News reports indicate that there is among some GOP senators opposition to President Donald Trump’s nominee for under secretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby. Colby, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development in the first Trump administration, is a realist China hawk who has called for prioritizing the Indo-Pacific over Europe and the Middle East. Fox News has identified Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton as leading the opposition to Colby based on Colby’s suggestion that the United States may have to settle for containing a nuclear-armed Iran. But it is more likely that the opposition to Colby centers in the NATO Firsters led by Armed Services Chair Sen. Roger Wicker.
Wicker has been a major supporter of NATO and NATO enlargement, remarking in 2018 that “NATO remains the cornerstone of transatlantic and global security.” And he has been a strong supporter of U.S. and NATO assistance to Ukraine in its war with Russia. He has called for ramping up military aid to Ukraine with the goal of achieving a victory over Russia. He criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for saying that Ukraine should abandon its hopes of NATO membership. Wicker previously suggested that the U.S. could send American troops to Ukraine and didn’t rule out a first use of nuclear weapons against Russian forces.
Colby, on the other hand, agrees with Trump that America’s interests would be best served by arranging for a ceasefire in Ukraine leading to a negotiated settlement to end the war. Colby has had the temerity to observe that our military assistance to Ukraine has depleted the limited resources we have to contain China in the western Pacific. He has suggested that the European members of NATO are best situated to help Ukraine against Russia. “Europe,” he said, “is much more capable of handling Russia … on its own. I’m not saying we abandon Europe, but [it can be] much more on its own than Asia is.” Colby, in other words, really wants to pivot to Asia, forging a geographical division of labor whereby Europe takes care of its own backyard while the U.S. focuses on preventing Chinese hegemony in Asia.
It was Walter Lippmann who counseled America’s leaders to align this country’s commitments to its power and resources. Lippmann in a small book titled The Cold War called George Kennan’s version of containment a “strategic monstrosity” and the Truman Doctrine a collection of “destructive and exhausting entanglements.” Colby is a Lippmannesque realist who understands that America has limited resources and must prioritize its security interests. China and the broader Indo-Pacific, not Europe, is the geopolitical center of gravity in the 21st century. Atlanticists like Wicker refuse to acknowledge this changed strategic reality. This is why Wicker has publicly stated that Colby poses “a concern to a number of senators.” Especially those senators like Wicker who are wedded to an Atlanticist worldview. Let’s call them “NATO Firsters.”
Colby, like the president, is an “America Firster.” He opposed the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the Wilsonian notion that the United States should attempt to reshape the world in its own image. He was the principal author of the 2018 National Defense Strategy which shifted the nation’s focus from small, peripheral wars of choice to the rivalry among great powers. The strategy prioritized “preparedness for war” and “peace through strength.” Colby is also the author of The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict, which proposes the formation of an anti-hegemonic coalition to thwart China’s geopolitical ambitions in Asia and the Western Pacific. He is more than qualified for the position of under secretary of defense for policy. The Senate should confirm him unanimously.
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