What a $901 Billion Defense Deal Tells Us About Power, Politics, and America’s Future

The Senate’s decision to send a $901 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to Donald Trump’s desk is not just another year-end ritual in Washington. It’s a revealing snapshot of how American power is funded, how political conflict is managed, and how both parties quietly converge on core national security priorities even as they wage open warfare on nearly everything else.

This year’s NDAA, passed on a lopsided 77–20 bipartisan vote, lands against a backdrop of hardening global rivalries, domestic political fragmentation, and mounting fiscal strain. The fact that such a massive defense package can still move with relative ease tells us as much about entrenched institutional habits as it does about genuine security needs.

The defense bill as Washington’s most enduring ritual

For more than six decades, the NDAA has been one of the few truly reliable products of Congress. It has passed every year since 1961, often with large bipartisan majorities. In legislative terms, it functions as the national security system’s annual “operating system update” – setting policy, authorizing programs, and signaling long-term priorities to the Pentagon, defense contractors, and U.S. allies.

Historically, the NDAA has also served another purpose: it is where Congress reasserts some measure of control over the sprawling military-industrial complex. During the Cold War, lawmakers used it to guide nuclear force posture and arms control; after 9/11, to structure counterterrorism authorities and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; in the 2010s and 2020s, to shape the pivot from counterinsurgency to great-power competition with China and Russia.

Yet over time, the bill has become so large and complex that it effectively functions as a catch-all vehicle for everything from base closures to military family leave to tech investments. That “crammed to the brim” quality, as even supporters acknowledge, is a feature, not a bug: it gives members a must-pass vehicle on which to ride dozens of smaller priorities that might never get standalone votes.

Why nearly everyone votes yes, even in an age of gridlock

At a moment when Congress struggles to keep the government open for more than a few months at a time, the question is obvious: why does the NDAA still sail through?

There are several structural reasons:

• Jobs and contracts are geographically dispersed. Defense spending is intentionally spread across congressional districts. Shipyards in Maine, aerospace plants in Texas, software hubs in Virginia and California, munitions factories in the Midwest – all give lawmakers a direct economic stake in keeping the tap open. A 2023 analysis by the Department of Defense showed defense contracts touching all 50 states, with many members able to point to thousands of local jobs tied to specific line items.
• Opposing the NDAA carries political risk. Voting against the defense bill invites attack ads about being “weak on national security,” even if objections are about waste, civil liberties, or overseas interventions rather than keeping troops equipped.
• The bill aggregates disparate coalitions. Hawks support higher topline numbers; progressives may support specific reforms, such as military justice changes, family benefits, or climate-related resilience; moderates want to show they can “govern.” That mix produces large, if uneasy, majorities.

In a deeply polarized era, the NDAA is one of the few remaining vehicles where a Republican president, Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress, the Pentagon, and major corporate interests are broadly aligned.

What this particular $901B package signals

Although the newsletter summary is sparse on specifics, the scale and timing of this NDAA tell us several important things about U.S. strategy and domestic politics.

1. The U.S. is locking in long-term spending at near-historic levels.

Adjusting for inflation, the U.S. is spending at or near the heights of the Cold War, but with a very different threat landscape. In recent years, U.S. defense budgets have hovered around 3–3.5% of GDP – below the 1980s peak but well above the post-Cold War lows. A $901 billion authorization entrenches that trajectory, even as federal debt passes 100% of GDP and interest payments crowd out other priorities.

This represents a bet that the U.S. can sustain heavy defense spending while also funding aging-related costs (Medicare, Social Security) and responding to domestic needs like infrastructure, climate adaptation, and public health.

2. The bill underwrites Trump-era priorities that transcend Trump.

The newsletter notes that the package “unlocks funding for several of the Trump administration’s national defense priorities.” That likely includes:

• Accelerating procurement of ships, aircraft, and missiles aimed at deterring China in the Western Pacific.
• Investments in nuclear modernization – updating America’s aging triad of bombers, submarines, and land-based missiles.
• Funding for space and cyber capabilities, domains that have become core to both deterrence and offensive operations.

The key point: these priorities are not uniquely Trump’s. They reflect a deeper consensus in the national security establishment that the post-9/11 era of counterterrorism is giving way to a decades-long strategic competition with China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. Even presidents who sharply criticize Trump on other fronts have largely embraced this same defense posture.

3. Bipartisanship on defense masks deep disagreements over transparency and use of force.

The newsletter mentions “clashes over [a] boat strike” and debates over releasing related footage, along with separate alarms over global terror plots. Senate Republicans blocked an effort to force disclosure of controversial strike footage; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dismissed briefings as “a joke.” This reflects a familiar pattern: consensus on money, contention over oversight.

