America mistreats its allies, but then takes offence when they make arrangements to cope with being abandoned

Elbridge Colby is the Pentagon’s ideologue and undersecretary who gives strategic shape to the statements of the head of the Department of Defence, the aggressive Pete Hegseth, and those of the chaotic President Donald Trump. In a series of posts on X, Colby has provided his analysis of the ‘uproar’ surrounding the so-called ‘middle-power strategy’, which was introduced into the Western defence debate by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and which is a response to the United States’ gradual withdrawal from its commitment to collective defence – particularly within NATO – and which promotes greater unity and collaboration against the expansionism and rapacity of the superpowers. Colby says: at the Ministry of Defence, we are not concerned that an alliance of middle powers is a “serious possibility”; rather, we are concerned that the allies “think it is” a serious alternative, causing us to waste time and money. We are “flexible realists”, the Under-Secretary continues, and this whole business of medium-sized powers does not entail “any concrete alignment”, especially as we are seeing a greater – not a lesser – desire on the part of our allies for our involvement in collective defence, for the simple reason that “no other country can compete with the American defence industrial base”. Therefore, the allies should stop “trying in vain to replicate or supplant” America’s role; on the contrary, they should become more cooperative whilst investing in their own defence industrial base, because their investments are needed in any case. In summary, Colby says: we have mistreated our allies; we have threatened to withdraw from NATO; we have announced troop withdrawals from the European continent; we have expressed a desire to annex Alliance territories, from Canada itself to Greenland; we have demanded compensation for the free arms supplies provided to Ukraine following Russia’s attack; we have secured greater investment in NATO from the Europeans, but the demands are not over – no, we want the Europeans to recognise the privilege of being our allies and to stop whingeing about American abandonment, even though we can in fact abandon them whenever we like – after all, we are still America.

Experts’ reactions to Colby’s remarks have been wide-ranging: some say that the Under-Secretary is effectively admitting that middle powers have the potential to unite in a way that is counterproductive to America, and is resorting to his usual bullying tactics to cover his tracks; others say that it is possible to both call for greater US involvement and prepare to do without it – flexible realism is not an American exclusive. The Trump Administration seeks to exercise its role as a superpower without shouldering the responsibilities that come with it, thereby undermining the trust of its allies, yet it demands subservience: it says ‘rearm yourselves’, but wants to retain its client base. However erratic its behaviour may be, a superpower is not truly ‘super’ if it has no allies, no military bases abroad, and is turned in on itself.