AMBASSADOR MICHAEL FROMAN (Moderator): Well, thanks very much for having me. I'm Mike Froman, Council of Foreign Relations, many of you know it. Nonpartisan, independent think tank, publisher, Foreign Affairs Magazine, membership organization. We're delighted to be here, I'm honored to have this opportunity to moderate the conversation with Under Secretary Colby. We've had conversations before. It's great to continue them here as well.
Let's, as you all know, Under Secretary Colby was very much in charge of 2026 Defense Strategy, and very much helping drive its implementation. We'll focus a bit on that as well as some broader issues. Let's start with the National Defense Strategy. It made a real effort to connect ends and means to set priorities, it didn't say a lot about your nuclear deterrence strategy. So let's talk about it here. What does the NDS mean for our nuclear deterrence strategy, and how do we think about how it relates to strategy of denial and escalation?
UNDER SECRETARY ELBRIDGE COLBY: Well, thank you very much, Ambassador Froman. It is an honor to be here with you, and Admiral Correll for kind invitation. I know there are a lot of leaders and experts in the audience and service members, so that's a real privilege to be to be back here in an official capacity.
Well, thank you for the question, ambassador. I would say, I mean, one of the things, nuclear strategy and nuclear forces are absolutely essential part of the national defense strategy. In fact, I've said it's the number one priority. I think the basic view is that the National Defense Strategy that the Secretary (of War) issued earlier this year, I think, was a little bit different than some in the past, tonally, thematically, but also in sort of the audience and the style in which it was addressed, and that was probably a higher level of generality, but with a kind of punchier and clearer sort of strategic framework. And some of that is, you know, I think a function of the era in which we find ourselves. And I'll probably make reference a couple times to some remarks I gave at the National War College in May, that along similar lines, which is that we, you know, recognizing building on the president's first term, the recognition that we are an era of great powers, that the era of kind of unipolarity or alleged unipolarity has passed.
You know, we're kind of going back, and we talk about this in the NATO context. Going back to it, sort of in that context, we're talking the NATO 1.0 model, which is, for instance, in our defense and military strategy, to be a little bit more careful about what we say and how we say it. I mean, if you go back to the Quadrennial Defense Reviews of the 1990s that were highly detailed and very public. I mean, that can only happen in an era of unipolarity in which you could openly talk about your military capabilities, your military problems, your military strategy in a very detailed way because, in a sense, you didn't really have many concerns.
If you go back to the Cold War, NSC 68, the most famous document of that period, was not declassified, I think, until the 1970s. So a full generation after it had a massive impact, and that's partially, yeah, that's prudence. That's again the spirit of the administration, of course, is a commonsense form of realism that says we're not going to talk about everything in the open. But at the same time, and I think the Secretary has rightly said this, that we try to be, in a sense, more transparent than anybody, which is to tell you how we're thinking and to give a clear sense of where we're going. So I'll return to that in a second.
I think on the nuclear forces side, make no mistake. The nuclear forces, the modernization of our nuclear deterrent is the single most important initiative for the American military. At the end of the day, we have to have a survivable, diversified triad. We have to have secure second-strike forces. We have to be able to provide strategic deterrence and a capable and credible extended deterrent that's coupled with our conventional forces as part of an integrated, broader, sensible strategy.
That said, I see Dr. (Robert) Soofer, my colleague in the audience. We looked back at the first term's nuclear posture review for 2018. We said, look, a lot of the really excellent work on things like declaratory policy have already been done on the importance of the deterrent, and for instance, today I have no announcement to make on change on declaratory policy. There's nothing to improve on what we've said on extreme circumstances and so forth. And that the criticality of the modernization effort. And if you look back during the Cold War, there was not necessarily this regularized sort of process of every four years doing this huge nuclear posture review, and so we said, okay, let's be practical, let's be results oriented. I see General (Dale) White here, he's got a huge job. Admiral (Robert) Gaucher is here. They've got a huge job to make sure that we get our systems out on time and you know, on budgeted or something close to it, and that we don't want to interrupt that, and we don't want to mess with that success and that priority.
But I think for everybody out in the force working here at STRATCOM, working in the nuclear deterrent, or connected to it, make no mistake, the fact that we didn't do a nuclear posture review is actually, if anything, the opposite of saying it's unimportant. It's saying this is so important, we know where we're going…now it's about execution. And so what we did do, we decided, and there's been some reporting about this recently, is that if you look at the statutory responsibilities of the undersecretary for policy, there's a review or sort of relook at the employment guidance, which is more about the commander of STRATCOM and his responsibilities and the secretary's authorities, et cetera, or guidance, and then. the president's guidance to the department. Happy to get into that more.
As a general principle, what we're working extremely closely with Admiral Correll on this, as on many other issues. I think the main theme of what we wanted to lay out and stress, and it comes through I think the defense strategy. comes through the secretary's remarks at the Reagan Forum, at Shangri-La, you know, and at a lesser level, my own remarks and so forth is we need to have a military strategy and that includes at the nuclear level, in which the ends, ways, means correlate. And thanks for paying attention to that ambassador. The ends, way, means, because you know in some quarters or in a period of unipolarity in some ways the civilian guidance could get pushed over into the world of ends. And in a world of nuclear armed states in which you might find yourselves in a fight with you have to be able to say that the ways and means to achieve those ends are all correlated and this goes back and of course with the president of the council on foreign relations the work that the council did in the 1950s under the famous leaderships of Henry Kissinger, and I think Paul Nitze was involved, and others, is to say we have to have a nuclear strategy to use Kissinger's line of thought that's connected to our conventional force strategy that is rationally correlated to the United States interests at stake and a rational conception of the risks they therefore are willing to run.' That is the acme of skill. That is the metric by which we judge not only our conventional force posture but also our nuclear force posture. And we see them, and I say posture in the broader sense. We need to look at them together.
And so that's the theme of everything that we're doing. It's the theme of how I agree with Admiral Bradley's comments about the importance of allies and partners, and I would just say what we're doing is we're making those alliances and partners work. We're making sure that it's correlated, that our allies and partners, as in the Cold War, as in NATO 1.0, are capable of fielding combat credible forces to make sure that we have that ends, ways, means connection. But everything we're doing at the nuclear level as well is designed to make sure that we expand the president's options to make sure that the president has those options as part, if you will, it's almost downstream of flexible response in the sense of having to.
