The National Defense Strategy Is Coming—But Much Is Already Out

How the NSS and the defense budget frame what the Pentagon’s NDS will actually say

Without a vision of the future and a strategy to get there, the course you take is arbitrary and fruitless.

Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE’s apprehension of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro was stunning. It capped a long and deliberate buildup of U.S. military power in the Caribbean and, unsurprisingly, captured global attention. The scale, speed, and precision of the operation were extraordinary, made possible by highly skilled, well-equipped joint forces. What was demonstrated in ABSOLUTE RESOLVE is not accidental. It is the product of many factors, from core Military Service capabilities and decades of emphasis on joint warfighting, tuned by decades of combat experience. Guiding the Pentagon’s strategic deterrence and warfighting prowess is a complex process, but chief among them are the strategic priorities and associated investments principally driven by the National Security Strategy (NSS) and its principal defense counterpart, the National Defense Strategy (NDS).

The President’s NSS was quietly released on 4 December, drawing scrutiny across Substack and among national security analysts. That scrutiny is both healthy and necessary. My intent here is not to weigh in on the NSS, but rather, to shift to the NDS, which is likely to follow shortly, given that the NSS is published. These documents are typically developed in parallel and refined iteratively, with the NDS taking its cues from the NSS. I presume once the attention on ABSOLUTE RESOLVE abates, the NDS will roll out.

The NSS provides the broad vision, rationale, and policy contours for U.S. national security. But it is the supporting strategies and their implementation that translate that vision into action. Every executive department publishes a supporting strategy, but the most prominent and influential is that of the Department of Defense. The NDS is the locomotive engine that drives the military components of the national security enterprise.