A testy hearing for the Pentagon policy chief nominee on Tuesday underscored the increasingly public schism in the GOP over the administration’s treatment of Ukraine.
Elbridge Colby, who has for years supported shifting resources away from Europe and the Middle East to focus on China, sought to defend that perspective — hours after President Donald Trump froze aid to Ukraine.
But he faced pushback from the more traditional wing of the party that advocates continued American involvement in those regions. The tension spotlighted the challenges some Republicans face in reconciling their views with Donald Trump’s unorthodox efforts to remake global alliances.
Republican Divide Over Foreign Policies
“It goes without saying that the elephant in this hearing room today is the recent developments with regard to Ukraine and Russia and this administration,” Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said. “I was disappointed and dismayed as I watched the televised meeting involving the president of the United States and President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy.”
Wicker warned the U.S. “cannot simply pivot” militarily between regions of the world, arguing China would see a pullback elsewhere as an opportunity.
“Beijing is not pivoting between theaters or among theaters,” he said. “Significant American withdrawal in Europe, Africa, South America or the Middle East will allow the Chinese Communist Party to overcome us.”
Colby’s Defense Strategy
Colby, a former Pentagon official during Trump’s first term, was the primary architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which refocused the military on competition with Russia and China. He has spent more than two decades in policy roles at the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence community, and is known for his “realist” approach to foreign affairs.
And he’s a key figure in the White House’s “America First” worldview. The Trump administration is increasingly at odds with the Republican Party’s defense hawks, viewing them as barriers to policies more in line with American interests.
Trump officials, in the weeks leading up to the hearing, sought to ensure the divisions didn’t disrupt Colby’s confirmation. That continued Tuesday when Vice President JD Vance, in a rare move, introduced the nominee. Vance noted his views have “alienated” both parties but argued he “saw around corners that very few other people were seeing around.”
He told senators that Colby is “the type of perspective that we need so desperately at the Department of Defense.”
Challenges and Controversies
Colby defended his priorities, arguing the U.S. couldn’t focus on everything at once — at least without putting the defense industrial base on steroids.
“I don’t want to abandon the Middle East; I don’t want a nuclear Iran; I don’t want Russia to run roughshod over Europe; I don’t want North Korea to take over South Korea,” he said. “But if we know as a factual, empirical matter that we can’t do all those things on even remotely concurrent timelines, don’t we need to have a credible plan for how to do so?”
But some Republicans have struggled with the administration’s reprioritizing, especially its advances toward Russia and Trump’s criticism of Zelensksyy.
Confronting Stances on Iran and Taiwan
Lawmakers also challenged Colby’s past views favoring containment over intervention in Iran.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who critics accused of trying to tank Colby’s confirmation, confronted the nominee over his previous views that the U.S. might be able to tolerate and contain a nuclear-armed Iran — as opposed to trying to prevent the country from obtaining nuclear weapons at all.
Colby agreed Iran could evolve into an “existential threat” due to its work on intercontinental ballistic missiles. He said he would provide the president credible, realistic military options instead of, as Cotton said, “simply saying ‘we can give Israel some bombs and they can take care of it.’”
Cotton also pressed Colby over his “softened” stances on Taiwan. Colby had previously called for U.S. security guarantees for Taiwan and then reversed that stance, saying the island isn’t an essential interest.
Colby agreed that his view had evolved based on a worsening military balance with China and called for Taiwan to increase its defense spending.
“I’ve always said that Taiwan is very important to the United States, but as you said, it’s not an existential interest,” Colby said. “The core American interest is in denying China regional hegemony.”
Colby did manage to find common ground with defense hawks when he called for “revamping and restoring” defense manufacturing as part of a “broader reindustrialization.”
