Latest news with #ElbridgeColby
Russia Today
27-05-2025
- Business
- Russia Today
US troop withdrawal from Europe expected in ‘coming months'
The US is expected to announce a reduction in its military presence in Europe in the 'coming months,' the German daily Handelsblatt has reported, citing 'high-ranking European diplomats.' The scale of the pullout is still unclear, but NATO is reportedly making preparations, according to the paper. The pullout could be linked to the new US national defense strategy, according to EU sources contacted by the newspaper. The document is expected to be ready by the end of summer, the report said. Washington needs to focus its efforts on countering China as it is not prepared for a potential confrontation with Beijing, according to US Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby, who was approached by Handelsblatt. Rumors about a potential pullout have been circulating in the media ever since NBC News reported in April that the US was considering withdrawing up to 10,000 troops from Eastern Europe. US President Donald Trump later confirmed that he is considering a partial withdrawal but did not elaborate on either its scale or timetable. In mid-May, the US ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, said Washington plans to start talks about a potential pullout with other NATO members following the bloc's summit in June. 'We are not going to have any more patience for foot dragging in this situation,' he said at the time, while admitting that 'nothing has been determined' yet. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz publicly denied speculation about a US pullout during a visit to Lithuania this week. 'We currently have no indication that the United States of America will withdraw troops from Europe,' he told journalists at a joint press conference with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda in Vilnius. The cost of replacing the US equipment and personnel following a withdrawal could amount to around $1 trillion over 25 years, Politico reported earlier in May, citing a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. As of early 2025, there were nearly 84,000 US troops stationed in Europe, with the largest concentrations in Germany and Poland, and smaller deployments in Romania, Estonia, and Lithuania, according to the US European Command.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pentagon may downgrade Ukraine-focused office amid policy restructure, media reports
The Pentagon may soon downgrade the office responsible for overseeing U.S. military policy toward Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, three former U.S. defense officials and two European officials told Defense News. As part of a broader policy realignment, this office would be merged into the Pentagon's Europe and NATO office, reducing its prominence despite its critical role since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While no staff cuts are currently planned, the restructuring would mark a demotion for an office that helped coordinate the delivery of over $130 billion in security aid to Ukraine, roughly half of which came from the United States. Under former director Laura Cooper, the office also played a key role in organizing a coalition of 50 countries that has met 27 times to support Ukraine. Cooper left her role in December, and the office is now led by an acting official. The office and its Europe and NATO counterpart both report to the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, a role currently held by an acting official as nominee Daniel Zimmerman awaits Senate confirmation. Sources say the decision is not final, but multiple former officials view the shift as part of a larger pivot away from Ukraine under President Trump's second term. Current Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby has advocated for reducing U.S. military assistance to Ukraine to prioritize deterrence efforts in Asia. During a February visit to NATO headquarters, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth emphasized that European allies should take on greater responsibility for continental security, including Ukraine. "Leaders of our European allies should take primary responsibility for defense of the continent," Hegseth said. Former U.S. officials have raised concerns that combining the offices would create an unmanageable workload for the director. David Baker, who now leads the Europe and NATO office, is reportedly fielding high interest from European governments seeking clarity ahead of the June NATO summit. "It will be very hard for a single DASD to handle that many important [and] high maintenance countries," one former official told Defense News. Meanwhile, although intelligence sharing and previously scheduled aid to Ukraine continue, new funding has stalled. The Pentagon still has under $4 billion in authority to ship weapons to Kyiv but no funds to replenish its own stockpiles. We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Japan Times
09-04-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
U.S. confirms new Pentagon No. 3 as Japan defense budget in crosshairs
