National defense may refer to:
- National security, a nation's use of military, economic and political power to maintain survival
- National missile defense, a military strategy to shield a country from missiles
- National Defense Service Medal, a decoration of the U.S. military
- National Defense Reserve Fleet, a reserve of U.S. merchant ships
- National Defense University in Washington, D.C.
- National Defense Medical College in Japan
- National Defense Medical Center in Taiwan
- National Defense College of the Philippines
- National Defense Research Committee in the U.S. in the 1940s
- National Defense Education Act
- Government of National Defense in Africa in the 1870s
Famous quotes containing the words national and/or defense:
“Children’s lives are not shaped solely by their families or immediate surroundings at large. That is why we must avoid the false dichotomy that says only government or only family is responsible. . . . Personal values and national policies must both play a role.”
—Hillary Rodham Clinton (20th century)
“He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, because they lacked a cause,—a kind of armor which he and his party never lacked. When the time came, few men were found willing to lay down their lives in defense of what they knew to be wrong; they did not like that this should be their last act in this world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)