Elbridge Colby

Announced as Trump’s nominee for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Elbridge Colby has been announced as Trump’s nominee for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. In the first Trump Administration, Colby was Trump’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, where he was responsible for “defense strategy, force development, and strategic analysis.” Per Politico, Colby is a leading proponent of the view that “China is the principal threat abroad, and that the United States should focus on Asia to the near-exclusion of everywhere else — including Russia and Ukraine.” Colby has argued that the best way to secure peace is to “prepare for nuclear war” and that “great-power competition” has returned. Colby is a contributor to Project 2025, and in March 2023, Colby and Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts co-wrote an article in Time calling for a shift away from Ukraine to China.

Colby has issued numerous critiques that would constitute dramatic changes in how the U.S. has approached foreign policy in recent decades. ,In a talk at Providence Magazine’s Christianity and National Security 2021 conference, Colby stated that alliances are “not like love affairs, they’re more like deep business partnerships, and if they stop making sense for one side you know you’re not going to continue with them.” Colby has also stated that Canada does not spend enough of its GDP on the military, and seems to have suggested that the U.S. abandon Ukraine and cede to Russia’s expansion plans. He has stated that “The fact is that our concentration on Ukraine has undermined our ability to address the worsening military situation in Asia, especially around Taiwan.”

Colby co-founded the Marathon Initiative, a foreign policy think tank that claims it has the strategy the U.S. needs to “succeed in an era of renewed great power competition,” which coincides with the thesis of his new book: “The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict.” The book focuses on China and in it he says, “physical force, especially the ability to kill, is the ultimate form of coercive leverage.” Much of Colby and the Initiative’s work is centered on studies and papers focused on his claim that China will invade Taiwan by 2027 and the U.S. will be at war with China within the next decade.

In 2022, Colby appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox show to admonish the Biden administration’s “moral posturing” on Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the world, after which Carlson exclaimed, “Elbridge Colby. I wish you were running the State Department.”

WHAT DOES PROJECT 2025 SAY ABOUT ADVANCING A MAGA MILITARY AGENDA

THE POLICIES

– Diminish DOD autonomy and concentrating defense decision making at the White House.

– Limit the advancement of “many of the existing cadre,” of generals.

PRECEDING CONTEXT FOR PROJECT 2025

– Trump fired his Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and several other senior Pentagon officials following his election loss, punishing resisters who discouraged Trump from invoking the Insurrection Act to quell protests or who refuted Trump’s stolen election lies.

– According to The Atlantic, Trump has expressed wanting absolute loyalty from his generals, reportedly stating “I need the kind of generals Hitler had.”

– Where past presidents took careful measures to ensure diplomatic communications were strategic, aligned with national interests, and conveyed with tact, Trump used Twitter to issue reckless policy statements, including threatening and provoking Iran, improvidently announcing U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria, ending joint military exercises with South Korea, and divulging classified information.

– Trump used the U.S. military and flag officers as political props. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reflected “I should not have been there,” referring to his appearance with Trump when walking after protestors were forcibly dispersed in Lafayette Square.

– Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn proposed using the U.S. military to seize voting machines and overturn the 2020 election.

HOW ARE PROJECT 2025’S POLICIES POSSIBLE?

– The President has nearly complete authority over directing the U.S. military and may appoint key DOD officials subject to Senate confirmation. Nominated but unconfirmed officials can serve in an acting capacity.

– The 6-3 MAGA-majority Supreme Court decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts in the case granting Trump unprecedented immunity for “official acts,” creates a perilous situation where a president would be insulated from criminal prosecution if they use their “official powers” in any way. This could create dangerous confusion within the military’s chain of command in the case of an order, such as an order to assassinate a President’s political opponent.

WHAT DOES PROJECT 2025 SAY ABOUT NATIONAL SECURITY

THE POLICIES

–Accelerate and bolster nuclear warhead production and increase the number of nuclear weapons above current treaty limits and program goals, while testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.

– Operate with active hostility towards arms control and abandon formal and informal nuclear nonproliferation treaties, frameworks, and conversations, while also expanding the list of external threats that officially justify nuclear retaliation (e.g. a major hacking event, as added by Trump in 2019), escalating tensions with U.S. adversaries and increasing the risk of a nuclear disaster.

– Pressure Mexico to take the Administration’s recommendations on eradicating cartels in Mexico. Trump goes beyond Project 2025, planning to take military action against Mexican cartels in Mexico.

PRECEDING CONTEXT FOR PROJECT 2025

– In 2019, President Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for abuse of power by, per the NYT, “corruptly using the levers of government to solicit election assistance from Ukraine in the form of investigations to discredit his Democratic political rivals.”

– The Trump Administration dismantled anti-nuclear commitments including withdrawing from the 1992 Open Skies Treaty and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, failing to reach an agreement with Russia to extend New START – the only treaty regulating strategic nuclear weapons between U.S. and Russia – and most notably, reneging on the Iran nuclear deal.

– In 2020, Trump discussed wanting to fire missiles at cartel targets in Mexico and to then potentially frame another country to take the blame, risking economic damage by harming one of America’s most important trade alliances.

HOW ARE PROJECT 2025’S POLICIES POSSIBLE?

– As Commander-in-Chief, President Trump would carry broad powers over the U.S. armed forces, with only potential congressional funding restrictions and court oversight as limited checks.

– Congress could try to enforce a need to authorize a new Authorization for Use of Military Force were Trump to try to invade another nation without seeking congressional approval, but it is unlikely either Congress or the courts would interfere with the President’s use of force as designated in the War Powers Resolution.