Munich Security Conference Special with Elbridge Colby

[Music] Hello and welcome to the world in 30 minutes. The Bobcast on the events, policies and ideas that will shape the world in the European Council on Foreign Relations. This is a special episode which is coming to you live from the Munich Security Conference. We are putting a number of episodes out, but I thought people might want to listen to this because it was such a fascinating insight into the thinking at the heart of the Trump administration. Earlier on today I recorded a conversation with Elbridge Colby who is the Undersecretary for Policy at the Department of War and this is one of his only on the record sessions and asked him lots of questions about the future of American defense strategy and policy looking at the future of NATO at Ukraine at the Indo-Pacific and what's happening in Iran. His answers are absolutely fascinating and we want to put it out quickly so that people can listen to it. As the Pentagon's top civilian adviser on defense strategy bridge helps to shape the US approaches on major security challenges today, he's very well known for his defense work as a co-founder of the marathon initiative and his famous book called Strategy of Denial which I think many of us have read and enjoyed we're jockey that the US should prioritize its military goals and prepare to deter and if necessary win major conflict in order to prevent Chinese regional hegemony and bridge is no stranger to government he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy during the first Trump presidency where he played a key role in crafting the 2018 National Defense Strategy and we're very excited to welcome you back to Europe bridge I think this is your first visit to Europe since the since the election. It is marked thanks for the kind introduction and we're thrilled to be here with the ECFR and you guys are doing great work so pleasure to be with you. So your trip here comes just on the back of the release of the new National Defense Strategy which I'll use that Europe must assume primary responsibility for its own conventional defense and I'd like to talk to you about European security, about NATO, about Ukraine but also to look at some of these other big global issues in the Pacific maybe touch even on Iran and other issues like that but maybe before we start I first got to know you when you were when you were a think tanker and an intellectual writing brilliant papers being you know they part of the the national conversation on Twitter and then X later on and now you know you're doing what every think tanker dreams of which is actually implementing policy can you talk a little bit before we go into the substance just on a personal level about that transition from from the think tank to government which are the kind of big ideas which you were developing beforehand have managed to survive this encounter with reality which ones have you had to leap behind what's it been like is transition from from one kind of state of being to another well great well thanks a lot Mark I mean I'll say look it's an incredible honor to serve in President Trump's administration under Secretary Hegseth and I think it's a fundamentally different role where you're it's not about your ideas it's not about what you want to do it's about advancing the president's vision the secretary's vision which is a an America a first common sense you know flexible realism vision it's very my views my instincts are fully in line with that so I see my my role as advancing that vision obviously in the defense space and you know trying to make it a reality both in the short and the longer term within the defense establishment and with our allies and partners in other countries abroad so a lot of Europeans are trying to work out what America first means and and how the different parts of the defense strategy and posture fit together because we've seen lots of different things which seem to be pointing in in slightly different directions so maybe before we go through some of the different bits we could talk about how they all fit together we've seen a sort of militarization of the US homeland we've seen episodic interventions in Venezuela in the Middle East territorial claims on Greenland talk of regime change in Iran how do these things fit together if you had to come up with like with a bumper sticker to describe the coherent strategy which lies behind one of these different parts of American defense policy what would it be well thanks I mean I think I'll turn to national security strategy and I think it's very elegant and concise use of the term flexible realism and there's some thematic discussion in the first few pages of that of I think historic strategy from the White House that make clear what presence kind of the essence of present Trump's vision which is not realism in the sense of an academic theory that you know you teach in it in a in a university but kind of a hard-nosed common sense that the term common sense actually I think the president uses a lot and I don't think it gets as much pickup which is and again I think that America first idea is kind of putting regular Americans first and obviously that's you know whether that's obviously a contested thing but it's it's very different the defense strategy calls the cloud castle abstractions of the rules based on national order or something it's more saying is what we're doing going to benefit regular American so obviously something like securing the border or the you know the Venezuel operation they're like oh isn't this just a rock and I think a secretary Rubio has eloquently put it this is something much closer to Americans that it affects us in terms of migration flows narcotics flows instability in the hemisphere