Colby’s ‘Flexible Realism’ Won’t Work in the Indo-Pacific

Elbridge Colby's 'Flexible Realism' Won’t Work in the Indo-Pacific

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Argument:

Colby’s ‘Flexible Realism’ Won’t Work in the Indo-Pacific

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Argument

An expert’s point of view on a current event.

Colby’s ‘Flexible Realism’ Won’t Work in the Indo-Pacific

Washington’s new strategy is little more than a euphemism for unpredictability.

By **Derek Grossman**, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Southern California.

!Elbridge Colby

*Elbridge Colby*

U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby attends a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Feb. 12. Leon Neal/Getty Images

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August 18, 2026, 8:11 AM

Elbridge Colby, the influential but polarizing U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, just completed a tour of Southeast Asia where he visited Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand. His primary goal was clearly to clarify and promote the Trump administration’s new global defense strategy, underpinned by what it calls “flexible realism,” with U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific.

Trump’s Second Term

Ongoing reports and analysis

In a public speech in Manila, he reiterated the turn in U.S. alliance politics, much of which appears to carry his handwriting. Washington seeks “partners, not protectorates,” to increase burden-sharing while continuing to bolster deterrence by denial against China. Colby also highlighted that, unlike the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, the Trump administration prioritizes shared interests over shared values, thus enabling the U.S. to significantly widen the aperture of security cooperation across the entire region. Finally, Colby talked of maintaining a favorable balance of power with China in the Indo-Pacific rather than preserving American primacy—a stark departure from previous administrations, including President Donald Trump’s first, which sought to keep the United States as the predominant global power.

Elbridge Colby, theinfluential but polarizing

U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, just completed

a tour of Southeast Asia where he visited Cambodia, Indonesia,

the Philippines, and Thailand. His primary

goal was

clearly to clarify and promote the Trump administration’s new global defense strategy, underpinned by what it calls “flexible realism,” with U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific.

Trump’s Second Term

Ongoing reports and analysis

In a public speech in Manila, he reiterated the turn in U.S. alliance politics, much of which appears to carry his handwriting. Washington seeks “partners, not protectorates,” to increase burden-sharing while continuing to bolster deterrence by denial against China. Colby also highlighted that, unlike the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, the Trump administration prioritizes shared interests over shared values, thus enabling the U.S. to significantly widen the aperture of security cooperation across the entire region. Finally, Colby talked of maintaining a favorable balance of power with China in the Indo-Pacific rather than preserving American primacy—a stark departure from previous administrations, including President Donald Trump’s first, which sought to keep the United States as the predominant global power.

Colby is half-correct. Washington should certainly want to enlist as many partners as possible to counter Beijing, whether democratic or authoritarian. Engaging more with Cambodia, for instance, is geostrategically advantageous to the United States because doing so challenges China within its own backyard. But Colby and the administration are also losing sight of the bigger picture. What looks like strategic flexibility from Washington risks looking like strategic unpredictability for the Indo-Pacific, ultimately making U.S. allies and partners less, rather than more, willing to balance China.

From my routine discussions with interlocutors representing key U.S. allies and partners throughout the Indo-Pacific, the common theme is that they all seek a sustained and predictable U.S. commitment to the region—basically the opposite of Trump’s poston

Truth Socialthis week that suddenly downgraded

routine U.S.-South Korea military drills because North Korea was offended. Washington’s friends do not want a strategy

based on pure transactionalism, which the Trump administration has turned into a synonym for unpredictability.

Colby himself has described flexible realism as “contextual” because the appropriate U.S. response “depends on the situation”—likely a function of whether the boss changes his mind.

For better or worse, a longer-lasting commitment is typically premised on shared values or at least a few shared principles, such as maintaining the rules-based order (a term forbidden in the Trump White House). Without this common understanding, the U.S. network of allies and partners has no glue keeping it together, which risks a quick unraveling if conditions change and Washington’s help is no longer required.

Another problem is that Colby and the administration are demanding substantially higher defense spending from U.S. allies and partners to satisfy Washington’s new burden-sharing requirements. One of the challenges is that many nations, like the Philippines, simply will not be able to meet expectations of dramatically higher spending. Even wealthier states, such as Japan, are

st