Civilian and uniformed Pentagon officials have said publicly that this administration is prioritizing the geographical United States in its national security policy, a departure from recent administrations—including Trump’s first—that have described conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific or terrorism in the Middle East as the biggest threats to America.

“I think we're learning in real-time what that means,” Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International studies, told Defense One. 

Currently, the administration is operating under an interim NDS that is “focused on defending the homeland,” with China and the Indo-Pacific a lower priority, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Appropriations Committee in June.

“We did an interim national defense strategy almost immediately upon arriving, because with a new administration, our planning guidance was from the previous administration—that we think had the wrong priorities, or some of the wrong priorities—and by issuing that interim national defense strategy, it allowed our building to plan around the priorities of President Trump,” Hegseth said.  

The interim NDS, which is classified, was finalized in March. An unclassified version exists but has not been released to the public—another change from the Biden administration, which published unclassified versions of both the interim and final NDS.

In May, the Pentagon announced that work on the final NDS would begin. The effort is being led by Defense Undersecretary for Policy Elbridge Colby, who has long proclaimed China to be the leading threat to America and who helped establish the Indo-Pacific as the priority theater in the 2018 NDS. This time around, it seems, Colby has been instructed to move the homeland to the top of the agenda, and bump China and Russia down.

Despite its second-place ranking, there’s no indication that the Indo-Pacific is getting a demotion in terms of attention or funding. 

“And that's certainly true this year,” Mark Cancian said.

But that’s largely thanks to the one-time boost of the reconciliation bill. The defense budget request itself is flat in terms of dollars, and effectively a dip because of inflation. If the next  years’ budgets include maybe a 2-percent hike, that might cover losses in spending power, Cancian said.

“But you know, if the budget is flat in nominal terms…then, you know, you're losing 5 percent a year,” he said. “And I mean, that doesn't take very long before you've made some deep cuts.”

Hegseth didn’t mention Russia at all in his characterization of the strategy, except insomuch as the administration is pressuring Europe to spend more on its own defense as Moscow continues its war on European soil.

That will enable the Pentagon to shift forces and resources elsewhere, he said: “…burden-sharing for our allies and partners, making sure that they're stepping up so that we can focus where we need to.”

Defending the homeland

Weeks after the interim NDS came out, Gen. Joe Ryan, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for operations, told a conference audience that while the service has been balancing requirements in the Indo-Pacific and Europe, “I can't leave out maybe the No. 1 priority theater today, and that's the homeland."

“But I would argue it hasn't made a big splash quite yet, and it needs to, because it's an important document,” Ryan said. 

What’s now playing out is the administration’s interpretation of domestic defense.

It started in February with an increase in troops deployed to the southern border, followed by the creation of a militarized border zone in April. That required bumping up the number of troops assisting Customs and Border Patrol from about 2,000 to 10,000.

“For a while, I was a little worried that the requirement for [U.S. Northern Command] to seal the border, it would end up taking tens of thousands, but that doesn't seem to have happened,” Cancian said.

The administration’s first ambitious stateside project is “Golden Dome,” envisioned as an Israeli Iron Dome-like web of sensors and missile-defense weapons—including some in orbit—intended to prevent aerial attacks anywhere in the United States. 

The effort got a big boost in the recently passed reconciliation bill, with a $25 billion downpayment on what the administration has projected will be a $175-billion endeavor and be at least somewhat operational by 2028. Many experts have called the plan unworkable, even with far more time and money. 

The administration has been tight-lipped on progress. Earlier this month, the Defense Department barred officials from mentioning Golden Dome at the annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Alabama, a forum traditionally used to showcase Pentagon efforts and discuss needs with defense contractors. Two days later, DOD hosted an unclassified Golden Dome industry day, but banned reporters from attending.

On Monday, Trump—with Hegseth by his side—announced that he would be taking control of Washington, D.C.’s police department and deploying 800 members of the district’s Army National Guard to support them in efforts to fight crime. 

“I think this is part of that focus on national security, because I think that there's a big push politically, domestic politics—aside from views about national security—that they like using troops to make a political point,” Cancian said.

But the Guard really isn’t well-suited to law enforcement missions, he said. Even when units were sent to guard the Capitol building after the Jan. 6 riot, troops were limited to crowd control and manning entrances to a fenced-in complex.

“Military forces have the wrong attitude about civilians. Law enforcement is trained to see civilians as citizens who deserve protection, except in the most extreme circumstances,” Cancian and Chris Park, a CSIS research associate, wrote in an analysis published Tuesday. “Military personnel are taught to treat civilians as potential threats and to always be ready to respond. Crowd control—in other words, dealing with unruly citizens—is the primary law enforcement training the National Guard receives.”

