Trump Shatters Post‑9/11 Defense Autopilot

Trump’s defense blueprint broke Washington’s post-9/11 autopilot by naming China and Russia as the main threats—and that shift still shapes the battlefield today.

Story Snapshot

Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) and 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) pivoted U.S. priorities from counterterrorism to “great power competition.”
The strategies explicitly labeled China and Russia as strategic competitors and pushed “peace through strength” alongside homeland security priorities.
Defense leaders argued the U.S. could counter peer rivals while still conducting targeted counterterror missions, but budget caps and continuing resolutions complicated execution.
Later strategy documents continued echoing the shift toward Indo-Pacific deterrence, alliance burden-sharing, and resilient basing.

A deliberate break from the post-9/11 playbook

President Trump’s December 2017 NSS arrived as a clear signal that Washington’s habits after 9/11 were no longer sufficient. The document emphasized protecting the homeland, promoting prosperity, and rebuilding military strength while naming threats that had been treated more cautiously in prior strategies. China and Russia were identified as strategic competitors, and North Korea and Iran were treated as serious state-based challenges, not side issues behind counterterrorism.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis followed in January 2018 with an unclassified NDS summary that sharpened the priority: maintain U.S. military advantage over China and Russia. The NDS framed peer competition as the “central challenge” and argued the U.S. had to shift readiness, modernization, and force posture accordingly. The message was blunt: the military could not keep treating terrorism as the organizing principle for everything without risking long-term strategic disadvantage.

What made Trump’s approach “unlike anything before”

The biggest distinguishing feature was the explicit naming of rivals and the willingness to re-order priorities around them. Analysts highlighted that earlier strategies often avoided direct, sustained focus on China and Russia as primary competitors, while Trump’s strategy made that identification central. The NSS also stressed a broad toolkit—diplomacy, economic leverage, and military strength—rather than presenting the fight as mainly a counterinsurgency or counterterror campaign.

Trump’s NSS also reflected domestic lessons many Americans had learned the hard way: when government loses focus, people lose trust. The strategy linked national strength to economic resilience and border security, treating sovereignty and homeland protection as core national security issues. It also emphasized missile defense and resilient networks. At the same time, the research notes a limitation in how the “information” instrument was treated compared with the classic DIME framework.

The resource problem: strategy meets budget reality

The research makes clear that the pivot was not simply rhetorical—it collided with budget constraints. In 2017–2018, continuing resolutions and shutdown threats risked locking the Pentagon at prior-year funding levels, complicating modernization and readiness goals. The NDS message was that “tough choices” were unavoidable, because readiness for peer conflict requires sustained investment in advanced capabilities, logistics, munitions, and training at scale.

Mattis and other defense officials argued the U.S. could “walk and chew gum” by keeping counterterror operations more tailored and cost-effective while shifting the main effort toward deterring peer competitors. That logic matters for taxpayers: large, indefinite missions can drain resources while adversaries build high-end capabilities. The strategy’s internal tension was practical, not theoretical—how to fund major-power deterrence while managing ongoing threats without expanding government endlessly.

Enduring effects and the 2025 strategy echoes

Later analysis cited in the research suggests Trump’s framework continued influencing how Washington talks about deterrence, basing, and alliance expectations, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. The impact analysis highlights measures such as dispersed basing and prepositioned munitions to improve resilience. The research also points to investments tied to modern warfare demands—missile defense, cyber, and emerging technologies—consistent with preparing for state-based competitors.

At the same time, the research acknowledges disagreement over how later versions evolved. A 2025 NSS is described in the research as retaining “peace through strength” themes while readjusting priorities, including stronger emphasis on Indo-Pacific burden-sharing and a different posture toward other regions. The available material does not confirm a separate 2026 NSS release, so the clearest verified throughline remains the 2017–2018 pivot toward peer competition as the organizing defense priority.

Trump’s national defense strategy is unlike anything that’s come before it | by @meghannmyers_ https://t.co/P5B50gAfPc

— Defense One (@DefenseOne) January 27, 2026

For Americans frustrated by years of drift and vague doctrine, the documented shift is straightforward: Trump’s strategy documents re-centered sovereignty, deterrence, and national strength against major adversaries—while treating counterterror as necessary but no longer dominant. Whether every implementation goal was met amid budget fights is a fair question raised by the sources themselves. What is not unclear is the strategic intent: name the competitors, prioritize the homeland, and prepare for the kind of conflict Washington spent years hoping wouldn’t return.