Congress, for once, has done serious work to improve the readiness of America’s armed forces.
The Senate plans to begin voting today on the annual National Defense Authorization Act for 2026, which the House advanced overwhelmingly last week. This is considered must-pass legislation every year, as it authorizes the budgets for both the military and the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons programs. In addition to funding, the bill includes hundreds of pages of defense policy changes that Congress has compiled over the last year. In a rare example of the legislative branch doing its job, this year’s NDAA is rife with stellar policy that bolsters military readiness and maintains U.S. commitments around the world — implicitly yet firmly pushing back against the executive branch’s official strategy of retreat.
At 3,086 pages long, there is a lot of material to sort through. Here are the highlights:
- $901 Billion Headline Budget: The NDAA authorizes $8 billion more for defense programs than the president requested and $6 billion more than last year. That is technically a decline in inflation-adjusted terms, especially in funding for military procurement, which fell from $168 billion in 2025 to $162 billion. In isolation, such a reduction would be devastating given the current threat environment. The intent, however, was for the Pentagon’s regular budget to be supplemented by Republicans’ sprawling reconciliation bill from earlier this year, which appropriated $150 billion for big-ticket defense items such as shipbuilding, missile defense, and nuclear modernization. The defense budget will definitely need to rise in the next few years as reconciliation funding runs out and inflation persists, but $901 billion is good enough for now.
- Much-Needed Acquisition Reforms: The procurement system is perhaps the most antiquated facet of the Defense Department bureaucracy — a labyrinth of rules and procedures that delay the purchase of new systems and weapons by years, strangle smaller contractors, and raise procurement costs by billions of dollars. It’s one of the main reasons America doesn’t have enough munitions to fight a major war. The NDAA seeks to complement the Pentagon’s recent efforts to reform the broken system, combining ideas from House and Senate Republicans to streamline acquisitions and vest more decision-making responsibility in individual officers. That should enable the DoD to purchase the weapons it needs more quickly. Smaller companies will be able to contract with the military without dying on the vine as they await funding, opening up the Pentagon to the burgeoning defense tech industry.
- Multi-Year Procurement Authority: As for older weapon systems, the most crucial factor for stable production is consistent funding year after year. Yet Congress appropriates different amounts of funding every year. The Pentagon may purchase hundreds of a particular missile one year and none the next. Such unstable demand signals keep the defense industrial base weak by discouraging contractors from investing in new factories and expanding their workforces. The solution to this problem is multi-year procurement, a legal avenue by which the Defense Department commits to purchase a set amount of munitions for multiple years. Historically, this authority had to be granted by Congress on a case-by-case basis and was limited to just a few programs. The 2026 NDAA greatly expands multi-year procurement, extending it to many critical munitions not formerly covered — including many commonly-used missiles in short supply. The bill also requires the Pentagon to submit multi-year procurement requests to Congress in the future for weapons systems it expects to purchase consistently for five years.
- Reinforcing Foreign Commitments: In sharp contrast to the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, the NDAA promises to uphold U.S. security commitments in vital theaters around the world. It preemptively limits troop withdrawals that President Trump has threatened, imposing a floor of 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea and 76,000 in Europe. The bill authorizes $175 million in security assistance to NATO member states on Russia’s doorstep that the administration declined to request. It extends the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, providing $400 million annually for Ukraine to buy weapons from U.S. defense firms. To contain China in the Pacific, the bill authorizes $1 billion for Taiwan’s defenses and $1.5 billion for the Philippines, and it extends the Pacific Deterrence Initiative that boosts the United States’ military presence in Asia. In the Middle East, it mandates close security cooperation with Israel and helps replenish the nation’s missile defense systems. All of these provisions reflect a bipartisan consensus in Congress that America still has responsibilities beyond its hemisphere.
- Recognizing a Changed Middle East: The NDAA performs some light constitutional hygiene by repealing the authorizations of military force behind the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 invasion of Iraq. Despite both wars having ended long ago, presidents of both parties have used these broad authorizations to justify military actions in Iraq for years. Congress is finally recognizing in law that Iraq is now a strategic partner of the United States, however imperfect, and the authorizations of force against it only serve to enable mischief by the executive branch. Meanwhile, the 2001 authorization underlying U.S. counterterrorism efforts will remain on the books. The NDAA also recognizes the revolution in Syria that removed dictator Bashar al-Assad from power in 2024, officially repealing sanctions on the Syrian government that Trump had already lifted. Although there are still threats to U.S. security lurking in Syria, the country’s new leadership does not appear to be one of them.
- Restricting Investment in China: Included in the NDAA is a long-stalled bill that regulates outbound investments in adversaries’ sensitive industries. The primary target is China’s technology sector, which is seen to have many military applications. Companies will be required to report their direct investments in certain Chinese technologies to the federal government, which will screen for national security concerns and potentially block the transactions. This portion of the bill resolves a long-running debate between different factions of House Republicans over how to restrict outbound investment, with one group favoring more limited, company-by-company sanctions and the other preferring the broader, sector-based restrictions that are being advanced here. Unfortunately, Congress did not list out the regulated sectors and technologies itself, instead leaving those determinations to the Treasury Department in yet another delegation of legislative power. Another provision would prevent the government from contracting with biotechnology firms it considers to be controlled by a foreign adversary — also aimed squarely at China.
- Getting Adversaries Out of Defense Supply Chains: As we have learned from the rare earth mineral saga, U.S. defense contractors have become too reliant on components and materials sourced from adversaries like China. The NDAA tries to clean up the military’s vulnerable supply chains by banning the purchase of such components over the coming years. Beginning in 2028, new acquisitions will not be able to include advanced batteries from China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. The military’s purchase of optical systems, computer displays, and other equipment from U.S. adversaries will be prohibited by 2030. That should provide enough time for alternative suppliers to build up and for defense contractors to switch over.
- Oversight of Venezuelan Boat Strikes: Believe it or not, this Republican-controlled Congress is doing some oversight of the Trump administration. The NDAA will withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget until the Pentagon gives Congress unedited video of U.S. boat strikes in the Caribbean against alleged Venezuelan drug smugglers. Both the House and Senate have opened investigations into the strikes following revelations that the military killed two survivors with a second strike after their boat was destroyed by the first. Video of the incident would indeed be useful to determine what exactly happened.
- Removing DEI and Climate Bureaucracy: Lawmakers claim that the NDAA saves nearly $20 billion in unnecessary defense spending, in part by cutting all DEI and climate change programs. These cuts are a welcome ratification of Trump’s executive orders aimed at removing ideological distractions from the military. Not a lot of money was being spent on DEI and climate, however. The bulk of the savings comes from culling other parts of the bureaucracy, ending inefficient defense programs, and terminating contracts for consulting and other services.
Although Democrats played a significant role in shaping the legislation, several of the unwise provisions they had sought — mandating IVF coverage for military healthcare, allowing collective bargaining for Defense Department employees — were ultimately excluded. One minor win for Democrats, however: They got the bill to refer to the “Department of Defense” and “Secretary of Defense” throughout its text. Apologies to the president.
Overall, this year’s NDAA is an excellent defense policy bill — and I only described a tiny fraction of its provisions. Congress, for once, has done serious work to improve the readiness of America’s armed forces. It is now up to the administration to put them to good use.