December 12, 2025 — In this week's episode of Around the World, hosts Dhruva Jaishankar and Rachel Rizzo break down the newly released U.S. National Security Strategy, highlighting its differences from past strategies in terms of structure and priorities. They also touch on renewed tensions between Thailand and Cambodia, exploring the historical roots of the border dispute, domestic political drivers in both countries, and ASEAN’s role.
Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Sneak Peak
Dhruva Jaishankar: The idea is that a new administration every four years releases a US national security strategy. It's ultimately meant to reflect the president's worldview. the second Trump administration's national degree strategy, is very different. There was reportedly a longer version. And President Trump insisted on cutting it down to 20 pages. And so what we have is slight, know, bits were left on the cutting room floor.
Rachel Rizzo: The difference between the 2017 Trump NSS and this one is, pretty extreme. Talking about Europe's civilizational erasure, free speech, the erasure of quote, traditional families, and what that means for US national identity and culture. this Vance-ist, New Right, MAGA view of the role culture plays in society is now directly reflected in the national security
Dhruva Jaishankar: In Cambodia, you have a former Prime Minister Hun Sen, who's now quite old. He's the ultimate political survivor. And meanwhile, in Thailand, the army has kind of consolidated power. the reason I mention this is at this point in time, appears like this conflict kind of helps both of them in their own domestic constituencies.
Welcome to Around the World
Dhruva Jaishankar: Hi, I'm Dhruva Jaishankar.
Rachel Rizzo: And I'm Rachel Rizzo. Welcome to the Around the World podcast. Your essential guide to understanding the forces shaping our world today. Every week, we cut through the noise to bring you clear, insightful analysis of the most important developments in geopolitics.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Whether it's security challenges across Europe, power dynamics in Asia, domestic updates from the United States, or regional updates in Latin America or the Middle East, we make sure you're up to speed on what's happening and more importantly, why it matters.
Rachel Rizzo: Thanks for tuning in. And be sure to like and subscribe to the Around the World podcast on both Youtube and Spotify. We are now also on Apple Podcasts. And now onto the show.
Rachel Rizzo: Hey, Dhruva.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Hi, happy Friday. Where are you talking from today?
Rachel Rizzo: Happy Friday to you. So spent the week in Berlin actually, which is kind of crazy because I just moved to New Delhi like 10 days ago. So a quick turnaround was speaking at a conference over there and headed back and apartment hunting. How about you?
Dhruva Jaishankar: In Washington DC, actually today I'm in few hours testifying before Congress for the first time. So House Foreign Affairs Committee on US-India relations. So that's been the big update from my end.
Rachel Rizzo: Awesome, we'll have to hear how it goes.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Maybe even talk about it next week if this time.
Trump 2.0 NSS
Rachel Rizzo: Yeah for sure, for sure. So this week, I think we're gonna look at the much discussed, just released national security strategy from the Trump administration. And then I think you wanted to kind of talk about what's going on with Thailand and Cambodia. So I think we can go ahead and start with the national security strategy, the NSS. This was released last Friday. Seems like everyone is talking about it. Everyone is writing hot takes including me I also wrote a hot take but what is it that you what did you look at here? What did you take away from it? What do you think everyone needs to know?
Dhruva Jaishankar: Well, I have a few questions for you, but just for context, the US national security strategy is a little bit like the foreign policy nerd Super Bowl or the FIFA World Cup. I mean, it's every four years, so actually more like the World Cup. But just for people who don't know, it's something that's released by the White House. The idea is that a new administration every four years releases a US national security strategy. It's a document that is kind of a framing mechanism for how to think about national security in the United States over the next four years. That's meant to inform the US national defense strategy put out by the Pentagon and the nuclear posture review, which you know, so there are other documents that are meant to flow from the US national security strategy. Recently, there's also been an Indo-Pacific strategy that has been somewhat distinct from the Biden administration that predated the national security strategy, the cyber strategy.
Rachel Rizzo: One is cyberstrategy I think too.
