National Security Strategy for a Democratic Congress

With each passing day, it looks more and more likely that Democrats will control at least one—if not both—houses of Congress after this November’s midterm elections. Continued increases in the cost of living, a strategic quagmire in the Middle East, and President Trump’s own personal unpopularity all seem set to give Democrats an opportunity to overcome structural headwinds like partisan gerrymandering and the Senate’s rural bias that would otherwise advantage their Republican rivals.

When Democrats win majorities in Congress they will need a national security agenda of their own to counter the Trump administration’s gangster-style foreign policy as best they can. Any slate of Democratic national security priorities will not constitute a full-blown alternative approach, nor will they comprise a blueprint that a future Democratic administration can follow; the fractious nature of Congressional politics and policymaking don’t allow for such schemes. But a Democratic Congress can work to limit the damage the Trump administration can do to American power and prestige around the world, leaving its successor—hopefully a Democratic administration—with resources sufficient enough and relationships with allies still strong enough to rebuild American foreign policy for the future. 

A Democratic Congress should therefore focus on three main, overlapping priorities: 

1. Trump-proofing American foreign policy, particularly relationships with long-standing allies.
2. Accountability and oversight of the Trump administration’s foreign policy moves, from its lawless military campaign against small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific to its corruption and self-dealing.
3. Stripping the defense budget of wasteful, impractical vanity projects and rejecting absurd spending increases while remaining comfortable with suitably large defense budgets.

Start with Trump-proofing: a Democratic Congress could and should preemptively deny Trump the authority to use military force against American treaty allies and sovereign territories like Greenland—a frightening possibility that America’s NATO allies viewed as all too real when Trump threatened Greenland this past January. It should likewise prohibit the use of funds to purchase or in any other way acquire or annex territory from American treaty allies, again to include Greenland but also Canada, where a separatist movement in the province of Alberta looks to secede and possibly bid to join the United States. This prohibition should extend to the use of any funds to conduct overt and covert operations meant to subvert the sovereignty of American allies as well, again as has reportedly already occurred in Greenland. 

But Trump-proofing cannot simply be a strategy of denial. A Democratic Congress could and should work to repair relationships with American allies and close security partners like Ukraine in both symbolic and substantive ways. That could start with invitations to the prime ministers of Canada, Denmark, and Hungary to address Congress, much in the same way a Republican Congress invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress in the hope of blocking President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran in 2015. It could also reject the Trump administration’s nascent attempts to finance national conservative think tanks and political organizations across Europe, explicitly denying funds for these purposes.

On the substantive side of the ledger, a Democratic Congress should aim to bolster security ties with Ukraine—a country whose own defense industry has innovated under constant pressure from Russian drone and missile assaults over the past four years. That could take the form of an U.S.-European Union or NATO-Ukrainian defense industrial partnership based on existing models like the one inaugurated for the Indo-Pacific in 2024. Congress should also adopt a multi-year military aid package for Ukraine that includes suitable mandates the administration spend the funds appropriated, focuses on the supply of critical weapons systems like Patriot missile interceptors, and creates an American political-military mission to Kyiv intended to prepare Ukraine for eventual membership in NATO. 

At the same time, however, it’s important for Democrats to understand that American relationships with allies won’t simply snap back into place when Trump leaves office. While the strategic logic underlying these alliances remains sound and strong across both the Atlantic and Pacific, Trump has inflicted deep wounds that will take time and serious effort to heal. American allies will understandably seek greater independence from the United States going forward—witness Canada’s recent decision to buy a European-built airborne early warning platform rather than an American one. Even as they seek to rebuild these relationships, Democrats should recognize that the damage done by Trump’s threats of annexation, territorial expansion, and tariffs cannot be repaired overnight.

When it comes to accountability and oversight, a Democratic Congress should mount a thorough inquiry into the actions the Trump administration has taken in its first two years in office—in particular, President Trump’s threats against Denmark and Greenland, the lawless boat strike campaign in the Caribbean and Pacific, and the decision to start a war with Iran this past February. Such investigations can provide a modicum of accountability for Trump’s reckless rhetoric and action, possibly leading to impeachment proceedings against Trump himself as well as other officials like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. While hearings may not change policy in and of themselves, the prospect that an individual can be hauled before a Congressional committee to account for their actions can give pause before indulging Trump’s wild schemes.

