Defending the homeland, not deterring China, tops the listing of priorities that Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth despatched to senior Pentagon leaders and combatant commanders earlier this month, forward of the anticipated launch of the second Trump administration’s first Nationwide Protection Technique.
This focus displays “the President’s dedication to revive our uncared for place within the Western Hemisphere,” Hegseth wrote in an Aug. 7 memo laying out his defense-planning steerage. Protection One obtained a duplicate of the memo.
Earlier than mentioning China—lengthy seen because the “pacing problem” with which the U.S. is jockeying for affect in not solely the Indo-Pacific, however Africa and Latin America—the steerage’s first listed precedence is to “seal our borders, repel invasion, counter narcotics and trafficking, and help the Division of Homeland Safety mission to deport unlawful aliens.”
The language continues the present Trump administration’s departure from not simply the Biden Nationwide Protection Technique, however the president’s personal first-term technique, each of which positioned deterring China as first precedence.
It’s a shift in rhetoric that has borne out in motion, as Trump has ordered the militarization of the southern border whereas deploying Marines and Nationwide Guardsmen to Los Angeles—illegally, in response to the state’s governor—to dispel protests of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
It could be the most suitable choice within the quick time period, within the face of poorly resourced law-enforcement companies, but it surely’s not what the Protection Division is designed to do, Glen VanHerck, a retired Air Pressure basic and former head of U.S. Northern Command, informed Protection One.
“I feel finally, if our authorities had an alternative choice—similar to with ICE and Customs and Border Safety, with extra capability, functionality—that they’d put it to use. They simply haven’t got it,” VanHerck informed Protection One.
DHS has requested DOD help on the border yearly since 2018. Although the variety of requested troops dropped through the Biden administration from a excessive of 5,500 troops to 2,500 earlier than Trump took workplace in January, the company made the case yearly that CBP was incapable of securing the border alone.
CBP has taken strides to fill its persistent staffing shortages, primarily by providing recruiting bonuses and streamlining the hiring course of. However that takes time.
“And so for those who’re the president, you have obtained 4 years, you are not going to attend and construct the capability and functionality inside DHS or different companies past DOD in that point, to execute what you want,” VanHerck mentioned.
However supporting legislation enforcement shouldn’t be a core mission for the army, VanHerck mentioned, echoing public statements he made throughout his tenure at NORTHCOM.
“I’m involved that DOD has turn out to be the ‘straightforward button’ for every part. So it does not matter if it is a Biden administration or a Trump administration—‘while you want capability and functionality, name on DOD’,” he mentioned. “That, long-term, is just not good for our nation, to have DOD in our streets. We have to useful resource these companies, spelled out in legislation to implement our legal guidelines, and to conduct disaster response, in our homeland.”
Requested for touch upon the protection secretary’s planning steerage, Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdez referred inquiries to the White Home.
None of Hegseth’s written paperwork or public statements recommend this can be a short-term venture. In April, the U.S. established a militarized zone throughout the border that enables troops to detain trespassers, a mission beforehand reserved to law-enforcement companies. This month he created a brand new medal to be awarded to troops who serve a minimum of 30 days on the border mission.
“Within the meantime, while you’re utilizing DOD, what are you doing at DHS and DOJ to develop extra capability, extra functionality, to make the most of know-how higher—not simply the human—so the DOD does not have to do that long-term?” VanHerck mentioned.
Past the border
In the meantime, greater than a dozen states are activating Nationwide Guard troops domestically to assist ICE, not solely by processing paperwork and dealing with different administrative duties, however by driving brokers round.
“The story is, why haven’t we resourced law-enforcement companies to implement our legal guidelines that Congress places on the books?” VanHerck mentioned.
DHS’s 2026 funds request cuts $81 million from CBP’s 2025 ranges whereas including greater than $800 million to ICE. They each profit from $165 billion infused into DHS by the reconciliation invoice, which incorporates funding for recruitment.
“We want a whole-nation technique, led by DHS, that results in strains of effort by division, that results in funding for every of these strains of effort, that results in coaching for these strains of effort,” VanHerck mentioned.
That might embody this newly codified counter-narcotics precedence, which DOD has intermittently supported previously and has continued into this 12 months, which to date has included surveillance flights and ships deployed off the coast of Central America
“One of many challenges is that Mexico doesn’t have the flexibility to conduct high-fidelity surveillance like we will,” VanHerck mentioned. “We might help level them in the precise course if we’re keen to share data.”
