Most Americans have never heard of the National Defense Strategy.

That isn’t an accident. It’s long. It’s technical. It’s buried in government websites. And it almost never gets explained in plain English.

But here’s the reality: this document will shape how safe the United States is five, ten, and twenty years from now — long after today’s political headlines are forgotten.

If you want to know where the country is actually going on national security, you don’t watch campaign speeches. You read strategy documents.

Because that’s where governments reveal what they are really preparing for.

Where the Real Decisions Get Made

There are two documents that quietly drive U.S. national security policy.

The National Security Strategy (NSS) comes from the White House. It tells you how the president sees the world — who matters, who threatens us, and what America is supposed to do about it.

The National Defense Strategy (NDS) comes from the Pentagon. It turns that worldview into military reality: what weapons get built, where forces deploy, how alliances are structured, and what threats get priority.

If the NSS is the theory, the NDS is the execution plan.

And execution plans are where history gets written.

The 2026 Strategy Looks Normal — Until You Look Closer

The 2026 National Defense Strategy centers on four major goals:

• Defending the U.S. homeland

• Competing with China

• Forcing allies to carry more of the defense burden

• Expanding U.S. defense manufacturing

On paper, that sounds reasonable. Almost boring.

But strategy is never just about what’s listed. It’s about what gets emphasized — and what gets quietly pushed to the side.

And that’s where the stakes get real.

The Fight Inside the National Security World Right Now

There is a growing argument among defense professionals that the strategy is drifting toward domestic political framing rather than long-term global risk management.

The NSS provides a strategic outline of what the U.S. wants and the strategy for achieving it. It assesses immigration as a potential threat vector and describes border security as the primary element of national security. Meanwhile, threats like cyber infrastructure attacks, global supply chain disruption, pandemic risk, and climate-driven instability receive comparatively less attention.

You don’t have to agree with that argument to recognize the danger.

Strategy is about prediction.
Prediction is about prioritization.
And when governments mis-prioritize threats, they don’t fail immediately. They fail later. Usually, during a crisis.

This Isn’t Abstract. This Is About Power, Money, and Risk.

The National Defense Strategy decides:

Where hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars go.
Which weapons systems get built.
Which threats agencies train to respond to.
Which alliances strengthen — and which quietly erode.

And those choices compound.

If you overinvest in one category of threat and underinvest in another, you might not notice at first, until something happens. Then, suddenly, you realize the country is incredibly well prepared, but for the wrong war.

History is full of those moments.

The Alliance Issue Should Worry People More Than It Does

For eighty years, alliances have been America’s strategic superpower.

Allies share intelligence.

They host bases.

Their existence deters conflicts before they start.

But alliances are built on trust — not just capability.

If allies start to doubt U.S. strategic judgment and resolve, cooperation won’t collapse overnight. It might get slower. Narrower. More conditional.

And in a crisis, slower, narrower, conditional can be deadly.

Strategy documents are read line by line in allied capitals. They are read just as closely by adversaries.

Everyone is trying to answer the same question:
What does the United States actually care about now?

The Most Dangerous Myth: Strategy Only Describes Today

It doesn’t. Strategy is about what the government thinks the world will look like years from now.

Weapons systems take a decade to develop.
Military doctrine takes years to institutionalize.
Alliance networks take generations to build — and can be damaged in months.

When your strategy is wrong, you don’t notice immediately.
You notice when it’s too late to fix quickly.

Why This Is a Democracy Issue — Not Just a Defense Issue

Most Americans will never read the National Defense Strategy. That’s fine.

But people should at least understand what it does.

Because these decisions shape:
Economic stability
Global influence
Military readiness
Crisis response capability
Long-term national survival

National security policy is one of the few areas where mistakes can echo for decades.

And, the less public attention these documents get, the easier it is for strategic choices to be made with minimal scrutiny.

If You Want to Understand the System Better

If you want a strong, accessible breakdown of how these strategy documents fit together, Paul Cobaugh’s article What Is the NDS, and Why Does It Matter? is a very good place to start. It translates dense doctrine into plain language without pretending the stakes are small.

The Bottom Line

The National Defense Strategy will never go viral.

It will never dominate cable news.

But it will quietly determine what kind of threats the United States is ready for — and which ones it isn’t.

And if citizens don’t understand at least the basics of how it works, they are giving up one of the most important forms of democratic oversight they have.

Whether they realize it or not.

Martha Duncan is a retired U.S. Department of Defense senior executive with 37 years of service, including 23 years as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserves, where she also served as Reserve Attache. She had three operational deployments to Panama, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. At DIA, she worked as a Latin American analyst for 11 years. A specialist in human intelligence (HUMINT), she is recognized for her leadership in intelligence operations, coalition-building, and enterprise-level policy development across the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the U.S. Army, and the broader Intelligence Community. She grew up in Panama during the rise of Manuel Noriega and was instrumental in his capture. She is a member of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 360 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines, including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs, and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.

