US to scale back support for allies under updated defense strategy

(MENAFN) The Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy outlines that the United States will offer “more limited” assistance to allies, reflecting a major shift in security priorities.

For the first time in recent years, the strategy identifies the security of the US homeland and the Western Hemisphere—not China—as the nation’s primary concern. Previous editions, published every four years, had ranked China as the top defence priority. Relations with Beijing will now be approached through “strength, not confrontation,” the report notes.

The strategy echoes calls from President Donald Trump for increased “burden-sharing” from allies in addressing threats from Russia and North Korea.

The new 34-page report follows last year’s National Security Strategy, which warned that Europe faced civilisational collapse and did not list Russia as a direct threat to the United States. At that time, Moscow described the document as “largely consistent” with its vision.

By contrast, the 2018 Pentagon strategy characterized “revisionist powers” such as China and Russia as the “central challenge” to US security.

The current strategy calls on American allies to take a more active role, stating that partners have been “content” to allow Washington to subsidize their defence. The document emphasizes that this change should not be interpreted as US isolationism.

“To the contrary, it means a focused and genuinely strategic approach to the threats our nation faces,” the report says. It criticizes past policies for neglecting the “concrete interests” of Americans and warns against conflating American priorities with global ones, noting that “a threat to a person halfway around the world is the same as to an American” should not automatically be assumed.

Instead, the report asserts that allies, particularly in Europe, “will take the lead against threats that are less severe for us but more so for them.”

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