Decoding the 2022 National Defense Strategy: America’s Plan for Security

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The National Defense Strategy (NDS) serves as the cornerstone strategic guidance document for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). It outlines how the nation’s military will protect the American people, advance U.S. interests abroad, and uphold democratic values. Essentially, the NDS translates the broader goals set forth in the President’s National Security Strategy (NSS) into specific guidance for military planning, activities, and resource allocation.

The current iteration is the 2022 National Defense Strategy, officially released in its unclassified form on October 27, 2022. A significant feature of this NDS is its integrated development process. For the first time, the DoD conducted the NDS alongside the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and the Missile Defense Review (MDR), weaving them into a single, cohesive strategic document.

This integrated approach aims to ensure “tight linkages between our strategy and our resources” and helps the entire department move forward together, matching resources to goals. Such structural integration reflects a recognition within the DoD that modern strategic challenges, particularly those involving nuclear capabilities and missile threats, cannot be effectively addressed in isolation from conventional defense planning. It necessitates a unified vision that spans the full spectrum of potential conflict.

The official, unclassified 2022 NDS document, incorporating the NPR and MDR, is publicly available on the DoD website.

This strategy is framed within the context of what President Biden has termed a “decisive decade.” This era is characterized by profound shifts in geopolitics, technology, economics, and the environment, demanding a clear and rigorous strategy to navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead. Labeling this period as “decisive” underscores a sense of urgency woven throughout the NDS. The strategy frequently calls for the DoD to “act urgently,” suggesting that the choices and actions taken now will significantly shape the future security landscape for the United States and the world.

This article aims to break down the key elements of the 2022 NDS—its assessment of the global security situation, its core priorities, and the fundamental concepts guiding the U.S. military.

The Global Security Landscape: Challenges Facing the U.S.

The 2022 NDS paints a picture of an increasingly complex and dangerous global security environment. It acknowledges that America’s long-held military advantages have eroded relative to key strategic competitors, demanding urgent adaptation and modernization.

The strategy categorizes the primary challenges into several distinct types:

Pacing Challenge: People’s Republic of China (PRC)

The NDS unequivocally identifies the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the DoD’s “pacing challenge.” This means the PRC is considered the most consequential strategic competitor, whose military development and strategic ambitions set the pace and scale for U.S. defense planning.

The strategy justifies this designation by pointing to the PRC’s combination of intent and capability. As President Biden’s National Security Strategy notes, the PRC is seen as “the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order, and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so.”

The NDS details the PRC’s concerning actions, including:

• Increasingly coercive behavior aimed at reshaping the Indo-Pacific region and the broader international system according to its authoritarian preferences
• Efforts to undermine U.S. alliances and partnerships
• Rapid and opaque military modernization across multiple domains (nuclear, space, counterspace, cyber, electronic warfare, information warfare)
• Leveraging its capabilities to coerce neighbors
• Making provocative statements and actions regarding Taiwan that risk miscalculation
• Posing a growing multi-domain threat to the U.S. homeland itself

Acute Threat: Russia

While the PRC sets the long-term strategic pace, Russia is identified as an “acute threat,” signifying the immediate and sharp dangers it poses.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is cited as prime evidence of its willingness to use force aggressively to redraw borders and attempt to re-establish a sphere of influence. Despite its goal of fracturing NATO largely backfiring due to the unified response, this objective likely remains.

Russia continues to pose serious risks through various means:

• Nuclear threats against the U.S. and its allies
• Long-range conventional missiles
• Sophisticated cyber and information operations
• Counterspace capabilities
• Potential chemical and biological weapons
• Significant undersea warfare capabilities
• Extensive “gray zone” campaigns targeting democracies

Other Persistent Threats: North Korea, Iran, and Violent Extremist Organizations (VEOs)

Beyond the primary competitors, the NDS acknowledges several persistent threats that require ongoing vigilance:

North Korea: Continues to develop and expand its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, posing a threat to the U.S. homeland, deployed forces, and key allies like the Republic of Korea and Japan. It also actively works to undermine U.S. alliances in the region. Collaborative efforts with allies are crucial for monitoring and responding to this threat.