and it's an approach to using the military but also other instruments of national power you just saw secretary right down there in a way that's going to benefit Americans but also it's going to I mean it's been better for Venezuelans and there's a lot of support for it in the region so I think that's a sort of a clear example how that all fits together I think one of the things that you're trying to communicate in the strategies is obviously they're going to be events of the day of the week of the month but the the sort of tectonic structural shifts are in the direction of a more common sense I mean I know there was a peace for instance in the New York Times yesterday kind of implicitly criticizing the administration's approach to NATO I think our approach that that I tried to explicate you know but that is shared I think across the administration on NATO it really resonates and I saw it people get it you know that's the thing and that's one of the things that we're trying to you know say and I think secretary Rubio is going to going to talk about as well which is 2025 was a year to reframe to reorient and now I think actually we've got a lot of buy-in look at what Germany's doing I mean a historic tremendous shift in German not only increasing defense spending rapidly in an enormous scale but changing the constitution then of course you have countries like Poland that have been doing it you have countries like Finland that have been doing it for a while you have big shift in a country like Sweden Norway the Netherlands so there's a lot happening and now we're I think we've got a clear a very clear vision as Secretary General Ruta was pointing out and now it's let's work on this together that's America first but I think it's also going to be putting it's going to be better for for Europeans as well so why don't we unpack this whole question to about NATO and the future of European security you just gave a speech on that and in the national defense strategy let's talk about a Europeanized NATO in your speech you talked about going back to NATO 1.0 with allies stepping up and providing the the majority of conventional defense what does that look like in practice from your perspective well I think we've got the frame now and I think of it as NATO 3.0 but you're right it's a it's a return to NATO 1.0 I mean I think the aberration is actually what I think what we think of as NATO 2.0 which is the post 1989 world and I did something I really want to stress in light of like that in New York Times piece for instance is what I think President Trump and his administration are a shift from is not the post for order but the post cold war order which was much more rules based on national order liberal internationalism the United States bearing a disproportionate vastly disproportionate uh share of the burden in in considerable part at our responsibility because of the foreign foreign policy and political establishment that President Trump ran against and that's why I get back to those putting regular Americans first so it's not entire I'm not we're not putting this all on Europeans shoulders it's just the model doesn't work anymore if you go back to to the cold war I mean of course you have President Eisenhower and his vision uh you go back to the debates about the Washington Treaty in 1949 I mentioned the uh LBJ issue with with the balance of payments crisis actually in the 70s and 80s with the Mansfield Amendment uh burden sharing was actually a democratic issue uh in in many respects so you know the Lisbon commitments I think 1951 the allies were supposed to make very significant conventional forces didn't always meet them but you know in 1988 the the the federal Republic of Germany two thirds of the current West Germany had 12 active divisions along the inner German border that is actually we don't need to get to that level of remilitarization because as the national offense strategy makes clear Russia is a persistent threat to Europe but it's also a manageable one and we look at it more in a kind of dispassionate kind of military focus uh where if if we work together uh you know Europe has the the ability it had I think it increasingly has the will it has the wealth it has the technological basis and this is something I know the national security there was a lot of static around it, but I think the kind of synthesis of what the National Security Strategy is saying is we want vigorous, capable, more self-reliant European allies, which is I think a lot of what Europeans want to, and we're gonna be able to get there in a sort of transition period where there's gonna be some stuff to work through that's not necessarily gonna be easy, but I think where we are now and where my conversations yesterday and earlier today have been is much more concrete brass tax and less sort of the theology of the sort of post 1989 world. - So I like to talk about Russia a bit later, but while we're on this question about Europeans becoming the primary security providers for Europe and we're talking about brass tax, can we be a bit more specific about that? 