And I know General Zelman mentioned Secretary Harold Brown. I would say you've got to give Jim Schlesinger some credit too, and some others. But during the Cold War, the purpose was to ensure that our military posture and our strategy, especially in Europe… yes, it relied on nuclear weapons, but also had conventional strategy and conventional posture and allied involvement with Reforger and all these things that was designed to try to put those you know objectives and the risks and the ways and means into some rational balance and correlation.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: So you're not doing another nuclear posture review.
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: Correct.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: You are doing another kind of review currently.
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: Correct.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: How do you expect that to differ from what came out of the prior administration?
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: So it's a bit difficult because this is not designed to be a public-facing review. It's obviously come out a bit. So you know, there's no kind of hiding the ball at a conceptual level. So I can be very clear about the overall strategic framework, but not about the details. You know, a couple of thoughts. I wouldn't contrast it specifically so much with the last administration as I would say that it's an attempt to go back and again to use this NATO 1.0 kind of framework would be used to go back to a level of thinking about nuclear weapons and their connection to potential large-scale conflict. God forbid, of course, the goal here being very much to deter and avoid such a conflict. And I see Assistant Secretary (Christopher) Yeaw, coupled with arms control and engagement. And in my NATO 3.0 speech in February, Ambassador Whitaker is here as well, I specifically mentioned the Harmel, the dual track. That this is what we are trying to do. You couple military strengthening and a rational military strategy that includes the allies, along with their willingness to engage on arms control of whatever type.
So I think it's more, Michael, if I may, I would more say that it's an attempt to get beyond the kind of nuclear… I wouldn't say the nuclear thinking, but some habits that have developed, and no disrespect to anybody over the last generation that are in a sense downstream of the structural reality of what people call unipolarity or you know, what have you.
I mean, I remember coming to earlier variants of this symposium, and I worked as an advisor the Congressional Commission of the Strategic Posture of the United States at the end of the 2000s. And really, the attempt then was just to reboot any level of interest, any level of, what's the right word, expertise, focus on nuclear issues, especially after the incidents at Minot (Air Force Base) and there are a couple incidents in the 2000s, mostly in the Air Force, that really said, "Hey, we've lost, we've gotten our eye off the ball in some basic blocking and tackling of the nuclear force, but also in the strategic thinking.” You know, basically we can kind of look, you know, not out of business, but there was very little thinking and novel thinking on nuclear strategy issues through you know a 20, 25-year period. And so, you know, I saw that myself..
What I think we're trying to do here, and obviously, you know, and I said this in an interview recently with Ross Douthat is that we have to look at time. If that was the issue 10, 15 years ago, the president to his very credit in the first term very much acknowledged that we were in a year of great power rivalry. We have to be more realistic. Now, I think in this term, the crank is being turned a few more times to say, okay, in all aspects, whether it's on the conventional forces, which you see, whether it's in our relationships with our alliances and our partners, and whether it's with the nuclear forces, we need to make sure that, in applying the lens of common sense in that context, that we can be sure, and Admiral Correll, you know, obviously a very close partner and obviously a leader in his lane on this, to make sure to give the president, the secretary the options to be able to defend the far-flung interests that the United States has in the world in a way that, frankly, normal people might go along with, you know, in an era which people are not ducking under their school tables like it's 1955.
We have to be realistic about that, and that's a lot of, I think, the role of the political appointee, and not, I mean, in a partisan sense, but is to inject a kind of hey, where is the strategic-political reality? How do we connect this, and how do we bring this into, in a sense, give it more energy, more centrality? And centrality is not the right word because we're not trying to raise the salience of nuclear weapons. To the contrary, we don't want to put anybody in a position where they have to use them, but we want to be able to give the president and secretary credible, rational nuclear options to buttress an integrated conventional strategy along with the arms control piece or the stability piece in a way designed to avoid war in the first place. That's of course the goal.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: So one of the biggest developments, obviously, built out of China's nuclear capability. How do you think about the impact of having two potential nuclear peers? Is there strategic stability in a world where you have a three-body problem, or are we destined to have a numerical arms race?
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: That's a great a great question. I think it is an unprecedented problem in the sense that during the Cold War, the Chinese obviously did have nuclear weapons, but they were far, far smaller and more primitive force at the time than the United States and the Soviet Union. So I think it is a dramatically different capability. I remain cautiously optimistic about the ability for us to maintain effective deterrence in in the context of three sort of great power nuclear states. I'm not sanguine about that. I think there's a lot of thinking, including this audience, that could productively be done along those lines.
But I think this is, Admiral Correll and I were talking about this, speaking about this, what I said, I think one of the things that that I think is a hallmark of this administration's defense strategy and approach is always to kind of rigorously go back to what is our problem that we're trying to solve and how are we trying to solve it? And so you know you look at the National Security Strategy. This comment about what are we trying to do? We are trying to obviously deter and if necessary defeat or retaliate against attacks on the United States homeland, which of course would be a massive dramatic escalation.
But also we want to sustain favorable regional balances of power in the world's key theaters, you know including preeminently Asia, the Asia-Pacific, the Indo-Pacific, and specifically as National Security Strategy says about, you know, provide deterrence by denial along the first island chain. Or as the secretary has repeated that many times with the defense strategy as well. That is a problem that can be solved. And if you go back again a little bit of, not to keep my back to history, but if you go back to the most successful period, Harold Brown, of Jim Schlesinger, of Caspar Weinberger and the 1980s build up, that was a result of focusing on a particular problem, which was the Soviet and Warsaw Pact threat, to Western Europe, you know, the deployment of the SS-20s, multi-echelon conventional forces potentially coming through the lines, et cetera.
That's where you got things like, what did assault breaker mean? I think General Zellman mentioned assault breaker or follow-on forces attack. That was specifically designed to defeat that echeloned Soviet-Warsaw Pact attack with the goal of sustaining, you know, ideally the status quo, restoring the status quo in the event of a conflict, and trying to terminate the conflict favorably below the level of certainly dramatic nuclear escelation. Which was an improvement from where we had been in the 1960s, where we were going to use tactical weapons all over the place as a kind of first recourse.