Service members also don’t receive the same training that police do when it comes to citizens’ rights and use of force, they wrote. This could present issues not only with Guardsmen assisting D.C. police, but with other possible domestic missions that are in line with the current national defense policy: immigration enforcement and counter-drug operations.

Six states have deployed Guardsmen to assist with Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

“Putting aside whether you think that crime is out of control or whether you think that action is needed, it's just not a very good tool for it,” Cancian said.

D.C.’s Home Rule Act allows the president to federalize its police force for 30 days, meaning the Guard’s mission is expected to last at least as long. The president said Wednesday that he would seek authorization from Congress to extend his takeover.

A White House press release about the mission does not give an end date, saying only that the “Guard will remain mobilized until law and order is restored.”

White House officials are already playing down expectations for the summit, which is ostensibly about the future of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, the Financial Times and CNBC reported Tuesday. The Friday meeting is planned one week after a deadline Trump gave Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or face further sanctions on August 8. Four days later, neither has occurred.  

Trump himself called the Friday meeting a “feel-out session.” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described it as a “listening session” about Russia’s ongoing invasion, which Putin has used to occupy and conquer about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory. 

Worth noting: Putin has an arrest warrant out from the International Criminal Court in The Hague. It was issued in 2023 for the war crime of kidnapping Ukrainian children, which is still taking place inside occupied Ukraine, as the New York Post reported last week. Because of the warrant, Putin doesn’t travel abroad that much, especially to Europe where most countries are wary of Putin’s motives. The Middle East was one option; but Trump suggested Alaska and Putin accepted. CNN has a bit more on the difficulties accommodating Putin in Alaska on such short notice.

The view from Kyiv: “This war must be ended. Pressure must be exerted on Russia for the sake of a just peace. Ukraine’s and our partners’ experience must be used to prevent deception by Russia,” President Volodymir Zelenskyy said on social media Wednesday. 

“At present, there is no sign that the Russians are preparing to end the war,” Zelenskyy said. “Our coordinated efforts and joint actions—of Ukraine, the United States, Europe, and all countries that seek peace—can definitely compel Russia to make peace. I thank everyone who is helping,” he added. 

Worth noting: A top Putin aide is already talking about a follow-up summit that will be held somewhere inside Russia, Yuri Ushakov told reporters Wednesday.

Trump spoke to European leaders in a joint call Wednesday. The discussion reportedly featured talk of “red lines,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “These include: a cease-fire as a prerequisite for further talks; any territorial discussions to start from the current front lines; and binding Western security guarantees that Russia must accept.”

The view from Berlin: “We want negotiations to take place in the right order; a ceasefire must come first. Essential elements should then be agreed in a framework agreement,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday after the phone call with Trump. He added, “Ukraine is prepared to negotiate on territorial issues, but…legal recognition of Russian occupation is not up for debate.” 

But Russian officials muddied the waters a bit, insisting Ukraine must give up four regions Russia has invaded—Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south. “The territorial integrity of the Russian Federation is enshrined in our constitution, and that says it all,” Russian deputy foreign ministry spokesman Alexei Fadeev said Wednesday. 

Zelenskyy told Trump he thinks Fadeev and Putin are “bluffing.” Zelenskyy said he believes “Putin is trying to apply pressure before the meeting in Alaska along all part of the Ukrainian front. Russia is trying to show that it can occupy all of Ukraine,” according to Reuters in Berlin. 

Additional reading: 

• “A look at Putin's past trips to the US ahead of planned Alaska summit,” Reuters reported in a retrospective on Monday;  

• “Russia Is Suspected to Be Behind Breach of Federal Court Filing System,” the New York Times reported Tuesday; 

• And the BBC investigated, “How are drones changing the landscape of modern warfare?” in a new 23-minute report.

Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1961, East Germany began building the Berlin Wall. 

Around the Defense Department

Will tearing up nearly-complete IT overhauls save money? “Donald Trump's Navy and Air Force are poised to cancel two nearly complete software projects that took 12 years and well over $800 million combined to develop, work initially aimed at overhauling antiquated human resources systems.” reports Reuters’ Alexandra Alper, who has a deep dive, here.

Some lawmakers worry that DOD leaders won’t follow congressional intent as they spend $150 billion from the reconciliation act, Breaking Defense reports. The deadline for the Pentagon’s plan is Aug. 22.

ICYMI: “‘Fund first, ask questions later’ is a bad way to go,” Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, wrote in Defenese One.

