“This is going to be a major shift for the U.S. and its allies on multiple continents,” said one of the people briefed on the draft document. “The old, trusted U.S. promises are being questioned.”
The report usually comes out at the start of each administration, and Hegseth could still make changes to the plan. But in many ways, the shift is already occurring. The Pentagon has activated thousands of National Guard troops to support law enforcement in Los Angeles and Washington, and dispatched multiple warships and F-35 fighter planes to the Caribbean to interdict the flow of drugs to the U.S.
A U.S. military strike this week allegedly killed 11 suspected members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang in international waters, a major step in using the military to kill noncombatants.
The Pentagon also has established a militarized zone across the southern border with Mexico that allows troops to detain civilians, a job normally reserved for law enforcement.
The new strategy would largely overturn the focus of the first Trump administration’s 2018 National Defense Strategy, which placed deterring China at the forefront of the Pentagon’s efforts.
“It is increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model,” the opening paragraphs of that document said.
The shift “doesn’t seem aligned with President Trump’s hawkish views on China at all,” said a Republican foreign policy expert briefed on the report, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
The president has continued to express tough rhetoric toward China, including imposing staggering tariffs on Beijing and accusing Chinese President Xi Jinping of “conspiring against” the U.S. after he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a military parade in the country’s capital.
Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s policy chief, is leading the strategy. He played a key role in writing the 2018 version during Trump’s first term and has been a staunch supporter of a more isolationist American policy. Despite his long track record as a China hawk, Colby aligns with Vice President JD Vance on the desire to disentangle the U.S. from foreign commitments.
Colby’s policy team is also responsible for a forthcoming global posture review, which outlines where U.S. forces are stationed around the globe, and a theater air and missile defense review, which takes stock of U.S. and allies’ air defenses and makes recommendations for where to locate American systems. The Pentagon is expected to release both reviews as soon as next month.
A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment on the reviews. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The three documents will be intertwined in many ways. Each will emphasize telling allies to take more responsibility for their own security, the people said, while the U.S. consolidates efforts closer to home.
Allies are especially worried about the fallout of the global posture review, given that it could pull U.S. troops away from Europe and the Middle East and cut critical security assistance programs.
A Pentagon official and European diplomat confirmed a Financial Times report that the Pentagon’s Baltic Security Initiative — which grants hundreds of millions of dollars a year to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to help build up their defenses and military infrastructure — will lose funding this year.
The diplomat pointed out that money from that initiative has gone to buying American-made weapons and “has received strong support, helping accelerate the development of key capabilities and enabling the acquisition of U.S. systems like HIMARS.”
NATO allies increasingly expect some of the roughly 80,000 U.S. troops in Europe to leave over the next several years. But countries will feel the impacts differently and, in the end, are subject to the whims of Trump.
During a Wednesday visit by Poland’s new president to the White House, Trump said the U.S. would not remove troops from the country. But he acknowledged he’s considering service member reductions elsewhere on the continent.
“If anything,” Trump said, “we’ll put more there.”