Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe.

“It must be a policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure,” said former U.S. President Harry Truman during a speech to Congress in 1947. The Truman Doctrine, as this approach became known, saw the defense of democracy abroad as of vital interest to the U.S. — but that’s not a view shared by President Donald Trump and his acolytes.

If anyone had any doubts about this — or harbored any lingering hopes that Vice President JD Vance was speaking out of turn when he launched a blistering attack on Europe at the Munich Security Conference earlier this this year — then Washington’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) should settle the matter.

All U.S. presidents release such a strategy early in their terms to outline their foreign policy thinking and priorities, which in turn shapes how the Pentagon’s budget is allocated. And with all 33 pages of this NSS, the world’s despots have much to celebrate, while democrats have plenty to be anxious about — especially in Europe.

Fleshing out what the Trump administration means by “America First,” the new security strategy represents an emphatic break with Truman and the post-1945 order shaped by successive U.S. presidents. It is all about gaining a mercantilist advantage, and its guiding principle is might is right.

Moving forward, Trump’s foreign policy won’t be “grounded in traditional, political ideology” but guided by “what works for America.” And apparently what works for America is to go easy on autocrats, whether theocratic or secular, and to turn on traditional allies in a startling familial betrayal.

Of course, the hostility this NSS displays toward Europe shouldn’t come as a surprise — Trump’s top aides have barely disguised their contempt for the EU, while the president has said he believes the bloc was formed to “screw” the U.S. But that doesn’t dull the sting.

Over the weekend, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas sought to present a brave face despite the excoriating language the NSS reserves for European allies, telling international leaders at the Doha Forum: “We haven’t always seen eye-to-eye on different topics. But the overall principle is still there: We are the biggest allies, and we should stick together.”

But other seasoned European hands recognize that this NSS marks a significant departure from what has come before. “The only part of the world where the new security strategy sees any threat to democracy seems to be Europe. Bizarre,” said former Swedish Prime Minister and European Council on Foreign Relations co-chair Carl Bildt.

He’s right. As Bildt noted, the NSS includes no mention, let alone criticism, of the authoritarian behavior of the “axis of autocracy” — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. It also rejects interventionist approaches to autocracies or cajoling them to adopt “democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.”

For example, the 2017 NSS framed China as a systemic global challenger in very hostile terms. “A geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific region,” that document noted. But the latest version contains no such language amid clear signs that Trump wants to deescalate tensions; the new paramount objective is to secure a “mutually advantageous economic relationship.”

All should be well as long as China stays away from the Western Hemisphere, which is the preserve of the U.S. — although it must also ditch any idea of invading Taiwan. “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority” the NSS reads.

Likewise, much to Moscow’s evident satisfaction, the document doesn’t even cast Russia as an adversary — in stark contrast with the 2017 strategy, which described it as a chief geopolitical rival. No wonder Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov welcomed the NSS as a “positive step” and “largely consistent” with Russia’s vision. “Overall, these messages certainly contrast with the approaches of previous administrations,” he purred.

While Beijing and Moscow appear delighted with the NSS, the document reserves its harshest language and sharpest barbs for America’s traditional allies in Europe.

“The core problem of the European continent, according to the NSS, is a neglect of ‘Western’ values (understood as nationalist conservative values) and a ‘loss of national identities’ due to immigration and ‘cratering birthrates,’” noted Liana Fix of the Council on Foreign Relations. “The alleged result is economic stagnation, military weakness and civilizational erasure.”

The new strategy also lambasts America’s European allies for their alleged “anti-democratic” practices,accusing them of censorship and suppressing political opposition in a dilation of Vance’s Munich criticism. Ominously, the NSS talks about cultivating resistance within European nations by endorsing “patriotic” parties — a threat that caused much consternation when Vance made it, but is now laid out as the administration’s official policy.

Regime change for Europe but not for autocracies is cause for great alarm. So how will Europe react?

Flatter Trump as “daddy,” like NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte did in June? Pretend the U.S. administration isn’t serious, and muddle through while overlooking slights? Take the punishment and button up as it did over higher tariffs? Or toughen up, and get serious about strategic autonomy?

Europe has once again been put on the spot to make some fundamental choices — and quickly. But doing anything quickly isn’t Europe’s strong point. Admittedly, that’s no easy task for a bloc that makes decisions by consensus in a process designed to be agonizingly slow. Nor will it be an easy road at the national level, with all 27 countries facing critical economic challenges and profound political divisions that Washington has been seeking to roil. With the assistance of Trump’s ideological bedfellows like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, the impasse will only intensify in the coming months.

Trump 2.0 is clearly a disorienting step change from the president’s first term — far more triumphalist, confident, uncompromisingly mercantilist; and determined to ignore guardrails; and more revolutionary in how it implements its “America First” agenda. The NSS just makes this clearer, and the howls of disapproval from critics will merely embolden an administration that sees protest as evidence it’s on the right track.

Europe’s leaders have had plenty of warnings, but apart from eye-rolling, hand-wringing and wishful thinking they failed to agree on a plan. However, trying to ride things out isn’t going to work this time around — and efforts to foist a very unfavorable “peace” deal on Ukraine may finally the trigger the great unraveling of the Western alliance.

The bloc’s options are stark, to be sure. Whether it kowtows or pushes back, it’s going to cost Europe one way or another.