The National Security Strategies of 2017 and 2025, separated by less than a decade and just a single intervening Biden administration, reads as if they emerged from entirely different administrations. The 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS), crafted under President Donald Trump’s first administration, frames U.S. statecraft as being guided by the doctrine of “principled realism”, a worldview that is “grounded” in the conviction that “American principles are a lasting force for good in the world”.