Earlier this week, Congress passed the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — one of the few pieces of regular legislation Congress manages to advance these days. Weighing in at 3,086 pages, this hulking legislation covers everything from the personnel strength of each of the armed services to the safety and security of America’s nuclear arsenal to environmental regulations at military bases and much else besides.
It’s important to note that while this bill authorizes funding for the military — salaries for service members, money for weapons programs, and the like — it does not actually appropriate it. Instead, the NDAA sets defense policy priorities and parameters, as well as providing a sense of where Congress stands on important national security questions. And as one of the few regular legislative vehicles able to get through Congress these days, the NDAA also tends to accumulate amendments unrelated to defense or national security policy.
As with any significantly detailed and dense piece of legislation, the NDAA contains its fair share of good, bad, and just plain ugly provisions and proposals — and the 2026 edition is no different. Whatever its weaknesses, however, this NDAA makes plain that Congress sees the world very differently than the Trump White House.
Where the Trump administration’s recent National Security Strategy called for an effective withdrawal from Europe and the Pacific, abandoning American allies to the designs of Russia and China, the NDAA remains steadfast in America’s commitment to our allies in these parts of the world. It repeatedly calls out Russian aggression and argues for strengthening the NATO alliance as well as America’s alliances with Japan, South Korea, and other nations in the Pacific. It’s clear, moreover, that many members of Congress of both parties remain sympathetic to Ukraine and seek to draw redlines to prevent the Trump administration from imposing a false peace deal on Kyiv.
At the same time, however, divisions in Congress remain sharp and limit its ability to make good on its intentions. Prohibitions against withdrawals from alliances come with mere reporting and certification requirements susceptible to abuse by bad-faith actors in the Trump administration, who could easily abuse them, while aid to Ukraine has become more symbolic than substantive and meaningful for a nation at war. Though less robust than it might be on these critical issues, the NDAA does nonetheless show a Congress at odds with the Trump administration on questions of foreign policy, defense, and national security.
It’s worth taking a closer look at what the NDAA says about America’s overall defense policy as well, from key weapons programs to space policy to efforts to rebuild the nation’s defense industry.
This policy memo covers the following areas of the NDAA:
