Under the proposed National Defense Authorization Act, which the Senate Armed Services Committee approved by a 26-1 vote Wednesday, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative would receive a refresh in funding after the Biden administration emptied it earlier this year.

That account is one of two main ways the Pentagon has provided military support to Ukraine over the last three years. Rather than directly ship stocks from the U.S. military, it contracts defense firms to build weapons Ukraine needs and then provide them over time.

“It’s not nearly enough in terms of scale. But the intent is to show that we believe Ukraine requires additional support,” a congressional aide said on the condition of anonymity while briefing on the bill.

The bill would also reauthorize the program through 2028. The House Armed Services Committee chairman’s markup of the 2026 NDAA would do the same, approving $300 million for the account.

In its late-June budget request, the Pentagon didn’t request any money for the program, concluding in a review that it was inconsistent with the president’s agenda.

The bill, which hasn’t yet passed in the Senate overall, also comes only days after the Defense Department temporarily halted weapons deliveries to Ukraine, reportedly after a review of U.S. stockpiles showed warning signs for America’s own military readiness.

“We can’t give weapons to everybody all around the world. We have to look out for America and defending our homeland,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in his first standalone briefing July 2.

Parnell said the pause was part of a broader review of American military assistance to countries around the world. He didn’t specify what other countries were affected.

The White House also confirmed the pause, though it has since disputed that one ever took place, alongside the Pentagon. Shortly after it occurred, President Donald Trump said the U.S. would actually keep supporting Ukraine’s military.

“At President Trump’s direction, the Department of Defense is sending additional defensive weapons to Ukraine to ensure the Ukrainians can defend themselves while we work to secure a lasting peace and ensure the killing stops,” Parnell said in a later statement.

Among other provisions in the massive spending package, the bill contains $150 billion for the Defense Department, slated for priorities like shipbuilding, the Golden Dome homeland defense project and refilling America’s stores of precision weapons.

That total includes $113 billion in mandatory funding for the military, which the Pentagon has said pushes its budget close to $1 trillion for the first time. In its long-delayed budget release last week, the Defense Department requested a separate $848 billion in base funding, otherwise a cut when accounting for inflation.

Still, in an unusual arrangement, the Pentagon had been counting on the separate party-line bill passed Thursday for its budget in the coming fiscal year.

Normally, the administration reserves its top priorities for the base defense budget, which, despite frequent delays, is considered must-pass legislation each year. Instead, the Trump administration divided its spending into two bills — accepting the risk that the party-line package might fail and upend the Pentagon’s budget.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats criticized this setup and the lengthy wait to get the Trump administration’s budget request, as Pentagon leaders appeared on Capitol Hill to testify over the last two months.

But by passing the bill Thursday, Congress has inverted the same process it previously urged the administration to maintain.

As the administration approaches fiscal 2026, it will have the $150 billion in extra defense spending already available. But lawmakers and committee staff in Congress widely expect the fiscal year to begin with a continuing resolution, or a temporary funding bill that limits how the government can spend its money.

That would mean the Pentagon has supplemental funding passed without its base budget — like getting a bonus but while on furlough.

In the end, only two House Republicans voted against the measure, after a larger group threatened to tank the bill earlier in the week over concerns about the massive increase to America’s deficit it is forecasted to create.

“We’re thinking probably closer to two years — like degraded their program by two years,” said Sean Parnell in his first standalone briefing.

Parnell’s assessment comes at a moment of confusion about the effect America’s massive airstrikes had on Iran’s nuclear program.

The administration has repeatedly said that the attacks “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities, a characterization Parnell himself repeated Wednesday.

But an early Defense Intelligence Agency review — first reported by CNN but later confirmed by the administration — estimated that the attacks had only delayed that program by a matter of months.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argued that the damage had been more severe in a separate briefing last week. Still, he didn’t offer his own estimated timeline and didn’t dispute that the intelligence review contained the reported findings — only that they were premature.

Parnell didn’t detail Wednesday what new intelligence resulted in his updated assessment.

