President Donald Trump’s pick to lead policy for the Pentagon wouldn’t say that Russia invaded Ukraine, making him the second top Defense Department nominee in a week to equivocate on the question in a confirmation hearing.
“The president and the vice president have been very clear that words matter, and I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to be commenting on these delicate topics,” said Elbridge Colby, a former Pentagon official nominated to be the undersecretary of defense for policy, during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
Colby’s repeated hesitancy to acknowledge the fact came a week after billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg also wouldn’t do so in his confirmation hearing to be deputy defense secretary. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has similarly refused to publicly acknowledge Russia’s 2022 invasion, saying it wouldn’t help end the war.
The reluctance comes amid a dramatic shift in U.S. policy toward the war in Ukraine. The White House on Monday night paused all remaining military aid to Kyiv, holding up hundreds of millions of dollars in ammunition and other equipment. The deliveries had been staggered before Trump returned to the White House to maintain a steady supply of arms for Ukraine for months ahead.
Prompting the choice was a disastrous visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week. Rather than signing a deal to share rare earth minerals in exchange for U.S. support, Zelenskyy ended up in a spat with Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who publicly berated him.
In a social media post Tuesday, Zelenskyy called the meeting “regrettable” and said Ukraine wanted to start negotiations as soon as possible.
The breakdown was sure to grab attention at Colby’s hearing, since he’s been an outspoken critic of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, and Vance, a longtime friend, introduced him.
“It goes without saying that the elephant in this hearing room today is the recent developments with regard to Ukraine and Russia,” said Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
At one point, in response to questioning from Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Colby said that Russia sending troops across the border into Ukraine three years ago was a “factual reality.” Still, he declined to call that act an “invasion” when prompted by other Democratic senators, many of whom, like Wicker, wore Ukrainian flag pins to the hearing.
Colby’s core argument is that the U.S. military is overextended and that the country risks losing a war abroad unless it trims its foreign commitments. Most forcefully, he’s argued America should redirect military assets from Europe and the Middle East toward Asia to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
His opinions contrast with those of traditional Republican defense hawks, many of whom argue instead that the U.S. needs to surge the defense budget to meet its needs around the world. Wicker, in particular, has called for a dramatic rise in military spending and gently countered Colby’s arguments early in Tuesday’s hearing.
“We cannot simply pivot our attention and resources from one threat to another,” Wicker said.
Colby’s willingness to argue against the establishment of his own party resulted in testy questions from other Republicans on the committee, and at times, the nominee hedged on past positions. Despite previous ambivalence on the topic, Colby agreed with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., that Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon would be an “existential threat” to America.
At Wicker’s prompting, Colby also distanced himself from other Pentagon policy officials who have argued the U.S. has little interest in the Middle East or should halt a defense buildup with countries around China.
Thus far, the Pentagon’s top priority under Hegseth has been a surge of military equipment and personnel to the U.S.-Mexico border — most recently including a brigade equipped with Strykers, armored vehicles heavily used in past wars in the Middle East.
When asked whether that was the right way to prioritize America’s scarce military resources, as he has called for, Colby said he would continue to push for a focus on China.
“I would certainly make it a real priority to make sure that those rightful efforts to ensure our territorial integrity and secure our border don’t detract from our prioritizing the China threat, which is the biggest kind of external state threat that we face as a country,” he said.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
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