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You had to wait for it. It didn’t come until nearly two hours into the all-but-scripted hearing on Jay Clayton’s nomination to be the new boss of U.S. intelligence.
Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee did their parts. They threw the expected jabs at Clayton, starting with the ritualized question on who won the 2020 presidential election, a Punch-and-Judy exercise every time a Trump nominee or official appears before them. None of the witnesses can muster the courage to say simply, “Joe Biden won the election.” They know a Trumpian trap door would open under them f they told the truth.
So, too, did Clayton, who entered the high ceilinged, walnut paneled, warmly lit Capitol Hill hearing room with his reputation yet unsoiled, demur. No matter that neither of his previous government stints—as Securities and Exchange commissioner in the first Trump term and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in this one—remotely qualified him for the job, which by law requires the holder have “extensive national security expertise.” His major qualification for the nomination was fealty to Trump. His major qualification for the job was that he wasn’t the guy there now, MAGA apparatchik Bill Pulte.
But Clayton quickly made clear how far he was prepared to debase himself.
The EU’s SAFE program to prioritize domestic arms procurement over U.S. purchases is only a logical consequence of the MAGA shakedown of the last eighteen months, a shakedown that has coincided with Colby’s various side hustles. See the serial pauses on Biden-authorised aid packages to Ukraine, or the cancellation of cross-border strike authorisation using Western munitions — an authority since mercifully transferred to SACEUR in opposition to Colby. SAFE also looks prescient in light of the stockpile shortages and reported hiccups in foreign deliveries resulting from the Iran war.
As Joni notes, you don’t get to tell the Europeans they must become militarily independent and autonomous because they’re on their own, only to then dictate terms about who they can and can’t buy weapons from.
Also important to remember is that Colby is despised most of all by Republican defense and security hawks in Congress. I mean to say, they really, really hate him.
This is why whole sections of the NDAA were written to shackle him vis-a-vis Ukraine aid and U.S. troop withdrawals from Europe. (Rubio stopped the latest attempt by DoD; and while the headlines attributed that attempt to Hegseth, who is busy worrying about the T levels of the enlisted, it is always Colby shaping Pentagon decision-making.) This is also why Kirill Dmitriev, whose efforts to broker rapprochement between Moscow and Washington now lie in ruins, is amplifying Colby’s pompous and hypocritical nonsense on Twitter, while the same Republican hawks in Congress advance Lindsey Graham’s sanctions bill with Trump’s evident consent.
And it’s not just Europe being bullied anymore.
At the weekend, the FT reported that erstwhile booster of a “pivot to Asia” has taken to hectoring the Japanese and Australians about their pre-commitments to defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack. Colby is now using a snap Pentagon review of AUKUS to muscle Canberra over as-yet-undelivered U.S. submarines (no doubt to great bellylaughter in Paris).
Even “ideal” allies that tick all the MAGA boxes eventually get treated like the help by this entitled asshole, who only pretends to have strategic prerogatives and principles, but who has burnt so many bridges, as it were, he’s got more enemies at home than abroad.Joni Askola (@joni_askola)Elbridge Colby wants the benefits of an empire without any of the responsibilities.
Elbridge Colby’s latest lecturing of US allies shows just how out of touch Washington is with the reality of its own decline. He wants to have it both ways, but his logic is falling apart.
The current Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colby, has a track record defined by failing to deliver his promised pivot to Asia and advocating for policies that cost countless Ukrainian lives.
Despite this, he is currently trying to tell middle powers how to manage their defense. During both of Trump’s terms, the US urged Europe and other allies to spend more and stop relying on American taxpayers. It was a reasonable point, and allies are finally taking steps to increase their defense capabilities.
But the moment these countries try to build a collective middle power strategy, Colby starts warning them against it. In a recent X thread, he argued that allies should not build up their own defense industrial bases because they cannot compete with the US. He wants them to spend more, but only to buy American weapons, ensuring they stay entirely dependent on US goodwill.
You simply cannot have it both ways. In the past, relying on US weapons made sense because the US guaranteed security. But Colby is asking allies to maintain their dependence while the US actively disengages, reduces European troop levels, cuts aid to Ukraine, starts trade wars, and appeases shared adversaries. If the US is going to behave like an unreliable partner, why would Denmark, Canada, or any European country spend billions on US weapons instead of investing in their own domestic industries and cutting their dependence?
You cannot destroy your own geopolitical leverage and still expect allies to blindly follow your demands.
Trust is a currency, and the US has spent the last 18 months destroying it. Had Washington stood by Ukraine and maintained its commitments, it would have the leverage to negotiate. Instead, they destroyed their own influence, and no one is going to sacrifice their own industrial sovereignty for a partner that is already walking out the door— https://x.com/joni_askola/status/2077308336010113363