1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

I am writing to express deep concern about the recently released 2025 National Security Strategy and the worldview it advances. I have read portions of this document, and what alarms me is not a single policy position, but the overarching framework it promotes. The strategy is steeped in self-aggrandizing rhetoric that presents the United States as uniquely righteous, uniquely entitled, and uniquely unconstrained by the rules and norms it expects others to follow. This is not a foundation for global stability; it is a justification for unilateral power. The post–World War II international order that the United States helped create has never been perfect. It has failed in many places and at many times. But it has served a vital function: preventing great-power conflict on a catastrophic scale by establishing norms around sovereignty, proportionality, accountability, and collective restraint. The 2025 National Security Strategy signals a clear departure from those principles. By treating international law as subordinate to U.S. interests, reviving spheres-of-influence thinking, and normalizing unilateral and preemptive action, this strategy undermines the very system that has limited escalation for decades. History shows that when powerful nations decide the rules apply only to others, instability and retaliation follow. The recent U.S. military action in Venezuela, including the seizure of a foreign head of state, is an early and concrete example of how this framework operates in practice. That action has not improved conditions for Venezuelan civilians and is highly unlikely to do so in the future. Removing one individual without dismantling the corrupt system behind him—and without avoiding the imposition of another corrupt system in its place—does not produce stability or freedom. Replacing one authoritarian regime with another, whether foreign-backed or domestic, does not improve the lives of ordinary people. If the current trajectory continues, there is little reason to believe that conditions for Venezuelan civilians will be better a year from now than they are today. The strategy’s internal contradictions are also deeply concerning. It repeatedly emphasizes the importance of U.S. soft power as a tool of influence and stability, yet the administration has simultaneously dismantled core soft-power institutions, including severe reductions to USAID. Soft power cannot be wielded effectively after it has been hollowed out. This disconnect between rhetoric and reality further undermines U.S. credibility and global leadership. The consequences of this strategic shift will not be theoretical. They will be lived by civilians abroad and by Americans at home—not just in the immediate future, but for decades to come. A world in which international law is treated as optional and power alone determines legitimacy is not merely unstable; it is historically catastrophic. Ideologically, American leadership has rested on the principle that power must be constrained by law, legitimacy, and collective accountability—even when the United States has failed to live up to that ideal. A national security strategy that abandons the ideal itself does not make Americans safer. It makes the world more dangerous. I urge Congress to scrutinize the 2025 National Security Strategy closely, reassert its constitutional authority over the use of force, and push back against a doctrine that replaces collective security with unilateral power.