The 2026 National Defense Strategy: Decoding the Pentagon’s Priorities

On the 23^rd of January 2026, the National Defense Strategy 2026 (NDS) was published (DoW, 2026a). This is the strategic guiding document of the Department of War (the Pentagon), previously known as the Department of Defense, which operationalizes the priorities of the National Security Strategy 2025 (NSS).

The main priorities for the Pentagon are:

1.    Defend the U.S. Homeland.

2.    Deter China in the Indo-Pacific Through Strength, Not Confrontation.

3.    Increase Burden-Sharing with U.S. Allies and Partners.

4.    Supercharge the U.S. Defense Industrial Base.

The 2018 NDS shifted focus from global counter-terrorism operations to peer-competition with China (DoD, 2018). The 2026 NDS represents a further shift from liberal internationalism to realist prioritization, accepting calculated risk in secondary theatres to concentrate resources on homeland defense and near-peer deterrence. Time, resources and capacity will be distributed according to this new strategic sequence.

The Security Environment – How the Pentagon Sees the World

The White House and Pentagon are adopting a realist worldview; they will now be focused on a narrow set of theatres and countries which directly affect strategic interests. The U.S. Homeland and the Western Hemisphere are now the Pentagon’s top priority.

Homeland and Hemisphere

From the outset, the Trump administration has prioritized the U.S. Homeland and the Western Hemisphere. In early February of 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited several Central and South American countries. This reflected the U.S. shift in focus to hemispheric priorities like the cartels, the Panama Canal, Venezuela, and foreign influence in the Hemisphere as a whole. By the end of 2025, the Trump administration had initiated strikes on suspected cartel vessels, forcibly removed the President of Venezuela and published a new NSS which committed to the enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine with a new Trump Corollary (The White House, 2025).

The 2026 NDS identifies key threats to the homeland and hemisphere as border security, transnational cartels, nuclear and conventional threats, cyber operations and access to key terrain.

Throughout 2025, the White House advanced key NDS priorities, while the Pentagon postured forces and capabilities to support their implementation. Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE demonstrated this, signalling the White House and the Pentagon’s willingness and capacity to execute complex operations when required (Berg, 2026; Gedan, 2026).

China

The growth of the Chinese economy and the expansion of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is evident, and Washington seeks to prevent Beijing from being able to block access to the growing Asian market. The NSS directs the Pentagon to maintain a favourable balance of military power in the Indo-Pacific. The Pentagon has advanced the Pacific Deterrence Initiative as a primary effort to enhance joint and allied military capabilities (Nicastro, 2024).

“Not for purposes of dominating, humiliating, or strangling China. To the contrary, our goal is far more scoped and reasonable than that: It is simply to ensure that neither China nor anyone else can dominate us or our allies. This does not require regime change or some other existential struggle. Rather, a decent peace, on terms favourable to Americans but that China can also accept and live under, is possible.”

Washington does not seek confrontation; the NDS stresses that U.S. objectives are limited to preventing Chinese dominance over the U.S. and its allies, and that President Trump’s policy seeks a stable and mutually acceptable “decent peace” in the Indo-Pacific.

Russia

Despite the war in Ukraine, the NDS assesses that Russia retains a significant reserve of military and industrial power. It also notes that Russia maintains the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, which it continues to modernize and diversify.

“Moscow is in no position to make a bid for European hegemony.”

However, Russia is not assessed to be a significant threat to the U.S. or its allies. The NDS labels Russia as a “persistent but manageable threat” to NATO’s eastern flank. While the U.S. will remain engaged in Europe, the NDS emphasises the need for European partners to be primarily responsible for the conventional defense of Europe.

Iran

The NDS reaffirms the U.S. commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. It highlights recent actions—such as Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER, the 12-Day War, and Operation ROUGH RIDER—as examples of limited but decisive U.S. action in the region to protect their interests. The Pentagon played a central role in these operations and is expected to maintain readiness to support similar actions when required.

North Korea

North Korea is assessed to be a direct threat to treaty allies South Korea and Japan. North Korea’s expanding and increasingly capable nuclear arsenal heightens the threat it constitutes.

“These forces are growing in size and sophistication, and they present a clear and present danger of nuclear attack on the American Homeland.”

Risk of Simultaneous Conflict & Strategic Sequencing

The NDS highlights the risk of simultaneous conflict, with potential adversaries acting in concert to stretch U.S. resources and attention. It also emphasizes the need for greater allied burden-sharing as a means of mitigating the risk of simultaneous conflict.

The NDS introduces explicit strategic sequencing: prioritizing the U.S. Homeland and Western Hemisphere, followed by China, and then Russia. All other regions and countries are a lower priority for Washington. This sequencing is intended to guide force allocation and risk acceptance, ensuring that the limited U.S. military capacity is concentrated against the most immediate and consequential threats (Mitchell, 2024). This prioritization reflects explicit trade-offs, accepting greater risk in secondary theatres in order to preserve deterrence and readiness in the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific.

For U.S. allies and partners in secondary and tertiary theatres, this means that they must be ready to fill the gaps left by the U.S. The NDS reflects an institutionalizing of risk acceptance in secondary and tertiary theatres as an explicit policy choice by the Pentagon.

Strategic Approach – What the Pentagon Will Do

Line of Effort 1: Defend the U.S. Homeland

The Pentagon and the Trump administration have already advanced key elements of the first Line of Effort (LOE). Securing the Southern Border and countering drug-trafficking are tier one priorities and the NDS instructs the Pentagon to continue to support interagency efforts and operations. The deployment of troops to the Southern Border, the strikes on suspected drug smugglers and Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE may be indicative of how the Pentagon will pursue the first LOE (Olay, 2025; Roy, 2026).

