The United States no longer considers China a top security priority, according to the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy (NDS) for 2026, as President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to focus on the Western Hemisphere, breaking with a decade of foreign policy that saw Beijing as the greatest threat to U.S. security and economic interests.
The strategy document says that U.S. allies and partners, like South Korea, “must shoulder their fair share of the burden of our collective defense.” This is consistent with Trump’s rhetoric calling on U.S. allies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region to step up and strengthen their defenses to counter security threats from Russia and North Korea.
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Published Friday evening, the 34-page plan from the Ministry of Defense comes a few weeks after the announcement of Trump’s national security strategywhich seeks to “restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere” by strengthening the Monroe Doctrine, a 19th-century American policy opposed to European colonization and interference in the Americas.
So what’s new in the NDS? And what impact will this have on US allies in the Asia-Pacific region?
What’s in Trump’s National Defense Strategy?
The major change in the NDS lies in the changing approach of the US Department of Defense, which views the security of “the homeland and the Western Hemisphere” as its primary concern.
The document says the U.S. military would be guided by four central priorities: defending the homeland, moving allies around the world away from their dependence on the U.S. military, strengthening defense industrial bases, and deterring China, as opposed to a policy of containment.
The Pentagon document states that relations with China will now be approached through “force, not confrontation.”
“It is neither America’s duty nor our nation’s interest to act anywhere on our own, nor will we make up for allies’ security deficits due to the irresponsible choices of their leaders,” the document said.
Instead, the United States would prioritize “threats to American interests,” he said.
The Pentagon said it would provide “military and commercial access” to key locations, such as Greenland, and build the president’s “Golden Dome” missile defense system for North America.
Trump’s threat to seize Greenland has strained transatlantic relations as the U.S. kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s decision on January 3 sent shock waves across the world and raised questions about the violation of international law. Trump has justified U.S. actions in Venezuela as necessary to ensure U.S. security and economic interests.
The unclassified version of the NDS, released every four years, is unusually loaded with photos of the defense secretary and the president and repeatedly targets former President Joe Biden’s administration.
Under Biden, the Pentagon has described “revisionist powers” like China and Russia as the “central challenge” to American security.
The NDS followed the December release of the National Security Strategy, which asserted that Europe was facing civilizational collapse and did not present Russia as a threat to U.S. interests.
The NDS noted that Germany’s economy dwarfs Russia’s, arguing that Washington’s NATO allies are “strongly positioned to take primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense, with critical but more limited U.S. support.”
The strategic plan says this involves taking the lead in supporting Ukraine’s defense.
The document also addresses the issue of Iran, reiterating the US position that Tehran cannot develop nuclear weapons. He also described Israel as a “model ally.” “And we now have the opportunity to further empower it to defend itself and advance our shared interests, building on President Trump’s historic efforts to secure peace in the Middle East,” he said.
What is the impact on American allies?
First, Europe is being relegated lower on Washington’s priority list and asked to take more responsibility for its own defense. Many NATO allies had already increased their defense spending and offered to provide security guarantees to Ukraine against Russian threats.
For South Korea and Japan, the US Department of Defense acknowledged the “direct military threat” from North Korea, led by Kim Jong Un, and noted that Pyongyang’s “nuclear forces are increasingly capable of threatening the US homeland.”
About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea as part of a defense treaty aimed at deterring the North Korean military threat. Seoul increased its defense budget by 7.5 percent this year following pressure from Trump to share more of the defense burden.
The NDS noted that South Korea “is capable of assuming primary responsibility for deterring North Korea, with critical but more limited U.S. support,” which could lead to a reduction in U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula. “This shift in the balance of responsibilities is consistent with the United States’ interest in updating the U.S. force posture on the Korean Peninsula,” the document said.
Harsh Pant, a geopolitical analyst based in New Delhi, said the defense strategy aligns with the Trump administration’s push to get its allies to take control of their own security.
“The Trump administration has advocated that the relationship it currently envisions in terms of security cooperation with its allies is one in which allies will have to bear a greater burden and pay their share,” Pant told Al Jazeera.
“America’s allies in the Indo-Pacific region will need to be much more aware of their own role in shaping the regional security architecture. America will be there and continue to have a global presence, but it will not foot the bill like it has in the past,” said Pant, vice president of the think tank Observer Research Foundation.
North Korea regularly criticizes the US military presence in South Korea and their joint military exercises, which allies describe as defensive but which Pyongyang describes as a dress rehearsal for an invasion.
South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense said Saturday that U.S. forces based in the country constitute the “core” of the alliance, adding: “We will cooperate closely with the United States to continue developing it in this direction.”
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said: “It is inconceivable that South Korea – which spends 1.4 times the gross domestic product of North Korea on its defense and has the world’s fifth-largest army – cannot defend itself. Self-reliance in national defense is the most fundamental principle in an increasingly unstable international environment.”
Lee made the comments after visiting China this month in a bid to improve ties with the country, which is Seoul’s largest economic partner, its top destination for its exports and the main source of its imports. Seoul wants to cultivate better relations with Beijing, which has influence over North Korea and its leader.
And Taiwan?
When the previous NDS was unveiled under Biden in 2022, it said the broadest and most serious challenge to U.S. national security was “China’s coercive and increasingly aggressive efforts to reshape the Indo-Pacific region and international system to suit its interests and authoritarian preferences.” Part of that strategy, Washington said at the time, was Beijing’s ambitions regarding Taiwan.
The Pentagon said four years ago that it would “support Taiwan’s asymmetric self-defense as the situation evolves.” [Chinese] threat and consistent with our one-China policy.”
China considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has threatened to seize it by force if necessary. In his New Year speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping committed to achieving the “reunification” of China and Taiwancalling Beijing’s long-standing goal “unstoppable.” Chinese forces have been conducting war games across the Taiwan Strait, which separates the two.
In this year’s NDS, the US Department of Defense does not mention Taiwan by name.
“The security, liberty, and prosperity of the American people are…directly linked to our ability to trade and engage from a position of strength in the Indo-Pacific,” the document said, adding that the Department of Defense would “maintain a favorable balance of military power in the Indo-Pacific,” which it calls “the global economic center of gravity,” to deter Chinese threats.
He said the United States did not seek to dominate, humiliate or strangle China, but “to ensure that neither China nor anyone else can dominate us or our allies.” Instead, the United States wants “a decent peace, on terms favorable to Americans but that China can also accept and respect,” the plan says, adding that, therefore, the United States would deter China through “force, not confrontation.”
“We will erect a strong defense of denial along the First Island Chain (FIC),” the NDS said, referring to the first island chain off the East Asian coast. “We will also urge and enable key regional allies and partners to do more for our collective defense. »
Pant said it would be a mistake for China “to view this as America’s departure from its allies.” He added that “there is an underlying current [in Trump’s foreign policy] of how America wants to see a stable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region where China is not the dominant force.
“And so I think, for China, if they view this as a weakening of the American commitment to its allies, that would not really be in keeping with the spirit of this defense strategy.”
