Senate Confirms Elbridge Colby as Pentagon Defense Policy Chief

The new undersecretary of defense could be tested soon over his policy preferences in U.S. military strategy.

Elbridge Colby, President Donald Trump's nominee to be undersecretary of defense for policy, testifies during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill on March 4, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Senate voted to confirm Elbridge Colby as the next undersecretary of defense for policy on April 8, giving final validation for President Donald Trump’s pick for a top Pentagon strategy post.

Colby’s confirmation passed by a vote of 54–45. Now confirmed, he is set to serve as the top defense policy adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and help shape U.S. national security policies.

“I look forward to working together to put our warfighters first and strengthen our national defense,” Hegseth said in a post on social media platform X following the vote.

Colby has served in a variety of foreign policy and national security advisory roles over the past two decades, including during the first Trump administration, and in policy think tanks. Throughout his career, Colby has advocated increased prioritization within U.S. foreign policy and military planning.

Writing in a July 2023 op-ed for The Times of Israel, Colby argued that for the United States to properly prepare for a potential conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific region, it will have to shift focus away from the Middle East and reset its relationship with Israel.

In a 2010 essay for Foreign Policy, Colby discussed ways the United States could continue to deter Iran, even if Tehran were to obtain nuclear weapons.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) had raised concerns during the confirmation process that Colby’s views on the Middle East and Iranian nuclear containment are not aligned with Trump’s.

At Colby’s March 4 confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Cotton pressed him as to whether he would present Trump with options for U.S. military operations against Iran.

“I wouldn’t want to get ahead of the president on specific decisions, but I think those are the kinds of things that should be absolutely part of the discussion,” Colby replied at the time.

Cotton’s opposition could have swayed other Republicans. In a comment to The Epoch Times in March, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) indicated that he wasn’t certain how he would vote and said he would consult with Cotton before coming to a decision.

Cotton and Graham ultimately voted to confirm Colby on Tuesday.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the former top Republican in the Senate, was the lone Republican to oppose Colby’s nomination, joining the majority of Senate Democrats in opposition to Colby’s nomination.

“Abandoning Ukraine and Europe and downplaying the Middle East to prioritize the Indo-Pacific is not a clever geopolitical chess move,” McConnell said in a statement following the vote. “It is geostrategic self-harm that emboldens our adversaries and drives wedges between America and our allies for them to exploit.”

Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) voted in favor of Colby’s confirmation.

Now that he has been confirmed for the role, Colby could be tested soon on his policy preferences in U.S. military strategy. In the time between Colby’s first confirmation hearing and the final vote, Trump has ordered extensive strikes across Yemen and threatened Iran with further bombing. The U.S. military has dispatched another carrier strike group to the Middle East and shifted B-2 stealth bombers to Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean.

While hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, Trump announced that senior U.S. negotiators are set to talk with Iranian counterparts on April 12.

“I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious,” Trump said. “And the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with or, frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with if they can avoid it.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This is a developing story and will be updated with additional details.