Created by Vilkasss, Pixabay

The Trump administration has undertaken a wholesale effort to gut America’s soft power, from huge budget cuts to bullying most countries around the world. One of the most insidious actions has been the brutal crack-down on immigration, including attempting to end birth-right citizenship. While these actions have major impacts domestically, a much less appreciated but nonetheless significant consequence is the severe damage it does to the US image internationally: it threatens the US global brand, or in foreign policy-speak, its soft power.

Immigration and Soft Power – America (pre-Trump) Stood Out

The US has had a different concept of immigration and citizenship from other countries for much of its history. Someone could become an American by believing and supporting certain ideals of freedom, justice, equality, democracy, and rule of law. Being an American was a choice not tied to where someone was born, what their race or ethnicity may be, or their religion. The idea that a country should be based on a set of ideals and that anybody from anywhere could become a fully equal American is substantially different from the majority of other countries in the world. Beyond this ideal being important to America’s self-identity, this is a critical component of US soft power.

I first personally appreciated the role of the relatively open and welcoming US immigration concept while working as a waiter in Australia in the mid-1970’s. All the other workers were originally from elsewhere and often referred to themselves by their origin country, e.g., French, Greek, German, etc., despite migrating to Australia. When discussing possibly moving to the US, they notably said they could become American, not just move there for a better job (as they would say about other countries), as if it were a fact and one they admired.

Fast forward four decades to June 2016, and Trump has just secured the GOP nomination. During a lively political conversation in Europe at a post-international conference dinner with several noted non-American academics, one pointedly stared at me and said, “Don’t take my America away”. Another (to paraphrase here) followed up that even if he did not want to move to the US, the idea that anybody can become an American by ascribing to a set of ideals that is not tied to blood, land, or religion, was central to the ideas of freedom and democracy around the world. He added that Americans do not appreciate how powerful that idea is in the world, noting that “even if things get desperate in my country, I know there is always America.”

Soft Power Bolsters US Influence

The Trump administration speaks out of both sides of its mouth on the importance of soft power. On one hand, some tout a dog-eat-dog worldview where only power matters. On the other hand, others still recognize the value of soft power as they extol the virtues of freedom, capitalism, European (or western) civilization, religious freedom, and democracy. For example, the administration is trying to use the US’s much-weakened soft power to support protests in Iran.

Soft power serves as the foundational backdrop for US national security policy, even though it is hard to translate into specific policy gains. But as any country’s diplomats will state, its decline or absence shows up noticeably. Several years ago, China initiated its so-called “wolf warrior” diplomacy, trumpeting Beijing’s power, thumping a nationalist message, and seeking to throw its economic and military weight around. Despite the cheers by nationalists inside China, wolf warrior diplomacy led to an international backlash, even from governments more sympathetic to China. Consequently, Beijing has largely backed off this approach and adopted a much more positive, collaborative approach, enabling it to exploit the Trump administration’s hyper-bullying nationalist diplomacy.

Trump’s Immigration Policy Damaging US International Influence

While often considered a domestic issue, immigration is central to foreign policy. The US has historically benefitted from a relatively open and welcoming immigration policy, including strengthening the US brand. In contrast, the Trump administration’s immigration policies directly weaken US influence around the world. For some in the administration, that is intentional, since the aim of the immigration policy is to make coming to the US so undesirable that people will not try, and for those who are in the country, will be so miserable that they will “self deport” — a truly Orwellian term. Such an attitude has echoes of the Vietnam War quote, “we had to destroy the village to save it.”

Harry Hannah retired after four decades of experience in the Intelligence Community. He retired from the CIA in 2018. About half that time was focused on analyzing the capability of multiple foreign militaries in direct support of US military planning and operations and national level decision making. He is a member of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 360 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines, including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs, and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the US Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government authentication of information or endorsement of the author’s views.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the focus of news stories, Congressional funding and shut-down negotiations. Just what are the many components and responsibilities of DHS?

Steven A. Cash served as a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office before joining the CIA in 1994 as Assistant General counsel and subsequently serving as an intelligence officer in the Directorate of Operations. In 2001 he joined the Senate Select committee on Intelligence as Counsel and designee-staffer to Senator Diane Feinstein). He later served as a senior staffer in the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, the Department of Energy, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security and the Department of Energy. In the private sector he has advised on national security, counterintelligence, and technology policy and served on the Biological Sciences Experts Group under the Director of National Intelligence. Mr. Cash is currently the Executive Director of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 360 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines, including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs, and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.