“We believe that Iran’s nuclear capability has been severely degraded, perhaps even their ambition to build a bomb,” he said.

In late June, the U.S. military attacked Iran’s three main nuclear sites with an enormous number of precision weapons, including more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles and 14 bunker-busting bombs, which weigh 30,000 pounds each.

The strikes compounded damage already done by Israel, which had begun trading strikes with Iran little more than a week before but didn’t have the equipment necessary to threaten the heavily fortified facilities.

“The assessments are ongoing, and every day that goes by the intelligence picture that we have gets clearer,” Parnell said.

He promised to continue updating the press corps as more information becomes available.

“We can’t give weapons to everybody all around the world. We have to look out for America and defending our homeland,” Sean Parnell said in his first standalone briefing Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Politico and other outlets reported that the U.S. had paused the delivery of some munitions, including crucial air defense interceptors, to Ukraine after a review led by Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s head of policy.

A spokesperson for the White House confirmed the news and said the hiatus occurred after the Pentagon finished reviewing American military aid to other countries and that the “decision was made to put America’s interests first.”

On Wednesday, Parnell said the review was still ongoing, though he wouldn’t say what weapons were affected, who ordered the pause and who is leading the Pentagon’s review.

It also wasn’t clear when that review would end or what other countries would be affected. America is a leading provider of military equipment to Israel and Taiwan, among other nations.

“Part of our job is to give the president a framework that he can use to evaluate how many munitions we have and where we’re sending them. That review process is happening right now,” Parnell said.

Before taking office, Colby and many of the policy officials now serving under him had argued that the Pentagon was overstretching already-thin stockpiles by supporting Ukraine and that it need to better prioritize a potential conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific.

Still, six months into office, the Trump administration has focused mainly on the Middle East with an extended bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and massive airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.

Foreign military sales have also continued into the administration, including a $500 million package of munitions approved for Israel on Monday.

While introducing the military’s delayed budget request last week, a senior defense official said that the Pentagon was reviewing its foreign support, including a long-term aid program for Ukraine that had been cut as a result.

“They ran a process alongside our budget process to look at the foreign assistance programs that they manage and decide which ones were no longer aligned with this administration,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration last froze U.S. military support for Ukraine in March after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s disastrous visit to the Oval Office, which ended in a shouting match. That pause also included the sharing of intelligence with Ukraine, though it only lasted a week.

President Donald Trump had appeared to soften his stance on the war since then, signing a long-awaited critical minerals agreement with Ukraine and telling reporters at the NATO summit last week that he was considering sending more air defense assets to Kyiv.

“We’re going to see if we can make some available,” Trump said of the highly coveted Patriot interceptors. “You know, they’re very hard to get. We need them, too.”

Throughout the war, Ukraine has said these air defense missiles are its top priority in order to better protect its cities from Russia’s missile and drone attacks.

By a vote of 51-50 — with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie — the chamber advanced the vast tax, health care and border security bill President Donald Trump has championed as key to his legislative agenda.

That 940-page “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” also features $150 billion in funding for the military, which would go toward shipbuilding, the Golden Dome homeland missile defense project, munitions and other key priorities.

The bill next goes back to the House for final consideration. Trump has set a deadline of July 4 to pass the spending package out of that chamber, though some lawmakers in the House have already said they’re unlikely to approve the bill before the end of the week.

The Pentagon has argued this package should be counted as part of the DOD’s overall defense budget plan for the coming year, and defense officials moved spending priorities usually reserved for its base spending plan into the one-time package.

In its delayed spending request last week, the Defense Department issued an $848 million base budget request, which is a cut when accounting for inflation. That said, the Pentagon is counting on $113 billion in immediate funding from the supplemental spending bill in Congress, bringing the total for military spending closer to $960 billion.

Still, many top Republicans and Democrats in Congress have argued that the unusual arrangement will cause unnecessary confusion for the Pentagon and the defense industry responsible for major weapons programs.

In a briefing to describe the funding request, senior defense and military officials countered this argument, saying the immediate surge in funding may reassure some of these companies, which are accustomed to Congress starting the fiscal year on temporary spending plans known as continuing resolutions.

