Reading Time: 6 minutesEarlier this month, I represented the Department of War and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at the 17th Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas (CDMA) in Cusco, Peru. There, I sought to lay out for the Western Hemisphere, on behalf of the Department, what we regard as a historic opportunity for the United States and its regional neighbors to work together, based on a realistic, pragmatic approach grounded in our shared enlightened self-interest.
Much has changed in the Western Hemisphere since the first CDMA meeting in 1995, at the height of the so-called “unipolar moment.” In that period, American and Western strategy were shaped by highly aspirational abstractions. A realistic outlook based on geography and national interests took a back seat to liberal internationalism and the “rules-based international order.”
Three decades later, whether one likes it or not, that era is far gone.
President Donald Trump and the Department of War are not only acknowledging those realities but actively reshaping American and our allies’ strategy to address them, guided by a flexible realism articulated in the 2025 National Security Strategy and 2026 National Defense Strategy.
