Eurasia Press & News
The US National Defense Strategy published on January 23, 2026 (the 2026 NDS), demonstrates noticeable differences in how key national security challenges are defined compared to the document released just two months earlier. These discrepancies deserve close attention.
No Taiwan Issue in the 2026 National Defense Strategy
It is significant to underline that the Taiwan issue, along with the ideas about “control of the Western Hemisphere” and criticism of Europeans who are “suppressing the opposition,” occupies a central place in the US National Security Strategy (NSS-2025) published by the White House earlier in December 2025. NDS-2026, prepared by specialists from the Department of War (formerly the Department of Defense), is, in principle, supposed to merely specify the main provisions of the first document, which is more general in terms of its contents. However, there is not a word in it about Taiwan at all.
At the same time, the 2026 NDS makes references to the 2025 NSS, in particular in terms of Washington’s intention to “build a credible defense of the First Island Chain.” It should be recalled that Taiwan is its central link. The US policy toward Taiwan, as it has already been noted above, occupies a prominent place in the 2025 NSS, confirming the continuity of approaches that took shape as far back as the early 1980s. The principal and currently relevant practical consequence of these approaches is the ambiguity that Beijing would face if it attempted to resolve the Taiwan issue “by force.” Washington reserves the option, but not the obligation, of military intervention in such a case.
Containing China and “Trump-centrism”
Although the 2026 NDS spells out the intention to “deter China by force in the Indo-Pacific region,” it immediately speaks of a desire to avoid “confrontation” with it. The Strategy further points to “President Trump’s pursuit of a stable peace, fair trade, and respectful relations with China,” as well as to a “willingness to engage directly with President Xi Jinping to achieve these goals.” However, the very fact of such “direct engagement” with the Chinese leader, supposedly scheduled for this April, is unlikely to materialize if the American counterpart were to reaffirm in writing the aforementioned half-century-old “ambiguity” on a foreign policy issue crucial for Beijing.
What primarily indicates that both documents were prepared by the same ruling US administration is their “Trump-centrism,” reminiscent of the obligatory references to the “classics of Marxism-Leninism” in official documents of the Soviet Union. In particular, in the 2026 NDS, the current president is presented as almost the saviour of the country from a hazardous prospect that should allegedly be attributed to the inept policies of all the previous presidents (regardless of their party affiliation) that squandered the achievements gained by the United States after its victory in the Cold War.
The reason for the significant “divergences” between the two documents at issue may lie in the fact that the current US administration, like the previous one, includes representatives of different factions of the country’s establishment who hold substantially diverse stances on the surrounding world. Judging by the contents of both documents, one may assume that the second one was drafted under the direct control of President Donald Trump per se. Curious “nuances” in his political course towards China became apparent already during his first presidency.
Even then, Trump’s assessments of key allies as “parasitic freeloaders,” living off the United States and unwilling to take care of their own security, manifested themselves quite clearly. Traces of these evaluations are visible primarily in the 2026 NDS, which emphasises that in the process of “deterring China and responding to other threats, our allies will play a key role.” It is largely for this reason that NDS-2026 has caused considerable wariness among them.
Reaction of US Allies
European allies of the United States, having barely bounced back from the four years of the Democratic administration, are once again alarmed by the return of the Republicans to the White House. Apart from the already familiar problems with them being the rejection by the Trump administration of Europe’s “new normality,” criticism of the suppression of right-wing opposition parties, and attempts to resolve the trade imbalance through tariff increases, there is now Trump’s demand for his allies to assume their part of the burden of ensuring collective defense.
This latter circumstance, clearly articulated in the 2026 NDS, has also prompted a cautious reaction in Japan. Despite Washington’s attitude towards Tokyo being fundamentally different from that towards Europe (which stems from key US interests being shifted to the Indo-Pacific region, where the People’s Republic of China is regarded as the main challenge), Japan faces its own set of difficulties. The importance of the alliance with Japan is sharply increasing, which is met with a positive response in Tokyo, since it has its own problems with Beijing that have escalated sharply in recent months, including those related to Taiwan.
Not only are there no positive signals in relations between Japan and China, but there have been new negative developments constantly emerging, both over serious issues and over less significant ones. For example, the recent farewell to the last two pandas being returned to China was accompanied by tears from children and women, while the prospect of new ones being sent to Japan in the current difficult times remains vague.
In addition to the unsettling foreign policy environment, Japan’s leadership is confronted with worsening domestic problems. The economic stagnation that became apparent four decades ago is now accompanied by the increasingly threatening problem of depopulation.
Under these conditions, Japan has to make a difficult choice about where to direct its limited resources, including financial ones, first and foremost. Therefore, Washington’s calls to “finally shoulder” the burden of responsibility for “collective security” and to sharply increase defense spending are perceived with caution. Despite Prime Minister S. Takaichi’s promise to follow Donald Trump’s “advice,” a 10 percent increase in Ministry of Defense expenditures in the draft 2026 budget will bring them to a level that does not surpass 1.5 percent of the country’s GDP.
Searching for Rapprochement: Europe and Japan
The “Trump problem,” common to Japan and some leading European countries, is encouraging a search for ways to bring them closer to each other. The latest evidence of this trend was the mid-January visit of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to Japan and the results of her talks with S. Takaichi, set out in a Joint Statement. In this document, one can discern a message to Washington in the words about “export restrictions” and the need to observe an “international order based on the rule of law.” Beijing, for its part, is addressed with the thesis about the need to “ensure free access” in the seas of the Indo-Pacific region.
The visit to the People’s Republic of China by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom that took place two weeks later is also worth paying attention to in this regard. The United Kingdom was once a pioneer among Europeans in rapprochement precisely with Japan. However, the specifics of current political processes are pushing London to seek “understanding” with Tokyo’s main opponent. The way to China appears to have been paved first by the “American governor in Canada,” M. Carney, so to speak, the prime minister of one of the members of the (British) Commonwealth of Nations.
Everything mentioned above once again illustrates the extreme complexity of the picture of today’s global political game. The predominance of factors of high uncertainty in it inevitably turns any attempt to forecast its development into occult-shamanistic incantation.
