Is President Trump’s grand strategy unraveling? The United States is at war with Iran, China is ascendant, Russia and Ukraine are stalemated and American allies are openly questioning our commitment to them.
Elbridge Colby, the under secretary of defense for policy, joins me to discuss the state of America’s foreign policy and he makes the case that Trump’s approach to our allies and adversaries is making us stronger.
Below is an edited transcript of an episode of “Interesting Times.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYTimes app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.
Ross Douthat: Does the Trump administration have a coherent foreign policy?
Donald Trump came into office promising to make peace between Russia and Ukraine, to stay out of reckless Middle Eastern wars and to contain the People’s Republic of China.
I’m not sure it’s all going as he hoped.
My guest this week is the administration’s under secretary of defense for policy, which means he’s the man in the Pentagon in charge of thinking about the big picture. And if there’s anyone who can explain the method behind the administration’s approach to foreign policy, it’s him.
Elbridge Colby, welcome to “Interesting Times.”
Elbridge Colby: Great to be here. Thanks, Ross.
Douthat: Great to have you. I wanted to start by stipulating for the audience that I’ve actually known you for a long time, much longer than is true of most of the guests on this program. And I think that’s relevant to the line of questioning I’m going to follow.
I first met you when we were both 18 years old, and I’m pretty sure that you were the first college freshman that I met who had strong views on the 19th-century Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich. I think that’s fair.
Colby: [Laughs.] I think that’s fair. I think that’s a strong foundation.
Douthat: You are currently at the Pentagon in a policy job where your role is to think about strategy, and you’ve been thinking about strategy for as long as I’ve known you. And I’m going to start by asking you strategic questions.
What is the Trump administration’s grand strategy? Overall, what are you trying to achieve?
Colby: Well, I wouldn’t presume to speak for the president, but my interpretation is grounded in flexible realism and common sense. That’s a term that the president himself uses often, and I use it all the time when I’m trying to explain what we’re up to, to foreign governments and foreign parties.
It’s a nonideological approach, but recalibrating and reassessing things in light of the current situation we face. Looking out at the world that President Biden left, there was a potential for simultaneous conflicts that we needed to be prepared for, and also, to do so in a realistic and sustainable way.
If you look at our defense strategy and national security strategy, this is a very promising and, I think, successful and effective approach. First, it is modernizing our armed forces. We’re pursuing a very significant, albeit one-time increased infusion into the defense industrial base — led by the president, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg — to get production to a whole different level. That also is very consistent with the reindustralization agenda at home.
Second, it’s a fundamentally different but much more sensible, common-sense approach to our allies and partners, which is getting them to step up and do their part in ways that are consistent with their own interests. You see that with countries like Poland and Germany and the Scandinavian countries stepping up.
You have a lot of stuff like, “The administration is isolationist or restrained,” but that’s demonstrably untrue. What we’re doing and what you can see ——
Douthat: Or you have a lot of stuff that says the administration is bullying and cruel to allies in an effort to get ——
Colby: Is it cruel to ask the Germans or the Japanese or the French to spend as much as Americans spend? I don’t think that’s cruel. I think that’s fair.
If you listen to the Europeans or Secretary General Mark Rutte or many other leaders, they’ll say: We ignored the politesse that was sent our way for a decade or two, that the Europeans need to do more — and in a sense, they were not crazy to do so because there were no consequences.
The third part of it is, I think, a willingness to pursue peace and to engage with our potential opponents. Right now, there’s potential talks with Iran. Obviously, we’re using the military instrument to try to advance the objectives of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and ensuring the Strait of Hormuz as an open waterway.
In the case of the Kremlin, the administration has been willing to have direct talks. Obviously, the president himself has spoken to President Vladimir Putin. President Xi Jinping — there’s a very good relationship between the leaders.
You had President Biden essentially insulting the leaders of these states and not having the military buildup to back that up, nor the pressure on our allies to put us all in a position where we could deal with that.
So I think the results speak for themselves. We’re on a very good trajectory.
Douthat: I want to take that agenda and go theater by theater and talk about how it plays out around the world.
First, China. In the first Trump term, you were part of the group that wrote the National Security Strategy that identified China as the U.S.’s geopolitical — I don’t know what language you want to use — but rival, adversary.
In the second Trump administration, there seemed to be a certain amount of internal debate about whether that framing is correct and whether you want to emphasize more hemispheric defense or defense of the homeland, and so on.
Give me your perspective: Is China the most important threat that the U.S. faces right now?
Colby: A couple of things. One, talk and action are different. Our policy, as the secretary has laid out, is strong and clear, but quiet. Measure what the United States and the United States Department of War is doing by actions and not what we call “peacocking,” which I think is really different from the last administration, where President Biden would speak off the cuff, for instance, about the issue of Taiwan.
Our view, as the National Security Strategy sets out, is we’re going to have a strong denial defense along the First Island Chain, and we’re going to work with our allies and partners to make sure that’s the case.
Douthat: For viewers and listeners, tell them what the First Island Chain is.
Colby: The First Island Chain is the chain of islands running down off the mainland coast of Asia. It’s a standard strategic term going back to the 1940s and ’50s.
Douthat: Yes, and is Taiwan considered part of the First Island Chain?
Colby: Obviously, I’m going to be careful about discussing Taiwan. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio pointed out, we have not had a change in our policy, but the overall goal is strategic stability.
To your second point about the policy on China, I think we also have to look at things across time. In 2016, President Trump was the first to really introduce that we needed to relook at our policy toward China across the board, with the economic piece obviously being vital as well.
We’re 10 years down the road. People sometimes say, “Oh, Bridge. You’re becoming such a dove,” or, “You’re falling away from your position.” I don’t think that at all.
Douthat: Just for backdrop, you wrote a book called “The Strategy of Denial,” which was a book arguing specifically that U.S. foreign policy should be oriented around deterrence against potential Chinese aggression in the Pacific. That’s the backdrop to anything someone says to you about China.
Colby: I’ve always been a realist. I’m certainly not an isolationist, but I’m also not an uber-hawk. One of the areas where I think I’ve been very consistent is focusing more on the reality of the situation — the structural elements — rather than the rhetoric.
