Denmark’s top military commander in the Arctic pushed back against claims that Greenland is facing an imminent security threat from Russia or China, undercutting a narrative repeatedly advanced by U.S. President Donald Trump. “No. We don’t see a threat from China or Russia today,” Major General Søren Andersen, commander of Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command in Greenland, said in an interview with the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, of which POLITICO is a part. “But we look into a potential threat, and that is what we are training for.” Andersen, who has headed the Joint Arctic Command since 2023, stressed that the stepped-up Danish and allied military activity around Greenland is not a response to an immediate danger, but preparation for future contingencies.  Once the war in Ukraine ends, he said, Moscow could redirect military resources to other regions. “I actually expect that we will see Russian resources that are being taken from the theater around Ukraine into other theaters,” Andersen said, pointing to the Baltic Sea and the Arctic region. That assessment has driven Denmark’s decision to expand exercises and invite European allies to operate in and around Greenland under harsh winter conditions, part of what Copenhagen has framed as strengthening NATO’s northern flank. Troops from several European countries have already deployed under Denmark’s Operation Arctic Endurance exercise, which includes air, maritime and land components. The remarks stand in contrast to Trump’s repeated claims that Greenland is under active pressure from Russia and China and his insistence that the island is vital to U.S. national security.  “In the meantime, you have Russian destroyers and submarines, and China destroyers and submarines all over the place,” Trump told reporters on Sunday about his pursuit to make Greenland part of the United States. “We’re not going to let that happen.” Trump has argued Washington cannot rule out the use of force to secure its interests, comments that have alarmed Danish and Greenlandic leaders. Andersen declined to engage directly with those statements, instead emphasizing NATO unity and longstanding cooperation with U.S. forces already stationed at Pituffik Space Base. He also rejected hypothetical scenarios involving conflict between allies, saying he could not envision one NATO country attacking another. Despite rising political tensions with Washington, Andersen said the United States was formally invited to participate in the exercise. “I hope that also that we will have U.S. troops together with German, France or Canadian, or whatever force that will train, because I think we have to do this together.”

CAMP VIKING, Norway — In the deep snow of the Arctic mountains, Britain’s Royal Marines are readying for war with Russia. The elite troops are introduced to the wilderness by camping in the snow in temperatures below minus 20C. They finish by jumping through ice holes and shouting their name, rank and number before they can be pulled out of the water. Then they roll in the snow, drink a tot of rum, and toast King Charles III. Britain’s extreme weather training in this area dates to the Cold War, but Camp Viking — its facility in Skjold, northern Norway — is new and growing. It opened in 2023 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and is due to reach a peak of 1,500 personnel this spring, followed by 2,000 next year. Britain is “effectively doubling” the number of its Royal Marines in Norway over three years, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told POLITICO in an interview. Exercises mirror missions the troops would conduct if NATO’s Article 5 on collective defense was triggered — reflecting the reality that “we are no longer at peace,” Brigadier Jaimie Norman, commander of the U.K. Commando Forces, told Cooper and her Norwegian counterpart Espen Barth Eide on a visit to the site Thursday. “We see ourselves on a continuum that has war on one end to peace on the other, and we are somewhere on that continuum.” Yet this is only one hemisphere of the Arctic. On the other, U.S. President Donald Trump is stoking a very different crisis by pushing for ownership of Greenland. The risks that link the two regions — which have shipping lanes busier than ever with Russian and Chinese vessels as the polar ice caps melt — are similar, albeit less immediate for Greenland than Norway. Yet Greenland is consuming huge global bandwidth. It is little wonder that Eide, greeting Cooper after he spent two days in Ukraine, lamented that they could not focus more on Ukraine and “less on other things.” Trump has left them with no other choice. FIRE UP THE ‘ARCTIC SENTRY’ Cooper and Eide’s response is to publicly back the idea of an “Arctic Sentry” NATO mission, a military co-operation that would aim to counter Russian threats — while reassuring Trump of Europe’s commitment to the region. Details of the mission — including the number of troops it would involve and whether it would comprise land, sea or air deployments — remain hazy. It could mean that exercises like those in northern Norway are deployed in Greenland too, as well as the shipping lanes around them. Lanes in northern Europe have seen a rise in shadow fleets carrying sanctioned oil and alleged sabotage of communications cables. Yvette Cooper’s message to Trump, and everyone else, was to insist there is no real division between the eastern and western Arctic. | Stefan Rousseau/Getty Images But as with so many issues, they have yet to discover whether Trump will take heed. Cooper’s intervention came one day after U.S. Vice President JD Vance met Danish and Greenlandic representatives at the White House amid growing tensions over Trump’s repeatedly stated intention to take control of Greenland. Cooper’s message to Trump, and everyone else, was to insist there is no real division between the eastern and western Arctic. “The security of the Arctic is all linked,” she said — citing Russia’s northern fleet, shadow fleet, oil tankers, non-military assets, spy ships and threats to undersea cables.  “Look at the map of the Arctic and where you have the sea channels,” she added. “You can’t look at any one bit of Arctic security on its own, because the whole point of the Arctic security is it has an impact on our transatlantic security as a whole. “Some of the Russian threat is through its Northern Fleet and into the Atlantic. That is a transatlantic threat. That is something where clearly you can’t simply revert to Europe’s defense on its own.” Yet in parts of Britain and Europe, there are plenty of people who fear Trump is asking Europe to do exactly that. European allies have long pushed the U.S. president to nail down commitments to Ukraine. A mere hint of this frustration is visible in Eide. He was keen to point out that the risk to his end of the Arctic is more immediate. “Just to the east of our eastern border, you come to the Kola Peninsula and Murmansk,” he said, standing on a snowy outcrop. “That region has the largest conglomeration of nuclear weapons in the world — and particularly, the second strike capability of Russia is there. They need access to the open oceans, and in a wartime situation, we don’t want them to have that access.” He added: “If there is a crisis, this area will immediately be a center of gravity because of the importance of the nuclear capabilities of Russia, the submarine base and so on. It will go from low tension to being in the midst of it in a very short time. That’s why we need to plan for rapid reinforcement, for rapid stepping up, and also to have a constant military pressure presence in this area.”  Managing this Trump reassurance is a tricky balance. Rachel Ellehus, director general of the non-partisan foreign affairs think tank RUSI and a former U.S. representative at NATO, said: “You want to signal solidarity and presence and engagement, and send a message that Europe is stepping up for this alleged Russian and Chinese threat in and around Greenland.  “But you don’t want to kind of stick your finger in the eye of the United States or signal that you’re looking for some sort of confrontation.” Perhaps for this reason, Ellehus suggested NATO itself is holding back. “The one voice that has been quite silent is that of NATO,” she said. “It’s quite odd that Mark Rutte has not issued a secretary general statement expressing solidarity with Denmark and underscoring that any security concerns that the United States might have could legitimately be addressed through the NATO alliance, because both Denmark and Greenland are members of their territories covered by the Article Five guarantee. “I think it does have consequences in terms of the credibility of the alliance, and I think we could see an intensification of the practice whereby allies are turning to bilateral or regional relationships, score and meet their security to meet their security needs, rather than relying on multinational alliances like NATO.” A NEW ERA A reminder of how fast multilateralism is changing hangs on the library wall in the quaint, pink and white British embassy in Helsinki. The photo, dated July 1975, shows British Prime Minister Harold Wilson in the embassy garden with U.S. President Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger and others on the cusp of signing the Helsinki Accords. The agreement, emphasizing the rights of sovereignty and territorial integrity, was part of a drumbeat toward the end of the Cold War. Britain’s extreme weather training in this area dates to the Cold War, but Camp Viking — its facility in Skjold, northern Norway — is new and growing. | Ben Dance / FCDO Across the street in Helsinki is the fortress-like embassy of the U.S. — where Trump is one of those calling the shots on territorial integrity these days. As well as his designs on Greenland, the president recently said NATO “would not be an effective force or deterrent” without American military power and said he did not need international law. Britain and many of its allies are loath to accept any suggestion of any cracks in the alliance. Asked by POLITICO if NATO was in crisis, Finland’s Foreign Minister Elisa Valtonen insisted: “NATO is stronger than it’s ever been.” Cooper, too, said NATO is “extremely strong” — and argued that those who describe his administration as a destabilising force are being too simplistic. She pointed to the presence of Marco Rubio, a more traditional Republican than Trump who Europeans have found easier to work with than the president, along with work on security guarantees for Ukraine, collaboration on “Five Eyes” intelligence and the plan for Gaza, much of which was led by the U.S. “Of course, everyone can see this administration operates in a different way,” she said, but “in every discussion I’ve had with … Rubio, there has always been a really strong commitment to NATO.” The Gaza plan, she added pointedly, “was actually drawing on international law, the UN framework.” But one U.K. official, not authorized to speak publicly, said there were three schools of thought about Trump’s comments on Greenland. The first is the president’s stated aim that he is concerned about security threats to the Arctic; the second is that he is seeking business opportunities there. And then “there is one school of thought that ultimately, he just wants to take it … he just wants to make America bigger,” they said.

