A senior US defense official has dismissed the concept of a collective “middle powers” strategy, describing it as a “distraction” based on a faulty understanding of global affairs.
Writing on social media, the US Undersecretary of War, Elbridge Colby, warned that allies who pursue such an approach risk wasting “valuable time, money, and political capital.”
Mr Colby, a key architect of the administration’s “flexible realism” foreign policy, argued that medium-sized nations lack a coherent basis to align independently of major powers.
‘Flexible realism’ over alliances
In a detailed thread on X (formerly Twitter), the Undersecretary argued that international relations must be viewed strictly “through the prism of interest, geography, economics, and military power.”
He rejected suggestions that global demand for US leadership is waning, asserting instead that there is an “upsurge” in countries seeking Washington’s engagement.
Under President Donald Trump’s leadership, Mr Colby wrote, international partners “not only see the value of American engagement, they can no longer take it for granted.” He added that demand for US military presence worldwide remains “incredibly strong.”
Defence dominance
Addressing concerns that global frustration with Washington could damage US arms sales, Mr Colby insisted that no alternative coalition of countries could match the American defense industrial base (DIB) in either “quantity or quality.”
“The United States… makes the best equipment, and we make it at a scale that no plausible competitor can match,” he wrote, adding that access to American military technology is “a privilege, not a right.”
While encouraging allies to increase their own military spending, the Undersecretary warned against trying to bypass or replace US technology.
“We welcome allies’ investment in their own DIBs,” Mr Colby concluded, “but in ways that are collaborative with America’s rather than trying in vain to replicate or supplant it.”
The comments reflect Washington’s ongoing efforts to push allies toward greater burden-sharing while maintaining the US as the primary anchor of international security.
TCE News