'Cause in the past, there's been lots of focus on how much Europeans are spending on defense and you've got numerical targets, and that's obviously something which went up a lot in the hage. But what, actually in practical terms, how would you measure whether Europe is the primary security provider by say 2027 and later on? - Well, I mean a couple of things, the hage was a commitment and some countries like Germany and Poland and so forth are meeting them, others are not yet doing it. Some even have not even really made a realistic commitment, so we need to get that right. And as I said yesterday, ultimately those resources have to turn into ready forces and capabilities that can fight effectively to defend European NATO, but money is a critical prerequisite, so we can't ignore that, so that is critical. I think I can't get into too much of the specifics of what military sufficiency would look like, but I think that's a conversation that we're already having. We understand a lot, basically, the pain points. And I think as the conversation gets more brass tax, we can have a conversation about how to manage such a transition in light of challenges that we face around the world and the demands that we face around the world, Europe's going capacity, potential for things like co-production, co-development, et cetera, but the critical prerequisite there is a frame shift to I think this kind of NATO 3.0, which is don't fight the scenario and people aren't fighting the scenario. I think people have agreed to it, so let's get after it. And what are the consequences if countries doesn't make that transition? Well, I mean, first of all, I think they are. I mean, I think the United States and we made this clear in the defense strategy that the United States is going to prioritize relationships and things that we can do with those countries that are stepping up, the so-called model allies that we've talked about. And those are both countries that have been doing it for a while, Poland, Finland, et cetera, but also countries that are stepping up like Germany. So that's going to be where we're going to put our effort and if countries are, you know, but we're also going to understand that countries have different threat perceptions. I mean, I was in, I think, a big difference from this administration from the past is, in the last administration, you had the kind of one theater idea, which is not a militarily relevant idea 'cause obviously in the world of the military, you obviously have restrictions on range, et cetera, et cetera. We're thinking more about it in that flexible realism. We're not expecting everybody to have the same threat perception based on, you know, cloud castle abstractions and so-called norms, et cetera. We're going to work with countries where they are. Poland's going to have one threat perception. South Korea is going to have another threat perception. Australia is going to have another threat perception and we're going to try to get, you know, induce them or encourage them more to say, to focus on where their resolve is and that resolve is likely, more likely to translate into more significant resources and then we're always going to be there. Obviously, we're, you know, Article 5, et cetera, in this NATO 3.0 model or the other alliances we have I gave remarks in South Korea, this very similar approach on the Korean Peninsula and I got to give South Korea a ton of credit because they're the first non-NATO ally to hit the present and the global standard of 3.5% on core military spending and that's increasing how I was talking in NATO. I think everybody expects all of our allies to hit that target as soon as possible. That will be, that's sort of the new, the new standard. And is the logic of this NATO 3.0 that eventually you could end up with a European maybe even a German, SACCA or instead of an American? Well, I personally have been persuaded that there's tremendous value in maintaining a US SACCRA I'm obviously not my decision, but I think, I mean, we have a superb SACCRA in general, Greenekevitch and a great leadership. We have a superb Secretary General in Mark Ruta. So we have the right leadership team. I think we are already seeing transition in some of the command structure to one to the Europeans, one went to the Americans. I think we can be adaptive and the point is not to facilitate the withdrawal of the United States from NATO to the contrary, it's to put NATO on a more sustainable basis where the United States can and I believe should and will maintain its role in this new framework of NATO 3.0. And what does that mean for both postures? Well, I don't have any announcements to make. I mean, I think, you know, we're always looking at that. I think there's a lot of attention to the forces in Europe, the forces that are particularly in high demand and decisive for high-end conflict are not necessarily the forces that are in Europe. So it's, I understand why people are indexed on the forces in Europe, but I think the forces where we're really pressed to make sure that we've prioritized them appropriately are often forces that are being deployed from the United States or elsewhere. So I ask some like colleagues for some questions on these things. One of those asking whether in your vision, as we move towards, you're becoming primary security provider for the United States. Just to be, I think we're saying Europe will assume the primary responsibility for its conventional defense. The United States extended nuclear deterrent remains. Does that include Greenland? Well, I think we've got a great process going on. Secretary Rubio said with a political discussion with Denmark and Greenland, so I don't, you know, I think we're confident in that process and addressing the president's important concerns about Greenland. So you talked about the nuclear issue and obviously you said that the NATO defense ministerial was you just said now that the US will carry on providing extended nuclear deterrent. But I think there is some nervousness on this side of the Atlantic about the degree of US commitment providing Europe with a nuclear deterrent. And in your writing, before you went into government, in an Asian context, you were talking about how, actually, a bit of nuclear proliferation might not be a bad thing as part of shifting responsibility. What do you think about the idea of Europeans maybe developing more indigenous nuclear capabilities? Is that something that