An investigation into Trump’s threats against Denmark and Greenland will have a two-fold purpose: bringing the full scope and seriousness of Trump’s territorial ambitions to light while sending a signal to NATO members that Democrats in Congress, at least, still value the alliance. Hearings on the Trump administration’s boat strikes in the Caribbean, however, can have a more direct effect on this continuing campaign. There’s a good deal for Congress to look into here, including the circumstances surrounding the early retirement of Adm. Alvin Holsey, previous head of U.S. Southern Command, in summer 2025, as well as the conduct of the campaign itself—to include Secretary Hegseth’s reported order to leave no survivors during the first strikes. Similar questions should be asked about the origins and conduct of the war in Iran, which may well continue to grind on when the next Congress convenes in January 2027. 

Beyond these matters of war and peace, Congress should enhance its scrutiny of the Hegseth Pentagon’s personnel policies—policies that seem to stymie the careers of qualified officers based on their race or gender. Indeed, Hegseth has already intervened to block the promotion of more than a dozen black and female senior officers and seems intent on pushing women out of high-ranking positions in the military altogether The dismissal of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown and former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti early on in Hegseth’s tenure could prove a good starting point.

Congress should also do its utmost to expose the corruption and self-dealing that’s marked Trump’s foreign policy. A Democratic Congress could, for instance, direct the Pentagon to sell or otherwise divest itself of the 747 executive jet “gifted” to Trump by Qatar; it could also enact a general ban against defense contracts with companies in which presidential family members have financial stakes. Investigations remain an important tool on this front, and Congress can and should investigate the ways the Trump family and his envoy extraordinaire Steven Witkoff have profited from their dealings overseas—including the cryptocurrency deal with a high-ranking Emirati official that reportedly greased the skids for the export of advanced American chips to the Emirates as well as the apparent plans of Witkoff and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner to enrich themselves via their diplomacy in the Middle East and Ukraine. On the other side of the coin, Congress should force the heads of defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Palantir that have contributed to Trump’s monstrous White House ballroom and other vanity projects to testify as to the nature and purpose of their “donations.”

Finally, the defense budget. A Democratic Congress should support a robust, responsible defense spending program of roughly $1 trillion a year while rejecting the absurd and unnecessary additional $500 billion proposed by the Trump administration. In the immediate term, a Democratic defense program should focus on replenishing stockpiles of munitions foolishly wasted on Trump’s war with Iran and expanding the defense industry’s capacity to supply American allies with what they need to defend themselves. 

They should also oppose the Trump administration’s attempts to cut critical programs like the E-7 airborne early warning aircraft, DDG(X) destroyer, and F/A-XX naval strike fighter—programs that have lead times measured in years, meaning time lost today is time lost forever—while denying funding for the useless, outrageously expensive “Trump-class” battleship and refusing to appropriate money for the still-undefined and unworkable Golden Dome missile defense system. In particular, Congress should prohibit any spending or work on the boondoggle of space-based interceptors.

This set of priorities for the next Congress remains incomplete, of course, and should be seen mainly as a starting point for discussion on what Democrats can do on national security should they control one or both houses of Congress after this year’s midterm elections. Nor does it constitute a new or different national security strategy in and of itself. A Democratic Congress should instead aim to prevent Trump from doing further damage to America and its standing in the world while ensuring the president who succeeds Trump will retain the ability to devise a new approach to the world if he or she so chooses. In that sense, at least, a Democratic Congress will mount a grand political holding action—one intended to buy time for the United States and begin desperately needed repairs on our listing ship of state.

A real rebuilding of American foreign policy will need to wait until the next Democratic president takes office. But the country has to start somewhere, and a Democratic Congress ought to start here.

Featured image is "USS Constitution, 150th Anniversary Issue of 1947, 3c, light green," US Post Office 1947.