Dhruva Jaishankar: And the cyberstrategy right so it is kind of the starting point for outlining publicly and for internal policy. So the National Defense Strategy, for example, informs military procurement decisions and things like that. So it is meant to be important. The last two that I recall, the first Trump administration in 2017, by December of that year, put out a really sort of very good national security strategy. It was very well organized. The main drafters of it were H.R. McMaster, the National Security Advisor, Nadia Schadlow, briefly the Deputy National Security Advisor. There were a few people like that. And then the Biden administration slightly belatedly put out one of its own, Tom Wright, who I think you and I both know was one of the people who helped draft it. He was at the National Security Council. And one of the interesting things, I mean Tom mentioned this in some of the briefings he did four years ago, is like the way there, it's an interagency process. It's meant to collect inputs from different US agencies, State Department, Pentagon, Treasury, others. But it's ultimately meant to reflect the president's worldview. And so there were things, for example, that the President Biden put in, insisted on being in, that some of his staff were somewhat uncomfortable with, for example. This document, we've just had the second Trump administration's national degree strategy, is very different. It is, and we're going to get into this a bit, but it seems a bit more haphazard. It looks like it is written by committee, and in fact, it was. I think Kevin Harrington at the National Security Council, Michael Anton who was at the State Department, Elbridge Colby at the Pentagon, or some of the people, for example, who provided inputs into this. There was reportedly a longer version. Defense One has an article today which has excerpts from the longer version. And President Trump insisted on cutting it down to 20 pages. And so what we have is slight, know, bits were left on the cutting room floor. We have a sort of more condensed. And again, it reads in a slightly haphazard way. But in a strange way, it is somewhat a reflection of Trump's worldview and ideology. So let's go into that. What is your key takeaway from this?
Rachel Rizzo: Yeah, I mean, just kind of building on what you were saying, the difference between the 2017 Trump NSS and this one is, I think, in my opinion, pretty extreme. Like, just the length is different, 29 pages versus 55 pages. But the first NSS was very much an NSS of administration's past. It just sort of laid out all of the priorities of the current administration every from functions to regions. It's just sort of like an alphabet soup or a policy soup of issues. This one seemed very, it seemed more focused on what this administration's particular interests are. There was a focus on highlighting the missteps of Washington elites since the end of the Cold War and a desire to really narrow in on US core interests or vital interests, as this administration calls them. And so for me, I noticed a few things. The first was a discussion about a turn towards a more restrained foreign policy. Now, you can talk about the writing of that, the optics of that versus policy decisions that have been made so far, like you know bombing Iran or drug boats in the Caribbean, that doesn't seem like a more restrained foreign policy, but it does highlight the fact that for the last 30 years, the US has sort of played world police and tried to spread democracy around the world and that hasn't worked. And so a shift away from that is something that I noticed. And then just before we get into like regional issues, the other thing that was really noticeable to me was a sense that cultural issues are related to national security.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rachel Rizzo: Not just in the US, but in Europe as well. Talking about Europe's civilizational erasure, talking about things like free speech, talking about the erasure of quote, traditional families, and what that means for US national identity and culture. So this more like, Vancist, New Right, MAGA view of the role culture plays in society is now directly reflected in the national security strategy. That was interesting.
Dhruva Jaishankar: And the report that apparently based on the longer version of it said that they had an inclusion of mega and make Europe great again in it, which yeah.
Rachel Rizzo: Yeah, that's it. Europeans will love that. I'm sure. Yeah.
Dhruva Jaishankar: So yeah, this again, focus on traditionalism, it's the sort of America's spiritual and cultural health. mean, those areas you pointed out, these are been some of the themes that sort of are surprising to see in a national security strategy. you see that political speeches and things of that. But it is interesting how how.
Rachel Rizzo: They weren't in the 2017 ones.
Dhruva Jaishankar: No, not at all. No, no, no.
Rachel Rizzo: This is a new thing that this is the first time anything like this has been in a national security strategy.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Right so a few regions, just like a brief sort of around the world. mean, three regions sort of stand out a little bit. One is an emphasis on the Western hemisphere. That is like there is reference to a new Monroe doctrine, like not just new, implementing a Monroe doctrine. And more military engagement, so more muscular policy. So I think that that was one standout thing. And then again, maybe just elaborate a little bit on the Europe piece.