you might even quietly support? Well, a couple of points. First of all, my personal writings are not dis causative or determinative for the US government. Secondly, that's not what I said. I said that it would be not a good, not a good thing would be a bad thing. You said it might be the least bad. I don't know. There are things when you're ranking them at the end of a very bad chain of events. So I think it's important to be precise about the terminology there. It is worth pointing out that the official position of the Atlantic Alliance is that the independent forces of the United Kingdom and France contribute to the security of NATO. But I'm certainly not advocating to the country. We're not supporting friendly proliferation. Couple of things you mentioned reassurance. I think one of the key points and I see Professor Allison here in this field, I think understands this very well. Part of the point is I think we overreissured in the period after 1989, where it became so reassuring that any pressure or anxiety, you mentioned anxiety. A certain degree of anxiety is salutary because it leads to, and we're seeing that already. So I think what we're trying to do is calibrate it correctly where allies are internalizing that, yes, you really do need to do your part, but not so discombobulated or discombined as I see, but not panic. Yeah, that's actually, yeah. And I think that an anxiety that's like, if you had a near death experience or something and you've got to change your diet or whatever, it's good that you have that, you know, you want to be too reassured to use a medical analogy, right? I mean, you want to make sure that you take your medicine and change your diet and exercise. And we listen to European allies and we hear them and saying about the threat and the response will be, okay, let's get out for it, you know. So Ukraine is obviously a kind of huge issue, I mean, it's security conference every year and lots of people are thinking about that a lot. You have been quite skeptical about the idea of open-ended supports of Ukraine. And we've been seeing reports in the press recently that key US assets, especially air defense assets, are in short supply because of US efforts in the Middle East, US weapons provisions and sales to Ukraine. How do you, I mean, it's sorry, so this is gonna be a real, no, all right, let's see, I don't want to support it right on your phone. (laughing) Okay, I'm not trying to get this off recording. Okay. (laughing) There we go. So I'm sure we're just wondering how you see this, 'cause before you went, to government, you were very conscious of the fact that there are finite resources and you were worried about prioritizing them. How do you see Ukraine and the kind of provisions for Ukraine within that context now? Well, I'm gonna say again that my personal writings are not really the point, right? But I'm a public official and proud to serve in the under-present Trump, etc. Hegseth. I will say that said, I think we have been supporting Ukraine's self-defense, including with Patriot, you know, air defense munitions, which I think the United States deserves tremendous credit because those are very precious and we want more of them. I would say the administration's getting after this on its, I mean, I think I would highlight just the degree of commitment and I would say, for ever, that from the highest levels of the administration, we're bringing to, trying to increase the defense budget to 1.5 trillion to reforming the way and the productivity of our defense companies and our defense industrial base, both in national security strategy, national defense strategy called for a national mobilization. I mean, that's a big deal. So that's how seriously we're taking it. And then there was a good discussion yesterday as well. I think European allies need to dig in deep on their front, both in terms of their own stockpiles and in terms of their ability to produce as well, along obviously in that case, more kind of co-production. But I would say, I think the, I'd go back to kind of Secretary Rubius comments, for instance, on Venezuela. I think the administration is acutely conscious of the need to prioritize in line with American interests. But that's not the same thing as doing nothing. I mean, the president to his great credit is putting enormous effort through Steve Wicoff and Jared Kushner and others to try to bring this tragic war to an end. That has humanitarian reasons. It has political reasons. It has strategic military reasons. So I think the administration is definitely thinking about these issues and more than thinking about it is acting on them. And how optimistic are you about those efforts at the moment? Well, I'm not the right person to ask for the, for the close-in thing. I mean, I think we certainly hope for a peace agreement. And I think it's a reasonable prospect. I think we have a good reason for hope. We've got very able negotiators. I think we're putting a lot on the table, along with the Ukrainians, obviously very stout and commendable self-defense, that together-- and frankly, the negotiating space has narrowed a fair amount such that that gives us some degree of encouragement. But I'm not in a position to weigh in one thing or another. The thing that I would stress is that no matter what the branch or sequel you go down is, European Rearman is critical. Because whether the war goes on, the most important thing is going to be Ukraine that can defend itself backed by Europe with the resources and the willpower to take a greater share of that, much greater share of that defense. And if there is a peace in order to ensure and bake that in, if you look at the experience of Korea since 1953, the critical part of that is going to be a capable Ukraine and