The US National Defense Strategy

Summary. The US Department of War (DoW) recently published its 2026 National Defence Strategy, which signals arguably the single greatest shift in American defense priorities since the end of World War II. It articulates a significantly smaller role for the United States in global affairs and downplays the threat posed by traditional adversaries such as China and Russia. Calling for a “decent peace” in the Indo-Pacific and “strategic stability” with China, the policy is a departure from Washington's decades-old posture of viewing China as the primary global threat.