The U.S. Senate has confirmed Elbridge Colby to be the Defense Department's policy chief, bringing to the Pentagon's No. 3 post a known China hawk and advocate for Asian allies — including Japan — to spend more on defense. The Senate voted 54-45 in favor of Colby to be the new undersecretary of defense for policy, a vote that was largely along party lines. Colby, who served as U.S. President Donald Trump's deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development during the president's first term, has also been a strong advocate for the U.S. military to shift its focus from Europe and the Middle East to China — especially in terms of preventing conflict with Beijing over self-ruled Taiwan. These views will likely align with those of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who, according to a top secret memo, is reportedly looking to shift the Pentagon's focus to deterring a Chinese invasion of the democratic island it claims as its own. The memo also says the Pentagon will 'assume risk in other theaters' given personnel and resource constraints, and pressure allies in East Asia, Europe and the Middle East to hike their defense budgets in order to take on the bulk of the deterrence roles against Russian, North Korean and Iranian threats, The Washington Post reported late last month. During confirmation hearings last month, Colby said that Japan and Taiwan must dramatically ramp up defense spending in order to deter war with China. Japan, which is in the process of aiming to spend 2% of gross domestic product on defense by fiscal 2027, must boost its defense spending even further, he said, hiking this to 'at least 3% of GDP ... as soon as possible.' Colby called Japan's push to revamp its security and defense policies, including its five-year, ¥43 trillion (roughly $315 billion when it was announced in 2022) spending plan, 'critical and most welcome,' but said it remained 'manifestly inadequate.' Noting Trump's push for NATO and others to also spend more, Colby said that "it makes little sense for Japan, which is directly threatened by China and North Korea, to spend only 2%.' 'As the president has rightly said, allies need to spend far more on their own defense, especially those that are most acutely threatened,' he added. "The best way for the United States to support this shift is to make these priorities and urgency clear to Tokyo in a constructive but pressing fashion.' While the Japanese government has emphasized that Tokyo's 'initiative to fundamentally strengthen its defense capabilities' has been a big step for the ostensibly pacifist nation, Heseth hinted during a visit to the U.S. ally last month that Japan would be asked to do even more, saying he hoped it would "make the correct determination of what capabilities are needed." Colby has taken an even more strident view of Taiwan, saying that it must more than quadruple its defense budget from the 2.45% of GDP this year. 'They should be more like 10%, or at least something in that ballpark, really focused on their defense,' Colby told a hearing last month. 'So we need to properly incentivize them.' Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te has pledged to hike the island's defense budget to 3% of GDP in the near future, in a move intended to show Trump that it is committed to defending itself. Beijing views democratic Taiwan as a renegade province that must be united with the mainland, by force if necessary. The United States, meanwhile, switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, but has maintained unofficial relations with Taiwan and is bound by law to supply the island with weapons to help it defend itself. Fears of a U.S. conflict with China over Taiwan — one that would almost certainly drag in Tokyo — have prompted some in Japan to refer to such a crisis as an existential one. Colby, however, told the same hearing that while "Taiwan's fall would be a disaster for American interests," the island's status was not an "existential interest" for the United States.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Elbridge Colby confirmed to top Pentagon policy post after hesitation from GOP hawks
Elbridge Colby will now assume the Pentagon's number three post after a contentious Senate battle ended in a vote to confirm him to the role. The Senate voted 51 to 45 to confirm the national security strategist as Defense Department undersecretary for policy, with three Democrats joining most Republicans in voting in his favor. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was the lone Republican no vote. Colby successfully overcame skepticism from GOP hawks like Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who worried over his previous statements on Iran, even as he lost the former Senate majority leader. "Elbridge Colby's long public record suggests a willingness to discount the complexity of the challenges facing America, the critical value of our allies and partners, and the urgent need to invest in hard power to preserve American primacy," McConnell said in a statement after the vote. "The prioritization that Mr. Colby argues is fresh, new, and urgently needed is, in fact, a return to an Obama-era conception of à la carte geostrategy. Abandoning Ukraine and Europe and downplaying the Middle East to prioritize the Indo-Pacific is not a clever geopolitical chess move. It is geostrategic self-harm that emboldens our adversaries and drives wedges between America and our allies for them to exploit." Colby, a co-founder of the Marathon Initiative and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development under the Trump administration, is best known for his role in authoring the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which reoriented long-term military strategy toward a great power competition with China. Read On The Fox News App Vance Visits Capitol Hill To Urge Senators To Confirm Elbridge Colby For Pentagon No. 3 Post He has long argued the U.S. military needs to limit its resources in the Middle East to pivot to the Indo-Pacific region. Colby had staunch backing from