Europe that are well-armed and capable. So it's the kind of-- for Europe, the system or the deduction remains the same. What do you-- I mean, there's been increasing talk about security guarantees in the wake of a settlement. What do you expect from Europeans on security guarantees? What can one expect the US to provide by way of backstalk? Well, I think the security guarantees provision has been very ably negotiated by the team. And so I have nothing to add to that. But I'll just go back to the other point, again, which is that security guarantees are great. They got to be backed by real strength. And that's something about this administration. I think all of us under the president's leadership is in Secretary Higgseth. I know we focus on this. We're looking at what you can deliver and less about what you say. And that's a big difference, I would say, from the last administration, more words or whatever kind of words less important than what you can bring. And that's where that three-- I mean, I think-- I fully agree with Secretary General Ruta. Donald Trump has done more for the NATO Alliance. He's going to do more for the alliances in Asia than presidents and generations, if ever, right? Because he's saying, you got it-- OK, I'm hearing what you're saying. You got to deliver. And then we have a new global standard. We've got a great section who's leading it, who's orchestrating a lot of it here. You see a change. You see a change across political. And this is one of the things we're doing here. And I think our engagement with you is an example of that. Is we're not just talking to parties on one kind of part of the political spectrum. You got parties in Germany across the political spectrum that are doing this. You've got parties throughout in place like Scandinavia. You've got a government in Poland, obviously, into the political spectrum. We're most interested in countries, certainly, from the war department point of view, that are delivering real capabilities and putting their money where they're mouth is. So you mentioned Russia earlier. And you said that it's a real and persistent military challenge for a euro. From the administration's perspective, does the US face a military challenge from Russia as well? Or is it just a challenge for Europe? Yeah, that was detailed in the National Defense Strategy. I mean, again, our kind of spirit is more of a dis- dis-passionate kind of empirical assessment. So the threat to the homeland from Russia, we more, as obviously more like the nuclear long-range strike kind of capabilities, we're very aware of those. But we're kind of looking at things in the way that they are from a military point of view and preparing accordingly. So you think that the biggest threat is one of escalation. A nuclear escalation rather than anything that Russia might do. Well, I mean, Russia has a very large nuclear arsenal and they've developed historical, I mean, we have to take that very seriously. And the best way of mitigating that threat is by having a different political relationship with Russia. Well, I've heard of something called Golden Dome. I mean, we're doing a lot to try to give the United States a lot of capability under the President's visionary leadership to try to give the United States a lot more defensive capability. We're trying to have a stronger Europe that could help manage a plausible, you know, as to mention Graham again, a pathway of escalation. And then, of course, at the same-- I mean, this is the kind of hello, like the dual track. Like, yeah, we're going to prepare militarily. But that's why I mentioned the Haramil report. We're also going to engage. And I mean, the fact that the President's indicated that we're going to engage on strategic issues. Is that supposed to be a bad thing to cause the President? It's sort of like that's-- Yeah, and we're doing the same thing with China. We're obviously-- In my speech in Korea, I tried to detail this. We're looking for a stable, respectful relationship, or we're also going to operate from position of strength, give the President the right options militarily. So I want to come on to China because there's lots to ask you about on that. But just this final question. So in terms of this dual track and the national security strategy, it talks about the US having a role as a mediator between NATO and Russia. Can you talk a bit more about how that could work? I don't recall that specific instance. I mean, I think the way that we see it-- I mean, from the word apartment perspective, it's our job to prepare rational military options that are in line with our perception and those of our European allies and others as appropriate that then would back diplomacy design towards stability and peace from position of strength. So on China, that's obviously the kind of huge structural question that we're all facing. And it's obviously been less in the headlines than some of the other aspects of American foreign policy apostue that it's something you've thought about as much as anyone in the US system. How would you characterize the current approach to China? Well, I think it's-- we want to have a stable and respectful relationship with China in which we can both mutually benefit from trade. And the way we're going to do that is obviously engage. We're not going to-- as sometimes in the past kind of take cheat shots at the leadership but treat them with respect and treat China with respect as a great country within a proud history, et cetera. But we're also going to do that from position of strength, militarily, economically. In terms of our allies, I visited South Korea in Japan. We've got great relations with our allies in the Indo-Pacific. And so it's-- I think it's the right mix. Would you characterize that as they tonk? I