Trump's National Defense Strategy and Asia | The Capital Cable #128

The Trump administration recently released the 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS), outlining defense priorities for the next four years. What are the key implications of the NDS for Asia? How is the new NDS different from previous ones? And what does it mean for our allies and partners? 

Answering these questions and more are Mara Karlin from Johns Hopkins University's SAIS, Gordon Lubold from NBC News, and CSIS' Sydney Seiler and Mark Lippert. 

Mara Karlin is Professor of Practice, and faculty co-lead for the Security, Strategy, and Statecraft focus area at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Additionally, she is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Karlin served in national security roles for six U.S. secretaries of defense, advising on policies spanning strategic planning, defense budgeting, the future of conflict, and regional affairs involving the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Most recently, she served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities, leading the development and implementation of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, Nuclear Posture Review, and Missile Defense Review, the first time all major strategies were conducted simultaneously. She advised the Secretary of Defense on the forces, plans, posture, emerging capabilities, and security cooperation activities necessary to implement the defense strategy. She oversaw the formation of a new emerging capabilities policy office; a historic modernization of U.S. force posture in the Indo-Pacific; the implementation of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States partnership (AUKUS); reform of the security cooperation workforce; and the development of numerous national and defense strategic guidance documents.

Gordon Lubold has covered the military and national security for more than 20 years, and is now the White House national security/Pentagon reporter for NBC News. Prior to joining NBC, he worked for 10 years at The Wall Street Journal. Prior to that, he launched and authored three distinct national security newsletters for different outlets, including Foreign Policy’s “Situation Report,” emailed to and read by 150,000 readers each morning. Prior to that he served as a senior advisor at the United States Institute of Peace. He was national security correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor and Politico. He has traveled to dozens of countries and covered conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and across the Middle East and Central Asia. He has also reported on military matters in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and East Asia.

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