A flurry of anonymous sources are aiming for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby’s scalp, accusing him of “blindsiding” the White House and angering U.S. allies by directing “rogue” policy moves to further his “neo-isolationist” world view.

Politico, citing “seven people familiar with the situation,” claims that Republican hawks are concerned that Colby “is sapping Trump’s foreign policy of its strength at a key moment.” A “senior GOP aide” is quoted as saying that “Colby has just undercut the president [on NATO and Iran] and squandered his boss’ leverage.” Another unnamed source claims that Colby is “pi**ing off just about everyone I know in the administration.” While a supposed State Department source remarked about Colby: “Who is this f***ing guy?” (RELATED: The Importance of Elbridge Colby)

The specific policy moves for which Colby is being attacked are pausing shipments of weapons to Ukraine, reviewing the AUKUS Pact, questioning the U.K.’s decision to send an aircraft carrier to Asia, and urging Japan to spend more on defense. But the broader reason for the anti-Colby cabal’s attacks is Colby’s well-known policy position, which prioritizes the Indo-Pacific over Europe and the Middle East. (RELATED: NATO Firsters vs. Elbridge Colby)

Colby, who in the first Trump administration was primarily responsible for the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which announced a needed shift from fighting peripheral wars to focusing on great power competition, is a leading policy voice for Trump’s America First approach to the world. Colby, rightly, sees China and the Indo-Pacific as the most important geopolitical region — more important than Europe or the Middle East. He has, rightly, expressed concern that our diversion of resources to the Ukraine war and the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East is straining our capabilities to deter China in the western Pacific.

As a national security realist, Colby recognizes that American power and resources are not unlimited. He further recognizes that there is only one global power that poses an existential threat to the United States: China. Colby’s world view, therefore, clashes with influential vested interests at the Pentagon, in the State Department, in NATO, and in what President Eisenhower accurately labeled the “military-industrial complex.”

His worldview also clashes with the “liberal internationalist” and neoconservative world view that seeks to reshape much of the world in America’s image. These vested interests are embedded in what President Trump and many of his supporters call the “deep state,” the permanent bureaucracy that views presidents as mere passers-by in their imperial capital. It is quite likely that the anonymous sources quoted in the Politico article and elsewhere inhabit one or more of those vested interests.

Several administration spokespersons have come to Colby’s defense, noting that Colby’s worldview and policy positions are consistent with those of President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. And while it is true that President Trump ended the pause of supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine in the face of unprecedented and increasingly deadly Russian drone strikes, there is no indication that Trump seeks to significantly expand America’s role in the conflict. Indeed, Trump has repeatedly said he wants to bring the war to an end.

The neocons and the military-industrial complex were disappointed that Trump refused to transform his limited strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities into a broader war policy of regime change. Trump does not want to involve the United States in another endless war in that region — neither does Elbridge Colby.

Hopefully, the president, who has grown wise about the sometimes dark and deceptive ways of Washington, will see the attacks on Colby for what they really are: an attack on the president’s broader America First approach to the world. If the anti-Colby cabal is successful, they will have deprived President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth of the most thoughtful America First defense policy adviser in the administration. And our adversaries in the Chinese Communist Party will be happy.

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