On June 5, 2026, President Donald Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum-11 (NSPM-11), titled Artificial Intelligence in the National Security Enterprise. The memorandum directs the military, intelligence agencies, and related federal departments to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) across warfighting and intelligence operations while establishing governance guardrails, a new talent reserve, and a framework for ensuring that AI systems deployed in national security contexts cannot be disabled or altered without federal government approval. The memorandum also rescinds and replaces the Biden Administration's National Security Memorandum-25 (NSM-25), which had governed AI in national security contexts since 2024. And the document discloses the existence of a classified annex—a companion document whose contents are secret—to be issued within 90 days.

NSPM-11 is directed to the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and War; the Attorney General; the Secretaries of Energy and Homeland Security; the Directors of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), National Intelligence, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); senior White House advisors; the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM); and the National Cyber Director.

President Trump's AI Policies

NSPM-11 is the latest in a series of Trump Administration actions shaping federal AI policy. Earlier actions focused on removing regulatory constraints on AI innovation, preempting state AI laws, launching a federal AI talent initiative (the U.S. Tech Force), and signing an Executive Order (EO) focused on hardening federal computer systems against AI-enabled cybersecurity threats and creating a voluntary framework for evaluating the most powerful AI models. NSPM-11 addresses a distinct but related question: how should the national security enterprise—the military, the Intelligence Community (IC), and supporting agencies—actually use AI, and under what rules?

The Four Pillars of National Security & AI

NSPM-11 organizes the Administration's national security AI policy around four pillars, which the memorandum calls Adoption, Adaptation, Assurance, and Accountability.

1. Adoption: The memorandum directs the national security enterprise to identify mission areas where AI can improve operational effectiveness and to eliminate unnecessary barriers to rapid deployment. The memorandum calls for "deep, proactive partnerships with industry" to make the most advanced frontier models—the most capable AI systems at the leading edge of development—broadly available to national security professionals "without delay."
2. Adaptation: The President directs agencies to use commercial or open-source AI technologies wherever appropriate, drawing from a diverse supplier base that includes both large and small companies. Where commercial solutions are unsuitable for security or mission reasons, agencies may customize commercial AI or develop AI internally, and shall make such technologies available across the national security enterprise for multiple missions where possible. 
3. Assurance: The memorandum requires that all AI systems adopted by the national security enterprise be reliable, robust, steerable, and controllable (terms the memorandum defines). The memorandum then adds a provision with no clear precedent in prior national security AI policy: agencies must ensure, "through contractual clauses or other means," that no commercial entity or adversary can prevent use of, disable or degrade, or materially modify an AI system that warfighters—the military personnel and intelligence professionals who depend on these systems in the field—depend on without "Federal Government knowledge and approval." In other words, companies that supply AI to the military and intelligence agencies cannot retain the ability to remotely disable or alter those systems without government consent. The memorandum also requires testing, evaluation, validation, and verification of AI systems to ensure their confidentiality, integrity, reliability, availability, and interoperability.
4. Accountability: The memorandum establishes the civil liberties floor for national security AI use, stating that AI developed or used by the national security enterprise shall never be used to censor free speech, embed ideological bias, or conduct unauthorized or unlawful surveillance of American citizens. Constitutional protections and civil liberties are described as "non-negotiable." Commanders, directors, and agency heads are personally responsible for ensuring these obligations are met at every level of command—and that accountability keeps pace as AI capabilities evolve.

The Plan

The memorandum sets out a series of specific policy directives with deadlines.

Autonomy in Weapon Systems

Within 90 days (by approximately September 3, 2026), the Secretary of War must issue an update to Department of Defense (DOD) Directive 3000.09 on Autonomy in Weapon Systems.¹ That directive—first issued in 2012 and last updated in 2023—is the foundational Pentagon policy governing when and how autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons can be used, including requirements for human judgment before lethal force is applied. The updated directive must be reviewed annually. The memorandum requires that the update ensure "deliberate adoption of AI systems that respect the chain of command and operational authorities" and remain consistent with NSPM-11's four pillars.

