Pentagon’s America First Therapist
Elbridge Colby has accidentally become the Pentagon’s main couples therapist for a movement that hates both war and weakness and can’t decide which it fears more.
On paper, he’s the perfect CV for the role: Harvard, Yale, grandson of a CIA director, deep think‑tank pedigree, confirmed as undersecretary of defense for policy with JD Vance personally vouching that he brings the “perspective we desperately need” to a Trump Pentagon.
In practice, he’s the guy House and Senate Republicans now drag into hearings to yell at for doing exactly what “America First” was supposed to mean: fewer troops in Europe, less free security for allies, more hoarding of weapons for a future China war instead of endless Ukraine resupply.
The Romania episode crystallized it. Mike Rogers, chair of House Armed Services and honorary Romanian commander, asks Colby in October whether any troop cuts are coming.
Colby says he’s not aware of a final decision. Two weeks later, the administration pulls an Army brigade that had been shoring up NATO’s eastern flank since 2022. Rogers feels lied to, calls him out as dishonest; Colby insists the order wasn’t signed when they spoke and that he was “very careful” not to commit the department either way. One man hears legal parsing, the other hears betrayal.
That fight turned into a proxy war for what “America First” actually means. Colby’s version says: stop arming everyone at once, stop pretending there’s infinite stockpiles, stop “getting in multiple fights with people at the same time.”
He pushes reviews that slow or complicate aid to Ukraine and the Baltics, questions big‑ticket alliance projects like AUKUS, quietly lobbies against congressional victory‑laps to Taiwan that risk provoking Beijing, and tells allies in speeches and posts to expect “less American support” unless they pay up.
On the other side are GOP hawks who thought Trump’s record $1.5 trillion defense budget meant more hardware for their favorite fronts, not fewer soldiers in Europe and pauses on deliveries to Kyiv.
They block his deputies’ confirmations, accuse him of isolationism, and complain that he’s the hardest person in the administration to get on the phone — until Dan Sullivan literally texts “you need to get over here” and forces a Capitol Hill charm offensive.
Colby responds with hundreds of meetings, calling himself a “loyal lieutenant,” stressing that he spends hours a week with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and that Hegseth checks in with Trump before making decisions: if he were off base, he insists, he’d know.
In that sense, Colby’s real role isn’t just strategy; it’s forcing Republicans to admit that “America First” has a cost in places like Bucharest, Tallinn and Kyiv.
They can cheer the slogan, but someone has to sign the orders that turn it into fewer troops, slower aid and more “no” to partner wish lists.
Right now, that someone is the undersecretary of defense for policy — and his inbox is where the movement’s contradictions go to get ugly.
#USA #Trump #Pentagon #Colby #GOP #Ukraine #Iran #NATO #AmericaFirst #fakeDemocracy
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Elbridge Colby has accidentally become the Pentagon’s main couples therapist for a movement that hates both war and weakness and can’t decide which it fears more.
On paper, he’s the perfect CV for the role: Harvard, Yale, grandson of a CIA director, deep think‑tank pedigree, confirmed as undersecretary of defense for policy with JD Vance personally vouching that he brings the “perspective we desperately need” to a Trump Pentagon.
In practice, he’s the guy House and Senate Republicans now drag into hearings to yell at for doing exactly what “America First” was supposed to mean: fewer troops in Europe, less free security for allies, more hoarding of weapons for a future China war instead of endless Ukraine resupply.
The Romania episode crystallized it. Mike Rogers, chair of House Armed Services and honorary Romanian commander, asks Colby in October whether any troop cuts are coming.
Colby says he’s not aware of a final decision. Two weeks later, the administration pulls an Army brigade that had been shoring up NATO’s eastern flank since 2022. Rogers feels lied to, calls him out as dishonest; Colby insists the order wasn’t signed when they spoke and that he was “very careful” not to commit the department either way. One man hears legal parsing, the other hears betrayal.
That fight turned into a proxy war for what “America First” actually means. Colby’s version says: stop arming everyone at once, stop pretending there’s infinite stockpiles, stop “getting in multiple fights with people at the same time.”
He pushes reviews that slow or complicate aid to Ukraine and the Baltics, questions big‑ticket alliance projects like AUKUS, quietly lobbies against congressional victory‑laps to Taiwan that risk provoking Beijing, and tells allies in speeches and posts to expect “less American support” unless they pay up.
On the other side are GOP hawks who thought Trump’s record $1.5 trillion defense budget meant more hardware for their favorite fronts, not fewer soldiers in Europe and pauses on deliveries to Kyiv.
They block his deputies’ confirmations, accuse him of isolationism, and complain that he’s the hardest person in the administration to get on the phone — until Dan Sullivan literally texts “you need to get over here” and forces a Capitol Hill charm offensive.
Colby responds with hundreds of meetings, calling himself a “loyal lieutenant,” stressing that he spends hours a week with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and that Hegseth checks in with Trump before making decisions: if he were off base, he insists, he’d know.
In that sense, Colby’s real role isn’t just strategy; it’s forcing Republicans to admit that “America First” has a cost in places like Bucharest, Tallinn and Kyiv.
They can cheer the slogan, but someone has to sign the orders that turn it into fewer troops, slower aid and more “no” to partner wish lists.
Right now, that someone is the undersecretary of defense for policy — and his inbox is where the movement’s contradictions go to get ugly.
#USA #Trump #Pentagon #Colby #GOP #Ukraine #Iran #NATO #AmericaFirst #fakeDemocracy
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