In his speech in Riyadh in May, President Trump set out his rationale to his transactional mode of policy formulation – making peace through commerce, rather than war. The language in the 4 December US National Security Strategy (NSS) takes this several steps further: It is couched in the terms of “regions of influence,” rather than hegemony, and of managing stakeholder financial interests. It abandons the phraseology of a rules-based order and eschews appeals to democracy and Western values....





