Rachel Rizzo: Yeah so I think that for me, there was a couple things that I noticed on the Europe front. The first is that in national security strategies of the past, or I guess in Trump one, there was a focus on NATO specifically and what that means for defense spending and trying to get Europeans to spend more on defense and then taking credit for that increased defense. He talks about that a little bit in the Europe section of this specific strategy, but the focus is now on the threat that the European Union poses to Europe because of its bureaucratic overreach. It talks again about mass immigration, censorship of free speech as a threat to Europe's traditional values. And it doesn't mention Russia as a threat in the sense that past national security strategies have. And so I think what that signals to Europe is that when it comes to Russia, you're really on your own. You know, if you want to deter a potential conflict and in turn defend against a potential Russian incursion or invasion, either conventional or hybrid, Europe really needs to step up to the plate and figure out how it is going to do that on its own. I thought that was something that was a very clear line in the sand that this NSS drew that passed NSS's have.
Dhruva Jaishankar: And that actually to me is less surprising because that's in some ways what the administration has been saying quite publicly to European counterparts and stuff. And you know, it's interesting, again, not that different from their two speeches that JD Vance gave in Europe over the past year, one in Munich at the Munich Security Conference, which again surprised a of people in Europe because it focused on a lot of cultural hot topic issues. mean, Munich is supposed to be a security conference, but it was really about domestic politics and kind of telling the Europeans that they'd lost their way culturally and sort of spiritually. And then the second speech he gave, I think on the same trip, was in Paris at the AI summit. And that was basically a broadside against European regulation and what the administration believes to be over regulation that's killing innovation and competition. So in some ways, again, those themes are very much reflected in this national security strategy.
Rachel Rizzo: Yeah, I think thats right I mean, if Europeans are wondering still at this point how the administration views the EU, that is a Europe problem now. Because not only have they explicitly stated it now in the national security strategy, but they've also been saying this for months and years at this point, really. And so I think it's really going to be interesting to see how the European Union deals with things like over regulation when it comes to things like AI, for example, social media companies, tech in general, and what that means for European competitiveness. And there's a lot on the table. Was there..I mean, what was interesting to me too is the Indo-Pacific, even though you had the Western hemisphere sort of emerge as the number one priority in terms of regional issues, it was number one on the list this time.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Yeah.
Rachel Rizzo: Last time in Trump one, it was number five of six.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Mm-hmm.
Rachel Rizzo: They even talked about a potential like reorientation of US military force presence towards the Western hemisphere. That's not something that I would have ever seen happening previously, but the Indo-Pacific is still on there clearly as a top priority.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Mm-hmm yeah, but again, there's some contradictions within that section. Like, I even the naming, the heading is Asia, and then it talks about the Indo-Pacific. And there's been a bit of a back and forth between, you know, again, Elbridge Colby at the Pentagon has been trying to emphasize like Asia, doesn't, he believes the Indo-Pacific terminology kind of commits the United States to too much. And so part of again, but then again, in the the in the body of the text, they use the Indo-Pacific quite a lot. And again, some things it doesn't portray China in the same sort of competitive way that the last two national security strategies did. So again, reflecting a little bit of Trump's own sort of realm of influence, sort of worldview. There's a little bit on burden sharing. think that's been Japan, Japan, Korea, even India has mentioned in that context. That's not very surprising. So it's there, but again, there's some internal contradictions and some parts of it have been somewhat de-emphasized as well.
