News reports indicate that there is among some GOP senators opposition to President Donald Trump’s nominee for under secretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby. Colby, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development in the first Trump administration, is a realist China hawk who has called for prioritizing the Indo-Pacific over Europe and the Middle East. Fox News has identified Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton as leading the opposition to Colby based on Colby’s suggestion that the United States may have to settle for containing a nuclear-armed Iran. But it is more likely that the opposition to Colby centers in the NATO Firsters led by Armed Services Chair Sen. Roger Wicker.

Wicker has been a major supporter of NATO and NATO enlargement, remarking in 2018 that “NATO remains the cornerstone of transatlantic and global security.” And he has been a strong supporter of U.S. and NATO assistance to Ukraine in its war with Russia. He has called for ramping up military aid to Ukraine with the goal of achieving a victory over Russia. He criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for saying that Ukraine should abandon its hopes of NATO membership. Wicker previously suggested that the U.S. could send American troops to Ukraine and didn’t rule out a first use of nuclear weapons against Russian forces.
Colby, on the other hand, agrees with Trump that America’s interests would be best served by arranging for a ceasefire in Ukraine leading to a negotiated settlement to end the war. Colby has had the temerity to observe that our military assistance to Ukraine has depleted the limited resources we have to contain China in the western Pacific. He has suggested that the European members of NATO are best situated to help Ukraine against Russia. “Europe,” he said, “is much more capable of handling Russia ... on its own. I’m not saying we abandon Europe, but [it can be] much more on its own than Asia is.” Colby, in other words, really wants to pivot to A...