Trump's inner circle, which turned up the heat on Senate Republicans to get behind his confirmation. Colby had tempered some of his earlier statements, including one that suggested living with a nuclear Iran was safer than bombing Iran's nuclear sites, and one that suggested the U.S. could "live without" Taiwan. Pressed by Cotton during his confirmation hearing, Colby said he believes Iran to be an "existential" threat to the U.S. "Yes, a nuclear-armed Iran – especially, Senator, given that… we know they've worked on ICBM-range capabilities and other capabilities that would pose an existential danger to the United States," Colby said. Maga Loyalists Take Aim At Gop Senator As Key Trump Defense Post Sparks Controversy: 'Why The Opposition?' He promised to provide "credible good military options" to the president if diplomacy with Iran fails. "The only thing worse than the prospect of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons would be [the] consequences of using force to try to stop them," Colby had said in 2012. "I would say a lot of what I was arguing against at the time, these conversations 15 years ago, a lot of the opponents I felt had a casual or in some cases even flippant attitude toward the employment of military force," Colby explained at the hearing. "That's a lot of what I was arguing against. Was my wording always appropriate? Was my precise framing always appropriate? No." "Your views on Taiwan's importance to the United States seems to have softened considerably," Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told Colby at one point during the hearing. "What I have been trying to shoot a signal flare over is that it is vital for us to focus and enable our own forces for an effective and reasonable defense of Taiwan and for the Taiwanese, as well as the Japanese, to do more," said article source: Elbridge Colby confirmed to top Pentagon policy post after hesitation from GOP hawks
Fox News
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Elbridge Colby confirmed to top Pentagon policy post after hesitation from GOP hawks
Elbridge Colby will now assume the Pentagon's number three post after a contentious Senate battle ended in a vote to confirm him to the role. The Senate voted 51 to 45 to confirm the national security strategist as Defense Department undersecretary for policy, with three Democrats joining most Republicans in voting in his favor. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was the lone Republican no vote. Colby successfully overcame skepticism from GOP hawks like Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who worried over his previous statements on Iran, even as he lost the former Senate majority leader. "Elbridge Colby's long public record suggests a willingness to discount the complexity of the challenges facing America, the critical value of our allies and partners, and the urgent need to invest in hard power to preserve American primacy," McConnell said in a statement after the vote. "The prioritization that Mr. Colby argues is fresh, new, and urgently needed is, in fact, a return to an Obama-era conception of à la carte geostrategy. Abandoning Ukraine and Europe and downplaying the Middle East to prioritize the Indo-Pacific is not a clever geopolitical chess move. It is geostrategic self-harm that emboldens our adversaries and drives wedges between America and our allies for them to exploit." Colby, a co-founder of the Marathon Initiative and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development under the Trump administration, is best known for his role in authoring the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which reoriented long-term military strategy toward a great power competition with China. He has long argued the U.S. military needs to limit its resources in the Middle East to pivot to the Indo-Pacific region. Colby had staunch backing from Trump's inner circle, which turned up the heat on Senate Republicans to get behind his confirmation. Colby had tempered some of his earlier statements, including one that suggested living with a nuclear Iran was safer than bombing Iran's nuclear sites, and one that suggested the U.S. could "live without" Taiwan. Pressed by Cotton during his confirmation hearing, Colby said he believes Iran to be an "existential" threat to the U.S. "Yes, a nuclear-armed Iran – especially, Senator, given that… we know they've worked on ICBM-range capabilities and other capabilities that would pose an existential danger to the United States," Colby said. He promised to provide "credible good military options" to the president if diplomacy with Iran fails. "The only thing worse than the prospect of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons would be [the] consequences of using force to try to stop them," Colby had said in 2012. "I would say a lot of what I was arguing against at the time, these conversations 15 years ago, a lot of the opponents I felt had a casual or in some cases even flippant attitude toward the employment of military force," Colby explained at the hearing. "That's a lot of what I was arguing against. Was my wording always appropriate? Was my precise framing always appropriate? No." "Your views on Taiwan's importance to the United States seems to have softened considerably," Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told Colby at one point during the hearing. "What I have been trying to shoot a signal flare over is that it is vital for us to focus and enable our own forces for an effective and reasonable defense of Taiwan and for the Taiwanese, as well as the Japanese, to do more," said Colby.
