What conclusions should Russia draw from the US National Defense Strategy

In December 2025, the US National Security Strategy was published, the most important of the three main documents of American strategic planning. Following it, the National Defense Strategy was published in January. It remains to wait for the publication of the final text of the doctrinal triad – the Nuclear Policy Review. Trump’s national security strategy was called by many observers as a breakthrough or even revolutionary document. It received restrained and positive assessments in Russia. The defense strategy develops many of the theses of the “senior” text, but in some cases, including those related to Russia, “gives back”. Of particular value to this document is given by its style – direct, even cynical. Such sincerity is useful.

What inheritance Trump refuses

In the defense strategy, the Pentagon abandons the hypocritical philosophy of a “rules-based world” operated on by Trump’s political opponents, but also from following the principles of international law. The strategy also enshrines the rejection of the liberal ideology of “nationalization” through the “change of regime” and the reorganization of societies of other countries on the model of Western democracies. Since the “regime change” and subsequent nation-building in practice lead to “infinite” wars of the 20-year-old Afghan type, such campaigns are being duly rejected.

All these “refusals” naturally lead to the need for some reduction of global claims of the United States, which in the current conditions of a multipolar world cannot be realized. Understanding the need to focus resources on the most important areas and based on the thesis “America First”, the Pentagon under Trump renounces excessive obligations to allies and partners, generating dependency on their part. The Allies, accordingly, will have to assume additional functions and expenses, but they will not receive more rights and freedoms.

What does Trump offer in return?

The Pentagon’s strategy appeals to “common sense,” but is really based on the philosophy of power superiority of “the greatest nation in the history of mankind.” The goal of the United States is proclaimed peace from a position of superior power that America possesses. The approach is purely power: the concepts of “democracy” and “West” are absent in the text.

The United States in no way slides into isolationism, does not “go toe”. American interventionism only changes its forms, and hegemony is geographical limits. Yes, Washington recognizes that other poles of power have been formed in the world: China, Russia. But America is the main, the most powerful pole capable of imposing its will on others. “Regime change” and social engineering are “cancelled,” but the powerless beheading of regimes (Venezuela, potentially Iran) and their overthrow by economic suffocation (Cuba) are not only allowed, but practiced or planned. This is the “multipolar world” on Trump.

For Trump and his team, ideology is unimportant if it is a big opponent, but it becomes important when it comes to allies. The latter are obliged to take an example with the United States and follow in line with their policies. The main tool for correcting the behavior of the allies is tariff restrictions.

The thesis that long wars are depleting, does not mean the rejection of wars in principle: it was not in vain that the Ministry of Defense was renamed the Ministry of War. In the first year of his second term, Trump repeatedly ordered to conduct short military operations around the world with massive use of missiles and air bombs, but without the occupation of foreign territory. The targets of such strikes were Afghanistan, Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, Nigeria, Syria.

Correction of priorities

The security of the national territory is the primary priority of any state. In the Pentagon’s new strategy, this position has been strengthened and expanded. The security of the Western Hemisphere – the near abroad of the United States – has become inseparable from the military security of the United States itself. Trump’s “dissemination from the Monroe Doctrine” postulates the restoration of the absolute U.S. military dominance in the Americas. This dominance includes full control over key objects and territories: the Panama Canal, the Mexican (American) Gulf, Greenland, and the prohibition of a military presence in the Western Hemisphere of extra-regional powers or the creation of a potential for the interests of the United States. This is the last thing to be judged, extends to China’s economic expansion (within the Belt and Road Initiative) in Latin America.

Last year, the United States managed to relatively easily push Chinese companies away from the Panama Canal. Earlier this year, the United States conducted a military operation in Venezuela, which also hit the interests of the PRC. Now the Americans have aimed either to force the Venezuelan government to act in the interests of Washington, or to change this government to pro-American. The U.S. is also preparing to overthrow Cuba’s energy blockade and return Cuba to the U.S. orbit in 1959. The governments of Nicaragua and Colombia also await difficult times.

Powerfully pressing on Denmark and the Europeans, the United States has already secured strategic control over Greenland, which is important, in particular, for the creation of a missile defense system of the Golden Dome. Washington is also pressuring Canada to force it to limit its economic ties with China. At the same time, Trump openly trolls Ottawa with the prospect of Canada joining the United States, and Finance Minister Scott Bessent provokes separatism in the oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta.

