The Trump administration recently unveiled an extremely promising National Security Strategy — yet the proposed National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026 falls far short of its potential.
The House and Senate’s compromise NDAA appears at odds with the administration’s strategic vision. While the National Security Strategy prioritizes a hemispheric defense of the American homeland, the NDAA locks decision-makers into maintaining unnecessary overseas troop levels. Despite President Trump’s stated strategic aims, Congress seems intent on safeguarding national security priorities and infrastructure from previous eras.
The NDAA represents what Americans call the “deep state,” a combination of entrenched interests, committees, lobbies, and bureaucracies that value continuity over strategy and reform.
Restricting troop drawdowns overseas, increasingly murky foreign entanglements through legally binding arms sales efforts, and dubious clauses requiring congressional approval at every turn all serve to bind the commander in chief’s hands. This reeks of a shadowy order desperately trying to maintain the status quo at the expense of the will of voters who elected Donald Trump.
This cannot stand.
Section 1249 of the NDAA states that U.S. forces in Europe cannot fall below 76,000 for more than 45 days without presidential certifications to Congress. The bill claims this ensures troop reductions do not threaten NATO partners or national security — though absurdly, it requires consultation with every NATO ally and “relevant non-NATO partners.” By stripping the president of essential discretion through ludicrous legislative roadblocks, the NDAA categorically subverts his constitutional authority.
Section 1255 mandates that troop levels cannot dip below 28,500 in the Korean Peninsula, nor can wartime operational control be transferred without an identical trial by fire of congressional approvals and national-security certifications.
Shifting military focus to domestic priorities was a stated goal of the National Security Strategy. If this vision is to be implemented, Congress must not act as a bureaucratic middleman that hinders deployment flexibility through pedantic checklists.
Americans need to understand that the NDAA obstructs President Trump’s agenda. As written, it functions as a deliberate statutory barrier to presidential decision-making — redistributing war powers from the elected executive to an unaccountable institutional structure.
The NDAA embodies what Americans call the “deep state,” a combination of entrenched interests, committees, lobbies, and bureaucracies that prioritize continuity over reform.
This bureaucratic inertia becomes clear when examining what Congress omitted from the compromise bill. The Senate’s original draft included a provision barring DEI in service academy admissions — a measure requiring merit-only standards and preventing racial profiling. However, Congress stripped this section out. The final bill includes only weak gestures toward limiting DEI, falling far short of President Trump’s goal for a military that rejects race and sex as factors.
As written, the NDAA grants future Democratic presidents the opportunity to reintroduce woke indoctrination in the military with minimal effort. Laws favoring DEI at our nation’s most vital institutions could resurface on a whim using typical “diversity is our strength” platitudes.
Despite its name, the NDAA functions less like a defense bill and more like America’s legal backbone for global posture. Whatever promises the National Security Strategy makes, they cannot be realized so long as the current NDAA pulls in the opposite direction. Strategy should shape institutions — not the other way around.
In Washington jargon, the NDAA is treated as “must-pass” legislation. Yet this label has no legal or constitutional basis. Even if it passes, no one claims it must be signed.
The National Security Strategy reflects voter will; the NDAA reflects bureaucratic inertia. This is why the Trump administration cannot approve the bill — and time is running out.
