The National Defence Strategy (NDS), 2026, was published a couple of days ago by the US Department of War. It is primarily meant to offer guidance to the American senior Pentagon leadership as well as Commanders and Field Activity Directors. Taken by itself, there is nothing hugely earth shaking in the document. However, read in conjunction with the much more detailed National Security Strategy issued by the Trump administration in December 2025, the broad outline of US Foreign and Security Policy becomes apparent.
The NDS begins by making the political point that previous American administrations had squandered military advantage, lives, goodwill and resources for grandiose nation building projects. Asserting that the US has the world’s strongest and most capable military, the NDS states that the Department of War will not be distracted by interventionism, endless wars, regime change and nation building. Instead, the NDS’s underlying motto is “peace through strength”.
The NDS bluntly says it is not in America’s interest, nor is it its duty, to act everywhere on its own. Nor will the US make up for allied security shortfalls arising from their leaders’ own irresponsible choices. American allies, transatlantic or elsewhere in the world, cannot now say they were not forewarned!
Like the NSS, the NDS gives primacy to homeland security and the Western Hemisphere. Securing America’s borders is sought to be done, skies will be defended through the Golden Dome and a robust nuclear deterrent will be maintained. In the Western Hemisphere, the NDS says the US will guarantee military and commercial access to key terrain, especially the Panama Canal, Gulf of America and interestingly, Greenland. More comfortingly, the NDS says that the US will engage in good faith with its neighbours from Canada to partners in Central & South America even while ensuring that they respect and do their part to defend shared interests. And if they do not, Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine will kick in.
The NDS declares China as the second most powerful country in the world- behind only the US. By calling China the most powerful state relative to the US since the 19th century, the NDS grudgingly accepts some strategic parity between the US and China. Crucially, the NDS spells out that the American objective is to “maintain a favourable balance of military power” in the Indo-Pacific. However, the NDS adds that this is not for purposes of dominating, humiliating or strangling China. On the contrary, the goal is to ensure that neither China nor anyone else can dominate US or its allies. Ruling out regime change or an existential struggle with China, the NDS seeks “a decent peace” on terms favourable to the US but one that China can also accept and live under. Two questions arise immediately: one, the omission of the words “military overmatch” from the NSS is glaring; two, the NDS does not explain how the US can achieve its objectives without dominating China and at the same time not allowing China to dominate the US. And the key question is whether these terms are acceptable to China in the Indo-Pacific. The question is what constitutes “decent peace” and “a favourable balance of military power” in the Indo-Pacific.
On Taiwan, the NDS argues in favour of sustaining a strong denial defence along the First Island Chain. Again, the NDS says the US will work closely with its allies and partners in the region to incentivize and enable them to do more for collective defence, especially in ways that are relevant to an effective denial defence.
Russia is described by the NDS as a persistent but manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members for the foreseeable future. Despite a host of problems, the NDS says the ongoing war in Ukraine demonstrates that Russia still retains deep reservoirs of military and industrial power. It also adds that Russia has shown national resolve. Saying that Russia could employ threats relating to undersea, space and cyber capabilities against US Homeland, the NDS says the US is ready to counter this. Saying the NATO allies are substantially more powerful than Russia, the NDS makes the critical point that while the US will remain engaged in Europe, it will nevertheless prioritize defending its Homeland and deterring China.
Two specific actions proposed by the NDS will be examined by countries everywhere in the world. One, the NDS specifically calls for increased burden-sharing with not just American allies but also its partners. Thus, the NDS repeats the mantra of the NSS that Europe take primary responsibility for its own conventional defence to the security threat it faces. US support to NATO allies will be critical but “more limited”, the NDS says. In a similar vein, the NDS says that in the Middle East, the US will empower regional allies and partners to take primary responsibility for deterring and defending against Iran and its proxies. Israel will be helped to defend itself, cooperation to be deepened with Arab Gulf partners and integration enabled between Israel and the Arab partners through the Abraham Accords. In the Korean Peninsula, the NDS postulates that South Korea is capable of taking primary responsibility for deterring North Korea, once again with critical but more limited US support.
The NDS concludes by emphasizing the US Defence Industrial Base and how to supercharge it. The DIB, according to the NDS, must produce, deliver, and sustain critical munitions, systems and platforms. The NDB avers that the effort to supercharge the Defence Indutrial Base will require nothing short of a national mobilization – a call to industrial arms on par with similar revivals of the last century that ultimately powered the US to victory in both the world wars and the Cold War that followed.
Conclusion
The key things that stand out in this iteration of the NDS are:
>US is no longer going to be present in every strategic theatre, all at once;
>Homeland and Western Hemisphere have been given primacy as in the NSS;
>In the Indo-Pacific, where America’s allies share the desire for a free and open regional order, the NDS underlines that allies and partners’ contributions will be vital to deterring and balancing China;
>An ambiguous defense strategy (perhaps deliberate) to counter China;
>Europe to take primary responsibility for its own defense as well as cope with the threat from Russia;
>South Korea to take charge of deterring North Korea in the Korean Peninsula;
>In the Middle East, allies and partners led by Israel to counter threat from Iran and its proxies; and
>Ambitious plan to supercharge America’s defense industrial base.
In my blog last month entitled ” Trump’s National Security Strategy has evolved” I had made bold to predict that there are signs of American foreign and security policy retrenchment from both institutions and regions. The National Defense Strategy just released provides further evidence of this.
Ambassador Dr Mohan Kumar is the Director General of the newly established Motwani Jadeja Institute for American Studies at the O.P. Jindal Global University. Views are personal.
Diplomacy and Geopolitics 