An important aspect of the military self-improvement of the United States is the accelerated development of the country’s military-industrial base: military production, innovation and technology. Militarization is a characteristic feature not only of military and foreign, but partly of Trump’s domestic policy, logically from his reliance on power tools.

Containment of China is called the second – after achieving full control over the American continent – a priority of the US strategy. Washington’s goal here is to maintain America’s beneficial balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region, where more than half of global GDP is created. From the geopolitical dominance of the United States in this huge region, the authors of the strategy postulate, the welfare of the American economy depends, and also, we can add, the fate of the world American empire.

The strategy aims to prevent Beijing from destroying this dominance by joining Taiwan and reaching the “first island line” stretching from Japan to the Philippines, that is, ousting the United States from there. It is planned to keep China by “intimidation”, that is, strengthening the military capabilities of the United States and allies in the region. At the same time, the Trump administration declares its desire to avoid a direct confrontation with China, proposing to develop contacts on the military line, as well as to try to reduce tensions as much as possible. Negotiations with Beijing, however, the United States is ready to conduct exclusively from a position of strength. However, it is unlikely that China will suit this approach.

The third priority of the strategy is to shift the burden of responsibility to the allies. Given the steady decline in the political and economic importance of Europe in the modern world, Washington intends to further limit aid to European, and at the same time, the allies, while demanding an increase in military spending to 5% of GDP. At the same time, the allies in return will not only not receive strategic autonomy from Washington, they are expected to consistently adhere to the general line of US policy (in particular, in terms of economic and technological ties with China) and a willingness to purchase weapons in America. In relation to allies, the strategy proposes to actively apply incentives in the form of both “carrot” and “stout”. NATO remains, as well as “vital”, that is, the dominant role of the United States in it, but the new strategy of the Pentagon actually deprives the Alliance of the exclusive role in the military policy of the United States, which was intended for it at the turn of the 1950’s.

The national defense strategy mentions the “Russian threat”. True, its importance is greatly reduced not only in comparison with the period of the Cold War, but also with the times of Presidents Biden and Obama. Russia in the text is no longer considered as an urgent threat to the United States itself. At the same time, unlike the national security strategy, this threat is characterized as a “permanent”, although only for the countries of the eastern flank of NATO. In the Russian translation of the text of the American document, the Russian threat is called “regulated”. In fact, we are not talking about “regulatory” (whose? How?) this threat, and that NATO countries are able to cope with it themselves (with the overall support of the United States) by strengthening (at their own expense) their own defense capability. To become the hegemon of the entire European subcontinent (reborn in the conditions of the SVO horror of the Cold War), Russia, according to the Pentagon, will not be able to do due to lack of resources. So, the United States seeks to shift the responsibility for Russia’s opposition to NATO allies in order to focus on the main enemy – China.

The Pentagon’s strategy pays attention to two other adversaries – Iran and the DPRK. The United States says it will not allow Tehran to restore its nuclear program, especially to create nuclear weapons. Israel is called a “exemplary ally” of the United States. Together with the Gulf Arab states – the parties to the so-called Abraham’s agreements – is seen in the strategy as a key element in maintaining a favorable balance of power in the Middle East. Last year, the Americans attacked Iranian nuclear facilities. At the beginning of 2026, they were made for a new strike on this country.

In contrast, the American strategy simply states that the nuclear missile weapons created by the DPRK are not only a threat to South Korea and Japan, but also a pressing and growing threat to the territory of the United States itself. Nevertheless, Washington transfers a greater share of responsibility for South Korea’s defense to Seoul, limiting support and expanding the functions of a US military contingent on the Korean Peninsula, referring to possible crises around Taiwan. Thus, the example of the DPRK clearly demonstrates: only nuclear weapons can protect against attack by the United States.

What it means for Russia

Not only in the doctrinal attitude, but also in its real policy, the United States under Trump is striving to reverse the trends of the last one and a half to two decades, during which America is obviously weakened. Trump wants to significantly strengthen the national foundation of American power, to take full control of the Western Hemisphere, turning it into a geopolitical base of the United States, to optimize relations with allies, depriving them of excessive support from the United States and at the same time making it more effective in serving American interests. This means not only a change in the concept of American global hegemony, but also a serious attempt to seriously strengthen this hegemony.