Iran: Is pursuing actions that could enhance its ability to produce a nuclear weapon if it chooses, while also building and exporting missiles, uncrewed aircraft systems (drones), and advanced maritime capabilities that endanger international commerce and energy flows. Iran destabilizes the Middle East through support for terrorist groups and proxies, military provocations, and malicious cyber activities.

Violent Extremist Organizations (VEOs): Although groups like al-Qa’ida and ISIS have seen their capabilities degraded, they retain the potential to reconstitute and pose threats, necessitating continued counterterrorism efforts and vigilance.

Transboundary Challenges: Climate Change and Pandemics

The NDS also recognizes that global challenges transcending national borders significantly impact the security environment and DoD operations:

Climate Change: The physical impacts of climate change—rising temperatures, changing precipitation, sea-level rise, extreme weather—directly affect military installations, readiness, basing, and access. Climate change also opens new arenas for strategic interaction, such as the Arctic, and increases the demand for military support in disaster response efforts.

Pandemics: As demonstrated by COVID-19, pandemics and other large-scale biological threats can severely disrupt societies, economies, global supply chains, and the defense industrial base, requiring significant DoD resources and highlighting future vulnerabilities.

This categorization of threats—Pacing, Acute, Persistent, and Transboundary—is more than just descriptive; it serves as a crucial prioritization framework for the DoD. By designating the PRC as the “pacing challenge,” the NDS directs the Department to focus its long-term planning, capability development, and resource allocation primarily on meeting that specific challenge.

Furthermore, the explicit inclusion of climate change and pandemics within a defense strategy marks a significant evolution. It reflects a broader understanding of national security, acknowledging that factors traditionally considered outside the military sphere directly impact the armed forces’ ability to operate, maintain readiness, and engage in strategic competition.

Table 1: Key Threats Identified in the 2022 NDS

America’s Defense Priorities: What the NDS Aims to Achieve

To navigate this complex security landscape and uphold U.S. interests, the 2022 NDS establishes four top-level defense priorities. These priorities guide the DoD’s actions, investments, and force posture, aiming to sustain and strengthen U.S. military credibility and deterrence capabilities.

Priority 1: Defending the U.S. Homeland

This is identified as the DoD’s top priority. The focus is squarely on protecting the United States itself from attack, specifically considering the growing multi-domain threats (spanning air, sea, land, space, and cyber, both kinetic and non-kinetic) posed by strategic competitors, particularly the PRC.

Key approaches include:

• Increasing the resilience of the nation—its ability to withstand, fight through, and recover quickly from disruption
• Raising the costs for potential attackers
• Defending defense critical infrastructure
• Ensuring the continuity of government and military operations
• Developing missile defense capabilities

Priority 2: Deterring Strategic Attacks

This priority focuses on preventing large-scale attacks, particularly nuclear ones, against the United States, its allies, and partners. The foundation of this deterrence is a safe, secure, and effective U.S. nuclear arsenal, often referred to as the “ultimate backstop.”

The NDS commits to:

• Modernizing all aspects of the nuclear triad (bombers, submarines, land-based missiles) and its associated command, control, and communications systems
• Strengthening “extended deterrence”—the commitment to protect allies under the U.S. nuclear umbrella—through enhanced consultations and better integration of conventional and nuclear planning
• Developing missile defense systems that contribute to deterring strategic attacks by undermining an adversary’s confidence in success

Priority 3: Deterring Aggression and Prevailing in Conflict

This priority addresses conventional military aggression around the world. The aim is twofold: first, to deter potential adversaries from initiating conflict, and second, to ensure the U.S. military is prepared to fight and win decisively should deterrence fail.

The NDS explicitly sets geographic priorities for this effort:

• Focus first on the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific region
• Followed by the Russia challenge in Europe

This clear prioritization signals a major strategic choice. While not ignoring other regions, it directs the bulk of DoD attention, force posture decisions, and resource allocation towards these two key theaters, potentially requiring the U.S. to accept greater risks or rely more heavily on partners in areas like the Middle East or Africa.

Achieving this priority relies heavily on:

• Working closely with allies
• Modernizing conventional forces
• Maintaining high levels of readiness

Priority 4: Building a Resilient Joint Force and Defense Ecosystem

This priority focuses inward, ensuring the long-term health, adaptability, and strength of the U.S. military (the Joint Force) and the entire ecosystem that supports it.