I personally engage with Chinese counterparts. That doesn’t mean we’re naïve — to the contrary.
Douthat: What, then, is the structural reality, in terms of the actual balance of power? And how is it different from 2016?
Colby: There’s a couple things, and there are some areas where my own views have changed. I remember having a debate about whether the Chinese economy would ever pass the American economy in nominal G.D.P. — I thought it would — and I think the president deserves tremendous credit for ensuring the growth of the American economy.
You see the United States hopefully pulling away — obviously, there’s investments in A.I. But our problems relative to those of China, let alone other countries, are much more manageable in terms of the structural economic factors.
Douthat: So you’re more optimistic about America’s economic advantages than you would have been eight years ago?
Colby: Yes, I am. I think that’s borne out by the performance. And for those who anticipated it, kudos. That’s one where I’ve altered my view.
Douthat: How does that affect our defense strategy?
Colby: A lot of that is financialization of the economy. Vice President Vance has been talking very eloquently about this. We need to reindustrialize. We need to be able to make sure that we can re-onshore some of these industrial capacities, because especially when you’re looking at military production, a lot of that is really about reindustrialization.
Obviously we’re also working with allies. The president set a new global standard of 3.5 percent on hard-core military spending. South Korea’s committed to that. We’re looking for other allies in the region to step up. The Australians are spending quite a bit as well, so that’s going to contribute as well.
This is where we get back to the issue of scoping the military strategy to denial.
Douthat: Denial means, in practice, denying a great power adversary the ability to ——
Colby: Seize and hold the key territory of the designated ally and partner.
What we are trying to achieve along the First Island Chain is not regime-changing somebody and occupying their country and pacifying them, blah, blah, blah. No, no. It is about maritime and aerospace defense along an archipelago.
That is something that really plays to the strengths of the United States. That’s something that we — and I, personally — am giving a great deal of thought to. Who knows what other people might be thinking? But let’s make sure that they have every reason to think that such an endeavor would not be successful.
Douthat: OK. There were reports last summer — there have been a lot of stories about you in the press — which I may reference occasionally over the course of this conversation.
One such report said that you were pushing allies to clarify their own approach in the event of Chinese aggression toward Taiwan.
As you’ve said in this interview, the United States is famously strategically ambiguous in our own approach to what might happen if China were to attack Taiwan. Are we asking our allies to be less ambiguous than we are ourselves?
Colby: I won’t comment on specific conversations going on in the Pentagon. But people can, I think, fairly criticize me for my views or that maybe I’m too direct, or any number of things. I don’t think somebody can criticize me for being inconsistent or unclear where I’m coming from.
Of course, I’m not going to ask our allies to do something that’s way beyond what we would do. That violates common sense. That’s not realistic. What we are trying to do is put everybody on the same page in terms of whatever contingency they might be facing, whether it’s in Asia or Europe, and say: Hey, what can we reasonably expect?
With Japan, we’re having much more candid conversations. With Australia, we’re having much more candid conversations. And the different policy particularities come out in different ways.
I think the vibe and the message that we are trying to send, and that I think is being received, is: Oh, wow, these people are actually serious. They’re actually planning to potentially get into that conflict precisely so they can avoid it, because that’s the best way to deter a conflict, by everybody having a clear sense of what they’re supposed to be doing in that context. And oh, wait, I’m actually supposed to deploy forces that can do that?
Some people are really getting it. Look at Germany, for instance — just a historic change over the last couple years. They’re saying: Oh, the Americans are telling us, here’s what we need to be able to do.
The president has said he is really focused on peace. That’s what our agenda is about. Obviously, you have to be ready to use military force. That’s what we’re thinking about, but with the goal of peace and strategic stability.
Douthat: OK. Last question on East Asia, which will connect to questions about the Middle East.
I have had any number of people watching what’s gone on in the Middle East — with the Iran conflict, with attacks on our bases there, missile attacks, and so on — say that in the event of a conflict with China, the United States’ position right now is just untenable. That our bases and aircraft carriers around China are just not going to survive Day 1 to 20 of a conflict, and we will effectively have to fight our way back into the Pacific Theater in that kind of scenario, whatever is happening with an actual Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
This is something, by the way, that the president, whom you’re very careful to praise throughout this conversation, has himself commented on repeatedly: Oh, Taiwan, it’s so close to China, so far from the U.S.
Colby: You make a number of excellent points, and there’s a lot of realities in there. This is why you really have to scope your objective. What is it that we are trying to achieve?
We may be trying to project power in certain ways, but if China, in this scenario, were to try to project power, it would also be trying to project power over significant bodies of water, whichever of those areas you’re talking about. That’s a very difficult proposition.
Maritime warfare, amphibious warfare — it’s very difficult. You not only have to get someplace, you have to sustain those operations. That is very complicated. That is why obviously, we’re focused on ground forces, the presence operations of the Navy, etc.
At the end of the day, what’s really relevant in this context are platforms and munitions that can operate in heavily denied environments and reach out and achieve very significant effects, not perfection.
Going back to the Battle of Britain, if you look at that analogy, you had the Royal Air Force. The British were outclassed in almost every measure of the military balance, but it was sufficient for the purposes. That’s where we’re really giving a lot of attention.
Douthat: When we’re talking about platforms, we’re talking about aircraft carriers primarily in the Pacific?
Colby: The Navy has aircraft carriers, it has cruisers, it has destroyers, it has submarines. The Air Force has shorter-range tactical aviation like F-35s. It also has B-52s, B-1s and B-2s. Those have been employed quite a lot.
The United States is also investing heavily in drones. The United States has ground-based fires that have been employed very effectively in the Middle East conflict. There’s space capabilities and cyber. So there’s a lot.
Douthat: Right. There’s a lot, but you were essentially trying to set up a scenario where even if China has a big advantage, we have enough platforms surviving that we …?
Colby: Well, advantage to do what? That’s always the question.
Douthat: For defense purposes.
Colby: This is the thing about it. I feel very confident that I’m not being conniving or dissembling at all when I say that our posture is designed for strategic stability and the status quo and a balance of power. It’s not the kind of capabilities that you can use reasonably to conduct aggression against military power.