Nordic governments are rejecting U.S. President Donald Trump’s assertions that Russian and Chinese vessels are operating near Greenland, warning that the claims are not supported by intelligence and are fueling destabilizing rhetoric, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Two senior Nordic diplomats with access to NATO intelligence briefings told the FT there is no evidence of Russian or Chinese ships or submarines operating around Greenland in recent years, directly contradicting Trump’s justification for U.S. control of the Arctic territory. “I have seen the intelligence. There are no ships, no submarines,” one diplomat told the paper. Trump has claimed that Greenland is “covered with Russian and Chinese ships” and argued that the U.S. must take control of the island for national security reasons — rhetoric that has intensified in recent weeks. Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide also told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that there was “very little” Russian or Chinese activity near Greenland, despite ongoing Russian submarine movements closer to Norway itself. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, meanwhile, said at an annual security conference in northern Sweden that Stockholm was “highly critical” of what the Trump administration was doing and had done in Venezuela, in regards to international law. “We are probably even more critical of the rhetoric that is being expressed against Greenland and Denmark,” Kristersson added, explaining that the rules-based international order is under greater strain than it has been in decades. Kristersson said the U.S. should recognize Denmark’s long-standing role as a loyal ally, instead of agitating about Greenland. “On the contrary, the United States should thank Denmark,” he said. Leaders of all five parties in Greenland’s parliament reiterated that stance late Friday, saying in a joint statement: “We do not want to be Americans, we do not want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders.”

LONDON — The Ministry of Defence plans to develop autonomous vessels that operate AI technology alongside warships and aircraft to better protect Britain’s undersea cables and pipelines from Moscow. Under the Atlantic Bastion program, surface and underwater vessels, ships, submarines, and aircraft would be connected through AI-powered acoustic detection technology and integrated into a “digital targeting web,” a network of weapons systems, allowing faster decisions to be made. The government explained that the program was in response to a resurgence of Russian submarine and underwater activity in British waters. British intelligence says Russian President Vladimir Putin was modernizing his fleet to target critical undersea cables and pipelines. Last month, the Russian spy ship Yantar directed lasers at British forces deployed to monitor the vessel for the first time after it entered U.K. waters. Yantar was previously in U.K. territorial seas in January. Defence Secretary John Healey said Yantar was “designed for gathering intelligence and mapping our undersea cables.” The Ministry of Defence says Atlantic Bastion will create a hybrid naval force that can find, track, and, if required, act against adversaries. A combined £14 million has been invested by the Ministry of Defence and industry, with 26 U.K. and European firms submitting proposals to develop anti-submarine sensor technology. Any capabilities would be deployed underwater from 2026. “People should be in no doubt of the new threats facing the U.K., and our allies under the sea, where adversaries are targeting infrastructure that is so critical to our way of life,” said Defence Secretary John Healey. “Our pioneering Atlantic Bastion program is a blueprint for the future of the Royal Navy. It combines the latest autonomous and AI technologies with world-class warships and aircraft to create a highly advanced hybrid fighting force to detect, deter and defeat those who threaten us.” Britain’s Chief of the Naval Staff, Gwyn Jenkins, was expected to say at the International Sea Power Conference on Monday: “We are a Navy that thrives when it is allowed to adapt. To evolve. We have never stood still — because the threats never do.” The first sea lord general added: A revolutionary underwater network is taking shape — from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to the Norwegian Sea. More autonomous, more resilient, more lethal — and British built.”

