The 2026 National Defense Strategy(NDS)dropped a few weeks ago, as these things do, to modest fanfare. But it is not insignificant. Call it what you will, whether the sister publication to or child publication of The National Security Strategy(NSS), published at the end of last year, the NDS is a part of a family of documents outlining the executive branch’s national security vision defining goals, international interests, commitments, objectives, policies, and priorities. The NDS does its part by describing how the US military apparatus will help execute the president’s vision. In two broad sections the current document reflects first on the global security environment with chapters on the American homeland and our hemisphere, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and evaluation of US allies’ and partners’ performance in shouldering their share of the West’s defense burden. It then moves to specific strategic concerns including defending the homeland, deterring China, increasing said burden-sharing among allies, and supercharging the US defense industrial base.
The NDS has no real surprises andfollows its predecessor document in elevating the Western Hemisphere to the apogee of US strategic priorities while reshuffling other regions in importance. And though both documents reorient US focus more inward—emphasizing sovereignty and territorial defense, including border security and other domestic concerns as foundational to national security—it can’t credibly be said that any of this suggests the US is turning isolationist. Indeed, the documents seem clear that this would be impossible. Modern technology has shrunk the world so that real seclusion—the mode of the genuine isolationist—is no longer an option. Missiles, 5th domain warfare, and terrorism aren’t turned away by closed borders or disregard for the rest of the world. To care about the Western hemisphere is to care about the things that can penetrate—or seep into—the Western hemisphere. Secretary Hegseth knows this and, in his cover memo to the NDS, is at pains to insist on the simple recognition that while America will remain the indispensable superpower it is not America’s duty “to act everywhere on our own,” especially, as he can’t help himself to put it, when allied security suffers from their “leaders’ own irresponsible choices.”
Nevertheless, for many critics, the documents, taken both in whole and in part, are so overly preoccupied with fretting about “America first” that they ignore or irresponsibly downplay our responsibilities to friends and partners. This isn’t entirely fair, but it’s forgivable, at least from a surface view of things. Indeed, the concept of “national interest” saturates both documents, appearing in various forms more than almost any other substantive noun. “America” and “American” appear more often in the NSS—though mainly under in fidelity to the “America First” theme. Both “Trump” and “allies” appears slightly more than “national interest” in the NDS—though, to be fair, “allies” appears quite frequently in the context of increased burden sharing or becoming autonomous and less dependent on the US. If in past national security documents terms like “bolster,” “reassure, or “indispensable” preceded “allies,” the current documents prefer “accountability” and “conditionality.” Everything really is viewed through the lens of our interests.
For these reasons, and many others, both documents have come under scrutiny and criticism and caused much concern. But I want to take a different tack to focus on this business about national interest. Somewhere in my lifetime—or in the hippy-dippy pre-dawn hours just before—the term became pejorative. Disparaged as an obstacle to global cooperation, a concern for national interest is derided as exclusionary, chauvinistic, or just grossly selfish. It appears, for some, the stuff of cold calculation, power, and to-hell-with-the-rest-of-you-ism. It needn’t be.
It oughtn’t be.
The primacy of nations, as the NSS rightly insists, remains as the world’s “fundamental political unit.” Because it is so, “it is natural and just that all nations put their interests first and guard their sovereignty.” This is not just a concession to reality. It is not even simply common sense. It is, as the document declares, just—it is virtuous. The moral philosophers or ethicists might call it “associative relationships” or “special obligations.” Whatever the term, I know that if you, me, and my son were hiking together and you and my son fell into a nest of poisonous vipers together that it is my duty, as a father, to pull out my son first. I might even have him use you as a ladder. It is appropriate that I am concerned, in the first place, with the welfare of my family—that I support and supply their necessities—food, shelter, security—before I supply yours or your children’s. In the same fashion, a political ruler—that authority over whom there is no one greater charged with the provision and maintenance of the order and justice—and therefore the peace—of the political community for which they are responsible—has, as their chief responsibility, the welfare of those they rule. The Trump administration is not wrong when it concludes that “the purpose of the American government is to secure the God-given natural rights of American citizens.” But I do wish it qualified purpose with the word primary—that’s to say, primary purpose. For while its omission is not exactly wrong, its absence isn’t exactly right.
This is because our duties—whether individually or corporately—do not end with our own. While I would pull my child out of that nest of vipers before I would help you out, I would also do everything in my power to save you both. It is also true that I might not always attempt to save my own over you no matter the details of the particular case. Circumstances might affect the basic principle and reorient my behavior—we can imagine a multitude of scenarios in which I pull you out first. Likewise, while it is my duty to provide my children their necessities, it is not my duty—quite the opposite—to cater to their luxuries while your family doesn’t have enough to eat. And, in a real catastrophe, even my children’s enjoyment of their necessities might need to be carefully curtailed in order to help your family if you were starving.
