Today the Pentagon will release the National Defense Strategy (NDS), a new report required by Congress in which the Secretary of Defense articulates a strategic framework for defense policy. The NDS stems from the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which mandated that the NDS replace the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Whatever its original intent, the QDR was more of a “review” than a forward-looking strategy document. Congress correctly diagnosed the problem and now requires the Department of Defense (DoD) to produce an NDS every four years (and also intermittently more frequently as may be appropriate).The NDS will fit under the umbrella of the recently released National Security Strategy (NSS). I’m interested in what the NDS has to say, but I think it is just as important to recognize that DoD will have a strategy. That strategy will be put in place before the president submits his defense (and other) budget requests to Congress. That is not an accident. The NDS is required to come out in January in advance of the February budget request deadline.

That sequence — strategy, DoD request, congressional appropriations — is exactly as it should be and a far cry from recent history. For years, the Budget Control Act (BCA) has generated a budget-driven, not strategy-driven, defense posture. In an era of rising threats around the world, the United States cannot afford to continue that way. Instead of budget-driven strategy it should be strategy-driven budgeting.

Only one — major — glitch remains. Congress must reach a bipartisan agreement to lift the defense budget cap to at least the levels indicated in the NDAA. So far, such a deal has become ensnared in the additional politics of the National Flood Insurance Program, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals population, the Children’s Health Insurance Program reauthorization, and other issues. Congress should move quickly to pass a cap deal and put the DoD in a strategic, forward-looking posture.