So that's this sort of we don't want to be in that situation because that's not that's not in the American people's interest. So I think with this three body problem that you're talking about, Michael, I think this is where engagement, and I know that that Assistant Secretary Yeaw and Under Secretary (Thomas) DiNanno and other people from the Department of State and elsewhere are actively engaging to try to find ways. I think that's important in and of itself. I also think it sends an important signal of you know that we are a responsible party here and trying to avoid you know an arms race or an intensification of these competitive dynamics. I met with my Chinese counterparts as well as Executive Vice Minister Ma, and I think that's fully compatible with our commitment to providing strength, peace through strength, deterrence by denial. At the same time seeking to avoid conflict and seeking to avoid whatever pressures towards conflict may arise from a lack of respectful dialogue at the political level.
I always go back and remind people. You know, people sometimes say, "Oh, the Soviet Union was always considered the bad guy in the Cold War,” and that's true. But essentially, every president engaged with the Soviet Union, including Ronald Reagan. I mean, Reykjavik and many other engagements. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, of course, Dwight Eisenhower. Needless to say, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter. So I mean, this is actually just basic. You know, Winston Churchill: “jaw jaw is better than war war.” Nobody accused Mr. Churchill of being weak. But if you can try to mitigate pressures, not even resolve them. If you can try to mitigate these pressures through engagement, through respectful dialogue, that's totally consistent with being strong. And I think it's the best approach. And so we're following in line with the President's approach.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: Is it realistic to expect China to participate in any sort of arms control negotiation per se, or given where we are in arms control, morality, are they likely to be building up all that force?
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: I think it's I think it's realistic because I think if we conceive of arms control in the way actually it was originally conceived, if you go back and you look at like Tom Schelling's book with Mort Halperin on arms control in the early 60's. Arms control really is not necessarily a formal structure, like a legal treaty-bound structure. It can be, it can productively be. But if you look in the Cold War, the big arms control treaties, with the exception of ABM, in a sense, IMF. Although IMF basically the Cold War was sort of over by 87, so really the big arms control treaties came only after the Cold War was already over, when it was essentially like a symbolic recognition.
So the real function of, a lot of the function of arms control can be providing implicit barriers or thresholds or something, and the fact of engaging… and I don't want to overstate it because it is not an, and I'm not trying to get into Chris' business, so you can correct me later. But you know, it's not necessarily all or nothing. If you're having productive discussions, and also if those discussions make it more difficult for your, you know, the other side to potentially do dramatic things that might put them in a stronger military position, that can be productive.
And also, the goal of arms control is not elimination, which is unrealistic. The goal of arms control is to mitigate pressures towards conflict or unnecessary products, pressures towards arms racing, that kind of thing.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: So New Start expired in February, first time since 1972 we don't have any caps on U.S. or Russian weapons. What does the administration want to see as a successor to New Start? If it's not a formal treaty, what kind of mechanisms in place would like to see this in Russia, given the changing nature of great power competition there as well?
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: Well, I defer to Assistant Secretary Yeaw on exactly the position on New Start in particular. I'd say, from the department's perspective, you know, we obviously need to be ready, postured. I'm sure there's people from the intelligence community here. We hear from Space Command. I mean, we have a lot of national technical means and a couple ways of keeping a close eye. Keeping a close eye on that. That's true whether they have a treaty or not. Whether you have a treaty or not, I think we stand postured to support diplomacy in whichever direction the president decides to take it. But I think our job, both on the civilian side and the uniformed side, is to make sure that we go ahead, we develop, we deploy the capabilities that we need. Because you know, I mean, this is peace through strength, right? I mean, it's a has become in some quarters a cliche, but really, we should do both of those trying to promote also peace, right? The idea here is we've had, you know, I think I haven't heard that before – that the ICBM is the longest continuous military operation in history. You know, at some level, that's pretty aggressive. You're keeping people on target. You know, you have continuous active deterrents with the boomers. But that the whole point is they haven't been used because there's readiness. There's no question. There's no perception on the other side, there is a window of advantage to strike. So that's our part of the job.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: We've seen in the context of Ukraine, Russia allowing weapons and doing a lot more nuclear saber rattling. Is that just coercive theatre, or has the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons been effectively lowered?
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: Well, I mean, I think the last one I would hesitate to kind of offer any kind of declaration because I think it's highly in the mind of the eyes of the beholder. I mean, I think we have to take seriously, this is me speaking, but I think we have to take seriously when a nuclear armed power starts talking about those things. Obviously, taking it seriously also means not just backing down. To the contrary, you do not want to create that perception that you can be advantaged by nuclear blackmail which the Chinese used to accuse us of.
I think that obviously that was something that came up a few years ago. It has been less in evidence in recent years. You know, I think from, on that point of view, a couple points. You know, firstly, we are actively trying to support the president's objective, obviously we are not in the lead, but through diplomacy, through the special envoys, State Department to support an end of what is a very tragic war. You know, we also worked closely with Ambassador Whitaker and (NATO) Secretary General (Mark) Rutte on this. We've structured a mechanism, the PURL mechanism, to continue to provide weaponry to Ukraine in its self-defense and a very admirable self-defense, stout self-defense. At the same time, you know, we in the administration, in the department, we view this as having moved in the direction this administration, the president, others, the vice president, Secretary Hegseth have pointed to, which is our point was never we're going to you know skedaddle from Europe. The point was the Europeans have greater interest here. We have global responsibilities and priorities. The Europeans can and should take a leading role in, A), their own defense, which is NATO 3.0 which is happening, and I think cannot be stressed enough, and secondly, that they can and will take the lead in the support of Ukraine, and that that support will be consistent with Ukraine doing at least reasonably well in the battle.
