Elbridge Colby, President Trump’s pick to serve as the Pentagon’s undersecretary for policy, is facing skepticism from GOP senators concerned about his views on how aggressively to confront Iran and China and whether to pivot away from Europe and Ukraine.
Some Republican senators are threatening to pump the breaks on Trump’s national security agenda by holding up Colby, who has promulgated a variety of controversial or unorthodox policy views — such as suggesting that the United States could tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran.
Colby faced pointed questions at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday from Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) about whether he would allow Iran to become a nuclear power and why he had “softened” his stance on the United States committing to defend Taiwan from an all-out Chinese attack. Vice President Vance showed up outside the hearing in a show of support for Colby.
“I have some concerns about what you’ve said in the past, namely if we had to choose between hoping to contain a nuclear Iran and preventing Iran with military force from getting nukes that we should tolerate a nuclear Iran and try to contain it,” Cotton told the nominee.
“That’s certainly not my view, but more important, it’s not President Trump’s policy,” Cotton declared bluntly.
Colby promised Cotton he would provide Trump with “credible and realistic” military options to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear arms.
Cotton then grilled the nominee on why he had “softened” his stance on providing security guarantees for Taiwan.
“Could you explain to us why in the last few years you’ve seemed to soften somewhat about the defense of Taiwan?” he asked.
Colby responded that he always has said that Taiwan is “very important” to the United States, but he argued it’s “not an existential interest.”
He said U.S. policymakers should reconsider the national security interest in defending Taiwan in an all-out conflict with China because of the changing “military balance” between the United States and China.
Sullivan pressed the nominee on whether the United States should continue to view NATO as a useful alliance after his past statements calling for a U.S. pivot away from Europe and Ukraine.
“Are you a strong supporter of the NATO alliance?” Sullivan asked. “You still think that’s a useful, important alliance for the United States?”
Colby told the committee: “I do. Again, senator, I very much believe in NATO, but I believe it has to … adapt.”
He argued that allies such as Germany are not matching their historic military commitment to the collective defense of Europe.
Sullivan quickly interjected: “I agree with all that, but it’s worth reforming because it does provide power and strength to the United States.”
Colby has argued in the past that the United States lacks the economic resources to remain fully committed to the defense of European and Asian allies and should focus more on the threat posed by China.
Asked by the Alaska senator about tolerating a nuclear-armed Iran, Colby backed away from his past statements, explaining, “I’ve been in the policy debate a long time.”
“Not everything I said I would say” again, he said.
The Wall Street Journal wrote in an editorial Monday that Colby’s public statements have made him “a lightning rod in the fight between the GOP’s peace-through-strength wing and its retreat-from-the-world faction.”
The Journal wrote that Colby “has consciously made himself the intellectual front man for a wing of the political right that argues the U.S. should retreat from commitments in Europe and the Middle East.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) challenged Colby on whether he had any role in tapping Michael DiMino to serve as deputy assistant secretary for Defense for the Middle East. DiMino has alarmed pro-Israel advocates by arguing that the United States doesn’t really face vital or existential threats in the region.
Colby testified that he did not choose DiMino for the job and asserted that it did not reflect Trump’s policy in the Middle East.
Wicker also challenged Colby on whether he agrees with another Trump policy adviser, Andrew Byers, the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, who — according to the GOP senator — “believes thinking about communist China through the lens of deterrence is wrong” and “thinks maybe we should give up what he calls belligerent policies toward China.”
Colby said those statements did not reflect his views.
Colby told Wicker that the fall of Taiwan to China would be “a disaster for American interests” but argued that the “military balance” between the United States and China has “deteriorated dramatically.”
“The analogy I like to use is Winston Churchill in 1940 wanting to send Spitfires and Hurricanes to the Battle of France but Marshal Dowding saying, ‘If we do that, we won’t be able to defend the home islands,’” Colby said, drawing an analogy to limited British resources during World War II.
That answer didn’t appear to sit well with Wicker, who quickly asked, “How long will it take us to get prepared?”
The nominee said it would be one of his top priorities “to try to get us prepared as quickly as possible.”
Wicker told CQ Roll Call last month that Colby’s past views were “a concern to a number of senators” but declined to comment about the nominee on Tuesday.
Some Republican senators have said privately that they would be more willing to bring down some lower Trump nominees after granting the president deference on Cabinet-level nominees.
Where Cotton ultimately lands could determine whether Colby gets confirmed.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), a prominent Republican voice on defense issues, told The Hill on Tuesday he would “talk to Cotton” about the nominee.
Colby could also run into opposition from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has repeatedly argued that the United States has a vital national security interest in providing an effective deterrent against Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
Writing in the January-February edition of Foreign Affairs, McConnell argued forcefully against prioritizing a single theater and downgrading U.S. interests and commitments elsewhere.
“The administration will face calls from within the Republican Party to give up on American primacy,” he wrote. “To pretend the United States can focus on just one threat at a time, that its credibility is divisible, or that it can afford to shrug off faraway chaos as irrelevant is to ignore its global interests and its adversaries’ global designs.”