Vulcan’s first natsec launch lofts the Pentagon’s first experimental navigation satellite in half a century. United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket launched the Navigation Technology Satellite-3 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday. The satellite will test new anti-spoofing signals, a steerable phased-array antenna to send signals to ground forces in high-jamming areas, and receivers to help the satellite operate without instructions from ground controllers, Joanna Hicks, a senior research aerospace engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory, told reporters Monday ahead of the launch.

The mission was supposed to have launched in 2022, but delays with ULA’s heavy-lift Vulcan pushed it to this year. Defense One’s Audrey Decker has a bit more, here. 

What are the prospects for military action against foreign drug cartels? “The president has ordered the Pentagon to use the armed forces to carry out what in the past was considered law enforcement,” the New York Times reported on Friday. Your D-Brief-er talked with journalist and writer Kevin Maurer, whose work focuses on U.S. special operations forces around the world, and who dug into the subject for Rolling Stone. 

• Listen: Defense One Radio, Ep. 189: “The U.S. military vs. drug cartels.”

• See also Politico’s take: “Why Trump’s War on the Drug Cartels Is Bound to Backfire // The president’s punishment-heavy plan doesn’t just ignore other factors—it actively undermines itself.”

Meet the archconservative church network that Pete Hegseth belongs to. A week after SecDef reposted a video showing pastors arguing that women should not be able to vote, the Associated Press has an explainer.

Trump 2.0

Analysis: “Sending the National Guard into D.C. Is the Wrong Solution to a Crime Problem,” writes former Marine Corps Col. Mark Cancian and researcher Chris Park of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Their argument features three components: 

1. “Military forces are less familiar than police with the nuances of citizens’ rights and the conditions under which force is permissible (see Figure 1, which compares military training with that of the police). National Guard training focuses on combat—how to use weapons and fight—while police training focuses on handling crime and the law.”

2. “Military forces have the wrong attitude about civilians. Law enforcement is trained to see civilians as citizens who deserve protection, except in the most extreme circumstances. Military personnel are taught to treat civilians as potential threats and to always be ready to respond. Crowd control—in other words, dealing with unruly citizens—is the primary law enforcement training the National Guard receives.”

3. “Military personnel are untrained in the complexities of gathering evidence and building a case that will stand up in court. Indeed, nearly half the Police Academy’s 27-week curriculum is dedicated to criminal procedure.”

Their recommendation: “The first action should be bringing the police up to full strength, despite the president’s statements that D.C. has enough police,” Cancian and Park write. What’s more, “If the concern is the protection of federal property, physical security could be enhanced” as happened in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. “Similar measures could be adopted again. Physical security has the advantage that it is on duty 24/7 and does not require expensive personnel.” Continue reading, here. 

Commentary: “There’s a real risk that the feds could posture for 30 days,” writes Charles Fain Lehman of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, writing Tuesday for The Atlantic, “and then declare victory as violence continues its downward trajectory. That would, of course, do little to fix the real problems.”

Instead, Lehman argues, “the administration should focus its resources on the people and places that make the District unusually unsafe. The city has already identified the ‘power few’ who drive the large majority of violent offending. The administration’s priority should be to target these people for apprehension, prosecution, and incapacitation—as soon as possible.”

But there is a bit more that can be done, too, says Lehman. “Research shows that deploying more senior officers reduces both crime and use of force—the opposite of what D.C. does. The administration could switch things up in a way that the city perhaps could not.”

Additional reading: 

• The New York Times explained in a fact check how “Trump Misstates Washington Crime Data to Justify Takeover”;

• See also, “Trump’s rhetoric about DC echoes a history of racist narratives about urban crime,” via the Associated Press reporting Tuesday as well. 

And lastly today: A Trump DOD official cited literal fake news in his previous job. The president’s top civilian defense official for Latin America, Joseph Humire, ran an alleged think tank which, in the course of its “Tren de Aragua” coverage, cited at least five newspaper articles that didn’t exist, InsightCrime reported Monday. 

“One of the false events is dated March 10, 2025—one day before Humire testified in the US Congress regarding immigration and security issues, including Tren de Aragua,” InsightCrime reports. Another “entry dated March 18—one week after Humire’s congressional testimony—contained similarly unsubstantiated information.” 

Humire’s former employer at the Center for a Secure Free Society “told InSight Crime that the organization would work to fix the issue,” taking down one of the instances pointed out; but the executive director dodged further inquiry. 

For what it’s worth, “Humire and the Department of Defense did not respond to requests for comment,” InsightCrime adds.