America First in uniform: What NDS-2026 really means
Washington’s new National Defense Strategy is not just another Pentagon paper. It is a political manifesto in uniform, and one that reflects a sharp turn away from the ideological activism of recent years toward something closer to old-fashioned power politics. It can be called a doctrine of “resolute realism,” and that description fits.
The NDS-2026, built on the National Security Strategy released last year, stands out first for what it is not. It is not wrapped in talk of “integrated deterrence,” or global value struggles. Let alone democracy promotion. Instead it is blunt and self-congratulatory. Not to mention openly political. The document criticizes past leaders for chasing “rules-based order” fantasies and “nation-building” projects that drained American power. It praises Donald Trump personally and promises a return to “peace through strength,” “America First,” and pragmatic realism.
This does not mean isolationism. The strategy explicitly rejects that. But it does mean the United States no longer sees itself as the world’s ideological supervisor. Military power is to be used more selectively, with a clearer hierarchy of interests.
One structural change is telling. Unlike in 2022, when the Pentagon released the NDS alongside nuclear and missile defense reviews, the 2026 strategy appears on its own. Republicans argue that what matters now is not drafting more documents but acting: modernizing the nuclear arsenal and pushing forward projects like the ‘Golden Dome’. Reports of planned reforms to the US regional command system, including possible mergers of major commands, also fit this drive for streamlining and concentration of effort.
At the conceptual level, the strategy abandons Biden-era buzzwords and focuses on priorities. It does not dwell on operational planning or force deployments. Instead, it frames a “recalibration” of US defense policy, built around one core problem: simultaneity.
For years, the Pentagon has worried about its ability to fight two major regional wars at once. China and Russia have grown stronger. Middle Eastern wars and periods of budget restraint have weakened US readiness. The fear is simple: if Washington is tied down in one large conflict, another adversary could act elsewhere.
The NDS-2026 solution is blunt. Allies must do more. The NATO benchmark of five percent of GDP for defense and security-related spending is presented as a model. The United States will raise its own spending, but it will focus primarily on the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific. In Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere, allies are expected to carry the main burden, with “critical but more limited” American support. This message is repeated again and again, and it comes with a commercial subtext: a significant share of that higher allied spending should go to US weapons.
The strategy’s treatment of allies is revealing. Israel is held up as a model partner and mentioned repeatedly, far more often than most other states. The overall approach resembles the offshore balancing ideas long associated with scholars like John Mearsheimer. The US is not trying to micromanage the world. It wants to remain the dominant power in its own hemisphere while preventing the emergence of rival regional hegemons elsewhere, above all China.
China is the second clear priority after homeland and hemisphere defense. Yet even here, the tone is less ideological than in recent years. There is no “democracies versus autocracies” crusade. Instead, the language is about strategic stability and fair trade, with added concern for mutual respect. The stated goal is not to humiliate China but to ensure it does not dominate the US or its allies. Deterrence along the First Island Chain is emphasized, as is the capacity for “devastating strikes,” but diplomatic tools and de-escalation are also highlighted. Taiwan is not even mentioned explicitly.
The first priority, however, lies closer to home. Defense of the United States and the Western Hemisphere tops the list. The ‘Golden Dome’, nuclear forces, counterterrorism, narco-terrorism and drone threats are all discussed primarily in this context. Migration and drug trafficking are framed as security issues, with the Pentagon working alongside the Department of Homeland Security.
Here the Monroe Doctrine looms large, along with what Tebin calls Trump’s “addendum” to it. The strategic importance of the Panama Canal, the Gulf of Mexico (renamed in the document as the ‘Gulf of America’) and Greenland is stressed. Washington openly reserves the right to act unilaterally. The Greenland issue, in this reading, is less about resources than about signaling determination to enforce a strict interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. Moves in Venezuela and pressure around Greenland are meant to send messages not only to regional states but also to China, Russia, and Iran.
Europe’s place is markedly downgraded. The strategy says Russia poses a threat not to the US or NATO as a whole but mainly to eastern NATO members, and that this threat is “persistent but manageable.” It argues that Russia’s power is often exaggerated, noting that Germany alone surpasses Russia economically in nominal US dollar GDP terms, and that NATO as a whole outweighs it many times over. “Russia is not in a position to claim hegemony in Europe,” the document states.
The US will remain in NATO and keep a limited presence in Europe, especially in areas like submarines and cyber capabilities. But deterring Russia and supporting Ukraine is framed as Western Europe’s responsibility. The conflict in Ukraine, the strategy bluntly says, “must end.” At the same time, Washington signals that Western European efforts and resources should be directed primarily toward Europe, not toward containing China in Asia. This is a clear break from earlier attempts to tie European and Indo-Pacific security together.
In the Middle East and beyond, Iran remains an adversary, but one that can often be handled indirectly, through Israel and regional partners, with the added benefit of arms sales. North Korea gets only brief attention, described as a danger to Seoul and Tokyo that also threatens the US homeland.
Finally, the strategy touches on the defense industrial base. It calls for reindustrialization, stronger logistics and repair capabilities, cooperation with both traditional and new contractors, and expanded arms exports to allies. One passage is especially dramatic, calling for a kind of national mobilization, comparing the needed industrial effort to those that underpinned US victories in the world wars and the Cold War.
All in all, NDS-2026 is a hard-edged, pragmatic document. It reflects the priorities of the current White House and distances itself from liberal-globalist rhetoric. For Moscow, this is a more understandable and in some ways more comfortable framework than the ideological confrontation of the Biden years.
But we must also guard against illusions. Hawkish, confrontational forces remain strong in the American establishment, across party lines. The language may be calmer and more realist, but the competition among great powers is still very much alive.
This article was first published by Russia in Global Affairs, translated and edited by the RT team
