Trump admin's defence strategy softens tone on China, focuses on deterrence

By Courtney McBride and Jen Judson

 

The Trump administration’s annual defence strategy report takes a softer tone toward China than in years past, calling for deterrence “through strength, not confrontation,” while focusing on threats posed by migration and narcotics in the Western Hemisphere. 

The department’s long-awaited National Defence Strategy, released Friday evening, directs the Defence Department to “maintain a favourable balance of military power in the Indo-Pacific.” It offered a much anticipated look at the way the Pentagon would translate President Donald Trump’s “America First” approach to the military in his second term.

 

“Not for purposes of dominating, humiliating, or strangling China,” the 25-page document reads. “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.”

 

Instead, in keeping with Trump’s focus on what had previously been considered domestic concerns, such as drugs and migration, the strategy frames those issues as far greater threats than any posed by foreign adversaries. 

 

That aligns with Trump’s National Security Strategy released Dec. 4 that makes a priority of protecting the American homeland, securing its borders and reinvigorating stateside technology development and the ability to manufacture capability at a large scale when needed.

 

“For decades, America’s foreign policy establishment neglected our nation’s homeland defences,” the strategy reads. “The sorry results speak for themselves. In recent decades, our nation has been overwhelmed by a flood of illegal aliens.”

 

An introduction signed by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says the Trump administration’s approach is not one of isolationism, but “based on a flexible, practical realism that looks at the world in a clear-eyed way, which is essential for serving Americans’ interests.”

 

The release comes during a month in which Trump ordered the US military to capture the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and transport him to the US for trial, claimed the US needs control of Greenland, part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a Nato ally, and warned of possible US military strikes against the Iranian regime.

 

The strategy dials back large-scale nation-building missions and places more of a burden on European allies and partners when it comes to the defence of the region against Russian aggression and in dealing with the continuing war in Ukraine.

 

Already the Defence Department has made shifts in how it is organised. The US Army, for instance, recently established its new Western Hemisphere Command, which folds US Army Forces Command, US Army North and US Army South into one entity.

 

The Defence Department has also released an acquisition reform strategy and created the Wartime Production Unit intended to bolster the workforce and increase speed and efficiency in manufacturing weapons needed in the future and the Economic Defence Unit to help strengthen the industrial base and sell military equipment abroad.

 

The document underscores the stark differences between Trump’s defence strategy in his first term and the new strategy such as a shift from a focus on great power competition with Russia and China and sending forces abroad as a deterrence mechanism.

 

Notably absent from Trump’s National Security Strategy was any characterization of Russia as a serious threat to national security. Laura Cooper, a former US deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, classified that as a “huge mistake” during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in December focused on hybrid threats from Russia and China.

 

In a departure from the approach of the Biden administration, the strategy states that US treatment of Russia will focus on its threats to the homeland, leaving Nato allies, particularly those along the alliance’s eastern flank, to address that “persistent but manageable threat.”

 

The Defense Department “will ensure that US forces are prepared to defend against Russian threats to the US homeland,” it reads.

 

The fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act sets a policy that requires the Defense Department, with some caveats, to get congressional approval to withdraw troops and equipment from Europe.

 

The security strategy says North Korea “poses a direct military threat to South Korea and Japan,” but also warns that its nuclear ambitions could endanger the US.

 

“No longer will the department be distracted by interventionism, endless wars, regime change, and nation building,” the document states. “Instead, we will put our people’s practical, concrete interests first.”