It’s Monday, December 8. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: In defense of blowing stuff up. The EU opens a new front in its war on speech. D.C.’s contempt for the National Guard. Coleman Hughes talks to Reid Hoffman, the tech founder who didn’t make peace with Trump. And much more.

But first: Niall Ferguson on the outrage over Trump’s foreign policy priorities.

Upon entering office, every U.S. president issues a document called the National Security Strategy. The big-picture memo rarely generates much fuss outside the foreign policy blob.

But when Trump published his NSS late Thursday night last week, it prompted an almighty brouhaha—or stramash, “a good Old Scots word” used by Free Press columnist and our favorite Glaswegian Niall Ferguson to describe the reaction in his latest essay.

“Hostility [to Europe] is official White House policy,” declared The New York Times.

Europe is “seen by the administration as being on the colonial menu,” declared one think tanker in The Wall Street Journal.

The Yale historian Timothy D. Snyder said the document read like a Russian national security document.

The Economist said the 33-page report should cause America’s allies to “panic.”

In The Free Press today, Niall asks: What’s all the fuss about?

To find out, click the link below.

—Oliver Wiseman

Europe’s Censors Put a Price on Dissent

The Editors

The European Union fined X 120 million euros (about $140 million) on Friday for a series of alleged violations of the Digital Services Act, making the social media platform the first company to face a fine under the 2022 law. In our latest editorial, we explain why this alleged “violation of advertising rules” is really the latest effort by European officials to silence dissent. Read full story

The Texas Gerrymander Isn’t About Race. It’s About Raw Politics.

Jed Rubenfeld

The gerrymander wars are intensifying—and Texas is the bloodiest front. On Friday, the Supreme Court got involved in the high-stakes Texas fight, slapping an emergency stay on a lower court ruling that had struck down a map that would give Republicans five additional seats. Our legal columnist Jed Rubenfeld dives into the rights and wrongs of the case and asks: What will happen next in this high-stakes clash? Read full story

Yes, Blowing Things Up Is How We Build Things

Madeline Hart

In the tech world, companies live and die by one rule: Move fast and break things. But for the legacy press, the price of that success is often uncomfortable. You might remember the outrage surrounding SpaceX’s test launches—now, those same outlets are ringing the alarms about Anduril testing its weapons to failure. Madeline Hart explains why controlled explosions are actually a good thing—especially when they guard against far worse on the battlefield. She says: Bring back the boom. Read full story

Hate Thy Neighbor: How Progressive D.C. Treats National Guardsmen with Contempt

Mary Eberstadt

The command to “love thy neighbor as thyself” is a common theme of the Advent season, but it is one that has been in short supply in Washington, D.C., when it comes to the National Guard who have been deployed there since the summer, writes Mary Eberstadt. She reflects on how troops have been treated in the capital—both before and after the murder of U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, allegedly by Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal. Read full story

Live in New York: A Pub Conversation with Cardinal Dolan

Join us in NYC on December 17 at 7 p.m. for an exciting pub conversation between The Free Press’s Will Rahn and Archbishop of New York Timothy Cardinal Dolan on what religion meant to the Founders 250 years ago, the state of religious freedom in 2025, and whether America is on the verge of a great religious revival. There are only a few tickets remaining. Get them while you still can.