Today, Politico published an attack on Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby that was fueled by anonymous rumors and unsubstantiated claims. It’s clear that policy disagreements with Colby are fueling the attacks, so it’s worth taking them on.
The article claims that Colby has “made a series of rapid-fire moves that have blindsided parts of the White House and frustrated several of America’s foreign allies.” Below is a list of those lodging criticisms of Colby to Politico:
- An anonymous “person familiar with the situation”;
- An anonymous “person familiar with the Trump administration dynamics”;
- An anonymous “US official familiar with conversations” with US allies;
- An anonymous “person familiar with talks” with the Japanese;
- An anonymous “hawkish… senior GOP aide”;
- An anonymous “State Department official”;
- An anonymous “former US official familiar with policy discussions” and
- Democratic Representative Adam Smith.
It is hardly a leap of logic to say that those losing bureaucratic fights are complaining anonymously about the person who won them. So what is the substance of the criticism?
- Colby “prompted” the decision to slow delivery of weapons to Ukraine, most relevantly Patriot air defense batteries, out of concern that US stocks were dwindling and inadequate to back longstanding US policy objectives elsewhere;
- Colby allegedly did not consult the State Department or NSC when he undertook a review of the AUKUS agreement between the US, UK, and Australia;
- Colby told the Brits that they should not focus on sending a British aircraft carrier to Asia, but instead should focus on European security; and,
- He “irked allies by pushing them too hard to boost defense spending.”
In Politico’s telling, these allegations show Colby is guilty of making “rogue decisions,” and the journalists slather on ad hominem from his anonymous critics that he is “pissing off just about everyone I know inside the administration,” he has “basically decided that he’s going to be the intellectual driving force behind a kind of neo-isolationism,” and that he “has just undercut the president and squandered his boss’ leverage.” One secondhand anonymous source asked, “Who is this fucking guy?”
Let’s take the substantive complaints in turn:
Ukraine
Politico reported last week that the Defense Department decided to slow delivery of weapons to Ukraine out of fears that US “magazine depth,” or the inventory of the relevant weapons, was running dangerously low. This is the job of the undersecretary of defense. But were the decisions “rogue,” as Politico reports? No—as CNN reports, his boss, SECDEF Pete Hegseth, signed off on the decision.
We don’t know exactly what happened surrounding the signoff, but as an outside observer, I would surmise that Hegseth spoke to the president (who is famously averse to paper trails and prefers making decisions verbally) to clear it with him and took whatever the president replied with as a signoff. Now, Trump appears to be walking back the idea that he agreed to this, which is the danger that comes with getting your boss to agree to something but not in writing. Regardless, Politico’s allegation that the slowing of Patriots and other weapons was a “rogue decision” from Colby has already been disproved.
AUKUS review
Two of the US authors of the AUKUS agreement recently conceded that concerns about it “are not unfounded” and that “there are sensible reasons for the Trump administration to pose hard questions in its review.” Australia’s defense minister remarked that “We’ve been aware of [the review] for some time. We welcome it. It’s something which is perfectly natural for an incoming administration to do.”
So the idea that a review is ipso facto some kind of betrayal strains logic. Accordingly, Politico focuses on the claim that Colby should have consulted more closely with the NSC and State Department before undertaking a review. But the questions Colby raised in his confirmation hearing about the deal were different. As he noted, “If we can produce the attack submarines in sufficient number and sufficient speed [to fulfill delivery to Australia in addition to arming ourselves], then great. But if we can’t, that becomes a very difficult problem.” Some might call this putting America first. But either way, figuring out how many submarines the United States can produce isn’t a problem for the NSC, much less the State Department, to work on.
Brits in Asia
Politico claims that Colby discouraged the Brits from sending an aircraft carrier to the Pacific, with the implication that Europe should focus on Europe. I think this is a very reasonable policy argument—secure your own neighborhood before you go gallivanting around the globe pretending to deter China—but let’s deal with the complaint about process.
The message is entirely consonant with what Colby’s boss, Pete Hegseth, has said. In Brussels in February, Hegseth urged Europeans to “spend more on your defense, for your country, on that continent,” and that “it makes a lot of sense, just in a commonsense way, to use our comparative advantages. European countries spending here in defense of this continent” and Americans with Asian allies in Asia. To claim Colby was going rogue here requires ignoring the public statements of the Secretary of Defense.
Pushed Allies Too Hard
The final complaint is that Colby pushed allies, including Japan, too hard to spend more on their own defense. This complaint is simply infuriating and shows the extent to which large swaths of the US foreign policy establishment put America last. Japan has a lot more to lose from Chinese expansion than the United States does. Yet somehow Japan seems to think it has options, canceling meetings because they were miffed at being pressed too hard to spend more on defense and spending only 2 percent of GDP on defense.
It makes sense that other countries would try to shirk on their own defense if America is willing to subsidize them indefinitely. But the idea that American foreign policy officials would get upset at a US official pressing “frustrated” allies to do more for their own defense is outrageous. The United States is $36 trillion in debt, running $2 trillion budget deficits each year, spending over a trillion a year on (mostly other countries’) defense, and we are supposed to just keep throwing money at Ukraine, and NATO, and Japan, and one-quarter of Earth’s countries indefinitely and without limits?
The DC policy game is played the way it is, and Politico made itself a vessel for anonymous and unfounded attacks on Colby. On the substance of the policies in question, though, Colby’s critics are dead wrong, and he is right. He has been a thoughtful and loyal defender of the best parts of the America First foreign policy agenda, which explains why he has taken so much flak from those who cling to the status quo.