Colby approved for Defense Department's top policy job

Gen. Stephen W. Wilson, Air Force vice chief of staff and Elbridge Colby, The Marathon Initiative principal, participate in the Threat and the Strategy panel during the Air Force Association Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Md., Sept. 17, 2019. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Chad Trujillo)

WASHINGTON — The Senate today approved Elbridge Colby, a former Trump administration Defense Department official, to return to the halls of the Pentagon as the department’s top policy official.

Confirmed in a 54-55 vote, Colby was previously deputy assistant secretary for strategy and force development in the first Trump administration and is best known as one of the authors of 2018 National Defense Strategy.

It is unclear when Colby will be sworn in as the Pentagon’s undersecretary of policy, but he will take the job at a time when US military operations at the southern border have become a top priority for the department.

An “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance” memo, which was signed off by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in March and marked secret, directs the department to focus on homeland defense and potential war with China while taking on risk in geographic areas such as Europe, The Washington Post reported last month.

A foreign policy “realist” who has championed the need for the Defense Department to align its resources on deterring China, Colby frustrated Democrats during his confirmation hearing last month by his refusal to clearly state that Russia had invaded Ukraine, despite previously saying that Russia was responsible.

“I stand by my record, but at this point, I think there’s a very delicate diplomatic process going on where the president is rightfully trying to resuscitate the peace process,” Colby told lawmakers then.

According to Politico, his nomination also caused some consternation with some Republicans who quietly questioned his noninterventionist stance on the Middle East. Those anxieties were largely quelled after Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk made statements defending Colby’s record.

Colby further assuaged GOP lawmakers during his confirmation hearing by stating that a nuclear-armed Iran posed an existential threat to the United States, and that he would provide military options to the president to stop Iran from gaining access to nuclear weapons.

Elsewhere in his confirmation, Colby said a longer term goal for him would be to “revivify our defense industrial base, so that we are no longer in a position where our defense industrial base cannot produce at levels, where we can resource in multiple theaters at the level that we need.”