.

To explore how we might support you please contact us at: [email protected]