Key actions include:

• Investing heavily in the DoD workforce
• Accelerating the development and fielding of new technologies
• Undertaking reforms to make processes faster and more efficient
• Strengthening the defense industrial base and its supply chains to make them more resilient

This also involves building resilience against emerging challenges like climate change impacts on military installations and pervasive cyber threats.

Elevating these foundational elements—people, industry, technology, processes—to a top-level defense priority signifies a deep understanding that enduring military power depends critically on these non-combat factors. It suggests a recognition that maintaining a competitive edge requires systemic improvements to the entire defense enterprise, not just acquiring new weapons.

Table 2: Top-Level Defense Priorities of the 2022 NDS

The Strategy in Action: Key Concepts Guiding the Military

The 2022 NDS outlines three core concepts—integrated deterrence, campaigning, and building enduring advantages—that serve as the primary ways the DoD will pursue its defense priorities. These concepts represent a framework for thinking about and executing national defense in the current strategic environment.

Concept 1: Integrated Deterrence

Described as the “centerpiece” of the 2022 NDS, integrated deterrence represents a fundamental shift in how the DoD approaches preventing conflict. Its core idea is to develop, combine, and coordinate all of America’s strengths—military and otherwise—to maximum effect.

This integration occurs across multiple dimensions:

• Warfighting Domains: Seamlessly connecting efforts across air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace
• Theaters of Operation: Coordinating actions globally
• Spectrum of Conflict: Applying deterrence from peacetime competition through crisis and potential conflict
• Instruments of National Power: Working in concert with diplomatic, informational, and economic tools alongside military capabilities
• Alliances and Partnerships: Leveraging the unique strengths and perspectives of America’s unmatched network of allies

The ultimate goal is to convince any potential adversary that the costs and risks of aggression against the U.S. or its interests would far outweigh any potential gains, making aggression seem futile. This requires combat-credible conventional forces, underpinned by a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent. Missile defense capabilities also play a supporting role by complicating an adversary’s attack calculus.

Importantly, integrated deterrence is not a uniform strategy; it must be tailored to the specific motivations, capabilities, and perceptions of different competitors and challenges. It operates through denying adversaries their objectives, enhancing U.S. resilience to withstand attacks, and ensuring the ability to impose unacceptable costs.

While strategically compelling, the practical implementation of fully integrated deterrence presents considerable challenges. It demands unprecedented levels of seamless coordination not only within the DoD but across the entire U.S. government (including State, Treasury, Commerce, and intelligence agencies) and deep, operational-level integration with numerous international allies and partners.

Concept 2: Campaigning

Campaigning refers to the ongoing, day-to-day activities the DoD undertakes to actively shape the security environment in favor of the United States. It’s about more than just reacting to crises; it involves conducting and sequencing military activities over time to strengthen deterrence, gain and sustain military advantages, counter competitors’ coercive actions (particularly in the “gray zone” below the threshold of armed conflict), and complicate their military preparations.

The goal is to proactively limit and disrupt malign activities by competitors like the PRC and Russia. This is achieved through:

• Operating forces visibly and purposefully
• Synchronizing various DoD efforts (from exercises and training to intelligence gathering and posture decisions)
• Aligning military activities with other instruments of national power (like diplomacy and information campaigns)
• Developing advanced warfighting capabilities, often alongside allies and partners

Campaigning focuses on the most consequential competitor activities that could endanger U.S. advantages if left unaddressed. Examples include:

• Using intelligence and information operations to expose and counter adversary plans or disinformation
• Conducting freedom of navigation operations
• Enhancing domain awareness to counter ambiguous maritime activities

This concept marks a clear shift towards a more proactive posture, actively competing daily in the space between peace and war, rather than primarily preparing for future conflict or reacting to competitor moves.

Concept 3: Building Enduring Advantages

This concept addresses the need to ensure the U.S. military maintains its edge in the long term. It involves undertaking necessary reforms and making strategic investments to secure lasting advantages for the future Joint Force. This implicitly recognizes that some traditional U.S. advantages have diminished relative to competitors and requires focused effort to rebuild and sustain superiority.

Key focus areas include:

Accelerating Innovation and Technology Adoption: Reforming processes to develop, acquire, and field cutting-edge technologies more rapidly. This involves significant investment in Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E).