Although I don't say that in a blasé way, but I think it's fair to say, without overstating, you know, some of the commentary out there is possibly a little bit carried away. But you know two things matter. One, the Europeans are now essentially providing financial support for Ukraine, andthey and the Ukrainians are increasingly producing their own military equipment, which is good also because it's more sustainable. And that has been consistent with the Ukrainians probably improving their position on the battlefield, without being too sanguine about the future, I think that is also putting you know globally again in that same ends, ways, means rational correlation. We're basically moving to a situation where, and I can't stress this enough, where thanks to the president's leadership, we are being put in a position where our alliance and partnership network is going to be put on firmer ground, on stouter ground, where the Europeans are providing a greater share of the effort and the skin of the game and the weaponry and the military risk, and that's happening in other theaters as well: South Korea, Australia. We're hoping to see big announcements from Japan this year under the Takaichi government…the Philippines. So that's how we see the situation there. Obviously, we're trying to see if there's a peace that can be made, but also we have to prepare for the long haul.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: As you say, the NDS cites the modernization. The act is going to provide this as a strategic priority, and yet the programs, Sentinel is substantially over budget, late other programs as well. What does that say to you about the state of our defense industrial base and the kind of changes and reforms that improvements can be seen there?
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: Well, I think you know it's not a mistake that the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, call for a national mobilization of our defense industrial base because the president, vice president, secretary have all been very consistent over the years and saying we need to step up our defense industrial base capability, and that's something that we've been working on since this administration started.
And the historic 1.5 trillion-dollar budget request is an essential part of that. One of the points that I made clearly, if you want to provide munitions to allies and partners like Ukraine or Israel or whoever, those weapons are going to be concentrated in what is now, I think, Reconciliation 4.0. I mean, that is a critical, a critical step, and that's where a lot of framework agreements are going to be funded. So you know whether you're a Republican, you're a Democrat, you're an Independent, whatever. Everybody has been talking for several years about the need to get this defense industrial base up, you know, and to take it to the next level. So that's you know, I think that the president, and of course, I think we have the capabilities that we need to back up the president, not only in Iran, elsewhere, to support deterrence by denial along the first island chain, so we feel very confident about that. But we all recognize that there's, we need to bring the defense industrial base up, and of course, also part of that is you know new entrants and cheaper options.
I will say one thing is, and I think it's really important. I think it was Admiral Bradley who said, we do not want to fight like the Ukrainians. That's a really important point because sometimes I see some discussion that you know the future is going to be all drones. Clearly, drones are important. I think there's over $70 billion in drone and drone dominance and counter UAS in the budget. But if you look at the end of the day, I can't get too much into the specifics. You can't underestimate the importance of B-21 long-range bombers. And if you look at the capabilities that were delivered very, very effectively against Iran, the heavy bombers played an absolutely critical role. If you look at Operation Midnight Hammer, which was the incredibly successful operation last year, that was done by attack submarines firing Tomahawks, by heavy bombers and aircraft that were fifth gen aircraft that were escorting them. So it's basically more of a mixed package, and that's where I think the budget built by Deputy Secretary Feinberg deserves a tremendous amount of credit there. So that's a critical part.
The second part of this is allies and partners, and again, there has been a tendency to kind of talk about allies and partners in this sort of ask, sort of generic, kind of a little bit fluffy way in the past. And what we're saying is, kind of, we actually need to. Yes, we have the world's largest economies, or not all of them, but the most advanced economies as part of our alliance network. But we need to turn that into military effectiveness and industrial effectiveness, and that's what's happening now. And I want to give special credit to the Germans. They've gone from you know a remarkable transformation, and I used to give them a lot of grief, so they don't always hear this from me. But in the space of about the last year and a half, especially you know Chancellor Merz, Defense Minister Pistorius, crossed party lines, going to 4% by 2029, I believe maybe even higher. Extraordinary. That's the world's fourth largest economy. South Korea has committed to 3.5 percent to take primary responsibility for its own defense on the peninsula. Also very significant. We see other countries in Scandinavia, Norway, Sweden, Finland. Denmark is doing well. The Netherlands. So we see a real momentum, of course, Poland. So what's going to happen here is obviously that's going to lead to military readiness, and General (Alexus) Grynkewich and I work really closely together as part of say the NATO force model process, and we're working super closely together on this NATO posture review in consultation with Matt Whitaker and a lot of our allies and people on the Hill and so forth in the interagency.
But the goal here is to make sure those investments are effective. And I gave a little tweet thread on middle powers a couple weeks ago that generated a little… But the point I was trying to make was not to slow people's roll to do their own investments in defense industry. To the contrary, it's rather to say let's make sure that when green – our allies, if you're in Germany or Japan or South Korea or Poland, let's make sure that you're investing in things that yield military value, because you know nobody's going to be more interested in making sure you get military deliveries than if you live on Eastern Europe or Northern Europe, right? Or if you live along the first island chain, that's really important, and not look at defense industrial investments as a kind of middle power strategy, which doesn't work and is unrealistic. We encourage countries to do more. We encourage countries to indigenize their capabilities. That makes sense. It's totally reasonable. But let's do it together, and that's going to be another part of that industrial base strategy. Where again, I look at a couple years and I'm thinking about a very bright future. If you've got the German automotive economy, which is under a lot of pressure, and you know more about this than I do, Michael. They can help us a lot, you know. And that's a win-win. That's a mutually beneficial relationship that isn't based on platitudes, but it's based on mutual self-interest. And the hallmark of this administration is if we get our relationship in a one that's more based on mutual self-interest, it's going to be more durable. It's going to be more resilient. It's going to be more stable. It's going to involve a lot less of allies kind of asking for theological commitments or that kind of thing, and a lot more about let's. And that again goes back to the NATO 1.0 model. Winston Churchill and Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle did not want their countries to become dependencies. Shinzo Abe didn't want his country to be a dependency, they want to become partners. We want to help them become partners. That's going to put us all in a lot better position.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: There's been a lot of developments in the area of nuclear proliferation. Midnight Hammer you mentioned, the NDS talks about North Korea. This referred to denuclearization of the peninsula the way previous ones did. Talks about managed coexistence. You got the Saudi 123 Agreement that was just announced, potentially with enrichment. Some question about that. And then to your last point, Europe, Japan, others, Korea talking more openly about whether they should have nuclear weapons. What is the future of the proliferation regime look like? And if you had your crystal ball, if you look out for 20 years, how many more nuclear powers would you expect to see?
