WASHINGTON / ISTANBUL

The US Defense Department on Friday rolled out its 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS), laying out a sharper focus on the homeland, deterring China, and greater burden-sharing by allies.

The memorandum signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argues that past US governments weakened the military by engaging in prolonged nation-building and overseas interventions that diluted readiness and undermined the “warrior ethos.”

The new approach, the roughly 25-page document said, refocuses the armed forces on their “core, irreplaceable role” of deterring and winning wars that directly affect American interests.

The NDS outlines four primary lines of effort: defending the US homeland, deterring China in the Indo-Pacific region through strength rather than confrontation, increasing burden-sharing with allies and partners, and revitalizing the US defense industrial base.

Homeland defense is described as the military’s top priority, with an expanded focus on border security, countering narcotics trafficking organizations designated as terror groups, protecting key terrain in the Western Hemisphere such as the Panama Canal and Greenland, and strengthening air, missile, cyber and nuclear defenses.

Military-to-military communication with China

With no mention of Taiwan by name, in the document the Pentagon endorses expanded military-to-military communication with Beijing to reduce the risk of conflict.

"About China, we will also be clear-eyed and realistic about the speed, scale, and quality of China’s historic military buildup. Our goal in doing so is not to dominate China; nor is it to strangle or humiliate them. Rather, our goal is simple: To prevent anyone, including China, from being able to dominate us or our allies—in essence, to set the military conditions required to achieve the NSS goal of a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific that allows all of us to enjoy a decent peace," it said.

On North Korea, the document described Pyongyang as a "direct military threat" to both South Korea and Japan, stressing that Seoul "must stay vigilant against the threat of a North Korean invasion," even as North Korea’s large conventional forces are "aged or poorly maintained."

North Korea's nuclear forces are "increasingly capable of threatening the U.S. Homeland," it said.

It also described Seoul as capable of taking primary responsibility for deterring North Korea with "critical but more limited U.S. support."

"This shift in the balance of responsibility is consistent with America’s interest in updating U.S. force posture on the Korean Peninsula," it said.

The document characterizes Russia as a "persistent but manageable threat," particularly to NATO’s eastern members, and stresses that European allies must take primary responsibility for their own conventional defense.

"In Europe and other theaters, allies will take the lead against threats that are less severe for us but more so for them, with critical but more limited support from the United States," the document said.

It also highlights Iran as a security challenge, citing recent US and allied military operations as evidence of restored deterrence.

A central theme of the strategy document is burden-sharing. The Trump administration argues that allies must significantly increase defense spending and assume greater responsibility for regional security, pointing to a new global benchmark of 5% of GDP for defense-related expenditures endorsed at NATO’s 2025 Hague Summit.

The strategy also calls for a “once-in-a-century” revitalization of the US defense industrial base, framing it as essential to sustaining military readiness, supporting allies, and ensuring the US can produce weapons and equipment at scale during crises.