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:
“I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The sick man is taken away by the institution that takes charge not of the individual, but of his illness, an isolated object transformed or eliminated by technicians devoted to the defense of health the way others are attached to the defense of law and order or tidiness.”
—Michel de Certeau (1925–1986)