Why a ‘Routine’ $901 Billion Defense Bill Quietly Rewrites the Rules of American Power

The Senate’s move to advance a $901 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) looks, on the surface, like a familiar year-end ritual: big bipartisan vote, sprawling bill, and plenty of home‑state wins. But tucked into its 3,000 pages are structural shifts in U.S. war powers, foreign aid oversight, and domestic safety rules that will shape how America projects power abroad—and governs itself at home—for years.

A year-end bill that functions as a parallel government

For decades, the NDAA has been more than a Pentagon policy blueprint. It has evolved into one of the few legislative vehicles that must pass every year, even as Congress deadlocks on everything from immigration to basic government funding. That gives the NDAA a unique gravitational pull: unrelated policies, controversial riders, and last‑minute power plays all gravitate toward it.

In a non-shutdown year, that effect is amplified. With no imminent government funding cliff, lawmakers can pour more political ambition into the defense bill. The result is what we see now: a military policy bill that is also a vehicle for:

• Rolling back decades-old war authorizations
• Setting new rules for covert or quasi-covert operations (like anti-drug boat strikes)
• Reshaping the oversight architecture around Ukraine aid
• Even tinkering with air safety rules around Washington, D.C.

In effect, the NDAA has become a kind of parallel governance mechanism—one where foreign policy, national security, and domestic regulatory issues collide under the umbrella of “defense.”

Undoing the post-9/11 playbook: Why scrapping old AUMFs matters now

The most historically significant piece of this NDAA is the repeal of the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMFs) related to the Gulf War and Iraq War. On paper, these authorizations are relics. In practice, they have functioned as legal Swiss Army knives for successive administrations, used to justify operations far beyond what lawmakers publicly debated at the time.

The 1991 AUMF authorized the Gulf War; the 2002 AUMF authorized the invasion of Iraq. Both became part of a broader legal ecosystem that allowed the executive branch to stretch the boundaries of war-making in the Middle East and beyond. Even as U.S. ground deployments in Iraq decreased, these authorizations remained on the books—available for creative reinterpretation by lawyers in the White House and Pentagon.

The bipartisan push to repeal them reflects three converging realities:

1. War fatigue and public skepticism after more than two decades of conflict in the Middle East.
2. Congressional anxiety about executive overreach that accelerated under both Republican and Democratic presidents.
3. A reorientation toward great‑power competition—China and Russia—where Cold War-era and post‑9/11 legal tools no longer fit neatly.

Importantly, Congress is not touching the 2001 AUMF tied to the 9/11 attacks, which still underpins much of the U.S. counterterrorism footprint. That selective repeal reveals the careful balancing act: lawmakers want to claw back some authority without assuming full political responsibility for every future counterterrorism decision.

Historically, efforts to reform war powers have foundered on partisan divides or fears of looking “weak” on national security. The fact that a repeal of the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs has now found bipartisan traction is a sign that the political cost-benefit calculation has flipped. Leaving obsolete war authorizations on the books is increasingly seen as riskier than removing them.

The hidden story: Congress is trying to see what the Pentagon sees

One of the most revealing—and easily overlooked—provisions in the bill is the requirement that the Pentagon hand over unedited footage from the Trump administration’s strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, especially following a controversial "double‑tap" strike on September 2.

Double‑tap strikes, where a second strike hits shortly after the first, often raise red flags for human rights groups and legal analysts because they can threaten rescuers or civilians arriving at the scene. The fact that Congress is demanding full, unedited footage is about more than one incident. It points to a broader anxiety about:

• How force is being used outside traditional warzones
• The legal rationales being invoked to justify these strikes
• Whether the executive branch is effectively conducting undeclared, low-visibility campaigns under the banner of counter-narcotics or other authorities

For years, drones and precision strikes have enabled what some scholars call “peripheral wars”—operations that fall below the threshold of traditional warfare but still carry real risks of escalation, blowback, or civilian harm. Congressional demands for raw footage mark a rare attempt to pierce the classified veil around how those decisions are made and executed.

This is part of a larger trend: lawmakers trying to bolt oversight mechanisms onto a form of warfare that has become faster, more remote, and more opaque than the structures of accountability built in the Cold War era.

Ukraine: From blank check rhetoric to hardwired oversight

The NDAA’s Ukraine provisions are another sign that the politics of foreign aid are changing. The bill does three important things:

• Extends the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, authorizing $400 million per year in weapons purchases from U.S. defense companies.
• Prevents quiet cutoffs of intelligence support by requiring at least 48-hours notice and an explanation if that support is reduced or halted.
• Beefs up reporting requirements for all U.S. and allied foreign aid flowing to Ukraine.

These steps reflect two competing pressures on lawmakers:

1. A strategic consensus among many in the defense and foreign policy establishment that helping Ukraine resist Russia is central to deterring future aggression in Europe.
2. Mounting domestic skepticism—especially among populist conservatives but also some progressives—about the scale, duration, and transparency of U.S. support.