Contract Termination Authority

Agency heads are directed to, "to the maximum extent permissible by law," terminate contracts with companies that have "repeatedly demonstrated a pattern of conduct" inconsistent with the four pillars. This directive includes subcontracts. Agency heads may establish a waiver process allowing limited exceptions of up to one year where a relationship is "necessary to responsibly steward United States national security." All waivers must be reported in writing—by the agency head personally, without designee—to the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST) and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA) within 30 days.

AI Governance Policy for National Security Systems

Within 90 days, the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS) and the OMB Director, coordinating with the APST and relevant IC elements, must issue a governance policy for AI use in national security systems, including implementation and reporting requirements. The memorandum directs that this policy "maximize consistency" with OMB Memorandum M-25-21—the Administration's existing AI governance guidance for civilian federal agencies—"to the extent appropriate."

Classified Annex

Within 90 days, a classified annex to NSPM-11 will be issued. The memorandum discloses only that it will "address sensitive national security issues." The public version of NSPM-11 provides no further detail.

Rescission of NSM-25

NSPM-11 rescinds and replaces National Security Memorandum-25 (NSM-25), the Biden Administration's AI national security directive. Signed on October 24, 2024, NSM-25 directed the national security enterprise to adopt AI "while protecting human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety"—embedding bias-mitigation requirements, democratic values guardrails, and civil liberties safeguards as conditions for AI adoption throughout. NSM-25 also directed agencies to simplify procurement to encourage competition and ensure access to "a wide range of AI systems." The White House Fact Sheet characterizes NSM-25 as having "burdened American AI adoption with ideological mandates and fostered dangerous single-vendor dependencies."² The text of NSPM-11 itself does not characterize NSM-25; it simply states that NSPM-11 "rescinds and replaces" it.

Advancing National Security Capabilities

The memorandum directs a set of capability-building actions across a 90-to-120-day timeline.

Procurement Modernization

Within 120 days (by approximately October 3, 2026), the Secretary of War, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and heads of agencies with IC elements must review and update procurement processes to enable rapid onboarding of advanced AI models from multiple vendors, "closing the capability gap between what is available to the public and to our national security workforce."

Computing Resources Roadmap

Within 90 days, the APST and OMB Director—coordinating with the Secretaries of War and Energy, the DNI, and the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA)—must jointly develop a roadmap ensuring that all elements of the national security enterprise have adequate access to advanced computing resources. The roadmap must include plans for commissioning high-security advanced AI computing facilities and establishing an AI test range for national security use cases, "subject to the availability of appropriations."

Private-Sector Security Partnerships

Within 120 days, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of Energy, the DNI, and the NSA Director—through the AI Security Center—must develop partnerships with willing private-sector companies to help secure cutting-edge AI technologies, including against "malicious distillation attacks" (a technique by which an adversary extracts the capabilities of a proprietary AI model without authorization). Partnership activities may include sharing threat intelligence, joint AI red-team exercises (adversarial testing of AI systems), personnel vetting support, joint security research and development, and enhanced physical and cyber security of data centers.

Genesis Mission Integration

The Secretary of Energy must work with relevant agencies through the Genesis Mission—the Administration's initiative to build a government-operated AI and scientific computing platform—to develop AI capabilities for national security missions, including through private-sector partnerships.

Foreign AI

The DNI must prioritize collection and analysis of foreign AI technologies—across the full AI technology stack, applications, and governance frameworks—that pose threats to U.S. national security, economic security, and strategic competitiveness. The Secretary of State must develop a strategy for engaging allies and partners and sharing relevant findings.

Joint AI Data and Model Exchanges

Within 120 days, the DNI, Secretary of War, Secretary of Energy, and NSA Director must initiate joint AI data and model exchanges, accessible across multiple classification enclaves, for mission applications common to the national security enterprise.

Building Capacity for AI Adoption

The memorandum addresses the human infrastructure for national security AI—talent, training, testing, and risk management.