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: Well, I wouldn't venture to speculate on that. Our position is still very much to discourage and oppose friendly nuclear proliferation. I understand the points that you're making. I'll say this: absolutely, the most important thing that we can do on the Department of War side to make sure that there are not such pressures for friendly nuclear proliferation is to make sure that we have credible, rational nuclear options that a President of the United States adopting the simple principle of being a normal human being with common sense would actually implement. And I think that's something…that is why what we're doing in the nuclear strategy review, Admiral [Correll] you can correct me later if you disagree, sir, please, is we are trying to make sure that we expand those options so that we give the president options, including counterforce options, strategic counterforce options that actually involve, and I play this out the logic out. It's in the defense strategy, but also in my remarks at the National War College. You know, support denial defense, favoring managing escalation. Again, I don't say this with any blasé, that would be a titanic historic catastrophe to have crossed the nuclear threshold. Nobody is looking at that with anything but the gravest mind, but if it did happen, in order to have it be credible, I mean, I don't need to tell this audience. To have it be credible and rational and effective on a potential opponent, he's got to believe there's some sense in which we would use it.
And as somebody said earlier, I think the director of the (inaudible) said it's the president's decision, right? So we have to make sure that we can give the president a cost-benefit rational option that would benefit the American people, and so that's what we're really looking at. Because you know, at the end of the day, what is extended deterrence? You mentioned an umbrella. Umbrella is not a technical term used by the Department of War, the United States Government. You know, we extended deterrence back in the Cold War, Herman Kahn talked about this type two deterrence. It's harder because, right? I mean, just naturally. And back in the Cold War, it's another thing. Not to lionize the Cold War, but we did get through 40 years of intense strategic competition without a major higher war, which counts as success. I think one of the things about the Cold War conversation is that you could talk directly about the tough issues, put your finger on it, and try to solve for it. So if you go back and you look at flexible response, that's because people at the Council on Foreign Relations and even some people in the Eisenhower administration were recognizing that the massive retaliation policy was not going to be credible, as I think General Zelman mentioned as when the Soviets got a second strike capability, when they deployed the Yankee-class submarines, when they moved towards solid rocket motors, etc. Right? Okay, we can see where this is going. So we're going to get ahead of this. We're going to have some of the ideas were too much, a little crazy. Some you know you got worked out. But basically, you moved into the into the world of flexible response, which is flexible response is rational options, more or less, but over the course of the subsequent 10-20 years, we got better at the nuclear options. You know, there was a lot of work in the 1980s to try to ensure that SAC (Strategic Air Command) and the joint targeting cell here in Omaha provided options that were different than suicide or surrender, as Henry Kissinger put it. Also, the conventional forces. There was a recognition that we'd gone too far in relying on nuclear forces in the 50s under President Eisenhower. We can talk about whether that was the right strategy for the time, but saying we need to bring back the conventional forces, and that was the force that you know second offset, as it has been called, that led to the Gulf War and now the conventional forces we have today.
I think when we're talking about the issues you're talking about, Michael, here, let's look at where this is going, where it could go, and say, okay, how do we avoid that? Well, some of it is the diplomacy that Chris Yeaw and Tom DiNanno are going to work on, others the State Department, NSC (National Security Council). But our part is to say we're going to have a military strategy that could make sense to actually put into practice. For what are distant stakes, right? At the end of the day, something happening halfway around the world, and when you kind of face that, if the president, God forbid, were to be faced with that kind of decision, it's got to be worth it. And we can we can see that problem, so we should anticipate it.
That's the mindset. And so when we're going about this review. It's not because we say, "Oh, we need this weapon or that weapon. Again, from a force development point of view, we pretty much know largely, and it's not about tactical weapons or strategic weapons. It's about giving a set of options that are consistent with the strategy, that contribute to denial defense, that contribute to favorably managing escalation, that are cost-benefit rational to a normal person, and so on.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: Let me take a couple of the questions that are coming from the floor, and I'll combine a few of them here. But a lot of them have to do with our allies and our partners. What's the one thing European powers or NATO allies can do to increase an alliance nuclear deterrence, and should, given the security situation in Europe should there be a movement towards more of a nuclear triad?
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: So I would actually say the best thing the Europeans can do for nuclear deterrence is to invest in their conventional forces in line with what General Grynkewich has called his theory, where we have the same the same view, and that's because the United States has been clear. I have been clear. More importantly, the secretary has been clear that we continue to extend nuclear deterrence to NATO. The biggest problem there would be if there are conventional gaps that could be exploited, and then a kind of brinkmanship approach by the opponent to put us in a very just a very unfavorable position. And so the key thing there, in light of all the requirements we face globally, is for European allies to dramatically move, to increase spending in line with the Hague summit that the president, you know, historically was able to obtain the commitments. And there, and again, this goes back to the middle powers thing a little bit. It's not about everybody doing 5% and buying their own, you know, indigenously developed fifth gen fighter. It's about meeting General Grynkewich's requirements as Supreme Allied Commander. He's obviously also the EUCOM commander, but at the end of the day, he is the one responsible for fighting NATO as a force together, as an international force, he has a clear sense. We are very aligned. We've talked about it a lot. I know we've talked to Secretary and European leaders, Matt Whitaker, others to make sure they've got the right approach. What we want to do is make sure that we're as effective as possible in generating readiness, combat-credible readiness, and deployments as quickly as possible, in line with that theory, and then the industrial capacity to back that up.
And then what I would say for the allies is working together, and this is what we did. We had a meeting in Bergen, Norway, U.S. organized and hosted by the Norwegians, which we brought together about half a dozen kind of key allies who are really moving and meeting an objective set of standards and amount of their spending, they're on clear track to meet 3.5% as rapidly as possible. They have industrial scale, and they're looking at getting down to business. And they're consistent with the strong and clear but quiet approach that the administration generally pursues. And I think is also certainly General Grynkewich's approach, I think as well. And the idea there is to form kind of smaller coalitions. This is where I think the last administration was very fond of multilateralism. I would say almost for its own sake. It was like the point was the multilateralism. I might be being a little unfair, but I don't think so.
