The Scoop
Top Pentagon officials have been divided over the extent of US military support for Israel, a split whose resolution will shape President Donald Trump’s second-term foreign policy.
US military leaders, including the chief of US Central Command, Gen. Michael Kurilla, have requested more resources to support and defend Israel. But their requests have drawn resistance from undersecretary of defense for policy Elbridge Colby, who has long opposed moving US military assets from Asia to the Middle East, people sympathetic to each side of the argument told Semafor.
The surprise attack on Tehran raised the stakes in a long-running internal dispute, whose stakes could increase as Israel’s need for support grows in response to Iranian retaliation. As early as February, newly-appointed acting Pentagon officials with roots in the “restrainer” foreign policy movement — which argues that an overextended US military needs to focus its resources on containing China — had argued against moves like April’s relocation of a Patriot missile battery from South Korea to the Middle East, one of the people, who was directly involved in those arguments, told Semafor.
Colby has long argued that moves like the missile relocation would imperil US military readiness in a possible conflict with China or North Korea. And Trump — despite his administration’s ongoing assistance to Israel — has at times bridled at the appearance of close US coordination. Former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz was pushed out, in part, over his “intense coordination” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Washington Post reported in May.
And Colby is “so focused on Asia, he’s gotten crosswise with anyone who does anything else on foreign policy, including Trump loyalists,” one Capitol Hill aide who favors more support of Israel said.
The Middle East-focused news organization Al-Monitor reported earlier this month that Gen. Kurilla had requested a second aircraft carrier strike group move to the Middle East.
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Kurilla appears to have won at least part of the argument. The New York Times reported Friday that the US is moving warships and other military assets into the region, including destroyers and fighter aircraft.
The Pentagon has not said whether it will send a second carrier group to the Middle East. But the US Embassy in Hanoi announced Friday that it was canceling a visit by the USS Nimitz “due to an emergent operational requirement,” according to a German think tank official and others who posted the announcement.
Ben’s view
The Iran conflict embodies the central dynamic that provokes Colby and his allies: US policymakers have long planned the “pivot to Asia” then-President Barack Obama announced in 2011, but have found that regional priorities and domestic politics bring their attention and their assets forever back to the Middle East.
Trump’s appointment of Colby raised concerns among hawks and Israel supporters who saw it as one of a number of signs that the US might look to cut its support for Israel, if not reorient its policy more broadly. The dismissal of Waltz seemed to confirm that direction. And Trump’s decision to allow Israel strike Iran alone also seemed to signal a hands-off orientation.
But the shift only goes so far, and Colby appears to be losing the core argument about US policy.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth purged some of Colby’s allies in a complicated internal political spat in April, and the person directly involved in some of the internal arguments said Hegseth tends to side with Kurilla in the arguments over the Middle East.
Colby and the Defense Department press office didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Room for Disagreement
The Free Press’s Eli Lake spoke to Trump allies alarmed by the “restrainer” presence in the Pentagon, reflected by Colby and allies including the new Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Michael Dimino.
“You have a guy who is going to be the deputy for Middle East policy who doesn’t think the United States should be in the Middle East. Somebody should call Elon at DOGE,” one said.
Notable
- “Considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one that decides that,” Trump tells The Atlantic’s Michael Scherer.
- A hub for the “restrainer” movement is the group Defense Priorities, which is funded by Stand Together, backed by the conservative libertarian figure Charles Koch. (Stand Together is also an investor in Semafor.) Stand Together recently posted a careful position paper on the US-Israel relationship, attempting to argue both for continued US support for the Jewish state and reduced Israeli dependence on American security commitments: “A more secure, diplomatically connected Israel would rely less on American military support and more on regional partnerships to ensure its future,” the statement says.
—Shelby Talcott contributed reporting to this story.