Hiring: Agencies are directed to use special hiring and pay authorities, as well as OPM talent programs such as the U.S. Tech Force, to accelerate hiring of technical AI talent into the federal government.

AI National Security Strategic Reserve: Within 120 days, the OPM Director—coordinating with the Secretary of Homeland Security and consulting with the DNI, Secretary of War, Secretary of Energy, OMB Director, APST, APNSA, and relevant IC elements—must initiate efforts to establish an AI National Security Strategic Reserve of non-governmental AI talent. The Reserve would provide support to federal efforts on AI national security issues "as needed." The memorandum does not specify in detail how the Reserve would be funded, activated, or governed.

AI for National Security Curriculum: Within 120 days, the DNI and Secretary of War—coordinating with OMB and IC elements—must develop and implement an AI for National Security Curriculum, coordinated with existing federal AI and cybersecurity training programs. The curriculum must ensure that relevant personnel are trained to use AI systems in accordance with applicable guidance and maintain "literacy on the current AI frontier, including its capabilities, limitations, and implications for national security."

AI reliability research and development: Agencies must prioritize research and design of technologies that enable AI reliability, robustness, steerability, and controllability, "subject to the availability of appropriations."

AI risk management strategy: Within 120 days, the DNI, Secretary of War, and NSA Director—coordinating with the Secretaries of Homeland Security, Energy, and Treasury—must develop a joint strategy for AI risk management and assurance, establishing baseline AI security practices for the national security enterprise.

Testing and evaluation methodologies: Within 120 days, the Secretary of War (through the NSA Director) and the DNI must submit standardized AI national security Test, Evaluation, Verification, and Validation (TEVV) methodologies for review prior to publication.

Key Definitions

NSPM-11 includes the most comprehensive definitional section of any document in the Administration's AI policy series to date.

• Artificial intelligence: a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments. Artificial intelligence systems use machine and human-based inputs to—A) perceive real and virtual environments; B) abstract such perceptions into models through analysis in an automated manner; and c) use model inference to formulate options for information or action. [Per 15 U.S.C. 9401(3), the National AI Initiative Act of 2020]
• AI security: The application of appropriate protection mechanisms across the AI technology stack to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of AI systems, from design through deployment.
• AI technology stack: The full set of layers enabling AI development and deployment—hardware, chips, servers, data centers, cloud services, networking, data pipelines, AI models, security measures, and sector-specific applications.
• Chain of command: The properly designated succession of individuals through which authority, direction, and control is exercised to accomplish a lawful objective.
• Controllability: The ability to monitor the operation and outcomes of a system and take corrective action as needed.
• National security enterprise: The Department of War, the Intelligence Community, and other agencies that develop, deploy, or use national security systems or otherwise serve a national security role.
• Reliability: The ability of a system to perform as required, without failure, under given conditions.
• Robustness: The ability of a system to maintain performance under a variety of circumstances, including outside intended operating conditions.
• Steerability: The ability to shape the internal behavior of a system to pursue a given set of objectives.

Timeline

Also see:

• Cybersecurity and Frontier Models: Inside Trump's Latest AI Executive Order
• Trump Executive Orders Shape Federal AI Regulation and Override State Actions

Notes

1. DOD Directive 3000.09 has historically been the primary policy document constraining autonomous lethal weapons.
2. NSM-25, signed by President Biden on October 24, 2024, directed the national security enterprise to adopt AI "while protecting human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety." The Biden memorandum emphasized bias mitigation, democratic values, and civil liberties safeguards as conditions on AI adoption throughout. The Trump Administration's Fact Sheet characterizes NSM-25 as having "burdened American AI adoption with ideological mandates and fostered dangerous single-vendor dependencies." The text of NSM-25 does not support the single-vendor dependency characterization—it explicitly directed agencies to simplify procurement to encourage competition and "ensure that the United States Government has access to a wide range of AI systems." The ideological mandate claim reflects a genuine policy disagreement about whether civil liberties and bias-mitigation requirements constitute appropriate governance or regulatory burden.

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