Whereas I think we look at multilateral as let's try and solve a particular problem. You know, FOMO diplomacy is a real thing I've learned over the last year and a half – fear of missing out diplomacy. People care, and they should because we're going to get moving out. We're going to the countries that are moving out most quickly. We're going to look to network them together. We're going to look to give them the best kind of access to American industry and so forth, and build and collaborate. And so, you know, I think countries like Germany, countries like Poland, there's a tremendous opportunity, especially if they scale together. That is the best thing. If you have a strong European denial defense that can rapidly deploy to the Eastern front or flank, depending on which side you are on that debate, then the United States still has, still… will have very modern capability, strategic level, theater capability, limited options, etc. as well as our own conventional forces and the global capabilities that our armed forces provide, that is going to be a very effective deterrent that's consistent. Going back to Harmel model, strong defense, clearly a defensive alliance designed for deterrence, and also the willingness to engage.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: Now, in the context of Europe, we've talked about the importance of NATO modernizing itself. What about the Asia Pacific, Indo-Pacific alliances? What evolution should they go through, and should they come together in some more multilateral, bilateral, whatever you want to call it, alliance that can coordinate further across some of these bilateral regions?
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: I mean, again, the way we look at things in the Department of War is results- oriented. So you know there's a lot of work and effort and political capital that's necessary to build up these kind of multilateral structures, and it's not always clear you know how much payoff there is, especially at the military level. So we're you know it's we're flexible realists, as the National Security Strategy says. So we look at military reality, we look at geography, we look at interests, and we try to align based on that. And so this is why one of the things there's some controversies that we're not encouraging countries, you know, they want to sail halfway around the world. Okay, that's your sovereign prerogative. But if you're asking us what we think, and you say that you know you need more time if you're in Europe, you know, well then our advice is to focus on your own neighborhood. That's where the best use of your scarce military dollars. We recognize that you're going to care more about Europe. That's kind of the basic. If you go back to the president said, secretary, you know, that's all of our mindset. So get them to concentrate where their interests are most engaged. Likewise, in the Indo-Pacific, you've got our allies and partners are arrayed across a vast territory. They have different histories. They are not historically bound together. So we're open to working together in a minilateral way. I do, I felt personally that there was a lot of kind of froth in the last couple of years on minilateral stuff. But it wasn't connected to real military break through. I mean, two countries signing a SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) is good. It's nice, but like, how many soldiers are we talking about? That's what we're focused on. Are the soldiers ready? Are they relevant to the plan? So the way we look at it with our allies and partners, where we put our capital, is to say, let's move forward. Let's you know, in the case of South Korea, obviously, government on the left is dealing with government on the right here. But on the issues that we're dealing with, and I know there's tensions elsewhere in the relationship, but on the defense issues, we're saying they want to take more responsibility. They have universal conscription. They have a large standing military. They're committing to 3.5 (percent). Check. They're willing to take primary responsibility for conventional defense of South Korea against the North. Check. Right. Okay. There's a lot. Then we can work together. There's a lot we can do together.
Japan. Japan is the fourth or fifth largest country in the world by economic scale. It forms an absolutely essential part of the first island chain. It currently stands by 1.6 percent GDP on defense. Prime Minister Takaichi has a historic majority in the Diet, Japan itself talks very openly about facing an unprecedented situation. Something doesn't compute here. But we're working very closely with our good friends and colleagues in Tokyo to help advance this. But we are anxiously looking for Japan. This is shared across the administration. I stress that we are anxiously looking for Japan to step up to meet. You know, we understand they have a history. Germany has a history. It went from about 1.5 percent, maybe one to 1.5 percent, to a four to 5 percent commitment in the space of about a year. They changed their constitution. Obviously, debt carries a lot of fraught memories in Germany. They relaxed the debt break on it. Change is possible. Change is necessary.
You know, with the Australians, we're doing well. We did an AUKUS review in 2025. Our view, secretary's view, my view. We came out stronger. We have clearer expectations. We put AUKUS, as the president said, full speed ahead. It's got a realistic way forward that everybody understands. Everybody understands how important our submarines are. I'm not just saying that. We're here at the invitation of Admiral Correll. Well, they really are incredibly important. We have no better ally than the Australians. Now we're all on the same page. We're working hard to increase submarine production. We've got a lot of progress on SRF WEST. You know, our private dialogues are very robust, and then again, that's another thing where we're less interested in we call peacocking than in what's actually going on there. Great, I'm going to Southeast Asia for a week next week. I'll stop in Manila, incredible relationship there with President Marcos and his team. Tremendous advances, great progress with a lot of the regional partners. Indonesia, we've made a lot of progress. We have a good relationship with the government. A lot of this is adopting, I would say, a more realistic, pragmatic approach. Obviously, we're going to have differences of views, but we're not going to take a kind of rigid, you know, sort of inquisitorial approach to Southeast Asia. We're going to take interest-based. Indonesia is going to be one of the top 10 economies in the world. You have to treat a country like that with respect. You have to deal with them as they are. We can have differences of opinion, but we also have to we have to work together similarly in Thailand, Vietnam, I'll be in Cambodia, so you know, Malaysia. That's the approach that we're taking.
And in fact, we see a lot of resonance. I tell the Chinese this. You're going to hear the same thing from me directly that I say elsewhere. Tone might be a little different, but we're going to be strong. We're going to have deterrence by denial. But the goal is stability. The goal is not to change the status quo - as Secretary Rubio and the president said, "We are not trying to do that.” You know, but good fences make good neighbors. We engage with respect. We have great respect for the Chinese nation and trying to understand their goals to become once again a great power in the world. We can deal with that from a position of a favorable balance of power. Our job is to make sure that's absolutely clear from the military point of view. This is not a Manichean thing. I always mention another Council on Foreign Relations guy: I always go around and say we're not John Foster Dulles. We're not the Bandung Conference and refusing to shake Zhou Enlai's hand. We're not forcing you to pick one of the other. We recognize where things are. We see things clearly, but that's serious diplomacy for world of great powers. We got out of that business in the last generation. We're back in it.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: You've emphasized the importance of conventional deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, but as China invests more in tactical nuclear weapons, where do you think the balance of investments you can afford for us between conventional and nuclear capabilities?