wouldn't use the term "day-taunt," but I would basically say we're trying to get this stability from the right mix of military strength, economic strength, resilience, et cetera, along with a positive. And the president has a very strong-- I think president Xi has a lot of respect for the president to our great benefit. So that's a huge asset for us, as well as a deterrent. And so I think we're in a good place. I mean, obviously we have to be strong, but I really think we all should want peace there. So we should be very judicious in how we deal with China. But again, from position of strength. So you-- I know that I'm not going to keep going on about we for too long before you're in the office. But I think that's a few people that I see who've been more eloquent about the issues around Taiwan for a long period of time. And there was a huge focus in the Pentagon at various points on 2027 as a kind of day-jump point because of scene-jinping injunction to the PLA to get ready and to the Chinese military more widely to get ready for a conflict in 2027. How are you thinking about Taiwan now and the timelines that are kind of engaged in that, you see? Yeah, look, I'll say-- I mean, I think our position-- I certainly have no change in our position. Our position remains the same. I think the president has been actually closer to our traditional policy on Taiwan, which is, of course, a delicate issue than his predecessor. And I think he's been more judicious about it wisely. And so we have no change in our policy. I'll just say that I think we really emphasize in our administration, again, certainly the Department of War, under Secretary Hague Seth, the Great Leadership, focusing more on what you can do and less on what you say, especially when what you say is sort of flapping your gums. So I think we're just going to be very strong. We're working closely with our allies in Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, in Australia, New Zealand. We've got great relations, obviously, around South East Asian, South Asian. So, and I think what we're saying, I mean, if you go back and look at Secretary Hegsd that's really important speech at Shangri-La, you know, there's kind of different parts of it, but I think the part I'd go for here is like, what we're trying to push for is a balance of power, a favorable balance of power, stability, the ability of countries to chart their own future and be able to grow and trade with each other. That really jives, I think, with certainly ASEAN, but I'd say Therod Asia and the Indo-Pacific. So I think we have a very good kind of natural linkage with the natural kind of current in Asia. And I think it's a very reasonable goal that we're pursuing. We're not trying to change the regime. We're not trying to strangle China. We've said that very directly. We respect China, but we're going to be strong and we're going to be able to defend our important interests. And how worried should your parents be about the stories coming out about China at the moment, the recent military activity, PLA, leadership purges, there's a lot of murky things going on. Well, I wouldn't presume to comment on what's going on internally in China. I would just say, you know, China has stood up for sure and it's got an really impressive economy. It's developed enormously. I mean, I remember, you know, even 40 years ago, it was a totally different story. And it also has a very impressive military buildup. I think the United States military. I think I could say without boasting, we have the best military in the world and people have seen it in action in the last year. And that's been salutary as well. So don't get the wrong impression. And we are, you know, the president's looking for 1.5 trillion. We are really overhauling the defense industrial base. So and we're working hard with our allies pushing, but also enabling greater capabilities. So we are not to be mess with, I think. But I think we can also have a very healthy respect for what they've been able to produce the Chinese. And has Xi Jinping assured your president that China is not going to invade Taiwan? I mean, I can't comment on, I can just tell you, I just refer to you with the president who said, okay, another issue in the headlines at the moment is Iran. Can you tell us a bit more about that? If we go back to your kind of original point about America first and American people's interests from a perspective of American citizens, what are the kind of main things that play when it comes to the U.S. relationship with Iran? Well, I think the president's been very, very clear and we're all very, very clear that we're going to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. And I think that, you know, Iran has been a source of terrorism. I mean, we've been, you know, they've been going back to the hostages and they rude and a lot of stuff happening throughout them at least has its source in Iran. So, you know, they're a persistent threat to the United States as well as to our allies in the region, partners in the region and here. So, and I mean, frankly, even just the other night I was hearing from Europeans, hey, I hope you guys take action or something like that. So I won't prejudge at all or presume to predict what the president might or might not do. Obviously, he's developing as he does the maximum leverage to be able to support the negotiators but also give him himself the right and military options and that's our duty and we're doing it. And what do you think that goes up? Because like sometimes people talk about the new key program sometimes it's about proxy, sometimes it's about missiles, but other people think it's really about regime change. Well, I mean, I would, you know, I wouldn't presume to speak for the president