China is no longer considered the primary security priority for the United States, according to the Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy. The document — published every four years — places the security of the U.S. homeland and the Western Hemisphere at the center of U.S. defense planning, stressing that Washington has long neglected the “concrete interests” of American citizens.
The Pentagon also states that it will provide more limited support to U.S. allies, urging partners to assume greater responsibility for their own security.
This strategy follows the release last year of the U.S. National Security Strategy, which warned that Europe faces a “civilizational risk” and did not portray Russia as a direct threat to the United States — an approach that Moscow described as “largely consistent” with its own outlook.
By contrast, the 2022 National Defense Strategy identified China as the leading “multi-domain” threat to U.S. defense, while the 2018 strategy described “revisionist powers” such as China and Russia as the “central challenge” to American security, writes the BBC.
The 34-page document, published on Friday, largely reinforces the political positions of the Trump administration during its first year in office, reflecting a strategic shift in the military and diplomatic focus of the United States.
During this period, U.S. President Donald Trump has undertaken a series of military and political actions, including the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, strikes against vessels suspected of drug trafficking in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean, and most recently, pressuring U.S. allies to assume greater strategic responsibility for Greenland.
The strategy reiterates that the Pentagon will ensure U.S. military and commercial access to key territories, particularly the Panama Canal, the Gulf of America, and Greenland.
The document also emphasizes that the Trump administration’s approach will be “fundamentally different from the grand strategies of post–Cold War administrations,” adding: “Out goes utopian ideology; in comes hard realism.”
Regarding relations with China, the United States will pursue an approach based on strength, not confrontation. The strategy underlines that the goal is not to dominate China, nor to crush or humiliate it, but to prevent any country — including China — from dominating the United States or its allies.
