(Jihoon Yu – The Strategist) The Trump administration’s new defence and security policies affect the Indo-Pacific less through fresh promises than through fresh requirements for allies—and for Australia, that shift is immediate and concrete. The message is not ‘trust us’ but ‘build with us.’. US partners must aim for military resilience, strive harder to work with each other, and expect to handle second-order crises without much—or maybe even any—help from Washington. The 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS, issued in December) and the 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS, issued in January) point to a more constrained form of US reassurance. Washington will concentrate its most capable forces on deterring China, emphasising deterrence-by-denial along the first island chain, while accepting deeper trade-offs in other theatres. This is prioritisation under constraint: offering less global insurance and more focus on the pacing challenge.
Resilience, cooperation, self-reliance: what the US’s strategies mean for the Indo-Pacific
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