Investing in People: Recognizing personnel as the DoD’s most valuable resource, this involves efforts in recruitment, retention, training, education, and improving quality of life for service members and their families.

Modernizing Systems and Processes: Overhauling internal DoD systems for force development, design, and business management to be more agile and adaptable.

Strengthening the Defense Ecosystem: Bolstering the defense industrial base, ensuring resilient supply chains, and fostering collaboration with the private sector and academia.

Enhancing Foundational Capabilities: Investing in areas like cybersecurity, space capabilities, and resilient logistics.

The focus on building advantages, accelerating processes, and undertaking reforms suggests a clear-eyed assessment that the status quo is insufficient for future competition. It points towards the need for systemic improvements within the DoD and its relationship with industry and personnel, going beyond simply buying the next generation of weapons.

Stronger Together: The Vital Role of Alliances and Partnerships

A recurring and central theme throughout the 2022 NDS is the indispensable role of U.S. alliances and partnerships. The strategy repeatedly emphasizes that this network is an enduring, asymmetric strength and a critical strategic advantage for the United States—perhaps its greatest global asset. Allies and partners are described as a “center of gravity” for the strategy, highlighting their fundamental importance.

Allies and partners are integral to the NDS’s core concepts:

• They are essential components of integrated deterrence, where collective action and a united front significantly strengthen the deterrent message sent to potential adversaries
• They are crucial for campaigning, as the U.S. works with partners to develop shared capabilities, conduct joint exercises and operations, and counter competitor coercion together

The DoD commits to deepening this collaboration by actively incorporating ally and partner perspectives, competencies, and advantages at every stage of defense planning. This involves practical steps like:

• Increasing intelligence and information sharing
• Enhancing military interoperability (ensuring forces can operate together effectively)
• Conducting combined force planning and exercises
• Pursuing collaborative research and development

The NDS explicitly recognizes the need to reduce institutional barriers within the U.S. government that can sometimes hinder deeper cooperation with allies on issues like technology export and information sharing.

The strategy emphasizes strengthening major regional security architectures. This includes:

• Reinforcing NATO in Europe
• Deepening ties with key allies in the Indo-Pacific (such as Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand)
• Cultivating partnerships (like with India and Vietnam)
• Fostering multilateral approaches

New security arrangements, like the AUKUS partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom, are also highlighted as important developments. Alliances allow for more effective burden-sharing and leverage complementary capabilities, recognizing that the U.S. cannot and should not face global challenges alone.

However, this deep reliance on allies, while a significant advantage, also introduces potential complexities. The success of integrated deterrence and collective defense hinges on the capabilities, capacity, political will, and interoperability of partners. Concerns about the capacity of the U.S. defense industrial base to sufficiently equip both American forces and allies, particularly in a protracted conflict scenario, highlight potential vulnerabilities.

The strategy’s effectiveness, therefore, is intrinsically linked to factors partially outside direct U.S. control—namely, the sustained commitment and military strength of its allies. Furthermore, the emphasis on tailoring deterrence strategies and strengthening specific regional security frameworks suggests a move towards more customized, region-specific approaches rather than a uniform global posture.

Modernizing America’s Military: Preparing for Tomorrow’s Threats

The 2022 NDS underscores the urgent need to modernize the U.S. military, or Joint Force, to maintain a credible deterrent and retain a competitive advantage against the pacing challenge of the PRC and the acute threat posed by Russia. Modernization is not just about acquiring new equipment; it encompasses developing new operational concepts, investing in foundational technologies, and adapting the force structure.

The strategy envisions a future Joint Force characterized by several key attributes:

• Lethal: Able to effectively strike targets even in contested environments defended by sophisticated adversary systems
• Resilient: Capable of maintaining command, control, communications, and intelligence functions despite attacks, particularly in space and cyber domains
• Sustainable: Possessing secure and effective logistics and sustainment capabilities to support operations over time and distance, even under attack
• Survivable: Able to absorb adversary attacks and continue generating combat power
• Agile and Responsive: Capable of rapid mobilization, deployment, and adaptation to changing circumstances, including the impacts of climate change