The question “what can I do?” in response to Trump’s efforts to establish his autocratic rule is frequently asked these days…except by the people we deem to have the power by virtue of their jobs to enact laws and guardrails to protect our democracy; those holding elected, financial, or professional positions and the leverage to use them to slow and stop Trump’s rush to dictatorship. These people include, in particular, elected officials from Trump’s Republican party at city, state, and federal levels, former Republican officials whose terms are now over, and millionaires and billionaires (who made lots of their money thanks to the liberal democracy Trump hates). Elected officials have multiple constitutional governing tools at their fingertips, which they can use to stop our accelerating slide. They appear, however, to have abandoned those tools. Republicans who previously served have instant credibility and a large political stage to speak from about Trump’s anti-democratic actions and policies, but their silence is frustratingly deafening. And it’s infuriating to watch the masters of the Tech universe, the business world, and too many in the rarefied air of higher education, bend, bow, and scrape, instead of using the wealth and power that they enjoy to defend our democracy.

A shining exception to these demonstrations of apparent cowardice in the face of Trump’s onslaught has come from the worlds of art and sports, just as they always have, historically, in the face of tyranny. While those well-connected, rich, and seemingly powerful individuals mentioned above cower in front of Trump, singers, poets, entertainers, late-night comics, actors, musicians, and athletes have been standing up. We heard and sang Springsteen’s ode to Minnesota, we saw Stephen Colbert lose his position on late-night TV because he pointed out a couple of truths about Trump, and we saw Jimmy Kimmel get tossed out of his job, until the public threatened the incomes of the rich and powerful. Musicians and poets across the country are expressing themselves beautifully, loudly, and clearly about the killings and “enhanced ICE operations in Minnesota.” Big and small names from the world of sports are using their wide-reaching platforms to speak out about Trump’s cruelty and the fear it inspires. And, Bad Bunny will, this coming weekend, fuse the worlds of the arts and sports and Hispanic culture at the Super Bowl, including commentary on the effects of Trump, his administration, and the terrors of their immigration raids, at one of the most widely viewed events of the 2025-2026 time frame. Perhaps these artists and athletes are better about standing up than are the people described earlier, because their professions call them to stand up alone to share their gifts and talents in full view of the public, and each time they take their stage, or microphone or field, they do so despite the risks of anger or rejection.

Most importantly, over the last year, we have seen a gradual rise of American citizens shouldering their responsibility for responding to their country in crisis. The small gatherings of local, grassroots public demonstrations have grown with the help of movements such as “No Kings” and 50501 and Indivisible, attracting people from across the country (and world) of all backgrounds, parties, and beliefs, their signs expressing a surprisingly broad spectrum of hopes and concerns, all brought together under the umbrella of saving our democracy.

Most recently, the violent ICE invasion of Minnesota has awakened still more citizens who perhaps needed more tangible evidence of democratic decline; they are seeing with their own eyes what living under autocratic rule, with its disdain for the truth, no respect for the rule of law, constitution, or democratic norms, really means. And one can’t “unsee” the violence that is particularly emblematic of the Trump autocracy.

And so, the question, “What Can I Do” persists. Because…it must. Now is the time.

In response, here are our top 5 suggestions:

1 Develop the habit of calling or writing to federal representatives, of both/all parties, daily with your concerns or support. This can be mind-numbing, but it is absolutely the best possible way of making those who work for you listen to you.

2. Build Community: Work with your neighbors and/or repurpose your social groups to support others in need in your community, or join larger existing groups to do so. Support those whose civil liberties are being threatened and infringed.

3. Engage in the political process at every level-local, state, and federal. At a bare minimum, VOTE. Also, demand that candidates in your towns, state and at the federal level demonstrate support for the democratic process and norms.. Engage with your time and/or money and speak out, write, or participate in non-violent action.

4. Stay informed. This is a tough one, but it is vital. Now is not the time to bury heads in the sand, as dreadful as the news is each day. To do so is to play directly into the hands of our autocrat wannabe.

5. Practice Self-Care. Whatever method you choose, do practice it daily, Exercise, meditation, prayer, yoga…whatever it is, practice it. Your country and your loved ones need you engaged for the long term. Be kind to yourself. And others.

For further details, “how to’s,” additional ideas, and “how to discern fake news,” see “What We Can Do, published” on Substack November 9, 2025

Margaret Henoch served in the Clandestine Service of the CIA for 25 years, at Headquarters and in the field, focusing on operations and counterintelligence and retiring as a Senior Intelligence Officer. She is a member of The Steady State.

Jennifer Gregg served in the Clandestine Service of the CIA for 30 years, in the field, focusing on operations, intelligence collection, and counterintelligence, and retiring as a Senior Intelligence Officer. She is a member of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 360 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines, including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs, and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.