So if everybody just stays to their side, everything will be fine. And I think that’s a very realistic objective. It’s not easy. That’s why we’ve focused a lot on it. But it’s viable.
I think it’s very consistent with the president’s diplomacy and policy — all of our policy — toward China, which is respectful and speaks respectfully of China. This is different from some members of the president’s last administration, talking about regime change in China. That’s not what we talk about. Nobody’s talking about it.
Douthat: So you think the second Trump administration has a more reasonable ——
Colby: Oh, absolutely. I think the president has had a consistent policy. Right now under his leadership, you have a policy of realism, which is a respectful, positive relationship at the top where you can make deals, but also an understanding that we need to operate from a position of strength.
Douthat: OK. Let’s then head for the Middle East, but maintaining the connection to China. Is it not in fact the case that many of exactly the kind of munitions and platforms that we need for the strategy of denial that you’ve described are now being used up in a currently stalemated conflict with Iran?
Colby: Well, I wouldn’t say it’s stalemated. I think we’re obviously ——
Douthat: All right. I’ll ask you about that next. But are we using ——
Colby: One, I think that point is exaggerated, and obviously I can’t get into the details here. But the capabilities that are most significant have not really been, are not really in scarce supply.
Douthat: Can you give me one example of such a ——
Colby: I can’t give you a specific example, but I can say with confidence — and we are paying a lot of attention to this — that we’re in good shape.
But this is also why we’ve been focused on this since Day 1. This is why we’ve been pushing a $1.5 trillion budget request. This is why we’ve been pressing our allies, not only to build up their own capability, but to build up their own defense industrial base.
Obviously we want to grow so that we’re in the best possible position ourselves as well as with others, but I feel confident in where we are.
Douthat: OK. So you just prickled a little bit at the suggestion that the conflict is stalemated. I had Vice President JD Vance on this show when the memorandum of understanding was just being hashed out, and he expressed a great deal of confidence that the administration was reaching — through military force, but also diplomacy — a stable place where the war would come to an end and that there would be fruitful engagement with Iran going forward.
At present, it would seem the U.S. is back at war with Iran. What are we accomplishing? Why is it not fair to at least describe this as a stalemate?
Colby: Well, first on what we are accomplishing. We’re denying Iran a nuclear weapon — that’s something that started with Operation Midnight Hammer, but has continued with this operation — and also substantially degraded Iran’s ability to project military power throughout the region.
We’re talking about drones and missiles. That problem obviously remains. But Iran’s navy and air force — there’s been a very substantial degradation of Iran’s capability as well as significant parts of its defense industrial base.
Douthat: But it still has the capability to literally strike U.S. bases in Jordan.
Colby: Right. Thereby proving the point that it remains a threat.
In terms of it being a stalemate, I don’t think that’s necessarily true, and I don’t think diplomacy has been ruled out. Secretary Rubio was just saying the Iranians have been reaching out, but the question is whether they’re serious or not.
I think we probably face a situation where obviously the military instrument is very important to defend ourselves and our allies and partners, but also to impose significant costs on Iran or those factions within the Iranian leadership that are driving the train on these strikes, to make sure that that is not a sustainable situation.
I think it remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t regard it as a stalemate. I don’t think that’s a fair assessment.
Douthat: OK. I’m going to quote Fareed Zakaria, who wrote in a column for The Washington Post that the Iran war has been good for China because it has “accelerated three of China’s long-held goals: a Middle East less dependent on America, a world more dependent on critical Chinese technology and a reputation for Beijing as a serious and steady world power.”
That doesn’t seem unfair to me. Does it seem unfair to you?
Colby: I actually think it’s not true.
Douthat: OK, good. Tell me why.
Colby: I was once more of a fan of Zakaria’s, but it’s very kind of conventional wisdom-y.
Douthat: Why is that conventional wisdom wrong?
Colby: Remind me of the first one.
Douthat: The first one, he says, “a Middle East less dependent on America,” which I presume by that he means a Middle East where a lot of countries think that the U.S. is just not going to be permanently ——
Colby: I mean, it depends on how you’re measuring it. Obviously a lot of the countries in the region are very worried about Iran, needless to say.
And there’s tremendous relations. The president just had a great meeting with the prime minister of Iraq. We’ve had a breakthrough in Syria. Obviously, very good relations with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Strong partnerships with U.A.E., Bahrain, Saudi, etc. Countries are playing different angles.
One thing that I think is missed is that China does not come away from this situation looking glowingly. Nobody’s more exposed to Middle East oil over a long period of time than China and other countries like that.
At the same time, I would say the U.S. oil and gas industry is doing phenomenally well. Obviously, there’s structural issues where the flow of oil and gas out of the strait remains important. That’s one of the reasons why we’re working to open it up. But that’s another factor where if you look at the growth of the American economy, energy production, etc., there’s good news in the relative performances of the American and Chinese economy.
Look, I don’t think we beat up on China or anything like that verbally, but I wouldn’t trade our position at all. I think our position looks really good.
Douthat: You just mentioned the Strait of Hormuz. Whether or not you want to be in America’s position at the macro level, the case for not wanting to be in America’s position in its relationship to the Middle East right now is that we are currently trying and failing to permanently reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and absent a strategy to do that, it seems like Iran — a second-tier power, not a great power rival, not the kind of power that you have built your arguments around our need to contain — is pretty effectively holding us off.
Colby: Well, I wouldn’t say it’s failing. First of all, we’re in the situation now.
Douthat: Right. It’s not over. Yes, I would agree.
Colby: Also, I think it’s showing the danger of Iran, that it is willing to do this, and the United States and the president are taking action, obviously in our benefit, but also for the benefit of others who could contribute more in this kind of situation, including diplomatically, by putting pressure on Iran.
I don’t think it’s a sustainable situation. This gets out of the remit of the Pentagon, but I don’t think it’s a sustainable situation for Iran to essentially be holding hostage and violating the most — this is not the broad, expansive international law ——
Douthat: It’s clearly not a sustainable situation in some sense.
Colby: Right.
Douthat: But who gets to decide how it actually resolves itself seems to be a big deal for generally how much trust people have in America’s war-making capacity and our power projection capacity.
If this ends with a deal that is worse for the U.S. than whatever was sketched out in the M.O.U., then doesn’t it seem like countries around the world look at that and say, “Well, the U.S. is in a pretty weak position”?
Colby: I don’t accept the premise. We are in it, and people have to give time to something when you’re dealing with a regime, a government that has been fanatically opposed to the United States and its ally Israel and the Gulf states for almost 50 years now.
People have to give some time for the strategy to work out, and part of that is military force, which we’re applying effectively. Part of it is the diplomatic international pressure, the economic pressure on Iran, the restoration of sanctions, etc. And also, as you say, mitigating ——
Douthat: I mean, we’ve been bombing Iran. We’ve been imposing sanctions on Iran. And yes, I agree. It’s been however long it’s been, four or five months? Who knows what it will look like in a year? But also, who knows what the global economy will look like in a year?
What is the potential inflection point where Iran says: OK, the Trump administration has found a way to impose enough pain that we will make a better deal?
Colby: Obviously they’re testing the limits.
Douthat: Right.
Colby: And the president is responding with very serious military force. But not only force — the restoration of sanctions, the ability to interdict Iranian shipping. A lot of these things ——
Douthat: Do you think they just have cumulative weight? Because it just seems like the Iranians’ view seems to be, or at least of the people making decisions, seems to be: We can bear the pain longer than the Trump administration — that’s their bet right now.
Colby: Well, I think that’s the bet of at least some of them inside of the government. But I think obviously they are going to be feeling a tremendous amount of pain. Their future economic prospects, and not just in some sense of the people in the street, but for the preservation of the government itself, are going to start to tell.
So time will tell, but also my sense is that obviously there’s the application of military force. There’s the sanctions and so forth. There’s a lot of other options that can expand that leverage. We have seen that, for instance, the blockade was very effective against the Iranians, so there’s a lot of escalation that the president still has that he can exploit across military and nonmilitary tools.
Then there’s the international pressure. I think people can see that this is not the United States that was seeking to resume conflict in the strait. This is Iran precipitating this conflict and saying they are the ones.
I’ve seen international leaders complain about the economic consequences. Well, A, you can help us out, or B, take it up with Tehran. They’re the ones who are causing this.
Let me address something else that I think is in there. One of the things you said that makes a broader point is that countries will start to judge that the United States is incapable of XYZ and will start to tilt away.
I think that’s one thing that’s really important at a structural level that this administration is doing differently, in what is perhaps a tough way sometimes, but also in a rational and common sense way, which is to accurately price the partnership and relationship with the United States, both in terms of access and things like A.I. or energy, but also in terms of leverage things like burden-sharing issues or tariffs, etc.
If I were going to put it in a common sense one-liner, it’s that people can no longer take the United States for granted. And I think there was an element during the era of the international rules-based order when people did take the United States for granted.
The president is a masterful negotiator — he comes from New York. Somebody said very memorably to me: The president insists that we mark things to market.
I think it’s an idle claim to say that countries are going to go elsewhere. Where are they going to go? Iran can’t compete with the United States. Iran is trying to use leverage over one particular thing.
Douthat: It’s a pretty big thing, though.
Colby: Iran no longer has the military power projection capability to even pretend to threaten those things. If anything, we see the governments of the region probably growing closer to the United States. Not to say they’re going to agree with us on every particular thing, but there isn’t really an alternative to dealing with the United States. They don’t want to, and Iran is not strong enough to be able to pretend to do that kind of thing.
What we’re talking about is their ability to molest international shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and trying to leverage that.
Douthat: Do you think that the conflict with Iran would have gone differently in five or 10 years with a set of Middle Eastern allies that were better armed and better equipped?
Colby: I think that’s where we want to get. We’ve already seen actions from a variety of our Middle Eastern partners. That was not the case in previous conflicts. There’s been progress, and a lot of that’s the president. It goes back to the first term.
Douthat: So I think that’s already been, there’s been progress in a lot of that’s the president goes back for the first term.
Last question on Iran. You’ve talked about things people might say to you based on your writing in the past. I think the obvious thing that someone would say to you about the Iran war is that this is a conflict that has totally vindicated Elbridge Colby thought from several years ago. You were the guy who wanted to pivot to Asia. You were warning that we didn’t have unlimited military resources.
During your confirmation hearings, the fact that you had not been a big Iran hawk was a big point of contention.
And someone would say: Yeah, you’ve been vindicated by the policies of your own administration that have revealed all of the weaknesses that you yourself spoke about.
How would you respond to that?
Colby: Well, I definitely wouldn’t put it that way in any respect, Ross. First and foremost, in my confirmation hearing and the confirmation process, I pledged to support the president’s policy to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to provide, in my capacity as the under secretary for policy, credible and rational military options to the secretary and whoever else is relevant in that context, to back up that policy. And I have absolutely done that.
I have been proud to support the administration and the president. We’ve contributed to degrading Iran’s military capability and set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions substantially.
The other thing I would say, stepping back a little bit, is my observation in watching people who we might look at on Twitter or in the commentariat. I think people need to put stuff into perspective: 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam. Over 100,000 ground troops on the ground in Iraq following Operation Iraqi Freedom. Obviously every American service member’s loss is a tragedy, and I have the utmost respect and take that with the utmost gravity.
I think it’s important to keep in perspective what’s at issue here. People say: Oh, the president has rejected nation-building — but we’re not doing nation building. This is not an endless war. As the secretary has said ——
Douthat: All right, wait. It’s not an endless war, but let me ——
Colby: But I think this is important because people want a black pill, to use the kids’ terminology, on something where I think the broader perspective is actually really encouraging.
Douthat: I completely agree that the Iran war does not resemble the Iraq war or the Vietnam War in the way you’ve described, and that is a big deal.
At the same time, as we were just going back and forth about, the Iran war is still ongoing. Whether or not it’s stalemated, it has not come to a victorious conclusion for the U.S.
When people look at our current situation and say the administration seems a bit trapped, part of what they’re seeing is that they’re very aware that the president doesn’t want to escalate in those ways, that the president doesn’t want to send in ground troops and so on.