PARIS — The French navy opened fire at drones that were detected over a highly-sensitive military site harboring French nuclear submarines, according to newswire Agence France-Presse. Five drones were detected Thursday night over the submarine base of Île Longue, in Brittany, western France, a strategic military site home to ballistic missile submarines, the AFP reported, citing the the French gendarmerie, which is part of the military. The submarines harbored at the base carry nuclear weapons and are a key part of France’s nuclear deterrent. French navy troops in charge of protecting the base opened fire, the report said. It was unclear whether the drones were shot down. Drones had already been spotted in the area last month, albeit not directly above the base, per reports in French media. The site had been buzzed by drones long before the invasion of Ukraine. The incident follows a string of recent drone incursions in NATO airspace, with unmanned aircrafts seen buzzing around sensitive military sites and civil infrastructures in recent months across Europe, including in Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Norway. In Poland, fighter jets were scrambled in September to shoot down drones of Russian origin, an incident widely seen as an escalation of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hybrid war on Europe. French authorities haven’t yet commented on the suspected origin of the drone incident Thursday at the well-known military site.

President Donald Trump on Monday insisted the U.S. is going “full steam ahead” on a major nuclear-powered submarine pact, ending months of uncertainty over whether his administration would keep the alliance with Australia and the U.K. The Pentagon announced this summer that it was reviewing the deal, known as AUKUS, fueling angst in Canberra and London that the Trump administration might walk away from a rare agreement to expand production of nuclear submarines and partner on tech to ward off China. But Trump gave his support Monday at a White House meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, where leaders sought to reset the tone of the relationship after weeks of speculation about the pact’s future. “We’re just going now full steam ahead,” Trump said when asked about the deal. “They’re building magnificent holding pads for the submarines. It’s going to be expensive. You wouldn’t believe the level of complexity and how expensive it is.” Canberra has committed billions to develop submarine and naval shipbuilding facilities in western Australia, designed to host and maintain U.S. and U.K. nuclear-powered submarines while revving up construction of new ones. The new infrastructure would turn Australia into a hub for allies and their submarines in the region, all aimed as a bulwark against China. Navy Secretary John Phelan, at the meeting, said the plan is to “take the original AUKUS framework and improve it for all three parties, and make it better, clarify some of what was in the prior agreement.” Trump, who is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the coming weeks, said he views AUKUS as a deterrent against Beijing but not a step toward a confrontation. And he dismissed the idea of a conflict over Taiwan. “We’ll be just fine with China,” he said. “First of all, the United States is the strongest military power in the world by far.” Trump and Albanese also signed a deal for critical minerals and rare-earth elements, formalizing joint investments between the two countries to strengthen non-Chinese supply chains for materials crucial for defense and high-tech manufacturing. Officials negotiated it over the last few months, Trump said. Albanese described it as an AUD $8.5 billion pipeline, with joint contributions over the next six months. “Australia has had a view for some time — it’s similar to putting America first,” he said. “Our plan is called ‘A Future Made in Australia,’ which is about not just digging things up and exporting them, but making sure we have supply chains where our friends can benefit.” The mineral push comes amid increasing trade tensions between the U.S. and Beijing, which has tightened export controls on rare-earth elements and permanent magnets. Both are vital for defense and high-tech products. Trump reiterated his threat to levy hefty tariffs on China if it does not relent on the new trade restrictions. “They threatened us with rare earths, and I threatened them with tariffs,” he said. “We could stop the airplane parts, too. We build their airplanes.”