on that issue. I think he'll, I'll just refer you to what he's, he's going to say. Can I ask you another question about, about Israel and how that fits into, and the US approach to Israel, how that fits into your kind of big picture idea about American interests? Sure. Well, I mean, the defense strategy we call Israel model ally and it is, I mean, it spends a tremendous amount on defense and more than that it's willing to put its money where its mouth is in the most visceral way in terms of the, you know, going out and taking risk. As I was saying to him, his really colleague recently, you know, I mean, they never asked us to do their dirty work really right. So that's, that's a big difference. And so I think we have a really, I don't think the alliance has ever been stronger than under President Trump and, you know, work cited to continue working with them. Obviously, you know, things like co-production, co-development were already benefiting. But yeah, I think that's how we see the, the alliance with Israel. But I suppose the bigger questions are, because you know, the persistent debates have been about pivoting American attention away from the Middle East and Europe to an extent towards the Indo-Pacific and increasingly, I suppose, to the Western Hemisphere. So I think some people may have been surprised that the Middle East has been more of a focus, not just for strategy and for diplomatic energy, but also for resources. Well, a couple of things. I mean, first of all, I don't think these Israelis are asking it. Like, they're willing to do things on their own, right? Clearly. You see, there's a partnership there and you saw that kind of masterfully in Midnight Hammer on the 12th day war. I haven't been surprised by the focus on the Middle East. I think the president was clear about that, you know, during the campaign and before. So I think that's, but again, we're looking at models that are, you know, we're not putting 100,000 guys in Iraq, right? Like this is a different kind of, I mean, Midnight Hammer is a very different kind of approach to the employment and military force than we'd seen earlier in the past. In the century. So what are the, you know, we think about the things we should have been on our agenda since the Munich Security Conference last year, been quite a lot of issues that Europeans have been dealing with, which they wouldn't necessarily have expected. What should we all be looking at over the next 12 months? If you come back, can we have a similar chat? Yeah. And these security conference in 2027 will be discussing. Yeah. I mean, this is kind of what I was trying to get. I think we can get rapped around the axle on a lot of things and we're going to have differences of the opinion. We're going to have differences of views. And that is one area where I think I will refer to my previous guy. I mean, I would, I would say there would be a lot of these kind of hosanas or shibbolets of like the, oh, we have the shared values, we have the same values. And I would often say, well, you know, I mean, just at least from like our part of the political spectrum, or I'm not sure that's true. Not the deduction not being, hey, let's pull up. Rather, like, let's ground our partnership on something more enduring and durable and, and kind of real, like shared interests. I mean, the values are obviously there and the history is there. The history is important, but as a sudden South Korea, you can't face an alliance on sentiment alone, right? And so, you know, maybe there are differences of eyes. I don't know. I mean, depends on who you ask or where you are in Europe, et cetera. It's very hard to adjudicate that. What I can say is we have a shared interest in a, you know, a Europe that can defend, you know, NATO territory and so forth. And so I would recommend focusing on the pragmatic kind of, you know, nuts and bolts kind of stuff. And that's certainly what we're trying to do in the government relationship. I'll look, I'll call out someone like Minister of Defense for Stories in this country or Chancellor Metz, where I think the conversation is getting much more like nuts. All right. Hey, we're spending a lot of money. How do we spend that? Well, how do we rebuild the Bundeswehr to so that it could be something like what it was in 1988? That'll, that'll be more resilient to different disagreements. So we have, for instance, like the trade deal, we're going to, we're going to have, you know, part of this is common sense America first approach, which is to say, hey, this relationship has got to work for us. We're not going to like just give you whatever country you are, a sweet trade deal so that you can putatively give us some security access that's for your benefit anyway. That doesn't really make sense. You know, we're going to rebase line it and say, it's got to be mutually beneficial. It's got to be beneficial for us. You're going to look after yourself and that, you know what? The security relationship that can go on at the same time. It is. We see that all around the world where we're having often, you know, I mean, I think we have a superb trade negotiator and Bacer Greer and leadership team, sector of best and sector of London, et cetera, working on these issues. You can do that and you can have a defense relationship because it's in our mutual self interest to do so. And I think focusing more on that practical kind of stuff and like a little bit less on the theology or whatever you want to call it, it's going to be more productive and everybody's probably going to be calmer too. I can ask you a bit more about the defense industrial site because that is somewhere where traditionally the US, if you take, you know, a generational perspective on it. The US has been pretty skeptical about