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: Yeah, I mean, I think the, you know nuclear weapons are incredibly important. They are more difficult than they first appear to turn to coercive or compellent purposes. Actually, one of the reasons the Chinese apparently developed nuclear weapons is because they felt that we had sort of pretty aggressively employed nuclear blackmail as they put it against them, to some extent, Korea and during the Taiwan Straits crises in the 1950s. There's always historical debate about that, but you know, we and China both have nuclear weapons, so nobody's going to be in a position where they can absolutely dominate. I think it was Schelling who used the analogy…the analogy was two scorpions in the bottle. And we're both, you know, we can talk about whose interests are more at stake along the first island chain. Obviously, the Chinese are very clear that they have very profound stakes. We always remind them that we have been a Pacific power for 200 years. Many great American fortunes were made in Canton and Hong Kong, China in the early centuries. Apparently, James K. Polk was thinking about access to the Chinese market when he wanted to seize California. We've been in Hawaii and Samoa, the Open Door, the opening of Japan. So the notion that America is like an interloper in Asia is just not serious. The Indo-Pacific is also the world's largest market, and we're going to do more and more of that. So we're going to be there, but we're going to have a strategy and force posture that is rationally tied to that interest is very important. But in specific cases, you know, non-existential.
I think what we're doing and a critical point is we sort of have a strategy of denial at the geopolitical level, which is about balance of power. So we are against anybody being hegemonic. And this is a point, by the way, I made in Cusco, in Peru last month as well, which is we're not trying to become, you know, we're not trying to dominate everybody in the Western Hemisphere. We want countries that can step up and take responsibility on their own. We're America. We're a huge country, a beautiful country. We've got a lot of land. We got you know all that stuff. We're proud to have the flag fly high wherever we can, but we're also have the world's largest market, best currency, etc. We are an empire of liberty unto ourselves to quote the founders. And the point there in the Pacific is that that message really resonates. So we are attempting to deny anybody from becoming hegemonic, and for this, that's what we're doing against Japan in World War II. We didn't want Japan to become dominant over the Greater East Asian co-prosperity sphere.
But also at the military level, our goal is on denial. So China is undertaking a historic military buildup that is incredibly impressive and a reflection of the enormous industrial capacity and economic power that they've accumulated. That is one thing. On the other hand, if we are talking about military contingencies, God forbid, our purpose here is to avoid them. But they face a very, very challenging military problem, especially because they are trying to…they would be in the ways that would affect us directly. They would be trying to project military power across air and water, which, in the face of determined, capable, highly developed opponents, and if it were to involve us, especially, and of course, if you look at us as a power over time, this is waxing philosophical a little bit, so forgive me, but I mean, our best capabilities are, you know, high capital-intensive technology.
I mean, you look at our submarine force, it is the best in the world, and I don't say that lightly. It is absolutely devastating, and that's a product of technology. But it's also a product at this point almost 100 years. I mean, 80 years going back to World War II of not continual, constant, constant practice and learning and refinement and Hyman Rickover, and all this this practice that cannot be rapidly replicated. And if you go into the maritime domain, you are going to deal with our submarine force, and that is going to be very, very, very dangerous. Same with our Air Force. You know, if you're dealing with obviously our ICBM force, but also our bomber pilot capabilities, our fifth-generation capabilities. I mean, if you look, you know, F-35, as I understand it, has demonstrated its prowess in recent operations in the Middle East. That only reinforces the value, but also the viability of achieving air superiority in places like Europe. Obviously, the Pacific is more challenging just geographically. But I think that then we are scoping what we're trying to do as we say this is like winning the Battle of Britain. This is not, you know, marching on Berlin in 1945. All we have to do is prevent anybody from crossing a body of water and sustaining operations in the face of determined resistance. That is a very practical objective.
The Army and Marines have a very important role. Let me stress: this is a joint capability, and I think we see a lot of you know going back to forces now in 2030 and the Commandant (of the Marine Corps), General Smith's efforts now very much in that direction to adapt the Marine Corps to this area and this type of fight, as well as with the Army. General (Christopher) Laneve, who's making a real effort, General Charlie Flynn when he was Army Pacific Commander as well. So I think we see that happening. We see this is a tractable objective that is militarily viable and would result in hopefully in peace. And it's totally consistent with having a respectful, balanced power relationship, decent peace with China, in which China can continue to grow, can continue to expand its economic activities, etc. And then we can find that balance peacefully.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: Can you speak to the relationship between strategic defenses like Golden Dome and deterrence in a trilateral great power nuclear environment?
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: That's a that's a great question and one I know there's a lot of attention to. I had a very good conversation actually about this with General (Michael) Guetlein, and I was very-I shouldn't say satisfied. But I was very convinced that that they're thinking about this in a very smart way and conscious of the of the second-order effects and third-order effects. I mean, actually, something that I think Rob and I have spoken about, and I'm proud. As we go through this nuclear strategy review, this is not something where we are unconscious about the effects on red, as we call it. In fact, to the contrary, we are, I would say, very, very attuned to how the other side will perceive, could potentially perceive both force developments and postures, rhetoric, but also you know employment capabilities and options. Again, not to say we would rule them out, but this is you know I think one of the hallmarks of good thinking and good strategy is that you should contemplate that your opponent or potential opponent will react to what you do, especially over time, is you know kind of an iterative game, and you need to make sure that your step is framed in a way that's going to leave you in a better position.
To use an example, I think from the book came out a few 10 or 20 years ago. I mean, you don't want a situation like in the 1980s where you have the Soviets have a Perimeter system, a Dead Hand system that is a, you know basically like even if we succeed in what we're talking about, we that will result in a catastrophic massive retaliation, right? So even if we achieve our ostensible objective, it's going to result, as President Kennedy said, ashes in the mouth of the victor. So I think that's something that we just want to, that may or may not exist. You know, others can speculate in this day and age. They're looking back into the past. That's something where you want to say, okay, we're not saying they're good guys per se, but we're dealing with the Soviet Union. They have these capabilities. If you're deploying Pershing, if you're if you're going through Able Archer, you need to understand how that's going to…and then just calculate that risk balance. And I can say that this administration is very attuned to those balances. I mean, you have historic military, you know, budget, historic attempt to mobilize our national defense industrial base, but at the same time, a realistic attunement to the reactions not only of our allies and others but also to red.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: One of the biggest issues emerging is emerging technologies, AI and cybersecurity, but even we see drones being used in Ukraine-Russia conflict in ways that hit Russian strategic, Russian bombers. How do you think, and here at STRATCOM, very focused on both our deterrence but also our nuclear control communications capabilities? How confident are you that we are dealing with the threats of emerging technologies to our capability of delivering on that deterrence mission?