BERLIN — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday that their countries would enhance collaboration on defense and critical minerals. “We are deepening our bilateral cooperation, and we are doing so with great gratitude and deep conviction,” Merz said during a joint press conference with Carney in Berlin. “Canada and Germany have a great deal in common.” The further cooperation comes as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs hit both countries hard, while they also aim to shift their industries away from reliance on Russia and China. The countries’ economy ministers, looking toward that purpose, were set to sign an agreement on critical minerals, which was seen by POLITICO. The accord will focus on the development of lithium, rare earth elements, copper tungsten, gallium, germanium and nickel to counter China’s monopolistic control of materials needed to power everything from military equipment and electric vehicles to quantum computing. “One of the big vulnerabilities that’s been exposed by the Ukraine war, it was exposed by Covid, it’s been exposed by the changing global trade dynamics, [is] our vulnerabilities in supply chains including in critical metals and minerals,” said Carney. “Canada can play a role in accelerating that diversification for Germany and for Europe.” Just like Brussels, Berlin is keen to slash its dependence on China for the so-called critical minerals needed to power the bloc’s green, digital and defense ambitions. Ottawa is an attractive partner to achieve that — Canada has some 200 mines extracting a variety of minerals and metals, many of which are classified as critical raw materials. A number of Canadian Cabinet members, including Defense Minister David McGuinty, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly and Energy Minister Tim Hodgson traveled alongside Carney to Berlin. Carney announced he would visit Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems in the northern German city of Kiel later Tuesday, alongside Joly and McGuinty, while Hodgson was set to deliver a major speech to CEOs from the energy, manufacturing and defense industries. “We’re in the process of renewing our submarine fleet,” Carney said, adding that Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems was one of the two finalists to take on the project. Carney and Merz also said they discussed security guarantees for Ukraine, but did not provide concrete details. Camille Gijs contributed to this report from Brussels.

PARIS — Russia likely wants to militarize space, while its undersea activity is also “extremely worrying,” a top French general said during a rare press conference Friday. Describing the Kremlin as “a lasting threat,” Chief of the Defense Staff Thierry Burkhard said Russian submarines “regularly enter the North Atlantic and then sometimes descend into the Mediterranean” in order to “monitor areas which are important [to France].” Burkhard also said Moscow’s satellites are being used to spy on or interfere with French equipment. He also pointed to “signs of a desire to militarize space” with specialized satellites “which would likely not be legal under the laws relating to the non-militarization of space.” During the first press conference held by the French chief of the defense staff since 2021, Burkhard aimed to outline the threats currently facing France ahead of a speech Sunday on defense by President Emmanuel Macron, which is expected to include major announcements. Beyond Russia, Burkhard also highlighted how tensions in other parts of the world — including the Middle East — are adding to an already demanding situation for French troops. He stressed that “unbridled use of force” and “getting used to violence” had become defining elements of the global landscape. While avoiding a direct call for increased military spending, Burkhard said that finding the best way to confront these challenges “probably comes at a cost.” France is looking to increase its military budget to €67.4 billion by 2030, from €50.5 billion for this year.

LONDON — Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer are set to unveil a host of defense pacts on the final day of the French leader’s visit to the United Kingdom. After getting wined and dined by the king on Tuesday and unveiling the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum on Wednesday, Thursday will see Starmer and Macron sign a declaration spelling out that the British and French nuclear deterrents can be coordinated; update the Lancaster House treaties, a defense pact signed in 2010; jointly develop a new cruise missile to replace the Storm Shadow/SCALP; and work together on the development of advanced anti-drone weapons. The two countries have dubbed their defense refresh an “entente industrielle,” which seems appropriate given how Starmer and Macron have gushed about the strength of the Franco-British relationship throughout the visit. But the French president’s particularly soaring rhetoric since his arrival hints at an even more ambitious goal: a new special relationship. “There is an expectation in Europe that faced with revisionist neighbors, our two countries have a special responsibility for the security of the continent,” Macron said in a speech to both houses of parliament on Tuesday. While Britain’s special relationship with the United States remains the cornerstone of its defense strategy, U.S. President Donald Trump’s isolationist bent and his erratic view of