Rather than a blank check, Congress is building something more like a monitored line of credit: ongoing support, but with more reporting, more visibility, and fewer opportunities for the executive branch to flip switches in the dark. Requiring notice before intelligence support is cut is particularly telling—it’s Congress trying to pre‑empt abrupt, politically driven shifts in policy that could blindside Ukraine and allies.

Economically, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative’s structure—purchasing weapons from U.S. defense companies—also locks in domestic industrial interests. That creates political durability: cutting Ukraine aid in the future won’t just be framed as a foreign policy decision, but as a blow to local jobs in states hosting defense manufacturing.

Air safety, Reagan National, and the politics of ‘quiet’ carve‑outs

Perhaps the most jarring inclusion in a defense bill is the controversial provision that would loosen certain safety standards around Washington, D.C.’s airspace—this, in the wake of a fatal collision between a Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger jet near Reagan National that killed 67 people.

That such a provision made it into the NDAA without the knowledge or sign‑off of the Senate Commerce Committee’s top Republican and Democrat tells us two things:

• Lobbying around Reagan National’s capacity and flight rules remains intense, as airlines and regional airports jockey for valuable slots close to the capital.
• The NDAA is increasingly being used as a backdoor for industry-friendly provisions that might struggle in regular order where subject‑matter committees and public scrutiny are higher.

Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Maria Cantwell’s push to strip the language and instead codify the safety improvements made after the crash is not just about airspace. It’s a battle over process: who gets to write substantive policy—the committees tasked with aviation oversight, or lawmakers and lobbyists who quietly insert language into a must‑pass bill?

This episode highlights a structural problem: as the NDAA becomes the de facto legislative vehicle of last resort, the line between national security and domestic industry carve‑outs blurs, often in ways the public only discovers after the fact.

Why the size and timing of the bill matter

At roughly $901 billion—about $8 billion more than requested by the president—the bill underscores how Congress often treats the Pentagon as the least controversial place to add money, even in a polarized fiscal environment. Exceeding a presidential request on defense spending is not new, but it’s revealing in a year when other domestic priorities, from health subsidies to social programs, face much harsher scrutiny.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are juggling expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, nearly 100 pending nominees, and a potential five-bill funding package to avoid another shutdown in January. That makes the NDAA both a policy instrument and a legislative pressure valve: pass this, then head home and hope the unresolved fights can wait.

But that timing also creates incentives to bury contentious items within the one bill that “has to” get done. It’s a structural vulnerability that smart actors—inside and outside Congress—have learned to exploit.

The broader trend: Congress reasserting itself—selectively

Across the bill, a pattern emerges: Congress is not broadly reclaiming power from the executive; it is selectively reasserting itself in specific areas where lawmakers feel exposed—politically or constitutionally.

• On war powers, repealing old AUMFs is a symbolic and legal step toward rebalancing the separation of powers, even as the core 2001 AUMF remains intact.
• On covert or low-visibility operations, demands for unedited footage of strikes signal a desire for real oversight, at least when operations become public controversies.
• On Ukraine, notice requirements and reporting are guardrails against unilateral shifts by the executive and a shield against domestic political backlash.
• On domestic safety rules tied to aviation, committee leaders are drawing a bright line: no end‑runs around subject‑matter expertise in the name of convenience.

What’s missing is a comprehensive rethink of how the U.S. uses force in an era of cyber operations, autonomous weapons, and great‑power gray-zone conflict. Instead, Congress is patching the old system—repealing outdated authorizations here, tightening oversight there—without building an updated, coherent framework for how and when America goes to war.

What to watch next

Several fault lines will determine how consequential this NDAA ultimately becomes:

• Amendment fights: Whether efforts like the Cruz–Cantwell amendment on D.C. airspace succeed will signal how much appetite there is to police policy riders in must‑pass bills.
• Future AUMF debates: Repealing the 1991 and 2002 authorizations could build momentum to finally revisit the 2001 AUMF—the real legal backbone of post‑9/11 military operations.
• Ukraine fatigue vs. institutionalization: As oversight tightens, does support become more politically sustainable—or do new reporting requirements provide tools for skeptics to slow or obstruct aid?
• Transparency precedents: If Congress successfully compels unedited strike footage, that could become a template for oversight of future drone or missile campaigns.

The bottom line

This year’s NDAA is not just a $901 billion defense blueprint; it is a quiet rewrite of how the U.S. authorizes war, supervises covert operations, and structures long-term security commitments like Ukraine. It also exposes how heavily Congress now leans on a single must-pass bill to resolve—or bury—fights that ought to get full, open debate.

The deeper story is not the topline number. It’s the way this bill reveals a Congress that is both constrained and opportunistic: constrained by polarization and procedural gridlock, yet opportunistic in using the defense bill as the rare vehicle where significant, often under-scrutinized, shifts in American power can still happen.