However the administration has additionally been contemplating drone strikes in opposition to cartels working in Mexico, although that nation’s president has mentioned, “The USA is just not going to return to Mexico with the army.”
There are alternatives apart from deploying troops into the nation, VanHerck mentioned.
“One of many issues I advocated for, for a very long time: assist Mexico determine precursor supplies coming in to allow them to seize them at their ports, these kinds of issues,” he mentioned.
After which there’s the deployment of troops to main U.S. cities: Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; and probably Chicago and Baltimore.
Whereas deploying the Guard to implement native legal guidelines isn’t an express a part of any national-security technique but, it’s changing into a go-to transfer.
“As you all know, Chicago’s a killing area proper now,” Trump informed reporters within the Oval Workplace on Monday. (Lots of have been killed previously 12 months, however the metropolis’s homicide fee is at a decade low.) He later added that he isn’t eager to “barge in on a metropolis after which be handled horribly by corrupt politicians,” following stories the Pentagon had been engaged on Chicago deployment plans for weeks.
As these aren’t long-planned operations, it’s unclear what sort of readiness or monetary influence they are going to have on the models themselves.
“Is the cash going to stop some models from drilling? I do not assume anyone is aware of that at this specific cut-off date,” mentioned John Goheen, spokesman for the Nationwide Guard Affiliation of the USA. “The numbers would recommend no, however that is one thing the Pentagon goes to need to reply.”
The Guard’s major mission is to coach for battle, Goheen mentioned, with catastrophe aid a standard further mission.
They aren’t resourced to be constantly supporting legislation enforcement, mentioned Gordon Adams, a professor emeritus in worldwide affairs at American College’s College of Worldwide Service.
“From a budgetary perspective, it signifies that the home use of forces is just not essentially deliberate or budgeted,” Adams mentioned. “If the particular intervention models of the Nationwide Guard are literally created at DOD, in some unspecified time in the future they are going to doubtless funds for them. However at current, the regime’s follow appears to be—‘act first, discover the cash later’.”
Whereas Guard budgets are versatile sufficient to cowl pay and journey prices of unplanned deployments, they don’t seem to be funded to the extent of an ongoing national-security precedence. DOD additionally has small pots of cash to help DHS’s border mission and the counter-trafficking mission.
The issue is, DOD’s present funds doesn’t come up with the money for for a surge in these missions, which are actually handled as a cornerstone of Hegseth’s technique. The 2026 funds places some cash towards them, but it surely’s an open query yearly of if or when a correct funds shall be signed in any respect, a lot much less on time.
“If it is one thing that you’ll prioritize and it isn’t a contingency, or it isn’t emergent, it may be within the funds,” mentioned Elaine McCusker, a senior fellow on the American Enterprise Institute and former Pentagon comptroller throughout Trump’s first administration.
Basically, unplanned deployments just like the border plus-up earlier this 12 months or the present Guard deployment to D.C. might be lined by operations and upkeep funding.
“And that is fairly typical for any type of sudden operation that the division does, and the impacts additionally vary primarily based on the scale, proper?” McCusker mentioned. “What had been you planning on doing with that cash that you just’re not in a position to do now? And the way do you go about making that up?”
A major instance, throughout McCusker’s tenure on the Pentagon, was the reprogramming of billions in army development funding to construct the border fence, which pushed again deliberate initiatives together with weapons ranges and coaching amenities.
“Each time a brand new mission is assigned to the Protection Division, it should handle, plan, execute, assess, and report on the exercise,” McCusker wrote in an essay for Lawfare final 12 months. “This attracts personnel, administration focus, and sources away from what must be the protection core mission: making ready for, combating, and successful America’s wars.”
The reconciliation invoice has some funding to cowl these missions, she informed Protection One, although the overwhelming majority of it goes to DHS. DOD has $1 billion to spend over the subsequent 4 years.
It’s not clear what homeland protection because the No. 1 DOD precedence will appear to be within the 2026 funds.
“I feel that that is going to, partly, rely upon what the highest line is, and if it’s a must to really divert sources from a second or third precedence into a primary precedence, or when you’ve got type of an ongoing effort that you just increase, primarily based on what the what the requirement is,” McCusker mentioned.
