Elbridge Colby and the Return of Republican Realism

 

by Alexander Zaitchik

This story is co-published with Drop Site News and Truthdig

On November 13, Elbridge Colby appeared on CNN to discuss and defend Donald Trump’s selection of Peter Hegseth to run the Pentagon. The role of explaining the president-elect’s foreign policy ideas had by then become a familiar one for Colby, who served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the first Trump administration. Throughout the summer and fall, he was a go-to guest for cable news segments on what an “America First” foreign policy would mean for the world. As he described it to CNBC in July, it did not signify a turn inward, toward isolationism, but backward, toward an older “practical, common-sense approach” to statecraft that included “sparing” use of the military and an Eisenhowerian attunement to the economic costs of security competition. It became a ritual in these appearances for Colby to coyly deflect speculation over his own possible role, fueled by his presence on shortlists for national security advisor and secretary of defense.

Following Trump’s victory, this speculation became aggressive advocacy on the part of Colby’s supporters. On November 10, Tucker Carlson began an in-person interview with the 45-year-old veteran of the Pentagon and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence by describing him as “one of the very few people with deep experience in national security who shares the president’s priorities on national security,” and expressed his desire for Colby to play a “big role” in the administration. The Washington Examiner’s Tom Rogan urged the president-elect “to appoint Colby to a senior national security position, perhaps as Secretary of Defense or CIA director.” Sharing the Carlson interview on X, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote: “More than most of the FP appointments, what happens with [Colby] will be a sign of whether the Trump WH is aiming for strategic coherence and an explicit ‘realist’ commitment this time around, as opposed to a more ad hoc team of ideological rivals.”

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Source: Drop Site News