One official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the administration would likely keep military funding close to $1 trillion for next year as well, though it hasn’t yet decided on an appropriate baseline.

If not, the Defense Department will face extremely difficult choices when deciding how to factor the priorities included in the one-time spending package back into its yearly budget.

But while releasing many of the military’s detailed budget materials Thursday, senior military and defense officials argued that their request should factor in a separate party-line spending bill now under debate in Congress.

This one-time bill includes $113 billion in mandatory military spending and would bring the Pentagon’s total to $961 billion — close to the trillion-dollar defense budget President Donald Trump has pledged.

Such supplemental defense bills are normally not counted toward the Pentagon’s base budget, the same way a bonus doesn’t normally figure into an annual salary. This year, though, the Defense Department has chosen to split its spending request into two bills, shifting core weapons programs such as shipbuilding and missile defense into the one-time spending package.

Lawmakers from both parties in Congress criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for the delayed and unusual budget during multiple days of testimony earlier in June. The secretary has argued that the request shouldn’t be an issue — saying they have “two bills and one budget.”

Members of Congress have said this process has created unnecessary confusion and puts many of the military’s most important weapons programs at risk. The companies that make these systems now won’t know if their funding will continue beyond the coming fiscal year and may be more hesitant to invest their own money.

The senior defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, disputed this concern Thursday.

“Reconciliation is actually a stronger demand signal for those companies,” the official said, referring to the spending process, which may arrive earlier than the Pentagon’s core defense budget.

The official wouldn’t project what the Pentagon would request the following year — the $961 billion including the one-time spending package or the $848 billion without. The official also didn’t specify how the Pentagon was preparing for the chance that the one-time bill doesn’t pass, jeopardizing many of the priorities included within.

“We have not yet discussed what that will look like for [fiscal year 2027], but unless the President’s tone changes, I imagine we’ll stick with a trillion dollars for national defense spending,” the official said.

In a highly unusual release, the Pentagon published a tranche of its budget documents without notice Wednesday evening. Given the amount of taxpayer money involved, the process typically involves a public briefing announced in advance.

As of Thursday morning, the Pentagon still hadn’t published the broad overview of its budget and many of the other documents detailing what is going toward the military services.

Hegseth entered office promising to disrupt the military’s bureaucracy, including its spending plans. He’s since launched an effort to redirect $50 billion of the budget each year to higher-priority programs. The officials speaking Thursday said that money was largely found through large cuts to the Pentagon workforce.

Those priorities include Golden Dome — a planned homeland missile defense system — with $25 billion planned for FY26 and the military’s expanding role at the southwest border, with $5 billion also pledged for the operation. Much of the administration’s effort to revitalize America’s lagging shipbuilding industry will also rely on the one-year defense supplemental bill.

The Defense Department also chose to cut major aircraft programs, such as the E-7 Wedgetail, a surveillance plane. Funding for the Navy’s new fighter jet is also majorly reduced, including only $74 million to the program to finish its design.

“We’re waiting for a decision from the secretary of the Navy, secretary of defense and the President. That’s an active conversation right now,” the official said of whether to maintain the program.

In a combative press conference Thursday, Hegseth didn’t deny the findings of that report, instead arguing that its assessments were “preliminary” and “low-confidence.”

“This was an historically successful attack,” Hegseth said.

On Monday, CNN and multiple other outlets reported on an assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency that the bombing set back Iran’s nuclear program by only months.

The reports noted that any assessments were still early and difficult to judge given that the bulk of each facility is far underground.

Alongside Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine gave a technical presentation on the massive ordnance penetrator — the 30,000-pound bomb used to hit the sites — and the ventilation shafts targeted themselves.

“The weapons all guided to their intended targets and to their intended aim points,” he said, also noting they exploded as planned.

Both Hegseth and Caine lauded the technical success of the mission, from the bombers who entered the airspace to the analysts who helped design the weapons. But they wouldn’t comment directly on why the administration was now so confident that Iran’s nuclear program was now “obliterated” despite saying the initial assessment was premature.

