Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby’s effort to sell wary lawmakers this week on the Trump administration’s vision for American defense abroad just got even more daunting.
We sat down with Colby last week before the Iran attack to talk about President Donald Trump’s National Defense Strategy.
At the Pentagon, Colby vowed to push back against “misconceptions” lawmakers may hold about that strategy. Colby will appear before the Senate and House Armed Services committees this week, what he called “an opportunity” to set the record straight.
Huge questions about the Iran conflict hang over the hearings. But Colby’s appearances will also serve as a venue to discuss the administration’s broader military strategy around the globe.
A preview of pushback. Colby chafed at characterizations that the Trump strategy document shows America in retreat. The nation, Colby said, is “not withdrawing” from the global stage. Rather, Colby said, the United States under Trump is pursuing a “more focused but limited” posture toward world affairs.
Underpinning the document is an embrace of “a commonsense, America First, flexible realism approach,” Colby said. Critics have seized on what they see as the strategy’s downplaying of China as the United States’s top geopolitical foe, the prioritization of the Western Hemisphere and a rethinking of the nation’s role in NATO.
“I frankly see a lot of what I regard as a kind of canard about isolationism and this kind of thing, and I think that’s not accurate,” Colby said.
A Hill reset? We’ve written about what some Republicans describe as a communication breakdown between Colby and the Hill.
Before the National Defense Strategy’s release, certain GOP defense hawks were critical of planned changes to U.S. force posture in Europe. They were also frustrated by the lack of transparency from the Pentagon’s policy shop, which Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) called a “Pigpen-like mess.”
But since then, Colby said, things have changed. He touted more than 100 engagements between his team and the Hill over the last several months.
“We heard Congress’ feedback, and we have adapted our approach,” Colby said. “[We] admit there may have been imperfections in the past. They were not meant in disrespect.”
A Defense Department official said Colby counts a number of lawmakers as allies for his approach, including GOP Sens. Eric Schmitt (Mo.), Jim Banks (Ind.) and Bernie Moreno (Ohio), as well as the “pragmatic” Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, despite “big differences in a lot of things.”
Troop deployment. Lawmakers are almost certain to raise questions about potential drawdowns of U.S. troops abroad and what those moves would signal about the administration’s global priorities.
The National Defense Strategy hints at changes to how military personnel are positioned in key theaters in Europe and the Korean peninsula.
But rather than focusing on the number of personnel in certain places, Colby said the Pentagon’s interest is trained on how those forces will operate. For example, he sees “Europe-led American forces” playing “a focused but more limited role.”
In a conflict, the United States would surge troops and assets into a given region, Colby said. While he acknowledged the issue is “very politically sensitive,” Colby said: “We’re not deadset or gangbusters to reduce posture someplace.”
We’ll have much more from our Colby interview throughout the week for Defense subscribers.
