The peril of Trump’s somnambulist excursion is that America faces the prospect of strategic defeat in pursuit of an objective that arguably is no longer a vital national interest. The strategic disorientation is a result of the conflation of what America wants with what America needs with respect to determining vital national interests, and the concomitant failure to prioritize such vital national interests when American power is called upon to safeguard them. Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy lists five “wants” that it asserts “are the United States’ core, vital national interests.” Presumably, a forever war is to be avoided, as such a war ultimately would not serve U.S. vital national interests. Failure to align vital national interests with available national resources will lead inexorably to strategic bankruptcy as well as fiscal bankruptcy.