Colby: Well, the president is escalating ——
Douthat: But if the president doesn’t want to do those things, then it’s unclear ——
Colby: The president is countering very strongly and is prepared to escalate. He’s made that clear, and he’s followed it up. So I don’t want to suggest that the president isn’t prepared to escalate.
He’s also prepared to deal if they come in the right spirit, as Secretary Rubio said.
The point I’m making, Ross, which I think you conceded, is that people need to look at this with the correct perspective, and I think that has been lost.
Douthat: All I’m saying is that the dilemma is connected to the fact that, for good reason, we don’t want this to turn into another Iraq or Vietnam.
So then the question is: OK, if those options are off the table, as maybe they should be, how do you get out?
Colby: Well, wait. Again, there are escalation options that don’t involve doing a Vietnam and Iraq. That’s another part that’s different. You end up with large numbers of troops — in the case of Vietnam, the draft or something almost like it, in Iraq — where you’re pacifying, you’re driving down the street, making sure people are going to school or whatever. That’s not the job of the American military.
There could be very substantial escalation options — obviously military, but also nonmilitary — that would have a major impact on Iran that are in the present inventory if he chooses to, if he thinks that’s the right call, and we’ll support him if he does.
It’s not that he’s trapped. He has options. But my main point here is just to keep this entire operation in perspective.
Douthat: OK. Russia and Ukraine. We’re doing just small, small subjects. You mentioned earlier that you think that in many ways the administration’s overall approach to that conflict has been vindicated by the fact that European allies are doing more for Ukraine. We are still supporting the Ukrainian effort, but we are doing so more indirectly, weapons sales and so on, and Ukraine has been able to continue fighting, even regain ground.
A different argument is that the administration came into the second term convinced that, as was said repeatedly, Ukraine didn’t have enough cards to play, and it was really important to push the Ukrainians to be willing to make a deal with Vladimir Putin and with Russia. That seemed to be a big part of the administration’s approach in at least the first six months.
And one, there hasn’t been a peace deal. Two, Ukraine has found many more cards to play and has continued surviving. I’m curious what you think about the value of that initial push on the Zelensky government to try and make a deal. Was it useful? Did it go anywhere?
Colby: I think the structural argument that I was referring to, which I think you captured well, is that Europe could and would take primary responsibility for its own conventional defense, which has happened. They have made the commitment, and now they’re spending to follow it up. Two years ago, that would have had people’s heads falling off.
Now, we’ve gone a long way toward — Obviously, there have been direct negotiations between the United States and Russia, and obviously, very close contact with Ukraine. But also a lot of the groundwork on things like coalition of the willing and what a peace arrangement might look like, or a cease-fire, or whatever it is.
I actually think we’re well-positioned, but from the perspective of the Department of War, this is really about having the Europeans step up to take the responsibility for something that they can do much more substantially on their own.
Douthat: I guess I’m just asking: Have you been surprised by the resilience of Ukrainian resistance in the absence of an armistice?
Colby: I wouldn’t say I’ve been surprised, but I think the Ukrainians have conducted a very stout and admirable self-defense for four years. They’ve lost a tremendous amount of people. I think they’ve been very effective at adapting their technology, obviously, like drones, but also their military operations. They also are trying to deny or defend. The Russians are the ones who are trying to take land, so that puts them in a harder point.
I will say, right now, I think the Ukrainians in some ways have improved. The situation is still largely attritional, and there’s mutual firing at cities, which is obviously a tragic loss of civilian life, etc.
I think if I were in the Kremlin, I would counsel saying: This is a good time to end this conflict. You have, in President Trump, a man who’s genuinely interested in peace. Let’s be rational. Let’s make a deal.
I think that would be the wise approach.
Douthat: Why do you think that hasn’t happened yet?
Colby: Getting inside the heads of other heads of state is always a fraught endeavor. I think if you look at what President Putin has said publicly, he’s very committed to this objective. In his interview with Tucker Carlson, for instance, he’s got a deep historical sense about it.
Douthat: “Five hundred years of history,” I think, were referenced.
Colby: Again, this is not like a pro-Putin administration or something. It’s saying that if you’re going to make peace with a great power, you have to grapple with the way they think and the reality that they do have a lot of power, and go at it with that kind of mind-set.
When we negotiated with the Communists in Vietnam or Korea, or with China, that was the mind-set that we were dealing with.
Douthat: But you haven’t gotten there, which suggests that there is a —
Colby: Right. We can’t snap our fingers and make it so, but it’s a noble endeavor, and I think we’re structurally setting up the conditions to make that plausible and viable.
Of course, the Ukrainians deserve a lot of credit, obviously, for being able to erode the Russians’ ability to advance.
Douthat: On the stories about Elbridge Colby front, one of the recurring stories in the press in this administration is that the Department of Defense/War, meaning Secretary Hegseth, but in the stories often meaning you, has wanted to go further in limiting support for Ukraine, limiting weapons flow to Ukraine, and then it gets reversed.
So last summer, you were personally blamed for holding up a shipment of weapons to Ukraine because U.S. ——
Colby: That was a false story, actually.
Douthat: OK. So tell me what happened in a case like that.
Colby: There was a memorandum that was sent out by the secretary. First of all, this is very important: I am not in the chain of command, so I cannot order anybody. I don’t have the power. It would be absurd if I did. I’d probably get told: Thanks, there’s the door.
What we were doing at that time was trying to put what I think has been a hallmark of this administration, which is trying to be intentional. During the Biden administration, I think a lot of stuff was just going out the door without knowing what was happening.
Douthat: Meaning weapons.
Colby: Yeah. I think in this administration, we’re saying: Hey, we need to have an understanding. We have global requirements, and we have a strategy following up. We’re going to improve our situation where necessary. We’ve got very strong inventories, but we’re going to be more intentional about it.
And actually, there was a task to some military organizations to set up a new way of facilitating transfers to Ukraine. I don’t exactly know what happened, but there was some kind of mix-up on that side of the house, and it was eventually rectified.
But I think that more broadly, the proof is in the pudding. I myself have participated in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group and made the exact points that I’m saying to you now. I myself have signed off in terms of supporting multiple transfers of munitions to Ukraine.