Hegseth pointed to external intelligence sources — from the Israeli government to the United Nations — when making his case. He also mentioned a statement from CIA Director John Ratcliffe Wednesday night that argued Iran’s nuclear program was “severely damaged,” relying on “new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method.”

Hegseth also didn’t directly address questions about whether Iran moved highly enriched uranium, critical to a bomb, before the strikes.

“I’m not aware of any intelligence that I’ve reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be,” he said.

President Donald Trump and his Cabinet have attacked the journalists who reported on the initial DIA report. Hegseth opened the Thursday press conference with a similar scolding, criticizing outlets and one reporter by name.

The administration also delayed a classified briefing on Iran before Congress from Tuesday to Friday, over the strong objections from Democratic lawmakers.

“It was obliteration, and you’ll see that,” Trump said of the strikes at this week’s NATO summit in the Netherlands.

Caine on Sunday was more measured, saying at a press conference that the attacks caused “extremely severe damage” and arguing that any battle damage assessments were premature.

The strike itself included more than 125 U.S. aircraft, 75 precision weapons and 14 bunker-busting bombs in a stunning display of U.S. military force. Overall, the operation targeted Iran’s three main nuclear sites: Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz.

On Monday, Iran responded with a relatively limited retaliation on a U.S. base in Qatar. No casualties were initially reported, and nearly all the ballistic missiles fired were intercepted, the Pentagon said.

Iran does not yet have the capability to build a nuclear weapon and claims its enrichment program is solely for civilian purposes.

Israel and Iran, who had been trading attacks for almost two weeks, agreed to a ceasefire as of early this week.

Vice Adm. Charles B. Cooper II, who has served as the top deputy at Central Command since February 2024, said that the recent assaults have degraded some of Iran’s military but declined to give specifics on whether their fledgling nuclear program has been eliminated.

Even without it, he said that Iranian aggression and support for militant groups in the region would remain a top concern for American defense planners.

“I think we would all agree that Iran is the number one source of instability in the region, and the number one source and sponsor of terror throughout the world,” he said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Deterring Iran will be a priority … We’ve got to be in a three-point stance every day.”

Over the weekend, U.S. military assets bombarded several key underground uranium enrichment plants in Iran, delivering what the White House has claimed is a knockout blow to the country’s nuclear program. The move came after several days of similar Israeli strikes against key military and production sites.

The strikes followed almost two years of conflict between Israel and Iran’s main proxy groups in the region: Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. Over time, the Israel Defense Forces have severely damaged these militias, which Iran has long sponsored as a deterrent against Tel Aviv, its main adversary.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump wrote on social media that “it was my great honor to destroy all nuclear facilities and capability” in Iran, and suggested the threat from that country is now minimal.

Pentagon leaders have thus far touted the mission as a success but declined to publicly reveal just how much damage was done to the Iranian programs. And Cooper’s comments Tuesday made it clear that senior military officials still see the country as a significant problem to peace and stability in the region.

The lack of detail on the current status of the Iranian nuclear program and the damage it incurred was a point of frustration for Democratic lawmakers in Tuesday’s hearing, who have pressed the administration for more specifics on the threats posed by Iran and the status of their nuclear ambitions.

Pentagon leaders had planned briefings on the weekend airstrikes for House and Senate lawmakers Tuesday afternoon, but those meetings were later postponed until the end of the week.

“This last-minute postponement is outrageous, evasive and derelict,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. said in a statement. “Senators deserve full transparency, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening.”

Democratic lawmakers have voiced worries that the military actions were premature and lacked justification, given past intelligence reports casting doubt on Iran’s ability to assemble a nuclear weapon.

They also criticized the administration for putting U.S. military personnel in harm’s way with the preventative action. On Monday, Iran launched multiple missiles at a U.S. military base in Qatar, though no casualties or significant damage was reported.

Republican lawmakers on the Senate panel did not share those concerns, and largely praised Trump’s decision to strike Iran during Tuesday’s hearing.

