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Elbridge Colby volition present presume the Pentagon’s number 3 station aft a contentious Senate conflict ended successful a ballot to corroborate him to the role.
The Senate voted 51 to 45 to corroborate the nationalist information strategist arsenic Defense Department undersecretary for policy, with 3 Democrats joining astir Republicans successful voting successful his favor. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was the lone Republican nary vote.
Colby successfully overcame skepticism from GOP hawks similar Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who disquieted implicit his erstwhile statements connected Iran, adjacent arsenic helium mislaid the erstwhile Senate bulk leader.
"Elbridge Colby’s agelong nationalist grounds suggests a willingness to discount the complexity of the challenges facing America, the captious worth of our allies and partners, and the urgent request to put successful hard powerfulness to sphere American primacy," McConnell said successful a connection aft the vote.
"The prioritization that Mr. Colby argues is fresh, new, and urgently needed is, successful fact, a instrumentality to an Obama-era conception of à la carte geostrategy. Abandoning Ukraine and Europe and downplaying the Middle East to prioritize the Indo-Pacific is not a clever geopolitical chess move. It is geostrategic self-harm that emboldens our adversaries and drives wedges betwixt America and our allies for them to exploit."
Colby, a co-founder of the Marathon Initiative and a erstwhile lawman adjunct caput of defence for strategy and unit improvement nether the Trump administration, is champion known for his relation successful authoring the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which reoriented semipermanent subject strategy toward a large powerfulness contention with China.
VANCE VISITS CAPITOL HILL TO URGE SENATORS TO CONFIRM ELBRIDGE COLBY FOR PENTAGON NO. 3 POST
Elbridge Colby volition present presume the Pentagon’s fig 3 station aft a contentious Senate conflict ended successful a ballot to corroborate him to the role. (Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
He has agelong argued the U.S. military needs to bounds its resources successful the Middle East to pivot to the Indo-Pacific region. Colby had staunch backing from Trump’s interior circle, which turned up the vigor connected Senate Republicans to get down his confirmation.
Colby had tempered immoderate of his earlier statements, including 1 that suggested surviving with a atomic Iran was safer than bombing Iran’s atomic sites, and 1 that suggested the U.S. could "live without" Taiwan.
Pressed by Cotton during his confirmation hearing, Colby said helium believes Iran to beryllium an "existential" menace to the U.S.
"Yes, a nuclear-armed Iran – especially, Senator, fixed that… we cognize they’ve worked connected ICBM-range capabilities and different capabilities that would airs an existential information to the United States," Colby said.
Colby had the staunch backing of Trump's interior circle, including Vice President JD Vance. ( Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
He promised to supply "credible bully subject options" to the president if diplomacy with Iran fails.
"The lone happening worse than the imaginable of an Iran equipped with atomic weapons would beryllium [the] consequences of utilizing unit to effort to halt them," Colby had said successful 2012.
"I would accidental a batch of what I was arguing against astatine the time, these conversations 15 years ago, a batch of the opponents I felt had a casual oregon successful immoderate cases adjacent flippant cognition toward the employment of subject force," Colby explained astatine the hearing. "That’s a batch of what I was arguing against. Was my wording ever appropriate? Was my precise framing ever appropriate? No."
Sen. Tom Cotton pressed Colby connected his past comments connected Iran. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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"Your views connected Taiwan’s importance to the United States seems to person softened considerably," Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told Colby astatine 1 constituent during the hearing.
"What I person been trying to sprout a awesome flare implicit is that it is captious for america to absorption and alteration our ain forces for an effectual and tenable defence of Taiwan and for the Taiwanese, arsenic good arsenic the Japanese, to bash more," said Colby.
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