In 2026 American foreign policy has come to an indelible turning point, and not just because of Donald Trump and his administration. To be sure, Trump’s pronouncements, disruptive and often reckless, have “ruptured,” in Canadian PM Carney’s words, long standing norms. But new developments in technology, economics, communications, and world politics already rendered many of them obsolete. A whole new set of international actors, interests, and geopolitical dynamics is emerging, and U.S. policy would have needed a deeply seated reset with or without Trump. The passing of the prior international order is disconcerting – and it is unclear if that order is dying or just adjusting – change need not make America defensive or fearful. Change in international relations may offer opportunities as well as threats.
A new concept, of “choke points” in economic warfare, is gaining prominence. The term refers to critical advantages which a nation can exploit to gain new capabilities, and/or withhold from rivals to impede others’. Technology is a primary driver of this new shaping of international competition and conflict. WSJ columnist Greg Ip cites China’s reserves of rare earth chemicals, essential to semiconductors and other electronic components, and Russia’s reserves of natural gas.
The international arena has always featured nodal points that channel the actors’ choices and actions. In old geopolitics, mountain passes or narrow waterways constrained the movements of fleets and armies. The modern world has raised the profile of economic warfare, both for the sake of nations’ material well-being, and for their ability to develop new weaponry. The ways and means of economics differ from those of kinetic combat, so the workings of economic choke points differ as well. Dominance of an economic choke point may be relative, and the interdependence of modern economies means any “user” needs to ascertain that their control is sufficiently favorable to their interests. Price elasticity, substitution effects, financial confidence, supply chain vulnerabilities, and other factors must be assessed, in addition to military capacities. At the same time, the proliferation of new strategic factors offers new channels of power for players that were less powerful under previous systems.
The choke point discourse, and the reach of new technologies into people’s lives as well as into weaponry, inevitably bring new dimensions into any discussion of national interests and security. The Trump Administration’s plans for governance of AI exports explicitly addresses the question of U.S. national interests. But the implementing order does not define the term, using diverse references in the same document. This unclarity reflects a general failing of U.S. strategy since the Cold War. Where the Containment doctrine provided a cogent, durable, overarching sense of national purpose, U.S. “strategies” have been reactive, partly to events such as 9/11, but very much as a function of partisan mindsets’ divisive rhetoric over national priorities.
To make sense of complex new technologies, and to any incipient new stakes of national interest, any international actor needs clarity in their fundamental purposes. Physical security and material well being are naturally vital to any nation, but America’s fundamental national interest carries another, unusual, aspect. We were conceived in a creed; this People declaring independence in 1776 named itself not by blood or soil or church or tongue, but as “we” who hold certain truths, of universal and unalienable personal rights, and of government by consent of the governed, tasked to secure those rights. Our securing of any tangible needs must also serve the principle of rights. Sovereign interest, which for most nations has evolved from the wishes of hereditary rulers, is vested here in that “we” who hold the Declaration’s creed. America’s national interest starts from a different base than most nations’, and it is no coincidence that America’s most contentious rivals are authoritarian states.
Here, the fact that the world, as it devises new forms of international competition, also adds new dimensions to the idea of national interest, puts America at an advantage. Choke points and technologies, rare earths and social media, may serve our adversaries in the short run. But, as one example, does Artificial Intelligence serve a Communist regime? As one columnist notes China’s problem, “You can’t build a mind that thinks rigorously about everything except the things you’d prefer it not to.” Put another way, economic “choke points” offer certain new advantages to some. But America’s unusual founding on freedom confers a very deep advantage, which is also our existential premise. as celebrated by Olympian Michael Phelps, we exist for people’s freedom, to think and imagine and make ourselves by our own choices (see min. 4:30 of link). As we carry that ethos in the world, we offer freedom to people, and pose a latent danger to regimes that put the rulers above the ruled.
This advantage has long served America’s interests. George Kennan, in formulating the Containment of the USSR, asserted that America would survive and lead, if only we “measure up to our own best traditions” – which we may well take to be those of the Declaration. We do need to take care, to preserve this creedal identity as font of our deepest ends, not to weaponize, or otherwise reduce it to a means. Our ethos of freedom must be an ends in itself, lest we become just one more self-serving actor in a Hobbesian world. But, if we recognize the bedrock base of our national identity, if we treat the issues of international contest as well as domestic practice as means, to be reconciled in comity of purpose, then we fulfill our existential premise.
Common Conviction 