Politics

NEW: Trump Nominee Confirmed Despite GOP Efforts To Derail Pick

Published

3 weeks ago

April 8, 2025

On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Elbridge Colby as Under Secretary of Defense, handing President Donald Trump a key win even as several GOP senators attempted to derail the nomination. Colby, a hawkish defense strategist and co-founder of The Marathon Initiative, was confirmed in a 54-45 vote.

The position ranks third at the Pentagon and places him in charge of briefing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on matters of defense policy. Despite being a Trump-aligned pick, Colby’s nomination drew pushback from some Republicans who argued his past foreign policy views clashed with the new administration’s strategic goals.

However, a bloc of moderate Republicans and Democrats ultimately pushed the confirmation through. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) broke from his usual pro-defense stance by voting against Colby, despite being one of Washington’s most vocal supporters of U.S. military strength and global alliances like NATO.

“Abandoning Ukraine and Europe and downplaying the Middle East to prioritize the Indo-Pacific is not a clever geopolitical chess move. It is geo-strategic self-harm that emboldens our adversaries and drives wedges between America and our allies for them to exploit,” McConnell said in a statement.

Colby’s confirmation marks a pivotal moment in the Trump administration’s effort to reshape the Pentagon’s policy ranks during his second term. Best known for co-authoring the 2018 National Defense Strategy under then-Secretary Jim Mattis, Colby helped shift America’s focus from counterterrorism to great-power competition—particularly with China.

Now back in the fold, his return represents a full-circle moment. For years, Colby has been one of the most vocal advocates for reorienting U.S. military strategy toward East Asia.

He has repeatedly warned that Washington must be ready for a potential Chinese move on Taiwan within the next decade.

Colby is the co-founder and principal of The Marathon Initiative, a think tank devoted to advancing long-term U.S. strategies rooted in geopolitical realism. A leading proponent of the “limited war” doctrine, Colby argues that the United States should avoid overextending itself in secondary theaters like the Middle East or Europe and instead prioritize deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.

He has been critical of both neoconservative and liberal internationalist approaches, arguing that they stretch U.S. resources too thin. Instead, Colby calls for a more focused, cost-effective strategy—one that maintains American dominance in the Pacific without unnecessary military entanglements.

Elbridge Coby, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Strategy and Force Development, Department of Defense, poses for his official portrait in the Army portrait studio at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, June 22, 2017. (U.S. Army photo by Monica King/Released)

His 2021 book, The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict, outlines a blueprint for countering China by organizing U.S. alliances, force posture, and regional commitments around a central goal: denying Beijing the ability to dominate Asia.

With degrees from Harvard and Yale Law School, Colby has been published in Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, and The National Interest. His realist—and at times hawkish—viewpoint has made him a key voice in the post-9/11 debate over America’s global role, particularly among those advocating for a more restrained but strategically focused foreign policy.

As the Pentagon’s top policy official, Colby will now serve as the principal adviser to Secretary Hegseth and coordinate defense priorities across the department. His confirmation signals Trump’s continued push to install loyalists in high-level security roles, even as internal GOP divisions persist.