The NDS also prioritizes securing “key terrain” in the Western Hemisphere, and the Pentagon will provide the President with options to secure U.S. military and commercial access to the Arctic, South America, Greenland, the Panama Canal and the Gulf of Mexico/America. Efforts by private U.S. companies to regain control of the Panama Canal are already underway (Yin, 2025). The Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is leading an effort to expand U.S.-Panama security cooperation, and a “memorandum of understanding” has been signed by both countries which establishes a basis for deepened cooperation (Berg, 2025). On Greenland, the administration has repeatedly emphasized Greenland’s strategic importance to U.S. national security and has demonstrated its determination to find a resolution (Drozdiak & McBridge, 2026).

The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) allocates significant funding for the Golden Dome missile defense system. There is funding, in particular, for the development of new space-based sensors and new advanced interceptors. There is also funding for the modernization of all three legs of the nuclear triad and for the rebuilding of the nuclear weapons industrial base. This would ensure that U.S. nuclear forces remain “strong, secure, and effective”, consistent with NSS and NDS guidance. However, the deployment of new systems will take time, as the Sentinel programme has demonstrated. The NDAA also provides funding for expanded cyber defense and resilience efforts.

Finally, the Pentagon will now only take action against terrorist groups who are deemed to be “both capable of and intent on” striking the U.S. Homeland. This further reinforces the Pentagon’s shift away from global counter-terrorism operations and towards hemispheric defense.

Line of Effort 2: Deter China in the Indo-Pacific Through Strength, Not Confrontation

The NDS states that President Trump is seeking fair trade, respectful relations and a “decent peace” in the Indo-Pacific. In the NDS, the U.S. positions itself as intending to support diplomatic efforts, and it states that the Pentagon will carry out a denial-based defense strategy along the First Island Chain. The Pacific Deterrence Initiative is partly the operationalization of this policy.

“Through these efforts, we will make clear that any attempt at aggression against U.S. interests will fail and is therefore not worth attempting in the first place. That is the essence of deterrence by denial.”

In pursuit of “strategic stability and on deconfliction and de-escalation more broadly”, the Pentagon will maintain military-to-military relations with PLA counterparts, despite the deterioration of the relationship in recent years (Reuters, 2021; U.S.-China Commission, 2025). However, engagement with PLA counterparts may be difficult, given the recent internal power struggles and purges of high-level Chinese military officials (Fanell, 2026).

Line of Effort 3: Increase Burden-Sharing with U.S. Allies and Partners

The NDS places increased responsibility on regional allies to shoulder a greater share of the collective defense burden. While the U.S. will remain engaged in Europe, the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula, U.S. support will be “critical but more limited”. The Pentagon will also create incentives for allies and partners; this will be a critical part of Washington’s alliance policy moving forward.

·      Western Hemisphere – Canada and Mexico are seen as vital allies for tackling drug trafficking and illegal immigration. Canada is particularly important for missile defense and undersea threats.

·      Europe – Allies should take on greater responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense.

·      Middle East – The Riyadh speech of May 2025 will inform U.S. policy in the region but the Pentagon will continue to provide the President with options to take “focused, decisive” action.

·      Africa – Narrowed focus on terrorist groups which are “both capable of and intent on striking the U.S. Homeland”.

·      Korean Peninsula – South Korea should take primary responsibility for deterring North Korea.

The NDS sets an ambitious global standard for allied defense spending: 5% of GDP (3.5% on core military spending and 1.5% on security-related spending). The NDS highlights Israel as a “model ally”, and in a recent trip to South Korea the Undersecretary of War for Policy, Elbridge Colby, similarly called South Korea a “model ally” (DoW, 2026b). Colby also reiterated the need for allies to “step up” during his recent meeting with European NATO allies (DoW, 2026c).

“We will therefore prioritize cooperation and engagements with model allies—those who are spending as they need to and visibly doing more against threats in their regions…”

Line of Effort 4: Supercharge the U.S. Defense Industrial Base

The NDS emphasizes the importance of a robust defense industrial base (DIB) to support Joint Force readiness and wider defense priorities. Even with a substantially increased defense budget, the Pentagon must continue to triage its finite resources.

Throughout 2025, senior leaders at the Pentagon identified the procurement process as a structural weakness. Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, called for major reforms, highlighting issues with prime defense contractors and the need for the Army to secure the right to repair its own equipment (Seck, 2025). Similarly, the Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan, underscored the need to review Navy contracts and reduce waste and inefficiencies, citing the troubled Constellation-class frigate program (Gray, 2025).

The NDS calls for “nothing short of a national mobilization” on the same scale as the World Wars and the Cold War in order to meet the defense needs of the U.S. and its allies.

Takeaways

·      Strategic Reprioritization: The NDS explicitly sequences U.S. priorities, placing the Homeland and Western Hemisphere first, followed by deterring China, as it accepts greater risk in secondary and tertiary theatres.

·      Deterrence by Denial in the Indo-Pacific: The NDS emphasizes denial-based deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, supported by a strong denial defense along the First Island Chain, while seeking a “decent peace”.

·      Allied Burden-Sharing: Allies are expected to assume greater responsibility for their own regional defense, with U.S. support being critical but limited. “Model allies” that invest and lead regionally will receive greater engagement.

·      Mobilizing the Defense Industrial Base: Rebuilding the defense industrial base is deemed essential. The NDS supports procurement reform and expansion of production capacity to sustain long-term competition and modern, high-intensity warfighting.

Bibliography

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