Bangladesh, Feb. 8 -- Theres something almost quaintly anachronistic about trying to pin down Donald Trumps foreign policy in formal strategy documents. Its like attempting to capture lightning in a bureaucratic bottle—the very exercise contradicts the subject. Yet here we are, with two substantial texts laying bare the administrations worldview: the National Security Strategy from December and the National Defence Strategy from January. What they reveal isnt merely a shift in American policy toward the Middle East. Its a wholesale rejection of seventy years of post-war orthodoxy, dressed up in the language of “peace through strength” but revealing something far more primal underneath.

The documents matter precisely bec...