attempts for your pins to ramp up their defense. Yeah, I think it's a different move, different attitude. Can you talk a little bit about what the S2 does? Yeah. I mean, certainly our attitude in the Department of War is, look, I mean, obviously we're trying to grow our defense industrial base. We saw the arms transfer strategy were fully in line with that. But here's the bottom line. I think US FMS case totals are something like 4x, what they were in 2021. So there's just enormous demand that demand is going to be sustained, right? The United States is going to try to capture the more that market share. But we also understand, look, the fundamental interest that the United States has is in allies that are doing more for their own security. If you're going to be spending 3.55 percent on defense, we understand that you're going to need to indigenize a large fraction of that production. Otherwise, people in Germany or Poland or whatever are going to say, why are we only sending money across the Atlantic? Obviously we want to capture from our point of view, common sense as much as we can, but that's going to be a balancing, that's going to be a negotiation. We have a lot of leverage in assets, et cetera. But I think that's going to be a pragmatic conversation. That's a different, I mean, I think the whole attitude is different. I mean, even our attitude towards things like the European Union having some role in supporting the defense, look, if there's going to be large fiscal moves, we end up understand that some of that's going to go through the European Union. We'll work with that. That's kind of up to Europe to the side. We're going to, again, that gets to that partnership, not dependencies idea. So we heard that Secretary Rubio is going to talk about how we're in new world and new realities. You were very complimentary about the German to the polls earlier. If you look around the map of Europe, how many countries have sort of internalized the fat that we're in this different world and how many do you think is still trying to hop back to an old fashioned idea of Atlantis. I actually think we're in pretty good shape. That's one of the reasons I think for my remarks yesterday. I only heard the word rules based in National World War I yesterday, so that was a little piece of progress. I actually think, you see Finland and Sweden, Norway all spending a lot. These are very wealthy countries. I mean, Finland's been doing this for a long time. Obviously, you tend to see more movement on the northern eastern parts of NATO. I think you've seen it from the Dutch. I don't know if the Belgians are behind as the Minister of Defense has pointed out, but they're working to try to get them watching that. I think France and UK are the past masters and they're always ready to get into the fray. I think we will need to see 3.5. We've all agreed to it. I think Ambassador Whitaker, our superman ambassador, a permanent representative of NATO, he pointed out the Spanish are actually doing better than people often appreciate. There's a couple of laggards, if you will. I think on the whole, it's a good news story. That's part of the reason why we can now turn in 2026 and beyond to saying, "Let's try to get after particular problems. How can we enable you to pull timelines to the left? How do we think about the allocation of our forces? How might NATO think about fighting differently at the operational tactical level in ways that can help us get over this hump?" I think that's where we can take this conversation. So maybe because we're coming to the end of our time, I can ask you about what you're going to be focusing on. We were chatting before we went on stage. You said that you barely traveled over the last year because you were focused on that problem. Sorry. I think I know where you're going though. I think you said that you were trying to get to grips with die-free these big reorientations in strategy, and that was where a lot of your attention was going. What are the big priorities over the next 12 months? Well, obviously be responsive to what the President, Secretary, and the administration team need. I think, first year in administration, certainly in the war department, a lot of it is about big strategic documents. Often people poop-poo strategic documents. The Department of War, they actually do make a lot of difference because there's a huge millions and millions of people spread around. The timelines for procuring weapon systems can go out to the end of the century literally. We're modernizing the B-52, which goes back to, I think it was designed probably in the 1950s. A lot of parts of it probably go to the early 60s if not before. There's very long timelines, a lot of money, contracts, et cetera, allocation of forces, et cetera. That's a lot of what we spent on a Secretary of Haguecess-Really superb leadership. He drove it. It's his strategy. He's been intimately involved. Obviously, he's over the White House supporting the President, ensuring that he's got the options on a day-to-day basis. We'll be part of that as well. I think there will be more of an external. Obviously, people come through Washington. They talk to them, but I think traveling, there's a bit of an opportunity to come and talk to people where they are. I think that'll be an important part. We'll see. I'll do what the team needs, President needs. If you've enjoyed listening to this episode, please do subscribe to future episodes on whatever platform you use to download this one. And while you're there, it will be great if you could give us a positive review and a five-star rating. But for now, from Under Secretary Colby and myself, Marlenod, it's goodbye. The research of this podcast is on Uncinda, and our editor is Maria Farrow Sarats.