Defense Document Calls for Allies To Take Lead Role in Europe as America Pivots to Western Hemisphere

America will prioritize the Western Hemisphere in its defense planning while global allies will be expected to play a lead role in defending most other parts of the world, according to a National Defense Strategy released by the Pentagon late Friday. China, seen as the primary focus for military planning in previous such documents, is relegated to secondary status but remains a critical rival in a region in which America must maintain “a favorable balance of military power,” the document says. Russia, it says, “will remain a serious but manageable threat to NATO’s eastern members for the foreseeable future.”The document, required by law to be issued every four years, comes less than two months after the release of the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, and like that report reflects the “America First” stance that has defined President Trump’s foreign policy.The document “does not conflate Americans’ interests with those of the rest of the world — that a threat to a person halfway around the world is the same as to an American,” says an introduction signed by the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth. “Nor does it see implanting our way of life by force as necessary.”Yet, Mr. Hegseth writes, the 23-page document “acknowledges that even those [threats] that may feel distant — like the importance of maintaining U.S. access to the Indo-Pacific, the world’s largest market area — still have exceptionally real — indeed, fundamental — implications for our nation’s vital interests.”A section of the report, titled “Homeland and Hemisphere” says past administrations have for too long neglected homeland defenses, allowing the nation to be “overwhelmed by a flood of illegal aliens” while narcotics “have poured across our borders.”It also cites the growth of “more direct” military threats “including nuclear threats as well as a variety of conventional strike and space, cyber, electromagnetic warfare capabilities.”The growing influence of America’s adversaries “from Greenland in the Arctic to the Gulf of America, the Panama Canal and locations further south” threatens America’s access to “key terrain” throughout the hemisphere, the document says.Turning to China — “already the second most powerful country on earth” — it says Beijing’s power is growing further despite “very significant internal economic, demographic, and societal challenges.”While adopting a conciliatory tone toward Beijing ahead of Mr. Trump’s planned visit there this year, it says America must ensure that China cannot block its access to the economically vital Indo-Pacific region.Washington does not seek to dominate, humiliate or strangle China, the document says. “Our goal … is simply to ensure that neither China nor anyone else can dominate us or our allies,” adding that America seeks “a decent peace, on terms favorable to Americans but that China can also accept and live under, if possible.”Europe, it says, must take “primary responsibility for its own conventional defense,” and to that end the Defense Department will incentivize and enable NATO allies to take on that responsibility with “critical but more limited U.S. support.”The document says the department will press allies to deliver on their defense spending pledges “while also working to expand transatlantic defense industrial cooperation and reduce defense trade barriers.”In a separate section, the document describes America’s defense industrial base as “the foundation to rebuilding and adapting our military so that it remains the strongest in the world.” The review promises “urgent action … to supercharge the American defense industry so that it is ready to meet the challenges of our era.”

Defense Document Calls for Allies To Take Lead Role in Europe as America Pivots to Western Hemisphere

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