In the week gone by, the White House released two crucial documents—a 33-page National Security Strategy and a 3,086-page National Defense Authorization Act.
The first took the world by storm with its iteration of a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine (the US relegating itself to the Western Hemisphere), but the second reinstated the status quo on the US’ strategic role in the world.
Taken together, these two documents reveal the deepening dissonance at the heart of American foreign policy under Donald Trump.
Trump’s National Security Strategy (NSS) immediately captured global attention. It triggered consternation among Europeans and sparked alarm across policy circles. Unsurprisingly, it earned praise from the Kremlin for a desired strategic rebalancing with Russia (at the cost of Ukraine). So much has already been said about this polemical document—its populist flourishes, its disdain for traditional partners, and its theatrical utterances—that anything more would be tedious repetition.
All I will reiterate is a line from foreign policy expert Professor Walter Russell Mead, which he recently offered in response to my question on how to make sense of Donald Trump—“Drama is central to Trump’s method.”
But that is precisely why my focus here is not the NSS. Rather, it is the second document—the NDAA, released just a day later—that deserves more attention and analysis. It lays out every detail of US defence spending and its strategic priorities for the coming financial year. The NDAA and the NSS do not merely differ—they present fundamentally divergent and inconsonant worldviews.
Also read: Trump’s 28-point peace plan for the Ukraine war reveals his pro-Putin inclination
Why the NDAA?
Before analysing this divergence between rhetoric and reality—between an “America First” retraction and the ongoing insistence on America’s commitments abroad—it is worth clarifying what the NDAA is and where it stands in the legislative process.
The NDAA is one of the most durable legislative instruments in the American system. It provides authorisation of appropriations for the Department of Defense (DoD), the nuclear weapons programmes of the Department of Energy, and other defence-related activities. It also establishes defence policies and restrictions, and addresses organisational and administrative matters related to the DoD.
The NDAA has passed every year since 1961, making it one of the few major bills that reliably becomes law. This year’s version, already approved by the Republican-controlled House on 10 December, authorises a record $901 billion in annual military spending. The request for FY25 was $849.8 billion.
The NDAA passed by a vote of 312–112 and will now move to the Senate, which is expected to pass it next week. Trump too has confirmed that he will sign it when it reaches his desk.
Notably, the total funding Congress approved is actually $8 billion more than what the Trump administration had requested earlier in May.
For a government often criticised for gridlock, the NDAA remains an example of bipartisan continuity. Although “bipartisan” today has come to mean ‘supported by Republicans who are not part of MAGA.’ Indeed, if the NSS is the distillate of Trump’s raw ideological impulses, the NDAA reflects Congress’s institutional pushback against those impulses. It exemplifies the system of checks and balances embedded in the US Constitution, designed precisely to restrain absolutist tendencies by distributing power across the President, Congress, and the Senate.
Presumably negotiated as a compromise between the House and Senate versions drafted earlier this year, the NDAA reflects a more traditional Republican posture that prefers continuity in the US strategic outlook, even as it accommodates other preferences of Trump.
Also read: How China reads US National Security Strategy—a return of America First in new language
Contrasts and contradictions
The contrast between the NDAA and the NSS is particularly striking. While the NSS speaks of retrenchment, that is, of shrinking America’s role and pushing allies to assume more responsibility, the NDAA does quite the opposite.
On Ukraine and Europe, the NDAA allocates $400 million in military assistance to Ukraine in each of the next two years, 2026 and 2027, constrains any attempt to stop the sale of military equipment or intelligence to Kyiv, and includes a host of measures reinforcing US commitments to European defence. It places explicit limits on the president’s ability to reduce American troop levels in Europe.
While the NSS bears the indelible stain of the MAGA worldview, the broader Republican Party is far from aligned with Trump’s most ideological advisers. JD Vance’s call for “freeloader” Europe to “fend for itself” may resonate within Trump’s inner circle, but it is not a view embraced in toto by the rest of the GOP.
Contrast this with the statements that recently emerged from Trump Jr. at the Doha Forum. He announced that American voters have no appetite for supporting Ukraine—a position more reflective of the MAGA view.
Data, too, tells a different story. The latest Reagan National Defense Survey, released the same day the NSS was unveiled, finds that 62 per cent of Americans want Ukraine to prevail over Russia. Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats support continued aid to Kyiv. The survey’s publication coinciding with the administration’s security posture pivot shows the same dissonance.
This is merely one example of the gap between the MAGA stand on American withdrawal and the broader American consensus on the country’s global strategic posture.
Moreover, the NDAA mandates monitoring China-Russia military convergence across technical domains and assessing the impact of the long-running Ukraine war on Russia’s defence capabilities, with no mention of any strategic rebalancing.
The contradictions between the NSS, the NDAA, and Trump’s immediate decisions are even sharper regarding China. The NSS repeatedly singles out Beijing and calls for rectified trade in “non-sensitive sectors.” Yet on the very day the NSS was released, Trump approved the sale of Nvidia’s more advanced H200 chips to China at a 25 per cent cut to the United States. Experts noted that this would significantly boost China’s AI capabilities. One think tank report warned that America’s advantage in AI compute, currently estimated at roughly tenfold, could shrink to fivefold if such exports continue. Experts were quick to claim that Trump’s decision negates the biggest US advantage over China in AI, calling it a “strategic mistake.” Again, the gap between ideological rhetoric and practical action is too large to ignore.
The dissonance continues in the Indo-Pacific. While the NSS adopts a half-hearted tone, suggesting allies take on more responsibility, Section 1254 of the NDAA mandates a strategy to strengthen multilateral defence cooperation in the region. It restricts reducing US troop presence in South Korea below 28,500 without congressional approval (similar to protections for Europe). It includes measures to bolster US-Taiwan and US-Philippines cooperation. India appears in discussions on civil nuclear cooperation, strengthening cooperation within the Quad framework, the geopolitical implications of the BRICS grouping undermining US interests, and Russia-India collaboration in the defence sector.
Also read: India must balance Trump’s America First policy with Delhi’s Neighbourhood First
Unpredictability remains the key takeaway
The above-mentioned examples show that American foreign policy under Trump cannot be read at face value. From New Delhi’s perspective, a rapprochement between the US and Russia remains the most desirable outcome, but the path toward it remains complex.
The cacophony of conflicting voices—the MAGA faction’s radical worldview, the broader Republican establishment’s traditional security instincts, and Congress’s bipartisan pragmatism—creates an environment of fundamental dissonance. The NSS may articulate the administration’s ideological fantasy, but the NDAA reveals the governing reality. The United States remains a deeply engaged global power, bound not only by Trumpian whim but also by institutional structures, congressional prerogatives, and, to a fair degree, public opinion.
This dissonance, however, is likely to produce confusion abroad. It perpetuates the unpredictability that has become a defining feature of Trump’s current term. Allies and adversaries alike will struggle to parse which version of American strategy truly reflects the nation’s direction. For now, pragmatism continues to guide the country’s strategic posture, even as the rhetoric soars in an entirely different direction.
The problem, however, is that one doesn’t know which direction will prevail in the longer run. Will Trump and MAGA be the aberration, or will they slowly become the rule?
The key lesson remains the same —America’s allies and partners need to double
down on their own capabilities and prepare for ‘soft landings’.
Swasti Rao is a Consulting Editor (International and Strategic Affairs) at ThePrint. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)