Rachel Rizzo: You mentioned in the, okay, well, the one thing I want to say, talking about burden sharing, usually when you talk about burden sharing, burden shifting is not what they call it. It's usually in the framework of Europe, but it seems like that's how they're framing the partnerships and allies in the Indo-Pacific now as well.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Yeah, and that's mostly geared at allies, US allies in the Indo-Pacific. So again, where many people in the Trump administration, there isn't a uniform view on this necessarily, but where they're coming from is similar to NATO. It is why is the United States spending so much to secure Japan or Korea or Taiwan or Australia or the Philippines, right? Why are those countries, if they deem there to be a threat, why are they not stepping up? And so we've seen again preemptively somewhat Korea has pretty high defense spending. They have a national mandatory military service, things like that. So Korea has kind of dodged the fire in some ways a little bit. Japan has been the focus of it. The Japanese government has been saying repeatedly that we are stepping up and we are spending more. But that became an issue when Pete Hegseth had went out there. The Philippines has surprisingly again been spared a lot of, we've seen relative continuity in the US approach to the Philippines. Australia a little bit. It's like, you know, step up. So it's mostly geared at the allies. It was a little bit on India, but it was was it was not as strident. And I think there is generally a knowledge that's of India is a bit of an exception because it isn't a US ally. It's not it's not the US has no obligation to support it. It's not providing any military assistance, military aid. So, you know, that countries like that should be stepping up and doing more. So that I don't think would be unwelcome necessarily in India. There were two other references I think where might be bit more mystifying. One is again Trump retweeting his claim of solving a number of wars, including in conflict between India and Pakistan, which India is not going to welcome, sort of brushed that aside I think. And the second one is it said it would like to work with partners and I mentioned I think Europe in this context as well, but also India surprisingly in Latin America and Africa and in cooperation on critical minerals. So that I think is sort of interesting as well. And they have, by the way, been discussions between India and the United States on Guyana and Venezuela. There's a big Indian community in Guyana, as we've mentioned, I think, on previous episode, joint critical mineral.
Rachel Rizzo: Mm-hmm.
Dhruva Jaishankar: They've explored joint critical mineral investments in South America and Africa as well. So for some people looking at this, they're like, why are they asking India to cooperate with us? That's a bit of the background and context to it.
Rachel Rizzo: And then, the last thing, mean, just kind of build on the India point a little bit. How are folks reading this in Indian circles? mean, is it, would they like to see more of a focus on where this relationship is going to go or how it's, how the administration looks at this relationship or?
Dhruva Jaishankar: Yeah, again in many some respects not too surprising in some ways India doesn't have as much vulnerability to Shifts in US military posture as many US allies. I think see Rajamohan who's an Indian analyst has a has a Article in foreign policy today that kind of lays it out a little bit, but I haven't seen that much detailed commentary. It seems like this is something that really preoccupies the US national security community primarily. It's very much an insider thing.
Rachel Rizzo: Yeah.
Dhruva Jaishankar: And then of course, again, the US allies, I the Kremlin seemed to welcome some bits of it, obviously playing that up. But beyond that, I mean, I'm more curious how people in Latin America view it, then it doesn't make that much of a difference to a country like India.
Rachel Rizzo: Okay, yeah, well, you know, it's just, it's the first week. It's gonna be interesting to see how debates sort of develop over this and where it goes from here. So I'm sure this is not the last discussion on the national security strategy that we'll have. We're gonna be waiting for the national defense strategy. As you mentioned, the global force posture review, lots of documents that are gonna come out of this administration in the coming months, hopefully. So with that, like let's shift a little bit towards East Asia, actually. You have been following kind of closely this dust up between Thailand and Cambodia. Tell us what you've been watching and what's going on.
Border Dispute in Southeast Asia
Dhruva Jaishankar: Yeah, I mean, mostly from afar, I used to do a lot more engagement with Southeast Asia in the past and haven't for a little while, but it's just interesting to see this flare up again. The latest strikes, air strikes by the Thai Air Force, and this is the first time I believe the Thai Air Force has been called into action since the 1980s, was over the killing of a Thai soldier.
Rachel Rizzo: Oh wow.
Dhruva Jaishankar: It has led to the latest flare up has led to a pretty sizable displacement of people along the Thailand Cambodia border. And it's kind of the third, at least the third time there's been a renewal of fighting between the two countries this year.
Rachel Rizzo: Okay. Based on what exactly?
