Peter Hasson of the Daily Caller explains how President Trump’s new national security strategy contrasts with his predecessor’s plans.
Trump’s new national security strategy places an emphasis on stopping Islamist terrorism and calls it out by name. Obama’s 2015 national security strategy referred to Islam just twice: once because it’s part of ISIS’ name and once to say the administration rejected “the lie that America and its allies are at war with Islam.”
The new national security strategy explicitly links Islamist ideology to jihadist terrorism. …
… Obama’s 2015 national security strategy prioritized climate change as a national security threat. Obama’s strategy devoted more space to the threat posed by climate change than to the threat posed by North Korea. “Climate change is an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources like food and water,” Obama’s national security strategy said.
Trump’s national security strategy reverses that approach and does not identify climate change as a national security threat. In fact, it goes one step further.
“U.S. leadership is indispensable to countering an antigrowth energy agenda that is detrimental to U.S. economic and energy security interests,” the new strategy states. “Given future global energy demand, much of the developing world will require fossil fuels, as well as other forms of energy, to power their economies and lift their people out of poverty.” …
… In perhaps the sharpest contrast to Obama’s national security strategy, Trump’s new strategy takes a hardline stance on Iran, which it describes as “the world’s most significant state sponsor of terrorism.” Obama’s strategy emphasized the need to protect the Iran nuclear deal — a pillar of his legacy as president.