If true of individuals, then it is true, too, ultimately, for nations. While it is also true that the chief moral obligation of any particular sovereign is to his or her own people, this obligation is not absolute. A nation should cultivate those capacities that they are able to cultivate in order to be of use to other nations in need. What I am championing here is the so-called Spiderman ethic: with great power comes great responsibility. My thesis is that there is always a strong presumption that if there is someone in danger then I ought to do something about it, and that my actually doing something about it is conditioned on my having the capacity to. Providence and ambition have allowed the US to gather to itself vast stores of power and security. This is not simply the result of having (mostly) friendly neighbors above and below and two vast oceans to either side. It has been a choice. We chose to become the most powerful nation the world has ever seen. For most of our history, we also chose to accept the responsibilities—not infinite and not solitary—that we bear because of that power. And so, we have chosen to not simply horde this power to our own good. America has, throughout our history, been a force for good in the world. This has not been altruism at the expense of national interest. Doing good in the world, for the world, rebounds to our own good. Besides much else, an ordered community of nations aligned to a common good forms the outer perimeter of our own security. But spending our power on the welfare of other nations also makes the power we have sufferable to those beneath it.
This is to argue, as I have argued before, that national interest encompasses the pursuit of virtue. As with individuals, nations too, if only in an analogous way, can develop the habit of—and the reputation for—virtuous behavior. Specifically, America ought to develop our miliary, financial, cultural, diplomatic, scientific, industrial, and technological power in order to deploy that power—when both duty and prudence align in doing so—to aid our international neighbors—including both discreet people groups as well as states—even if doing so is not strictly in defense or support of those kinds of national interests like protecting global trade, strengthening our financial, energy, and environmental systems, and securing our power, security, and wealth. These things are vital national interests. But while that, national interest is more than that.
In an outstanding essay in an old issue of First Things, Nigel Biggar, Providence contributor, Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, hiking partner, and now Lord Biggar of Castle Douglas, put it all this way:
The defense and promotion of the domestic security and well-being of one people depends upon making and keeping the international environment friendly rather than hostile.
One way to do this, Biggar points out, is to promote and defend abroad what is defended and promoted at home. This will include those “values and institutions generally important for human welfare—such as the rule of law, an incorrupt civil service, and legal rights.” This exhortation is no gassy idealism. It is deadly practical and comes with a crucial warning, Biggar again:
The United States is not the only trustee of such values and institutions, but, thanks to the gifts of providence and its own achievements, it happens to be the most powerful global actor at this time. Its primary duty to its own people obliges it to sustain its power. But that duty implies a secondary one to promote the weal of other nations. For if it should surrender its dominant international power, other states, less humane and liberal, will pick it up. The U.S. has a vocation to shoulder the imperial burden, certainly for the sake of Americans, but for the sake of the rest of us as well.
There’s a helpful distinction made in theological reflection about the character of God that categorizes the divine attributes under two key headings: God’s greatness and His goodness. I considered this early on in the first Trump administration. It would pay to reflect upon them again. Attributes, of course, refer to those qualities that are rightly ascribed to someone or something, they express some truth about a thing’s nature. When we speak of God’s “greatness” we point to those things that reveal his majesty or magnificence, his glory, dignity, and splendor. His “goodness” directs our attention to his moral character. Scripture attests to both. Consider Psalm 8:
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
Here, God’s greatness is clearly evidenced in the witness of creation which attests to his eternal power. The omni-everything, God’s greatness is associated with terms such as wrath, justice, power, immutability, sovereignty, and the like. Included among the manifold ways in which he directs this power is his Kingship over the earth, the rule and defense of His people, and his judgment and destruction of evil.
But this greatness is coupled with—not qualified or limited by—his goodness. God is not simply creator; he is mindful of his creation. He is providentially concerned that it should flourish. God’s goodness is described by his holiness, love, mercy, graciousness, and his fidelity—both to his own character and to his creation.
To distinguish between God’s goodness and His greatness is helpful but it’s not meant to be stark. One cannot talk about His goodness without also needing to gesture to His justice. Neither can one start to describe His Kingship without very quickly needing to bring in His love. God is just to the nth degree, and He is loving to the nth degree. Would He cease to be one He would cease to be the other.
This is a useful analog regarding the character of nations and to what America should aspire—as it always has—to be. Nations are not, of course, gods. But there is nothing inherently wrong in wanting one’s nation to be great. In fact, because, as I’ve stated above, the primary purpose of government is the provision and maintenance of the common good of the people over which they govern, we must remember that these things cannot be had by any nation whose greatness is insufficient to overcome the threats against it. For a nation as materially blessed as America, greatness can be had for a song.
Goodness, however, can be harder to come by and is more easily lost. This is partly because seeking to be good is far more risky than merely wanting to be great. It is seen in such acts as the willingness to kick in doors to get at the bad guys rather than simply leveling the village entirely, or in expending a measure of our own blood and treasure abroad that others too might flourish. It means refusing to make simplistic distinctions between being compassionate and being secure and to instead find means to be both.
Made in the imago Dei, human beings are intended, both individually and corporately, to represent the Divine in history. How we conceive the attributes of God shapes how we worship Him. So too does our conception of our nation’s character shape how we serve her. Christian theological witness has always contended that this service cannot be rightly rendered by seeking either greatness or goodness absent the other. Any nation so concerned with being “good” that it refuses to be great will not long survive. Any nation so concerned with greatness over goodness simply isn’t much worthy of surviving.
American national interests and our willingness to spend power for the global common good are more closely aligned than many seem to believe. Wherever America retracts abroad, an adversarial power will take our place. Whatever concerns, criticisms, or discontent attend the national security and national defense strategy documents, the strategies appear firm in recognizing this fact and in refusing to allow it to come about.
This is good. It would not only be irresponsible to for America to let that happen. It would be against our interests.