Dhruva Jaishankar: So a bit of a background to this, like a lot of post-colonial conflicts, there is a sort of legacy of a slightly vagaries in the demarcation of the boundary. This is an old Siam French treaty that goes back to the 19th century. There have been boundary commissions in between the two countries in the past, like in 60s or 70s, again in the early 2000s. Then there was a of a minor conflict about 15 years ago. It's something that's been on the back burner for a while. Recently, a couple of things have happened. One is in Cambodia, you have a former Prime Minister Hun Sen, who's now quite old. He's the ultimate political survivor. He's been around. He's been prime minister three times, I think. He's been around since the 80s as a political figure, sort of shape shifted in different guises. So he formally has sort of started to hand over his reins to his son, the current prime minister, Hun Maet. But in some ways, part of this reflects him looming large over Cambodian politics. And meanwhile, in Thailand, you had a coup several years ago, much more military intervention in some democratic politics there. And the army has kind of consolidated power. The reason I mention this is at this point in time, appears like this conflict kind of helps both of them in their own domestic constituencies. There is a sort of rally around the flag element to this. And strangely, this conflict this year has already led to a change in government in Thailand. So there was a prime minister, a 39 year old, Paetongtarn Shinawatra. She's the daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra, who was a kind of populist prime minister in Thailand a few years ago. Her aunt also was briefly prime minister as well. And she there was this phone call between her and Hun Sen, the Cambodian leader that got leaked. And that led to her coalition partner in Thailand switching sides. He's now the prime minister. And so it led to a sort of defection and a change in government in Thailand. So it's already created that political casualty. So yeah, that's where things stand right now.
Rachel Rizzo: And so like regionally, does this kind of play out in multilateral institutions? Are you watching that at all?
Dhruva Jaishankar: Well, you know, so ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is a 10 and now 11 country grouping, more or less joined, has long been criticized with some justification for not really solving major issues. And I think two big sort of failings in some ways have been one, the lack of a code of conduct on the South China Sea, which there's been four of the ASEAN countries have active territorial disputes with China. And fifth one Indonesia somewhat has, it's not quite territorial dispute, but is involved in that too. And they haven't really come up with a consensus on that. Then partly because Cambodia, which is the closest ASEAN country to China and to some degree Laos have kind of broken ranks and prevented that consensus from being formed. And then on Myanmar, there's been a civil war there now for some time and ASEAN was leading the negotiations on behalf of the international community and really has sort of fallen short on that front too. But for all that criticism, one area where they did seem to come together, and this was under the Malaysian presidency of ASEAN this year, was they seemed to actually help in resolving this Thailand-Cambodia conflict. President Trump made his participation in the East Asia Summit this year in Kuala Lumpur contingent upon him presiding over a sort of peace agreement between Thailand and Cambodia. said, want to, and the Malaysians actually gave him credit for it. They're like, great. And they actually used it to negotiate better tariff rates with the White House.
Rachel Rizzo: Hmm. Good move.
Dhruva Jaishankar: Yeah, yeah, So anyway, so this is kind of where things stand. I think, again, the outbreak, again, of fighting, and again, it does seem to be tied a little bit to domestic politics in those two countries, again, brings up questions about the efficacy and effectiveness of ASEAN as a peace-building institution in the region. Because that was one thing they always prided themselves on. We've actually helped after the Vietnam War and all the turbulence, we've actually helped to bring peace and stability to this region. And the other thing is, again, sort of undermines Trump's own, know, he's somebody who tried to take credit for this, but if we've had a renewal of conflict here, doesn't somewhat undermines his own attempts at being the peacemaker.
Rachel Rizzo: Yeah, absolutely. Well, a lot to watch there, as always. A lot to hear from you next week on your testimony in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. So we'll be excited to hear about that and hear how that goes. I think for this week, we're keeping an eye on how the discussion about the national security strategy develops. And of course, again, as always, all of the latest happenings in geopolitics. So again, be sure to tune in every Friday for the latest episodes of Around the World. We're now also on Apple Podcasts, but also on YouTube and on Spotify.
Dhruva Jaishankar: And be sure to like and subscribe, whether it's on YouTube or any other platform. Also, if you have questions or comments and would like us to bring up topics in the future, please feel free to leave them in the comments on YouTube and elsewhere. We'll try and keep an eye out for that too. Thank you.
Rachel Rizzo: Perfect. Thanks everyone.