Iran is a test of Trump’s National Defense Strategy

At the end of last week, the Trump administration quietly released its 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS). The document warrants a close read.

Its thesis is three-pronged: the United States must rationalize its global military posture amid acute resource constraints; a larger share of remaining resources must be directed toward homeland defense and hemispheric dominance; and allies and partners elsewhere, particularly in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, will be expected to shoulder greater responsibility for their collective security.

The strategy is hardly isolationist. Rather, it makes an effort to prioritize interests and lay out the terms and conditions for continued protection from the United States. Nowhere are these tradeoffs more evident than in the NDS’s treatment of the Indo-Pacific.

Read more at Council on Foreign Relations