National Security

Lessons From The Hoover Policy Boot Camp

Contributing Scholar: Kiron K. Skinner

The Trump Doctrine: America’s Role in the World

The Trump Doctrine challenges long-standing assumptions about America’s role in the world, offering a new framework for US foreign policy centered on sovereignty, reciprocity, alliance burden-sharing, and strategic competition with China.

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The Trump Doctrine: Sovereignty, NATO, and China

Comment

Published August 3, 2026

The end of the Cold War left the United States without a clear strategic doctrine for a changing international system. Skinner argues that the Trump Doctrine is the first serious effort since the Cold War to establish a new strategic framework for US foreign policy. It places sovereignty, reciprocity, alliance burden-sharing, and competition with China at the center of American statecraft, while rejecting open-ended nation-building and inherited assumptions that no longer reflect global realities.

Check out more on the topic:

Read "Managing National Security in a Time of Geopolitical Transition" here.
Read "The Iran War at the Crossroads" here.
Read "Lessons from the Recent Conflicts for Future War with China" here.

Learn more about Kiron K. Skinner here.

Recorded on August 14, 2025.

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The opinions expressed in this video are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University.