To build this force, the NDS prioritizes research, development, and investment in several critical technology areas:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Autonomy: Leveraging AI for decision support, autonomous systems, and data analysis
• Hypersonics: Developing high-speed, maneuverable missile capabilities
• Cyber Capabilities: Investing in both defensive and offensive cyber tools and infrastructure
• Integrated Sensing and Command & Control (C2): Developing networked sensors and resilient C2 systems for better situational awareness and faster decision-making
• Directed Energy: Exploring weapons that use focused energy (lasers, microwaves)
• Space Capabilities: Building more resilient satellite constellations (potentially leveraging commercial assets) for communication, surveillance, and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT)
• Other Emerging Areas: Seeding investments in biotechnology, quantum science, and advanced materials

DoD budget requests are aligned with these modernization priorities, allocating significant funding towards:

• Advanced air power (like the F-35 fighter and B-21 bomber)
• Sea power (including Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines and Ford-class aircraft carriers)
• Land force modernization
• Missile defeat and defense systems
• Cyber operations
• Substantial RDT&E funding

Record RDT&E budgets signal a strong commitment to innovation.

However, modernization often involves difficult choices about force structure. Investing heavily in advanced, often expensive, new systems may require retiring older platforms and potentially reducing the overall size of the force in some areas. This creates a potential tension between pursuing high-tech, future capabilities and maintaining sufficient capacity (numbers of ships, aircraft, personnel) and readiness across the force today.

Furthermore, successful modernization depends heavily on the health of the broader defense ecosystem, linking back to Priority 4. The NDS acknowledges that achieving technological superiority requires not just R&D investment but also a transformed relationship with industry, faster and more flexible acquisition processes, and resilient supply chains.

The DoD released its first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) to guide these efforts, focusing on resilient supply chains, workforce readiness, flexible acquisition, and economic deterrence. The NDS also notes the strategy of being a “fast follower” in some commercially driven technology areas like AI. This approach acknowledges that DoD cannot lead innovation everywhere and must strategically leverage private sector advancements, requiring new partnership models and acquisition flexibility.

Investing in Our People: The Foundation of National Defense

A consistent message throughout the 2022 NDS and emphasized by DoD leadership is that the people of the Department—service members, civilians, and their families—are its most valuable resource and the bedrock of American security. This focus aligns directly with the concept of “Building Enduring Advantages” and the priority of “Building a Resilient Joint Force and Defense Ecosystem.” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has consistently stressed “taking care of our people” as a core value.

The NDS translates this principle into tangible actions and investments aimed at supporting the All-Volunteer Force and the civilian workforce. Key initiatives highlighted include:

Compensation: Providing competitive pay raises for both military service members and DoD civilians.

Quality of Life Improvements: Addressing critical aspects of military life by:

• Making it easier to secure housing
• Improving the process for permanent change of station (PCS) moves
• Increasing the availability and affordability of childcare (including redesigning provider compensation and adding support for families with special needs)
• Enhancing support for military spouse employment

Health of the Force: Prioritizing mental health and well-being, with a significant focus on suicide prevention. This includes:

• Fostering a more supportive environment (e.g., improving schedule predictability)
• Addressing stigma and barriers to seeking care (e.g., providing non-medical counseling)
• Promoting lethal means safety

Talent Management: Focusing on recruiting, training, and retaining a skilled, diverse, and adaptable workforce. This involves:

• Attracting talent with critical skills, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)
• Enhancing professional military education (PME) to foster critical thinking
• Improving talent management practices

The importance placed on personnel is further reflected in the DoD Strategic Management Plan (SMP) for Fiscal Years 2022-2026, which serves as a framework for implementing the NDS. The SMP’s top strategic priority is “Take Care of Our People and Cultivate the Workforce We Need.” The full SMP is available on the DoD Performance Management website.

This pronounced emphasis on people and families is not merely about morale; it represents a strategic calculation. In an era of intense competition for talent, ensuring the readiness, retention, and overall health of the All-Volunteer Force is critical to executing the NDS. Factors like adequate housing, accessible childcare, and robust mental health support are increasingly viewed as strategic imperatives, directly impacting the DoD’s ability to recruit and retain the highly skilled individuals needed for modern warfare.

Furthermore, the direct focus on challenging issues like suicide prevention and reducing the stigma associated with seeking help suggests a recognition of deeper cultural issues within the military lifestyle that must be addressed to ensure the long-term resilience and effectiveness of the force.

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