The Nation Podcasts Trump’s Global Culture War w/ Stephen Wertheim | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
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Dec 14, 2025 Stephen Wertheim, a U.S. foreign policy historian and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, delves into the Trump administration's new National Security Strategy. He discusses its shift from the pursuit of global dominance to embracing a culture war, particularly in Europe. Wertheim highlights concerns about U.S. reliability among European allies, critiques the Biden administration's diplomatic approach, and outlines America's strategy for economic competition in Asia and a renewed focus on the Western Hemisphere.
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Rhetorical Break With Post‑Cold War Consensus
- The 2025 National Security Strategy pivots from great-power cold war framing to a global culture war narrative.
- It explicitly repudiates post–Cold War aims of "permanent domination" and rejects propping up the whole world like Atlas.
Europe Recast As Cultural Project
- Europe is framed as a civilizational kin to the U.S. and a target for cultural intervention rather than a site of countering Russia.
- The strategy signals U.S. willingness to meddle in European politics to "restore" a preferred civilization.
Europe Feels Unreliable Ally, Still Dependent
- European governments now see the U.S. as less reliable but remain dependent on American security for years to come.
- That dependence produces late and limited moves toward European defense autonomy despite growing rhetoric about self‑reliance.