Christopher Vassallo
Based on public reports, the National Defense Strategy (NDS)—the congressionally mandated accounting of US defense strategy and its implications for plans, programs, and operations—is nearing release. If so, the broad contours are unlikely to surprise anyone who has read the administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) or listened to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s recent remarks in December at the Reagan Defense Forum.
Taken together, those signals point toward an NDS built around “hardnosed,” “disciplined,” “flexible,” and “focused” “realism” that prioritizes hemispheric defense while simultaneously advancing a strong but deliberately quiet posture toward Beijing. This is a strategy that, if executed well, could align ends and means more coherently than Biden-era defense documents managed. It is also a strategy that is likely to be tested by a rival whose ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, especially with respect to Taiwan, will not be sated by commercial understandings alone.
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