In practice, Congress is more comfortable appropriating funds than imposing strict limits on how force is used or how much the public learns. The NDAA debate has repeatedly featured fights over war powers, civilian casualty reporting, and surveillance authorities. But those fights rarely threaten the core topline budget; they’re skirmishes around the edges of a bipartisan commitment to maintain global reach.

How this fits into the larger Trump-era political landscape

Look at the surrounding political headlines in the same newsletter: legal battles over climate lawsuits, intra-GOP clashes over Obamacare, Trump’s primetime “victory lap,” his push to weaken the filibuster, and House Republicans facing backlash for impeachment votes. It’s a picture of a political system in churn – except on defense.

While Trump has presided over bitter domestic fights on health care, immigration, and law, his administration’s defense posture has often lined up with longstanding Republican priorities and, increasingly, centrist Democratic ones: higher defense budgets, an aggressive line on Iran and China, and skepticism toward arms control constraints.

This NDAA effectively ratifies that posture:

• It gives Trump a legislative “win” to tout in a primetime address – proof that he can deliver bipartisan action on national security even as other parts of his agenda stall.
• It reassures the Pentagon and allies that the U.S. strategic course is stable, regardless of who occupies the White House, at least in the short term.
• It sidelines deeper debates about whether the U.S. should reconsider the scope of its global commitments, base structure, and frequent use of military force.

Expert perspectives: consensus and concern

Defense and budget experts tend to agree that the U.S. needs to invest seriously in modernizing its forces and preparing for high-end conflict. Where they diverge is on the question of sustainability and tradeoffs.

Many strategists argue that failing to invest now would be far costlier later if deterrence fails in the Taiwan Strait or Eastern Europe. At the same time, fiscal analysts warn that an open-ended commitment to near-trillion-dollar defense budgets will increasingly collide with domestic needs and debt dynamics.

What’s often missing in the mainstream coverage is a frank discussion of opportunity cost: every dollar committed to long-term weapons programs is a dollar not available for resilience at home – whether against pandemics, extreme weather, or crumbling infrastructure. The NDAA debate rarely forces lawmakers to weigh those choices explicitly.

Data points that matter but rarely make the headlines

• The U.S. vs. the world: The United States consistently spends more on defense than the next several countries combined, including China, Russia, India, and key U.S. allies. Estimates have put U.S. spending at roughly 35–40% of global military expenditure.
• Defense vs. domestic programs: In recent budgets, the Pentagon’s base budget plus war-related accounts have been in the same range as, or higher than, federal non-defense discretionary spending for areas like education, transportation, and scientific research.
• Long-tail commitments: Major weapons systems authorized in a single NDAA often have lifespans of 30–50 years. The political decision to fund them now effectively locks in future budgets and strategic assumptions.

The overlooked story: how much discretion presidents actually have

Sending the NDAA to Trump’s desk highlights another dynamic: the enormous discretion presidents enjoy in how they interpret and implement congressional authorizations. Congress can set broad guardrails and priorities, but day-to-day decisions about deployments, targeted strikes, and covert operations remain concentrated in the executive branch.

Lawmakers’ willingness to authorize broad funding, combined with their reluctance to aggressively revisit outdated war authorizations or tighten reporting requirements, has produced a system where presidents have substantial latitude to use force with limited up-front scrutiny. That’s true whether the president is Trump, Obama, or his successors.

What to watch going forward

This NDAA is more than a year-end checklist item. It sets the stage for several future battles:

• Debt and austerity fights: As interest costs climb, future Congresses will face pressure to curb spending. Defense will be shielded politically, but not indefinitely. A clash between “national security hawks” and “fiscal hawks” is coming.
• Transparency and war powers: The disputes over strike footage and briefing quality hint at a growing bloc of lawmakers demanding more visibility into how force is used. Whether they can translate that into concrete reforms is still uncertain.
• Industrial policy through the Pentagon: Increasingly, the NDAA doubles as a high-tech industrial policy bill – funding AI, quantum computing, space, and microelectronics. The defense bill is becoming one of the main tools for competing with China on technology, with implications for civilian markets and privacy.
• Partisan alignments: The 77–20 vote obscures new ideological coalitions: libertarian-leaning Republicans and progressive Democrats sometimes voting together against large defense packages, while centrist Democrats join security-minded Republicans in support.

The bottom line

The $901 billion NDAA that just landed on Donald Trump’s desk is less about the headline figure and more about what it reveals: a bipartisan decision to lock in a high-spending, globally assertive U.S. defense posture for years to come, even as domestic politics fracture and fiscal pressures mount.

As long as Washington continues to treat the defense bill as an untouchable ritual rather than a forum for real strategic choices, Americans will see massive military authorizations pass with ease while other urgent debates – on health care, inequality, and democratic resilience – remain mired in stalemate. The question isn’t whether the U.S. can afford its defense ambitions this year; it’s whether it can afford the path it’s now doubling down on for the next generation.