The 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) is a critical guide for the US Department of Defense (DOD). The NDS is a truly collaborative document and has been since it was created. For the first time, the DOD conducted three strategic reviews in a fully integrated way, including the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and Missile Defense Review (MDR) in the NDS. Doing so ensured tight linkages between DOD strategy and resources.

“By weaving these documents together, we help ensure that the entire department is moving forward together, matching our resources to our goals,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, III. “The strength and combat credibility of the joint force remains central to integrated deterrence.” 

The NDS sets the strategic direction of the Department to support US national security priorities and flows directly from President Biden’s National Security Strategy. President Biden has stated that we are living in a “decisive decade,” stamped by dramatic changes in geopolitics, technology, economics, and our environment. The NDS details the Department’s path forward into that decisive decade—from helping to protect the American people, promoting global security, seizing new strategic opportunities, and realizing and defending our democratic values. This will set the Department’s course for decades to come.

NDS Focus & Priorities

The NDS places a primary focus on the need to sustain and strengthen US deterrence against China. It also advances a focus on collaboration with a growing network of US allies and partners on shared objectives. In addition to addressing both China and an increase in the importance of partnerships, the NDS also takes into account the challenges posed by Russian—especially considering its invasion of Ukraine—along with threats posed by North Korea, Iran, and violent extremist organizations. The NDS also includes a focus on challenges to security, such as pandemics and climate change. The 2022 Defense priorities are:

1. Defending the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
2. Deterring strategic attacks against the United States, allies, and partners
3. Deterring aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary, prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific, then the Russia challenge in Europe
4. Building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem

Global Alliances & Partnerships

The DOD cannot meet its complex and interconnected challenges alone. Mutually beneficial alliances and partnerships are the Department’s greatest global strategic advantage—and are a center of gravity for this strategy. The DOD will strengthen major regional security architectures with its allies and partners based on complementary contributions; combined, collaborative operations and force planning; increased intelligence and information sharing; new operational concepts; and the ability to draw on the Joint Force worldwide.

The Indo-Pacific Region

The Department will reinforce and build out a resilient security architecture in the Indo-Pacific region in order to sustain a free and open regional order and deter attempts to resolve disputes by force. It will modernize its alliance with Japan and strengthen combined capabilities by aligning strategic planning and priorities in a more integrated manner; deepen its alliance with Australia through investments in posture, interoperability, and expansion of multilateral cooperation; and foster advantage through advanced technology cooperation with partnerships like AUKUS and the Indo-Pacific Quad.

Europe

The Department will maintain its bedrock commitment to NATO collective security, working alongside allies and partners to deter, defend, and build resilience against further Russian military aggression and acute forms of gray zone coercion. As the DOD continues contributing to NATO capabilities and readiness—including through improvements to its posture in Europe and its extended nuclear deterrence commitments the Department will work with allies bilaterally and through NATO’s established processes to better focus NATO capability development and military modernization to address Russia’s military threat.

The Middle East

As the Department continues to right-size its forward military presence in the Middle East following the mission transition in Afghanistan and continuing its “by, with, and through” approach in Iraq and Syria, it will address major security challenges in the region in effective and sustainable ways. The Joint Force will retain the ability to deny Iran a nuclear weapon; to identify and support action against Iranian and Iranian-backed threats; and to disrupt top-tier VEO threats that endanger the homeland and vital US national interests.

US Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Novalee Manzella.

 Western Hemisphere

The United States derives immense benefit from a stable, peaceful, and democratic Western Hemisphere that reduces security threats to the homeland. To prevent distant threats from becoming a challenge at home, the Department will continue to partner with countries in the region to build capability and promote security and stability.

Africa

In Africa, the Department will prioritize disrupting VEO threats against the US homeland and vital US national interests, working “by, with, and through” its African partners to build states’ capability to degrade terrorist organizations and contribute broadly to regional security and stability. The DOD will orient its approach on the continent towards security cooperation, increase coordination with allies, multilateral organizations, and regional bodies that share these objectives, and support for US interagency initiatives in the region.

US Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Lawrence Sena.

The Arctic

The United States seeks a stable Arctic region characterized by adherence to internationally agreed upon rules and norms. The Department will deter threats to the US homeland from and through the Arctic region by improving early warning and JSR capabilities, partnering with Canada to enhance North American Aerospace Defense Command capabilities, and working with allies and partners to increase shared maritime domain awareness. US activities and posture in the Arctic should be calibrated, as the Department preserves its focus on the Indo-Pacific region.

Mutually beneficial alliances and partnerships constitute an enduring strength for the US, and are critical to achieving its objectives, as the unified response to Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated. Answering this “call to action,” the Department will incorporate ally and partner perspectives, competencies, and advantages at every stage of defense planning.