The 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS) was released on January 23 and hews closely to the concepts articulated in the National Security Strategy (NSS) that the Trump Administration released in November. As a subordinate policy document to the NSS, the NDS goes into greater detail about the military-specific intent and implications of the Trump Administration’s priorities. The NDS outlines a strategy of “peace through strength” that is focused on homeland and hemispheric defense, deterring China, and expanding US arms production and military spending while deprioritizing investments in traditional alliances. The NDS goes on exhorting our allies to increasingly share the burden of their defense (a theme very present last weekend at Davos), emphasizing ensuring unconstrained global trade, and “supercharging” the US defense industrial base.
Similar to the NSS, the tone is characterized by the Administration’s claim that its ideology is “flexible, practical, realism.” Yet, the NDS reveals in much stronger language than the NSS the level of contempt that the Administration holds for the rules-based international order that the US has led since the end of the Cold War, calling it a “cloud-castle abstraction” that squandered American advantages and resources. Over the coming year, we might expect the rift with European allies that want to preserve the rules-based international order will continue to grow, whereas countries that are eager to engage in trade-based transactionalism will be rewarded.
Of note is the NDS suggests Russia is a “persistent, but manageable threat” seemingly a more central concern for Europe than for the US and shows a very deliberate attempt to de-escalate tension with China, shifting from “confrontation” to “deterrence through strength” toward “a decent peace, on terms favorable to Americans but that China can also accept and live under, is possible.”
Although this NDS prioritizes deterrence, unlike previous NDS’s it has little to say about the most complex and strategic element of American deterrence: the United States’ nuclear arsenal. Instead, this strategy appears to prioritize military presence and posture and “warrior ethos.” Given the regional focus on the homeland and borders and the Administration’s stated opposition to involvement overseas, this approach may mean we will see the beginning of a transformation in US troop posture from bases in Europe back into the Western Hemisphere, reducing presence in Germany, Turkey, and Italy in favor of increased presence in Honduras and Puerto Rico for example.