“Iran didn’t become a terrorist state because the United States bombed their nuclear bunkers,” said Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. “The United States bombed their nuclear bunkers because they are a terrorist state.”

Senate lawmakers have discussed plans to vote on potential new limits to presidential war powers this week, but the timing of that Democratic-led effort could be impacted by the rescheduled congressional briefings.

Pentagon leaders have said there are no plans for additional strikes against Iran but left open the possibility of more military action if needed.

But ask many European officials how this will affect this year’s meeting, and they’ll say it won’t.

“It’s a very focused summit,” a senior NATO official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters last week.

Instead, as the world’s strongest alliance gathers for the first time during the second Trump administration, it’s framing the summit around a narrow set of issues intended, in part, to ensure its success.

While in The Hague, the member countries will make a massive defense spending pledge to allocate 3.5% of GDP spent to defense and another 1.5% to other security-related areas, such as infrastructure.

The commitment would far outpace NATO’s current floor of 2%, which only two-thirds of its countries already meet. And it’s meant to satisfy a key demand of U.S. President Donald Trump, who’s cast doubt on America’s role in the alliance if its members don’t spend more.

“It’s really nothing short of a reset of our approach to defense,” the NATO official said.

And yet, in private, NATO members concede a much greater deal of anxiety.

Even as Russia expands its offensive in Ukraine, the Pentagon is reviewing its posture around the world, an effort expected to conclude by the late summer or early fall. European officials widely expect that review to end with the U.S. reducing its number of forces on the continent, now around 80,000.

In the interim, many European officials are parsing whatever the Pentagon says on its posture for signs of reassurance or warning. The outgoing head of U.S. European Command, Gen. Chris Cavoli, recommended that America maintain its current share of forces on the continent while testifying before Congress in April. But defense officials, particularly those in the Pentagon’s policy offices, have privately signaled that a drawdown is likely.

The staggered announcements have led to some frustration among NATO countries weighing how to fill whatever gaps are left. While at the summit, the alliance will agree to a new set of capability targets — or the share of equipment and units each country should contribute to the whole. If America drastically reduces its own forces on the continent, that would impact what European countries must add themselves.

That sequence of events already has some officials looking past this week’s summit, wary that any decisions may prove obsolete.

“The ambition has been lowered,” a European defense official said of the summit.

Meanwhile, the marquee spending pledge to reach 5% of GDP spent on defense has also been diluted ahead of the summit. Member countries will likely agree to spend 3.5% on core defense priorities within 10 years. But the additional 1.5% pledged toward other areas of security spending, such as reinforced roads and bridges, has some countries concerned about creative accounting.

Spain, which complained that the spending goal itself would cause too much inflation, was hoping for an exemption, its prime minister said over the weekend.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told reporters on Monday such an exception wouldn’t fly. “NATO has no opt-out, and NATO doesn’t know side deals,” he said.

Last year’s summit marking the alliance’s 75th anniversary in Washington focused heavily on defending Ukraine and ensuring an “irreversible” path to NATO membership. The binding communique published afterward also mentioned China for the first time, calling out Beijing’s support for Russia’s war effort.

Neither issue is likely to play a large role in this year’s meeting, multiple European officials said. The Pentagon has reduced its support for Ukraine during the second Trump administration and is also urging European states to focus more heavily on the defense of their own continent, rather than threats elsewhere, such as China.

Looming over the entire summit will also be the recent war between Iran and Israel, which the U.S. joined over the weekend with direct strikes on Iran’s three main nuclear facilities.

Iran retaliated with strikes of its own on American forces in Iraq, though no injuries or damage were immediately reported.

As of Tuesday morning, a shaky ceasefire announced by Trump overnight was on the brink of faltering, with reports of ongoing missile strikes.

U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have spent the year arguing that Europe needs to carry a higher burden so that America can focus on the more pressing challenge of China. But heading into the summit, many European officials are even more unsure of America’s priorities in an increasingly dangerous world.

“The small bandwidth there was for Ukraine is sure to shrink even more,” another European official said.