The Trump administration’s new National Defense Strategy places “deterrence” at the center of America’s grand strategy. Deter China from dominating the Indo-Pacific. Deter threats to American access to Asian markets. (Taiwan, strangely, goes unmentioned.)

The document rebrands alliance-shedding as “burden-sharing.” And by demanding that China stay out of the Western Hemisphere while insisting on total US access to the Indo-Pacific, it explodes the very concept of spheres of influence.

The document’s central concept, deterrence, has a specific meaning, developed through decades of strategic theory.

The late Nobel laureate economist Thomas Schelling, whose work remains foundational to strategic thinking, understood that deterrence is not primarily about capability.

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