The “multipolarity” of Trump allows the existence of major powers, directly Washington, not controlled: China, Russia, others. But it suggests that these powers should reckon with American superiority and, accordingly, “keep themselves within” and behave “reasonably” towards the United States. This, if you will, is a formula for “peaceful coexistence” on the terms of America. So, declaring the entire Western hemisphere as a sphere of his exceptional influence, Trump is completely unresolved to recognize China’s security interests as it concerns Taiwan. The obvious conclusion, as follows from this: “equality” as a new norm in US relations not only with China, but also with Russia, the American strategy does not provide.

The problem of maintaining strategic stability between Washington and Moscow, which for more than half a century has served as the basis of bilateral relations between the leading nuclear powers of the world, has not been reflected in the National Defense Strategy. But it is noted in the National Security Strategy and may still be disclosed in the Nuclear Policy Review. The very concept of “strategic stability” is used in the text only once and in relation to relations of the United States – PRC. It can be assumed that the United States prefers to have free hands in the development of a strategic arsenal. The history of the arms control process between Washington and Moscow ends on February 5, when the START-3 Treaty expires.

What to do

We should proceed from the fact that even after the possible conclusion of an agreement on Ukraine, the United States will remain for the entire foreseeable prospect a geopolitical opponent of Russia. It is naive to hope for the “new Yalta”. America under Trump is not so much retreating as it focuses. The US strategy recognizes the strengths of Russia (military power, including in space and cyberspace, industrial capacities, the firm will of the leadership), but does not see Russia as an equal to America a great power. Pragmatic cooperation is possible, but only in certain matters. The basis of our policy towards the United States remains nuclear deterrence-terrage, the reliability of which must be increased.

The degree of decline in the role and power of the United States should not be exaggerated. But it must be borne in mind that the tendency to weaken American hegemony persists and Trump’s attempts to stop this process can give a return result. The “Trump Revolution” meets with resistance within the country, after the midterm elections in 2026, the internal political struggle in the United States will further escalate, the results of the 2028 presidential election are unpredictable, part of Trump’s legacy, including foreign policy, can be annulled by his successor, whoever he is. It is not worth a special look at agreements with Trump: the United States remains an ideological power, and in the future they may well resuscitate the entire set of ideological means of struggle in their policy.

It must be remembered that the security, defense and the very existence of Russia depend no less, and perhaps more on the internal stability of the state and the cohesion of society. Strengthening the foundations of the political, economic and ideological system of the country (the latter has yet to be created) is an absolute priority. The change of the first person of the State, whenever and under what circumstances it occurs, will be a moment of exceptional vulnerability to the entire system of public administration, and our adversary will not fail to take advantage of this.

The US retreat to the “second line” in Europe will not prevent the confrontation between NATO and Russia. Europe is more hostile to Russia than ever before. Without getting involved in the conventional arms race, Moscow will have to implement its strategy of geopolitical and military, including nuclear, deterrence of European allies of the United States. Further integration of Russia and Belarus in the field of military and geopolitical security will be of particular importance.

The new US policy towards allies, especially European allies, in itself does not create immediate opportunities to revitalize Russia’s policy in Europe. Nevertheless, in the long term, some removal of Washington from Europe could lead to a resurgence of disagreements between individual NATO countries on foreign and military policy issues. In the European direction, Moscow should be ready to act flexibly and inventively.

Russia’s interests may directly face American expansion in the Arctic region. In this regard, it is necessary to strengthen the defense infrastructure in this direction, including defense systems of the forces and facilities of the Northern Fleet, from aerospace (ballistic and cruise missiles and UAVs) attacks of the enemy, as well as to develop the potential for protection of navigation along the Northern Sea Route.

At the global level, Russia needs to strengthen military-strategic and military-technical partnership with China. Such a partnership is the most important element of Russia’s security system in Eurasia, it will also strengthen the position of Moscow and Beijing in relation to Washington.

In the Middle East, Russia needs to work with China to strengthen Iran’s military capabilities and shape the basis for regional strategic stability in the Middle East.

Together with China, we need to provide economic assistance and political support to Cuba in order to nullify the US efforts to disorganize the Cuban economy and overthrow the current government.

It is necessary to take full advantage of the fact that the relatively small losses that the United States can suffer during military intervention in various regions of the world can cause a sensitive psychological blow to Washington and lead to serious political consequences. Therefore, pre-effective assistance and support for possible goals of American military interventions can have a positive impact on all US foreign and military policy.