Elbridge Colby

Elbridge A. Colby is an American national security policy professional who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development from 2017 to 2018 during the Trump administration. He played a key role in the development of the 2018 U.S. National Defense Strategy, which, among other things, shifted the U.S. Defense Department's focus to challenges posed by China's rise.

In June 2018, Colby was appointed as Director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). In 2019 he co-founded The Marathon Initiative with Wess Mitchell.

Education and early career
Colby graduated from Harvard College in 2002, and from Yale Law School in 2009. His early career included over five years of service with the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and in the Intelligence Community, including a period of service with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2003. Colby also served in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence during its stand-up in 2005–2006.

From 2010 to 2013, Colby was principal analyst and division lead for global strategic affairs at CNA, a federally funded nonprofit research and analysis organization. From 2014 to 2017, Colby was the Robert M. Gates fellow at the Center for a New American Security. In 2015, Colby was considered for a top job in Jeb Bush's 2016 presidential campaign, but was not hired after "prominent, interventionist neoconservatives" objected.

Trump administration
In May 2017, Colby was appointed the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, a role in which he served into 2018. In this role, Colby was responsible for defense strategy, force development, and strategic analysis for policy for the Secretary of Defense. Colby served as the primary Defense Department representative in the development of the 2017 National Security Strategy.

While Deputy Assistant Secretary, Colby served as the lead official in the development and rollout of the department's strategic planning guidance, the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS). The NDS posited: "Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security," and "the central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term strategic competition," primarily from China and Russia. Going further, Colby said the "central challenge facing the department of defense and the joint force [is] the erosion of U.S. military advantage vis a vis China and Russia."

Politico reported that in re-orienting American defense resources away from the Middle East and towards China, Colby faced considerable bureaucratic infighting from U.S. Central Command and the Joint Staff, but received support from the Air Force and the Navy.

Later career
After leaving the Department of Defense in 2018, Colby returned to the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where he continued to work on defense issues until 2019. He then launched The Marathon Initiative, a think tank devoted to developing strategies for the US to compete with global rivals.

In 2021, Colby expanded on his views in his first book, The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict, which The Wall Street Journal named a Ten Best Book of 2021.

More recently, despite the challenges posed by a resurgent Russia, Colby has continued to publicly state the principal challenge facing America is China: "[W]e need to be absolutely clear: Without question, the top external threat to America is China—by far." Colby continues that this reality necessarily means America must prioritize investment of attention and resources on China, including a reduction in support for Ukraine. Colby said that "it is in America's interest to avoid [Ukrainian defeat], but we must pursue that interest in a manner consistent with our highest priority of restoring a formidable denial defense along Asia’s first island chain."

Selected publications

 * The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict (Yale University Press, 2021)