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: Well, I'm confident that the people who are responsible for it are approaching it with the requisite sense of urgency and seriousness. So, and I know, I think somebody said in the last panel that you know we have the best human capital here in the world here, without boasting, in this country, and what our technology companies and so forth can certainly do. But a lot, I think I said this, and this is something I've probably evolved in my thinking on over the last decade or so. Technology is essential, but technology is only part – also posture, force employment, you know, best practices, these kinds of things. Look at the submarine forces. Great example. Incredible technology, incredible ways of operating, and professionalism. That and you know I think the bomber forces would also fall into that category in many ways. It's interesting that you mention that, Michael. I mean I think that's an area where my thinking, more sort of probably at the micro level, has evolved. But at the macro level, I think this has been a real, in a sense, proof that we needed to prepare for limited war. So for many years, I've been talking about this in a private capacity about the importance of preparing for limited war. And for a long time, people are like, "yeah, that's not going to happen because you wouldn't get into this kind of tit for tat situation or not tit for tat, but you couldn't get at this medium high escalation level because by that point things will spiral out of control and be the end of the world.” I don't think that makes sense. I mean, what is happening in deep into Russia, if you were sitting and watching that 1985, you would have been like, "whoa, this is potential (audible). I think General (Richard) Zellman mentioned back in the old days, if somebody went against a satellite, people thought that was going to result a nuclear war. That's not really where you know Ukrainians are, you know, conducting operations deep in Russian territory that also affect their strategic capacities, and then we see Russia's response, and both sides are very much calibrating their responses. You look at the strikes at shipping, for instance, in the Black Sea, or you look at the at the campaign, the mutual very tragic, obviously air and missile, largely missile and drone campaign. I think the main takeaway for us is again, not to be a hammer and a nail, but as we need to have a plausible plan that doesn't…'well if we get to that point we blow up the world or you know, we take them out you know, problem solved.' No, no, no because realistically, God forbid, if, if we found ourselves in such a situation with the great power on nuclear weapons, what we're seeing in Ukraine is that things can actually get quite high up that ladder and still be quite calibrated.
I mean, that's actually what struck me, and there is a strain of critique within the Russian system that believes they have become too calculable. Now, I wouldn't want to encourage that. But I think you know, you also have a sense, people talk about the extraordinary losses of the Russians. By Russian historical standards, it's not necessarily, at the extreme end. Of course, President Putin lost his brother in the siege of Leningrad and so forth, so they're very acutely conscious of this.
But I think that's what I take away is that as vital as the strategic deterrent is, and having that fundamental second strike, that assured destruction capacity, we also need to have things, whether it's theater capabilities or strategic capabilities, that's an arms control thing that goes back to the, you know, definitions. What we're focused on is less about the range of the weapons and more about rationally employable, limited options that advantage us and stand the chance of favorably managing escalation and not getting us into an inexorable spiral.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: So, last question, an easy one for you: What is the nuclear threat you're most worried about if peace (inaudible)
UNDER SECRETARY COLBY: Well, I would say I'm most concerned. So obviously, the most destructive outcome would be a mass attack against the United States with nuclear weapons. I don't think that we see evidence that the parties that could exercise that kind of threat against the United States would execute it because the consequences would certainly be far too great for them. And so there's no rational reason to do that. The sort of bolt from the blue.
What I would fear more is a regional war. And this is, there's something that news story this morning about. Kind of got it, but in general, got reflected some stuff I, I would quibble with. But, um, but it's a regional war, a kind of local war, conventional war that might have local employment, God forbid, of nuclear weapons that could escalate from there as it, as it expanded outward. and especially and this is where it is really necessary to see how red is thinking about things, not to be kind of stopped in our tracks by it, but to say the decision space in that kind of could be very tight. So one of the things where we see ourselves again as really expanding the president's decision space is there are things that we might posture ourselves to do where we don't think it would necessarily be a total attack, the other side might think it would be total attack, and their reaction would be far greater than we anticipate, and that would lead very rapidly to an incredibly pressurized situation that would be almost by definition not in our interests.
So we need to avoid putting that. And so part of the (inaudible) skill with this nuclear strategy and the employment options. Again, it's not taking away options for the president. It's adding credible options. Is to say, given all that, how do we effectively prepare to fight a war again to avoid it to uphold our alliance commitments in a rational way that will not, at that vital moment, either result in a catastrophe whose costs are way out of proportion to whatever we're fighting about, or more plausibly cause the political leadership to say “no, I don't want do that,” and then you have strategic catastrophe because people say, I was calibrated to something else. So I think that's why we focus a lot on that. We need to keep that fundamental strategic assured destruction capability obviously always ready, but we need to have something that will connect down.
And again, I just stress, you know, this is the president has spoken very eloquently about this, and we are very, you know, of the same mind and working hard. The purpose here is peace, and part of what we try to do is be consistent. I think one of the things people don't always sort of agree with what we're doing, but I think one thing where we really try to be is consistent, what we say to the others, you know, red, if you will, and to green and to blue, there's a different tonality, but the basic logic and strategy is essentially the same. And I think in a world of nuclear armed great powers and other great powers that could become nuclear armed that we don't want to become nuclear armed. We're better off being as simple as possible without being simplistic. And being consistent. And people will kind of know what they're getting.
And actually, what we see in year two of this term, especially in Europe and places elsewhere, and hopefully in Asia increasingly as well, evidence in Asia as well. These countries saying, "Okay, I know what you guys are trying to do under the president and secretary's leadership. Now work with us. Give us some time. Help us out. We're not fighting the scenario anymore. But we get what we're trying to do. That makes sense. That's more durable. That's more equitable. Let's do it together. That's great.”
That's why I think under the president's leadership, and you know, we're headed towards a very bright future from a security point of view, not to mention economic point of view, and I think that that we just need to keep on this course.
AMBASSADOR FROMAN: It's a great honor for being here with STRATCOM and to continue our conversation. Please join me in thanking Secretary Colby for meeting with us.