I think what we were trying to really do and reframe was exactly what I’ve been saying, which is that we need to think about this in a common sense way, America first. Obviously we want to have the ability to support Ukraine, but we also need to know what we’re doing.
Most importantly, we want to transfer the responsibilities, the president said, to those who have the biggest stake and who are most invested in it. That’s a key point of the administration’s approach, this flexible realist approach. The Europeans are constantly talking about how important this is, and in a lot of ways we agree, but they can do a lot more. And in fact, they’re doing it.
That is what we want. We want a Europe and a Ukrainian defense industrial base that’s more self-sustaining.
Douthat: How do U.S. troops fit into this picture? Because another more recent story in the press was that the Pentagon had plans for troop reductions in Eastern Europe.
Colby: Oh, you’re talking about in Europe?
Douthat: Yes, in Europe. And that again, the story was the people in the Pentagon were pushing for deeper reductions, and then it went up to the president, and it got slapped down or something. This is sort of a recurring narrative.
Colby: Yeah, I think the president has been very clear, and Secretary Hegseth has been very clear for many years, that the relationship with NATO is unbalanced and that we need to rectify that.
We have an amazing secretary general right now in Mark Rutte. He gets a lot of flak, but he’s really doing what people need, which is to see the situation as it is and to try to work with us in this period of transition to NATO 3.0. That’s what we need.
Douthat: So you would expect that the goal of the administration, whatever is happening over six months here or six months there, is for the U.S. to ultimately have fewer troops in Europe?
Colby: Look, a couple of things. To me, it’s more of a positive goal that I laid out in my speech at NATO 3.0.
Douthat: Wait. Tell me about Nato 3.0. But first, just specifically, troop levels?
Colby: Yeah, but troop levels are downstream of the overall.
Douthat: Alright. What is Nato 3.0? You’ve referenced it —
Colby: NATO 3.0 is a concept that we talked about in February and has since been embraced by the alliance and its leadership and by European leaders. It is basically a concept where Europe takes primary responsibility for its own conventional defense.
What we were trying to do with this NATO 3.0 thing is there had long been this idea that President Trump and his administration were abandoning the postwar order, and that’s just wrong.
Douthat: Post-World War II order.
Colby: Post-World War II. What President Trump and the administration are really doing, and certainly as we see it, is moving on from the post-Cold War order, the world of the end of history, of the liberal international order delusion, of unchecked free trade that can’t be balanced and that leads to deindustrialization of America.
Actually, in a lot of ways — and this was the point of the speech or a key theme — we’re going back to the Cold War idea. Near the end of the Cold War in 1988, West Germany had 12 active divisions. That was a country that’s two-thirds the size of the current Germany, which basically had nothing, and now they’re doing great since in the last year or so. This is going back to the basics of building military readiness.
The other thing is, you mentioned Russia. Let’s look at the challenge that NATO faces. And we don’t have to get into all the political “what is Vladimir Putin actually thinking.” You can see Russia’s military capability. It is building up its military, and the European allies feel threatened.
OK, let’s have you focus, instead of getting into theological debates about this or that NATO Summit declaration, on building the military capability in the same way that the administration and the president are doing very successfully in Asia: Strong and clear, but quiet.
Now have the Germans building up. The Finns are very strong. The Poles are fantastic — model ally there. Even the Swedes, the Norwegians. We’re hoping the British pick up the slack under the new government. Unfortunately, thus far it’s not been sufficient.
The French have a strong, ready military. They need to spend more. It’s a difficult budgetary situation, but everybody’s got challenges.
Douthat: There’s a few difficult budgetary situations in Europe.
Colby: Indeed, but get in line. I mean, Americans make sacrifices.
Douthat: One thing that you hear in the context of these buildups — and these buildups are happening, you’re absolutely right. A number of U.S. allies are spending more on defense. The long-term economic prospects of Europe are a more open question, but they’re often being framed not so much as NATO 3.0 and a recalibrated partnership with the United States, but as a hedge against the U.S. becoming much more of a rogue superpower.
You hear this a lot, the idea that basically U.S. allies looking at the Trump administration’s behavior, looking at its demands, looking at threats over tariffs and so on, are saying: Yeah, we need to be stronger militarily, and we need to be stronger economically because we may need to conduct foreign policy independent of the U.S.
This brings me to your recent memorandum/tweet storm about what get called ——
Colby: I don’t know if it’s a storm. It was like a few ——
Douthat: That’s what they call it. It’s a term of art.
Colby: Oh, OK.
Douthat: A tweet storm. It’s just a series of tweets. It’s a technical term from my profession.
Colby: OK. Sorry.
Douthat: Your profession has technical terms too.
So in this thread of tweets, you talked about what you saw as the delusion of middle powers conducting some kind of truly independent foreign policy. Tell me what you were saying.
Colby: Sure. Can I answer the first question first?
Douthat: Yeah, yeah.
Colby: Your framing I would regard as tendentious.
Douthat: It doesn’t have to be my framing. It is a framing. But you’re saying,
Colby: OK, many people are saying. So let me object to the framing. However, if we look at the structure, what you’re telling me is the administration’s policy is leading our allies to spend more on their own defense and take more responsibility and lessen the burden on Americans? That sounds good to me.
To me, I think that basically you had a situation in which allies and partners were taking the United States for granted. That doesn’t mean going completely the other direction and pulling out, but it means countries now, whether it’s on tariffs or whether it’s on defense issues, they have to calculate. They actually have to do more.
My feeling about allies is that you want to reassure allies enough so that they don’t fall apart or in some circumstances defect to the other side, but you want to keep them sufficiently on their toes so that they do their part. That’s just human behavior.
So this critique I really don’t get, because also when you peel back the onion, it’s not like Germany’s building up its military to sail to southeastern Africa and reestablish a colonial empire. Germany is building up its military to take more responsibility for NATO 3.0, which means that we are in a better position.
Obviously, I imagine, without presuming any decisions, that we will remain tied to NATO, so the fact that we have very capable states taking more of the weight is all good.
So I would say President Trump and the approach that we’re taking now is the savior of NATO, because this is the way that NATO was going to last, because it was going to become more durable.
