US tells Britain and its allies to expect drop in security support after Pentagon vows to 'focus on homeland'
The document said the new focus of the US would concentrate on home soil and the state of the Western Hemisphere
The Pentagon has pledged “more limited” support to their global allies, as documents reveal China is no longer considered the top security priority for the US.
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According to the Pentagon’s new National Defence Strategy, the US will now prioritise the security of the US homeland and the Western Hemisphere instead.
The document, published once every four years, said that Washington has long neglected the interests of the American people. The 34-page document contrasts the 2022 National Defence Strategy, which stated China posed a “multi-domain threat” and was its top priority.
This followed the tone of 2018 edition, which singled out “revisionist powers” like China and Russia as a “central challenge”. The 2026 document explains that the Trump administration's approach will be "fundamentally different from the grandose strategies of the past post–Cold War administrations".
It also states the Pentagon will work to “guarantee US military and commercial access to key terrain, especially the Panama Canal, Gulf of America, and Greenland"."Out with utopian idealism; in with hardnosed realism,” it adds.
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Explaining the shifting status of China, the strategy says that confrontations with China should be approached through "strength, not confrontation", with the US saying it "is not to dominate China; nor is it to strangle or humiliate them".
Unlike in previous versions of the strategy, Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed by China, is not mentioned. However, the document does write that the US aims to "prevent anyone, including China, from being able to dominate us or our allies".
The shifting priorities for the US follows last year’s US National Security Strategy, which also did not cast Russia as a threat to the US, but warned of “civilisational collapse” in Europe.
Moscow praised the document at the time, saying it was “largely consistent” with its vision.
Although the US has denied a move towards “isolationism”, the strategy also calls for greater "burden-sharing" from US allies, saying other nations have been too reliant on the US to “subsidize” their spending on defence.
The document states that Europe will “take the lead” on threats that are “less severe for us but more so for them”. This follows US pressure to increase defence spending contributions from its European allies, as the Russian war on Ukraine continues. The strategy also outlines a "more limited" role for US deterrence of North Korea.
South Korea is "capable of taking primary responsibility" for the task.
The policy document comes as leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum at Davos earlier this week, where Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the old world order is "not coming back", and encouraged other nations to come together. "Middle powers must act together because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu," Carney said.