‘Pillar 1 problematic, Pillar 2 great’: Inside Colby’s AUKUS mind

In an interview with The Australian, Elbridge Colby scuttled several positive takes about the pact. The US Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy views it entirely through practical priorities.

US Vice President JD Vance with Elbridge Colby during Colby's confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Picture: Getty Images

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If US Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby’s personal views on AUKUS come to fruition, then Australia’s largest ever military project won’t be happening in its current form.

A review is now being conducted by the Pentagon so it’s wait and see, but in a long interview conducted with Mr Colby just before he was hand-picked by Donald Trump for the Pentagon, he conveyed his view on the two pillars of AUKUS, approved by Congress, and subject to Presidential authority.

“Pillar I is very problematic, Pillar II is great, no problem,” Colby said.

Pillar I involves the US selling nuclear-powered submarines to Australia in the early 2030s.

Pillar II is about other military intelligence sharing including the development of artificial intelligence.

Colby scuttled several positive takes I posed about the sale of nuclear submarines to Australia.

“How are we supposed to give away nuclear attack submarines in the years of the window of potential conflict with China?” he asked me back.

“A nuclear attack submarine is the most important asset for a western Pacific fight, for Taiwan, conventionally. But we don’t have enough, and we’re not going to have enough,” Colby said.

America is nowhere near producing enough of its own submarines. so why would they sell any to Australia?

In just four years following the attack on Pearl Harbour, the United States built 273, albeit significantly less sophisticated, diesel-powered subs. Today, it’s barely producing two nuclear submarines per year.

“We are in what’s called a submarine bathtub. We have way too few attack submarines for what we need as a nation,” Colby said.

What about the fact that having a few submarines under the command of an ally like Australia, which can create a strategic ambiguity for China’s People’s Liberation Navy is a positive?

“A green asset is an ally. But there’s nothing like a blue asset. Blue means it’s ours,” Colby said, “As long as they’re under our command at the end of the day when the balloon goes up, because we need to know that.”

What about jointly crewed?

“If it’s 50-50, that’s not enough,” he said.

Surely there is strategic benefit in having a few submarines ready in the South Pacific rather than moored in San Diego?

That’s not that big an advantage either, apparently.

For Colby, the whole of AUKUS is viewed through practical priorities.

I asked him to explain this in the context of Trump’s America First strategy.

“America First has baggage, but it's a more business-like approach,” Colby said. America, he said, was divided into three camps when it comes to military strategy.

“You have the primacists – or the neo-conservatives – that are traditional like the Mitch McConnell types, then you have on the other side, the restrainers, who are more inward looking (think the Tucker Carlson of America) and then there are people like me, we are more in the middle, the prioritisers,” he said.

“Americans need to understand that we have constrained resources. We’re facing a pure superpower for the first time in our history. And really, there are serious fiscal problems where you can’t run the Reagan playbook when you got 100 per cent debt to GDP ratio.”

So what about the fact that Australia has promised to contribute $4bn to help America build its submarine industrial base and, on top of that, pay billions of dollars per submarine purchased from the US?

Australia has also already made the first $500m payment to the US under AUKUS, when Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles met with his US counterpart in February.

“The key thing for Australia, if it were up to me, and I don’t make any predictions about my role, is that we need to understand we have constrained resources,” Colby said before being appointed to his current position.

There is a lot to read into statement, particularly given the request made earlier this month by US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth for Australia to lift defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP.

Former US Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer was asked on Thursday if Colby’s scepticism worried him.

“No, I have great respect for Elbridge Colby’s intellectual capability to analyse situations,” he said.

“There should be people back testing and asking questions as we go forward, because things are going to change.”

Colby’s personal views before Trump’s appointment of him are one thing, but being inside the Trump administration is another.

This whole review into AUKUS might turn out to be just another bargaining chip with Australia on tariffs – another test for Trump’s so-called ‘art of the deal’.