Douthat: Just for background, too, this is something that is an idea that’s specifically associated now with the prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, who delivered a big speech basically saying a version of what I said to you, that Canada and other countries like it can’t rely on the U.S. in the way that they once did.
Colby: Let me explain, if I could. What I was specifically arguing against is this idea of “middle powers.” It was not, as the kids call it, so much of a flex. In the first tweet, I made the point that the problem is that if countries that are situated like this do something that is counterproductive or wasteful, they will probably be in greater danger.
So if you’re a country like Poland or South Korea, and you face what you regard as a fairly serious threat, and you embark on, let’s take for example, a middle powers defense industry initiative and it doesn’t pan out or it results in something far inferior, you will pay the cost.
The middle powers strategy is based on, I think, a faulty understanding of international relations, which is that powers in a certain bracket will naturally have reason to align and work together.
In that context, we actually are encouraging middle powers not only to work with us, but also to work with each other. So for instance, I put on Twitter ——
Douthat: Meaning, if I could just clarify, you would be in favor of middle powers working together if it means South Korea, Australia and Japan ——
Colby: But here’s the thing: With the focus on something concrete and specific, and leveraging the United States and working with the United States. And then we may not need to work together all the time. There may be situations in which you don’t buy, for instance, an American weapon system. But the overall approach should be designed for the middle powers or smaller powers to take more responsibility with the goal of fielding combat capabilities.
For example, in the defense space, the F-35 is essentially the best fifth-generation aircraft out there. If you’re, say, Canada and they’re going over a year on examining the F-35 versus the Gripen, a Swedish-made aircraft, the Gripen is dramatically inferior to the F-35.
Canada has NORAD requirements — North American air defense requirements. Americans will face greater danger if Canada goes in the direction of an inferior aircraft, also one that might not be able to communicate as effectively.
That’s the whole point. It’s not like middle powers should just pliantly wait. We constantly, continually say we want partnerships, not dependencies. We want countries that are able to take more responsibility, but it should be with a practical objective designed to achieve the goal as quickly as possible.
If we take the Europeans at face value and they are worried about something happening militarily in their continent, you can’t be wasting time on an uncertain, untested collaboration with countries that may fall apart at the end or will produce inferior equipment. They’re going to make sure they get the best stuff. I actually think our policy on this is very reasonable
Douthat: But we know why Mark Carney, prime minister of Canada, might say something in this regard that the leaders of Poland would not.
The president of the United States and people around him in this second term have made, let’s say, jokes about the addition of Canada to the United States as the 51st state. They have made statements suggesting that the U.S. might be willing to use some kind of military force to take over Greenland for America’s national security purposes, but from a NATO ally.
There has been a set of public statements by this administration that has been perceived as threatening, predatory, in a way that is distinct, I think, from just demanding that Germany spend more on the military. And that is what has yielded, at least in the case of Canada, this kind of rhetoric, surely. Right?
Colby: Well, let me be clear. Under President Trump, we are restoring the Monroe Doctrine, the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
Obviously, there’s a productive diplomatic track on the Greenland issue, but it’s important that that be addressed to the president’s satisfaction and to our satisfaction. He pointed out that America, essentially, is responsible for the security of Greenland. The United States is the only country capable of actually providing the security of Greenland. We’re obviously working out a diplomatic track, so I think that that’s very important that it leads to a productive outcome.
And with Canada, the president’s spoken about that, and Ambassador Greer [Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative] and others from the Department of War. We’re saying: Look, our security is interlinked, and Canada basically functionally demilitarized after probably the first Trudeau government — Trudeau the father — and that has direct implications for the security of Americans in a world that could be more dangerous.
What we’re telling the Canadians is: All we’re expecting you to do is basically be like the Germans or the Poles. Use your increased Canadian defense dollars to buy real military capability that fills joint needs. And it’s not just a nice-to-have — it affects Americans.
Douthat: This is good, and I’m all for that. But you’re doing that while the president is appearing on TV or in a video still or wherever else it is with a map showing the U.S. stars and stripes covering most of North America, which is different. That’s a different policy ask from more defense spending.
Colby: I don’t think what we’re doing is different than what he’s doing.
Douthat: What is he doing?
Colby: I wouldn’t presume to characterize what the president is doing.
Douthat: Then how do you know it’s not different from what you’re doing?
Colby: [Laughs.] It’s certainly not incompatible. I think the president, as I understand it, is communicating that the United States needs to be secure and have our interests respected in the hemisphere, and he communicates it in that way.
Douthat: So you interpret the image of the stars and stripes flying up past Hudson Bay as just the Monroe Doctrine?
Colby: Well, I think the stars and stripes should be flying high above anywhere. It’s great. We’re proud of it. It’s 250 years and ——
Douthat: Flying anywhere as a statement of sovereignty or just as a statement of awesomeness?
Colby: Well, it’s certainly awesomeness.
Douthat: What do you mean you think the stars and stripes should be flying anywhere?
Colby: I just think we are, uh …
Douthat: You don’t think it’s reasonable for a proud Canadian to look at that image and say, at the very least, that the U.S. is trying to vassalize us?
Colby: Uh …
Douthat: Because that’s the reaction that I think you’re getting and that’s driving Mark Carney’s speech.
Colby: OK.
Douthat: That there’s a difference between asking the Poles to spend more money on the military, which the Poles seem happy to do, and acting like Canada is just an extension of the glorious United States.
Colby: Well, I think the president has been saying, when he’s talked about it, that the Canadians have an insanely favorable trading arrangement and that they’re really almost right on the American economy, and that that needs to be recalibrated.
Douthat: That’s all you think he’s saying? I know you don’t presume to speak for him, but that’s your read?
Colby: I don’t presume to speak for him. I think it speaks for itself. And I’m proud — when he gave his remarks on Inauguration Day, he made clear that going back to the Monroe Doctrine, to Teddy Roosevelt, to a strong and assertive and unabashed declaration of American ascendancy, certainly in this hemisphere, and he’s negotiating with everybody to reflect that.
Douthat: OK. All right. Let me ask a last, somewhat long-winded question. You keep describing yourself as a foreign policy realist, and as you said, this is a school of thought that emphasizes fundamental interests. Nations have fundamental interests that are more important than ideological commitment, flights of idealistic fancy, all of these kinds of things.