the alliance has forced the British to consider the possibility that Washington may not be there through thick and thin. “There’s a strain in the transatlantic relationship, and a wariness. The British were taken aback by U.S. decisions on Ukraine, the cutting off — albeit briefly — of intelligence with Ukraine, a country at war,” said Philippe Maze-Sencier, director of the consultancy firm Teneo France and a French army reserve officer. “The reaction was, oh my god that could happen to us,” he said. MOVING FORWARD Macron and Starmer have gone to great lengths to lock arms when it comes to European security despite the bad blood following Brexit and drama surrounding a submarine deal in 2021. The French thought they had an agreement with Australia at the time only to see the U.S. and U.K. swoop in with the multibillion AUKUS deal, which did not include France. The French may be enjoying a bit of Schadenfreude over the difficulties facing AUKUS at the moment, but that hasn’t stopped the Franco-British partnership from forging ahead. “There is definitely a change,” said Maze-Sencier. “After Brexit, there was some resilience, but nothing moved forward. Now there are conversations happening that would have never happened a year ago.” U.S. President Donald Trump’s isolationist bent and his erratic view of the alliance has forced the British to consider the possibility that Washington may not be there through thick and thin. | Pool Photo by Will Oliver via EPA France’s military-industrial cooperation with Britain is thriving — just as projects with France’s great continental partner Germany, particularly the FCAS fighter jet, are bogged down. New defense exports, including military aviation components, are expected to be folded into the refreshed defense pact on Thursday. And last month’s NATO commitment to invest up to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product in defense, a move both to appease Trump and strengthen Europe’s independence, means financial windfalls for European companies, even if finding the cash may not be so easy in Paris and London. CHALLENGES AWAIT While working more closely with the French marks a return to old habits, convincing London to invest in its relationship with Paris at the expense of Washington is an enormous ask considering just how deep Anglo-American ties run. And points of tension remain between the British and French that can’t be papered over by Macron and Starmer’s close relationship. Though the EU-U.K. reset deal sealed in May set a framework for London to take part in the €150-billion SAFE defense financing program, France has since been pushing to limit U.K. access. The two leaders’ joint push for a “coalition of the willing” to providing security guarantees for Ukraine in the case of a ceasefire also appears to be losing steam as Russia makes gains on the battlefield and the U.S. continues to hold out on guarantees of some sort of security backstop. Macron and Starmer plan to head to Northwood Headquarters later Thursday, where they will call into a conference on Ukraine’s recovery being held in Rome. “Apart from counting once more the number of buttons on uniforms, I don’t see the point of [a meeting of the coalition],” said François Heisbourg, a senior adviser at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Greater challenges await. Any drawdown of U.S. troops in Eastern Europe, as is feared later in the year, will put an onus on France and the U.K. to step up. Or plead with Washington to stay. Macron’s pledge to shoulder European security with the U.K. will then really be put to the test.

Elbridge Colby spent the last several years in Washington making a name for himself as an experienced, restraint-minded foreign policy leader eager to focus the U.S. military away from Europe and toward the Indo-Pacific. But since joining the second Trump administration as the Pentagon’s top policy chief, Colby has made a series of rapid-fire moves that have blindsided parts of the White House and frustrated several of America’s foreign allies, according to seven people familiar with the situation. All were granted anonymity to speak freely about Trump administration dynamics. Flanked by a team of handpicked policy experts and staff from Capitol Hill, Colby has gotten out ahead of the administration on several major foreign policy decisions. He prompted last week’s decision, first reported by POLITICO, to halt shipments of some air defense missiles to Ukraine, which caught many Trump allies and lawmakers off guard. This week, President Donald Trump said he would reverse the decision to pause the weapons, but claimed he did not know who had approved it. Colby also surprised top officials at the State Department and the National Security Council in June when he decided to review America’s submarine pact with Australia and the U.K. “He is pissing off just about everyone I know inside the administration,” said one person familiar with the situation. “They all view him as the guy who’s going to make the U.S. do less in the world in general.” And in conversations with defense counterparts from Britain and Japan in recent months, Colby’s hard-charging style has caused serious dustups. “He has basically decided that he’s going to be the intellectual driving force behind a kind of neo-isolationism that believes that the United States should act more alone, that allies and friends are kind of encumbering,” said a person familiar with the Trump administration dynamics. Colby did not respond to a request for comment. William Martin, communications director to Vice President JD Vance, called Colby “a consummate professional, an experienced national security official, and a reliable team player” who is “wholly committed to President Trump’s America First foreign policy agenda.” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Colby is doing exactly what would be expected of his job. “The entire purpose of Undersecretary Colby’s job is to provide policy recommendations to Secretary Hegseth, and his advice has proved to be invaluable,” he wrote in an email. Parnell added there is “zero daylight” between Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Colby. When the British defense team came to the Pentagon in June and spoke about the U.K.’s decision to send an aircraft carrier to Asia on a routine deployment, Colby interjected with a brusque comment. “He basically asked them, ‘Is it too late to call it back?’” said the person familiar with Trump administration dynamics. “Because we don’t want you there.” A second person familiar with the meeting confirmed this account. The British team on the other side of the table “were just shocked,” the first person added. “He was basically saying ‘you have no business being in the Indo-Pacific.’” Colby has also irked allies by pushing them too hard to boost defense spending — or telling them to simply get out of America’s way. “DOD has been telling a European partner that we don’t need the Europeans to be doing anything [in the Indo-Pacific],” said one U.S. official familiar with the conversations. In the spring, Japanese officials believed the Trump administration might push them for a modest increase in defense spending. Initially, Colby publicly called on Japan to spend “at least 3 percent of GDP on defense as soon as possible,” which angered Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. But that number soon increased to a much steeper target of 5 percent, which reportedly contributed to the collapse of plans for a high-level meeting between Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their Japanese counterparts. “The Japanese were very frustrated,” said a person familiar with the talks. “They thought that they were agreeing to at least negotiate on the basis of 3 or 3.5 percent. Then Colby, all of a sudden, got DOD to say 5, and the Japanese got angry, because that’s not what they just agreed to.” The incident caused heartburn within Japan’s ruling party, with officials worried about triggering a domestic political backlash ahead of a sensitive election, the person added. The hawkish wing of the Republican Party has expressed concerns that Colby’s “shoot first and ask questions later” approach is sapping Trump’s foreign policy of its strength at a key moment. “The president’s leadership at NATO and his decision to strike Iran gave Russia and China good reason to fear America’s resolve,” said a senior GOP aide. “But Colby has just undercut the president and squandered his boss’ leverage.” The AUKUS review surprised some State Department officials who dealt directly with the pact. The department’s immediate guidance on how to respond to media questions about the topic appeared to underscore the lack of coordination, a State Department official said. The instructions told diplomats to say to reporters: “We are not aware of a review of the AUKUS agreement. The secretary of Defense has not requested a review of the agreement from the secretary of State.” “The way that one person from State put it to me is: ‘Who is this fucking guy?’” said a former U.S. official familiar with the policy discussions. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce praised Colby’s leadership. “The world is changing rapidly and Elbridge understands the moment. His innovative leadership is critical to addressing the challenges head-on and helping to deliver on President Trump’s America First agenda.” Trump’s announcement Monday that he would resume weapons shipments to Ukraine, just days after the Pentagon paused them, left the impression on some lawmakers that restraint-minded officials at the Pentagon were out of step with the president. “I’m deeply worried that [Colby] buys into the authoritarian worldview that you know, Putin’s a dictator, and Xi is a dictator, and Trump aspires to be a dictator, so let’s just let all the dictators get together and divide up the world,” said House Armed Services ranking member Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.). “That is horrific policy for the world and for the United States.” Colby, the grandson of a former CIA director, has allies throughout the Pentagon, including Alex Velez-Green and Austin Dahmer, former staffers for Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.); and Katherine Thompson, who holds the Pentagon’s top job for Europe, Africa and NATO. All of them have embraced his approach. Others, including Alexander Gray, who served in the first Trump administration as chief of staff on the National Security Council, defended Colby as someone committed to the president and Hegseth’s agenda. “The things that are publicly known that he’s pushing for are all things that are consistent with the president and the secretary’s stated positions and guidance,” Gray said. “The guy’s a skilled bureaucratic tactician, and he’s good at implementing what the people above him want, and people who don’t win in those battles go and complain about it.”