On Oct. 22, the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and Dartmouth Dialogues co-hosted former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Elbridge Colby for an event titled “U.S. Foreign Policy in Light of China’s Rise: A Strategy of Denial.” Approximately 130 students and community members attended the event, which was part of the ongoing 2024 Election Speaker Series.
After government professor William Wohlforth introduced Colby — who held his Department of Defense position during the Trump administration — moderator and government professor Jennifer Lind asked Colby to present a general overview of his foreign policy perspective. Colby explained that his priority is to “get [the United States] to move off post-Cold War foreign policy,” which he defined as “policies that essentially tried to extend our influence” and saw the United States as a “unipolar power.”
“This is a bipartisan failure over the last 25 years or so, which is in a sense an attempt to pursue a foreign policy that is far too expansive for the material, political, fiscal, et cetera, resources that we have available relative to the goals that we’re trying to achieve,” Colby said.
Colby defined three perspectives on American foreign policy: primacy, isolation and prioritization. He explained that primacists view American hegemony as “desirable” and “viable,” while “true isolationists” believe in limiting American interventionism. Colby said he embraces a strategy of “prioritization,” a perspective that believes American engagement abroad should be limited and reprioritized due to finite resources.
“We [prioritizers] pull from the moderate, essentially between these two poles, and have a strategy that has a plausible goal, which I think is a [global] balance of power … that essentially allows the United States not to be coerced by sort of a hegemonic state,” Colby said.
Lind then asked Colby about two challenges, outlined in various scholarship, to his assertion that China is “a threat [the United States] cannot accept” — that China “doesn’t have [negative] intentions” and that it is not strong enough to pose a threat to the United States. Colby first addressed the former.
“I say intentions change, and what I have to pay attention to is strength,” Colby said. “[China] has a natural incentive as a rising great power to try to strive toward greater influence and ultimately hegemony.”
Colby then rebutted the argument that China’s recent “economic headwinds” prevent it from being a threat.
“We’re better off preparing for potentially doing more effort to prevent a catastrophic defeat in the most important theater by our primary rival, rather than betting on … strategically winning the lottery,” Colby said.
Lind then asked Colby about the consequences of monetarily prioritizing Asia over European allies. He explained that, when people say the United States “can’t afford to make choices” like this one because of their consequences for Europe, they are not doing “enough” to address Asia.
“The basic thing we want is … to avoid a country becoming so powerful in the international system that it could undermine our economy and ultimately … our way of life,” Colby said.
After the moderated discussion, Lind opened the floor for a Q&A. Bennett Taubman ’28 asked how the United States would “convey to Beijing that [it is] not increasing [its] military capabilities to go on the offensive” if it reprioritizes its defenses to Asia.
In response to Taubman, Colby said the United States must communicate to China that its intentions are not to “limit” China’s economic growth or “liberate” Taiwan, both of which would create a “perception of strangulation.” He added that it is important for the United States to explain its intentions “both by words but also by how [it] operates.”
“I asked him a question about the security dilemma, because I had learned in my class that was one of the challenges with offensive realism,” Taubman said in an interview after the event. “It was interesting to hear an actual person attempt to defend that.”
In an interview, Wohlforth said he believes Colby’s talk foreshadows a challenging future for American foreign policy.
“I think the most important [takeaway] is that the world is changing and making things a little bit harder for the United States in world politics and that tough choices lie ahead,” Wohlforth said.
In an interview after the event, Lind emphasized that it is important for students to discuss and question ideas of foreign policy.
“I think that’s a great thing for students to see — an analytically conducted foreign policy conversation — because that’s frequently really missing in the media we’re presented with,” Lind said.