One critique of realism is that it can underplay the role of, you could call it, irrationality in world affairs, but you could also call it like a sense of honor and woundedness and a desire for glory and a desire to assert yourself in ways that are themselves not necessarily perfectly rational always.
Whether you’re talking about Canada or NATO or the Middle East or anywhere else, you keep stressing basically that everybody, our allies in all these different regions, would be stupid to go anywhere else. Look to China? Why would you look to China? They’re an authoritarian state that doesn’t have a global military. Make a deal with Iran? Come on, the Iranians, they’re weak, and they’re a threat, and they’re run by fanatics — it’s not in your interest to do that. Like, Canada needs to step up for all these reasons.
I agree with you 100 percent. I don’t think ——
Colby: Can we stop there? [Laughs.]
Douthat: No, we can’t stop there because this is my interview. I agree with you 100 percent. I do not think that under current circumstances it makes sense for our friends and allies to recalibrate their posture to try and balance between us and China, or cut deals with Iran, or anything like that.
But I also think that countries do things that don’t make sense all the time, and sometimes they do things that don’t make sense as a response to a sense of bullying, insult, aggression, predatory behavior, all of these kinds of things.
That’s where I see your case for realism potentially breaking down. You could get in a war with China, or you could be dealing with the Middle East, and the U.S. could say to our allies: It’s totally in your interest to support us.
And Mark Carney could say: Well, it might be in my interest, but you kept talking about how you were going to annex Canada, so screw you.
Colby: Thanks, I appreciate your agreement.
But look, realism, like anything, is not a total explanation of human behavior. That’s why I use “flexible.” Our job here, unlike in the academy, is not to prove a theory, but rather to do things that make sense for America, and for our allies, honestly. But I think realism is definitely the major explainer, especially in stressful or transitional situations.
It’s critical to see things in time. We talked about this in the China context. I think things had certainly, since the end of the Cold War, gone so far in one direction and become so detached, that there needed to be a fundamental recalibration.
There will be future presidents. There will be presidents of different parties, etc., etc. There’s going to be various ——
Douthat: Can I hold you to that one?
Colby: Well, there’s going to be adaptation over time. People are going to adapt. And I think that President Trump, in addition to having the right policy in general, was a really necessary corrective and adaptation that I think is actually much better to happen now in a period when things were getting very bad, particularly under the last administration, I think — very dangerous.
But it’s not like this is the way things are going to be in perpetuity. In 10 years, Germany will be a really strong military, hopefully, and its economy will be more rational. Hopefully Canada will be in a situation where it can actually meet its NORAD commitments. And people will have more to say. They’ll say back to us: Hey, I am doing my part.
So I’m not so worried about that, maybe because I am a pretty thoroughgoing realist, and if you look historically, countries do tend to go where their interests are, especially when you’re thinking about survival or fundamental prosperity.
That’s also the language that we communicate in NATO 3.0. We’re not saying that you need to do everything we say all the time. We’re saying you need to build up, you need to help us out on things like Operation Epic Fury when it’s something that’s in your interest, and ostensibly you’re supposed to also care about the Iranian nuclear threat. But, hey, if you have a military that’s more developed to deal with a NATO scenario, you’ll also be able to deal better with operations in the Middle East.
I think it all goes together. So that, to me, I’m not too worried about.
Douthat: But on the role of emotion and affection — maybe less emotion than affection. There’s no lower form of punditry than quoting your Uber driver, but I’m going to do it anyway.
I was in London recently, and I had an Uber driver who learned I was American ——
Colby: How could he tell? [Laughs.]
Douthat: How could he tell when my Cockney accent was so flawless? And he got this kind of amused but also slightly hysterical edge in his voice, and we went back and forth and back and forth about President Trump and everything else. And he kept ending each run of half-joking commentary by saying: But we’re still friends. Right? We’re still friends.
And friendship, affection — these are powerful forces in foreign policy, too. Right? Aren’t they?
Colby: I have an analogy for this, which I use with Europeans because it fits for them.
Douthat: They want friendship.
Colby: Yeah, but think about the alliance as a private business. Let’s say we had an accounting firm together, and we’re cousins. But then over time, one of the members, United States, did phenomenally well, but their shares are more or less the same. And the other partners are kind of like: Hey, remember that time that we went skiing together? Remember the good old days?
And it’s like, OK, but eventually in these kinds of partnerships, people have to renegotiate. This gets to the mark-to-market thing. And I don’t think this is a banal example — it actually seems to resonate with a lot of Europeans.
It’s a friendship, I guess,
Douthat: You guess.
Colby: But ultimately we’re talking about putting Americans’ lives at risk. We’re talking about lots of Americans being killed, and a ton of American money, and us — you and me and everybody here, and everybody watching in America — paying substantially more for defense. That’s got to be something more fundamental than friendship.
If you go back to the friendship between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt drove a hard bargain. Dwight Eisenhower was the one who did the Suez in 1956. So it wasn’t like: Oh, you get to do whatever you want and your people ——
The Brits have obviously been a lot better than most. And the “mystic chords of memory” thing are important, but we’ve got way ——
Douthat: I was going to go to the mystic chords of memory next.
Colby: I had the honor to represent us at the international ceremony at D-Day, and I turned that argument around. The location was between Sword and Juno, and a Belgium defense attaché started moralizing about America and isolationism. My remarks were like: We want the Britain and the Canada that fought four years in World War I and six years in World War II, and then we were the Johnny-come-latelies.
They’ll be in a much better place to moralize about us if they spend as much as we do, and if they’re willing to build military capability, and if they have economies that grow so they can be taken seriously. Getting back to how it all is reinforcing, I think there’s a kind of entitlement, a sense that, “Oh, of course we’ll be able to …”
No, it’s incumbent upon them, and I think that’s a favor. If you think we’re tough, look at some of the alternatives. So I think it’s actually the sort of salutary toughness of a friend.
Douthat: All right. Elbridge Colby, thank you for joining me.
Colby: Thank you very much, Ross. Pleasure to be with you.
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